An Obadiah Slope Column
Unfair: Why an unfair fight? Well, one of Canadian author and psychologist Jordan Peterson and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, John Lennox, has the holy spirit, and the other doesn’t. We are weighing truth here, not academic qualifications although both of them are impressive.
But it seems Jordan Peterson is seriously close to the kingdom. If only he could move beyond seeing the utility of Christianity and see the need of a Saviour.
In a Divinity of Jesus vodcast, the two men discuss science and truth.
Peterson: So one of the axioms of faith that’s necessary before you embark on the scientific endeavour as an individual or as a culture, which might explain why science emerged in the Judeo-Christian context and no other place, is that the universe is intrinsically intelligible. But there’s another axiom, too, which is that the honest investigation of that intelligibility will be good. And so there is this insistence in Genesis when God casts order out of chaos and creates the world after each day of creation. He says he states explicitly and it was good. And when he creates, man, I believe he says that it is very good. And the reason for that is that not only is there an order, but that the order is in its deepest sense beneficial and positive…
“You have this idea in Job that is quite well developed, that no matter what God and the devil throw at you, you’re called upon to maintain your equilibrium and your faith in the intrinsic goodness of being. And then that’s expanded in the gospels because the trials of Christ are the most extreme trials that can be imagined. And I mean that literally, that’s partly why the story has such potency, right? It’s the worst possible sequence of events that could happen to the least possibly deserving person. And that’s an injunction to accept all of the terrible catastrophes of life full on in this supposition that doing so is the manner in which life most abundant could reveal itself. And if you’re a scientist and the real scientists are like this, and I think Dawkins in this way is a real scientist, is that you’re actually committed to the truth, right? You put that above all else, and you wouldn’t do that if you didn’t believe that the logos of commitment establishes the order that is good. And I don’t think you do that without an intrinsic belief that it’s something like human beings are made in the image of God. I can’t see any escape from that rationale.”
Lennox: “Nor can I. And it’s interesting that when I did the debate with Dawkins at the Oxford Natural History Museum at the press conference afterwards, we were asked, was there anything that we agreed on? And there was one thing, and that is that truth exists. This is a crucial thing. It depends that we are committed to the pursuit of truth. Otherwise, as you say, science is absolutely no point. I happen to believe that truth of course is not simply propositional truth, but ultimately truth is a person. And that is the very deep claim. I am the way, the truth and the life. And it’s interesting there that Jesus wasn’t merely saying, I say true things, this goes much deeper. I am the truth. And if we set up a sequence of questions about anything, what is the truth about the atom? Well, you can split it into elementary particles. What is the truth about those? I believe this claim is so big that it’s actually saying that at the end of the backward sequence of questions, Jesus Christ will say, I am the truth. And of course, that resonates with what you were studying in Exodus. So interestingly, I am is the fundamental proposition about the nature of God.”
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O My God: Obadiah has got used to regarding OMG as a curse word, and he is uncomfortable when it is used. But strolling down glenferrie rd in salubrious Malvern, he came across this:
Familiar to many in Melbourne, the tower of St pauls North caulfield turns the curse into somewhat of a blessing. And the sign below in shadow reads “We Pray; Things Happen.” Well, praise the Lord for that, too.
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A working definition of Irony: discussing her propensity for nightmares of being attacked – arising from working as a social worker and hearing sad accounts of life – with Mrs Slope, her habit of crying out in the night. It is when she dreams of being attacked, and Obadiah does as she has suggested many times by patting her. Irony: Hitting someone who fears being attacked.
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Flying kangaroo is converted: Samaritans purse has announced they’ve bought a new plane, a Boeing 767. From Qantas. But it is unlikely you have flown in it as it has always been a freighter. Planespotters.net (yes there are such people) tells Obadiah that was first leased by All Nippon airways in 2006, used by Qantas freight from 2011 until sold to Samaritans Purse in February.
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So who else?:
