withallyourmind.net

It’s been an extremely long time since I’ve posted anything to this blog, and I’m not sure how many regular viewers we have, so it may be that no one remembers me. At any rate, if there are any such people, perhaps they will remember that I have been in the process of applying to PhD programs in philosophy. Well, out of the 12 departments to which I applied, I was admitted at four, and I have officially decided to pursue graduate study at the University of California at Berkeley starting next fall. They have a great program and one which will definitely increase my chances of being able to secure an academic job upon graduation. It’s obviously a great opportunity for me, and one about which I am both excited and nervous. The school is statistically more secular than most others, which may make things difficult from time to time, but which also opens up good opportunities for a person who wants to defend Christianity in the public realm of ideas. The move and getting used to the new environment will also be difficult, and so, naturally, any prayers offered on my behalf would be appreciated. All things going according to plan, in five years there will be a second Dr. Carey in the family!

My classes at Biola have just begun again. Between that and other commitments, I’ve missed a couple of days blogging. Hopefully, I’ll be up to speed again soon.

This has been a kind bowl season to me and Jeremy. Jeremy is a student at Florida State. I received my doctorate in medicine from Penn State. I am a Georgia native and have always followed the University of Georgia. The scores of importance:

Florida State 44 UCLA 27
Penn State 20 Tennessee 10
Georgia 31 Virginia Tech 24

On a personal note, I have officially finished my penultimate semester of undergraduate work at Florida State. The semester ended up going pretty smoothly and I didn’t have any difficult finals. I got a lot done over the semester, including taking my GREs and doing all of my graduate school applications (see pic below). I ended up applying to twelve different schools, and as of right now all I can do is wait and hope and pray. We’ll see what happens. I should start hearing back from schools by the end of February at the latest. For now, I have three weeks with no classes and I’m hoping to take advantage of the free time by getting some reading done.

Jeremy and I are both going to be in Washington, D.C., for the next few days. We are very excited to be attending the annual meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and Evangelical Theological Society. In association with this annual meeting, we will also be attending the “Love the Lord With All Your Mind” apologetics conference at McLean Bible Church in Virginia. We may or may not be able to post while there, so there may be a lull in posts for a few days.

On a personal note: I finally took the GRE on Thursday and got that over with. I was told by one of my professors that if I scored at least a 1400 overall I would have a good chance at some of the top philosophy departments I’ll be applying to, so that’s what I was aiming for. Unfortunately, I missed it by 10 points, getting a 700 on the quantitative section and a 690 on the verbal section. I’m still happy with my scores, though. I thought as I was taking the test that I was doing horribly, so I was pleasantly surprised even with the scores I got. And even though it’s not quite 1400, it still seems to be an above average score for a lot of the departments I’m applying to, and I doubt it’s enough to exclude me from anywhere. Now all I’ve got to do is get to work on my applications and send them in, hopefully by the first week of December, and wait. Wish me luck! (All prayers appreciated).

Since I have not posted in awhile and have a little bit of time this morning, I thought I’d say a little bit about what is going on my life now (both for those who might be interested and as an excuse for my lack of recent posts). The first semester of my senior year is now about 1/3 done and I’m as busy as ever. This is probably the most crucial semester in deciding the direction of my future and I’ve got a lot going on. So much so that I decided to quit my job a few weeks ago (feel free to pray for the financial situation). I’m only taking 12 credits this semester and 3 of them are from a lower level class - Religion in the US. I’m also taking History and Philosophy of Science and a senior seminar on Marxism. In addition to these, I’m in the research phase of an honors thesis on free will and agent vs. event causation. I’m blessed to be working closely with Al Mele and Randolph Clarke on this, who are both top players in the field. Eventually, by next semester, I’ll have to write a 25-45 page paper and defend it before my committee.

I’m currently trying to study for the GREs and to tell the truth, I’m a little worried about them. My practice test scores have not been too high so far and I’ve got about three weeks before the test. There is also a little pressure because Prof. Mele told me that he thinks if I can score at least a 1400 I have pretty good chances of getting into some of the programs in the top 10-20 range. I recently did a first revision of the paper I’ll probably be using as my writing sample and will post it here after it is read and commented on by a couple more professors. I’ll also shortly begin working on completing applications for the twelve schools to which I’ll be applying. These are: UCLA, UCDavis, UCBerkeley, Michigan, Wisonsin Madison, UPenn, Cornell, Florida, UNC Chapel Hill, Duke, Colorado Boulder, and Ohio State.

On a more personal level, my wife and I have become more active in our church and attend a weekly ‘fellowship group’ in addition to leading the preschool praise and worship together on Sunday mornings. This week also marks the beginning of my 18 week marathon training which will end hopefully with my running the Tallahassee Marathon on February 4.

All in all, it should be obvious how busy I am, so please excuse my lack of postings (although I’m going to try harder to fit more in) and feel free to pray for me.

