Genesis 26

What is it with these guys? Isaac follows in the footsteps of dear old dad by lying and claiming Rebekah is his sister, rather than his wife in order to save his hide. Let's note here that while Abraham was merely telling a half-truth, since Sarah was his half-sister, Isaac is telling an out-and-out lie. This could enter us on a journey of exploration into casuistry and just when it's okay to tell a lie or a truth, but I suspect the overarching lesson here, repeated three times now in both the lives of Abraham and Isaac, is don't flaunt your good fortune, including how hot your wife is. Men will attempt to punish you for your good fortune. Keep your good luck to yourself and enjoy it in private.

In other news, Esau becomes a polygamist of foreign wives, making clear yet again he is a bad choice and unworthy of the Blessing of the Firstborn. Of course the irony is that Jacob will be finagled into his own bigamous situation, but that's not for awhile yet.

A Reader Asks, "What led you to the Catholic Church?"

My father and I always used to talk about theology when we would go out on the weekends from as far back as I can remember. Whether we went out on the boat or out to the parks, once other topics had been exhausted, we'd go to that, and I'd have questions, and usually, he had answers. Yes, Baylor is Baptist, and I did convert to Catholicism while I was there. My parents were somewhat confused, since we attended a Lutheran Church for most of my childhood and they would have expected a conversion in a different direction. I could not really say we were Lutherans though, as my parents kind of beat to their own drum. They didn't have me baptized until I could declare Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior which I did when I was eight. 

My journey to full union with the Church was in several stages. First, and this was back in high school, I didn't like the fact that in the Lutheran Church we said the Nicene Creed, except instead of "catholic" we said "Christian". The Pastor told me it meant the same thing. It doesn't mean the same thing. I also didn't like the fact we said the Church is Apostolic. But we don't believe that ministers have to be appointed by successors to the apostles, and we didn't have apostolic succession or bishops the way the Catholics, Anglicans and Orthodox do in keeping with the ancient tradition of the Church. 

So by college, I'd decided I wanted to be either Catholic, Anglican or Orthodox, since they all claimed ancient origins and apostolic succession and were Trinitarian Christians who believed (or at least could accept) some form of the Real Presence. But Orthodox didn't seem very Universal either, as there were no easily accessible Orthodox Churches where I was, and the ones I'd been to were all extremely ethnic. There were a lot of other reasons why not Orthodoxy. I believe I wrote a blog post about it a few months back that was in the form of a book review. So Anglicanism it was. How pleasant to have Protestant theology with the catholic form of church government! It was the via media, the best of both worlds. And the music was superb. Until they told me that abortion was okay. That business about St. John Baptist kicking in the womb when Jesus approached was idle poetry. The fact St. Paul forbids againstpharmakeia, which covered abortifacients as well as narcotics was culturally locked to that time period! The Holy Spirit had a new truth for our age. I needed to be open to it.

...

So Catholicism was the only game in town, but I was at an impasse, because they believed in papal infallibility, Marian immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, and they had some weird Aristotelian Greek philosophy stuff they overlaid onto the Scriptural account of the Lord's Supper and forced Catholics to believe.

It took me a long time and many conversations and meditation and study, but I got past those issues, and I realized that the Catholic Church was the only place I could really be intellectually content. At this point, if I were not Catholic, I'm afraid I would be an atheist. So let's hope I'm here to stay. Only the Catholic Church possesses the four marks of the True Church by which all men may know her: She is One, Holy, Universal and Apostolic.

Catalonia Rises

It would appear that the world will soon greet the birth of its newest nation state. I have no opinion about Catalonia's independence from Spain in particular, but in general, I believe in the free self-determination of peoples. If a nation of people wish to live free from another group of people, to cast off the ties that formerly bound them together, they should be free to do so without fear of coercion or violent reprisals. This is in keeping with the moral rectitude of the American Independence we recently celebrated.

The historical case of the Confederacy in moral terms is complicated by the fact that they owned slaves. In so far as Lincoln said he didn't care about freeing the slaves but only cared about preserving the Union, he was in the moral wrong for holding a nation of Southerners captive to their Northern masters.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. -Abe Lincoln

In so far as the Confederates owned slaves and did not permit them to depart at will but demanded their labor without payment, they were in the moral wrong. Individuals should be free. Collections of individuals should be free. Governments should be small and as localized as possible to facilitate empathy between the governors and the governed. History is messy, but this much seems certain. Most of the misery of Revolution occurs when one group of people ceases to be of genuine utility to the other, when the ties that bind them cease to be mutual benefit, and become merely contractual.

God does not make a contract with Man. He establishes Covenant. And a covenant creates family bonds of support, commitment and love. Without that love, cooperation is, in the long term, impossible.

Music Library Update

I have updated the Scripture Music Library (Link on Right-hand sidebar) by numbering each of the books of the Bible and adding a few selections to the Psalms.

I would like to add some more verses in the near future, as I have some musical ideas floating around in my head.

Also, if anyone knows of an online audio library of ALL the Psalms, preferably in numerical order, chanted either in English or in Latin, I would be very interested in knowing of its existence. Most of the collections seem pretty random and incomplete though. I would think there would be such a resource, since I recall reading the monks in the medieval monasteries would chant through the entire Psalter once a month.

The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church

Islam and the rest of the World will be overwhelmed by the flood of love from Christians around the World united in solidarity, and by the conversion of nations from disgust at the bloodthirsty inhumanity of the foes of Christ. The ancient Roman emperors did not understand it then. The authoritarian Chinese do not understand it now. The love of Christ is unstoppable, and when you crush it, it blooms and spreads all the more.

In the darkest hour we rejoice. For we know the Day is coming when we shall be caught up in the sky to be with our Beloved.

Compliments to the New Saint Thomas Institute for this beautiful portrait of the Catholic Church's newest Saint.

Father Jacques Hamel, pray for us!

