In light of the Christmas Spirit...

i want to ask a question.

What if Jesus of Nazareth was a stillborn? Lost children might be the worst tragedy i've ever thought about. In Lord of the Rings, there's a quote along the lines of "No father should ever burry his son." After reading this, i brought it up in casual conversation with my Dad... i had never realized that my mother miscarried before i was born. in this simple conversation my dad was able to express great loss, and amazing strength. my dad does not communicate in emotion, but he was able to, logically, cooly, explain how much children matter to their parents... i have no idea how a woman could feel... i don't even know how a man can leave his children and allow them to be raised solely by their mother/grandparents/whomever... but this... this isn't a man's choice... sadly, bad things happen. so, in light of this christmas, i pray for all of those couples who've lost a child, and also for those couples who've chosen to give up a child, either by forced means or by adoption or whatever, may God be with them and help them in their lives.

Secondly, marriage, i have heard of people breaking up because of a lost child or infertility... imagine in the 1st century how Mary must have felt... a young woman, not even married yet, giving birth to a child... i find this to be astounding... how do women do it?! (other than the obvious)... it has been demonstrated to be that pregnancy, marriage, physical maturity, even caring for the needs of a child is not enough to be a parent... real parents do so much more... there's those who have been abandoned by those they're married to... i know a certain woman who takes care of men who will not get divorces, but are rejected by their wives... they simply belittle them and push them away... i find this type of ministry to be amazing, and, in light of the Christmas Spirit, i pray for all of the couples out there... all of those who've been rejected by loved ones, either deserving or not, and may God be with them in his fullness.

Lastly, if the historical Jesus was never born, then many of the teachings he shared would have died as well... the amazing movement in culture, theology and philosophy that he put forth changed the face of history... the roman empire fell to christianity... western europe was forever changed... if Jesus was never born, all of the ministries of the church would never have happened... but, the bad things done in his name never would have been either... but, i offer this rebuttal... the evil done in the name of God is the evil born within mankind's hearts... evil men will always use whatever powers they can to commit their evils, meanwhile, it is very rare that an idea or teaching can produce so much good as those who followed this man from Israel... so, right now, in my final prayer for this post, but hopefully not the last time that i ask for God's blessing upon those in this fallen existence... God, please be with those who do good in your name, may they never grow weary and may they rest in the good that comes from your nature and teachings...

amen. Merry Christmas to all, and to all, Goodnight.

curiosity drives me... cum barba...

so... one thing that really defines my personality is that i'm curious... i really like learning things, getting inside it and figuring out how it ticks... i'm pretty sure that's why i can talk to anyone... it might not be anything substantial, but i can talk to them. my teachers in elementary school used to have to make me sit alone in class, which never really worked because i would often talk to myself...

so i love facts and things of this sort... if you ever watch TV there's a jack daniel's commercial that tells the story of the No. 7 on the bottle, well.. it doesn't really... it actually talks about how no one knows what it's really for, the problem with this commercial is it is ineffective, i don't want to drink, i want to resurrect Jack Daniels and ask him, be like, "BRO, u gotta tell me, i'll never tell anyone, ever, honest." and then bludgeon him until i get the information i want.

you can watch that commercial here.

the thing is this, i love facts, tid-bits and ideas... i think in pictures and graphs and lines and colours, sometimes i outline my thoughts before i speak, other times, they outline seems to pop into place while i'm talking, it's amazing... but people say "curiosity killed the cat" and i've always wondered, "why? why do cats die from curiosity? do they eat things they shouldn't? do they get into places they shouldn't? why cats?" then i get on google and find out that it was originally written in the play Every Man in His Humor by Ben Johnson (i actually just looked that up) and that Shakespeare also says something similar to it... but the thing i this... people should be more curious, why are things the way they are? what makes something work? is there anything i can do to make the world a better place?

the answer to that third one is simple. yes. i'm not going to give you some generic answer, but listen here, everyone can make the world a phenomenal place, they just have to be curious as to how... now go explore, do something, be someone to another individual and remember, even if curiosity killed the cat, the cat died happy.

