Fail blog

Oh dear. this really is a good website. Well, not exactly good, but the creative and ungrammatical (or should that be unsyntactical?) use of the word 'fail' all over the shop is only the icing sugar on the icing on the cake of amusement.

Just one to whet the appetite...

what's in a name?

Well, if the name is PET-CESSORIES, then an unfortunate allusion to something you might put somewhere you might not want to think about.

And yet, remarkably, that is the name of some pet equipment shops in and around Cambridge (and maybe elsewhere for all I know). It's not clever really, is it? Now, Axcessories, a hardware shop, that would be a good name. Maybe someone's thought of it, but Pet-cessories? Please...

On the M1 from Sheffield to Leicester this afternoon we did, however, see a very good company name on the back of a white van:

PYROTECT

that is actually quite good for a fire-retaring services firm. Well done to them. But Pet-cessories...?

Iconoclastic Controversies!

Discussing what seminar papers we were going to write for today's NTI moot on 'Idolatry', and running through 'Are sin and idolatry synonymous?', 'Review Tim Keller's book Counterfeit Gods', 'Why does 1 John end the way it does?'we came across 'Assess the contemporary relevance of the iconoclastic controversies in the Orthodox church of the first millennium'. And of course that's the one I chose.

Better still, it's the perfect name for a Christian Rock band, n'est-ce pas? And the best track on their debut album would surely be 'Fallen into the eisegetical pits' (co-incidentally, a chapter from Greg Beale's meaty We become what we worship: a biblical theology of idolatry [2008]).

All comedy on this post courtesy of JR from Cornerstone.

a draw, a palpable draw!

At long last I have achieved more than 0 in a correspondence game of chess with Charles! It's only half a point, but it's a start. And what a fun game it was. The swashbuckling King's Gambit was whipped out, and pieces were sacrificed all over the shop. If I had castled long and kept my King out of danger that piece sacrifice might even have netted me more (but, then, I always think that, and history is against me!)

1. e4 e5

2. f4 exf4

3. Nc3 Nc6

4. Nf3 Bb4

5. Bc4 g5

6. h4 g4

7. Ng5 Ne5

8. Nxf7 Nxf7

9. Bxf7+ Kxf7

10. Qxg4 Bxc3

11. Qh5+ Kf8

12. bxc3 Nf6

13. Ba3+ d6

14. Qh6+ Kg8

15. 0-0?! Ng4

16. Qxf4 Be6 (the doubled pawn charge is rather neat...)

17. c4 Qxh4

18. c5 dxc5

19. Bxc5 h5

20. Qxc7 Rh7

21. Qd6 Rf7 (the dance of the rooks, and I was very pleased with the next move, which saves the game...)

22. Rf3! Rd8 

23. Qxe6 Qh2+

24. Kf1 Qh1+

25. Bg1 Nh2+

26. Ke2 Nxf3

27. Qg6+ (draw by perpetual)

Phew!

part of a Frame

A Review of John Frame, The Doctrine of God (P&R, 2002)

Under the wider umbrella of a ‘Theology of Lordship’, Frame sets out his doctrine of God. This work is a sequel to The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (1987), or perhaps that work was merely the introduction to this one. Major books on the Word of God (in progress) and the Christian Life (P&R, 2008) also come under this umbrella, and are part of the multi-perspectival approach to doctrine advocated by Frame and Vern Poythress. So in fact it is inappropriate to speak of any work as ultimately ‘prior’ to the others, whatever the heuristic or pedagogical value in starting with the volume on epistempology, for example.  

So Frame says of metaphysics, ethics and epistemology that each presupposes and even determines the other two, and thus none is prior to the others (pp.196, and passim). Thus there is great validity in approaching a subject from various directions, each of which is admitted to be incomplete

The Doctrine of God (DG) is a mere 806 pages, including Frame’s helpful appendices, which review contemporary discussions of theology proper and respond to some incompetent attacks on his earlier works. This review pertains only to the first 18 of the 29 chapters, since I have not yet got through the rest of the book. This is simply a question of time, not any weakness in the presentation of DG – Frame’s writing is lucid and a real pleasure to engage with. It is hard to imagine how one might communicate the subtleties of his discussion any more helpfully for the educated layman.

