The Tree of Life - The Most Intellectually and Artistically Satisfying Film of the 21st Century

I was blown away by Terence Malick's "The Tree of Life." I'm sure I'll watch it again. Parts of it were hard to look at; certain images are still with me; and I've bought the soundtrack cd and have listened to it many times. It functions, for me, as a paradigm through which to view the world.

Alan Stone revisits it in this  month's Boston Review. "The film is not easy entertainment, but for those who welcome an encounter with a brilliant, uncompromising mind and are willing to embrace a dazzling cascade of unexpected images, The Tree of Life is enthralling. It is the most intellectually and artistically ambitious film of the 21st century."

"The music lifts your soul and sends chills down your spine—and the images carry the creative trajectory. " Yup. That's my experience.

Malick the filmmaker is also a philosopher. "He studied at Harvard with philosopher-humanist and film theorist Stanley Cavell, went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, translated a volume of Heidegger, taught philosophy at M.I.T. before deciding he was not a very good teacher, became a journalist, rewrote screenplays, and eventually became a filmmaker."

And this movie is about God, and the presence of God. Stone says it even conveys the presence of God to nonbelievers. It's also about evil, and the problem re. God it causes.

Very few movies have affected me as has The Tree of Life. It burns deep in my soul. God speaks to me through it.

Love Always Protects

στέγω,v \{steg'-o}
1) deck, thatch, to cover 1a) to protect or keep by covering, to preserve 2) to cover over with silence 2a) to keep secret 2b) to hide, conceal 2b1) of the errors and faults of others 3) by covering to keep off something which threatens, to bear up against, hold out against, and so endure, bear, forbear

Love always protects. (1 Corinthians 13:7)

In my late teens when I had a date with a girl I was always thinking "Will she have sex with me?" One time I was with this girl in the back seat of a car and started putting physical moves on her. She pushed my hand away. She wanted none of that. I didn't understand and tried to convince her otherwise. That was the last time she went out with me. Good for her! She requested something of me. I did not respect her request. Feeling disrespected, she wanted nothing more to do with me. I was so self-centered that the concepts of honor and respect were not part of my DNA. I did not know love or how to love and be loved. I did not understand that love always protects.

The Greek verb stego means "to bear." This does not mean love "bears up under things," but that "love bears all things up." "Love carries everything." (Lewis Smedes, Love Within Limits, 94) Lewis Smedes writes:

"Love hates a scandal... [L]ove drives us away from scandal for deeper reasons than propriety and good taste. Scandal hurts people; and love hates everything that hurts people. This is why a loving person is turned off by gossip and rumor - out of concern for the people being whispered about." (Ib., 95)

Love carries our sorrows. Love never causes more sorrow. "Sorrow is a suffering of the mind, the hurt of knowing that something is wrong." (Ib., 97) Love is a cure for, not a cause of, emotional pain. The girl who refused my sexual advances refused to be victimized by my disrespect of her.

To respect is to protect. Love always cares for the other, with no expectation of anything in return.

A Daily Helping of "Peanuts"

Part of my daily routine includes reading "Peanuts," the cartoon strip by the late, brilliant, angst-driven, student-of-humanity Charles Schulz.

Peter van Inwagen On the Problem of Free Will

One of the issues I continue to read and study about is the argument from evil, and the related "problem of free will." In these studies I have yet to engage Notre Dame U. philosopher Peter van Inwagen. Van Inwagen is someone who must be read on "the problem of free will."

Van Inwagen famously argues for "incompatibilism"; viz., that the existence of free will is incompatible with "determinism." Van Inwagen writes: "Determinism is the thesis that the past and the laws of nature together determine, at every moment, a unique future (The denial of determinism is indeterminism)."

Van Inwagen defines "the free will thesis" (not "free will") as follows: The free-will thesis is the thesis that we are sometimes in the following position with respect to a contemplated future act: we simultaneously have both the following abilities: the ability to perform that act and the ability to refrain from performing that act (This entails that we have been in the following position: for something we did do, we were at some point prior to our doing it able to refrain from doing it, able to not do it." (Ib., 329)

If the free-will thesis is not true then persons are not morally responsible for their actions.