Things to Remember for My Next Caymanian Homecoming

I love Cayman Brac. Many generations of my mother's family lived and worked here in the harsh tropical sun, amidst the sharp rocks and poor soil. I believe I would like to retire here, despite the sparse Catholic presence. So since I must leave it tomorrow morning and begin the long although ridiculously non-arduous journey back to my home in Orlando, I offer some advice to my future self the next time I make it down:

1. Remember to bring along your computer and its charger everywhere.
2. Don't forget to visit the Iron Shore, and the Bluff with its rock climbing and caves.
3. This time, plan more than three hours (maybe more like six) to walk there and explore the caves.
4. Pack good shoes to do this with (like I didn't).
5. If you interact with cows on uncle's farm, do not wear red (like I did).
6. Beware of stepping on sea urchins, known here as "sea eggs" and pack some swim shoes (like I did and didn't, respectively).
7. Expect to get less studying done than you hope.
8. When replacing air-conditioner units for the house (a NECESSITY here, if yours prove dysfunctional as TWO of mine did), do NOT cut the living day-lights out of your fingers on the grating. (No further comment.)
9. Do not expect to understand every word the natives say, even after all your practice, especially those from the West End. (I love you all, island friends and relatives.)
10. Make sure to sample the local vegetable delights , including gineps, ackies, plums, breadfruit, cassava, more mango species than you can shake a stick at, and naseberries, each at least once on your trip, preferably many times.
11. Climb the dangerous rickety ladder system up the Bluff and enjoy that view Grandfather enjoyed every day on his way to tend the cows while he thrived; check footholds thrice before applying full weight.
12. Don't underestimate your cousin's chess-playing abilities, or play her while doing something else: You might not be able to pull the game out of the fire next time.
13. Try not to laugh out loud when my American immigrant family switch into their full Bracker accents.
14. Have a deep conversation with a loved one as you watch the sun set into the Caribbean Sea.
15. Beware of escaping embers from beachside bonfires. (Like I didn't.)
16. Never leave any rigging loose on the boat.
17. Aloe vera is a useful plant for chafing. (No further comment.)
18. Mass is at 11 o'clock in the morning at Stella Maris on the West End up the Bluff. Don't be late!
19. Stop by Grandfather's Grave by the Sea to say a Rosary for his repose.
20. Appreciate the blessedness of having such a loving and close family away from home.

Funeral

Greetings from Cayman Brac. My readers (Hi Mom!) might notice that I have not been active this past week on the blog. The reason is two-fold. First, I am away from home to attend and assist with the funeral of my maternal grandfather. Second, I made the mistake of leaving my computer charger at my uncle's house on Grand Cayman, and only received it back late last night.

The funeral will be tomorrow at Ten o'clock in the morning at the Seamen's Center since my grandfather served briefly in the British Royal Navy. There is only one Mass or Communion Service depending on if a priest is available (this is you in ten years America), on Cayman Brac at Eleven o'clock in the morning on Sunday with no services on Saturday, so I will have to miss my weekly obligation due to unavoidable necessity.


My grandfather was a simple man, born on Cayman Brac 94 years ago. Cayman Brac is a small island in the Caribbean Sea about 500 miles South of Miami, with Cuba in between, from which I write to you as I look out on the reef from a friend's house who has internet. Today, Cayman Brac has about 1,200 inhabitants. I do not know how few people it had in my grandfather's prime years, but our family helped to install electricity and other municipal services on the island, so it was pretty primitive and still is in many ways.

When my grandfather met my grandmother, she already had a small daughter. They had been abandoned by my grandmother's husband, who left for England, and never was heard from again. Despite this fact, and despite the fact that my grandmother was of mixed racial heritage while my grandfather was a member of the white aristocracy of the island, to much social disapproval he married my grandmother and they conceived and raised my mother and then my uncle.

Grandfather helped to build the Panama Canal, and with the money earned from that work, he purchased land here on Cayman Brac that was used for a cattle farm. The farm was not very successful, but it helped keep alive the small family of my grandmother (who was the island's sole seamstress for many years) himself, and my mother and uncle. As for the daughter from a previous marriage, my aunt ambitiously applied for a scholarship to the United States (which my mother later did too) before my mother's birth, and she married an American and raised a family of her own.

The nuclear family my grandfather headed, like the extended family, were and still are Seventh Day Adventists. According to my mother, her father said that before he met my grandmother, an Adventist minister helped release him from his slavery to cigarettes and rum. Although they have their own theological oddities, the Seventh Day Adventists are one of the more conservative Protestant denominations, and their dietary restrictions and strict Sabbatarianism are on the whole salutary to the physical health and well-being of their adherents, probably the most famous now living of whom is former Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson.

According to my cousin, Grandfather's second grandson after me, my grandfather's advice to him was to do what you love to do, because life is short and does not last.

Well, Viejo, I pray for your soul tonight and that by God's mercy you have found the Life that does not grow wearisome. May you rest in peace.

My Bible saves me from hassle.

 am traveling by air to my grandfather's funeral today. While my luggage was being searched by the TSA, they found a fork and knife in my backpack I accidentally left there from my last camping trip. Oops. I fully expected them to strip search me, etc. and confiscate my silverware.

What do you know? The dude with the blue gloves took out my big thick Catholic Bible from my backpack, and after removing my fork and knife (a regular table knife, relatively blunt edge), he put all of it back and wished me a nice day.

I am stupid. But God is gracious. And some TSA agents have common sense and grace of their own.

Genesis 25

arily (as in this is all purely speculative), I think we can draw a mystical interpretation here of Esau and Jacob with Satan and Jesus Christ our Lord, respectively. I imagine that when Rebekah bore Jacob, grasping onto the heel of Esau, she may have thought that he might actually be the Messiah foretold, whose heel the enemy would bruise. Jacob's name is "he who supplants", and in this I believe he is intended to foreshadow Jesus. Satan is called the Prince of this World, who promises Christ all the kingdoms of the World which he claims are his to give. It would appear that before the Fall of the evil angels, Satan was entrusted with the care of the world.

