N. D. Wilson

Sidenote: Stealing ideas from contemporaries is rude and tasteless. Stealing from the long dead is considered literary and admirable. The same is true of grave-robbing. Loot your local cemetery and find yourself mired in social awkwardness. But unearth the tomb of an ancient king and you can feel free to pop off his toe rings. You’ll probably end up on a book tour, or bagging an honorary degree or two.

http://ndwilson.com/blog

Bavink

"People take their hearts with them when they enter a monastery, and from the heart arise all sorts of sins and iniquities."

Bavink, Reformed Dogmatics vol. 3, 54.

Bavink on Hegel

"However much he (Hegel) regarded nature as a product of reason, he could not deny that it was powerless to fully realize the Idea; he therefore stated that the Idea, in giving existence to such a world, had become unfaithful to itself, had in fact apostatized from itself. Thus he paved the way for the pessimism that, in the manner of Buddhism, considers existence itself the greatest sin, a sin committed by the blind irrational will, which is the ultimate guilty party."

Bavink, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, 53.

Evangellyfish

Doug Wilson's Evangellyfish is now all up, save the epilogue (which is up on Monday). It is 16 chapters that are brutally honest and very entertaining, in a stick your hand in a meat grinder sort of way. Not that graphic or anything, just, well, read it and tell me.

Ton of the Chester

"Only a man who knows nothing of motors talks of motoring without petrol; only a man who knows nothing of reason talks of reasoning without strong, undisputed first principles."
~G. K. Chesterton, The Blue Cross

Bible Tool

Just a great site; very useful.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/

Trovato: Aquinas on Zombies

Whether there are such thing as zombies?

Objection 1: That’s weird and dumb.
Objection 2: You’re an idiot.
Objection 3: To assert that zombies are nomologically possible would be to assert that in some world that shares all of its laws with the actual world there is a being identical to some actual or genuinely possible human being who is utterly lacking in consciousness. Of course, the existence of a real zombie would entail that zombies are nomologically as well as logically possible, but the reverse entailments do not hold. The idea of qualia and related phenomenal notions of the mind are not coherent concepts, and the zombie scenario is therefore incoherent.

On the contrary: The Bible.


2 Kings 19:35: And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they [were] all dead corpses.

I answer that: Um…well, nomologically speaking the related phenomenal notions inherent in the generic state of consciousness in the human mind and to certain qualia related platitudes…um, the Bible?

Reply to objections 1 & 2: Don’t you feel stupid now?
Reply to objection 3: Psh. Science. They don’t even know.

Declamation: Aquinas on Beards

The assignment was to write in a structure imitative of Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae, so here is mine; others are forthcoming.

Blessings.

J. Broussard
Declamation:
Aquinas Summa imitation (in form)
10/22/08

1. Whether it can be demonstrated that facial hair is good?

Objection 1. It seems that the benefit of facial hair cannot be demonstrated, as it would be a matter of preference—a benefit to some, but a detriment to others.

Objection 2. Further, facial hair is not available to all manner of men, so if it is beneficial, it is a benefit that slanders the justice of God: that He would give it to some and not to others.


On the contrary: It is written that God made all things that are, and that He declared everything that He had made to be “all very good.”

I answer that: Demonstration can be made in two ways: through the state of man at creation, and through the state of man following the resurrection. Hence the benefit of facial hair, which cannot be easily ascertained from our current fallen state, can be made plain through the eternal counsel of God.


Reply to Objection 1: The Gospel clearly states that the beard of Christ was plucked out, and that this was done to shame Him. How is it then merely a matter of preference for us to daily imitate the vile heathen that crucified our Lord by severing with dull razors the beard from the Imago Dei in us (be you a man with one blade or a coward with five)? This is indeed our shame.

