Daily Archives: June 9, 2005

Evidence and Proof II

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Regarding “Evidence and Proof”:

I always simply thought that, if there was ‘proof’ of God, then it would no longer be a choice of whether to follow Him or not – instead we would be compelled to follow Him, which isn’t much use in a free will world.

It’s a bit like 1+1=2. Am I ever going to believe that is wrong? No. Will I act on the fact that 1+1=2? Yes, I do so every time I pay for something with cash, every time I wait a minute for someone. So surely if God was proven then I would have to believe and I would have to act on it. Just like believing in 1+1=2 isn’t my free choice, believing in God would not be free choice but would be mandatory.

I always figured free choice is important in our relationships. The thing about people in general is that you can believe that they exist, but you don’t have to believe what they say. If God was proven then you would have to believe what he ‘said’ – because it is proven that he is God (God being the all powerful, etc. – that’s the point of the term ‘God’). If it wasn’t proven that you had to believe what he said then it wouldn’t be proven that he was God.

So I guess that’s why I think God is being perfectly reasonable in not proving his existence to us, at least scientifically! Faith, though, is an entirely different proof type of thing…

Hopeful with Aslan

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I love the summer. I know feeling are very subjective, and quite in contrast to Marks last post on science. Summer makes me feel good. Summer reminds me of great residentials with young people, detached work when it is too hot to play football so you sit in the sun and talk, days out with young people who have never seen the sea, and chilling out with them as friends.

I love the evocative feeling that CS Lewis writes about Aslans recovery and his joy at rising again, but what is even better is how Aslan includes the children in the joy and journey ahead.

‘Oh, children,’ said the Lion, ‘ I feel my strength coming back to me. Oh, children, catch me if you can!’ He stood for a second, his eyes very bright his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail. Then he mad a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the Table. Laughing, though she didn’t know why, Lucy scrambled over it to reach him. Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began. Round and round the hill-top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws an d catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia; and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind. And the funny thing was that when all three finally lay together panting in the sun the girls no longer felt in the least tired or hungry or thirsty.

‘And now,’ said Aslan presently, ‘to business. I feel I am going to roar. You had better put your fingers in your ears.’

And they did. And Aslan stood up and when he opened his mouth to roar his face became so terrible that they did no dare to look at it. And they saw all the trees in front of him bend before the blast of his roaring as grass bends in a meadow before the wind. Then he said,

‘We have a long journey to go. You must ride on me.’

What Doesn’t Kill You dvdrip