Q source, who source?

there's this idea that some New Testament text critics have that goes like this:
The four gospels are so similar that they had to have written from an earlier manuscript that we don't have. they call this source q-source. The idea is that it's a list of the sayings of Jesus so that it could be distributed around to the new church of Jerusalem and then the gospel writers took it and made the stories that we have today from that list...

i find this to be a load of crap, sure you can believe it, but i don't think it has any clout whatsoever. first off, there's no document or reference to a document for these sources, second, they're jewish, in the first century jewish culture stories and tales are not only how to you instruct your children (and disciples) but they're also how you relate the scriptures and the practices of the faithful. there's reasons the old testament talks directly about leaving markers in order to tell the story to their children.

so there you have it, two solid reasons, BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!! the greek used in the four gospels is so dramatically different that i don't believe they could have borrowed the sayings of Jesus from one source, and secondly, there's places where the sayings show discrepancies, now, i'm not saying that Jesus didn't actually say those things, but i am saying that he taught the same lessons so often when he went places that it would be easy to quote him from different teachings... also, Jesus was a Jew (if you disagree with this, go read a book) and in being a Jew he taught in the traditional rabbinic way - telling stories with meanings, these stories are often called parables... either way, it's simply amazing!

a brief note on fonts...

...because fonts are important.


a good font has a few requirements:
first off, it should be elegant, but not noticeable, the characters should help your eyes flow one into the next... a few fonts i really like are the standards: Times, Arial, Arial Narrow Bold, Cochin and Euphemia UCAS (but only when used with smaller fonts, otherwise it's overbearing)

one of the ones i hate the most though (no, i'm not a ComicSans hater) is calibri, why in the love of all that is intellectual and easy to read would the new MS Word DEFAULT to calibri?!?!

also, sometimes, i'll pick up a book at the library, completely written in point 8 size with this terrible out-dated font that is next to impossible to read... after a page or three you're ready to burn the book and accept the fine from the library!!! the closest thing i can find to it online is called JSL Ancient. not a terrible font, but in 8 point and for 3 hours of research... it gets bad. so, if you have a favorite font or a most hated font (other than ComicSans, u're not allowed to complain about that one on here) just post a comment!!!

oh, and i found a really great blog here!

so there you have it, with the aid of that blog, and whatever ideas i might have implanted in that wonderful brain of yours, you might be able to become a bit more picky on your fonts :D

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and The Cost of Discipleship

ok, i picked this book up becuase i've already read about half of it from hand-outs in my ethics class... the there's an issue, the forward, memoirs and intro combine into a huge unit... the memoirs are written by a friend of Bonhoeffer's because this man never reached a ripe old age, he was put to death in Germany by the Nazis at 39 years old. he was killed, without trial, for 2 things: potting to assassinate Adolf Hitler and for teaching things that were contrary to the Nazi Regime's 'Church'...

i'm thoroughly loving this book, but there's one thing wrong: the forwards and intro and such are too long, they begin to get into Bonhoeffer's ideas before the compilation in the book is offered, but you can't get into Bonhoeffer's ideas without understanding why he's writing and the desperate state of Germany, German Christians, and the underground Lutherans that Bonhoeffer was a part of.

One of the ideas central to Bonhoeffer is the church as a community... some people would interpret this as "the church as a social institution" but that's not quite what he means... he means Christians, living together, doing things in Christ-like ways, in order to better the world, and these people work with each other, they seek forgiveness from one another and they offer grace, not excuses, to those around them, in order that the Body of Christ might look more like the historical Jesus and his teachings.

neat concept, huh? i'll rather enjoy this book this break.

and now for something exciting

every once in a while, something amazing happens, but u might be the only one to realize how amazing it is.

ok, shortly after i started this crazy blog, i added Google Analytics. pretty much what it does is it tracks who looks at ero cogniteram sub arbore... it's kind of like a, 'i like to watch who's watching me' javascript, but less creepy (honest, a bunch less creepies). well, as i was compulsively checking my analytics account, i realized something, not only have i been getting hits in the US from states where i have advertised (to friends, mostly... [VA, TN, GA, etc]) but i'm also getting hits from places i haven't advertised (CA, NY...) but i got one from TX (i know who u are, and thanks bro)... but then i started to realized, there's about 8 hits not recorded within the US... so i began to ponder

and ponder

and ponder... then EURIKA!!! there's going to be a few from the islands (Far Eastern ones... thank you, btw, u're great)... so i looked those up and realized there's still a discrepancy... there's this one hit still floating around, wanting to be found by the oh so excited me!!! and there she is (the blog hit, not the viewer, i have no idea of the gender of said viewer), from across the pond, London, England, the place, u know, double decker buses, awesome accents, Big Ben, a real, live, Queen... someone had viewed my blog. quite amazing, so, mostly this post was to brag and to gloat, but it's something really small that most people might think isn't as significant as i have made it out to be, but, i would like for them to know one thing

so what. i am happy :D

and now for a manly post

(advertiser's voice): Do you get cold on a winter's day?! Do you wonder how Daniel keeps up that stylish summer appearance all year round?! GREAT! He's prepared to tell you the secret to his success for only 15 easy payments of 19,99.99!

(normal voice): ok, seriously, i promised manliness, here's manliness... how to not get cold...

when u go outside, dress however you want, but remember a few key things: the first is the most important, it's a simple question of preparation that leads to a reformed state of mind: "Am I going to die if I leave like this?" if you ask this question when leaving your house and u realize that, "Yes, I might die..." put on more clothes or get a glock... but if your answer to this very simple question is "No, that would be absurd..." then you will be fine, maybe cold for a little while, but fine, now, this is the hard one, if the answer is "Well, probably not..." you need to think about how long you will be outside and whether or not you could find a way to generate body heat in an emergency... if you realize that, yes, i can survive, then u're fine, but if u question your abilities, grab a sweater.

so, that's rule one, 'Are you going to die?' rule two is much more difficult. when walking, do things to conserve heat and generate more usable heat... how this tends to look is: you don't shiver (mostly, shivering is useless... your jaw shaking does very little to actually warm u up), second, tuck them elbows in... leaving this huge gap between your arms and body just lets the blood in them get cold... hands in pockets help too :) and thirdly... keep your back or side to the wind, it really helps, i'm not sure why...

and finally, suck it up, u're a man, aren't u?!?!? your body will start to get more used to the cold and u'll actually get much better at not being cold :)

now, go, enjoy, and take off that coat!

Cleveland Sunshine

ok, i figured this would be a really easy post until i realized it only makes sense to me... so, in cleveland, TN, where i often stay... it rains a lot... i mean, very often, sometimes quite a bit of rain, but most of the time it drizzles until u just get sick of it...

well... u know how when it's sunny u can feel it but not feel it? like, the sun is warming me, and when i step into shade, my skin is still a lot warmer than if it was in darkness... it's the type of sunshine that sticks to your skin and clothes and what not? well, i was thinking about that type of sunshine one day while walking across campus in drizzle-y nasty weather... and i realized... this drizzle is cleveland sunshine... it's what normally happens, it's only cold on your skin and it's more annoying than anything else.

so, i often refer to drizzle as cleveland sunshine, but, because i think of it like that so often... i started thinking about rainy days as 'sunny' days... i feel like it might be why i'm so happy in cleveland, even when it's 'sunny' for weeks on end... *ponders psychology*

oh, and yeah, i failed on the whole, 'more manly' post... i'll try again soon. *punches wall, eats bacon and shouts loudly* HA!

honor

last night, as i lie awake in bed, early, cause i ended up driving 13 hrs today, i starting thinking through books i've read...

well, in one of them, called The Edge on the Sword, a story is related that really inspires me... first off, there's a girl in this story, she's pretty cool, but there's a person who's far cooler, he's a man sent to protect her by her king father... this man, i've forgotten his name, but his story is roughly still implanted in my head:

well, he wears these pieces of rough, plain metal around his neck and wrists, and once the main character figures out that they're slave irons, she freaks out... she's pissed, she goes to her dad and demands an answer, and this is how he explains it (according to my memory, go read the book)... this man was once a soldier, lead a company of men... well, his land was attacked by the Danes (Saxons? someone in england...) and they were surrounded... they had captured the town, but not the last fortified area... this is where the man was fighting, slowly, they picked off his men, or his men deserted, etc... because they were pansies... so they bring this man's wife to him and explain that she's been captured and is a slave, and if he just gives up, they both can have their freedom, but he refuses, he swore an oath to protect his king, so he fights... weeks and months go by and, finally, to get this man to just give up, they bring his king, in shackles, to him to explain that, truly, the land has been lost... and in punishment for him not just giving up earlier, they kill his wife and kids in front of him, make him a slave, and send him so far into the country that he can never escape, and that's where the main character's dad, the king, rescues him from, by buying him from slavery and making him a tutor and protector of his daughter... so, later, this girl asks her protector why he wears the irons still... and he explains that his wife and children will always be free in death, but he will always be bound to his honor, the one thing he can never give up and still call himself a man... he says he's going to do something, he does it...

awesome guy, i really like him... go read the book, it's kind of a girly tween book, but the writer of it did some serious historical research and it's really good, honest...

