I had the opportunity to discuss my faith with a co-worker the other day in an exchange of ideas and beliefs. I wasn't selling my faith but simply talking about different beliefs. My co-worker voiced an opinion that I hear a lot in one of two flavors:
1) There is an ultimate truth but there are many paths/religions/beliefs to get you there.
2) If Jesus died for the sins of mankind, then why aren't we all just forgiven?
If you squint a bit these are really the same idea I label universal forgiveness. Why can't God just forgive us all? I thought about this a good while and am convinced there is a principled reason why this can't work.
On the face of it it's entirely possible God himself might find the idea of universal forgiveness as attractive as anyone else. Why not? It's pretty loving, isn't it? The problem is that each of us has committed grievous offences against God and someone has to pay for it. If God simply wiped the slate arbitrarilly clean or didn't worry too much how we reached "enlightenment" (i.e. reached out to Him) then all His God-ness disappears. It'd be like a country with laws but nobody ever enforced them. It wouldn't be long before everyone totally ignored the laws, right?
So how can God fully satisfy the law while extending full loving pardon to us? The idea of sending Jesus, God himself, to die and pay for our sins and have such a simple act of decision to receive eternal life and forgiveness, is in fact the easiest, most inclusive thing God could have done without compromising who He is.
The great thing about understanding this principle is that it doesn't require blind faith, but a rational faith in God's way of salvation.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Wanted: Simple and Genuine
Last week I quietly slipped over the keynote threshold marking 40 years of life. I find there are lots of interesting things going through my mind, searching for new meaning, etc. Among the tangled threads of thought and emotion is a pretty big desire for a back-to-basics approach to living that permeates a lot of areas of my existence.
Take software architecture for example. For years I worked to grow my technical skills and amass expertise in several complex framework systems. I can now integrate these frameworks like smashing planets together. Great fun...and totally useless. After more than 10 years of reaching ever higher technically I've now come to the thoughtful conclusion that 80% of it is unnecessary. What benefit is there in having an application that "only has 10 lines of code" if you also have to master a complex framework with hundreds of lines of configuration? No thanks. A simple approach that I can hand to someone else and they immediately understand how it works--that's a good system.
I've also developed an itch for a classic car. A BMW 2002 tii to be specific. I like my newer cars but they lack soul. Its like they are all extruded from some tube of plastic somewhere and the whole system would come to a halt if one of the electronic bits conked out. The 2002 is a machine through and through. The only thing remotely electronic is the radio. Yep--roll-up windows, no electronics in the engine, and manually adjusted seats. Chrome bumpers! Everything clearly bolts together unlike new cars that try to hide every connector furthering the illusion that somehow these new cars simply sprang into being from a single lump of plastic and alloy. Not the 2002--someone had to build it bolt by bolt. I can't explain why, but that speaks to me.
Here's a guy who restored an old 2002 over a period of years. Gorgeous work, but why would someone go to all that trouble? I think I understand. Its a quest to have something genuine. There aren't that many genuine things in the world but when you find one they ring true. Think of a Harley Davidson, Airstream trailer, or an iPod for that matter. Genuine things aren't pretending or striving to be something else--they are what they are. They are things that will stand the test of time and be just as cool 25 years from now as they are today. I think the fact that it took this guy several years, and probably a good chunk of cash, only added to the value of the exercise. He was reclaiming something.
As I turn 40 I'm looking to recapture the simple--the genuine. My hope is that these things become an externalization of an inward quest to become more simple and genuine myself.
Take software architecture for example. For years I worked to grow my technical skills and amass expertise in several complex framework systems. I can now integrate these frameworks like smashing planets together. Great fun...and totally useless. After more than 10 years of reaching ever higher technically I've now come to the thoughtful conclusion that 80% of it is unnecessary. What benefit is there in having an application that "only has 10 lines of code" if you also have to master a complex framework with hundreds of lines of configuration? No thanks. A simple approach that I can hand to someone else and they immediately understand how it works--that's a good system.
I've also developed an itch for a classic car. A BMW 2002 tii to be specific. I like my newer cars but they lack soul. Its like they are all extruded from some tube of plastic somewhere and the whole system would come to a halt if one of the electronic bits conked out. The 2002 is a machine through and through. The only thing remotely electronic is the radio. Yep--roll-up windows, no electronics in the engine, and manually adjusted seats. Chrome bumpers! Everything clearly bolts together unlike new cars that try to hide every connector furthering the illusion that somehow these new cars simply sprang into being from a single lump of plastic and alloy. Not the 2002--someone had to build it bolt by bolt. I can't explain why, but that speaks to me.
Here's a guy who restored an old 2002 over a period of years. Gorgeous work, but why would someone go to all that trouble? I think I understand. Its a quest to have something genuine. There aren't that many genuine things in the world but when you find one they ring true. Think of a Harley Davidson, Airstream trailer, or an iPod for that matter. Genuine things aren't pretending or striving to be something else--they are what they are. They are things that will stand the test of time and be just as cool 25 years from now as they are today. I think the fact that it took this guy several years, and probably a good chunk of cash, only added to the value of the exercise. He was reclaiming something.
As I turn 40 I'm looking to recapture the simple--the genuine. My hope is that these things become an externalization of an inward quest to become more simple and genuine myself.
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