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Did you know that Christians used to worship toward the east? Here is an excerpt from Saint John Damascene‘s Exposition of the Orthodox Faith which was written in maybe the eighth century or late seventh.

It is not without reason or by chance that we worship towards the East. But seeing that we are composed of a visible and an invisible nature, that is to say, of a nature partly of spirit and partly of sense, we render also a twofold worship to the Creator; just as we sing both with our spirit and our bodily lips, and are baptized with both water and Spirit, and are united with the Lord in a twofold manner, being sharers in the mysteries and in the grace of the Spirit.

Since, therefore, God is spiritual light, and Christ is called in the Scriptures Sun of Righteousness and Dayspring, the East is the direction that must be assigned to His worship. For everything good must be assigned to Him from Whom every good thing arises. Indeed the divine David also says, Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth: O sing praises unto the Lord: to Him that rideth upon the Heavens of heavens towards the East. Moreover the Scripture also says, And God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed: and when he had transgressed His command He expelled him and made him to dwell over against the delights of Paradises, which clearly is the West. So, then, we worship God seeking and striving after our old fatherland. Moreover the tent of Moses had its veil and mercy seat towards the East. Also the tribe of Judah as the most precious pitched their camp on the East. Also in the celebrated temple of Solomon the Gate of the Lord was placed eastward. Moreover Christ, when He hung on the Cross, had His face turned towards the West, and so we worship, striving after Him. And when He was received again into Heaven He was borne towards the East, and thus His apostles worship Him, and thus He will come again in the way in which they beheld Him going towards Heaven; as the Lord Himself said, As the lightning cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be.

So, then, in expectation of His coming we worship towards the East. But this tradition of the apostles is unwritten. For much that has been handed down to us by tradition is unwritten.

I don’t know if you’ve read the recent discussion about the ethical implications of “Designer Babies” ( cbs story here ). If you haven’t it is really interesting and for me it is eye-opening to see how far we are getting with technology. This technology does beg the question on whether it would be ethical for the Christian. Is there anything in scripture that prohibits the use of this technology?

On what authority does man exercise control over his natural environment? God has given man dominion over the world since the beginning (Gen. 1:28 – 30). This is especially asserted in Psalm 8:6:

You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet

So it is with authority that man can change the physical world. It is with the authority that man does research into genetics, even if it involves embryo research. The stronger religious objection results from the idea that a person is a person at the moment of conception. That life begins at the moment of conception is inferred from Psalm 51:5 and Jeremiah 1:5.

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
…
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.

The problem here is that scripture does not assert that every embryo is human. If you read Jeremiah then it is clear that God knew us before we were formed in the womb. According to scripture, human life is identified as something other than this human body and our existence in time is eternal but our state in time is changing and subjective. As a Christian I know that even if I die and my body deteriorates I will still be human and I will still be alive.

I do not believe that equating human life with an embryo is sound hermeneutics nor sound reasoning. While it is true to say that all humans were once embryo’s I do not see any evidence to support the assertion that all embryos are or will become human. On the contrary, it is not the human form that makes us human and gives us life but it is the breath of God (Gen. 2:5, Eze 37:5, Acts 17:25). Consider especially that we will soon have the knowledge and ability to grow our own embryo’s from non-embryonic stem cells. We will soon have the technology to create a full human body. Will we consider our creation human?

So we see what Scripture does not positively assert. Let us look in the other direction. Scripture positively asserts that God is Omnipotent and Omniscient. It also asserts that he is unchanging and completely good.

Is it evil to create a human only to allow it to be destroyed in the embryonic stage? Are miscarriages evil? Are abortions evil? If you accept that in each of these instances the victim is human then yes. But this position forces us to call into question God’s culpability. He allowed a human into that situation. He knew that innocent baby, not even fully formed was going to be destroyed. Even if you do not allow for human intention (an unintentional miscarriage) this idea still seems to offend my conscience.

