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Name: Jamey
Country: South Korea
Metro: Seoul
Birthday: 7/6/1982
Gender: Male
Interests: Apologetics, Bible, Philosophy of Religion, Epistemology, Logic, History of Philosophy, Thomas Aquinas, Soren Kierkegaard, John Piper, Ravi Zacharias, and all of these so that I may know HIM!
Expertise: Nothing of expertise but a desire for it in all things.
Occupation: Education/training
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/2/2005
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| Is it False or is it a Lie?Two conversations that I had recently began a thought process in my mind. One of the conversations was with my grandmother. We were talking about the trips I took to Latin America with the church I was raised in. On more than one occasion the leaders of my group explained that Catholics don't believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I then explained to my grandmother that this is a lie; Catholics do believe Jesus rose from the dead. My grandmother's wonderful mercy said, "maybe they just didn't know what Catholics really believed." My grandmother implied that they weren't lying because they were ignorant.
The other day I was talking with Bobby, a recent graduate of ICS, and jokingly I called him a liar. He proceeded to defend himself by saying he wasn't a liar because he simply didn't know. We then began to discuss if a person is a liar if they say something wrong but not on purpose. We concluded that even if someone doesn't say something wrong on purpose, they are still a liar because of the fact that they tell the truth as though they know it. They are lying about their knowledge, though they may not be lying about the particular fact stated.
When a 4 year old says 2+2=5 they are not lying about the answer, they are lying about their knowledge. The four year old would not be lying if they asked the question, "what does 2+2 equal?" If my church did not lie to me about the false claim that Catholics do not believe in the resurrection, they at least lied in their knowledge of the fact. In order to be honest they should have said nothing at all. It is also true that the way in which we say something can affect the morality of our claim. For example: if the 4 year old child states 2+2=5 with a reservation and a question in her tone, then she is not lying, she is actually asking if it is right and thus implying the truth that she doesn't really know the answer. Once again in regards to my trips to Latin America, if my church wasn't lying about the fact, they were certainly lying with their tone. The statement was made with full assurance. If I am not mistaken, I believe we even had prayer for their poor ignorant souls.
We long for the truth as intellectual beings. It is so scary to me how often we speak as though we know so much. Our tones and our way of saying things are so arrogant. On the door to my classroom read the words, "the man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know" 1 Cor. 8:2. This summer my 4 year old niece asked me, "why do always say perhaps and maybe?" One of my favorite theological principles is the principle of analogy. One way of explaining analogy in relation to theology is to say we barely catch a glimpse of God with our limited minds. May we be true. True is statements. True in our tone. True in our being.
God help us to be true as you are truth. Amen.
James S. Sturgill
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| God Blessed America?I have often used the expression that God has blessed the United States of America. Today, I was comparing the US with the countries that we would presume not to be blessed by God. In doing this comparison I can figure out what I thought blessed meant. I figured out that by blessed I had meant wealth. Then I realized how anti-Scriptural this concept is. Jesus gave us the very definition of blessed. See if your thinking behind saying the USA is blessed fits:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
Blessed are those who mourn,
Blessed are the meek,
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
Blessed are the merciful,
Blessed are the pure in heart,
Blessed are the peacemakers,
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Was that what you had in mind, when you have said the US was blessed? Does this mean I am not nationalistic toward my country? No. I am very happy to be a US citizen. I will never forget walking across rice fields in Tanzania, East Africa with the mayor and two councilmen of a small village with their arms around me. The stars were so bright that night and the men were so thrilled to have me visit. The main reason they were thrilled was because of where I was from. I stopped in the middle of one of those rice fields and cried. At that moment I realized more than at any other moment, that I it was pure grace that I was born in the US. I am grateful to be born here.
What am I saying? I am simply saying that pragmatism, industrialism, and consumerism is so much a part of how we as Christian American's think, that we have forgotten what it truly means to be blessed. Blessed does not mean a high GDP. A high GDP could happen if you are blessed but that is not the definition Jesus gives. Unless of course Jesus was wrong but we would never say that. We know how to say we are Christian quite well. I am frequently reminded how fundamentally our Christian society is more pragmatic and consumerism than it is Christian. Do you remember the time that Jesus was truly upset? The time when those claiming that they loved God were actually using the Temple to make money. Are we more like them than we are like Jesus? Based upon what you have meant when you have thought of a country being blessed or not, are you more Christian or consumer? Are you one of those sitting on the steps of temple selling doves or are you following Jesus in being angry at the hypocrisy? Christ was quick to point out to one teacher of the law that he, himself, had no place to lay his head. Jesus was not a consumer driven pragmatist. Jesus would not say the US was blessed because of her GDP. Why do we?
