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“The unexamined life is not worth living.” (Apology 38a)

The above quote, found in Plato’s Apology, was uttered by Socrates while defending himself on charges of undermining the state religion and corrupting young people. What made me think of this particular quotation today is an excellent movie that I saw with my wife, Cindy, yesterday, The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. This film is a story of two terminally ill men coming to terms with their impending death. In this funny, yet touching story, the two main characters have a number of conversations about God, faith, and religion.

In one such conversation, while flying in Nicholson’s private jet, Freeman looks out the window of the plane at the beauty of the earth below and makes some reference to the glory of God’s creation. (I wish I could remember the exact conversation, but a paraphrase will have to do.) Nicholson, not one given to religious sentiments, scoffs at the idea of giving God credit for the world. When asked what he did believe in (such as some naturalistic explanation), Nicholson essentially states, “I just live my life.”

I was suddenly aware of how many friends and family members live life just this way. They truly live unexamined lives. The assumptions and presuppositions upon which they make day-to-day decisions are uncrictically followed. Many are nominally Christian (or at least confess to a belief in God), but this profession is compartmentalized in some private space which has minimal impact upon their lifestlyes. Although they do not make a profession of atheism or a commitment to a naturalistic worldview, they do not have to. This position is in effect a default position for the unexamined life. It is part of the goal of apologetics to arouse those who have not seriously thought about the implications of the worldview they profess and encourage a thoughtful examination of one’s life. The Bucket List is the type of movie that reminds us of the importance of doing just that.

It is important to explore the full implications of one’s worldview. In Cormac McCarty’s novel, No Country for Old Men, one of the main characters states:

Here a year or two back me and Loretta went to a conference in Corpus Christi and I got set next to this woman, she was the wife of somebody or other. And she kept talking about the right wing this and the right wing that.

I aint even sure what she meant by it. The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin something bad about em, but of course that’s a high compliment in my part of the world. She kept on, kept on.

Finally told me, said: I don’t like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I don’t think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I don’t have much doubt but what she’ll be able to have an abortion. I’m goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she’ll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation.

HT: Al Mohler

On this day, in 1809, the 16th and perhaps greatest president of the United States was born. Abraham Lincoln would be the president to guide the United States of America through that time of bloody turmoil we know as the War Between the States. At the west end of the National Mall stands the Lincoln Memorial, honoring this great man. The south side chamber contains the words to perhaps the most famous speech in U. S. History, the Gettysburg Address. As powerful and poignant as that address is, there is perhaps a more powerful and important address inscribed upon the walls of the north side chamber - Lincon’s 2nd Inaugural Address. In my estimation, this short oration may be the greatest presidential speech ever delivered.

On March 4, 1865, Lincolnd delivered the second shortest inaugural speech in history. Some were still arriving when the president concluded his 6-7 minute speech. Historian Don E. Fehrenbacher wrote:

In the Second Inaugural, [Lincoln] revealed his most deeply held convictions to a national audience in a way that no other president has done throughout all of American history. In this religious belief, Lincoln had found strength to persevere, and at the time of his Second Inaugural when it was apparent that the Union cause would eventually be won, he publicly acknowledged its tenet that the final outcome had been foreordained all along.

Licoln’s second inaugural address if filled with biblical and theological language. Over the course of 701 words Lincoln mentions God fourteen times, quotes the Bible four times and invokes prayer three times. Humility permeates this address. In the words of Lincoln Biographer, David Herbert Donald:

As the day for Lincoln’s second inauguration drew near, Americans wondered what their sixteenth president would say about the Civil War. Would Lincoln guide the nation toward “Reconstruction”? What about the slaves? They had been emancipated, but what about the matter of suffrage? When Lincoln finally stood before his fellow countrymen on March 4, 1865, and had only 703 words to share, the American public was stunned. The President had not offered the North a victory speech, nor did he excoriate the South for the sin of slavery. Instead, he called the whole country guilty of the sin and pleaded for reconciliation and unity. In this compelling account, noted historian Ronald C. White Jr. shows how Lincoln’s speech was initially greeted with confusion and hostility by many in the Union; commended by the legions of African Americans in attendance, abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass among them; and ultimately appropriated by his assassin John Wilkes Booth forty-one days later.

I conclude with an excerpt from this address:

Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the seat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?