Happy Birthday Home

July 30th marked one year in our first house... the house is about 60 years old but just one as our home. I pulled out some boxes of college books today, and started reading 'An Old Testament Theology' by Bruce Waltke. I literally opened the front cover and started. It was very refreshing! And for the first time, I felt able to absorb it, probably because I wasn't trying to read 4-7 books at once. :) So a quote from today's reading got me thinking... here are some unrefined cogitations:

'Post modernists realize the impossibility of grounding absolute truth on the finite human mind. Unfortunately they do not look to the spiritual virtue of faith in the God of the Bible to resolve the human epistemological predicament.'

What phenomenal understanding of our human limitation (by the postmodernist). How can a human mind fully 'know' anything?

And... i think its Biblical, 'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork... not the Human mind so much.... oceans, day and night declare Gods glory to us. We know of God's existence not by the greatness of our minds but by His creative work.

Similarly we argue rational apologetic not because we create anything profound on our own but by previous information from which we conclude. Just as we learn to speak as children not by the creation of words in our minds but by God's creation of the Father and Mother who tirelessly say the simplest words over and over.

And so the postmodernist desires to dispel scripture because the mind cannot be its own grounding yet what a lovely compass... pointing north, our mind is not what determines scriptures truth but rather our mind points to something greater than what we can contain, know or impart. For if we can know nothing for certain on our own power, how did it ever come to be, and especially come to be sustained?

The grounding for genuine faith is not in our own mind, or feelings, or even experiences but in the Rock of our salvation. Jesus is the solid foundation from which we draw all truth and light. And when we are sure of anything in our faith, and true believe needs to boldly say it is not that 'I' am sure on my own ability to know or understand but that Christ has made me sure, just as he has saved me.

... And when we are not sure... well for those of us who doubt, there is hope that despite our attempts to understand anything (for doubt is trying to be sure of something in one's own power) there is grace ever-flowing from the way, truth and life.

It is also for this reason that I recently wonder if I should be more careful about the word 'creative'. Can anyone truly be a creator? I believe all new ideas which come to the poet, painter, mathematician, or architect are a manifestation of grace and should be used as a tribute to Him. These gifts are a metaphor of His redemption. He firsts gives to us so that we may become a vessel which yeilds all things to His work and for His Glory.