(the next post definitely needs to be more manly than referencing The Edge on the Sword...)

so i opened this box and hoped to be able to quickly write a blog post... but as i sit here, so many ideas are being muffled out by a lack of ideas... i start something, write a line, then get distracted...

so, as i think about my conversations over the past few days, and i look around my house, i think about one of the peculiarities of the english language - we/our/us

simple huh? first person plural... the problem is this, english, and most western languages actually, don't have a way to specify we inclusive from we exclusive, sometimes, i will be talking and i will say something like 'we're going to go eat' and i mean, the group of people i'm with, myself and the person to whom i'm talking to... other times, i will say something and mean to exclude someone 'we're just stupid i guess' and, sometimes, i don't mean to include my audience...

so, because of this ambiguity, i'm often tempted to write some sort of poem or prose that could easily be interpreted several ways, based on first person inclusives and exclusives, but what keeps frustrating me is that there's no way to clue an english speaker in to thinking like this. they simply assume that if they want to be included, we is inclusive, and if they want to be excluded, we is exclusive... so... next time you hear the first person plural being utilized, think about whether or not it is inclusive or exclusive and chuckle, for you are no longer thinking in the same manner that a native english speaker is.

on behalf of Christianity

i find that there's a fundamental problem in the organization of the 'church'... especially in america. the organizational strategy of most churches is the monarchical episcopate, which is really fancy for, one guy leads the local congregation. this give way for people to be... people. when one person is in charge, they often see themselves as the boss. this leads to pride, power struggles and overall elitism combined with power plays so... in my shortest post so far i would like to openly say:

if you've ever been wronged by 'the church' or 'church people', i'm sorry, please forgive us, as a community, we are often ignorant and don't treat people as people, but some object in which to 'evangelize' which is a fundamentally flawed thought within 'the church', os, on behalf of Jesus-followers. sorry.

movies and reviews

for those of you who know me, i really enjoy movies... i'm not some sort of avid fanatic, but i watch a lot of movies and rather enjoy them. the thing about this is this: i don't really enjoy movie reviews. every once in a while, i'll finish an amazing movie and think, i ought to let people know about this, but then i realize:

it's really presumptuous to assume that someone might like the same movies i do... some movies that other really like, i find simply ok (*cough* dark night *cough*) or i'll find some random, semi-cult classic that i love, that few people have heard of (*cough* flakes, staring ZD *cough*)... but to tell you that you 'should' or 'ought' or 'need to' see such and such a movie is kind of ridiculous, so i will try to not write movie reviews on here, mostly because there's not a lot i can say that u haven't already heard about a movie, even if it's not the common opinion...

but... there's one more thing. when u watch a movie, u should keep in mind that simply what you see is only about a third of the experience, the music, lighting, camera angle, editing, transitions, pauses, backgrounds... all of that stuff... that's the great stuff... some movies will always simply be amazing because u see a man, a dwarf and an elf jogging across the landscape of new zealand from a helicopter shot while epic orchestral music plays, it's simply stunning, maybe even one of the best transitions i've ever seen... i could watch that part right now and be like 'wow, even though this has been spoofed so many times... it's simply amazing, stunning, magnifique!!!'

so yeah, watch the whole movie, not just a few characters doing some stuff or talking about some stuff... u'll miss some of the most amazing things

oh, and, if you find yourself watching an old black and white horror movie from circa 1930... if a character's face is half covered in shadow, they're going to die, it's simply amazing, so, if u are ever having a conversation with me, and your face is gently obscured by a shadow, i might assume u will die soon, don't worry, i've probably just been pavlov-trained...

konichiwa ruby!

translation: greetings ruby! (this translation provided by a non-japanese speaking individual)

ruby is a programming language from our friends across the pond. no, not those friends... those either... getting warmer, but i'm not sure if russia is our friends... yes, u've guessed it! japan!

yeah, i know, "JAPAN MADE SOFTWARE?!?!?" and yes, yes they did. i've actually been beginning to learn it. it's called ruby, it's a very simple programming language that works off of definitions and group sets combined with functions and actions... it's wonderful.