However, through Satan's apostasy, he lost the right to rule the World, and gave it up to one who in one sense was born later (to the Virgin Mary around 4 B.C.). Although Christ pre-existed Satan, he takes away Satan's birthright originally given him by God, but rightly handed over to Jesus. Esau's being born red and hairy also may identify him with the Beast of Revelation, or, again, Satan. Satan's apostasy is, like Esau's selling his birthright for a bowl of soup, completely inexplicable. How could you be so stupid as to give up so much for so little. For an immortal being, Satan's rule over this planet is so short. It is the blink of an eye compared with an eternity of joy and fulfilled bliss in the Presence of God. But so he chose. So Esau chose. The momentary small pleasure of having one's way, instead of patient endurance for the sake of something truly great that will last forever. Don't be like Satan. Don't be like Esau. Endure pain and hardship. Obey the Will of God. Be faithful to your calling even beyond death, and you will win your Inheritance.

Genesis 24

ebekah's good deed of watering Abraham's servant's camels and offering him water has unexpectedly good results for Rebekah, as she is inducted into the line of the Messiah, and into the service of the true God of the Universe. The Bible places a high premium on kindness to foreigners and to guests, as reflected in the nomadic culture that Judaism arose from.

Civilization requires cooperation and sacrifice, charity towards others through doing more than one's "fair share" whatever that means. Fairness by modern definitions is fundamentally incoherent, and ironically the only way to achieve fairness, or what could also be termed beauty, or even Justice, one must accept the unfairness of whatever situation in which one is placed and do what is necessary to improve it.

Carl Sagan's and My Refutation of Theodicy or the Argument from Evil Against God

In an earlier article, I presented a Carl Sagan-inspired proof for the existence not only of God, but of the Christian God from first principles, without appealing to divine revelation, miracles (Not that appealing to miracles isn't legitimate if you have witnessed one or hear about one from someone you trust, but most atheists have not.), or blind faith. But what about reasons for God's non-existence?

The best argument for the Non-Existence of God is some variation of "Stuff goes wrong, but if God existed, nothing would go wrong."Whether we mean Evil, Human Pain, or Animal Pain. But the real root of this is the idea that God would make a being like Satan, or for my Lord of the Rings fans, that Illuvatar would create Melkor. God, the uncaused omniscient, would have to know that Satan would screw things up. Since he made Satan, and knew Satan would mess things up, isn't He responsible? So let's build this into something a little more formal:

An Atheist Argument from Theodicy

1. A Personal God, by definition, must be a good personal being, if He exists.
2. Good personal beings never allow bad things to happen, if they are able to stop them.
3. God is able to stop all bad things, if he exists.
4. Bad things do happen.
Conclusion: God does not exist.

Premise (2) is the only one that seems suspect. Perhaps, though, we can again use Sagan-Logic to clarify the issue. As we recall, Sagan's most memorable thought is that "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." If you don't have that extraordinary evidence, then don't accept the claim.

But it seems to me that premise (2) is the most extraordinary claim we can imagine, and we have no evidence at all for that claim. On the contrary, we have a great plenitude of counterexamples.

1. Good mothers allow children to leave their rooms uncleaned (although they might punish them for it) in order that a better good might come about, their children's responsibility.

2. Even good men cannot give all of their wealth to the poor, thus allowing the poor to suffer, because they must feed, clothe and shelter themselves and their families, and invest in their own livelihood, and prepare for their own retirement, and demise.

3. Sometimes it is inevitable that at least one bad thing will happen, but you must choose which one, classically, your wife on one side and 10 innocent people on the other (like in that Spider Man movie with Tobey McGuire) are about to die painful deaths and you can only save one. By allowing the others to die.

4. Sometimes people allow bad to happen (the pain of running the last mile in an 8 mile run) that good may occur (increased stamina, fitness and longevity of the runner).

5. Sometimes people allow bad to happen (laying off 10 of your workers 5 months earlier than you absolutely had to without defrauding the bank) that good may occur (the company you run survives to provide useful services to other people).

And those 5 examples took me about 2 minutes. Clearly it is NOT true that "Good personal beings never allow bad things to happen, if they are able to stop them." One counterexample alone is sufficient to disprove an argument, but I could go on all day with counterexamples, although perhaps one could rephrase the argument against God in a less vulnerable way. If you're actually weighing things, take a look at my Lerner-Sagan Argument for the Christian God a few articles back, and see how this one against God's existence compares. Pretty poorly, I'd say, simply in logical terms. Good people allow bad things to happen all the time. Arguably every person you have ever met does this from time to time, even without realizing it.

But wait, you say, what excuse does God have? He's omnipotent. Why wouldn't he save everyone from pain? I believe the situation is most analogous to the first example I gave of a mother who won't clean up the child's room. God desires a society of human beings who take responsibility for themselves and love one another, who don't pass the buck to someone or something higher than themselves, whether that be the wealthy, God, the government, or the person suffering. God wants human beings to rationally help one another. This is a great good. Arguably great enough to justify the suffering. Nor was God unwilling to enter into the suffering Himself in order to demonstrate that He Himself is willing to pay the cost of what it means to be human in this sinful, painful, crazy world. Let us not shirk away from the cost of becoming saints and creating them by nurturing and loving our fellow crazy humans.

Book Review: The Russian Church and the Papacy

A Theological Journey through Time

The Russian Church and the Papacy is a diamond hidden in the rough. Wherever you stand on the conservative Christian theological spectrum, I believe you can profit by considering the arguments made in this book and the history of Christianity it tells. Its name might suggest that its scope is more limited than it is in reality. This book is not about any particular historical period or event, but encompasses the historical development of the church, highlighting the historical trends and interplay between the Byzantine East, and the Roman West. Particularly if you are a Protestant Christian on the verge of leaving Protestantism but unsure whether to go East or West, you should read this book and consider the arguments it makes.

