December 20, 2010

• Friends amidst the winter

  The other day I was reading a book by Richard Swinburne on the problem of evil, and he was talking about how the one universal human desire is for sloth, to rest, and the whole time I was reading the passage I kept nodding off.

  That was a little bit like the time a few weeks ago I was reading a facebook status that said “I just went through deleting people off my friend’s list, and if you are reading this that means I find our friendship important and want it to grow” and while reading it I couldn’t help wondering who the person was.

  I used to be such a good napper; the other day I napped and woke up four minutes before I had to work.  In my rush into work I left me keys in the ignition, which I figured out just as I was getting off my shift.  My little brother successfully scoured the house for a spare copy of my car key, and later Alex gave me a ride to pick up my car.  Upon opening the car, however, I realized I had not only left my keys in the ignition, but I had left the car on.

  The jumper cables just reached my battery from Alex’s.  As we were trying to get my battery to work they told me to rev my engine.  Eventually my car just wouldn’t start; at that point I revealed to them that it had in fact run out of gas. 

  Hours later after we had finally gotten my car to start Alex concluded, “What lesson have we learned today Phil?  Don’t be an idiot.”  

  Of course, Alex then used the spare gas we had left to light the ground on fire.

  I am reading a book by Johannes Climacus, a pseudonym of Kierkegaard’s.  It is very interesting, which is interesting because it is discussing faith as by nature being rooted in a person’s infinite interest.  Here is what Climacus says:

  “In the interest of my problem it is more important to have it understood and remembered that even with the most stupendous learning and persistence in research, and even if all the brains of all the critics were concentrated in one, it would still be impossible to obtain anything more than an approximation and that an approximation is essentially incommensurable with an infinite personal interest in an eternal happiness.”

  So Climacus posits, it makes no sense to think salvation consists in believing things about history or philosophy.  An eternal happiness must be rooted in an infinite personal passionate interest.  For the truth of history and philosophy are only ‘approximations’, and how can an infinite interest be attached to a conclusion that is only an approximation?   

  It has been a good break.  I met a girl who only walks on her tippy-toes.  I am enjoying the cold.  It is good to have friends.

  • 12:48 am
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