Skip to main content

I Don't Know

There are things in theology that definitely qualify as distractions. Oddly enough, the people who know the least are the people most invested in things that don't matter. I should note the kind of "knowing" I'm talking about: it's a heart-knowing. Who is God? What is He about? The people who are invested in this question are doing theology; others are disputing facts and figures, as though this were the NFL Draft.

I am working to cultivate "I don't know" as the proper response to things that don't matter; it has quite a close relation in meaning to, "I don't care" in context.

If you read Genesis 1-3, and you don't say, "I need a Savior," you have missed the boat. There are hundreds of secondary questions related to that theme that deserve investigation, and Heaven help those tasked with those pursuits. Yet it seems like all the heat and light comes from things that don't matter. Let me put it a funny way:

"Exactly how long have we been in this dire, hopeless state, awaiting our salvation? How are we to understand this empirical data, filtered through an atheistic materialist worldview? I'm not sure we can go on doing our most important task, until these Very Important Questions have been answered."

Um, no. This very day, we go to proclaim Him who was sent in the last days as our redemption, who has brought even us near to the household of God. If you can't get excited about that, you need a reset button.
Labels:

Comments

Nathan Hall said…
Amen to this. I think the light and heat come from friction where the Scriptures contact the interests of the fallen world. It is interested in the wrong things, and sometimes it is more fruitful to change the subject to something more important than to argue.
9:59 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Thoughts On The Harrison Butker Commencement Speech

Update: I read the whole thing. I’m sorry, but what a weirdo. I thought you [Tom Darrow, of Denver, CO] made a trenchant case for why lockdowns are bad, and I definitely appreciated it. But a graduation speech is *not* the place for that. Secondly, this is an august event. It always is. I would never address the President of the United States in this manner. Never. Even the previous president, though he deserves it, if anyone does. Thirdly, the affirmations of Catholic identity should be more general. He has no authority to propound with specificity on all matters of great consequence. It has all the hallmarks of a culture war broadside, and again, a layman shouldn’t speak like this. The respect and reverence due the clergy is *always due,* even if they are weak, and outright wrong. We just don’t brush them aside like corrupt Mafia dons, to make a point. Fourthly, I don’t know where anyone gets the idea that the TLM is how God demands to be worshipped. The Church doesn’t teach that. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dear Alyse

 Today, you’re 35. Or at least you would be, in this place. You probably know this, but we’re OK. Not great, but OK. We know you wouldn’t want us moping around and weeping all the time. We try not to. Actually, I guess part of the problem is that you didn’t know how much we loved you. And that you didn’t know how to love yourself. I hope you have gotten to Love by now. Not a place, but fills everything in every way. I’m not Him, but he probably said, “Dear daughter/sister, you have been terribly hard on yourself. Rest now, and be at peace.” Anyway, teaching is going well, and I tell the kids all about you. They all say you are pretty. I usually can keep the boys from saying something gross for a few seconds. Mom and I are going to the game tonight. And like 6 more times, before I go back to South Carolina. I have seen Nicky twice, but I myself haven’t seen your younger kids. Bob took pictures of the day we said goodbye, and we did a family picture at the Abbey. I literally almost a...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Friend I Once Had, And The Dogmatic Principle

 I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p...
Post a Comment
Read more