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Dory

Tackling Aristotle

We have these great leather love seats in the family room. They're as comfortable as all get out. I was stretched out across one this afternoon and my son, 13, was stretched out across the other. He stretches out further than I do now, and while that is hardly a great accomplishment, it is a landmark nonetheless--a landmark he enjoys more than I do.

We were reading Aristotle's Poetics aloud to each other. (His humanities course this year is George Grant's Gileskirk program, Antiquities, and I like to tie in his literature to his history.) Why read it aloud? Well, one reason is that my goals for his education exceed what mine was, and I haven't read it before. So why not read it together and help each other out?

Besides, he might need my help with the vocabulary.

Mom: "Now his use of the word trajectory here is not in the sense of..."…

Son: "I know, Mom, he means the movement of history."

Mom: "Right. Very good, now where was I..."

Later he pointed out that the definition of tragic plots vs. comic plots that I had explained before reading Aristotle on tragedy and comedy were really quite different than what Aristotle had in mind. I was thinking about a plots turning up or down and Aristotle was only concerned about whether the characters were admirable or laughable.

Brat.

It struck me suddenly that here I was reading Aristotle with my thirteen year-old and HE GETS IT. Now every parent likes to think that his kid is the next Albert Einstein, but I know better. My boy is bright kid, but not out of the ordinary. And as far as motivation goes, well, sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get him to get his work done. I don't want to paint one of those rosy pictures that so many homeschoolers paint so their readers sigh and think, "Oh, I could never do that!"

But why do we avoid things like Aristotle's Poetics and other classic works? Is it because our lack of familiarity with it makes us afraid to try? Somehow I think the worst thing we could teach our kids is that there are whole categories of things out there that they aren't qualified to even try to learn. I can't hope to give my son a complete education in the next four years. I hope he will be learning for a lifetime. I hope that twenty years from now when he's looking for something to read he will see Aristotle's Politics on the shelf and, rather than be intimidated, he will say to himself, "I think I'll tackle this. After all, if I've been reading Aristotle since I was thirteen."

Finding Good Blogs to Read

Perhaps you've had the experience I've had of browsing for blog sites and being confronted with material I'd just rather not see. If you're looking for some good reading, try these blog groups:

League of Reformed Bloggers

Pro Life Blogs

Evangelical Aggregator

Shifting Standards at the FDA?

Today the FDA announced that due to three deaths and numerous damaging and life-threatening events attributed to the abortion-inducing pill RU-486, it will be changing the warning on the labels required with sales of the drug. To put this into perspective, let us remember that this drug is given to a population that is NOT sick with any condition that is cured by the drug, and each successful use causes at least one death.

The FDA recently turned down licensing of Exanta®, an AstraZeneca blood-thinning drug, because in clinical trials three deaths occurred in which the drug was a suspected (though not proven) contributing cause. In contrast to the RU-486 population, this drug is given to a population already at huge risk of dying from stroke, blood clots, or cardiac events. The only other blood thinner already on the market (warfarin – first developed as a rat poison) cannot be used by many patients, because of adverse drug interactions and other problems. Exanta®, which is already licensed in Europe, is not without its side-effects, but the risks seem to be lower than with the existing drug, and vastly lower than leaving these conditions untreated. Doctors are frustrated by the unavailability of this drug, and feel there would be thousands fewer deaths each year if the drug was available.

So one must ask the question. Are the safety standards for licensing RU-486 different than for other drugs, even life-saving drugs, such as Exanta®? Why do three deaths and many dangerous infections and ruptures among a well population warrant a warning label, while three deaths among a patient population that is, in many cases desperately ill, result in a denial of licensing for the drug?

The Four Governments

Click on the chart to see a clearer version.

Hate Crimes in a Biblical Light

Reading David Limbaugh’s blog musing about why it is hate crime laws do not apply to the vandalism of Republican campaign headquarters—hate of some groups of people seems acceptable, or at least legal—got me to thinking again about hate crime legislation from a Biblical standpoint. To do that we have to think again about the four distinct governments in Scripture: self-government, family government, ecclesiastical (church) government, and civil government, and consider what responsibilities and tools of discipline are granted to each. I’ve made a little chart (above) that summarizes these as I see it from Scripture. (We could discuss that more later; but that’s not my point today.)

We get ourselves all mixed up when we forget the purposes and tools of the various governments and apply them to the others. For example, when we forget that repentance and restoration are the goals of the first three governments, but not the last, we end up with the civil government trying to “reform” prisoners, or we take apparent remorse into consideration when sentencing criminals. If we forget that the purpose of family discipline is to bring about repentance and restoration, rather than punishment, then the rod can become a weapon of angry abuse.