On the other hand you may be a Protestant Christian fully satisfied with your Christian faith tradition, in no crisis of conscience over its legitimacy, maybe even somewhat critical of the more ancient branches of the faith. While you may have significant criticisms of both Catholicism and Byzantine Christianity that this book does not address, it is still an enlightening exploration of the history and debates between the oldest denominations of Christianity that will allow you to understand where your Catholic or Eastern Orthodox brother is coming from and dialogue intelligently with him. The book is also useful for Catholics who desire to dialogue meaningfully with Eastern Orthodox friends or seeking a better reason than "I was born into it" for espousing Catholicism instead of Eastern Orthodoxy. In fact, this slim volume directly addresses the claims of one of the chief contenders (in many Christians' opinion) against Roman Catholicism for the fullness of Christian faith and practice, Byzantine Christianity, or Eastern Orthodoxy.

Christianity By the Numbers

Back in 2012, out of curiosity, I made up a list of the largest Christian faith communities with commonly acknowledged human leaders (whether one person or a regular council) and doctrinal unity, and their numbers at the time based on publicly available Wikipedia information and posted it in another blog post. I imagine the picture has changed somewhat, but cannot have altered too radically in a mere four years. What we see is that Roman Catholicism is by far the most popular group of the planet's Christians who acknowledge a single living leader or council of leaders aside from Jesus Christ himself. But Catholicism's closest contender, numerically speaking, was Russian Orthodoxy, with roughly one tenth as many members. If someone else wants to run the numbers as they currently stand, I'd be happy to know the updated situation.

None of this data, of course, conclusively prove the true Faith. At one time, I read somewhere, it is believed that there were actually more Arian heretics than Trinitarian Christians. What these findings do, in my opinion, is shift the burden of proof to those whose view is sharply in the minority. If most of the people in the room disagree with you, it is only fair that your evidence must be that much better to persuade them and yourself. After all, what better claim do you have to being able to determine the truth than your fellows do? All other things being equal, like G.K. Chesterton, I am a democrat in the classic sense of the term. The Russian Church and the Papacy speaks directly against the next most popular view to Catholicism in favor of the Catholic position, and that makes its contribution to the age-old debate that much more valuable.

The Russian Church and the Papacy's Influence on Me

As those of you know who have read my mini-bio, I have not always been a Roman Catholic Christian. My Protestant parents prayed over me even in my mother's womb, but I was not baptized until I was eight years old. Growing up, I enjoyed the benefits of morning, evening and mealtime prayer, and a father who was always willing to talk with me over matters of faith (and anything else), who did his best not to be dogmatic past what he felt the plain meaning of the Bible communicated. I would not be where I now am theologically without this foundation of reasoned dialogue.

The Russian Church and the Papacy was one of the most significant books I read in college that built on this foundation. When through studying Church history and our Christian literary tradition I decided that I could not remain consistently a Protestant, without being unable to make a reasoned defense for the hope that is in me, The Russian Church and the Papacy helped to settle the debate within me over whether to become Catholic or Byzantine. Intellectually speaking, I was unable to say why historically I thought the Roman Catholic faith had any firm advantage to Eastern Orthodoxy before I read this book. Beforehand I was leaning toward Catholicism due to its more universal acceptance and culture, but I also liked Orthodoxy since doctrinally it was closer to my native Protestantism and it also enjoyed deep historical roots and apostolic succession. Once I understood the history between the East and West, and reading Soloviev's interpretation of that history, the debate changed, and my understanding of the important points in that debate changed as well.

Strengths of the Book

The Russian Church and the Papacy handles well the history of the Great Schism (A.D. 1054, one of those dates everyone should keep tucked in the back of his mind) between the Eastern and Western Church and subsequent attempts to heal this wound. It also delves into the nature and evolution of the office of the Papacy on the one hand. On the other hand it addresses the disturbing Caesaropapism (The tendency to combine the secular and religious authority in the person of one ruler: Think King Henry VIII for a Western example.) and recurrent heresy of Byzantine Christianity's historical center in Constantinople, now Istanbul, the capital of a majority Muslim state, while also addressing the continuity of the Eastern Church in Russia. The Russian Church and the Papacy elucidates the need for some kind of governing office for Christians like the Papacy, and the danger in turning to secular governments for this office.

Finally, Soloviev repeatedly comes out and confesses his belief in the true identity of the Roman Catholic Church as a providentially independent counterbalance to overreaching governments who have repeatedly tried to co-opt and manipulate the Church to do their bidding. Soloviev makes no attempt to hide his views on this matter, and his identity as a former member of the Russian aristocracy, shunned and disenfranchised for his opinions and faith, makes this book a powerful witness for the importance of Truth and of defending what you believe no matter the material cost.

For a similar (though not identical) theological argument, "Why I Didn't Convert to Eastern Orthodoxy" by Fr. Brian Harrison hosted on Catholic Answers online magazine also demonstrates what the author perceives as philosophical flaws in the Byzantine argument against papal claims to authority that form the major material separating East from West. The arguments therein probably also would have swayed me in favor of Catholicism over Eastern Orthodoxy, had I been exposed to the article at the time of my conversion. Again, wherever you stand on the theological spectrum, it is good to know the lines of argument made on all sides and to seek understanding with our brothers in Christ, even when we cannot at present fully agree.

Read it.

Genesis 23

ystically, Sarah, literally the "royal woman," may be seen to represent Mary, the mother of Jesus. Sarah dies in Kiriath-Arba, literally, the city of four. By this we may interpret that Mary, the mother of the Promised Son, at her departure from this life was made immediately to dwell (body and soul) in the City of Four Walls:

The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. -Rev 21:16

Hebron also means "alliance", so that Mary died in alliance with, as an ally of, the Most High God in His War against Satan, the key figure through whom God smuggled his deadly weapon into enemy territory, the sword that is the Word of God, Jesus Christ, made man through Mary's "Yes".

