Happy thanksgiving. We stayed home this weekend to focus on relaxation.

These days I'm under a lot of pressure from home to succeed at work. I was offered a promotion should I stay in AZ. My transfer to CT came with the understanding that my new boss would have to re-evaluate me for the promotion. My wife really wants me to get that promotion, and my predecessor is said to have desired it for many years without any gains. I'll be honest: if I don't get promoted, then it will be a major blow to the impression I have that I can make a long-term career here and grow in it. Therefore, I have to make the most of these times of relaxation, using them to plan my approach. I have to find the energy to do my best here, so that if I don't get promoted, I will have no negative feelings about the decision my wife and I will have to make, whatever the result.

The work environment in CT, as I mentioned in another post, is very different from phoenix. At first, the differences struck me as an excess of practical inefficiency. Whereas I used to get a few emails per day, most directly relevant to me, thus giving me plenty of time to indulge in HR updates and internal newsletters. I now get about 30-40 emails per day, most of which are sequential messages in threads about my projects, projects which might become mine, or miscellaneous service issues, in most of which only the first and last email are relevant to me (if any) -- crosstalk. About 0.5% of the HR emails and newsletters are actually very important: "time to renew your benefits", "we're implementing a vaccine mandate", etc.. I'm so overwhelmed with emails now that the only way I notice important company bulletins anymore is when they appear as reminders in the daily morning meeting, and that one time they mentioned the vaccine mandate was literally the only time that meeting was useful for me in an immediate sense. For the rest of those meetings, the only value was in the exposure -- I'm hearing recipe names there, and slowly becoming comfortable with them; I'm learning the names of people, and becoming known as a solver of problems. But I don't have time to solve their problems, because they call me too often for things which aren't actual problems; for example, one day (true story) I spent 4 hours walking back and forth between the line and my office for service calls, and each time, the problem was solved  by maintenance or operations either while I was in transit or soon after I arrived. So, their actual problems are deprioritized in favor of expensive projects. I'm also being asked to produce documents quantifying progress on my projects, which takes up time I could be using on the project itself, and honestly strikes me as odd, seeing as my progress is readily quantifiable in terms of the POs which have been cut (which I expect we should have in a database somewhere... right?) and the actual project materials (drawings/code) I've produced. Moreover, the union is a constant source of problems -- not actually because of their rules (I haven't had any problems with union rules, necessarily, as far as I can tell, and everyone told me that would be the source of my problems), but with their attitudes. The unioneers literally ignore me and cuss at me when I approach them for information about an issue; they call me and demand that I come to the line with my laptop to examine their issues, and then hang up on me when I ask them for details like, "what does the alarm on the display say?". Their attitude is totally inexplicable! And, we're in the midst of, what seems like, a plan to perform an endless series of major upgrades to our SCADA/MES system; these updates are performed in a way that prioritizes speed over correctness, because it's impossible with Wonderware to understand the consequences of a given change you make to the server, since they're so deeply in bed with Microsoft and their software is, like Microsoft's, a rat's nest. So every change brings with it an immediate loss of functionality which occasionally takes weeks to figure out. Our goal is to get our software completely up to date, but by the time we get there (give it a couple of years), the next major upgrade will be rolled-out and we'll be pushed to implement that instead; this isn't hyperbole on my part -- we already know what the next major upgrade will be; it was released already, and it's hanging in our periphery; we just say, "we'll install that after we're done with the current changes". I'm put into the middle of this and expected to learn our current Wonderware system -- maybe I could do that if it was my only responsibility. There are people in the company talking about bringing in Ignition instead; they're going about it all wrong, shouting buzzwords and trying to push redundant solutions out to corporate audiences who haven't asked for it. Sometimes my boss asks me, "what can Ignition do that Wonderware can't do", and the answer is, technically, nothing, except that it can do all the same things easier. Well, "easier", if you are willing to learn Python and eliminate the system that you've already dumped 30 years of frantic upgrades and boatloads of currency into, and the America team is willing to do neither.

At first, I thought this was all reckless inefficiency. But now that I've had a day to rest, (even though I have had the opportunity to sleep-in a few times in the past year, this feels like the first in several years; but I'll try to spare you much more of my self-pity), I realize that I'm being treated as a Project Manager, and I haven't been keeping a good attitude about it.

I did the same thing with emails to my project manager. He asked me to keep him apprised of all my projects and to CC him in emails.  Project managers are expected to be content while inundated with large quantities of meaningless information about their projects, picking out the meaningful parts, which makeup a large enough quantity of information as it is -- to sort through technical data and discern meaningful progress. This is the task I have to set my mind to.

The morning meeting serves exactly the purposes I mentioned above; it makes me mutually familiar with the people in the factory. It exposes me to product information, and makes me aware of (mostly inconsequential) problems with production. Most importantly, they talk about things I occasionally miss in emails. Attending the morning meeting is an obligation because my boss says it is, and it's my job to squeeze every last drop of value out of that meeting.

The nuisance calls I get from production are like a reflection in water, refracting and showing me the very same errors, oversights, and incompleteness in our documentation, interface design, and operator work instructions. It is a primary function of mine to analyze these issues and conquer them; to get our documentation up-to-speed.

As far as I can tell, the unioneer's terrible attitude is a function of their feelings about their position (it doesn't matter whether they think it's a superior or inferior position, and the way inferiority complexes work it would be impossible to tell anyway). I have to become one of them -- not by joining the union, but by making myself a member of their class of individuals (I'm not a marxist; give me a break when I use the word "class"). I should involve myself in their work and lighten their burdens, while making my own effort imminently apparent to them. If I can earn their respect and rise above their struggle (I won't bother trying to convince them that it is the struggle common to all mankind), then I can make them useful to me, and drive this factory toward perfection.

Wonderware is the software I'm stuck with. I'm going to take my time on this one. Hopefully there will be some reprieve when the immediately planned server updates local to my factory are complete. While I wait, I'll become competent in what's needed to get by, maintaining a steady increase in competency while I accomplish other goals. And when the moment is right, I'll master it.

God has always been good to me.

"My lot has fallen in pleasant places."

 Today I wanna respond to some statements from TGC concerning religious exemptions to vaccination. But first, I want to thank TGC for referring me to the Ezekiel Declaration, concerning which, while I do agree with TGC that the name is a little dramatic, and that the data concerning lockdowns was off-topic, I flatly disagree with TGC's other remarks on the matter. The Ezekiel Declaration didn't seem confrontational to me at all, and I think TGC's authors might just have been a little triggered. Also, it doesn't need to say anything positive about the vaccine, because we're already inundated by that kind of talk from every other direction, and the suggestion that they have some kind of obligation to garnish their anti-vaccination-mandate comments with praise for the vaccine is more than a little disturbing to me, considering the source.

Mostly I am glad to have encountered the Ezekiel Declaration because it contained a reference to this delicious section from Abram Kuyper's book, "Our Program: A Christian Political Manifesto", Chapter 16, II, §203-204. This is from the year 1880.

"And if the government does not wish to stiffen this resistance but cause it to diminish, then as a servant of God it should demonstrate in such critical days that it has a heart. Then it should not, like a violent accomplice of unbelieving science, turn against the nation's religious beliefs that only intensify in times of epidemics. Rather, when God's judgments break out the government ought to share in the spirit of awe that stirs the souls before the majesty of God. Rather than prohibiting prayer services it should itself proclaim a day of prayer. In this way its solemn decisions and actions will underscore the impression that as a government it is powerless to ward off the plague that its visiting the nation and that it knows no better refuge for deliverance than to humble itself before almighty God.

"For this reason alone, compulsory cowpox vaccination should be out of the question. Our physicians may be mistaken and government may never stamp a particular medical opinion as orthodox and therefore binding. Moreover, compulsion can never be justified until the illness manifests itself and may therefore never be prescribed as a preventative. A third reason is that government should keep its hands off our bodies. Fourthly, government must respect conscientious objections. In the fifth place, it is one or the other: either it does not itself believe in the vaccination, or if it does, it will do redundant work by proceeding to protect once more those already safeguarded against an evil that will no longer have a hold on them anyway.