James S. Sturgill
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| Wisdom from William Montgomery TolbertMontgomery is a mentally retarded 37 year old man. He is a very sweet man. I think there are many things that can be learned from what he says about life. I am not going to tell them to you. I want you to learn them. The best thing in life is to love God and Jesus and you can do this several ways. - Pray, I do pray and sometimes prayer can be sad.
- Stay away from danger: like drugs and alcohol
- Be nice to people: shake their hand, take them places and do things with them (make them happy)
- Go on a date with a pretty girl (don't let her take your money)
- Always go see a doctor if you need advice: like medicine
- Take communion: this makes me love Jesus more because it is a way to say I love Jesus and God
- Another way of loving God is not just taking communion but loving your family
- Making friends (this is different from just being nice because there is more talking in this)
- Get married because if you get married you will get to have babies and children because you have to take care of your family when you are married, you can also love God by taking care of your mommy and daddy and friends if you aren't married.
- Help someone...like if they are injured you can take them to the hospital.
The worst things in life are: - Car accident with Dana
- People shooting people (oops this one is actually worse than the car accident with Dana
- When the government takes our money by making groceries too expensive and gas (oops this one is worse than the car accident too
- People going to bars and drinking beer and stuff and doing bad things like hurt other people
- The shooting that took place at a grocery store that took a life
- Hurricanes: because they destroy people's homes
- When a husband and wife get into a bad argument
- When people bribe you
- Scary stuff like the haunted house that Chilhowie had at Riverside
- People who are mean: like when they do bad stuff to people.
One more piece of advice from William Montgomery Tolbert: I want people to love people and respect people not to hurt people. James S. Sturgill | | |
| Self-ExpressionPerson and Being by Norris Clarke continues to awe me. Listen to this:
It is of great importance, then, for a healthy personal development to find some appropriate way of expressing to somebody all the significant levels of being and personality within us, including the deepest and most intimate. In fact, this is one of the things that is most appreciated and treasured when we share it with others - when we share "our story" with others, and receive theirs in return. Paradoxically, it seems that what we don't share, we tend to lose hold of. In the realm of the person, what we don't give away we can't hold on to.....Why it should be that way, that self-possession must keep pace with self-expression, is one of the deep mysteries of being. Again the most illuminating explanation comes from the the Christian revelation of the Trinity. It is the case that the Supreme Source of all being is precisely that way. The Father expresses himself with total infinite fullness in his Son, the Word, and both again in the Holy Spirit. It is the very nature of God, the supreme exemplar of what it means to be self-expressive. And that is why we, his images must be also, if we too are to be and be persons fully. The image in us cries out to be made manifest.
I blog because I am an image of God. I express myself because I am an image of the supreme exemplar, the Source of all being. Perhaps this is the reason blogging has become so popular. Perhaps this is the reason that our pets become personified. We personify our pets because we are images of God that desire to express ourselves to other persons and thus we personify things that aren't really persons.
My question is why we don't follow the image of God more adequately in our self-expression. I think there are several reasons. 1) we are afraid no one wants hear it; what if we express ourselves and our very expression is rejected Clarke explains that we must be treated as a thou before we can become an I. If no one ever acts like they want to hear you, you will lose a degree of ability to be you. Clarke explains this in regards to the affection that a child must receive as well. 2) we don't know ourselves well enough. As Clarke so beautifully explains on p. 47 God and man are paradigms of each other. Both are ultimately ineffable, and this both because of their subjectivity and their inexhaustible depth. The German poet, Angelus Silesius said, "The abyss in man cries out to the abyss in God. Tell me which is deeper!" Clarke continues, "there is a kind of infinite and inexhaustible depth in our spirit, due to its openness to he Infinite, which cannot be plumbed by our explicit consciousness short of the direct vision of God himself, when we shall see ourselves totally as God see us." Without seeing God we cannot know ourselves. The more we know God the more we know ourselves. A lack of knowing God creates a lack of knowing self and a lack of knowing creates an inability to express one's self. Does this mean that one must know themselves in order to express themselves? Not fully. If this were the case we would not ever be able to talk about God. We don't know God fully, but we can still talk about Him. We do not know ourselves fully but we can still express ourselves. Expression does not require complete knowledge. What if one had to know the depths of love before they said they loved. What if one had to know the depths of who or what they said they loved before they said they loved it? Does a mother have to comprehend both their child and love before they say it, before they express it?
