The Jacobsonian: September 2007

Agree or disagree? The following is an excerpt from Pascal’s Penses:

Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapor, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this.
Thus all our dignity consists in thought. It is on thought that we must depend for our recovery, not on space and time, which we could never fill. Let us then strive to think well; that is the basic principle of morality.

I find myself only partially agreeing with this comment. My evangelical (even Baptist) upbringing screams for me to agree with this. Sola Scriptura. Get your Theology straight and everything will fall in line. These are perspectives to which I wholeheartedly subscribe. However, is “thinking well” really our main objective? For good or for ill it happens to be my objective, but what if Pascal and I are wrong? What if God intended far greater things than good Theology?

If Jesus were so convinced that proper Theology was the objective, then he would have had far more “Sermon on the Mounts.” Instead he spent his time healing people, loving the unlovable, eating with sinners, partying and praying. Except for the Sermon on the Mount, he very rarely taught in plain language – instead he taught in parables. (Mark 4:10-12) He didn’t seem too intent on making clear thinkers. Even his disciples were confused half the time.

Then James comes along and says: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” – James 1:27 (NIV)

And perhaps the greatest of all arguments: Jesus, Himself, said that the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Okay so maybe good Theology takes a close second? Nope. The second is to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

So is thinking well the basic principle of morality? It wouldn’t seem so by Scripture. It seems as though caring for the marginalized and loving our God wholeheartedly is the basic principle of morality. BUT, you must have proper Theology in order to have these priorities. So maybe your Theology is the #1 priority and then proper Theology will tell you that Theology is not the #1 priority. ;)

So what’s the balance? Whatever it is I am quite sure I lean entirely too much toward the cerebral and much less toward impacting the world.

So we just returned from a long and relaxing weekend at the beach. It was a packed house - 5 adults (Me and Shelley, My parents, my brother) , 5 kids (Our 2 Kids, My sister, My 2 cousins), 2 dogs and 1 bedroom. 4 kids slept in the loft. Shelley and I slept in the bedroom with Matea in a pack-n-play. My parents took the hide-a-bed and my brother slept on an air mattress in the living room. The dogs slept in their kennels in the living room. There wasn't an inch of space left. Here are a few of the great pictures from our trip.