Watch out for things that are getting legs around presbytery!

See my last post for this quote’s context.

Everyone shall be remembered, but each was great in proportion to the greatness of that with which he strove. For he who strove with the world became great by overcoming the world, and he who strove with himself became great by overcoming himself, but he who strove with God became greater than all. So there was strife in the world, man against man, one against a thousand, but he who strove with God was greater than all. So there was strife upon earth: there was one who overcame all by his power, and there was one who overcame God by his impotence. -Kierkegaard

The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh. (Genesis 32:22-32 ESV)

Is this striving touching an essential part of what faith is? What are your thoughts on the connection between striving with God and a justifying faith?

Here’s the trailer for Tim Challies’s new book The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion:

I hope to get a lot out of this book, especially since I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the role of technology in our lives. I’ve been pondering this subject for three reasons, all of which are related to proper management of time:

1. This is my busiest semester ever, since I’m taking my usual 18+unit load of classes plus studying for the MCAT, which I take on April 29 (prayers would certainly be appreciated on that front…). With less time available, I’ve had to reconsider the commitments I had made to devote time to technology. For example, I was spending way too much time on Google Reader, so I’ve created a sub-folder of high priority feeds that I will check regularly, leaving the bulk of them unread.
2. I really like reading, and Dr. Fred Sanders offered some great advice about reading in an interview here. He made a comment about being intentional about what you read and pre-deciding the level of commitment you want to put into reading any one thing, pointing out the dangers of online reading barraging us with a constant stream of material which we meander across without reflecting much on whether we’re reading things worth reading. (Incidentally, he mentioned he’s reading John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Word of God; John Frame is generally one of my favorite theologians, and Dr. Sanders is my favorite systematic theologian cartoonist, so I’d love to hear what he thinks about Frame’s book. Here’s hoping he posts a review over at The Scriptorium!)
3. This blog requires a level of commitment, too. Will and I knew we wanted to blog, daily if possible, but coming up with something to post isn’t always easy, and posting something just to meet a quota seems like the wrong motivation. On the other hand, coming up with quality posts takes time. There must be a balance somewhere, but that place is difficult to find.

[Note: those using a feed reader may have to click through to see the video.]

“All of these reasonings having been gone through, the Philosopher says in the first chapter of On the Heavens ‘the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of ours.’ For this purpose might also be adduced what the Apostle says in Ephesians concerning Christ: ‘that ascended above all heavens, that he might fill all things’ (Eph. 4.10).” -Epistle to Can Grande della Scalla, 27

It is interestingly medieval (expectedly interesting) that Dante would use Ephesian 4:10 with Aristotle to get a point about Heaven across. It is the distance from earth that makes places superior in Aristotle’s (and thus Dante’s) eyes, and this is somehow part of the meaning of St. Paul in the Ephesians 4:10 quote provided in the letter. The context of the Scriptural citation is:

“Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”

(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)”
(Ephesians 4:8-10 ESV)

This seems to assume that St. Paul is working with the same sort of cosmological theory, where the earth is the “lower regions”. So when Christ ascends to Heaven after the Resurrection and sends the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, filling the Church, as the “fullness of Him who fills all in all”. I think it is fair to say that I didn’t quite understand the meaning of the “that he might fill all things” being connected to “ascending far above all the heavens”, but this letter clarified a certain cosmological presupposition I had previously been missing. The farther away from the earth, the more superior in glory and in God’s presence. But, as Christ ascends, he fill all things all the more, because God already fills all things by His Spirit, and Jesus gave His Spirit in its fullness.

What Dante is missing, is that this action of Christ’s humiliation in Incarnation (descending to the lower regions) is actually a full restoration of what was already a reality (God filling all things). The earth used to be the least superior because of distance from God, but then God came to the lower regions in Christ, and exalted it (the quote St. Paul utilizes is Psalm 68:18, which is about God ascending Mt. Zion (The Israel of God’s dwelling place with God) and establishing it above all other mountains). This makes it so that all things are given to His Body, the Church (the host of captives), and gifts (the Spirit’s fullness at Pentecost poured out on “all flesh”) This is fascinating because what was formerly unclean (many things under the Mosaic administration) have been made clean, just like earth itself is made superior because of the Church. Dante’s cosmology is helpful for understanding St. Paul, and St. Paul is helpful for pointing out that the cosmos’s “least” (earth) has been made “greatest” in Christ, contra Dante’s picture of Paradiso he describes in this letter.

My question is how Dante’s cosmology deals with the bane of Hellenistic philosophy which is the Bodily Resurrection at the Second Coming (or even the implications of the Resurrection of Christ at His first coming!). You certainly can’t work with Aristotelian categories when the whole Greek dualistic system is turned on its head by a glorified (called “spiritual” in 1 Corinthians 15) physical bodily reversal of entropy.

This is posted at the blog for my Dante class as well.

This is a letter from a Jesuit named Christovao Ferreira, who served in Japan when the most violent persecutions were inflicted upon the Christians in the country. This post includes some of the lead-up context in the prologue of a book called Silence by Endo Shuusaku, from whence I derived the quote.

