Medieval World View

I have been reading two books recently

The Territories of Science and Religion by Peter Harrison

The Discarded Image by C.S. Lewis

I hope to delve into them in more details on this blog but some interesting things I have learned.

First the majority of people in the middle ages did not believe in a flat earth. Just as there is today people who believe in a flat earth so was there in the middle ages. For some reason these few people's opinions have come to be understood to be the opinion of the day.

Because of the appearance of a earth centered model of the universe it would appear that the people of the middle ages thought they were important. But on the contrary they understood themselves to be on the outer fringes. Not important at all.

Our model of the universe is mostly empty. The middle ages was full of life. Spirits and Demons and didn't have the feeling they were alone at all.

God teach us to learn from you

God help us to listen to you

God help us to love one another

Sovereignty of God

 

^{Psalm 46 (NIV)}

¹ God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
³ though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.

⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy place where the Most High dwells.
⁵ God is within her, she will not fall;
    God will help her at break of day.
⁶ Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
    he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

⁷ The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

⁸ Come and see what the Lord has done,
    the desolations he has brought on the earth.
⁹ He makes wars cease
    to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.
¹⁰ He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”

¹¹ The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

God help us believe in the goodness of you sovereignty

God help us to trust in your words

God help us to believe in your ways more than our own

God help us to break the lies of this world

God help us to understand you better

God help us to listen to you

God help us to come to your throne for guidance

Smoke in the Wind

God has been teaching me we are all smoke in the wind. Everything here on earth is temporary. All houses, all ways of life will disappear. Our memories also temporary. We can hardly remember yesterday and forget what we have learnt. The books we treasure well one day will be hard for future generations to understand if they are still around. The only thing we carry is the fire, the light of Jesus in this dark world that we pass on to others that is permanent.

Help us to pass on the fire

Help us to see our temporary nature.

Help us to listen to you

Help us to trust you

Speak your truth

Speak your wisdom

Speak your discenrment

Grace

In these time of stress and anxiety let us remember to give each other Grace. Though emotions are high and things are much more difficult than they were doesn't mean we need to forget Grace. We need it all the more. So let's give each other extra amounts of Grace.

God give us the Grace we need

God calm our fear and give us your peace

Smoke in the Wind

I am but smoke in the wind. My thoughts mislead. I am a grass that is gone tomorrow.

Oh God 

Speak your truth

Speak you wisdom

Help me understand your path for my life

God Eternally Present

Let us remember you omnipresent God. Present in the future and present now. Help us to remember you are already waiting for us in the future as well as today and are in control of it all.

Let us remember that you God are worried about our eternal souls and not the things of this world. You have our souls and those of the people we love in mind and care about that more than anything here on earth. John 3:16

Let us use the knowledge, wisdom, and discernment that you God have given us to the best of our ability, leave the rest to you God, and help us to know the difference.

In our victories helps us give the praise to you God!!

God give our leaders discerment and wisdom to know what to do
God give us discerment and wisdom to know what to do
God help us to love others and how to show that love
Speak your truth to us
Encourage us
Help us to give thanks in all things
Let this time be used for an amazing time of growth in the things of God.
Help us to remember that people before us have seen much worse.

Give thanks in all circumstances

1 Thessalonians 5:14-18(NIV)  
¹⁴ And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. ¹⁵ Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.
¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

The command is to give thanks in all circumstances. 
When things are going good
When things are going bad
When you are frustrated
When God doesn't answer your prayers
When God doesn't give us victory over .. ?

2 Corinthians 12: 7-10 (NIV)
...Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Does this mean we are to give up fighting. I believe not. I believe giving thanks gives us the correct prospective so that we can fight.

Though I don't believe there is a hard rule but it appears that when we give thanks sometimes God tells us why (like Paul and Corrie Ten Boom) and sometimes he makes it right (though not in the way we might want but in his perfect way). I think that is why being thankful is important as it takes our focus off of our self so that we can hear from God.

Jesus at the last supper knowing what was going to happen was still full of thanksgiving.

