human effort and the grace of God

His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is blind, suffering from eye disease, forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

2 Peter 1:3-11; NRSVue

There has probably been nothing more controversial since the Reformation in Protestant circles when considering the break from Roman Catholicism than the issue of God’s grace and human works. An illustration in point is Martin Luther’s disdain for the letter of James, calling it “a right strawy epistle” and from what I can gather, while not excluding James from Scripture, put it on a kind of secondary level. There has been what seems to me is an unnecessary wedge driven between Paul’s writings and the book of James. Paul’s emphasis on salvation by God’s grace does not at all exclude what we can even call the necessity of good works following. The Anabaptists as part of the “radical reformation,” saw no contradiction to God’s saving grace in the necessity of works following. Neither did others like Calvin, though for such, human effort was still questioned I think, if not explicitly, implicitly in at least much of the theology present in their churches.

We’re not saved by our own human effort, but human effort is evident in our salvation, or we could say follows, maybe in a way significantly mysterious to us, always accompanies it. This can get into a discussion of original sin and how whatever power humans are under is penetrated by God’s grace. The salvation in Christ is likened as the light in the darkness, so that we don’t want to take away from that at all. Human effort alone, no matter how well meaning, according to Scripture is not enough. But no matter what the person understands, human effort should never be despised. There may well indeed be something of the power of God’s grace present and moving in that. I think we can see much of this in Paul’s writings, as well as elsewhere in the New Testament and in the rest of Scripture, for that matter.

But to the point of this post. Yes, our effort matters, and it turns out that it matters a lot. According to the passage above in 2 Peter, it actually makes all the difference in a certain way. Yes, on the basis of God’s life, power, and promises, but if one just goes on that and does nothing, then there is no grand entrance into the eternal kingdom of Christ, but rather a forgetting that past sins have been forgiven, even blindness and we might say a lostness in living. Consider what one is to add to their faith according to the passage, then consider what faith looks like without those things: excellence, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection, love. At least we can imagine that to the writer such things would be diminished.

Then there’s the matter of making every effort to add those things to or as part of our faith to confirm our calling and election. In the words of the NRSVue:

Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election

That effort is a confirmation of what we already have, no effort indicating that we may lack it altogether. This passage paints it black and white, no gray. You either go all out to lay hold of what God’s grace offers, or you don’t and therefore you don’t receive it, or fall short of its fullness. I’m not sure that we have to draw lines and imagine exactly what the outcomes will be. In fact the plain reading of this passage does not make following through on this an issue of salvation at all. Instead I think this is simply a call to move us together and as individuals to respond with a pointed effort on our part, to be growing in the intention of goal of God’s grace.

God’s grace as we can see in the above passage, and many places elsewhere never excludes human effort. Quite the contrary. Even the misguided thought that we have to quit doing anything, usually always in a concern that if we do anything, it amounts to us trying to earn our salvation, is ironically so it seems to me itself an effort, and certainly never understood in those circles as simply doing nothing or doing whatever one feels like doing. We can’t earn our salvation, for sure. This is a call to be fully tuned into and moving in accordance with the salvation already present for us in Jesus. Because of that, we’re to give it our all.

reaching a moral consensus in the real world

When gentiles, who do not possess the law, by nature do what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, as their own conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God through Christ Jesus judges the secret thoughts of all.

Romans 2:14-16; NRSVue

Dr. James Grier, one of my professors at the seminary I attended was quite gifted intellectually. I remember him musing about coming breakthroughs in reproductive science which would bring difficult ethical issues and questions with it. I am thinking it was with reference to the IVF issue that is in the news today. He might have gone on to say, or maybe this was another time, but of the need to work on arriving to a moral consensus in which people can live together, with the inevitable agreeing to disagree elements in it. Some of my thought added here to whatever Dr. Grier said at the time. I took vociferous notes from him, quite philosophical and challenging in a way which wonderfully stretched us all.

But this gets me to think about the world in which we live today, and specifically the United States where I live. I am wondering what Dr. Grier would think about this present moment. What we see in front of us is a zero-sum game insisted on by one side, and a push for democracy within law, which is to honor the ideal that all humans are created equal, under the influence of the Enlightenment in which religious authority did not have the final word, something like that on the other side. There’s a lot more that goes into that, but I’m neither qualified to go there, nor is this the point of this post. What Paul may have been getting at from the passage above might speak volumes into the conflict we see today. And as I always did, I take what I remember of Dr. Grier’s words quite seriously as well.