Van Inwagen says that "the finest essay that has ever been written in defense of compatibilism—possibly the finest essay that has ever been written about any aspect of the free-will problem—, [is] David Lewis’s ‘‘Are We Free to Break the Laws?’’ (Van Inwagen - "Compatibilism is the thesis that determinism and the free-will thesis could both be true (And incompatibilism is the denial of compatibilism" - "How to Think About the Problem of Free Will," 330).

Van Inwagen is an example of how an analytic philosopher tackles the problem of free will. He is meticulous and rigorous. One must move slowly through him.

Here is a near-exhaustive collection of essays by Van Inwagen, to include his writings on the free will thesis.

Watch a Modern Bible Translation Committee Discuss the Word "Doulos"

It's fun to watch a modern day translation committee as it revises the latest edition of the English Standard Version of the Bible.

Leading translators from around the world meeting at Tyndale House in Cambridge (TyndaleHouse.com) struggle to agree on just what is meant by use of the word 'slave'.

The debate includes Peter Williams, Gordon Wenham, Jack Collins, Wayne Grudem and Paul House.

Go here.

Is Mormonism a Cult?

Here's a very good and interesting article by Richard Mouw - "My Take: This Evangelical Says Mormonism Isn't a Cult."

Mouw is an important Jesus-scholar. He's currently president of Fuller Theological Seminary. For me, Fuller is one of the top seminaries I'd recommend to anyone with a calling to study hard and learn much about God and his kingdom.

Some of Mouw's points include:

• We have to define "cult." Mouw has studied cults. So have I. I have pulled people out of cults, even sending some for de-programming. Mormonism does not have the marks of a classic cult. It's more like another religion. Can it be defined as "Christianity?" That's the real question Mouw is looking at. 
• Mouw writes: "For the past dozen years, I’ve been co-chairing, with Professor Robert Millet of Brigham Young University – the respected Mormon school - a behind-closed-doors dialogue between about a dozen evangelicals and an equal number of our Mormon counterparts." I haven't done that. So I am listening.
• Mouw: "We evangelicals and our Mormon counterparts disagree about some important theological questions. But we have also found that on some matters we are not as far apart as we thought we were."
• Mouw: "Are Mormons Christians? For me, that’s a complicated question. My Mormon friends and I disagree on enough subjects that I am not prepared to say that their theology falls within the scope of historic Christian teaching. But the important thing is that we continue to talk about these things, and with increasing candor and mutual openness to correction."
• Once more: "While I am not prepared to reclassify Mormonism as possessing undeniably Christian theology, I do accept many of my Mormon friends as genuine followers of the Jesus whom I worship as the divine Savior. I find Mormons to be more Christ-centered than they have been in the past. I recently showed a video to my evangelical Fuller Seminary students of Mormon Elder Jeffrey Holland, one of the Twelve Apostles who help lead the LDS church. The video captures Holland speaking to thousands of Mormons about Christ’s death on the cross."

I'm glad Mouw and other evangelical leaders are dialoguing with Mormons.

Billy Graham on Growing Old

Ruth & Billy Graham

Billy Graham is one of my heroes. He is 92, and has dictated a new book, Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well. The Washington Post has a review. Here are some of the salient points.

• It's hard being old and approaching death. Graham writes: “All my life I was taught how to die as a Christian, but no one ever taught me how I ought to live in the years before I die. I wish they had because I am an old man now and believe me, it’s not easy.” 
• Stay involved.
• Spend wisely.
• Prepare a will and medical directives.
• Focus on the needs of others. Don't get self-absorbed in your own problems.
• Despire their limitations, one's senior years can be rewarding. Remember how God uses elderly people in the Bible.
• Get involved in church or other ministries.
• Help others who are ill or grieving.
• Build a mature faith through reading the Bible and other books.
• Never stop praying. Prayer is "the sweetest work of the soul."
• And, of course, "come to Jesus before it is too late." (If Graham said anything less than this he would not be heroic.)