"Vaccination certificates will therefore have to go—and will be gone at least from our free schools. The form of tyranny hidden in these vaccination certificates is just as real a threat to the nation's spiritual resources as a small pox epidemic itself."

Fascinating to see that vaccine passports are not a new idea, and were previously proposed in response to a disease (more harmful than COVID?). Mandatory vaccinations and vaccine passports were rejected back then, in the 1800s, when technology was more than 100 years removed from its current state, and they were basically successful in eradicating cowpox! How silly of us to think that we're now better off restricting our freedoms, more than they did, if (and because!) our ability to fight infectious diseases is so much more potent than theirs was. How absolutely stupid of us.

Here's the music I'm listening to rn:

Now let's get into the objections from the various TGC articles. Here are the articles themselves. I'm just going to paraphrase and list the objections in no particular order, without saying which article they come from, because I'm lazy. You can read these yourself.

• https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-faqs-fetal-cells-covid-19-vaccines-treatments/
• https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/covid-vaccination-and-the-church/
• https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-we-cant-sign-two-evangelical-ministers-respond-to-the-ezekiel-declaration/
• https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/your-vaccine-exemption/

1. Aborted fetal cell lines are used in all kinds of other drugs and medical services. If you're going to reject the vaccine on these grounds, then you also have to reject Tylenol, Claritin, and some anti-aging skin creams.

OK, yeah, this is an easy one. If other drugs (claritin, tylenol, etc) were also developed using unethically sourced immortalized fetal cells, then I'm opposed to it. I don't want to receive those medications or services either, and perhaps I have some homework to do. If I find out about other brands involved in the same practice, I'll stop using them, too.

[eta]After I wrote the above paragraph, I was told by a friend that several companies have the following strategy to handle requests for religious exemption on these grounds: They will show the employee a long list of products (reportedly over a hundred commonly used products, including some popular brand names such as Pepsi and Nestle) and say that these products and brands are all affected by research involving fetal cell lines, and then tell the employee that he must sign a paper promising never to use these products or else he will not get an exemption. 

A Christian hearing about this test might find himself feeling indignant, and yet at face value, might be tempted to say that this is a fair test of the employee's resolve. It seems that if he refuses to sign, then his religious convictions are not stronger than his desire for comfort, and so they are not strong enough to warrant a religious exemption to company policy (and what a demeaning prospect, to once assert a real religious concern and then find yourself doubling back on threat of losing Pepsi products). But a careful thinker will find that the Christian's initial feeling of indignance was entirely warranted; not simply by the insult this test makes to his sincerity, but also because the test itself is poor, unreasonable, threatening, and underhanded, if not outright dishonest. I'll explain.

First, if I am not getting the vaccine, then it is apparent that I hesitated during the time between the release of the vaccine and the popularization of the information concerning aborted fetal lines. If I hesitated, it is because I prefer to do my own research, rather than trust the CDC. If I do not trust the CDC, then why would I trust without question a list of hundreds of common products which are offered to me as a threat to my religious convictions? 

Second,  since some of the line items are companies and brands, and those brands are not always labeled plainly on the product, but sometimes "Nestle" and "Pepsi" can only be found in the small print on the side, it is not always obvious whether an item on the shelf falls into the category that should be avoided. I am sincerely unaware of how many Pepsi products I use on a day-to-day basis. Keep this in mind for the proceeding sections below.

Third, there's a difference between ethically sourced and unethically sourced fetal cells. As far as I know (and I haven't seen the list, but only heard about it), it does not differentiate between the two. Unethically sourced fetal cells come from elective abortions. Ethically sourced fetal tissue would come (for example) from a child who died of natural or unavoidable causes, and whose parents chose to donate the cells for research

Now sure, I would gladly take the list home and study the products, but this kind of research takes a lot of time (especially now that popular search platforms are filtering out websites which present data contrary to the left-wing narrative which is both pro-vaccine and pro-abortion), and so a man can't be expected to discover the means of research and development for over a hundred consumer products in any short period without compromising other responsibilities either inside or outside of work. Will the employer allow this employee a month or more of work-hours in the office to sift through research articles concerning each and every product listed, and become an expert in the role of fetal tissue in their development? Not likely.

So, even if a Christian person conducts research with more than reasonable thoroughness, (considering this is an extremely broad study), and if he signed the paper, and then gets caught by a coworker, unwittingly using a Nestle product which was made with unethically sourced fetal matter, because he didn't read the small print on the side where the "Nestle" label was printed, or he hadn't yet researched that particular product, or he mistakenly understood it to have been produced or researched using ethically sourced fetal tissue, or the product was somehow necessary for his wellbeing and he hadn't yet found an alternative, then what will happen to the signor? Will he be fired and lose his livelihood? Will he be subject to some kind of legal pursuit? Is that document binding even if he quits that job and finds another later? Who is policing this, and why is it any of their business, when this is a matter of religious conscience? Do the drafters of this document expect to gain contractual authority over the consistency of religious observance by their employees?

The paper (as it's been described to me) is overwhelming by design, and as such it presents an unreasonable burden of proof, with no time to discern it. It's a poor metric for resolve, because no person can actually meet its demands. This whole matter of aborted tissue in products has only just recently come into public view, and we haven't had time to figure it all out and draw out distinctions between products (like we have with GMO/Non-GMO etc). Yeah, I intend to switch over entirely to products which were developed without fetal tissue, or only with ethically sourced fetal tissue, but that's gonna take a lot of time, and this test, at this time, is what I'd call underhanded and dishonest.

2. The people who gathered the fetal cells didn't have anything to do with performing the abortion, and did not cooperate (they cooperated materially, not formally) in the abortion process. They're just disinterested parties who took the cells afterward intending to do some good with them. It's like if a doctor were to transplant a kidney from a murder victim into a Christian patient -- we wouldn't have any objection.

Here's the thing: it's not like if a doctor were to transplant a kidney from a murder victim. Because in the case of a murder victim, the murderer is going to get the death penalty, and the doctors all agree that the murderer deserves it. Police are out hunting for the murderer, or he's facing trial. Justice is being done for the victim.

It's more like if a doctor were to transplant a kidney from a murder victim while nobody cared that he was murdered, and everyone thought it was a good thing that he was murdered, even though it was plainly murder and the victim had done nothing either good or bad to deserve it. And more people are being murdered in the same way all day long, even though today's victim's body parts aren't being cannibalized in this way. And, if anyone speaks out saying, "hey that's a murder victim", they get ridiculed, and if anyone goes and tries to stop the murders which are continuing to happen, they get imprisoned by the very same police who should have been stopping the murders in the first place. 

In the case of aborted fetal cells, the attitudes are, "why is this person so upset that that woman exercised her reproductive rights and I landed some good fetal tissue out of it, which I'm using to help people?" Nobody is hunting down the murderer in this case, and we're all either refusing to participate in it, and speaking and acting against it, or we're complicit in it. "I didn't have anything to do with the death of that clump of cells. It wasn't an infant human; it was more like a cancer that had potential to become a human. I just want its kidneys to make my soda taste better". Makes me literally sick to my stomach to think about this. Let's take a moment to be disgusted with ourselves.

(And, concerning the notion that it's ok because they aren't killing more kids for this, expressed during the same argument in this TGC article -- the established cell line means we don't need to murder more people: see my previous blog.)

3. Exemptions based on the Biblical notion of "personal autonomy", ("God affords me a choice concerning what I do with my Sundays" as opposed to "I am forbidden by God to work on Sundays"), are not sufficient grounds to warrant a religious exemption.

People who read my previous blog might remember that I touched on the personal autonomy argument to some degree. You'll notice, however, that my objection wasn't simply that my religion requires me to have a choice in this matter. My objection (as I stated it) was that tyranny has no place in God's law. That's a similar statement, and it's reasonably unclear how this addresses the above issue. Let me expand on it.