Indeed, even David was held accountable for murder when he allowed his soldier to be in a situation where his death was inevitable. Shall we charge God with Murder? This whole perplexity is side-stepped if you take the simpler position that scripture does and assert that human life is something other than an embryo. If you take the other position, that human life begins with every embryo, then you have a lot to work out.

So, with the belief that a human being cannot be defined as any part of the human body, embryo or otherwise and that man has a divine-given authority to exercise dominion over creation I do not see how this could be declared unethical for a Christian. It may offend our western familial senses but I do not think that it is immoral.

I’ve finally gotten around to reading “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. M4tt recommended this book to me some time ago. I think i’m about one third of the way through the book and have decided to post some thoughts on it as i go along.

The first thing that Mr. Dawkins addresses is this supposed separation of Theology and Science. He argues that Theologians have no exclusive claim to Theology or things of that nature (such as the study of creation or ontology). I am inclined to agree with him. I believe that there is a huge problem with most Schools of Theology today. Most Theologians are not Theologians in the proper sense but really Bible Scholars. They likely have a firm understanding of biblical languages (Greek and Hebrew) but don’t know College Calculus. I wouldn’t call these people trained in the Study of the Divine. In my opinion, if you cannot understand Gravity then how can you expect to understand God? So I think that this is a misguided attack by Mr. Dawkins and is not really relevant to his topic.

He also speaks of the Great Prayer Experiment. This basically deals with the problem of evil. That is, if prayer is effective and if God is a supernatural God, then why does he allow evil to persist in the world and why does he allow suffering.

This is a difficult problem and one that I often wrestle with. Currently my thoughts are this that God gave dominion of Creation to Man. If there is suffering, if there is evil in Creation, it is there because Man who has dominion over Creation and allows it through either direct action or inaction.

Is God then guilty in allowing evil to exist through his permissive will? An omnipotent and omniscient God must be ultimately responsible for everything that occurs within his creation. This is something to struggle with but I think that ultimately guilt lies solely with those who are responsible for the act. One man is cannot be responsible for anothers guilt. We cannot assign guilt to God, a totally different entity, for we are not God and he is not responsible for our actions. Evil occurs within our own dominion and by our own doing, therefore we are responsible, no one else.

The problem of evil and its relationship to Free Will is difficult for my mind to grasp. Certainly we could not have Free Will without the possibility of doing what is not aligned to God’s will (Evil). Am I denying the reality of suffering or evil? I do not think that I am. Suffering is terrible. Evil is widespread and shocks me to the deepest levels of my faith. But I know that this suffering and evil I am witnessing is in the dominion of Man and that God has given us the power to fix it.

I am also not sure if we understand temporal suffering. When I was a child I remember being in trouble for this or that. My parents more than once grounded me and made me stay inside my room all day. I remember at the time that I often felt that my life was over and the suffering unbearable. I could not have understood then that the temporal sufferings of a child in that manner were nothing and indeed not real sufferings or evil. Are we enlightened enough to know that these sufferings are indeed evil and true sufferings and not childish temporal and fleeting? If we indeed are eternal beings, created in the image of God, then what will we think of our present temporal sufferings one-thousand years from the resurrection, when our bodies will be made incorruptible and in similar manner to Christ, who is the first-born among many?

It is difficult for me to see how Science can prove or disprove God at this point. Science does not exclude God. Science is only the culmination of human experience. When we base our expectations on Scientific Laws and Theory we are saying that we expect this to happen because It has happened that way through repeated experience and this is how we understand it to be. That’s fine. But nothing in Science precludes the divine or the supernatural. this is why we call a miracle is a miracle and God is worthy of reverence. If we could explain either through science, we would cease to call it a miracle and God would not be God but a natural phenomenon and unworthy of our devotion. Belief in God is based on faith, even after examining the evidence for or against. For some, it is reasonable to believe in God. For others it is not. For some it is reasonable to see the cup as half-full, while others see it as half-empty. I believe in God, I believe in Science (and in evolution as a process) and the cup is always half-full.

the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ was brought up on the bbc today (here’;s the link). though brief, it made me think of m4tt’s musings on the subject. a quick google turned two more links on the subject for further reading (link 1 and link 2).