I define tyranny as what happens when one sphere of government attempts to exert authority in an area in which God has not given that authority. For example, the first three governments have been given the task of instruction. When the civil government takes on that responsibility, and claims authority over or compels taxes for education, they have become tyrannical in that area.

So what about offenses of the mind, of which unjust hatred is only one? Others include covetousness, lust, insincere worship, ingratitude, and pride. Yet how are these offenses handled in Scripture? What is the proscribed punishment or remedy for these things? We are often told to examine ourselves and to keep ourselves from such sins, and to pray for the help of the Spirit in doing so, but there is no imposition of penalty for these offenses by the family, ecclesiastical or civil governments.

For two reasons, then, I believe that any attempt by the civil government to legislate the governance of the thoughts or affections is tyrannical and ought not be supported: 1) These offenses are sins, but not crimes, and 2) They are sins that God has placed under no human government other than the self.

That is not to say that things such as racial hatred are not wrong. They certainly are. But they are sins of the heart that must be dealt with by the self and the Spirit of God.

Established Agnosticism?

See La Shawn Barber's discussion on the moral divide here, and be sure to read the comments for a fascinating look at both sides of this issue. My comments (below) are as much a comment on the comments as it is on the original article.

God exists.

God does not exist.

We cannot know whether or not God exists.

All of these statements are about God. None of them can be proved or disproved by science. All of these statements are religious. Everyone who subscribes to one of these statements or any other statement about any deity or absence thereof is making a religious claim.

The same can be said of statements about whether or not God is relevant to law, politics, or education. Can science (or history or law or language) be rightly understood without reference to the God of Nature (or of Providence, or the Supreme Lawgiver, or the Word Incarnate)? Whether you answer yes or no, you make a religious claim.

Secularists (I use the term broadly to apply to those who believe law, education, etc. can be carried on without reference to God.) claim that their views are not religious and then on the basis of that claim, expect others to join them and construct a culture that can be fairly characterized as officially agnostic. As all sides believe that what they believe is correct (otherwise they wouldn’t believe it), I would submit that we cannot solve the problem of how to live together in a pluralistic society where everyone is free to exercise his or her religion unless we first come to terms (as Mortimer J. Adler would say) and agree that all of these views are religious.

Our founders (some of whom were secularists) solved the problem by basing our law on the only reasonable unchanging standard that was available—the Bible, and then carefully protecting each person’s right to freely exercise their conscience (a Biblical concept which was greatly studied in the Reformation) in worship and belief. Further, they protected the Scriptural distinction between Church authorities and civil authorities when they included the Establishment Clause that prevented one Christian sect being established above others as the State Religion, and kept the government out of the business of appointing church leaders and vice versa.

If now we want to change this basis of our government and establish ourselves as an officially agnostic country, secularists need to admit that that is what they are proposing and then make the argument to persuade the majority of us to make the change.

Wherever 2 or 3 Are Gathered...There's Enough for a Church Split

A must read for my contentious brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian/Reformed churches(and I must sometimes include myself in that lot), is John Frame's Machen's Warrior Children.

If you don't have time to read the whole article, skim the bulk of it, but read carefully the author's concluding observations. And be prepared to blush. Here is a sample:

"Reformed people need to do much more thinking about what constitutes a test of orthodoxy. Is it really plausible to say that, for example, Gordon Clark's view of incomprehensibility was unorthodox, when neither Clark's nor Van Til's positions are clearly set forth in the Reformed confessions? But again and again, through the history described above, writers have read one another out of the Reformed movement (and even out of Christianity) on such dubious bases. The assumption seems to be that any difference of opinion amounts to a test of fellowship, that any truth I possess gives me the right to disrupt the peace of the church until everybody comes to agree with me. But surely there are some disagreements that are not tests of orthodoxy, some differences that should be tolerated within the church. Examples include the disagreements over days and the eating of meat, described by Paul in Romans 14, and the disagreements about idol food, which he discusses in 1 Corinthians 8-10. In those passages there is no suggestion that people holding the wrong view should be put out of the church. Rather, Paul condemns the party spirit and calls the disagreeing parties to live together as Christian brothers and sisters. In my judgement [sic], the Machen movement thought little about the difference between tolerable and intolerable disagreements in the church."

This is not an article that dismisses the importance of doctrinal issues, but it makes a strong case that such differences need to be handled in the Spirit of love and fellowship rather than the in the flesh. Those of us who love the Word and love to argue, persuade, and express our worldviews would do well to heed John Frame's wisdom.

Unequally Yoked

So if one parent kills his unborn child, he is guilty of capital murder. Yet if the other parent hires a professional to kill her unborn child, she is guilty of...nothing?
Curious.

Relative Values

For more thoughts on the topic of relative values, (See my post on the Palestinian George Washington), read La Shawn Barber's post here.