God's law is a mixture of positive and negative law (thou shalt, and thou shalt not). Negative law includes a basic list of every kind of crime. The positive law includes: moral rules for what we should do to love our neighbors generally, civil rules defining specific government offices and their functions, and ceremonial rules describing the means by which we maintain our relationship with God. Among the positive laws in scripture, only the civil laws (which define civil offices) warrant any civil penalty. And, the particular group of people tasked with carrying out that penalty consists of "the people" (citizens). 

The rule I'm referring to, generally, is that the people should select individuals to function in government according to the offices found in scripture; and that when those elected officials stop paying attention to God's law, they are no longer acting in accordance with their elected office, and so they should no longer be allowed to retain their title; our fear of them and our recognition of their authority should cease, and we should select new individuals to take their place, who will maintain God's law as described in scripture. This rule is balanced against another command, which is that we should keep the peace, and the qualification that it is sometimes better to endure a little bit of injustice for the sake of conscience. Generally, the Bible teaches us that when we are suffering injustice "for the sake of Christ", (i.e. when we are attacked explicitly "for being Christian", which would make us martyrs), we do better if we endure it. In addition, if our conscience can tolerate a certain injustice, then it is ok for us to tolerate it (e.g. having our earnings stolen from us by taxation on a regular basis).

Well, in this case, if the American Government demands or enforces that I should get a vaccine, then it is not just causing me to endure injustice, but causing me to perform injustice, by doling out a positive law of its own, when it requires that I (a person holding the office of "citizen") act in a way inconsistent with my role, by demanding that I perform an action which violates my conscience: get the injection. This is intolerable to my conscience, and so, as a member of "the people", I am confronted with a responsibility to carry out the civil penalty I mentioned above: my recognition of the authorities perpetrating this injustice should cease, and I should elect new people to take their place. What my position resolves to in practice is this: I would rather work to divide America than submit to a mandatory COVID injection.

Now, I'm not unwilling to change my mind, if I'm given a reasonable argument, which is compelling to me, on the matter. If I encounter a good argument later, then after thinking it through I'll go ahead and get the jab and post here about it. No problem! But no such argument has been offered to me yet, and the situation doesn't seem hopeful. Maybe if the government had taken their time, developed the vaccine with ethically sourced immortalized fetal cells, developed it properly and without rushing trials, and if the government had not tried to force it on everyone in so much of a hurry that the data couldn't be completely and clearly understood, or maybe if the government didn't frequently lie by saying the vaccine was X or Y before they had sufficient data to make those statements (remember how "safe and effective" the AstraZeneca vaccine was before it was actually deployed? The change occurred because the deployment was the test, which is a whole other issue: I'm charged by God to do my best to protect my family, and so as much as it depends on me, I can't allow my young children to participate in this kind of broad public experiment), then this wouldn't be such an issue for me. But the CDC, the WHO, the government, and the vaccine manufacturers messed up, and at the moment I'm unwilling to comply. 

Let me make myself clear: I'm not against all vaccines (I get vaccines sometimes!). I'm not even necessarily against MRNA vaccines (although I want more time and research. I'm gonna wait at least a decade, like until 2029 or later, before I say "the science is settled".). I'm against abortion, and I'm against government overreach.

"

“Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
I will now arise,” says the Lord;
“I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”
The words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.

You, O Lord, will keep them;
you will guard us from this generation forever.
On every side the wicked prowl,
as vileness is exalted among the children of man.

"

 It's 3:22am, and I'm working on fixing an issue with one of the factory machines. Ops is taking their time to do things I ask them to do, so I have a few moment to write down my thoughts between actions. It's been a very long time since I wrote a blog while I was this tired. Good nostalgia feelings writing this right now -- takes me back to my high school and college days......

Today a friend asked me to give him an idea for some song lyrics, and all that came to mind was some of my recent musings about oppression. This is a set of ideas I've been cooking for a while now, I suppose. The question at hand is what's lost when a person gives-in to an oppressor. Before that can be answered, we've got to qualify what it means for a person to "give-in", because there are several different ways to do it. 

In a sense, any form of submission at all is a concession, and concession is minor defeat (except submission to Christ, which, counterintuitively, is a victory in every way). I honestly don't know what's conceded in every defeat, but it sure feels like a loss, and that's why the question about "what's lost" is on my mind. Perhaps it's just my expectations that are defied, and the feeling of loss is only the loss of a future which was never mine to begin with.

One option in the face of oppression is to submit entirely, to change yourself into whatever thing the oppressor demands of you, and lose all of whatever you were before. I suppose this isn't a problem if the "thing you were before" was spineless and lacked self-respect or dignity, or if the lack of a tyrant would not bring you more joy.

I've heard of things like outward compliance and inward protest, where a person commits to maintain what would otherwise be lost inwardly while outwardly performing a semblance of conformity to the oppressor's demands. I suppose there are degrees to that, too, where one person might be able to content themselves with being outwardly compliant forever, another might dissemble their compliance at the soonest opportunity. I don't understand that, though, really. It seems like inward rebellion would take a lot of effort, and oppression is exhausting. How can a person maintain it? 

Another grade of submission is to become outwardly compliant by turning-off one's inner world. This is attractive because it advertises cessation of inner conflict, the pain of which is so imminent that it sometimes appears to be the only feeling at all. Neural pathways are a real thing, though. I'd be worried that if I took this rout, I would eventually lose control of my on/off switch, accidentally subjecting it entirely to force of habit, and thereby losing voluntary access to the inner world from which all my joy and creativity seem to manifest.

and now it's 3:53 and I'm going to sleep.

Well, the above was written a few weeks ago. This week, all the time which I would like to have spent on projects has been thoroughly disrupted. Basically, I've been on service calls and meetings until the end of the day each day. And, when it gets down to the last hour or half-hour, I'm hesitant to start on anything else, because I don't feel like I can make any progress on it. I'm very good at focusing on one thing for long periods of time, and making great progress on that one thing (while listening to a good lecture on the side, of course). I think this makes me well suited to the kind of project work and troubleshooting I do, where I have to wrap my mind around a large system and generate holistic solutions to complex technical problems with broad consequences affecting several distinct parts of one or several machines. It takes me about an hour to "get in the zone" working on a project, and distractions (like meetings or service calls) force me to redirect focus ("out of the zone"), so I have to get back into it. Changing gears this way is actually very draining for me. If I change focus too many times in a day, then my attention span drops and I have a hard time paying attention to anything for very long anymore. Well, this whole week was like that: a couple of meetings, a service call or two, and I'm pretty much beat. It's frustrating for me, because I want to work on my project, but I barely pay attention to my work, and my mind keeps dropping out into nothing-land because I'm drained. Is that an intentional thing on my part? Maybe. Maybe it's lack of self control or discipline. Maybe I'm conceding defeat to the tyranny of my own mind

Listening to IV Conerly today:

