The Metaphysics of Materialism

Materialist determinism is a perpetually popular view in the modern world. It is the metaphysical viewpoint which denies metaphysics by positing that: 1. Reality is made of matter and only matter. The only reality is matter and the physical forces which operate within material interaction. This raises the thorny question of what exactly matter is. But let’s bracket this and assume there is something called “matter”, and it is the only constituent of reality (as opposed to “spirit” or “mind” or “consciousness”). 2. The events in reality are causally determined by material laws and forces, such that even the workings of mind and consciousness are determined by the physical states which preceded them. There is no free will or choice. All are illusory experiences formed in brains after events have happened. All phenomena can be fully explained in a mechanistic way through the matter and forces at work in an event, without any reference to choices or intentions or motives or thoughts.

However, as elegant as materialist determinism seems to be, it has some rather impractical and non-elegant implications. 

Should we rethink the dates of the New Testament?

Recently, New Testament scholar Jonathan Bernier has put forth a powerful proposal about  "Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament". He shows that in the era of modern Biblical scholarship, there have been three basic kinds of dates proposed for the writing of the New Testament:

Why God cannot be evil

Recently I was in a discussion in which someone asked whether God could be evil. Is it possible that the Ultimate Reality that is the source of all other realities is actually malevolent? Fortunately, it is both an evidential and a logical impossibility for God to be evil. God cannot be evil due to both an a priori reason (a reason which comes prior to experience in the world) and an a posteriori reason (a reason which comes from reflection on experience in the world). 

Twitter Gospel

A friend talked about summarizing the Gospel in 280 characters for Twitter. So here’s my Twitter Gospel. What is yours?

The Good News is that the LORD of Love is drawing us ALL into God’s embrace through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as God journeys with us through our hells &  heavens, and guides us in our trials & triumphs, so we may share fully in God’s Life and Love and Light.

I even have a 9 word version:

Christ shows God. 

God is Love. 

Love heals all. 

Amen.

Beware of Prophets for Profits

“Think again Sunshine!” Pop-intellectual Jordan Peterson has released a video in which he takes the role of a prophet and tells all Christian churches— Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox— how to do outreach and what our message should be. It is a video in which an exemplar of unhealthy right wing “good think” lobs rhetorical grenades at unhealthy left wing “political correctness” in the name of a religion and a God he himself does not embrace. His central thesis is that young men are burdened with a version of “original sin” experienced as guilt and shame for three overstated reasons, promoted by his enemies such as Derrida and Marx, deconstructionists and cultural Marxists. 

The Spirituality of Physical Training

Lord of Life strengthen us in Spirit, body, and soul: With our mind, heart, and will in your loving control; So we can heal our world, and make your children whole.

One of the driving concerns behind my entire life project is integral holism: To help us become healthy and whole in body, spirit, and soul. I believe the integration of bodily health and activity is foundational for our spiritual vitality and psychological wholeness. As a Christian pastor, my primary means of accessing wholeness and purpose and integration in life is through the God of Love revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. Followers of Jesus are not usually known for their dedication to physical training and integration. But I think this is a mistake. After all, Jesus usually met people's bodily needs by feeding and healing them, before he taught them spiritual and ethical truths. And the "abundant life" promised by Jesus has physical as well as spiritual dimensions, such as making "our daily bread" a central concern in Jesus' model prayer.

Just as Jesus combined both physical and spiritual dimensions in his ministry, I usually combine my spiritual training with physical training, staying mindful of my diet and rest, exercise and mobility. This practice uses many of the spiritual-physical insights we find in Christian asceticism, as well as Hatha Yoga, and modern ideas of physical mobility, to create a method of living which not only connects us with Christ, but also makes us the strongest version of ourselves, which is holistically holy and wholly whole. 

Training to become our Strongest Self

Lord of Life strengthen us in Spirit, body, and soul: With our mind, heart, and will in your loving control; So we can heal our world, and make your children whole.

"Who are you training to become?" This is a phrase I have written on the squat rack in my home gym, and at the top of my training log. Because what we practice is what we become, and how we train shapes who we will be. So, who are you training to become? This entire instructional manual, which unpacks my core training principles, is an attempt to help us all train in such a way that we become who and what we want to be: That we train to become our strongest self, our wisest self, our best self.

So, since this blog is a summary of my entire training program, we need to start by defining "training". Depending on where you look, you can find many definitions for training. Training can refer to "developing a particular skill or type of behavior through practice and instruction". In a purely physical sense training often refers to "preparing oneself through diet and exercise in order to be fit". Or in its most general sense, training can be "to grow in a particular direction or into a required shape". All of these overlapping definitions share my idea of training: Training is "activity with intensity directed toward a purpose". 

Creating Goals to become your Best Self

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.12-14)

I originally wrote this as part of a training manual for how to integrate physical training with the rest of our lives. But I realized this section deals with ideas and practices that will help us attain excellence in any part of our lives. Because most of us want to be the best version of ourselves. But we often lack the tools to develop goals and plans to help us get there. And "failing to plan is planning to fail". To attain our best self, our strongest self, and our wisest self, we have to intend to become this, imagine what it might look like to be this, and plan the best way to get from where we are, to where we want to be. The material found here is helpful for this. And although most of the examples used here come from physical training, the underlying substance applies to becoming great in any endeavor.