My second child, a daughter, was born on July 4th! We gave her a name that we hope will point her toward the importance of generosity, service, forgiveness, and God's covenant: Lydia Jubilee. "Lydia", after the gentile seller of purple cloth who opened her home to the service of the saints, and whose entire household was saved -- a cool picture of the covenant and regeneration. "Jubilee", the backbone of the Biblical economy, forgiveness of debt and a return of everyone to their permanent inheritance, and a picture of the gospel (thinking of Isaiah 61:1-3). I'll be calling her Jube for short.

The first week has been basically sleep deprivation and a tiny bit of chores. The house wasn't quite ready for her -- we got a lot of our baby gear at the last minute because the second-hand donations that we'd been receiving up until that point were mostly actually kinda gross, so it isn't quite organized yet. Well, so I'm doing my best to get things in shape, or at least keep them from getting worse. 

Chowon suffered some more-than-typical harm during the delivery, but she's slowly getting back on her feet. I'm doing all the diapers, any soothing, swaddling, etc, so that all Chowon has to worry about is nursing and self-care. Chowon can't be satisfied by that kind of inactivity, though, and has managed to fill her time by responding to congratulations on the phone, the result of which has been a ton of meal deliveries at our house, which is really awesome.

Isaac is taking it very well. He's been very positive about having a baby sister, and he's been playing alone very well, and making himself breakfast sometimes. I'm trying to prioritize playing with him in my spare time, which also reduces the chores I can do. But family cohesiveness is more important than cleanliness in the final analysis, and I think my priorities are in the right place. The house is messy, but it's not gross, and it is slowly improving.

I have a lot of paid paternity leave. I'm nervous about getting back to work at my job after all of this.

In my progress on the book that I'm working on for Isaac (and now for Jubilee too!), I've noticed that Paul is rebutting the Circumcision party in nearly all of his letters. He's really seriously campaigning against them. That realization, and my renewed understanding of Paul's journey, has painted a more human picture of Paul in my head. 

I'm often praying that God will guide me to write what's true in my book, and not just write what I want to be true. I've definitely changed my perspective about a lot of topics as a result of this study, so that's something -- I hope, an indicator of God's activity in guiding my mind to some truth. 

I'm often back-and-forth about whether or not I will give the finished work to the guys who said they want to publish it if I finish it. Maybe I'll just pay to get the pages durably bound, and then give a copy each to my son and daughter, and call that the end of it. The more I research, the more I realize I'm a layman doing layman's research. I'm an autodidact and it definitely shows. What am I doing pretending to have answers to all of these arguments I'm taking on in my book? Who am I to lay claim to any true knowledge pertaining to scripture? By teaching, if I say anything true, I've only done what's commanded and expected of me, but if I say what's false, I have sinned and caused my neighbor to sin! I can only hope that my son will filter out the failures I present to him, and follow the Holy Spirit toward Christlikeness, becoming himself a better man than me. 

But I have to say something! I certainly can't leave my children to the wolves. I'm not merely subject to the belief that these philosophies I'm arguing against in the book are complete garbage; they really are trash and my children would only injure themselves by giving serious consideration to some of these thinkers. There are a lot of things in these writings I'm compiling about which I am firmly convinced I can't be wrong. Combing my conclusions to draw up a detailed blueprint of the structure connecting them to those primary beliefs is perhaps the work of many lifetimes, so I have to prioritize what I put my effort toward and how I do it. I can't let myself take too long, because I will age and lose my zeal (and besides, I might die tomorrow!); I can't be too quick or I will miss the important details. 

I don't want my children to waste time evaluating pop philosophy. I know it's a very common idea that people eventually have to evaluate the religious landscape for themselves and establish a personal conviction for Jesus anew after leaving their parent's household (I certainly did that), but I don't think that the activity needs to include any time wasted critically examining bullshit ideas like atheism or islam. Like, how thoroughly do we need to refute that crap before it doesn't deserve our attention anymore? Think of all the progress we can make if we rather devoted our minds to the truth! 

Don't get me wrong, apologetics is good work, and having a defense against outside arguments is important for everyone as a necessary evil, but I don't think that's the same as having a "reason for the hope that is within us". My reason for believing in Jesus is entirely compelling to me, but it isn't an argument in the common sense of the term; it's becoming more and more a blend of relational, spiritual, experiential, and rational ideas that feels increasingly bound up in my very self-ontology.