Sarah only imperfectly prefigures Mary. Sarah's "Yes" was more of a "No, really?" In her we see the singular desire God has to use the ones He has chosen, those He has set apart, His saints, for His holy purposes, not because they are particularly capable through any power of their own, but because He has chosen them. God chose Sarah, despite that she was Abraham's half-sister. Despite that she quarreled, the meaning of her original name, Sarai. Despite that she was barren. Despite that she did not believe. He used her as a figure, saved and preserved her repeatedly from dishonor through miraculous intervention, prefiguring the way he would preserve Mary from original sin, and used her as His chosen vessel to bring about the Salvation of Mankind. None of this because He had to. But rather, God did this because it was fitting and in accordance with His Nature that He should do so.

Practically speaking, in Abraham's encounter with the leaders of the city later in this chapter, we see an excellent principle: Just because someone's saying "Don't worry about the bill. It's on me!" doesn't mean you shouldn't pay your fair share anyway. Always pay your fair share, and your friends will stay your friends.

Genesis 22

ell, now we come to one of the most difficult chapters to digest in the whole Bible (in my opinion). How could God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac his son? Isn't that cruel, barbaric, itself a proof for the non-existence of the Jewish or the Christian conceptions of God and their religions?

Could be.

It's a tough chapter, if you are serious about your Faith. I have gone back and forth between interpretations myself attempting to figure out what on Earth is being communicated here, how this can be Divinely Revealed truth. The way I have thought about it the past few years, however, is in terms of God's Accommodation to human culture. 

Abraham was a reformed pagan. He likely was familiar with, if he didn't worship himself, gods like Molech, to whom kings and peasants alike would sacrifice their infant children, "passing them through the fire", to appease the deity. That's what God is working with here. That is Abraham's default mindset. There is no Western Civilization, yet. God must reform Abraham and his descendants into the kind of people who could transmit it, through their culture, through their philosophy, through their religion, and most importantly, through the Incarnation. But all of that has yet to be.

I believe that for Abraham to understand God, and the level of personal commitment God required of him, there was no moral equivalent that God could have used. He had to speak in Abraham's terms, and that meant asking Abraham to provide a human sacrifice, the life of his son. By stopping Abraham, sparing Isaac, God is beginning to express his Nature, and the fact that it is morally wrong for man to slay the innocent, for any reason. The father of monotheism is being trained. But the level of commitment required of Abraham is also made clear. God requires Abraham's all. Isaac is Abraham's only son. No spares. 

Supernaturally, we are given by the author of Hebrews to know part of what was going through Abraham's mind: 

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; 18 it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” 19 He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. Hebrews 11:17-19

A textual scholar might say it is possible that the author of Hebrews is reciting a pious midrash, or Jewish parable based upon the life of a famous person, in this case Abraham. But I believe this is the accurate portrayal of what was going through Abraham's mind. So Abraham believed that through sacrifice he would still get his son back with blessing and abundance. Abraham had faith in God even to raise the dead, because God had shown himself to be faithful and to keep His promise.

The fundamental virtue is loyalty, is faithfulness. To your project, to your boyfriend, to your wife, to your family, to your nation, to your God. Sticking with someone when things get tough, despite the fact that they are tough, when that person has shown themselves faithful to you. This is the virtue Abraham demonstrates. It is the virtue without which families cannot exist, and so it is the cornerstone of civilization: Trust in those who are trustworthy. Isaac yields to Abraham, a man of over one hundred years of age. Civilization requires radical trust in each other. Isaac shows us this truth as well.

God, give me faithfulness to do Your Will when it is most difficult, and when I am weakest and most desire to follow after other gods who promise ease and pleasure. Help me to trust You enough to endure in what I have decided is right, to turn back to the one deserving my love. Amen.

The Sacrifice of Isaac, Caravaggio (1571-1610) in the Baroque tenebrist tradition.

Carl Sagan's and My Four-Step Proof for the Existence of the Christian God

arl Sagan, a famous science apologist, science popularizer, and agnostic, once said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. He used this as the concise reason for his effective atheism. But I think we may take this principle and apply it to get something very like the Christian conception of God from Sagan's and other first principles that most modern people of our own time would accept, and to make some of the existing arguments for Christianity not only likely but to compel one's acceptance of their truth. Here goes:

Step One: Atheism to Deism:

Mortimer Adler's Proof for the Existence of God:

1. The existence of an effect requiring the concurrent existence and action of an efficient cause implies the existence and action of that cause
2. The cosmos as a whole exists
3. The existence of the cosmos as a whole is radically contingent (meaning that it needs an efficient cause of its continuing existence to preserve it in being, and prevent it from being annihilated, or reduced to nothing)
4. If the cosmos needs an efficient cause of its continuing existence, then that cause must be a supernatural being, supernatural in its action, and one the existence of which is uncaused, in other words, the Supreme Being, or God.

Conclusion: The Supreme Being, or God, exists.

Now while we might dispute with Adler whether premises (2) and (3) are necessarily true, if we apply Sagan's extraordinary evidence principle, we must come to the conclusion that they hold. For premise (3) to not hold, we would need to live in a universe that could not possibly be otherwise than it is, for this would be a cosmos of non-contingent beings. That is to say it must, in that case, be logically impossible, as impossible as there being a four sided triangle, by definition impossible, for anything at all, the weather, the President of the United States, the bus accident that killed my great aunt, everything, to have been otherwise than it is or than it happened. Now, in order for us to accept that claim as true, it would require some extraordinary evidence. Which we do not have. No, for all the world, it would appear that the world could be otherwise. It's just not. It just happens to be the way it is. Therefore, unless you're a Buddhist and wish to seriously deny premise (2), or unless you wish to deny Sagan's Principle, Adler's Proof holds and there is a God. 

But then, assuming you deny premise (2), if I told you you don't exist, wouldn't you require some extraordinary evidence to be convinced of that claim? So Adler's Proof holds, and there is a God.

Step Two: Deism to Personal Theism.

But what kind of God is this? Aristotle himself believed in a God that would satisfy Adler's Proof, but it isn't anything like the Christian God, or even the Muslim God. Aristotle's God was completely impersonal, and more like a force of nature (just a completely uncaused Ultimate one) than a person. It would make no sense, for example, to pray to such a deity, since it would be unable to hear or even to understand your prayers. 