but you might be wondering... 'bro, u're a theology major, what are you doing learning ruby?' well, good friend, for a few reasons... first, i'm curious, i want to know how to make my computer do more than simply what i can download (even though that is almost everything i want it to do), second, it might be fun. i like languages, why not ruby? third, i'm a nerd, i like nerdy things, and computer programming brings out the curious in me, and fourth, jon and i were talking about making a program (similar to SmarterChild on AIM or ALICE) that we can communicate with, but beyond the capabilities of these two, very simple, programs, one that as we use words, it checks them against a dictionary database and adds them, one that we can program to go on google or our school databases to do research for us, and, (this one will blow you away) one that we can 'teach' new algorithms to while simply talking with it. This would give us the ability to teach it how to access programs on our computer, utilize them as quickly as possible, then show us the results. imagine integrating that with a speech to text program!!! it would be amazing! "computer, open my e-mail" "{yes, sire... three new messages, one from **** one from [your college], one from facebook}" "good job computer, delete the facebook e-mail and read me the email from [my college]" and then it would do so. it would be amazing, i could pace around my room talking with my computer while it does work for me ::muhahahahahahaha::

well, *cough*, so i'm learning ruby and soon i will be learning python :D

lists

i'm a list maker... on the desktop of my laptop, at the time of writing, are 4 lists. only 4. that's not a lot, but if you started to dig through my files, you would realize i have FILES of collections of things, one is a pseudo-list of poems that i really like and are semi-well known...

but the point of this post is that i have this text file of blog ideas... only blog ideas... it has about 25-30 on it, and i keep opening it up when i decide to do a blog post, and i have no idea which to choose... a few are still being planned out, others are going to be join efforts with Matt, and a few will be brought up with Greg... but overall i just get this semi-writers block when i open that file, i love adding to it, and i do throughout the day, (actually, when i reached this spot, i went and added a few ideas)... so, i have this list, and i ought to never be short on posts, but i still happen to be low.

the thing is this: i don't want my blog to be predictable or repetitious. a lot of my ideas are about me, or theology, or christianity in general... or there's a group of them, for instance: my last post is the first in a many installment of coffee-related posts that might be popping up more often during the winter (i bought eggnog, btw, so i'll prolly make an eggnog latte after this)... but yeah, some of these ideas seem to all have the same idea, whereas i would rather have a variety for these posts to keep you, the reader, interested.

latte, cappuchino or a cuppa foam?

ok, one of the beefs that jon and i have with the terms latte and cappuchino is very few people understand the purpose of these drinks...

latte - milk, steamed to a boil, placed into a cup, then espresso is added
cappuchino - a latte with a thin layer of foam (we'll discuss that in a moment)
cup of foam - fluff that people sell calling it a cappuchino

the foam at the top of the cup is to preserve the wonderful temperature of the incredibly hot milk and espresso, otherwise, it begins to cool and the flavor changes from a wonderful aromatic to a bitter ulcer-causing mess... this is for people who cannot quickly drink near boiling beverages, or would rather sit and converse while drinking said beverage... the cup of foam, though neat in novelty, is no where near as amazing as a good latte or cappuchino... the cup of foam serves one purpose - to sell you an expensive drink for much less overhead - you get a few shots of espresso with a thimbleful of milk foamed into air for novelty. if making one of these at home, the only redeemable property is one can mix in a sweetener (sugar, honey, flavored syrup) to go along with espresso, but you're still simply insulating espresso.

now the latte... the latte is amazing. it's espresso, but mixed with a liquid that is, or ought to be, hotter than the espresso itself, so you get all of the rich espresso flavor without having to shoot it like some sort of alcohol before it cools... the thing is most baristas make lattes en masse and do not allow for them to heat to a boil, but simply to 155 fahrenheit... this is sad, especially when somewhere closer to 215 is preferred, depending on the milk and things of that sort, a boil or near boil is proper. most baristas are under a binding legal thingamabob saying that they cannot serve lattes at the proper temperature, but, most are kind enough to warm them to a better temperature for you if asked.

so there you have it, and now you know.

PS: eggnog creates a great latte, but a better cappuchino, it foams well enough to get a healthy enough layer of foam for a good conversation, but you MUST add cinnamon to the top, then you have christmas in a cup, also, if you contemplate adding nutmeg to a cup of foam or a cappuchino, be warned, nutmeg eats foam, but cinnamon sits nice and pretty.

cum barba :)

alright, here goes: another unplanned update.

i have 2 issues of housekeeping before my post:

1) i don't really have a post-schedule, i'm just going to do it when i have time, i have a goal, but no set requirement, cause if i set a requirement, it would be really really taxing on my schedule and if i messed up i would feel like i was failing at something (i'm very success-oriented for a type-B person... strange.) the other reason is because i don't really wanna be like Matt Smith, who often either forgets to post 5 days/week or squeeks 2 in on 1 day through computer magic.