Luke 22 (NIV)

17After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. 18For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

19And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

εὐχαριστέω

All to God

1 Thessalonians 5:14-18(NIV)  
¹⁴ And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. ¹⁵ Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.
¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Corrie Ten Boom in her book The Hiding Place talks about how her sister forced her to give thanks for everything even the flees in the barracks in their concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Later they realize that the freedoms they did get in the barracks was due to the fact no guard wanted to enter the barracks due to the flees.
John 9:3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him ...

God help us to give thanks in all circumstances
God in our hard times help us to be changed the way you want us to
God in our hard times soften our hearts to your teaching
God in our hard times help us not become demanding and try to demand an audience (why??) with you. 
God in our hard times calm our hearts and minds
God in our hard times help us focus on you

How do we change our hearts and minds so that we can give thanks in everything? Here are some ideas.

Pray for change in ourselves, Pray for a opening of our hearts and minds to God's teaching - Jeremiah 33:3
Set our hearts and thoughts on God - Philippians 4:8, Proverbs 4:23

Now does this mean that God doesn't work miraculously in some circumstances. Not at all. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't but in all circumstances the bible says we are to give thanks. This is hard to do but this is God's will for us. 

Mind over Matter

In everything give thanks

Love you enemies

Rejoice and be glad when you are insulted, persecuted ... etc.

These are all hard things to do. God seems to be telling us to put mind over matter and not let our emotions rule our hearts

God teach us to do this

God give us your wisdom and vision

God speak your truth to us

Help us to hear you

I have need of God -- I have no need of God

Stephen Hawking in his book "A Brief History of Time" states "But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?" but if I understand him correctly and if you read closely his God he is describing was really only very much like a Dutch boy sticking his figure in the dam to stop a leak. His God was only required because the model couldn't describe xyz. So we needed "God" just to "wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off" magically but the rest he could describe with out God and once he was able to describe his model without God he asks why we need a creator at all.

I find his thinking very interesting. Why did he choose to even include God in this book. Do not all models that need correcting have the same train of thought. When Newton correctly mathematically described the motion of the planets with his gravity model did he state God was no longer needed? When Einstein further corrected Newtons laws to include relativity did he expel God?

You may argue the difference is Hawking is describing creation of the universe while Newton and Einstein are describing laws but I would argue it is no different. If we were to completely describe the universe without God (whether with or without what he calls the unified theory). Ie we have no holes that God needs to stick his figure in to hold the model together would this exclude the existence of God? If all Stephen Hawking cared about and was completely consumed by his science he would then have no need of God.

I would argue this would not exclude the existence of God and I would argue it actually points to there being a God. The God of the Bible is not really a hole plugger. He seems to not really care about our models and ideas but cares about people and salvation and truth. Truth being the key for this blog. I believe he wants us to discover truth which I believe including scientific truth. 

I also find in his book Stephen Hawking is trying to be a philosopher which he is not. His argument for this stance is that philosophy has not been able to keep up with scientific breakthrough and so scientists have to take over the role of philosopher. I find this a general trend of our time is that scientists (or science in general) are held up on high moral and influence and make comments in areas that they are not experts. Is this correct?

C.S. Lewis who I believe is a true philosopher and historian makes the following prediction in his book "The Discarded Image" "It is not impossible that our own Model will die a violent death, ruthlessly smashed by an unprovoked assault of new facts - unprovoked as the nova of 1572. But I think it is more likely to change when, and because, far-reaching changes in the mental temper of our descendant demand that it should. The new Model will not be set up without evidence, but the evidence will turn up when the inner need need for it becomes sufficiently great. It will be true evidence. But nature gives most of her evidence in answer to the questions we ask her. Here, as in the courts, the character of the evidence depends on the shape of the examination, and a good cross-examiner can do wonders. He will not indeed elicit falsehoods from an honest witness. But, in relation to the total truth in the witness's mind, the structure of the examination is like a stencil. It determines how much of that total truth will appear and what pattern it will suggest."