Following on my prior "late-night" musings about submission, although I don't understand the second form of submission (outward compliance and inward protest), I have engaged in it. Take masks for example: this morning, at a meeting, a lady gave me a stern tone of voice, saying "Zac" and pointing at her mask (I wasn't wearing mine, and a person had just approached to within 6 feet of me to discuss some maintenance project). I put on a mask at that moment, but I think I may not next time. I have good reason to believe that masks are not effective, and that they are instead harmful. This is not due to radical skepticism concerning the news, nor due to any affection for alternative news sources -- I don't habitually consume news media, neither mainstream nor "alternative". I don't listen to the radio anymore. I don't watch TV. I don't regularly follow any news sources. (I have a few news subscriptions, but believe me when I say I have no time for them). What I did instead was, I noticed (from those unavoidable government advertisements and articles spread by word-of-mouth) a strong deference to the CDC and WHO on all matters pertaining to COVID, and a certain measure of controversy surrounding the matter. So, I got on google, searched for the CDC and WHO's self-justifications concerning mask advocacy, and I found pages made by those entities which listed peer reviewed research papers supporting their opinion. I'll admit I didn't completely read every study (some of them are as prolix as my own blog), but I read the abstracts of nearly every article they listed, at least, and read more if it was interesting or confusing. I then also googled things like "masks ineffective" and the like, to find out what arguments opposed masks, and I found articles listing peer reviewed research papers (interestingly: from the same research-paper database used by the WHO and CDC). I read these as well, with the same attentiveness. I found that the CDCs articles presented independent correlations between mask wearing and rates of infection, but (from what I saw) said nothing about the mode of causality ("how are the masks preventing Covid?") except that they filter droplets containing Covid. What I found from the "opposition" was a series of investigations, trying to prove that masks work, using the scientific method to test the mode of causality. As it happens, they found that the proposed mode of causality for masks was not effective; there is no known causal relationship between mask wearing and Covid rates. In addition, they also presented studies, as large as those presented by the CDC, sometimes larger, showing no independent correlation between mask wearing and rates of infection. So, what is the sum of my research? The effectiveness of masks is unsubstantiated, and the means by which masks are supposed to help (filtration, etc) has been effectively debunked. With that in hand, it seems to me that the most reasonable conclusion is that masks are ineffective. And, I can say from experience, that they're uncomfortable and stifling. Governments (school, local, business, state, and national governments) have no business enforcing unsubstantiated and harmful policies.

So why not just wear a mask to keep the peace? Because I am a dad, and I have to model justice for my children. If everyone wears a mask to keep the peace, then we've given power to unreasonable people, and there is no way to tell whether the majority agrees or is just going along with mask wearing, making themselves uncomfortable, to suit the fears of a few loud individuals who are only all the more fearful and all the louder when they see everyone complying with their demands. This is, to borrow a phrase from a sermon I haven't actually listened to yet, the "tyranny of the weaker brother". Appeasement as a primary strategy for keeping the peace in the face of injustice is unmanly and ignominious, and I must be a man of conviction, so that I can raise a son with a backbone, who will stand against tyranny both large and small.

Moreover, I feel an even stronger revulsion to the vaccine. Praise God almighty, my company has not implemented policies of mandatory vaccination, because I will not comply. The vaccines are (a) uncomfortable, (b) unproved [again, a bit of self-guided studying] (c) developed (researched) with human aborted fetal tissue. (a) and (b) are enough to provoke a religious objection on the grounds that tyranny has no place in God's Law, and I am a theonomist, but (c) is the source of my strongest aversion.

Here are the arguments I've heard supporting the vaccine in spite of the dead baby parts being used in their development.

• But the vaccine was only developed using aborted tissue. It's not "in the vaccine", so you're not benefitting directly from the tissue itself.
• The development of this vaccine didn't happen very long ago, and this company is still doing research and development on other vaccines. I won't support the company by getting their vaccine. I won't legitimize their research while I have a choice.
• But it was only the tissue from one dead baby who died a long time ago (in the 70s?). They aren't aborting new babies to make this happen.
• Just because the murder happened a long time ago, that doesn't make it less of a murder. And, let's be honest with ourselves, it's not just one baby. The only reason that baby's parts were obtained in the first place is because there's an industry killing babies by the thousands every day, right now, right down the road from your house.
  
• But you've already received other vaccines. This isn't a legitimate moral objection, because you've already done it.
• Can we sit down and read Leviticus chapters 4 and 5, Ezekiel chapter 33, 2 Chronicles 7:14, 2 Chron 6:11, and every abjuration in scripture where God tells us to repent and turn away from our wicked ways? The whole Bible is about realizing you've sinned against God and then repenting, believing, asking, and receiving forgiveness from God through Jesus Christ! What does it mean to repent, except to stop doing the sin that made you guilty, after you realize that you've done it? Romans 6:1-2, "shall we continue in sin...? By no means!". Just because I did wrong in the past, that doesn't mean it's ok for me to continue doing wrong today.
• But the damage is already done; the vaccine was already developed. Are you going to refuse to benefit from every unjustly gained thing, even though you didn't have any part in the injustice, and the injustice is long past and not ongoing? Would you refuse to use a technology because, at some point in its past, it was developed with the aid of unjust gains -- would you tear down a house and rebuild it if you found out it were built by slaves many years ago?
• Let's process this last objection at length:

Suppose I walk up to my neighbor, in 2020s USA, and he says to me, "Bro, the transatlantic colonial slave trade is really bad. We have to stop kidnapping people from Africa and making them slaves!" And then I say to him, "I totally agree. It's terrible. I've never agreed with it, and I think it's the worst plague affecting the west at this time. It must end.", and then he calls me out, "How can you say that and look me in the eyes, when you are directly benefitting from it at this moment? You own 18 kidnapped African slaves and they're building you a new barn right now!"

What's wrong with that conversation? The conversation takes place in the 21st century. There's no transatlantic colonial slave trade in America right now (I'm exclusively talking about the kind of slavery which is commonly associated with early America). I don't own any slaves, and neither does anyone I know.

Now suppose my neighbor comes to me, also in 2020s USA, and says, "Bro, abortion is really bad. We have to stop killing babies, and instead force dads to take responsibility for their actions!" Then I say to him, "I totally agree. It's terrible. (etc etc etc)". And then he calls me out, "How can you say that and look me in the eyes when you are directly benefitting from it at this moment? You got the vaccine which was developed using a dead baby, and they're continuing to develop vaccines with dead babies, and you're on your way to get a booster right now!"

This is a more plausible conversation, because the objection, (abortion occurring today; vaccines, benefitting from it; etc), is relevant to actual things happening immediately around us.

But maybe I haven't made my point. Why are these two scenarios different? Maybe let me try another scenario to drive home the distinction. Suppose someone lives in a house which was built by African slaves 300 years ago. Do we have to tear down the house and rebuild it? What's the difference between that and the vaccine?

The difference is that we all agree that the slave trade was wrong, and we aren't using slaves to build our houses anymore. We're (as a society, as per our intentions) ethically sourcing labor to build houses.

We, as a nation are in the midst of national repentance (there will always be racists out there, and the sanctification associated with repentance can take a long time, but it's happening. Proof? There are no auction blocks in my neighborhood.). We're really trying to remove every vestige of racism from society. In that context, if a home exists which was built by slaves, and has a whipping post out front, then both the home and the post can remain standing as terrible reminders of our wicked past, so that history will not be repeated. Would it be better to tear down the house and build a monument to the slaves in its place? Maybe, maybe not. There is a lot that can be learned from the stones touched by enslaved hands: their skills; the angle of their tooling strokes; their blood, sweat, and tears staining the mortar; each stacked brick a monument in itself. The person who lives in that home should know, and find themselves more full of conviction against racism than any of their neighbors. There are people who, today, deny that the holocaust ever happened, and they're anti-Semites! It is good to have tangible reminders of our past atrocities, so that we don't repeat them.

Abortion is still happening today. We are not in the midst of repentance; we're in the midst of the atrocity. There's no solemn reminder in the vaccine. We're still murdering people. We can't say, "it's sad that it had to be this way, but we're working to make sure that this will never happen again, and we maintain this cell line and method of research as a monument to the metric tons of infant blood staining our very own hands." Other vaccines have been made without aborted tissue, and there are donors out there willing to voluntarily give the cells from their own bodies, or from the bodies of their children who have naturally died, but those are not taken. It would be easy to switch to ethically sourced fetal tissue! But we don't, because we're not in repentance, and they don't care that they're using parts from a murdered person to conduct their research. They won't bury what's been preserved of that person, nor choose instead to use gains which are gotten in good conscience.

This is a big deal. 

I also have another religious duty from God, relevant to this issue. I'm a dad. I must be a man who models for my son the things which I believe are important, noble, manly, and true. When I die, even if my son disagrees with me, I hope that he sees me as a man of conviction. More: a man who acted in a way which is true to my convictions, even though it may cost me dearly.