2) i'll be posting lots of Christian things on here, not everyone who's been invited to this whole blog thingy are Christians, i don't expect you to be, my goal isn't to offend or to convert you, but, if u know me, u know i am willing to answer any questions u might have. i have a few post ideas floating around about why i'm a christian, stuff like that, not interested? don't read them. have a critique? post it in a comment, i'll try to rebut it.. to me, logical arguments are not a sign of conflict, but seeking understanding, so i welcome it. but a lot of the things in this blog will be christian theology oriented.

ok, housekeeping aside, lets get started.

latin has a few ways to write 'with'. one of them is for a noun to take the ablative case. this case is used quite a bit, but doesn't exist in many foreign languages, or english for that matter. ablative usually denotes location, manner or time, stuff like that. so, if i wanted to say, Maria runs away by means of the field, i would simply say: Maria fugit agro. this can also be rendered Maria runs away with the field or through the field. but, if we were to say Maria runs away with (not by means of) Marcus, then it would be Maria fugit cum Marcum.

now, cognito cum barba... i think with a beard. this does not mean that a beard is the manner in which i think, but that i think along with a beard. i chose this as my blog 'pen' name because the growth on my... neck? has become quite the infamous being around campus. i say being because... it's sentient. so, when i write, i think, and while thinking, there's a beard here, and he's also thinking... so... i think with a beard.

now that u're probably really creeped out, i want to explain one more thing. the beard is evil. we're not sure why, but he is... he's scared small children so young that they still could not form words... he moves on his own sometimes (just ask Greg... or anyone else who's been around it), oh, and don't be afraid of it, but, then again, don't anger it, i'm not sure what it's capable of...

So, ero congiteram sub arbore cum barba... i will have had had though under a tree with a beard? that ought to be rephrased.... ero cogniteram cum barba sub arbore.... i will have had had thought with a beard under a tree. much better.

wow. this post is strange.

The Joys of Greek

mostly, i've hated greek from the start. the only thing worth while in that language is the new testament... latin have i loved, greek have i hated.

but wait, something's changed - now, when i pick up my greek new testament, things make sense. those phrases and parsings and fun things like that... HAVE MEANING! it's amazing! i still love latin more than greek, and german will always be my favorite spoken language (no matter how rusty i get), but greek's value is quickly increasing!

there's a few drawbacks though... my greek teacher this year doesn't teach us anything we couldn't read in the textbook. he can't explain things well and he's often making mistakes in translating and having to back up to correct himself... for someone i'm paying almost $35/class to teach me... he makes me really doubt him.

then there's why my post is going to be so short - there's this exegesis paper where he wants you to repeat back to him pretty much what he's taught in class, except there's one thing... it's 10-12 pages long, requires a minimum of 12 sources and deals with incredibly obscure topics...

open letter to professors who teach religion, bible, discipleship, whatever else in that pattern of instruction: if you want to teach from a christian perspective - make sure that whatever you assign can be applied, either in orthodoxy or orthopraxy... otherwise, u're irrelevant and wasting our time and money.

well all, with that, i'm going to use a phrase from 1st John that i really liked:
και πας ο εχων την ελπιδα ταυτην επ αυτω αγνιζει εαυτον καθως εκεινος αγνος εστιν.
and all those who have/hold this hope in him purify themselves just as he (the one who we hope in) is pure.

The Most Misunderstood and Poorly Taught Christian Theological Idea

I'm talking about the Trinity. This is the one point where I hear people discussing from a fundamentally flawed idea because of ignorance. Here it is, as I have been taught, and its justification in Church history:

The Christian Doctrine of the Trinity states that God is a unified, but essentially differentiated being that has three distinct persons that cannot be separated, that work from the same divine power, are equal in their being and have eternally mutually existed. This doctrine has grown out of experiential and theological understandings of who God is and how he has worked in the world as characterized in the Bible. The Bible never specifically uses the word trinity, but implicitly and indirectly supports this doctrine. This doctrine is vital to a Christian understanding of who God is as a being and how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can all be God in a monotheistic understanding of God.