May I see your receipt?

“May I see your receipt, Ma’am?”
“No, thank you.”
“I need to see your receipt, so I can know you paid for that.”
“Do you have any reason to believe I have stolen this? Didn’t I just walk away from your counter?”
“I didn’t see where you came from, but I need to be able to see that you paid for it.”
“So you have not seen me do anything wrong, yet you insist that I must submit to a search to prove I have done nothing wrong?”
“It’s not a search. I just need to see your receipt.”
“Of course it’s a search. This is my property, and you are insisting that you can stop me and examine it. That’s a search.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but I have a right to see your receipt.”
“A right??? From where do you derive this right? Is this one of those rights that our Constitution protects?”
Sputters. “Well, I don’t know about that, all I know is I’m supposed to make sure people don’t walk out of here without paying for things.”
“There are ways to prevent shoplifting that don’t require you violate the Constitutional rights of your customers.”
“Ma’am, I don’t know whether or not you stole that, and I need to see your receipt.”
“May I see a receipt for those shoes you’re wearing?”
“No.”
“But how do I know you paid for them?”
“Ma’am, I must insist on seeing your receipt!”
“Do you think a police officer could stand outside your store and search the packages and receipts of your customers as they leave the store?”
“No.”
“You’d expect him to get prosecuted for unlawful arrests and illegal searches, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, but I am not a police officer.”
“Yet you claim the authority to search my property even beyond what a commissioned police officer has been granted? Who has granted you this authority?”
“Look lady, if you don’t show me your receipt, I will have to ban you from this store and you may never shop here again.”
“Somehow, I think I'll find a way to bear the loss.”

The above is an amalgamation of conversations I have had at several local stores at an alarmingly growing rate of frequency. (Soon the only place I will be able to shop is online!)

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States says, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Webster’s Dictionary defines probable cause as, “reasonable grounds for presuming guilt in someone charged with a crime.” (Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus, Accents Software International, Macmillan Publishers, Version 2.0, 1998) So, as far as obtaining a search warrant goes, an officer must show reasonable grounds that a crime has been committed, and the described search is likely to produce evidence of that crime. Seeing a person walk out of a store with merchandise does not meet this standard of probable cause, since honest, paying customers do this all the time.

In those cases in which there is no time to get a warrant, (lest the suspect get away or the evidence be lost), an officer may make an arrest and conduct a search, but he will later have to answer (under oath) to a judge or court commissioner as to why he had probable cause to act as he did and to show that his actions were lawful. Most jurisdictions allow a noncommissioned merchant to make a lawful arrest in a shoplifting case; however the same standards of probable cause still apply.

“A long standing exception permits warrantless searches incident to a lawful arrest. Circumstances may not permit an arresting officer to obtain a warrant. But only the person under arrest and the immediately surrounding area are subject to search (Chimel vs. California, 1969)…” (The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, Kermit L. Hall, ed., Oxford University Press, New York 1992, pg. 762, emphasis mine.)

I am not a lawyer and this post is not intended as legal advice. But I believe that Americans need to inform themselves about their rights and resist attempts to trample them. Unless a merchant has seen you behaving in a way that would make a reasonable person believe you have stolen something, he has no more right to search your person or property than you have to search his.

I also believe that we should take the next step of writing or telephoning the managers and/or the corporate headquarters of these businesses and let our objections be known. If they hear from enough of us, they may back off from these policies. And if they don’t, I think the issue needs to be tested in the courts.

Palestinian George Washington?

As Fox News was covering Arafat's burial this morning, a guest commentator began to compare the Palestinian view of Arafat to how Americans view George Washington. Many British called him a terrorist, he said. Then he began to bring in the name of Ronald Reagan. That's when E. D. Hill pounced, and firmly and passionately rejected any such comparisons.

As I reflected on this incident--and we have heard many other similar attempts to compare terrorists to Patriots--I have to wonder, does the Islamic worldview actually permit someone to, with sincerity, compare the life of George Washington to that of Yassar Arafat? In Islamic ethics do uniformed soldiers engaging in warfare exist on the same moral plane with those who order the strapping of explosives onto brainwashed teenagers and exploding them into a crowd of old men, women, children, and babies?

I don't think so. I think there may be another explanation. I think our enemies are attempting to exploit our own moral weakness, namely, our rejection of an absolute standard of truth and justice, and our willingness to see truth, including ethical truth, as a relative thing. Each woman is able to choose if killing her unborn baby is "right for her." Unmarried, unrelated people living together are called "roommates" if that is what they prefer, or a "family" if that is what they call themselves.

So why not call people who blow up busloads of school children, "Freedom fighters" and American soldiers, "Terrorists?" On what grounds can a moral relativist object?