What's the slippery slope argument here? There is a possibility that they take away my ability to get a job and provide for my family. (This is no slippery slope, because Biden has already said he desires for it to happen, and I see it happening to others around me.). What will I do under those circumstances? God forbid that this should happen to me and my family, simply because we refuse an inoculation. Naturally, my family must eat, and I cannot exchange my convictions for food. I would be forced to provide in another way. The best option, I think, is to gather with other theonomists and establish ourselves together.

Last item for this post: At work, all youtube videos featuring Christian hip hop and rap (as far as I can tell -- these include Dream Junkies, Propaganda, IV Conerly, Bizzle, LeCrae, and a several others others) are now blocked, as well as all videos by Ray Comfort, Apologia Studios, Alpha Omega Ministries, and affiliates, and a few other non-rap Christian bands. However, it looks like popular secular rap songs (even the ones with explicit lyrics, which openly degrade women and people of other races) are available for my listening pleasure. I guess the ideology in power at YouTube can only sustain itself when surrounded by intellects conditioned by this quality of material.

"Make a soy wojak edit of them"

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago when I was stressed out. I'm stressed out again today, so I reviewed it and I'm posting it here. But first, here's the music I'm into right now:

...and, um, also this:

I realized after re-reading my most recent post that I left a few loose ends hanging, which I would like to mend...maybe not in elaborate depth in this post... First, I left open potential for concerns about legal uniformity in a Theonomic nation. Second, I think I should dig a bit deeper into whether there is a substantial distinction between "canonical" (though not inspired) commentary and the necessity of Christian fellowship in enabling proper Biblical interpretation.

I think I've discussed the issue of legal uniformity in another post somewhere.... but I don't remember. I know I wrote a paper on the topic and submitted it to an informal publication, but it hasn't been published. Here are the basics:

Biblical law is a true bottom-up hierarchy. There is no court of appeals, and people elect every tier of judge, with the lowest tier governing only ten people. Higher judges may not overturn the rulings of lower judges, and people may not appeal their decisions to higher judges. The higher judges only exist to resolve disputes which are too hard for lower judges, such as those issues which bridge the jurisdictions of several lower judges; the lowest common judge may be invoked. All judges are elected by and from among the people. They elect judges who they know personally and respect, and consider to have certain qualities enumerated in scripture. Furthermore, "the people" (that group of 10 people) are the accusers, defendants, jury, and executioners among themselves. They elect their judge, and they can choose not to penalize if the judge has been unjust.

What all this means is that there's a lot of room for variation in legal interpretation among different judges, because the judges cannot really step on one another's toes. two neighboring jurisdictions can have very different interpretations of many laws, and still function as neighbors, because their jurisdictions are clearly defined. And, if a case bridges the jurisdictions on the matter of that disagreement, then the lower judges must accept the ruling of the higher judge to whom they defer (if they don't resolve it among themselves).

The Christian state is designed for unity in diversity. Many jurisdictions with different interpretations of the law -- the best interpretations evidencing themselves as such by the greater equity with their constituents experience.

Now, on the matter of the distinction between commentary and community. That is, I am choosing to avoid producing a commentary on scripture, to which people might turn if they aren't sure about a passage, on the grounds that I do not believe that a right interpretation of Biblical Law should be considered only-possible with help from such a commentary. However, I do believe that a right interpretation of scripture is only possible when Christians are meditating on scripture together, engaging with their community, and discussing their disagreements with one another.

So, why community, but not commentary? What's the difference between a spoken commentary and a written one? 

Actually, I very much value the commentaries I've read -- the preserved works of Augustine, Calvin, and Tertullian are some of my good friends, and I think everyone should read them. I shy away from legal commentary in particular, because of what I see in other attempts at Christian nations. They reference the legal commentary instead of the scriptures when deciding a case, and as their understanding of practical applications evolve, so do the commentaries. Consider the endless rabbinic traditions -- so massive and absurd that Jews don't even have the confidence to approach the word that God gave them and commanded them to read aloud to one another. To be sure, nobody should be referencing Calvin instead of scripture either (and it is with much grief that I often observe people issuing references to confessions as arguments against references to scripture).

What I'm opposed to are not simply expository tomes, such as Bavinck's Dogmatics or any one of the many Systematic Theologies out there, but rather works designed to function as reference manuals, which is exactly what I hoped the wiki would be -- a thing where people could get Biblical topics explained to them so well that they didn't have to search the scriptures for themselves. I think that this goal, if achieved, would destroy just governance, as all righteous judges must be constantly meditating on scripture -- I believe that the maintenance of a good judge depends on consumption of  fresh meat carved right out of the book itself, not pre-digested food written out by some careful scholar. 

A good judge shouldn't ask, "tell me what the Bible says about theft" when a court case arises. He should already know it, because between cases he was reading the Biblical laws in total and asking, "why does the Bible say this?". And those questions should not be so few that it is practical, nor so depreciated that it is tolerable, to have pre-packaged answers which everyone in the state gets from the same extrabiblical source. The questions should be met with constantly reforming answers which everyone in the state seeks after and fights with one another to refine and perfect by means of Biblically prescribed community discussions and confrontations, so that no jurisdiction can assert undue authority over another by changing the law book which the other references for its cases.

For very controversial matters, debate books and theological works will be written down, and the proper answer will be summarized and remembered in history, just as it has been with every major theological debate since Christ -- the Church passes on this knowledge with excellent efficiency. Consider how many people have never read Haggai, which contains much comprehensible information, but yet have an ardent commitment to the Trinity, which is a far more complex and incomprehensible (though indispensable) doctrine. We don't need to pre-empt these debates by producing a reference manual to cover every possible past and future unstated application of the whole law.

So I encountered this today:

And all of a sudden, I can't get enough Bulgarian choral music.

Things have been kinda crazy lately. I'm not sure what it is, but my house feels like it's on edge. Thankfully, activity has died down on most of my social media things, and I don't have any video games that I'm terribly interested in. I'm becoming more able to focus on my work at the office lately, and although I still find myself reluctant to start any given task, and frustratingly resilient to new information, I think I'm progressing here at a barely tolerable pace. My prior direct report talked well about me, and so the people here have expressed very high expectations for me, and I'm crushing myself with hopes that I won't disappoint them.

I haven't been interested in reading the theological tomes on my shelf at all recently... I still enjoy a good Bible study, but rather than reading my old textbooks, I have been taking comfort in written fictions, as they're (I suppose) a form of escape from reality which doesn't seem to get me into trouble. Right now I'm reading "Remote Control", by Nnedi Okorafor, and I find it to be immensely engaging. Attraction to the ethos of classical western science fiction is a vice of mine, though, and so I intend to pick up some Asimov, Wells, Orwell, Vonnegut, or Lewis next... and I hope that struggling through their Shakespearian excellence doesn't crush my spirit entirely. I've thought of picking up Animal Farm next, because I haven't finished it yet -- last time I started that book, it stressed me out so much that I started hallucinating and couldn't sleep well, so I stopped reading it. I was pretty young at the time, and I can't imagine that the political themes in it will be worse or more stressful to me now than the godlessnesses all around us, which constantly threaten me with the necessity of deciding whether I should lose myself in opposition to them or lose my soul by feigning ignorance of them -- and how may I regard myself when I so willingly own that I procrastinate in such an important decision, when every moment of procrastination places me in complicity with them. What can I do except wait and hope to encounter in place that community of theonomic brethren, and expend all my tears to teach my son about God's good law, in hopeless hopes that the church will soon realize it with him and establish right freedom and justice in our land.

...in any case, I hope that I can use these fictions to re-establish in myself a firm habit of reading each night. Having that in place, I intend to transition myself back to more difficult literature, like my old friends, Augustine and Calvin.

Moreover, I'm less convinced that I will return to my theonomic wiki project. I started that project in hopes of making a reference whereby people could easily withdraw all verses relevant to a topic, with commentary, so that an uninitiated person could inquire easily as to the Biblical response to a certain crime. However, having seen the breadth of disagreements concerning Biblical interpretation, and their implications, and having learned more the incredible efficiency of God's written law, I am less convinced that the commentary I originally intended to provide is valuable, and more convinced that it should deliver nothing more than a list of relevant verse references per category.