What is the point of life? What is life? I think to get to the heart of the matter on that, we have to turn to the gospel accounts, to Jesus. His parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) speaks volumes on that. We need the whole of that before we even begin to consider Paul and all that follows. I am speaking here logically, not to say that we can’t read all such simultaneously. But it’s important I think to get steeped in Jesus’s coming, his teaching and all that was involved in that, certainly including his death and resurrection. Only then will we really begin to understand what follows, the gospel Paul expresses as dependent on as well as something of a fulfillment of that.

So yes, I am thankful for Dr. Grier’s concern, the part he said he was playing with other people in our area to work on arriving to a moral consensus, inclusive of all, at least of the spectrum of various religious and other traditions. Necessarily agreeing to disagree on details*, but something which all can live with, surely an inevitable part of living together in the real world. Not about finding the lowest common denominator, but the highest common denominator in which we’re all to live.

*I certainly would not agree with Dr. Grier on some important issues today, nor did I agree with his Calvinism back at that time. But Dr. Grier’s concern as expressed here in working hard to learn to live well together in the midst of those differences should be taken all the more seriously since he was willing to take a humble, knowledgeable stand on issues. In the end, we humans are limited, and we should not imagine otherwise, while at the time endeavoring to grow in understanding and in living well with all others.

for a deeper prayer life: Jesus’s ascension and the Spirit’s coming

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

John 14:1-14; NRSVue

We have to start somewhere, and in a certain sense we’re all beginners in this. But if I had one word to tell myself and anyone else, it would be pray.  Just pray. The last thing you need is religious words. There’s nothing wrong with formality and eloquence in themselves, unless it’s a distraction from being real, just being yourself in what you say to God, prayer essentially talking to God. And you just keep doing that, day after day, week after week, month after month. But when you look both in Scripture and in Christian tradition you start to think if you’re me, there’s got to be more to this than I know, more than I experience. Have I experienced a depth and love in prayer? Probably everyone has at certain times and spaces. And is dryness in prayer necessarily a bad thing? While the experience itself is not compelling or encouraging, it is neither necessarily bad in itself, nor something we should reject. Some other time Psalm 63 might be a good passage to focus some on that.

Jesus in what’s known as the Upper Room Discourse (John 13-17) on the eve of his crucifixion teaches his disciples a number of things, his last words to them before he would be glorified on the cross and through his death, though he would have more to say to them between his resurrection and ascension. Here Jesus is telling them that the unity that he has, one might say enjoys with the Father, with God, means that Jesus himself will answer prayer to God in his name. It’s as simple and profound as that. The reason being: he would be going to God, to the Father in the ascension, an important aspect of all of this spelled out later in this discourse: the coming of the Spirit. So you have the Trinity: the Father (or you could say, Mother), the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

There’s a power in the simplicity of this. Yes, it’s certainly beyond our understanding, yet it’s not beyond experiencing something of it, in fact the Trinity is what experience is meant to be and in a true sense, actually is. And we can experience something of this in prayer. Jesus encourages his disciples and by extension, us, that our prayers are powerful in that they will be answered, because he will do what we ask the Father to do in Jesus’s name. Of course not all of our prayers will be answered in just the way we ask. I know that for some that will cause some eye rolling, but we’re referring both to God’s working and God’s wisdom. To be answered, it may take some time. And we may not know what we’re asking for or what we should ask for. Paul tells us elsewhere that the Spirit takes our prayers while joining in our groaning and prays for us in accordance with God’s will, which means they will be surely answered (Romans 8:26-27). And what more should we want than the good will of the God who is love?

Just some thoughts on the deepening of our prayer life, Scripture and tradition having much more.

why do I keep writing? why do I speak?

But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I believed, and so I spoke”—we also believe, and therefore we also speak

2 Corinthians 4:13; NRSVue

Paul in another place divides gifts in people into the two broad categories, speaking and serving. It’s not like someone who serves shouldn’t speak, nor should another who speaks not serve. I normally feel in my element with words, either reading, thinking or speaking, the latter preferably in conversation with others. But on this blog, I have written for some time (along with a previous blog with the same name on BlogSpot/Blogger, which disappeared, reappeared, but which I can no longer access to edit).

The more you read, the more you learn, the older you get, the more you realize just how limited your thoughts are. I don’t think what I wrote just a year ago will be the same as what I write now, much less so when I started on WordPress. And less yet from my beginning with “Jesus community” on Blogger. And if I’m still writing a year from now or beyond, it won’t be static. It’s said that even in Paul’s writings, there is change over time. Probably not so much contradictory, but more like further developed or touching on some different themes.