Reply to Objection 2: It is true that all men cannot grow facial hair; indeed, it is also true that most women cannot either. But this does not appear to have always been the case, for it is written in Leviticus, the thirteenth chapter and the twenty ninth verse, that “if a man or woman have a plague upon the head or the beard…”
Now it may be easily assumed, that if women used to be able to grow beards, so too could all manner of men, and if we are asked why this is not the case today, we may easily respond, “why do men not live past their hundredth year today?” God has changed things for His own pleasure, and it is our delight that some men, and (indeed, our great delight) that most women cannot grow beards, and this does not impute partiality to God.
However, we may all look forward to the day when there shall be neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew nor Greek, American nor Dutch, bearded nor side-burned.

Commonplaces on Play vs. Work

"Play is anything you enjoy and aren't held accountable for." --Jordan (Juhr-duhn) Leithart

"Play starts when the umpire says 'Play ball' and ends when the last out is made. Everything else, like lifting weights and taking steroids, is just work." --Ben Saunders

"Dr. Stokes learned me all about letters last year. “They simply refer us,” he said, “to real world stuff.” Problem solved! What childhood activity could be more “real world” than packaging 10 dead flies into envelopes, sorted according to their kinds, and selling them to my other brothers?" --Timothy van den Broek

N. D. Wilson

Just a quick note: first edition signed copies of Nathan Wilson's 100 Cupboards are selling for $70.00 at the moment, and it is soon to be followed by its sequel. If you are looking for an excellent, up and coming author, you would be hard pressed to do better.

The Politics of Blood

"If you are a Christian and you deny that the unborn are created in the image of God, then you need to start taking better care of your soul -- because you are losing it."

"The paper-thin objection that pro-lifers are inconsistent in opposing abortion because they generally support the death penalty is risible. We oppose killing innocents who have not had their day in court, and support killing guilty people who have had their day in court, and you want to make that into an inconsistency? Better luck next time."

These are excerpts from an excellent post by Wilson on the topic of abortion and war. Quick read, and worth reading.

History Presentation

I did my history presentation on Book III of Herodotus, and received an SCL. I'm more than just a wee bit happy.

Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris can believe it's not butter.

Conservativism

"If the Democrats wanted to burn down the Capitol building, the Republicans would counter with a proposal to do it over the course of three years."

R.L. Dabney described a certain kind of conservatism as the shadow that follows radicalism to perdition.

Doug Wilson is embarking on a tour of the reprehensible Senator McCain's anomalous choice of VP, which has so far been quite interesting. Click on my title to jump in mid-stride.

Redneck

You may be a redneck if:

1. you mow your lawn and find a car, or

2. to lose twenty pounds, you don't go on a diet; you take off a belt-buckle.

Nice Latin phrase

"Vir qui surget in latrino, altus est in caccabo."

A man standing on a toilet is high on pot.

Yes, He's Serious

Our Latin teacher, in the course of a class, commented that his daughter's first word was "Ecce."

कोम्मोंप्लासस

"Cocaine is God's way of saying you have too much money."

"Happiness is like wetting your pants: everyone can see it, but you're the only one who can feel it."

"What do you call a musician without a girlfriend? Homeless."
--Mark Driscoll

On the excessive use of makeup:
"If the house needs painting, bring out the brushes."
"If it needs that much paint, remodel."

"Love conquers all, so tace et osculate."

To Mr. Collins: "The only time you open your mouth is to switch feet: I thought men like you shot themselves. Your mother should have thrown you out and kept the stork."

"I could become one with Nature to figure out where the heck Nature is and then kill it."
--Craig Lynn

"Mothers, persistent as Rambo sequels..."


Most of these aren't cited; about half are mine and the rest are either unnamed classmates or were anonymously cited by unnamed classmates. Enjoy.

Story

The vast majority of Scripture is comprised of stories. In our imitation of God, we should learn to tell stories. Jokes are a good place to start.

Evangellyfish

Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho has written a novel called Evangellyfish. So far, he has posted the first two chapters (click on my title), and they are brutally well worth reading.

Enjoy.