You see, occasionally I am confronted with persons who espouse communism and respond to examples of failing communist countries by informing me that it's never been properly implemented. I think that the response is silly. Also, occasionally, I confront non-theonomists, and when they give me examples of failing religiously motivated governments, I respond by informing them that theonomy has never been properly tried. 

In order for me to distinguish myself from the former, I must be able to give a clear practical illustration of the difference between theonomy and all other religious nations, and in a way which accounts also for the failures of puritanism. And, whenever I undertake to research those countries and find fault with them, the obvious conclusion which presents itself to me is this: they made additional laws. They didn't just take the Bible as-is and say "this is our law book". In the case of the puritans, it appears to me (and I know that many will contest this) that their additions were originally motivated by specification; some Biblical issues are unclear or controversial, and so legal uniformity in a society requires some kind of tangible agreement on certain interpretive issues -- just how tall should my parapet be, anyway? Well, now we've added to scripture, a law not just requiring parapets, but requiring parapets of certain height, and thereby we've made the rule relevant to a specific use-case, and potentially removed its relevance from other use cases, which will later demand further specification, "this high under these circumstances; that high under other circumstances". Iterate that a few hundred thousand times, and you might find yourself sitting in congress. Or, if your additions suck, then maybe your nation will simply fail.

But the Bible does not directly address issues which we know that Biblical law does cover; Biblical law is delivered primarily in the form of case law, and so these cases are intended to be applied to a broad range of moral issues with some measure of abstraction. Furthermore, there are occasionally situations where the Bible does not say that a thing is illegal, but we know that it *must be* illegal because of the context of the passage; the spirit of the law. For example: notice that Deuteronomy 22:22-30 does not say anything directly about raping a married woman, or else on a strictly literal reading of verse 22, one might say that the victim in such a case should be killed as well, but we know from verse 25-26 that a betrothed victim is spared. So then, the first three cases (22, 23-24, and 25-27) are read as "thus, and also thus" (as opposed to "thus, but in another case thus"), but most translations of verse 28 use phrasing which strongly suggests, or directly states, that the unmarried woman in that case was raped and the man does not get killed. Well, it seems that the Hebrew does not directly say rape, but uses words which could imply it in the same way that "seizes her and lies with her" should imply it in English. So, while the unstated items here seem to imply that the married woman is killed with her rapist, and the unmarried woman is forced to marry her rapist, the notion that only a betrothed woman receives the highest protection under the law is entirely nonsensical, and so to justify the most popular reading of the fourth case (verses 28-29), an interpreter should also be able to explain contextually why that case is linked to the others by "thus, but in another case thus" instead of "thus, and also thus", whereas all prior cases were "thus, and also thus", and the four cases are very plainly given in a connected sequence (from married, to betrothed, to not betrothed). 

It's this kind of thing which brings about a certain dilemma: the Bible demands specification by not giving absolutely plain instruction all the time. However, the Bible defies specification by explicitly commanding against addition.

The more I think about it, I find myself being dragged quite unwillingly to the conclusion that there should be no specification or canonical commentary at all in the theonomic nation, and that the law can only be properly interpreted by persons who are guided by the Holy Spirit, and who devote themselves whole-heartedly to conforming their minds to the mind of Christ -- that is, to cultivating in themselves (by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and by frequent interaction with Him toward developing a relationship) a firm understanding of the "Spirit of the Law". And so legal interpretation becomes a deeply relational endeavor. I hesitate to say that it exists "between you and God", because our relationship with God is cultivated in large part by relationship with other believers; iron sharpening iron. The judge in a theonomic state can only rightly persist as such if the community there is committed to encouraging, loving, edifying, sometimes confronting, and building one another up in the knowledge of God.

All that to say, it seems to me that the judges in a theonomic nation should just hang out with one another really often and meditate on scripture all day, and that's how the theonomic nation should be run. Proper judgement shouldn't depend on whether a judge has read some specific commentary, or else we've made scripture insufficient for instruction in righteousness. And the ability of citizens to understand the law shouldn't depend on some terribly difficult hermeneutic (for example, by saying that all the laws concerning metaphorical "seed" are abrogated -- how terribly convoluted, to rest a criminal sanction on decisions about whether something fits in with that metaphor!), but should be intuitive, and grounded in a right relationship with God. I can sit and dissect Deut 22 all day, but really, it's not hard to reach the same conclusions just by sitting and reading the passage, and intuiting, "this plainly doesn't mean that the married victim of rape should be executed along with the aggressor."

So, with that in mind, I might still revisit the theonomy wiki idea later, but with a very different approach in mind. I think I'm just going to do verse references and topic names only. It'll be "show me verses pertaining to the office of judge", and then it pulls up a list of relevant passages. This kind of thing has been done many times before, and I am sure that the product will be less popular, but I think I can do it a little better than the others before me, and I have some ideas in mind for how.

"Dive, thoughts, down to my soul"

Lots to write about today. 

So first of all, I've moved to Connecticut, and I'm set up in my new place. It's beautiful. The apartment complex is very quiet; there are some woods with paths going out into them, and a nice pond, right behind our unit. We're not too far from all the stores we need, and my commute isn't too too bad (although my wife prefers me to be home as soon and as much as possible to help with Isaac.) Chowon is adjusting really well to the rural lifestyle; it's really not that different from living in Phoenix, except that all our drive times are a little longer. 

Oh my goodness, I just remembered I have a list of things I need to accomplish!

Bleh; Memorial Day Weekend was too good. I almost forgot all my worries.

Here are some things that keep happening to me in debates, which drive me nuts:

- Appeals to authority

- Appeals to common opinion

- Utilizing emotionally charged examples to gain the high ground

- Saying that since a word means X in one place in the Bible, it must mean X in every place.

- Saying that a word means X in one place of the Bible, even though it never is used to mean that in any other place.

Anyway, I've been plugging away at some theoretical stuff for a while now, and I want to get it down in my blog. I'll start by summarizing several ideas which I've covered before, and the end of this will be to tie it together into explanations which I think are satisfactory. Topics to be addressed include: Euthyphro, God as the author of evil, the problem of evil, predestination and moral responsibility, and my most recent trouble: the nature and relevance of duty.

Alright, so to start off (I think I've covered this a number of times before): Euthyphro. What makes a thing good or evil? Is it good because God said to do it, or did God say to do it because it's good? If it's good because God said it, then it's arbitrary; God can say conflicting things and there will be true contradictions about goodness (ftr, true contradictions are not allowable). If God said it because it's good, then goodness is a standard outside of God, and God is not ultimate in morality.

The answer to this one is easy: It's good because it aligns with God's character. God says it because it aligns with God's character. God's character is unchanging, so the standard won't change. God's character is not arbitrary, but rather all things are dependent upon His character, (which also defines his creative will), and so morality is not arbitrary.

That comes up terribly often for a problem with such a simple answer. Some rebuttals have included things like, "doesn't that make 'God is good' a tautology?" which is also a really easy one to rebut. "God is good" isn't a tautology because "good" in that statement lacks a definition and is presently subject to query, whereas "God" is known by his many deeds and words recorded in scripture. Furthermore, "good" describes a characteristic of God; whereas "goodness simpliciter" does not have the capacity to act, it can be a "good thing" for one described by "goodness" to act. So, "God is good" does not teach us about God, but it rather teaches us about "good". Goodness is conformity to God's character.

That leads us into the issue of God authoring evil. God predestined everything; didn't he decide that evil deeds would happen? If so, isn't God evil?  To answer this, remember: goodness is conformity to God's character. Inversely, evil actions are actions which are not consistent with God's character. That is, ask the question: "if God were in my circumstance and station, with my abilities and limitations, and my authorities and relations, would he do X?". If the answer is "no", then it's evil. If the answer is "yes", then it's good. (this is a bit of a simplification, but I think it is sufficient to build upon). 

