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A_Boy_Named_Joe
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Name: Joe
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Birthday: 10/3/1985
Interests: Reformed Theology, European and military history, any music by Elliott Smith, smoking a pipe, etc.
Expertise: Nothing quite yet
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
7/16/2005
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| So the main text being used for my Christian Thought class is called "The Mosaic of Christian Belief." Its basic premise is that there is this thing known as "The Great Tradition", defined in the first four ecumenical councils of the church, and that things believed outside of this "Great Tradition"are heresies, while there exists a rich diversity of belief within the framework of this "Great Tradition" that is acceptable for Christians to believe. In other words, dogmas are defined by this "Great Tradition" while doctrines and opinions that are within the bounds of it represent the acceptable limit of diversity of belief within the Christian faith. Any of this kind of language sound familiar?
Our professor told us straight up in class the other day that the book is written from the position of an Arminian Baptist who is partly writing in response to his interactions with more Reformed people who have strongly objected to his views and beliefs. Our professor said one of the core concerns of the man writing the book was to reconcile monergism and synergism in a "both/and" theology rather than an "either/or" theology.
A main thrust of the book deals with the advocating of such an attitude towards issues not falling into the category of "dogmas," with the main example being monergism vs. synergism. As an example, I'll quote a little from the book itself.
"Neither monergism (belief that God is exhaustively all-determining and the sole final cause of every event including human decisions and action) nor synergism (belief that humans have free will and must freely cooperate with God for God's perfect will to be done - especially in individual salvation) is essential to the Great Tradition. The Christian consensus is divided over so-called predestination as well as over free human participation in salvation. Erasmus and Luther - who argued vehemently over those issues - are both judged here to be players in and contributers to the Great Tradition. Unfortunately, their disagreement over that issue overshadowed their much greater agreement about the Trinity and deity of Christ, salvation as a gift of grace and not of works, and God's final and ultimate sovereign triumph over the flesh, the world, and the devil."
This quote is kind of a case in point for the larger message of the whole book. To say that there exists a diversity among Christian doctrines that is beneficial or even acceptable is to deny that there is one truth as well as the importance of Christ's command to observe all that He taught.
Monergism vs. synergism is hardly an issue that doesn't matter or can be agreed to disagree upon. They are mutually exclusive, therefore any person with an interest in truth must declare one or the other to be true. This issue cannot be glossed over for the sake of agreeance on the deity of Christ or the Trinity, for the question of monergism and synergism is a question of the very nature of the gospel itself. How can one then say that it does not matter?
I would have thought we would read something just a touch better for a class on Christian Thought than a book that is essentially an apology for synergistic thought by way of reasoning that the issue does not really matter in the big scheme of things.
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| Blessed Jesus, at thy word
We are gathered all to hear thee;
Let our hearts and souls be stirred
Now to seek and love and fear thee,
By thy teachings, sweet and holy,
Drawn from earth to love thee solely.
All our knowledge, sense, and sight
Lie in deepest darkness shrouded
Till thy Spirit breaks our night
With the beams of truth unclouded.
Thou alone to God canst win us;
Thou must work all good within us.
Glorious Lord, thyself impart,
Light of Light, from God proceeding;
Open thou our ears and heart,
Help us by thy Spirit's pleading;
Hear the cry thy people raises,
Hear and bless our prayers and praises.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Praise to thee and adoration!
Grant that we thy Word may trust
And obtain true consolation
While we here below must wander,
Till we sing thy praises yonder.
What a blessed hymn.
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| I've managed to arrange my schedule such that my Thanksgiving break will be a full week long. We have class on Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving, but I'm going to skip those two days and come home this coming Friday. A full week and two Sundays at home!
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| The toughest half of the semester is over. I took two quad (half semester) classes that are now finished. I now only have two semester long classes (microecon and medieval europe) on top of ROTC. I also did Ranger Challenge again this year, which went the length of the quad and ended this past weekend on a very good note (a first place finish for the team I was on). The competition required a lot of rucking (moving from one point to another with full gear and a full rucksack ). I think over the course of the weekend we rucked at least 40k. I've been pretty tired before, but I think Saturday evening of the competition was the most tired I've ever been in my entire life. In spite of the exertion, there is something about the comradery (sp?) and the feeling of carrying all you need on your back as you move to complete a mission that keeps me coming back for more.
The Sunday school class I have been attending at Bethel after the worship service on Sunday mornings is a study of the Scottish Reformation. Its taught by a computer science prof from Wheaton, but its absolutely fascinating. Church folk, I've been praying for you guys. Pray for my continued growth in grace and knowledge of Christ.
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| Two weeks of training down, three days to go. We get a four day weekend because of the fourth of July, so our jump week is only three days long. That means we're theoretically going to make 5 parachute jumps in three days (wed, thurs, and fri). Hopefully this will happen and I will be home this coming friday evening. If not, we might possibly complete any jumps we haven't done on saturday.
Tower week was better than ground week. The best part was going off of the 250 foot free tower. It was a little unnerving being slowly lifted up that high, but once I was released, it was a blast. There is really no feeling of dropping or plummeting, but rather a sensation of gliding or floating to the ground. Our company was fortunate that everyone got a chance to go off.
We also did some more advanced parachute landing fall training and got some instruction on what to do in the case of midair collisions, parachute malfunctions, etc.
I'm so glad its our last week (three days really) of training. I can't wait to jump, graduate, and then come home. | | |
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