Why do I continue to write? The most basic answer to that, it’s an expression and I might say the expression of my faith, except that it’s our lives that are supposed to express it more than anything else.

For in Christ Jesus…the only thing that counts is faith working through love.

Galatians 5:6; NRSVue

But as Paul wrote elsewhere, we speak (or write) because we have faith. Someone said, and I don’t know who (though I may have heard this when Jaroslav Pelikan was interviewed by Krista Tippett, worth every second if you listen to it), something like, We believe, therefore we have to say something, even if we’re stammering to do so. Yes, I can identify with that.

And when you think about it, it’s not like any one of us is going to have just the right word dropped out of heaven, but on the other hand, though it’s our fallible, weak words, it might just be the word given to us for the moment.

At any rate, I believe, and therefore as God gives me breath, I’ll indeed continue to speak, however haltingly or boldly that may be.

making progress

While I was still young, before I went on my travels,
I sought wisdom openly in my prayer.
Before the temple I asked for her,
and I will search for her until the end.

From the first blossom to the ripening grape,
my heart delighted in her;
my foot walked on the straight path;
from my youth I followed her steps.

I inclined my ear a little and received her,
and I found for myself much instruction.
I made progress in her;
to him who gives wisdom I will give glory.

Sirach 51:13-17; NRSVue

I’m personally not a fan of self-help or self-improvement programs or books, even though there surely can be good gained from such. While I don’t doubt that I also firmly believe that as followers of Christ we need to be thoroughly grounded in the biblical text, God’s Word. And I include this passage from the Deuterocanonical, Apocryphal book, Sirach as an encouragement from God to look for improvement in specific areas of life in which we’re lacking or not doing well.

You can fill in the blank for yourself. But for me, since getting on a normal schedule again, I’ve come to see that I’m indeed a morning person, bright eyed (for me) and open and more or less ready for a new day. But by the time evening rolls around into the night, I’ve not only lost that edge, but am susceptible to thoughts and practices which are not helpful. For me, this resides completely in the area of cares and concerns which morph into anxiety. The good thing about that is that I can hit the pillow, my head under the covers, and usually soon fall asleep to awake later into a new day in which the slate feels more or less clean.

We all have weaknesses, some of which we have to live with. Propensities can go along with weaknesses, which we might indeed have to guard against. Formulas in a one size that fits all are most often not helpful. But when I know that something sets me off in a way that is not helpful to myself and my life of faith, then I do well to avoid it. And when one finds something helpful, it is good to put that into practice. Something of the wisdom in the poem written in Sirach.

I have long appreciated the idea of a kind of monastic existence and there are married orders. I love the idea of getting up early to chant psalms, sing songs, read Scripture. In our newish hymnal, Voices Together, there are both morning and evening prayers as in offices with two hymns/songs to be read/sung each time, which I greatly appreciate and do day after day. That is of course helpful, and actually morphs into my daily existence as far as the list of prayers are concerned. But some sort of practice like that to help keep one grounded is surely commendable.

I think a part of wisdom for me in my own problem is to accept that I am a certain way in the morning and not the same into the night. Perhaps that might mean learning a different routine. For me, this never would mean dispensing of evening prayer, even if I go through it with yawns and some struggle and maybe even more or less hasten through it. But it might mean any number of things, and definitely an openness to learning wisdom in the process as in handling it better so that my experience of faith is still present at night. One of the things we have to guard against is the idea that our faith is only as good as our experience. I consider all the Psalms faith-filled, and they definitely can be dark in experience (Psalm 88, etc.). So even when we are struggling, we shouldn’t feel like all is lost and that our faith is null and void.

But I would like to see some progress in my navigating of my day. Hopefully I’ll be learning wisdom along the way from Scripture for life. Not so much prescriptions for this or that ill or trouble, but much more like a better grounding in the will of God, in what God is doing and how I’m to be involved in that along with others. Wisdom for all of life present for us, God desiring to teach and help us in our lives.

discipline yourself and fight on

Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air, but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27; NRSVue

In the context Paul is “waiving (his) rights for the gospel” (CEB heading). Yes, he had a special unique calling for the gospel. And he makes it clear that his intent as a servant of the gospel is to be a slave to all for the sake of that good news (gospel). I’m not called to preach the gospel or plant churches or for that matter, make the gospel known in new ways and contexts. Though I would think that the latter belongs to the church together.