But once again Carl Sagan comes to our rescue. Now it is easy to see how a Personal God could create Personal creatures like you and I with consciousness. Not easy per se because we do not understand what goes into consciousness or forming a consciousness, but I mean we can conceive how a being analogous to ourselves could say to himself, "I would like to create conscious beings who experience a mental life." So let's create an analogous formal argument.

1. Conscious, intelligent beings exist.
2. The existence of intelligent consciousness (or self-awareness) is radically different from physical existence, and no merely physical process can produce self-awareness. 
3. If the only known way to produce conscious beings is from other conscious beings, then having established a Supreme Being exists, this Supreme Being would have to be conscious, and confer in some manner consciousness to other conscious creatures.

Conclusion: The Supreme Being, if he exists, is conscious and intelligent.

Now once again, premise (2) is suspect. But let's apply Sagan-logic: There are absolutely no examples in our everyday lived experience of consciousness coming from non-consciousness. No, in our experience, conscious beings only come from other conscious beings (another way of stating premise (2)), and furthermore, when conscious beings in our experience are even removed from the company of other self-aware intelligent beings for an extended period of time, they inevitably go insane. Therefore, if we follow in the path of Sagan, we may safely hold that it is true that, if the Supreme Being exists, he must be conscious, because we have many concrete examples of conscious beings creating consciousness (and experience is arguably the best evidence there is), but there are no confirmed examples of conscious intelligent beings arising from mere matter. An extraordinary claim like a conscious intelligent being arising from mere matter requires extraordinary evidence that we do not have. No human being has ever witnessed it to happen. We cannot even conceive how it could happen. So (good Sagan-style agnostics that we are) we must assume that it doesn't happen, and therefore, there is a self-aware, intelligent, conscious Supreme Being.

But wait, you say. You just said that in our experience, intelligence cannot exist outside of a community. Wouldn't that imply, by Sagan-logic, that we should believe a single personal God does not exist, but he would need to live in a community of gods? 

Step Three: Personal Theism to Multi-Personal Theism

There can only be one Supreme Being, because there can only be a single uncaused cause, not two. For if there were two uncaused causes, eternal, having existed since the world began, it would be more proper to call them one Supreme Being, or aspects of the Supreme Being, or perhaps persons within the Supreme Being, since they always existed together in cooperation, and neither caused the other to begin to exist in time.

However, having established by Sagan-logic that a personal God exists, we can further lay out the following.

1. Conscious intelligent personalities only exist in communities of other conscious intelligent personalities and soon descend into madness and irrationality if removed from their communities.

2. God (if he exists) exists as at least one intelligent personality. (established in Step Two above)

Conclusion: God (if he exists as an intelligent being) exists as a community of multiple intelligent personalities.

Now can we absolutely prove premise (1) above? We can with Sagan-logic. It is an ordinary thing to see conscious intelligent personalities in community, but it would be extraordinary to come into contact with one that had never been in contact with any other, that never required another intelligent, self-aware person. In fact, all of the evidence points towards the conclusion that consciousness cannot exist apart from community. To disprove it, we would need extraordinary evidence. Lacking that extraordinary evidence, it is only logical to conclude that Step Three is valid.

Step Four: Multi-Personal Theism to Christianity

Now to my knowledge the only major religion that proposes such a God is Christianity. Ironically, the Trinity is often proposed by critics as one of the reasons Christianity is irrational. But wouldn't it be an extraordinary claim if an intelligent, multi-personal God exists, and Christianity happened to be correct by postulating such a God, completely by chance?

1. Christianity uniquely postulates the existence of a multi-personal God.

2. A merely human religion, without revelation from a Multi-Personal Supreme Uncaused Being, would not correctly guess that a Multi-Personal Supreme Uncaused Being exists.

Conclusion: Christianity is revealed by God to humanity.

Again, we might doubt that premise (2) is necessarily true, but Carl Sagan, that stalwart defender of sweet Reason, has our answer. Because we have no evidence that a merely human religion would correctly guess that God exists as a multi-personal being, indeed, such evidence would need to be extraordinary for us to believe it, we must conclude that a merely human religion would not guess this aspect of the nature of God. 

Summary 

And so we arrive at the interesting conclusion: If you believe, along with Carl Sagan, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, lacking that extraordinary evidence, you should not believe such claims, but adopt the more likely and simpler alternative (Ockham's Razor). To apply this to the current question, if you cannot demonstrate that:

1. The universe could not possibly, consistently, be different than it is.

2. Conscious, intelligent, self-aware beings can arise from mere matter without other conscious, intelligent, self-aware beings directing their creation or begetting them.

3. Conscious, intelligent, self-aware beings can exist independently of, without any contact with, other conscious, intelligent, self-aware beings.

and

4. A merely human religion would be likely to correctly guess unaided by Reason that only one God exists, and He exists as a multi-personal Being...

If you don't buy that, and if you can't provide extraordinary evidence for those extraordinary claims, each of which has never been proven or witnessed by anyone living, then you must conclude, by Carl Sagan's logic, that God exists as a Multi-Personal Supreme Being, and Christianity is true.

I can imagine someone saying, "Fine, a Multi-personal God created the Universe and He also created intelligent, conscious, self-aware beings like ourselves and like Himself. But Christianity still is not necessarily true, for I accept premise (4) immediately above: Surely among all of the religions that have ever existed, one is likely to have stumbled upon the correct answer. Maybe the Multi-Personal God who created the Cosmos, the Supreme Good, has no interest in interacting with humanity aside from holding them (along with the rest of Creation) in existence from moment to moment and watching them suffer pointlessly their meaningless, short lives until they pop out of existence at their deaths." Well, I don't think that's a terribly likely conclusion myself. But now that, having been persuaded by Carl Sagan, purely through the operation of sweet Reason you are a Multi-Personal Theist, let me tell you about a man named Jesus of Nazareth...