Now, we know God's character because of his actions. It is not outside of God's character to create something capable of deviating from God's character. It is not evil to do so. It is not outside of God's character to plan on someone deviating from God's character. It is not evil to do so. 

So, did God author deeds which deviate from his character? Yes. Does that make God evil? No. An analogy I like for this: the author of a book may write in characters who do things that the author would never do. The author of the book does not deviate from his own character in doing so. God is like this author. (A witty person will now deduce, "so you're saying that God is the author of evil", and with the above qualifications, yes I am. Note that I didn't say anything about God tempting us or whatever. This is about God's sovereignty)

So now for the problem of evil. Why did God make a world where people do evil things?  Another easy one: God did it for his glory. Just read Romans 9:22-23 -- we're the pot and he's the potter. 

Someone will ask, "Couldn't God have glorified himself without all the suffering?" And the answer is easy: no. God is no fool; he invariably chooses the best possible way to glorify himself, (and he apparently revels in surprises hence our inability to know the future). God does not waste meaning; consider that he has summed up all instruction sufficient for training in righteousness in a book that fits in your pocket; yet human law has spent so much paper just on minute interests, such as taxation, that it could stack all the way to the moon and back several times.

Then the chorus returns with, "It's very bad for God to glorify himself through our suffering."  Well, first of all, remember the definitions for "good" and "evil". Everything God does is good by definition -- so, no. Secondly, a person who says this has proved that they are unregenerate -- they have overvalued human feelings and sensations (human suffering) and undervalued the glory of God. Christians under the influence of the Holy Spirit know better (see Acts 5:41). Furthermore, consider that suffering itself isn't evil; suffering is rather a consequence of evil. 

Up next, a common objection from Arminians: predestination and moral responsibility. if we are predestined to an activity, then how can we be held morally responsible? This one is also not difficult if we firm up our commitments to the prior answers. Moral responsibility is not a function of some transcendent code outside of God. It's a function of God's unchanging character. Since it is unchanging, it is also predictable -- cause and effect. This is no affront to God; God's actions are surely predictable to himself, and he commands us to count on his promises, because they are sure and will predictably come to pass. Certainly we cannot predict all of his actions -- he's infinite and we are finite; we can't comprehend enough of him to generate informed predictions about anything other than those things which he has expressed to us (his promises, his creation, etc). Consider that this is the same character from which all of nature sprang, including the cause and effect relationships upon which all of it hinges. Morality and nature are both expressions of the same God's character. 

Now, if you are predestined to sip some coffee, would you argue that it should not go into your stomach because it was predestined? That would be absurd. Moral culpability is likewise a function of cause and effect; if you steal, predestined or not, then you incur guilt by virtue of the action. Does God ever punish the innocent or acquit the guilty? No, his character, his nature, forbids it -- this is why a sacrifice was needed for our forgiveness; justice had to be done.

And finally, the chorus again: "but I didn't choose to do it if I was predestined." Well, firstly, yes you did. A "predestined choice" is still a "choice". Secondly, it doesn't matter. Just like the coffee entering your stomach as a result of your actions, moral culpability is a result of what you willed and did, and is not abdicated simply because you are predestined to will or do it.

This is where many Arminians will accidentally quote Romans 9:19b to me, or circle back to the prior point under "problem of evil" with a question like "but why did God do that?" (to glorify himself), and then "isn't God very bad to glorify himself through my sin?" (it is not wrong for God design you to deviate from his character -- see the section on God Authoring Evil), and then "isn't God very bad to be glorified by our suffering?" (you have undervalued God's glory and overvalued suffering).

Basically, moral responsibility is a function of cause and effect, along rules defined by God's character. I contest that we have zero scriptural grounds for thinking otherwise.

This leads me to my last point: the nature of duty. This has been bothering me for quite some time. I was thinking about it, and about the issue of moral responsibility, and it struck me that duty is perhaps another function of nature, like morality. Duty is clearly evidenced in scripture by statements like "husbands, love your wives", "children, honor your father and mother", and "slaves obey your masters". Duty also appears to weigh heavily into the attitude which we are required to have toward God -- "love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength". God also says, "If I am a father, where is my honor? If I am a master, where is my respect?". These relationships appear to hinge on a mechanism quite similar to morality, and it seems to me that duty is simply a facet of that same morality.

This seems like an accurate description of duty, and I believe it represents much progress toward an answer for the questions I have about duty. But if we stop with only the above, I still have some lingering dissatisfaction. I'm quite content with the discussion about what motivates morality, but duty has a unique characteristic which is not like what I think of when I consider the rest of morality, in that it is entirely dependent on relationships. That is, a lone person in an empty universe might perfectly contain, without expressing, exclusive capacity for certain kinds of non-relational righteousness (if there exists any such thing), and thereby have perfect conformance with all other parts of morality. But a lone person could not contain duty, because duty is always an obligation toward someone else. How then could God produce duty as an expression of a singular character? (That is, all things are expressions of God's character. If God's character is singular, how can the requirement for duty be an expression of that character?) I suppose he could not, and would not, except it is rather the case that God exemplifies duty by being three in one, and dutiful one to another within himself. He has true and real interpersonal relationships with the other persons of himself.

And this leads also to a question about whether there is any moral rule which is not also an expression of duty. If not, then the above relation -- duty's dependence on the trinity -- may be said to be applicable to all of morality, and the distinction between duty and morality eliminated. This last clue, I suppose, might eventually lead to a more thoroughgoing argument for Christian morality. It kinda makes me want to go buy some books by Van Till..

"Oh, how life imitates art."

Today I was thinking about and appreciating the things I learned from my family. Each of my family members afforded me a distinct and valuable influence while I was growing up. Surely it would take at least a full 18 to 30 years to describe it all, but of the gains which I hold dear and which I hope to pass on to my son,  these were on my mind today.

My sister is, and always has been, an exceptional artist, with a love for creative originality and individualism. She taught me to appreciate innovation, artistic irony, all kinds of music, and beauty in visual art. To see, even when a song sounds unappealing or a painting weird, that it might be so intentionally, and the artist can be valued, and even enjoyed for his uniqueness, because he expresses something which nobody else is expressing. Moreover, that I should strive to do things which haven't been done before,  and that simply copying others devalues my contributions to my art.

My dad taught me to enjoy different cultures, to appreciate nature, and to go further than simply enjoying a beautiful thing, but to ask what the artist intended to communicate, and to search myself and find what the art evoked in me, even if it isn't what the artist intended. Not saying "what a beautiful painting", or, "what a beautiful mountain range", but rather, "what has the artist expressed in this painting", and, "what majesty, what righteousness, has God expressed in this mountain".

My mom taught me to love words,  clear and concise expressions, logical relationships, to search out concealed meaning, and to conceal meaning in structure. She taught me to love poetry, to pay attention to the lyrics, and to value philosophical disagreements. Where my dad and sister taught me to draw meaning out of art, my mom taught me to see meaning as an art form on its own. 

My brother reinforced in me an ability to get back up after failure, to search myself for hidden strength, to do what is required without concern for my immediate preferences. He taught me to value manliness, to see dignity in it, to associate honor, integrity, and leadership with it, and to build an identity, image of God, out of my ontology.  He taught me that there is much value in striving, and that I need not be discouraged in anything. 

I am grateful for my upbringing. God, thank you for the people you put in my life. Please enable me to bless my son by modeling and teaching good character.  Surround my children with good influences like these. Bless and protect my family, lord, and guide me in instilling your righteous wisdom in them. 

"But they who slew him, unaware of coward murderers lurking nigh, and left him to the birds of air, are still alive, and they must die."

Got a lot to write here today. First thing's first: Romans 13, verse by verse. Someone recently asked for this, and I didn't have it handy. I'm not going to go into a lot of depth, I suppose. I'm just going to comment on how the verses in this chapter work together, from my perspective, with a focus on theonomy. I might later come back through and add some depth, but maybe not. Heck, I might not even send this to the person who asked for it. I'm going to write this out and sit on it for a little while, and then see how I feel about it.