Frame has already presented a detailed outline of the work (xi-xx) so I won’t summarise here. Basically, I agree with everything I have read so far. DG is steeped in Scripture, extremely reasonable and careful in tone, confident in all the right places and generally amazing. Regarding reasonableness, the section on 6-day creation (pp.302-12) is a prime example of Frame’s humility and alertness to the variety of positions that are permitted by the text of Scripture, while still making clear which position he tends towards. His overall confident approach, the theology of lordship, beginning with analysis of how the OT in particular presents God as Lord/LORD is a useful fresh take on the subject. When he speaks of covenant lordship he does not use the adjective as a banner as some might, but he actually discusses what that means, such as the aspect of ‘covenant presence’ – God is near/here to bless/judge (pp.95-101). Rather than enthuse too much more, I will spend the rest of this review on interesting questions thrown up by DG and on a few places where Frame has been slightly less careful than usual.

Natural Reason.

In his (probably correct) critique of Aquinas on natural reason (as prior to revelation; pp.224-5) Frame almost ends up as an unwitting critic of his own position (as expressed in his discussion of ethics, pp.195-6) that that situational (sensory, factual) knowledge is necessary for us to be able to hold normative (Scriptural) knowledge. For Frame, these different types of knowledge are arranged in an equal triad, but sometimes he comes close to saying that ‘situational knowledge’ is mere fodder. This undermines the internal equality of the triad’s perspectives.

Transcendence.

Frame convincingly argues that transcendence/immanence language in Scripture is not primarily spatial, but is about lordship and authority. But this does not in itself remove the ‘problem’ of how to conceive of ‘spatial’ transcendence/immanence. A footnote (p.105, fn.4) refers the reader on to chapters 24 and 25 so maybe my question will be answered there…!

Theodicy.

DG contains a superb account of the greater-good defence of a sovereign God in the face of evil. Frame disagrees with the privation theory of evil because it posits degrees of being (unwarranted from Scripture, and tending towards pantheism) and because it doesn’t actually absolve God, since in the universe posited by the privation theory an omnipotent God is still responsible for ‘non-being’ as much as for ‘being’. Of course, Frame’s second point there does not tell us whether or not the privation theory is true, only that it is insufficient to defend God. To me, there does seem to be something more real about the triune God than anything in his creation, and thus something is left of the privation theory if used as a support to the greater-good defence. I was pleased to see that a little later on Frame agrees (p.180, fn.41)! But he is not completely consistent in his formulations. The main text continues to maintain equivalence between God’s being and our being (e.g. p.217, ‘there are no degrees of reality… God is real, and we are real’) while also saying that there is a difference, too – ‘ours at its very best, even perfected by grace, is the goodness of creatures’(p.218). He notes a distinction between uncreated being and created being, and thus implies that evil as a species of the latter may indeed be ontologically different from the (uncreated) goodness of God. There’s hope for modified privation after all.

He briefly returns to theodicy in a neat discussion of concurrence (pp.287-88). All good, but driven by his (plausible) rejection of any ‘laws of nature’ and the corresponding definiton of a miracle as simply an unusual event brought about by God for various purposes (see esp. pp.258-61) Frame is reluctant to identify any events that have ‘no secondary cause at all’ beyond Creation, Incarnation and the regeneration of the believer. What about the return of Christ!? And I’m sure we could think of some miracles that involved the addition of matter to the universe at a particular point in history after the 6 days of creation…

Guidance.

On the question of the drawing of lots Frame is rather hesitant (p.52) but this is because he has moemntarily forgotten to be careful over the use of the phrase ‘God’s will’. Sure, we never use lots to decipher God’s moral will (it is revealed in Scripture), but why not to reveal or precipitate (as it were) his permisive will for our particular futures? On questions where there is no right or wrong choice, that is. Of course there is plenty of biblical precedent for a thorough scripturalist like Frame to take more comfort in flipping a coin over his choice of burger relish or house purchase, or whatever.

Gender.

A great many authors and speakers intimate, imply or even state that individual believers are the bride(s) of Christ. But I am surprised that Frame is one of them! ‘It is important for both male and female Christians to know, and to meditate deeply on the fact, that in relation to God they are female – wives called to submit in love to their gracious husband’. (p.385) Notice the plural wives there. I’m really sure about this. I think God relates to each believer as Father, Brother, Helper (and much more besides) but not as husband. That is his relationship to the church/Israel.