Some people, before the time of Irenaeus (a Christian Apologist and Theologian c180 AD), believed in a strict, monotheistic deity that had one personality. Irenaeus wrote against these people using a metaphor that is known as the Two Hands of God Model. He talked about how every time we see, in Scripture, God working in the world - he is working by his divine Word and divine Wisdom. He related these to a person's two hands. Each works on behalf of the person, but in practice is different than the other, but they are all unified. Christians understand the Word to be the pre-incarnate Son and God's wisdom as being the Holy Spirit. He argued that God was always the one working, but that he also worked in parts and that he had differentiation in himself.

The problem with this analogy was that some people (the Sebellians) misinterpreted this to mean that there is one God with one Person and three different roles that he took on. Tertullian corrected this error by creating the Tri-Unity (or Trinity) Theory. Tertullian argued that God was not only differentiated, but essentially differentiated. That God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were essentially different in their purposes and functions, but could coexist at the same time towards the same people. Where the Sebellians understood God to function as only one role to each group of people.

As this theology was, in turn, misinterpreted, a group called the Modalists arose believing that God changed forms or beings as time progressed. The Father became the Son in the incarnation, and the Son became the Holy Spirit after the Ascension. This is fundamentally flawed when we look at the times in Scripture where all three personages of God are present in a situation simultaneously (I.e.: Jesus' Baptism in water). The modalists believed that once God had changed modes, he would no longer exist as the prior mode and would not return to it. Origen argued against this view of God with the Eternal Generation Theory. That God, in his divine nature, cannot exist alone and that at the beginning of eternity, the Father had to coexist with the Son so that the character and nature of God, exemplified in love, could always exist. Thus, the Father, from himself generated something of the same substance and form (not created, which would imply lesser form), which was, by nature, the Son. From this we understand that God has always been and is eternal by nature, thus there is no time that God existed without the Son or the Father.

Sadly, a group known as the Arians misinterpreted generation to be creation and developed a perspectival theology that put the Son not as a pre-existent being, but the first in creation. They believed that from our perspective, the Son looks like God, but from the Father's perspective, the Son is the highest of all creation. Athanasius argued against this theology by establishing the equal, eternal, essentially differentiated theory of God through the Homoousial Theology. Homoousios means that each personage of the Trinity is of the same substance. The Father is everything it means to be God, the Son is everything it means to be God and the Holy Spirit is everything it means to be God. The only stipulation of this idea is that the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, the Father is not the Spirit or the Son, and the Spirit is not the Father or the Son. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not ranked or of unequal power or position, all of them are equally God.

From this, people went to an extreme and argued that God was not monotheistic, but tritheistic. They believed three Gods worked according to a unified will. Gregory of Nyssa argued against this saying that God is one, and they are all working according to Common Operations: all three personages of the trinity work according to the same divine power and it is not the issue of will. This was in turn misinterpreted that the Holy Spirit was our name for God's power, but Gregory did not mean this and was supported in Augustine's rebuttal.

Augustine created the Mutual Love Theory, which states that the Father's love for the Son and the Son's love for the Father are simultaneous and mutual. This is so powerful and perfect in all eternity that it is person-generating. God's mutual love within himself generated the Holy Spirit, which is not a power, but a personage and these personages work not from separate power, but from divine power which is common to all of them.

From this, a new issue of Tritheism grew. The argument was if the Holy Spirit is generated form the relationship of the Father and the Son, than there must be three gods that coexist because there is no disunity in a monotheistic God and this God seems to be three separate beings working together in mediation. John of Damascus finalized our understanding of the Trinity when he coined the Perichoresis Theory. Perichoresis is the greek word for dance. He argued that without all the members of a dance, you do not have a dance. In the same way, without all the members of God, you do not have God. He argued that God had distinct differentiation, but they are inseparable, because the Father cannot exist without the Son and the Spirit, and neither can exist without the first or the other. Thus, when all of these theologian's ideas are added together, (because they were continually building upon one another) we have a God that is one being, has three different persons that are inseparable from each other, but are still distinct. These persons have also existed eternally and equally, and they work from the same divine nature and power.

