Rational Faith

You’ll have to excuse my failure to post over the past month. It’s been busy with Holy Week, Easter, and family visiting. I’m also realizing how much less time I’ve had this year compared to last year, before Jovi was born. That darn kid sucks up much of our free time.

Anyway, I still have found time to read (perhaps this is because I’m a pastor and really only work one day a week….haha), and one of the best books I’ve read in a long time is Timothy Keller’s “The Reason for God.” If you are a person who questions whether or not Christianity is true or if you deal with people who are skeptical of Christianity, I highly recommend this book.

Keller is a pastor in New York City, and his book was written from the perspective of the many conversations he has had with skeptical New Yorkers about faith. While Keller’s primary role is as pastor, he is extremely well versed in philosophy. What is great about his book is not the originality of his ideas and arguments. I’ve come across all of his arguments in other books of philosophy or theology. But, what is great is how logical and accessible his book is. He covers the most common arguments that skeptics use to attack the Christian faith, and responds to those arguments with great precision and clarity. He brings together some of the best arguments Christian thinkers have to offer (the book is well documented, repeatedly quoting C.S. Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, Soren Kierkegaard, and a wide variety of authors from across the spectrum), and he does it in a way that I think most serious-minded laypeople could understand. This is an excellent introduction to apologetics and would be the first book off my shelf that I would give to skeptic of the Christian faith.

Existential Suffering

I just finished reading an extremely moving book called Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff. It is Wolterstorff’s journal of sorrow following the tragic death of his twenty-five year old son who died in a climbing accident. The book reminded me a lot of Lewis’ A Grief Observed. Wolterstorff’s and Lewis’ journeys through grief are considerably different, but both books give us a deeply personal account of suffering. Both give us hope that God can be trusted, even in the midst of tragic and unexplainable pain.
These books remind me that philosophical arguments are often rendered powerless in the face of existential suffering. Reason provides little comfort to those whose loved ones have tragically died. It is difficult to see the point of philosophical arguments through eyes soaked with tears. In times of great personal suffering, it is the resources of divine revelation that give us hope. The suffering of Christ reminds us that we do not suffer alone. The Resurrection reminds us that death has been conquered. The presence of the Holy Spirit fills us and allows us to go on living despite our pain.

One Crazy Dream

There’s a great song on one of Bob Dylan’s earlier albums entitled Talkin’ World War III Blues. The opening lines of the song are, “One time ago a crazy dream came to me. I dreamt I was walkin’ to World War III. Went to the doctor the very next day to see what kind of words he could say. He said it was a bad dream.” It’s probably the most amusing and whimsical song I have ever heard about a World War.

I say all of that to say this; I had one of the strangest dream a few nights ago. I dreamt that I was at some kind of professional conference, and I was standing is a large reception area with a lot of other people. There was nothing too exciting going on at the conference when suddenly, people started rushing to look out large, main window. As I looked, I saw a nuclear explosion in the distance, and there was no time to prepare for what was going to happen. It’s hard to explain what I experienced next, because everything happened in the course of about two seconds. I saw blinding light and fire rushing towards us at an infinite speed. I felt myself flying through the air in the midst of the light and the fire. Then, everything was black, and I knew I was dead. But, I didn’t wake up.

My death happened so quickly that I didn’t even have time to feel fear or sadness. In the midst of the blackness, I remember thinking to myself, “I am dead. I was just killed in a nuclear explosion….but….I am still thinking….” A few seconds later, I woke up.

I’m not really sure what this dream means. I think it’s pretty humorous that my first thought after death was that I was still thinking. I take this as a clear sign that I’ve been reading too much philosophy lately.