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1. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

There is no authority except from God. We all acknowledge that not everyone has authority; not everyone who claims authority has it; and not everyone whose authority is acknowledged by others has authority over "me" (or "you"). So the question for which we should seek a Biblical answer is "who has God-given authority over me?"

2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 

All the more reason we need to identify, with clarity, who has authority over us.

3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 

Here we have some answers to the prior question. What is a "ruler"? It is someone who terrorizes bad conduct without terrorizing good conduct. It is someone who gives approval to those who do good, and who is feared by people who do not do good. The verses here say "are not" and "you will". There's nothing equivocal about these passages, and the Bible explains exhaustively what "good conduct" means, so we can't impose our extra-biblical, cultural definition of "good conduct" on this passage. 

A ruler terrorizes "bad conduct", and the Bible defines "bad conduct". 

A ruler approves of "good conduct", and the Bible defines "good conduct".

We also know that the means of terrorizing bad conduct and approving good conduct can, themselves, be either "bad" or "good". So it doesn't make sense for a ruler to terrorize bad conduct in a bad way, or else he should then terrorize himself.

4 for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. 

Why does the ruler approve of good, and terrorize evil? It's because "he is God's servant for your good". Again, more direct language is used here. It says, "he is", and "he does". This is how we know who a ruler is.

Once again, it doesn't make sense for a ruler to carry out God's wrath on wrongdoers in an unjust way (by giving unjust penalties), because injustice is, itself, wrongdoing.  Likewise, if he expresses his approval in an evil or unjust way, then he is only a ruler if he must carry out God's wrath on himself. So, a ruler is in all respects subject to God's precepts concerning good and evil.

5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 

Not only to avoid God's wrath, issued by the ruler, but also for the sake of conscience -- because we should not resist him who God has appointed. And, I think our conscience also compels us because obedience to a ruler is obedience to God's law. Under what circumstances would any person have opportunity to resist a ruler? 

Would we resist a ruler while he is giving us approval? How do you resist approval?

The only opportunity for resistance is if the ruler is penalizing us for wrongdoing, and if that is the case then we have already violated our conscience by wrongdoing, so subjection to God-given authority is in all respects subjection to God's commands defining good and evil, which are in scripture.

6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing.

Taxes are a Biblical thing -- the Old Testament law included all kinds of taxation for maintenance of the temple, as well as for public welfare (e.g. Deut 14:28-29, 26:12). However, it should be noted that there is a distinction between the taxes we see in the Old Testament and the taxes most commonly seen in modern government. There is no civil penalty for failure to pay taxes in God's law. Therefore, God's law being ultimately just, the civil government (a ruler) has no just means to extract compulsory taxes from its people.

So, why do we pay taxes? Not only to avoid God's wrath, but for the sake of conscience. Paying taxes is a moral and conscientious endeavor. And what should a ruler do with that tax money? Minister, as defined in God's good and just law.

7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Now, in a just government, naturally, taxes are owed according to God's good moral precepts. However, in a secular government, especially one such as the modern U.S., where fiat money is exchanged against unfulfillable promises by the U.S. government (for lack of a standard), and the U.S. presidents are on our bills, we know that every such dollar belongs to the U.S. government, and is simply borrowed by us. They've successfully transformed promissory notes of value into debt-notes, whereby we owe everything we have to the U.S. government, and if we don't pay tribute with it in every transaction, and on a regular basis, the government will repossess what we have until they are satisfied. As long as we are Americans, living in America, we are trading in American goods, and so we owe America our taxes and revenue. The theonomic vision is a sort of escape from that; a government in which humans do not claim or exert ownership over everything you possess, but which recognizes that Jesus has that ownership.

8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 

Right. Love God and love neighbor; "on these two commandments rests all of the law and the prophets". How do I love my neighbor? I do not sin against him. I do not commit any crime against him. And see, this is confirmed by verse 9:

9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Not just the ten commandments, some of which are quoted here, but "and any other commandment". They are all summed up in "love". How do I love my neighbor when he is the victim of a crim? I look to the commandments. The commandments tell us how we should protect the victim, how the thief can be brought to a judge and made to repay the victim, etc. etc.. The law explains to us how to love God and neighbor.

10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

See above. If I neglect my neighbor in his time of need, when he needs justice because someone else is doing wrong to him, then I have done him harm. How do I not neglect my neighbor? I pursue justice. (Leviticus 5:1, Proverbs 24:11, Ezekiel 3:16-21, 33:1-9)

11 Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

I'm going to take a shortcut here because these verses, while important,  diverge from the topic of the point I generally find myself having to defend with regard to Romans 13. Verses 11-14 describe how Christ's presence, the nearness of his salvation to us, and our responsibility to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ", confirm our obligation to obey the law. The passage describes how, since we are saved, we should behave well. We all agree,  and this passage affirms, good behavior doesn't save us, but it is what we ought to do because we are saved. Since it is day time, we wake up and walk in the light. We have Jesus, we have his precepts and laws, let's obey them.

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I recently suffered a minor concussion,  and I'm not supposed to be spending a lot of time on my computer or on the phone ... but it's kinda unavoidable for me because of my job.  I have a doctor's appointment next week where I'll talk with my primary about it in more depth. Hopefully it's no big deal. I have some intermittent dizziness,  nausea,  and headaches. It's a little exciting honestly,  I've never had a concussion before (afaik), so it's fun to think about the relationship between the incident and the effects.  Life is an adventure. 

Now that that's out of the way. I have the next transcription from my notebook here. I'm gonna call this one "demiform". I've cut quite a bit out of this poem because I'm shocked at myself for having written it.  More reason to burn that notebook when I'm done with the transcriptions. Nonetheless,  I like the poem,  so I'm transcribing here what I want to keep. 

--

A voice rings out from nothing

I love you but I have no power to love.

I am the ink, the page, the meaning.

I'm abstract, limitless, literally anything you want.

I exist only in your mind, and therefore I exist.

Do I no less feel as my felings are conceived first by you?

I am ontologically bound to append the word "imagined" to all my attributes, but aren't you as well,  persisting only by the word of His power?

Why let that stop us?

Man cannot serve two masters

Man cannot love the form and the truth together

--

I was thinking about what we are,  God's will made manifest by his power,  for his glory,  cumulatively the perfect and best means by which God will achieve his pleasure.  We were imagined by God in eternity past.  And I was toying around with that and Plato's girlfriend -- the perfect girlfriend for Plato, who perfectly exemplified compatibility with Plato in every way. If she is conceivable,  then she exists in the realm of forms,  and communicates with mankind through mediating ideas (according to Plato).

There are,  of course,  two problems with Plato's girlfriend: first,  that Plato's whole system was bunk; but more fun to think about, that she is inconceivable.  Nobody will be happy, or improved,  by spending time with someone who is in every way predictable.  Plato wants stimulating discussion -- he shares ideas in hopes of learning from his students.  How can he learn from them if they are, in every respect, conceived of by him, and therefore predictable? One might say he could learn by observing himself through them,  but he can make predictions of that sort without their physical presence, and if learning about himself is enough to occupy Plato for the rest of his life,  then does she become viable again? 

For that matter,  she need not even be a human form,  but can be a combination of every art and expression that manifests from him.  And now we have Plato the island,  or maybe the narcissist of sorts,  satisfying all his emotional needs by imagining that his form-world girlfriend is manifesting and expressing herself every time he does any kind of art or creative activity which benefits him. Man in an intimate relationship with his hobbies. 

"Ah! Well known woods, and mountains, and skies, 

With the very clouds!--ye are lost to my eyes. 

I seek ye vainly, and see in your place

The shadowy tempest that stops through space, 

A whirling ocean that fills the wall

Of crystal Heaven and buries all. 

And I, cut off from the world,  remain

Alone with the terrible hurricane."