Quote of the day

Come, ye dead, Christless, unconverted sinner, come and see the place where they laid the body of the deceased Lazarus; behold him laid out, bound hand and foot with graveclothes, locked up and stinking in a dark cave, with a great stone placed on top of it. View him again and again; go nearer to him; be not afraid; smell him, Ah! how he stinketh. Stop there now, pause a while; and whilst thou art gazing upon the corpse of Lazarus, give me leave to tell thee with great plainness, but greater love, that this dead, bound, entombed, stinking carcase, is but a faint representation of thy poor soul in it natural state;...thy spirit which thou bearest about with thee, sepulchered in flesh and blood, is literally dead to God, and as truly dead in trespasses and sins, as the body of Lazarus was in the cave. Was he bound hand and foot with graveclothes? So art thou bound hand and foot with thy corruptions; and as a stone was laid on the sepulchre, so there is a stone of unbelief upon thy stupid heart. Perhaps thou has lain in this estate, not only four days, but many years, stinking in God’s nostrils. And, what is still more effecting, thou art as unable to raise thyself out of this loathsome, dead state, to a life of righteousness and true holiness, as ever Lazarus was to raise himself from the cave in which he lay so long. Thou mayest try the power of thy boasted free will, and the force and energy of moral persuasion and rational arguments (which, without doubt, have their proper place in religion); but all thy efforts, exerted with never so much vigor, will prove quite fruitless and abortive, till that same Jesus, who said ‘take away the stone” and cried “Lazarus, come forth,” also quicken you. This is grace, graciously offered, and grace graciously applied. Or as the Confession originally puts it, “grace offered and conveyed." ~George Whitefield


Law and Order

Is the world we live in one of chaos or oder? A cursory glance of the world around us would certainly point to the conclusion that it is one of order. What I mean by order would be better defined by uniformity, consistency, and predictability. In short does this world and universe function in a way that we can know how it will function in the next moment. Will the sun come up in the east? Will water always run downhill? There are laws that govern and determine the way the world works. These laws are knowable and testable. This realm of inquiry is known as natural law. This is were one branch of science comes into play; it is an endeavor to know and understand the way the world works. It is a descriptive enterprise, it describes for us how things work. So a ordered universe would be necessary for any scientific endeavor because if the way things worked changed; a description would be impossible. Now I'm not arguing that things don't change, they most certainly do. What I'm saying is that their are laws which govern our world that don't change. Water runs downhill in China, just like it does in the USA. These laws apply to all people, in all places, at all times. It is what we call natural law or the way things work. Now any reasonable person wouldn't disagree with this because it is easily verifiable. Natural law is very important to know because it ensures our survival. For example; ignorance of the law of gravity can be very costly. Now I have given this subject a very brief overview, their certainly is a lot more that could be said about natural law. My point of this brief look at natural law is to make an observation. When it comes to natural law, there is no disagreement as to it existence, nor would any reasonable person argue that these laws are the product of the human mind or culture. Natural law is independent of the human experience. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it still makes a noise. It might even be said that these laws are forced upon us and inescapable. We have to order our lives around them and yes we have learned to override certain laws with others. Aerodynamics can override gravity. But we are still governed by them. In this realm of natural law we have no trouble making judgments and saying this is true and that is false. We can do research and say this theory is right and that one is wrong. We do this all the time and often times without thinking, in fact we would be dead if we didn't. In the physical realm; to make judgments, to speak of right and wrong and claim true or false is common language that no reasonable person disagrees with. But something funny and inconsistent happens when we shift into the realm of metaphysics. All of sudden everything goes out the window. I think this has to do with the shift in focus, we are no longer talking about out there, but in there. We are talking about ourselves. It gets personal. For example take the works of Aristotle and Plato on logic; were they describing something that existed independent of themselves or were they defining something they made up? Is it a law that describes the metaphysical world and the way it works? The rub comes because these laws are inescapable and they govern the way we work, they are imposed on us. Some would like to throw out these laws when they bump up against them or it contradicts a treasured view of theirs. The way I see it is that metaphysical laws can be a little deceptive, we can break them without any apparent consequence, or can we? So we tend to think they are optional or even non existent. Some might even think they are in flux, always changing and evolving. In a sense we can ignore them when we want and use them when we want. Natural law is a lot more rigid, break one and pay immediately. Stand in front of a speeding semi and deny the law of inertia. You can't deny natural law you have to order your life in light of it. It is really hard to see natural law as optional, in flux or even non existent. In my next post I will explore this a little further. So my closing question for today is; why do you think we acknowledge natural law and dismiss metaphysical laws?