I want to present my children with something that they can use as a foundation to build-on. We're homeschooling them so that I can, by going alongside them, fill the gaps and equip them for this. I want them to skip all the trash philosophers I read, (I'll give them a cursory understanding of the history of philosophy insofar as I can make it an interesting story), and I want them to make positive progress by so thoroughly immersing themselves in the truth that the answers to outside challenges become too obvious for care. "The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them."

I once read the argument that people need to have an experiential understanding of "darkness" in order to know what "light" is. For example, if they only ever saw the color "white" they would never know what white was until they first saw other colors. I don't buy it. They would only know what white was until they saw other colors, and then they would know the other colors. I think contrast is helpful to demonstrate magnitudes and to build a sense of relevance by way of application, which is helpful to expedite learning, but not necessary to know truth. I don't need to go worship another god in order to know that Jesus is the true God. Nobody in Israel needs to be proselytized toward false religion in order to understand God's covenant with them. Deut 13:6-11 permits no such proselytization in Israel, while elsewhere the Bible commands repeatedly that Israel take plenty of time to learn God's words, precisely because in-depth knowledge of false ideas is not necessary. 

There are infinite falsehoods out there, and only one truth; how can I invent a falsehood in order to contrast it with the truth in order to gain knowledge of the truth if I haven't already known both the truth and the falsehood in order to contrast them with one another so as to understand the falsehood I'm inventing? The idea that knowledge must be founded on dialectical contrasts is philosophically incoherent.

My kids don't need to read Nietzsche as a prerequisite in order to know that he's not worth reading. Nor do they need to critically examine the theory of evolution in order to know that God created mankind from the dust on the 6th day, nor do they need to dabble in other religions to gain deep insight into Christianity. I want them to build on the foundation that was laid for them in God's word, and skip the crap. If I can give them that much, then I've saved them years of time, and if God graciously sees fit to give me so much of a great blessing, he may place them among those in heaven who never bowed to a false god, and to retain a man for God's kingdom from among my children for future generations. Oh God, do not permit my family to go astray, and my generations to be struck from the book of life!

"My soul is crushed with longing for your judgments at all times."

ETA:

I've been thinking about what I wrote here, and maybe I'm being redundant by re-engaging with my self-doubt here... (I thought about making it a separate blog post, but it's too soon). I do want to clarify that I'm not going to completely leave my kids ignorant of things like OE/TOE or the various manners of approaching nihilism, so I'm not completely isolationist here, but I do intend to give thorough emphasis both in time and effort to teaching things I believe to be true (as every teacher does, right?)... but also, I'm concerned about myself. Am I deceiving myself by means of a false humility, whereas I'm actually unwilling to budge on issues about which there are legitimate challenges out there?

I won't say I am not concerned about the possibility. Indeed that's why I write here. But on the other hand, I'm not quite ready to yield to it.

One time I read a philosopher argue along these lines, "if your ideas are contradictory to mine, and aren't at least as well developed as mine; at least as thoroughly challenged and time-proved as mine; at least as comprehensive in their explanatory power as mine; at least as coherent as mine -- then I may be willing to engage with you concerning challenges you have to my own ideas, but I see no need to spend any time versing myself on your ideas.". I suppose that may seem a sort of philosophical hubris, but on the other hand, Christianity is truly the best established system in existence on all accounts. I may not be an expert in Christianity (or any other system for that matter), but I don't need to be an architect to know which building is tallest. And, let's face it: Christianity does engage in internal criticisms of outside philosophies, but it is also entirely consistent with Biblical Christianity to maintain an attitude of derision toward non-Christian perspectives. "The fool says in his heart, 'there is no god'.". "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

Sure, "what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?", and so some analysis of the enemy is necessary when in battle. And Christianity is a conquering ideology, aimed at ideological warfare, "We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete." But given limited time to build an awareness of the situation, whose troops should the king know better, his own or his enemy's? And should the king verse himself on armies which will not be involved in the current battle as thoroughly as on those who will? The most efficient use of my time as a teacher is to teach the truth, not to verse my kids on every untruth, nor even on those aspects of untruths which are easily refuted by things my students already know. 

If I am able to expand that category of prior knowledge effective to refute an enemy idea, so that it encompasses very much of the enemy's ideology, then there is little left for me to do by way of teaching on the enemy, except insofar as it expedites teaching the truth. Only: am I able? That is the prompt for my self-doubt. I'm not really all that worried about whether or not Christianity is subject to an undermining refutation, only whether I can prepare my kids sufficiently that they are not deceived by a weak refutation.