The Shogun Tokugawa…order[ed] the expulsion of all the missionaries from Japan in the year 1614… Flaunting this sever decree of exile, however, thirty-seven priests refused to abandon their flock and secretly remained hiding in Japan. And Ferreira was one of these underground priests…Today there is still extant a letter he wrote from Nagasaki on March 22nd 1632 to the Visitor Andrew Palmeiro…

“In my former letter I informed Your Reverence of the situation of Christianity in this country. And now, I will go on to tell you of what has happened since then. Everything has ended up in new persecution, new repression, new suffering. Let me begin my account with the story of five religious who from the year 1629 were apprehended for their faith. Their names are Bartholomew Gutierrez, Francisco de Jesus, Vincente de San Antonio of the Order of Saint Augustine, Antonio Ishida of our own Society, and a Franciscan, Gabriel de Santa Magdalena.
The magistrate of Nagasaki, Takenaka Uneme, tried to make them apostasize and to ridicule our holy faith and its adherents, for he hoped in this way to destroy the courage of the faithful. But he quickly realized that words alone would never shake the resolution of these priests; so he was forced to adopt a different course of action; namely, immersion in the hell of boiling water at Unzen.
He gave orders that the five priests be brought to Unzen and tortured until such time as they should renounce their faith. But on no account were they to be put to death. In addition to the five priests, Beatrice da Costa, wife of Antonio da Silva, and her daughter Maria were to be tortured, since they, too, in spite of all attempts at persuasion, had refused to give up their faith.
On December 3rd the party left Nagasaki for Unzen. The two women were carried in litters, while the five men were mounted on horses. And so they hade farewell. Arrive at the port some distance away, their arms and hands were bound, their feet were shackled, and they were put on board a ship and tightly tied to its side.
That evening they reached the harbor of Obama at the foot of Unzen; and the next day they climbed the mountain where the seven, one by one, were thrust into a tiny hut. Day and night they remained there in confinement, their feet shackled and their arms bound, while around them guards kept watch. The road to the mountain, too, was lined with guards; and without formal permission from the officials no one was permitted to pass that way.
The next day the torture began in the following way. One by one the seven were taken apart from the surrounding people, brought to the edge of the seething lake and shown the boiling water casting its spray high into the air–and then they were urged to abandon the teaching of Christ or else they would experience in their very bodies the terrible pain of the boiling water which lay before them. The cold weather made the stream arising from the bubbling lake look terrible indeed, and the very sight of it would make a strong man faint, were it not for the grace of God. but everyone of them, strengthened by God’s grace, showed remarkable courage and even asked to be tortured, firmly declaring that they would never abandon their holy faith. Hearing this dauntless reply, the officials tore off the prisoners’ clothes, bound them hand and foot to posts, and scooping up the boiling water in ladles, poured it over their naked bodies. These ladles were perforated and full of holes so that this process took a considerable time and the suffering was prolonged.
The heroes of Christ bore this terrible torment without flinching. Only the young Maria, overcome with the excess of her suffering, fell to the ground in agony. ‘She has apostatized! She has apostatized!’ they cried; and carrying her to the hut they promptly sent her back to Nagasaki. Maria denied that she had wished to apostatize. Indeed, she even pleaded to be tortured with her mother and the rest. But they paid no attention to her prayers.
The other six remained on the mountain for thirty three days. During that time the priests Antonio and Francisco, as well as Beatrice, were each tortured six times in the boiling water. Father Vincente was tortured four times; Fathers Palmeiro and Gabriel twice. Yet in all this not one of them so much as breathed a groan or a sigh.
Fathers Antonio and Francisco as well as Beatrice da Costa, in particular, undainted by tortures, threats and pleadings of all kind, displayed a courage worthy of a man. In addition to the torture of the boiling water, she was subjected to the further ignominy of being obliged to stand for hours upon a small rock, exposed to the jeering insults of the crowd. But even when the frenzy of her persecutors reached its zenith, she did not flinch.
The others, being weak in health, could not be punished too severely since the wish of the magistrate was not to put them to death but to make them apostatize. Indeed, for this reason he went so far as to bring a doctor to the mountain to tend their wounds.
At last, however, Uneme realized that he would never win On the contrary his followers, seeing the courage of the priests, told him that all the springs in Unzen would run dry before men of such power could be persuaded to change their minds. So he decided to bring them back to Nagasaki. On January 5th he confined Beatrice to a house of ill fame, while the priests he lodged in the local prison. And there they still are.
This whole struggle has had the effect of spreading our doctrine among the multitude and of strengthening the faith of our Christians. All has turned out contrary to the intentions of the tyrant.”

Do you ever think of this sort of thing, as a believer? We are quite safe in America, so this thought rarely crosses my mind. But it is reading something like this that reminds me of Jesus’ letter to the Church at Smyrna:

“Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’ (Revelation 2:9-11 ESV)

Pray for those tested unto death.

It’s not a competition. I love both the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. They largely agree, but they come from very different approaches (see my initial comparison here). However, JI Packer and Garry Parrett, in Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way, their book about catechesis, quote TF Torrance quoting Horatius Bonar, who suggests that the theology of the Reformation is more biblical in its approach than the “the theology of the Covenant” found at Westminster.

[T]he skillful metaphysics employed at Westminster in giving lawyer-like precision to each statement, have imparted a local and temporary aspect to the new which did not belong to the more ancient standards. Or, enlarging the remark, we may say that there is something about the theology of the Reformation which renders it less likely to become obsolete than the theology of the Covenant. The simpler formulae of the older age are quite as explicit as those of the later; while by the adoption of the biblical in preference to the scholastic mode of expression, they have secured for themselves a buoyancy which will bear them up when the others go down.

To me, this seems to be essentially arguing for Heidelberg over Westminster. I say, “Why not both?”