Vision
Dominant Narratives
Simon Critchley regrets to inform us that there is no theory of everything (“There Is No Theory of Everything,” The New York Times, September 12, 2015). The best we can do is keep asking questions and learn to be content with partial answers and recurring conundra. Mr. Critchley has his favorite undergraduate teacher to thank for this skepticism. His article is an homage to the late Frank Cioffi, his philosophy teacher. We cannot sit by and allow the sciences to continue their hegemony over knowledge. Other ways of knowing – such as philosophy, history, and art – are equally important, even though they are not susceptible to scientific “proof.” Scientism is especially hurtful because it leads some people – “religious fundamentalists” among them, of course – to reject science altogether. No counter-narratives allowed here. That would be obscurantism, and obscurantism must be resisted by all means. Philosophy. Ah, there’s the elixir to relieve our itch to know. Because philosophy teaches us to keep asking questions and be content not to have to be a know-it-all: “The point, then is not to seek an answer to the meaning of life, but to continue to ask the question.” So what does all this mean? It means, with respect to everything – “the point” – that the meaning is in the asking, not in the answering, of questions. But wait, isn’t that, like, a theory concerning everything? Thanks, but I’ll stick with the Logos Who explains everything. Because He made it all and sustains it all.

Development
“Our greatest legacy to future generations, in addition to avoiding wars and conflicts, may be building knowledge-based societies and accelerating expansion of scientific knowledge and useful technologies.” (William Colglazier, “Sustainable development agenda: 2030,” Science, 4 September 2015). Mr. Colglazier’s report on the progress of the scientific and political communities in bringing economic development to underdeveloped nations highlights a major difference between leaders in the secular community and leaders in the Christian community. Secularists articulate, promote, and aggressively pursue big visions and challenging goals, while leaders in the Christian community do not. The Church will continue to lose ground in the secular West until leaders step forth who think, plan, train, preach, and join together for a Kingdom vision and Kingdom goals that seek the blessings of God for the world in every area of life. What will be our legacy to future generations? 

Disciplines
Reading
The Times Literary Supplement has published an essay by T. S. Eliot on “The Contemporary Novel” (12 August 2015). This is the first time this essay has appeared in English – it was published in French in Eliot’s day – and it has achieved in this reader what I hope will be conviction resulting in change. I do not read novels, as a rule. Susie reads them voraciously, and, while I find our conversations about her reading stimulating, I have not made space in my regular reading for fiction. The last novels I read were Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper. That was a little over a year ago. Prior to that, the last novel I read was fishboy, by Mark Richards, which our son Casey cajoled me into reading with him. Eliot’s brief essay persuades me, however, that novels can do more than entertain. They give us insight to the human situation, sharpen our skills of thinking and observation, challenge our worldview, and – at least for a writer – provide opportunities for reflecting on and improving our craft. For all these reasons I believe a change in my reading regimen is in order. Stay tuned.

Outcomes
Love the Atheist
Raymond Tallis does not believe in God, nor does he believe in eternity. Nevertheless, he cannot rid himself of them, at least, of eternity: “The concept of eternity raises questions about what kind of beings we are, where we fit into the order of things; more specifically whether we are perhaps so fundamentally different from other creatures that a different fate may await us when our hearts stop beating and our supply of tomorrows gives out. These may seem dangerously heretical thoughts for an atheist, but the very existence of the idea of eternity keeps the door of its possibility ajar” (“Temporal Thoughts About Eternity,” Philosophy Now, July 14, 2015). The knowledge of God in the heart of unbelievers, and the sense of the Law of God, while they may be vociferously denied, are only suppressed and never eradicated. The Christian’s duty is to understand the deep psychology of his unbelieving neighbors and to appeal to the knowledge of God, God’s Law, and eternity by every possible means. In Surprised by Joy then atheist C. S. Lewis remarked that committed atheists need to be careful about what they read, lest their beliefs come under trial they cannot survive. He is exhibit 1 in the case that requires us to jostle and try, as often and as lovingly as we can, that ajar door of the knowledge of God in the hearts of our unbelieving neighbors.

Teen Pregnancies
According to the Law of God, a man who was found to have had sex with a girl outside of marriage was responsible to marry the girl and pay a compensation fee to her father (Ex, 22.16, 17; Deut. 22.28, 29). Whether or not pregnancy was involved, justice required that the couple marry, since they had already assumed an important marital privilege without the benefit of the institution. Refusal to do so could result in expulsion from the community – or worse. Remove the Law of God from the social formula and you are left with what Schaeffer referred to as “the spirit of the naturalism of the age” for dealing with difficult social issues, such as teen pregnancy outside of marriage. According to the editors of Scientific American, there were 273,000 births to unwed teens in 2013 (“How to Stop Teen Pregnancies,” October 2015). The editors further note, “Abortion rates are also high.” But our society has given up on anything like a Biblical model for sexual conduct; thus, it accepts the status quo – recreational sex is everybody’s unalienable right – and looks to science for solutions. And the editors of Scientific American recommend IUDs, and that Obamacare should force insurers to pay for them. Studies show that IUDs reduce teen pregnancies by 75% and save states millions in a variety of costs. Never mind the continuing damage sex without long-term commitment inflicts on those who indulge as well as society in general. Whatever the continuing negative effects of our present addiction to sex, science will find a way to enable us to cope, if not adapt. 

Envoi

Summer’s Passing

Ah, summer dies a glorious death!
Impressive in her failing breath,
she yields her labor’s finest fruit
and dons a fiery burial suit.
No struggle knows, no loud lament,
no wailing her accompaniment.
What peace, what beauty she displays
as, coming to her end of days,
she looks ahead to winter’s paw
and hopes for springtime’s promised thaw.
She lingers but a week or two
as shades of gray replace the blue
that overhung the lively times
which now have faded. Yet the chimes
of churches sound no morbid knell:
Thanksgiving is the word they tell.
For summer passes glad to see
what she has done and what’s to be
when, after winter’s gloom is done,
she will a new life have begun.
The secret of her glory's this:
that death's no end of life and bliss,
but just an icy passage through
to verdure ever fresh and new.
Thus dying, she reclines in fire:

It is the way that saints expire.

T. M. Moore