As I hope this article makes clear, the extraordinary evidence that Carl Sagan was looking for stood right in front of him every morning... in his bathroom mirror.

Note on Dualism, Zoroastrianism, and similar religions: Denying premise (1) of Step Four above, someone might counter that Dualism is another religion that could be construed to postulate a multi-personal God, eternal and uncaused, albeit one with Persons at eternal war with each other. However, this religion (all the formulations I have heard of) states that one of the deities is good and the other evil. As another C. S. points out in Mere Christianity, to do so places the deities in question in subjection to a higher principle, namely the Good. In such a case, these deities could not both be Supreme, but The Good would be Supreme, as evil is merely a deprivation of Good and has no independent existence of its own. Only a cooperative community of God, whose nature is The Good, makes sense, and Dualism is incoherent.

Genesis 21

n this chapter, Genesis 21, God's promise to Abraham finally "comes of age". Is that a coincidence? Yes, of course it is! But it makes a handy mnemonic. When Sarah gives birth to Isaac, Abraham can finally see the concrete returns on what until now has been a relatively uneventful nomadic existence (aside from disasters like losing his wife or his nephew to powerful kings he has the misfortune to come across). I mean, yes, he has had mystical experiences with God, but until now, Abraham must have been completely mystified how God could possibly fulfill his promise. Women older than my grandma do not give birth to children. They don't now. They didn't then.

But I am convinced that this is the turning point in Abraham's story. After this point, Abraham is going to be capable of more, and God is going to require more. He is the father of monotheistic religion, in some ways the father of modern Western Civilization. Muslims would even claim him as the father of their religion (since Muslims are actually Christian heretics, but that's a subject for another time).

Sarah is a prefigurement of Mary in this chapter. Sarah's name means "royal woman". The scripture as inspired then reads "God visited the royal woman as he had promised." But God did not explicitly promise to visit Sarah, the historical wife of Abraham. He promised she would conceive a child. So we can see here a prefigurement of the Visitation of Mary by the angel Gabriel recounted in the Gospel of Luke, and also of her cousin Elizabeth who miraculously gave birth to St. John the Baptist after her husband was similarly visited.

Mary herself is aware that she and her miraculous child are the ultimate fulfillment of the Covenant with Abraham, God's promise that the royal woman would miraculously give birth, that Abraham's descendants would outnumber the dust, and that through him all nations would be blessed. Mary makes this understanding manifest in the way she concludes her famous song in the presence of Elizabeth: "For behold, from now on all generations shall call me blessed...He has helped his servant Israel, as he promised to our forefathers: to Abraham and his seed."

Let Me Spell It Out: Hillary Clinton Is a Felon.

oday I was speaking with a new friend after Mass: A good, conservative gentleman, a Grand Knight for a chapter of The Knights of Columbus. When the topic briefly turned to politics, however, I was rather shocked when I heard him say the following: “Well, she didn’t actually break the law.”

…

I honestly wasn’t going to comment on this, but I am shocked anyone (let alone a fellow member of the political Right Wing) who dared to comment on the affair could hold such a view after what has now been made public knowledge, and I promised my friend I’d show him the law she broke. I keep my promises. So let me spell it out simply and concisely in a way that the mass media will not:

The Law She Broke

18 U.S. Code s. 793 – Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, Paragraph (f):

“Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.” (Bold font added for emphasis, not in original)

The Evidence She Broke It

From Mr. James Comey, the Director of the F.B.I., being interviewed by the House Oversight Committee on July 7, 2016:

Certainly [Clinton] should have known not to send classified information. As I said, that’s the definition of negligent. I think she was extremely careless. I think she was negligent. That I could establish. What we can’t establish is that she acted with the necessary criminal intent.

But the law, as I quoted to you good readers above, does not require any intent. It does not make any comment on intent. In fact, the definition of “negligence” of any kind implies a lack of intent. The law only declares the penalty for actions taken and having failed to be taken.

The Obvious Conclusion

A felony is by definition a crime that carries a prison sentence greater than a year. From the language of the law, combined with what the Director of the F.B.I. testified under oath, it ought to be obvious to anyone with an Eighth Grade education that, yes, Hillary Clinton, presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States of America, is guilty of committing a felony. She is a criminal. Without a shadow of a doubt. If justice still reigned on these benighted shores, she would be tried, convicted, and fined or imprisoned. But, alas, it does not.

James Comey, whatever his intent, is guilty of dereliction of duty, should resign in disgrace, and is unworthy of the public trust of being a garbage man. (I mean no offense to public waste disposal employees by this comment, only to imply that you hold an entrance position in the way of public offices and if you perform your duties responsibly, you are superior to the man I have the misfortune to describe in this paragraph.) Be under no illusions. This whole affair is a ridiculous travesty and a miscarriage of Justice, and James Comey, the perfidious snake, has severely and irreparably shattered the public trust. He is not a hero. He is a villain in some ways worse than Clinton herself. For while she attempted to veil with lies and secrecy her malfeasance, knowing full well the punishment that should rightly fall upon her if her misdeeds came to light, Comey lies directly to the national face, making false reference to requirements of law that do not exist. And the only veil he requires is sheer public ignorance and apathy against learning the truth of the matter.

Once people lose their Faith in God, be sure their Faith in any kind of Justice will be quick to die alongside it. That is my diagnosis for what we have seen this past week.

If you too hear such rubbish from a friend, be sure to send them to read this article. If they are voting for Mrs. Clinton, however, for Charity’s sake I probably wouldn’t bother:

Argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are some people whom one cannot instruct. -Aristotle, Rhetoric

New Study Declares There are Only Six Story Plots

 find this study to be very interesting, especially when one considers it in terms of the Bible. In Genesis, for example, we can definitely see the Fal-Rise-Fall theme, with most of the stories alternating between good and bad.

The six plots are:

"Fall-rise-fall: 'Oedipus Rex', 'The Wonder Book of Bible Stories', 'A Hero of Our Time' and 'The Serpent River'.