Even so, Paul is making it clear that what he’s saying here applies to the church, to all the believers he’s writing to, and by extension, to us today. What he did, all of us should do.

Naturally at least many men will think of sexual sin, of lust. And indeed, that’s important. How many pastors along with a host of other both men and women have fallen due to sexual sin. This is a grave consideration, and it’s all too bad that we don’t take Scripture literally in some ways. When Jesus makes it a grave matter to look on a woman (or man) with lust, equating that to adultery, are we for one reason or another going to dismiss that? If we do it will be to our grave loss.

While that’s most definitely included, for me what Paul is getting at is keeping his entire being which fundamentally includes his body to be pointed in one direction: to fulfill God’s calling in terms of the good news, the gospel of Christ. In general, and in different ways that calling is for each of us as believers and followers of Christ. Like Paul says, it’s running to win, training to do the best one can do.

For me, I learn by experience. I realize that there’s certain rabbit holes I need to avoid, places in which I can easily fall into which in themselves not only are not wrong, but seem right, even urgent at the time. But in actuality, all of that hampers the track I’m not only supposed to be on but want to be on. Experience if accompanied with knowledge/wisdom is a solid, reliable teacher.

And so, with the main goal in view, we want to be faithful in all the particulars involved, keeping ourselves in check, not following our own propensities. We do this through God’s grace, but nevertheless, it’s up to us to do it.

take hold of everything available to you

His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is blind, suffering from eye disease, forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

2 Peter 1:3-11; NRSVue

There are few things more frustrating to me than a passive religion and faith. That being said, I was faithfully instructed just recently from no less than Walter Brueggemann in my reading that there is a form of what I might call passiveness risking cheap grace necessary in waiting on God (The Prophetic Imagination). This is not a self-help endeavor, something we can work up and do ourselves. God is in it or it’s nothing at all in terms of what it’s laid out to be in Scripture. So yes, there’s that vitally important aspect of waiting through faith and prayer. But there’s also the equally important aspect we see in this passage from 2 Peter. God has given us all we need in Christ, yes. But we must take hold of it, period.

Notice what we’re to “support [our] faith with.” Excellence, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. We can say this is both in individual as well as communal terms. In the world in which this letter was written, community was a part of life and frankly a priority that it isn’t in our current day. They were together in a kind of mutual dependence which became a mutual grounding. Nowadays for those who profess faith in Christ, this is at best hit and mostly miss. People find a “good” church to get a good sermon, maybe some other good things on the side (like the worship music they like, and of course coffee, me included in the latter) and then go home. Maybe the church will press for small groups. And if it’s a small enough church, there might be some visiting afterwards. But by and large we just don’t have that same ethos or experience today. It’s much more like living in an individual existence, at the most tied together in families, but individualism so dominant that it’s mostly about everyone doing their own thing.

I say all that with the danger of losing sight of the wonderful list of what we’re to support our faith with, because we’re understandably coming to a place for many in which church is becoming more and more just a nice option. And ironically, where churches that are in danger of no longer being true churches (Revelation 2-3) are given to a community united in something other than what Peter was talking about here.

We can’t do this only by ourselves. Not. For example, how do we support our faith with mutual affection, or for that matter, love by ourselves? And given that, we can see the other things on the list: excellence, knowledge, self-control, endurance and godliness at least as much in communal as in individual terms.

We have to take hold of all that God gives us in Christ. That’s the only way we’re going to make it. And not only make it as in surviving, but actually coming to thrive and in the end gain the grand entrance Peter refers to above.

the wise learn from their mistakes

Do not lie in wait like an outlaw against the home of the righteous;
do no violence to the place where the righteous live;
for though they fall seven times, they will rise again,
but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.

Proverbs 24:15-16; NRSVue

If you live, you will make mistakes. Depending on different predispositions, people will be prone to different weaknesses, and none of us immune to any error. Some might be tempted to anger, lighting into others, others- you name it. My number one problem has been anxiety and the fretting which goes with it, which has led to all kinds of mistakes. I think without a doubt a commitment to study and work Proverbs into my life would have helped immensely. When one does that, they have to take all the words seriously, if not entirely literally given the different context of time and place in which the Bible was written.

The text here in Proverbs is directly speaking about the wise being victimized but getting up again and again. But I think it can be applied in general as well to mistakes made. The wicked might want to bring them down, but they’re put on notice here that the righteous are resilient.

