Hungry for the Truth

Last updated on: January 26, 2021 at 12:09 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Hungry for the Truth 2021-01-26T12:09:05-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is the diet time of year, the lean month, sans alcohol, sans parties, sans jollity. Yet the hunger for Pascha (Easter!) coming and summer (the Glorious Fourth!) and Christmas (so distant, so certain) is there. The lack makes the love sweeter.

Lacking pleasure, having the pain of not having, is necessary for great pleasure. Too much of what we love and the beloved becomes cheap or cloying.

Enough is sufficient and so we wait. Pain and pleasure go together, neither evil, both potentially good. We lack something, this causes “pain,” we learn to wait, grow stronger, and then in due time we experience the pleasure of getting consent. A good human waits until the beloved says: “yes.” This is right, but not only right, decent, proper, but also is unexpectedly, gloriously, fun.

We do right and so have jollity.

Poverty, lack, is a necessity to a good cosmos. If we only have pleasure, honey all the time, we end up sated and to the sated man even honey is bitter. We hunger to eat well. We thirst to drink. There is, naturally, pain that is evil, gratuitous, cancerous, and wrong. There are reasons to think there is a Creator, see Plato’s Timaeus. There is reason to think the Creator is good, see Republic.

The difficulty is that the pain we experience is often not good. This is a good reason to doubt that an all powerful God exists. The impulse to question the good God in many skeptics depends on certain impulses:

there could be a different world

this one does not seem to be consistent with a good god that should do his best

moral problems abound, herd goods not personal goods

An acquaintance on social media thinks such assertions are brutal to the rational acceptance of the existence of the Christian God. I doubt this.

Why?

There could be a different world. The Packers could have gone for it on fourth and goal instead of kicking a field goal in the 2021 NFC Championship Game. They kicked a field goal and the loss made all the difference to the fans. We were sad, but that sorrow was not to death.

That there could be a different world says nothing about whether there could be a better world. The interconnections of reality are so complicated that it is (almost) impossible for us to say that one outcome is (really) better than another. By what standard? For whom?For how many?

“Better” is too flexible a standard to judge a man. . . Or even a chair.

After all: there could be a more comfortable television chair, but not yet a better chair for me overall. The most comfortable chair may not be for you. We might want a cheaper chair, one less comfortable, but also more easily replicated. God is looking for the maximal goodness of the cosmos, but such a maximal goodness may have different priorities. The uncomfortable chair may be the better chair.

Many worlds would not seem to be consistent with the existence of a good God in a man of limited imagination. Imagination can produce many possible good ideas if limited to what we like. The man who thinks a winning Lotto ticket is paradise will miss the Holy Grail.

We have known this error since the first moment when we chose badly and then realized that things could have been different. Any discipline for error will seem worse to a wayward child than cheap mercy. We want an easy “A,” not the grade we deserve and need.

The good God keeps loving us as a community (call it a herd if you will!) and not just as individuals. Imagine getting what is best for you and ending up alone. We need friends and no good world can be measured only by what is best for the one. We love the many, not just the one. We love the one, not just the many.

Christianity demands what is best for all, for you, for the cosmos. That is very complicated, so if you cannot, quite, see it in your Twitter thread, that is not so odd.

We grow hungry for the truth in the good cosmos and the truth is out there. The day is coming, in the City of God, when we will feast forever on logic, goodness, truth and beauty.

Apologetics

Culture

Previous Post

January 25, 2021

Meeting of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Next Post

January 27, 2021 The Church is One

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the craftsman who made the Ark of the Covenant?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Hur Oholiab Bezalel Miriam

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »