My oh my!!! Three hours on an airplane with a thirteen month old. The days of the Hodges family taking airplane trips may be through for a few years. I don’t know if it was the cabin pressure or his nerves, but Caleb blew out two of his diapers, as well as the poor lady who had the misfortune of sitting next to us. When we got on the plane, I could tell she was a nervous flyer. By the time we started to make our descent into DFW, she looked like she ready to take her chances with a parachute. My family has become the kind of family that a couple of years ago I would have hated to see get on the plane. Tomorrow, we fly over to Lubbock. We’re going to put the always cheerful Southwest Airlines staff to the test. My hunch is they’re going to earn their money tomorrow.
Another Boy Coming
We had our second ultra sound today. Looks like we’ve got another boy coming our way. I’ll have another disciple and Caleb will have a shadow following him around. I’m expecting to see some good wrestling matches over the years.
Not Complaining, Just Reporting
Washingtonians love to gripe about the weather. When it rains, we beg for sunshine. When it gets hot, we long for a cloudy day. Today was unusual in that the temperature got up to about 90 degrees. Now, compared to just about every other place in the country this time of year, that’s not that bad, but right now there’s a bunch of folks in Whatcom county sweating in bed. You see, since it so rarely gets hot here in the summer, nobody bothers to install A. C. in their house. So when it does get hot, we really feel it. I’ve got every door and window in the house open. We live in a two-story job, so all the day’s heat has risen up to my bedroom. It won’t finally cool off until about midnight. I’m not complaining, just reporting.
Doubt Your Doubts
I’ve been working through Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga. It’s a great book. I’m trying to decide whether or not I want to do a summary of it for the website. It is so broad in scope that I’m not sure I can say much more in a brief summary than what has already been said on the back cover or in an Amazon review.
Something I’ve been plagued/blessed by over the last ten years is a nagging sense of doubt as to the truth of the Christian faith. I’m not sure where the doubt comes from except to say that some mornings I wake up and find the whole God thing hard to believe. Sometimes the doubt lasts for only a couple of hours and others times it lasts for days.
In the last couple years, I’ve really started to doubt my doubts. I’ve tried to pinpoint their origin. One of the biggest sources of doubt has been my quest for certainty. I didn’t really want to give my life whole-heartedly to something unless I could be certain in was true. One of the great discoveries I made a couple of years ago was that rational or empirical certainty (irrefutable proof) when it comes to the question of God, actually when it come to a host of important issues in life, is a myth. There is a great deal in life of which can never be certain, yet we act on such beliefs all the time. To believe in God and trust in the gospel, even though I can’t be certain its true, is not an intellectually weak position to assume. The atheist has done the same thing in stating disbelief in God. We’re both acting on faith. This realization was an incredible breakthrough for me. The waves of doubt that once came crashing down upon me with regularity are much less frequent now.
The reason I am drawn to Plantinga’s book is that he is making the case that Christianity is an intellectually/epistemologically valid option in the marketplace of ideas. Belief in God is not irrational or unwarranted. Rather, he shows that it is possible for such belief to be the result of properly working cognitive faculties in search of truth. He presents a model based on Aquinas and Calvin that demonstrates his premise. Its tough reading in some places, but definitely worth the time, especially if you are troubled by Freudian or Marxist critiques of theistic belief.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
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