If you need any points of clarification, leave a comment and I will attempt to answer your questions in a timely manner.

so, i guess it's time to update.

i though of a few things: first off, my blog won't specifically trace my life out so some creepy stalker would know my routine, but i also figured it ought to parallel it in some way. so in order to talk about my life now i'm going to talk about sub arbore.

i went to high school in a little town called Virginia Beach (lol). Va Bch is actually a huge place with lots of people and we get a ton of tourists all summer, it's crazy. but that's all beside the point... one day i was waiting for a teacher. we had been talking and then she was rudely interrupted by a mandatory faculty meeting (which i'm still not sure they needed to have for 90 mins every week...). well, i wandered outside because it was reaching that point in the day where they would throw me out, so i went out towards the teacher's parking lot. it being a nice spring day, i sat... sub arbore... (under a tree) and delighted in the warm sun on my face.

see, i had only been in the church for about 2 months, and at this point, i had been clean for like 2 weeks... which was a feat back then. and i was meeting with a really awesome, down to earth, teacher. as i was sitting there, a jamaican security woman walks out of the back on her way home and greets me with,

"boy! boy! are you ok?!"**
to which i reply: "Yes, ma'am, just waiting on someone."
to which she replies, "chile, you ought to take care of yourself of someone's gowna think u're crazah"**
to which i slightly nodden and she continued walking.

this experience is actually quite humorous to me. she was right though... if i don't chose to act according to what is socially norm, i will be considered outlandish... so, after many years in church leadership, i've given up. i'm not normal, why should i try? i love Jesus, i love his church, and i love theology. i enjoy myself in almost everything i do, and if i find myself in that particular circumstance where i'm not enjoying myself... i make it fun (drawing comics at the bottom of my calculus tests that i will have had failed, theorizing about flux capacitors at the end of my physics homework...)

another thing that makes me crazy: i like watching people react. i don't do anything particularly bad to them, just not normal... for instance: want to get a girl to remember u? propose to her, on a knee, loud, in public, in front of all of her friends... but be wary, if she says yes, u HAVE to marry her.

and to sum up my eccentricness... i've never looked at the world in an "American" way... my parents always encouraged my outgoingness... when i was young, a black german woman lived with us, my family always encouraged us kids (i have 2 brothers) to bring our friends over, and they often took us to friends' houses - black, white, italian, mexican, whatever, it didn't matter... so, now that i'm at a school with a large mutli-cultural population and a large group of foreign students... I LOVE IT!!! there's something about sitting with people who do things differently than you and experimenting with their culture (mmmh, eating curry with your hands while sitting on the floor... i miss my nepalis). i view culture as a group of traditions that i get to sit and enjoy. it's wonderful to try to gain the perspective of someone completely outside of your normal schema... they might not speak your language, share your religion or even think about food in the same way, but these aren't differences... THEY'RE OPPORTUNITIES!

so, yeah, that's a small anecdote and some ideas about myself... my egotism of this post is now ending, i hope you've enjoyed it. :D

** i've tried to reproduce an authentic jamaican dialect here, but i feel like i've horribly failed...

The First Post

The first post ought to have some explanation of all of this crazy latin:

here goes -
i love a verb tense in latin that doesn't exist in english, i actually revel in it. it's the future pluperfect periphrastic, which is big words for, in the future, something will have been more than completed in the past, thus: ero cogniteram, which means i will have had had thought, which means, if i haven't been clear enough yet, i'm saying that: "in the future, i will have already been finished thinking" (for some time already, too).

now, the next idea is this: sub arbore, a pretty simple phrase found in beginner latin. arbore means tree. it's where we get the word arbor, but the great thing about vulgar latin is this: nouns are not articulated. sub arbore could mean under a tree or under the tree. it doesn't matter in the latin mind. wonderful isn't it?!?! (i'm just excited that i'm starting a blog.)

now, i guess there's one more thing on this site you might wonder about... what do i mean by cognito cum barba? well... if i remember my latin correctly... and i hope i do... then cum takes the ablative... then that simply means, i think/am thinking with a/the beard. at the time of writing, i've been quite some time without shaving. which the explanation of will have to be another post, but the beard has become somewhat of an icon, so i decided to include him, but, for those who know the backstory, be aware that these are my ideas, not the beard's.

three more issues of housekeeping:
1) i could care less about capitol letters and, often, correct grammar. read this as if u were talking to a group of unknown people, and, if you're in some public place, u might want to read it out loud as if u ARE speaking it to them!
2) i will use some language in this blog, some latin, greek, german and what i call 'french' which is where many of our words that are often called 'cuss' words come from... if offended, quit reading after this first post, seriously i don't want you to ::french noun adjusted to be a vernacular verb in the present active infinitive form:: to me about it.
3) i said i would never start a blog, i've offered to guest write for others, but i've finally decided, i'll rant on here for people to talk with me.

well. we're in for a wild ride, talk to you soon.