Graham also reflects on his marriage to his wife Ruth. He writes: “Not a day passes that I don’t imagine her walking through my study door or us sitting together on our porch as we did so often, holding hands as the sun set over the mountaintops... Before long Ruth and I will be reunited in heaven. More than ever, I look forward to that day!”

I'm "only" 62, but am thinking about matters of life and death and family as I'm in Rockford, Illinois (where I grew up) for my niece Joanna's wedding at 3:30 this afternoon. Linda and I went to my parents' graves today, and went to Linda's mother and sister's graces on Friday. I walked and driven past all the homes I lived in as a child and teen. I ate Swedish pancakes with Linda, Dan and Allie this morning, and thought - for a moment - of the many times my mom and dad treated me to these delicacies in this restaurant (the Stockholm Inn).

Keep things in perspective. Perspectival living requires: 1) remembering; and 2) acquiring the Big Picture.

Neuroscientific Totalitarianism & Brain-Overclaims

Some neuroscientists are saying that "evil" does not exist. See "The End of Evil?" by Ron Rosenbaum.

People still commit bad actions. "But the idea that people make conscious decisions to hurt or harm is no longer sustainable, say the new brain scientists. For one thing, there is no such thing as "free will" with which to decide to commit evil. (Like evil, free will is an antiquated concept for most.) Autonomous, conscious decision-making itself may well be an illusion. And thus intentional evil is impossible."

"Evil" is reduced to neuro-physical activity. And moral agency and moral responsibility are gone. Neuroscince is reducing such things to pure physicalism. If free will doesn't exist moral evul doesn't exist.

This is another essay in a growing and important discussion. It does a nice job referencing and explaining "brain-overclaims"; viz., neuroscientific over estimating of the causal efficacy of the physical brain. This is neuroscientific totalitarianism.

Rosenbaum cites a recent book called Neuroethics, which looks like a good, edited collection of readings. He thinks "we can do better than the mechanistic, deterministic, denial of personal responsibility the neuroscientists are offering to "replace" evil with." And again, on their own reductionistic theory, they don't have free will either.

Tree on 19th Street in Rockford

I walked for about six miles today in Rockford, Illinois, through the neighborhoods I grew up and went to school in. A woman on 19th Street (or Avenue?) saw me walking with my camera and asked if I'd take a picture of this tree. I told her I'd post it on my website. Don and Gayle, do you recognize it?

Back To the Neighborhood I Grew Up In

Linda, Josh and I are in Illinois tonight. We're here for my niece Joanna's wedding. The rehearsal is tomorrow, the wedding is Sunday. Linda will play piano, and we'll do two songs together. It's an honor for us to do this, and so kind of Joanna and Matt to ask us.

We really love the two songs they have chosen. "When I Say I Do" is a gorgeous, austere wedding song, by Matthew West. And Brandon Heath's "Love Never Fails" is a great guitar + vocal song. Two really great songs!

After we got to Rockford we ate at Giordano's Pizza. It's so nice to be back in the land of real pizza. Although Pizza Papali's in Greektown-Detroit is comparable. Other than Papali's, Southwest Michigan is a barren pizza wasteland. (Mancino's in Wyandotte is pretty good.)

I am excited about tomorrow morning. I grew up in Rockford, and whenever I come back I tamke a 3-4 mile walk through my old neighborhood, past the house I grew up in, past the schools I attended, and the ball diamonds I played baseball in. I'll walk this tomorrow morning. I think I can remember every crack on the sidewalk of 20th Avenue in Rockford and every blade of grass in 25the Stree Park which is adjacent to our home. I'll bring my camera and my journal, and be watching and listening for the voice of God. It seems important to remember where I came from. "Remembering" is, for me, a spiritual discipline.

I miss my parents. This is good. They loved me. I loved them. They were proud of me. I was proud of and thankful for them.