Rise-fall: 'Stories from Hans Andersen', 'The Rome Express', 'How to Read Human Nature' and 'The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali'.

Fall-rise: 'The Magic of Oz', 'Teddy Bears', 'The Autobiography of St. Ignatius' and 'Typhoon'.

Steady fall: 'Romeo and Juliet', 'The House of the Vampire', 'Savrola' and 'The Dance'.

Steady rise: 'Alice's Adventures Underground', 'Dream', 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' and 'The Human Comedy'.

Rise-fall-rise: 'Cinderella', 'A Christmas Carol', 'Sophist' and 'The Consolation of Philosophy'. 

The most popular stories have been found to follow the 'fall-rise-fall' and 'rise-fall' arcs."

We may have to examine this more closely in terms of the Genesis stories.

Genesis 20

aaaaand he did it again. Just like Abraham said Sarah was his sister back in chapter 12 when he was Egypt (but failed to mention the little detail of Sarah being his wife!), Abraham did the same thing now that he was living in Gerar. Would Abimelech have killed Abraham had he not dissimulated and pretended he was not her husband? Perhaps.

For though Abimelech acted "in the integrity of his heart" as confirmed by God himself in the chapter when he took Sarah, there is no telling what evil might have entered his heart had he beheld Sarah and not known she was protected by the Almighty God. Furthermore, what kind of culture allows a man to just take a woman without asking permission. Nowhere do we hear that Abraham was asked for Sarah, merely that she was taken.

Thus, although God deigns to "talk baby talk" with his chosen beloved whom like a father he teaches and disciplines by accommodating himself to the cultures of the people he interacts with, yet this accommodation is never contrary to his divine nature. He does not hesitate to kill Abimelech dead even though Abimelech might be acting in accordance with his conscience in taking Sarah.

So we should never assume, as some do, that God will always show mercy because we were doing the best we knew. Such is not always the case, and cannot be taken for granted. God is all just, but justice is not always nice. The best policy is to do the very best you can to abide by the law of God, and so protect yourself and those you love as best as you can.

I find it interesting that God never rebukes Abraham for lying to the Pharaoh or to Abimelech. Maybe they would have killed him indeed had they known he (and not God) was standing between them and his beautiful wife. The text is ambiguous on this point. What is not ambiguous is that "God hates lying lips." and the command to "Let your yes be yes, and your no be no."

Abraham may have been permitted to lie, to practice polygamy and even (as we will see) to prepare to give a human sacrifice, without receiving God's rebuke. But Christians are given a higher standard. To whom much is given, much is expected. Abraham's struggles, coming out of paganism and into the worship of the true God should inspire us, but we should never limit ourselves to his standard, or the standard of any of the Old Testament Patriarchs and Prophets, of whom we learn in this chapter, Abraham is both.

Genesis 19

in is contagious. That is the theme of this chapter. "They gave up natural relations with women for unnatural. So God gave them up to a reprobate mind." So St. Paul tells us in the first chapter of Romans. Imagine an entire city of homosexual men, whose practice allowed them to violate their guests in such a manner and to abuse them.

There is no evidence whatsoever that homosexuality is anything other than a mental illness, a sexual perversion and to the extent it is carried out, a learned behavior. There is no scientific evidence for a "Gay Gene" although some men are obviously more masculine than others, with higher T-counts that appear to have a genetic as well as an environmental basis. Most homosexuals I have known had either poor or no relationships with their fathers, and this alienation leads them to seek the most far-out and perverse sexual expressions which women will scarcely agree to perform, forcing many to turn to men. Even today the health cost of being a homosexual is enormous. HIV is extremely difficult to contract for a heterosexual male who only has relations with women. So low in fact that the CDC frequently neglects the heterosexual male rate of infection in its HIV statistics.

MSM are Men who have "Sex" with Men,
while IDUs are Illicit Intravenous Drug Users.
Notice what class of persons are
entirely missing from this CDC chart?

Thus, the spread of HIV requires the spread of homosexuality, and if there were no homosexuals, there would be no HIV within a single generation. Anal sex is anatomically dangerous, since the anus is much more fragile than the vaginal or penile structures and rupture of the anus and sigmoid colon can lead to life-threatening infections of normally harmless bacteria from stool. But those who have abandoned God likewise abandon the correct use of their genitals to propagate the species.

At the end of the chapter, we can see that living in a town of such sexual immorality has taken its toll on Lot's daughters as well. They do not shirk from "giving up natural relations" themselves, by impregnating themselves by their father. Where did they learn such evil? They learned it, and a lack of reverence for the sex act, from their neighbors living in Sodom, and so evil was begotten, the future enemies of the Israelites, the Moabites and the Ammonites.

Sin is contagious. It is often a learned behavior, but at the same time, Original Sin makes our hearts and minds fertile for this actual sin. We are prone to sin, but the specific sins we fall to, in this case, sex, tend to be learned from our friends and acquaintances.

Genesis 18

ome say that the appearance of the three men is a manifestation of the Trinity in Genesis 18. However, this seems difficult to justify, given that later in the chapter, "the men" move on to observe Sodom and Gomorrah, while "The Lord" remains with Abraham. Still, if not the literal interpretation of the three men, seeing these as symbolic of the Trinity is a perfectly acceptable mystical interpretation of the text.

Once again, the son of promise Isaac is foretold, but Sarah is still doubting. Once again God puts up with the laughing and mockery of both Abraham and Sarah, because they do not yet know the character and the power of God. God is gradually revealing his power and nature to man first through Abraham, and later to Israel, with the final Revelation being His Son in Jesus Christ.

Would God have spared Sodom if Abraham had continued to plead with him down to one man (Lot)? I have heard homilies that claim God would have shown mercy had Abraham gone further. Regardless, it seems Abraham should have continued trying God, indeed struggling with God as his descendant Jacob will do, actually wrestling with God. God wants us to struggle with him in prayer, to ask for those things we most desire, because it is in asking God for His blessings that we truly humble ourselves and realize our insufficiency.