Simplicity.

Frame on the ‘simplicity’ of God (pp.225-30) brings to mind the Islamic discussion of the attributes of Allah, and early medieval Christian critique of said discussions as compromising Allah’s supposed unity. There is more to think about here when my head is clearer!

More please!

Sometimes Frame refers to controversial issues only in passing. This is not necessarily a problem – in a book on the doctrine of God, a paragraph and a list of useful secondary literature are adequate for the subject of human gender relations – but there were a couple of places where the brevity was more unfortunate. First, soteric pluralism gets only a couple of biblical quotes without any interaction with the exegesis of those passages by proper pluralists or woolly liberal Anglicans (pp.92-3). This ought to be a significant topic in the context of a theology based around revelation, covenant, etc. Second, Frame twice speaks of ‘the rejection of Israel’ without grounding his discussion. Once it’s a passing reference (p.86, fn.10) concerning the faith of the centurion, whose faith – greater than any Jesus had seen in Israel – is ‘a sign of the Gentiles election and Israel’s rejection’. The other occasion is in the midst of a discussion of election without the full benefits of salvation. Frame gives two examples – Judas, an individal, so raising no conceptual problems, ‘and national Israel, which, because of unbelief, lost its special status as God’s elect nation’ (p.49, fn.3). I’d want more clarity here. Maybe en masse they were “elected without the full benefits”, but if so, in what sense does particular “rejection” need to follow, if the election was never unto full (numerical or depth across the board) salvation anyway? After all, we already know of plenty of apostate and judged Jews in the OT. Hmm.

baldy!

There's a seriously amusing picture of me on the Hope website, thanks to Dave's excellent media skills (in fact almost all the website is down to him). I'm the one holding forth on the left. Of course, it is important for any visitors to the site to know that not everyone is as shiny as me, hence the full heads of hair in evidence in all the other pictures.

double whammy

A site that gently pokes fun at Germany and America at the same time?

How could I refuse such a recommendation!? (Thanks to CW, a German cineaste friend, for the heads up)

The consequent enjoyment has delayed my breakfast this morning - that's how witty it is; the Asda Shreddies are still in the bowl.

Also, I'm still recovering from man-flu and not that hungry... but nonetheless well able to chuckle.

a warm feeling

Someone sent me a very nice comment in response to some publicity about my chamber concerts this term.

I love your selections. I know they will be 'human' - and also challenge me to take some more steps in musical appreciation.

Job done!

I notice they didn't mention the quality of the playing   ;-)

What have I been doing?

Good question. Poor blog has not got a look in lately, although there are plenty of things in the wings when I get my act together.

The last 6 weeks have been fairly full - seminar on music at the UCCF Forum (covered in red mud), church plant a little busier on account of paternity leave on the leadership team (praise God!), extra publicity and time input for the old people's cafe we run, and helping with organising the real workers to put up nice blackout roller blinds in the old chapel we are using in Teversham, became an elder at the mothership, which has brought its burdens and sorrows, some very enjoyable diploma accompanying for a couple of cellists, new term of NTI, piano students returning from holiday, more cooking, as Mrs L was full-time at work till last week, lots of people-time, including long deep chats trying to get head round various misunderstandings/arguments and help people move forwards, action-packed badminton on Monday nights, a nice visit from the mother-in-law, planning to move abroad, buying a house...

Recent film watching

The cinemas have done reasonably well out of me and various mates this summer. As have the manufacturers of Minstrels, that essential film companion. Alas I have not done all that well out of the cinemas...

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2/5 Hugh Jackman and Liev Schrieber's rivalry was reasonable and there were some god set-pieces (and I suppose it helped make some sense of some of the other X-men films, though why that should matter, since the tangled web of comic books they are based on doesn't need to make much sense...) but most of the rest of the film was a wasted opportunity - a naff Gambit, a load of teenage mutants doing not a lot, silly effects, you name it.

Star Trek

3/5 Central plot twist so ludicrous that they pulled it off, and scenes set on the large Romulan ship were all over the place in terms of continuity and plausibility of movement (maybe no worse than Shakespeare in that regard?!), but excellent performances and good humour.