Last week I was extremely fortunate and got to meet Greg Koukl of STR and listen to him speak at several venues here in Tallahassee. The main purpose for his visit was to speak in defense of the pro-life position at the annual fundraising banquet for the local crisis pregnancy center, but he also spoke at a lunch for Christian businessmen and for an audience of students on campus. I spent a lot of time the night before he came anxiously trying to work up the courage to ask him if he had any spare time during which he could meet for coffee or anything. I wasn’t too successful at working up courage, but I got to the event so early that I ended up meeting him and being asked to work at his sales table. Then afterwards, through some stroke of Providence, the woman who organized his coming and who knew I was a fan (though I had never met her in person) asked me if I would be willing to take him out to lunch and drive him around for the afternoon. Naturally, I agreed. I had a great time talking with him about whatever topic came up and I can say I now admire him and his ministry even more. He was extremely courteous to me and everyone else. It was evident he knew his stuff and both his confidence and his humility were visible.

At some point in our conversation, I mentioned our blog and the fact that we were planning to branch out into doing speaking engagements, but that I didn’t have too much experience. He offered me a few tips for public speaking that I thought were good and that others might have interest in. Here are three that stood out to me:

1. Never speak on a topic about which you are not passionate. If you do not care about your topic, it will be clear to your audience and they will not care either. Instead, you must be passionate and let your passion show naturally. A phrase he used was that “if you want your audience to bleed, you’ve got to hemorrhage.”
2. Make sure the speech is well organized and progressive. The listener should be able to give a basic outline of your argument and at any time know where you are in the argument, and where you are going. This seems equally important in writing (and blogging). As one of my professors says, you should be able to look at any paragraph in a paper and see how what it says relates to the problem at hand and where it fits into the overall answer to the problem. Obviously, not everything will be perfectly straightforward from the beginning, but this is something to strive for.
3. At several points in the speech, step back for a second and narrate the progression of the argument up to that point. This helps keep you on topic and organized and also helps the audience see the bigger picture more clearly and cement what they have heard.

It was a great honor and pleasure meeting Greg and spending some time with him and I encourage everyone who comes across this to visit his website and support his ministry. You’ll be glad you did. Here’s a picture I took with him on the last day he was here:

It has been approximately one year since Jeremy and I began this website in earnest. We have not tinkered with the design since its inception. We felt it was time. Part of this redesign has to do with new goals for further ministry. At the top of our home page are two paintings from renaissance masters, “The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo Buonarroti and “The School of Athens” by Raphael Sanzio.

“The Creation of Adam”, painted in 1510, is, of course, the focal point of the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel. This past summer I was privileged to stand in the Chapel and gaze upon this masterpiece. The ceiling contains nine narrative scenes from Genesis. It is the fourth scene that contains the creation of Adam. Adam is clearly made in God’s image. At the brink of creation, God’s outstretched finger reaches toward Adam’s passive finger, infusing him with life and intellect.

“The School of Athens” was painted by Raphael in 1509. This fresco is found in a room of the Vatican called The Stanza of the Signatura. It represents an assembly of the greatest philosophers of antiguity. The central two figures are Plato and Aristotle. Others include Socrates, Epicurus, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Euclid, Zoroaster, and Ptolemy. A self-portrait of Raphael is also contained within the painting, as are the faces of Leonardo DiVinci (as Plato) and Michelangelo (as Heraclitus). In this fresco, Raphael reminds us of the great value of reason and philosophy in one’s life.

These two masterpieces were chosen for this website to serve as symbols of our two great sources of truth, namely, revelation (special revelation) and reason (natural revelation). God’s specially revealed truth (the scriptures) and God’s naturally revealed truth which we access by reason are not in contradiction, but both point us toward the God of the Universe. Our website focuses far more on the reason and philosophy side of the equation, and this is by design. Our readers understand we place great value on the revealed Word of God, however we quote few scriptures in our posts. This is because we hope to engage and challenge those who do not accept God’s word as authoritative, and help others to do the same.

Today, I was reminded of death. It was no unsettling experience. It rather was one of hope, reassurance and anticipation. I had not attended a funeral in quite some time, but today I attended the funeral of a dedicated Christian gentlemen who had lived 78 years on this earth. Today, he is with Christ. What a wonderful hope we have because of the resurrection! As the Mercy Me song, “I Can Only Imagine” was played, as the congregration sang “Because He Lives”, as a slide show of the life of this godly man flashed before us, as my wife, Cindy, sang “Sheltered in the Arms of God”, and as the pastor read a portion of scripture, I was awash in a sense of peace about death.

I do not think often enough about death. I am so busy living life that I had not recently thought seriously about what it means to die in Christ. Since we will live after the death and corruption of our earthly bodies, we have no ultimate reason to fear the power of death. The Christian’s future is secure because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. An acquaintance of mine recently stated:

I regulary consider the fact that I will one day die. It is, after all, one of the few truths we can rely on. I do not find it morbid. I find it freeing. It helps me constantly reorganize my priorities and prepares me for entrance into eternal life. Those prepared to die are best prepared to live.