Wisdom will help us want to learn from our mistakes and help others, especially our loved ones and those younger than us to learn from us so that they don’t make the same mistakes in their lives. Of course, those who are not pursuing wisdom will pay no attention and even when they do hear it, it’s likely to make little to no difference in their lives.

But haven’t most of us been lax when it comes to wisdom somewhere along the road? Hopefully not in the worst kinds of ways, though that can happen to any of us. But we’ve failed too, in the words of the proverb above, fallen even seven times. But we get up and keep on going. The rising again from such falls spoken of in the text surely includes a careful consideration of what happened and how such a fall can be avoided in the future. And Proverbs is a marque book to help us in that way along with the rest of Scripture as we endeavor to do so together as followers of Christ.

the danger of anger

You must understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for human anger does not produce God’s righteousness.

James 1:19-20; NRSVue

Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.

Ephesians 4:26-27; NRSVue

Both of these passages are in the context of relationships. Anger is a reaction or response to something which is considered wrong. Neither passage strictly speaking prohibits anger. Jesus himself on occasion was angry. We read about God’s anger in different places. And anger is proper when love is violated. Love as I speak of it here, certainly includes truth. We can’t understand love apart from truth. For example, how I can know how love is violated, on what basis? At the same time, we need to be humble, realizing that our knowing and knowledge is limited, that it certainly doesn’t measure up to God’s understanding. So we had best be humble with a strong accent on love trusting in God’s grace.

Anger is indeed a proper response to many of the injustices and evils of the world, no doubt. But it all too easily even in an instant moves from something that is human and good and alright in its place to something we can’t control and that does more harm, usually much more harm than good. Even God puts a lid on God’s anger according to Scripture. Let’s face it, when we’re angry we often don’t think the most rationally and there’s a spirit in us which others pick up immediately. We can then unwittingly become a part of the problem rather than one who can work toward a solution. And as James tells us, we should be slow to become angry in the first place, yes due to our own limitations, but again, even here James doesn’t rule out anger.

All in all, while anger is not prohibited, it is seen as a danger. Anger may or may not be useful toward getting to a solution, but it is worse than useless at getting the needed work done. As James reminds us, human anger does not bring about God’s righteousness or justice.

the value of not knowing

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time on and forevermore.

Psalm 131; NRSVue

Recently I heard a podcast on faith and science well worth an hour of listening (Hans Halvorson- God & the Cosmos). It’s a fascinating subject given quantum physics and how physicists acknowlede just how much they don’t understand. That lack of knowing came only through working through the data seriously and scientifically and with brilliant insights that were verified at least to some extent in testing. But even such verification leaves scientists with more questions than answers. So much more is known now than a century ago and overall general knowledge is greatly expanded over centuries past, we learn on the podcast.

Peter Enns, who conducted the interview in a discussion at the end with Jared Byas acknowledged his acceptance of “mystery” whereas Jared preferred “not knowing.” In no way does such knowledge either deprecate the value of science or inherently lessen the possibility of God. In fact, if anything God can seem all the more likely and when I consider a passage like Isaiah 40, the idea that the cosmos is full of things beyond present human understanding resonates with the idea of a God who while I believe in essence is through and through love yet is also full of mystery (as Halvorson himself said). There is so much we don’t know or ever will know since it surely is beyond human comprehension or ability to ever plumb the depths of God.

Knowledge as was said in the podcast is a good thing. At the same time, we do well to be humble about all that we know. I don’t believe we should question human caused climate change for one moment. The science solidly backs it. There are always deniers, but it’s quite clear that what earth is now seeing is because of the carbon emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. I fully accept that myself. At the same time, although that general concept is assured, there’s lots to study around that. Although the most important thing right now is to get nations, governments, and people to awaken to the danger playing out right in front of us. So, this post is not at all a coddling of those who claim that science really knows nothing, that it’s all to some extent a mystery. Good science is always humble and ever studying the data. And the concerted observation of such over time is why there’s certainty about the cause of the current climate crisis and what must be done about it.

God surely helps us understand much, especially what is important for human stewardship of the earth. But we are left acknowledging that the depth and breadth of it all is breathtaking. And that being the case, that the God likely behind that must be all the more beyond us. By faith believing God to be love through and through and ultimately revealed in and through Christ. Known only through revelation and evident in creation. Metaphysical speak never to be belittled.

But it never hurts to acknowledge that we don’t know, and that we know nothing perfectly, even while we acknowledge a different and true knowing that is by faith.