Terminator Salvation

1/5 Even the normally reliable Christian Bale was going through the motions here. The whole second half was pants, despite coming close to being heart-warming in the central robot-man (who am I?) plotline. Poor Helena Bonham Carter.

Red Cliff

3/5 A big canvas with a lot of paint, sometimes in unusual colours, shall we say. Chinese folk history and myth meets Hollywood, sort-of, in an epic swashbuckling thing. Lovely to look at, if rather stagey in execution. I think we Western Europeans have different dramatic expectations to the Chinese!

Sunshine Cleaning

4/5 At last something decent! Surely the smallest budget of the lot by a factor or 10, and certainly the best. Heart-warming without being cloying, funny without being silly, tender without being toooo sentimental, and perfmormed very well by all and sundry. Two sisters attempt to set up a crime-scene cleanup business while one comes to terms with being a grown-up and the other struggles to raise a child alone... Alan Arkin is their dad. Just see it.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2/5 The performances were great, compared to the earlier Potter films, and despite its length I wasn't bored, but structurally the film was a disaster. Very much a 'middle' section, with no shape or direction, not to mention a very anticlimactic final twist.

culture you can't argue with

While I languished on the sofa this evening, trying to shake off man-flu and skimming the internet, Mrs L was engaged in some serious and worthwhile fun - finishing off a sewing project that has converted an old jumper (shrunk in the washing machine) into a shoulder bag. Nice lining, nice button, good original material. If weren't decades behind the technological times I'd post y'all a picture of it.

'Horror in other forms', or 'Modern Pastimes'

THQ and Games Workshop's Dawn of War. Is this one big waste of human potential!? My feelings on computer games are very mixed. Half of this is a general critique and half of it is directed at me and my particular weaknesses. 

First, the facts. I have spent many hours of my life playing computer games. Most of those hours were in my teenage years, but twice since then I have picked up the cudgels, so to speak, on the flickering screen (aside from the obligatory Wii-ing when round friends’ houses, getting crushed by small children at that Mario racing game and spraining various joints in the bizarre dance of Wii Tennis). In the spring of 2007 I had a burst of activity on Dawn of War, and since New Year this year I have played on a few console games with Ad and Phil (co-op military/mercenary shoot-em-ups) and have rekindled Dawn of War in the shape of the expansion pack Soulstorm.

A note on the silly names. Like the imitators of Tom Clancy or C-movie action flicks (Ultimate Force, Zero Tolerance, Death Kiss, Colateral Damage, Colateral War, War Kiss, Death War, Death Force…) the names just get sillier and sillier, and are often unrelated to the content of the game. Some of them are (unintentionally?) poetic – I particularly like Gears of War, in which one apparently descends to the earth’s core in a team of muscle-bound troopers and attempts to riddle various odd creatures with bullets. Gears? Mundane, but oddly wholesome in tone.

It should also be admitted that I have also wasted hours on computer-hosted more traditional pursuits – playing chess and shogi… So much so, that a few years ago I threw away my copy of Chessmaster7000 since it was the only way to keep me from gratuitous use. (That painful decision sprang from the maxim “know your limits”!) I have also uninstalled the Japanese shogi programme and that has now ceased to be any sort of temptation to indolence, thankfully. It’s not that chess/shogi/gaming in itself is bad. There is value in intellectal activity and game-playing as mental exercise and exploration. Furthermore, playing against human opponents over the board is a very sociable activity, so that should not be considered a waste. Admittedly, at the moment I am reduced to correspondence chess which largely lacks that personal interaction, and is more of a luxury intellectual tussle.

What of the ‘violence’ in computer games? Dawn of War and Call of Duty are, if you look closely, pretty red in tooth and claw. However, neither of them dwell on the gore, or are driven by gore. There are games that revel in graphic shots of entrails or mutant human forms served up to be chopped up. These seem to me to be more disturbing than those whose premise is war and whose cash value is in tactics, strategy and a developing storyline. Of course, the nasty games can often claim those things, too, but why all the nastiness? Why dwell on it? I must admit, however, to being fearful of wielding the WWJD sword here since Dawn of War would not have been in Jesus’ repertoire, no matter how tame it might seem in comparison to some games.

