withallyourmind.net

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.

Jeremy and I both just returned from Ohio where we attended the wedding of his cousin (my nephew, of course). I had the privilege of officiating the ceremony. I wish both Jon and Rachelle a wonderful life together.

Anyway, the blog has been idle for the past few days while we were away. But, we’re back, and today I’ll continue my series on the resurrection.

I will be away for a few days. I’m heading off to Biola University for some summer classes. I doubt I will have opportunity to do much blogging. Once again, Jeremy, will have several interesting blogs in my absence.

My last thoughts for a while have to do with philosophy of science. I just came across a description of scientific reasoning and the scientific method I had never thought of. Science purports to give us a true description of the world in which we live. The conclusions are not advertised as probable descriptions of the world, but true descriptions of the world. Of course, inductive reasoning can never give us guaranteed conclusions. Only deductive reasoning can. A simple deductive argument is as follows:

If A, then B. A, therefore B.

To say B, therefore A instead of A, therefore B is a logical fallacy (affirming the consequent). The occurrence of B does not entail the truth of A, although if A is true then B must be true.

Example, If John is dead, he will not be at work tomorrow. If John is truly dead, he will indeed not be at work tomorrow. However, if John is not at work tomorrow, it does not follow that he is dead. There may be other (even far more likely) explanations for his absence…he is fishing, etc.

The hypothetico-deductive model of science follows just such a method. If a particular theory is true, our experiments will produce these results. Theses results are produced, therefore the theory must be true. Of course, the consequent has just been affirmed and it is fallacious to assert that the theory is true. Interesting thoughts to leave you with…

I have just returned from a 14 day trip to Italy. What an amazing time! I was able to spend time in several cities, including Milan, Como, Lugano (Switzerland), Verona, Padua, Venice, Pisa, Florence, Siena, Naples, Sorrento, Capri, Rome. Needless to say, the days were packed with activity. This was a trip I had dreamed of making for a long time…to stand on the ground where so many important events have occurred and so many influential people have lived. The highlights for me were probably the Uffizzi gallery tour in Florence where I viewed the most impressive collection of renaissance art in the world and the Sistine Chapel where I saw firsthand Michelango’s handiwork. Anyway, it is now back to blogging. I will soon start a brief series on miracles and I still hope to deal with postmodernism, soon.

Today, I caught up on a brief review of many of the blogs I frequent (listed on this page). There was lots of good stuff, but I especially like this post by Robert Velarde on why philosophy matters to a Christian. (HT: Thinking Christian).

I’ve been absent from posting for several days while Jeremy has carried the load. Unfortunately, this will probably continue for a while. I’m finishing up my semester at Biola, taking finals and writing papers. I’m also leaving soon for a couple of weeks away. In the meantime, I am also working in the hospital almost everyday in order to take time off to go away. I hope to contribute a couple of posts in the next few days before I leave. I started a series on postmodernism that I still hope to continue, but that may wait for a few weeks. I look forward to reading Jeremy’s thoughts and insights. God is good!

It’s been a busy couple of days and the next couple will be just as busy as I will be in Atlanta at a niece’s wedding. I thought I would take a quick moment to note how much we appreciate the comments of our readers. One of the most exciting and fulfilling parts of having a blog is interacting with our readers. I know we have many readers who, for the most part, read and enjoy (I hope!). Of course, all are welcome to do so. However, if you happen to disagree with a post, have questions regarding a post, or strongly agree with a post, and you have a substantive comment to make, we hope you will join us in conversation.

Ahhhh…free at last. Yesterday at around 2:00 PM I finished my Philosophy of Mind exam and officially began my summer vacation. I apologize for being largely absent from the blog the last few weeks while finishing up the semester, but my father more than made up for it with his last few series. Anyway, I should be able to post more often now that I won’t be in class (although unfortunately I’ll still be working quite a bit).

I have a few goals for the summer, some of which are related to this blog, and, at any rate, I think that posting them here will keep me somewhat more accountable for them: I plan to get through at least one of either N.T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God or Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief. I also want to get through Michael Loux’s Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, and Del Ratzch’s Science and It’s Limits. I want to learn more about politics in order to think more intelligently about issues like immigration, the role of the central government, taxation, interpretation of the constitution, etc. (book suggestions are welcome). For all of the nonfiction books I read, I plan to do chapter outlines and notes to help my own comprehension, which I may post here for those interested. I also want to read through at least a few of the classic works of fiction that I haven’t yet read and I need to be studying quite a bit for the GRE’s, which I will be taking at some point this summer. Finally, I want to get better at playing the piano (especially jazz) and spend a lot of quality time with my wife. It should be a busy and exciting summer.

I’m also registered for some good classes next semester that I am looking forward to: Philosophy of Law, History and Philosophy of Science, a seminar on ‘Marx on Free Markets,’ and some directed independent study culminating in the writing of a 50 page honors thesis in the Spring (topic TBA).

I wasn’t able to talk about it much until everything became official, but FSU has hired five new senior philosophy professors for next fall: Michael McKenna, Michael Bishop, Randolph Clarke, Justin Leiber, and Marie Flemming. These appointments should rocket us up at least into the top 40 philosophy departments, and with the trio of McKenna, Clarke, and Al Mele, we should easily become the top department in the nation for free will.

I forgot to mention this before I left, but I’ve just returned from a wonderful spring break vacation to Asheville, NC and the surrounding area. It was a wonderful time of refreshment and a much-needed break for me and my wife from school and work. Alas, it is now ended and I am back to school and work tomorrow. This explains my lack of posts last week (I amazingly survived five whole days without touching a computer other than to get directions), and I should be back in full gear this week with some hopefully thought-provoking posts. Below are a couple of my favorite pictures from the trip. The first is of me on top of Chimney Rock, and the second is of my beautiful wife and me on Grandfather Mountain. You can click the pictures to see them full-sized.
   

For anyone who may be interested, here is a pdf file of the “fact sheet” I gave out after my presentation last weekend on the reliability of the gospels. It discusses some of the main relevant topics such as authorship, dating, purpose, canon, and preservation. I think it is pretty useful as a good list of things to know in case you are engaged in an apologetic discussion on the gospels.
The event itself went pretty well, although it was significantly smaller than I expected. As well, it was my first time speaking publicly for more than 10 minutes or so, so I still had some nervous habits that will hopefully get worked out as I, God willing, get more opportunities to speak.