I don't know myself fully but yet I must express what I know. I don't know God fully but yet I must express what I know. I don't know love but I must express it. Perhaps Chesterton's quote about parenting applies to this concept as well, "there are some things so worth doing, that they are even worth doing badly." I will express myself badly because of the depth of person; I will express God badly because of the depth of God; I will express love badly because of the depth of love.
Being that what we learn transforms who we are, I have expressed myself here. I would like to save the more personal expressions for a less impersonal means.
Lord, help us to imitate you and express ourselves.
Help us to recognize our dependence on being thou's and I's
Lord help us not to believe the spirit of the time's message of independence from one another but to look to the very core of reality and personality and see our dependence on one another.
Lord, help us to know you more and then as an effect know ourselves more and as an effect express ourselves more as more accurate images of your Goodness.
Lord, I thank you so much for allowing me to understand this truth about personality. Help me now to imitate you in expressing it.
Lord, help me to love in truth.
Amen
James S. Sturgill
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| The Ontology of HomeAt my house there is a picture frame that says, "home is where the heart is, my feet may leave but my heart never will." Correlating with this, common known phrase, is the concept of giving your heart away. A concept that is so often sung about: for we correlate the most beautiful language, music, with the most beautiful truths. Where is home? One of my favorite scenes from any movie is the pool scene in Garden State (a movie everyone should not see):
Andrew Largeman:
You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that
you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even
though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of
home is gone.
Sam:
I still feel at home in my house.
Andrew Largeman:
You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get
homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of
passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a
new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family
you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe
that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same
imaginary place. Here is a link to watch this scene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_JOTO8hMJ8&feature=related (I ask that you overlook the cursing in the first 5 seconds for the heart pouring in the part that I have quoted) I desire to synthesize this "home is where the heart is" and the concept that "you can give your heart away."
I believe that it is true that home is where the heart is, but where is your heart? Your 'heart' is in the people that you have given your heart to. Is this simply some cliche'? Adamantly, no! Listen to Norris Clarke in his book Person and Being from p. 85.
In a word, the love relationship, if properly understood, opens up the capital metaphysical and psychological insight that to be gifted and to be grateful are in themselves not a sign of inferiority or deficiency at all, but part of the splendor and wonder of being itself at its highest actualization, that is being as communion.
Norris Clarke builds a profound understanding of person from the notion of God's self-communicating existence. I dare you to read the book (though the language is quite technical). This is not another New Age tolerance speech. This is a carefully laid out, metaphysical explanation for the dependency of persons. No joke, I read this book and cry. At the very core of being is a giving and a receiving that is never more beautiful than it is in the sharing of life with other persons. Clarke doesn't set out to write a book for pragmatic reasons either. Clarke starts with the reality that God is the Source of all Goodness. He shares his goodness with everything that is. Then Clarke finds this same characteristic of being in all that is, especially in persons. At one point in the book Clarke says, "to be, turns out to-be-together.
My home is where my heart is and my heart is found in the people that I have given my heart to, thus, I have more than one home.² However, I have only given the deepest parts of my heart to few. There are certainly a couple of places (where certain people are) that are more home-y than others. This reality is also ultimately found in being in the presence of the Most Knowable Person and Most Knowing Person that exists: God. However, it is also true that realizing this beauty in God should not downplay our knowing and being known by others but rather deepen it. I am staying with my parents this summer in Chilhowie, VA and my parents make this place extremely home-y. But do you know that feeling when you love persons so much that expressing it is difficult?¹ I think that is something else that will take place in the presence of the Most Known Person and Most Knowing Person. I think when we are in the presence of God, we will be able to express ourselves to those we love much more adequately.
What a world! What a God!
Lord,
Help me love the dependence you have created in me for other persons.
Help me to cherish their person as I will one day cherish you.
Help me to never love any thing over a person and
Help all of my acts to be personally purposed
Thank you for the persons you have put in my life
Thank you for the truths you are teaching me and for the authors that you have enlightened and allowed me to read.
I ask that you help me be like you in being self-communicative in this particular wisdom.
Amen.
James S. Sturgill
1 (this is at least one of the reasons the Bible says sex is knowing someone; it is perhaps the greatest way of creating home)
2 My dad rents Uhauls...maybe so many people move because they fail to realize this fundamental core of reality. Maybe our inability to have deep relationships correlates with our desire to move physically. Obviously there is some correlation among divorce and moving but I wonder if there is not a correlation between superficial relationships and moving? If home is where the people we have given our hearts to are and we haven't been able to give our hearts to anyone very deeply, then wouldn't it follow that we would always be looking for...home. Here is a song that says this very thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyrmO6D0duA&feature=related I don't know what the television show is though...please ignore the video if you listen to this song...so the video - audio correlation will not hinder your thought.
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