I guess the conclusion has to be – everything in moderation, unless it’s a genuine stumbling block. And just as the most gory games are a stumbling block (to all of us, or ought to be), so is (to some of us) the very idea of computer gaming, and the problem there is idleness rather than love (or misplaced tolerance) of violence. In either case, sin is sin.

horrific interlude

From a blog I just stumbled upon by the swashbuckling Dan Philips, of pyromaniac fame. When people can write and have a good eye it's a joy to spend time grazing. 

Among many great pieces, here are some useful throughts from DP and from his comment-adders on the question of horror as a genre.

Funny how none of them seems to like Frank Peretti. I really do like him, but perhaps because I read his books as a teenager, insulated then from any charismatic or noe-pentecostal connotations which might be irking these hard reformed types. I also have a cassette version of This Present Darkness read by the author, and I think it's great! He didn't simply tack some cod theology onto the end of a Stephen King imitation there, let me tell you.

more sadness

Aslam weaves together throughts and ideas, some of them inside his characters' heads, some outside, and sometimes you can't tell. The chilling hold of superstition over the lives of Russian Christians intrudes into Lara's mind, pp.307-08...

       A blue rectangle of the ceiling stands revealed wherever a book is missing above her. They look like openings onto the afternoon sky. It was to prevent a haunting that in certain parts of Russia a dead body was carried to the church through an open window, or even through a specially cut hole in the roof. The idea was to confuse the dead person's spirit, making it more difficult for the ghost to find its way back home.

      Earlier David had received a call to say that the Jalalabad police have found the head of Bihzad at last, flung into a drainage ditch in the bombing. The young man who thought he was on his way to paradise. To commemorate the baptism of Christ in the River Jordan, the Tsar - accompanied by the entire court and the leading churchmen - would emerge from the Hermitage on 6 January every year, descend the steps of the Jordan Staircase, and walk out onto the frozen Neva. A whole would have been cut through the ice, and Tsar and Metropolitan would bless the water. Children were then baptised in the icy river. What amazed the visitors from other lands was the reaction of the parents if ever a child slipped from the numbed hands of the holy men, never to be seen again. They refused to grieve because the child had gone to heaven.

This suggests a belief system packed with half truths, leaving me rueing once again the many blind alleys and false turns made by the church over the centuries.

On another note, the links implied here between the political theology, thanatology and popular practice of Christendom (in its 'Third Rome' incarnation in Moscow) and those of Islam is suggestive. Reminds me of Leithart's stimulating "Mirror of Christendom" essay.

a novel sadness

The Wasted Vigil, by Nadeem Aslam (2008). All about Afghanistan since the time of the Soviet invasion. After 30 pages I had to stop reading. Whether it was anger, or sorrow, or both, or a heart-bursting despair, I don’t know. Page 8, as we learn a little about why Lara, a Russian, has arrived at the secluded lakeside house and perfume factory of an elderly English convert to Islam…

      From the various plants in the garden he derived an ointment for the deeply bruised base of her neck, the skin of their almost black about the right shoulder, as though some of the world's darkness had attempted to enter her there. He wished pomegranates were in season as their liquid is a great antiseptic. When the bus broke down during the journey, she said, all passengers had disembarked and she had found herself falling asleep on a verge. There then came three blows to her body with a tire iron in quick succession, the disbelief and pain making her cry out. She was lying down with her feet pointed towards the west, towards the adored city of Mecca a thousand miles away, a disrespect she was unaware of, and one of the passengers had taken it upon himself to correct and punish her.
       Her real mistake was to have chosen to travel swaddled up like the women from this country, thinking it would be safer. Perhaps if her face had been somewhat exposed, the colour of her hair visible, she would have been forgiven as a foreigner. Everyone, on the other hand, had the right to make an example of an unwise Afghan woman, even a boy young enough to be her son.

What religion is so weak as to require propping up by this kind of oppression? How can such careless violence be nurtured? Who can seriously imagine that God cares about which way your feet point, and that he has appointed you to sort out the feet of others?

By the time we started to hear about the petty jealousies of local characters and the truly inhuman brutality of the Russian soldiers in the 1980s it was all too much.