Today, my wife was reading a section of the Sunday newspaper and looked over to me and said "Here's a math puzzle. Do you want to see if you can figure it out?" I just looked at her. We have been married 32 years...she knows me, of course I want to try to figure it out! She gave me the short problem and said there are four possible answers. I stopped her right there, you can luck out with the answer on a multiple choice. What fun is that? Both my wife and son know that if they give me a puzzle like that, I will probably never want the answer if I cannot figure it out, which is often.
Our son was home for break from law school last week and we pulled out the chess board for a very infrequent game. We played for maybe 90 minutes and had to retire for the evening. We never got back to the game but it did not matter to me. There was no winner or loser, and to me that is good. I think that I related a Peanuts comic before, Linus had run up to Charlie Brown and said "Charlie Brown, you missed it. It was the greatest game. The lead went back and forth and when it was over the winning team jumped all over the place and hugged each other celebrating the win!" Charlie looked at Linus and said "And what did the losing team do?" I love competition, I just don't like the end. The fun for me in the chess game was in thinking through it.
About a year ago, our son was studying for his LSAT tests for law school. He gave me a sample question. It had something to do with 15 pool balls, their weights and a scale. Now, they probably have about 15 minutes to answer each question. I worked on this for about a week when he said to me "There's no real answer to this question, they just want to see how you go about working it." "Oh."
It was maybe 25 years ago and a friend of my wife's came over for the evening. the conversation came around to religion. She, an atheist, said "You really should read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian. I was able to walk over to the bookshelf and pull the book out, saying "You mean this?" One of the issues Russell had was the concept of Hell, which he said that wasn't talked about much at that time. It was 1927. As with other theological issues,
I've thought about Hell often. I know that there is probably no literal answer in explaining it, so it does not bother me as it might some, but I still try to conceptualize it. I might start with the things that I do know. There is a judgement and some go left and some go right. I know that there is no time in eternity, as we know it, so the concept of billions of years of judgement does not come into the equation. I know that the Trinity is Biblical truth and it is a mystery. I know that we cannot do works for our salvation and that God chooses to have mercy on whom He chooses to have mercy, another mystery. I know some other things, I know that my intellect is not near that of Marilyn vos Savant's from where the first problem came, it's probably closer to Marilyn Monroe's, but compared to our Creator's intellect, we are merely two peas in a pod. Consequently, I know that these questions that come from truths of the scriptures will be answered, perfectly, and to my complete acquiescence of the wisdom in our not needing to know them now. Scripture says that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. To demand the surroundings, the ambient temperature and what senses will directly be effected in causing weeping and gnashing of teeth is not necessary. If the concept of Hell is giving you pause in your spiritual quest, you might want to put it on the back burner for a while. It will never be fully explained but the logic and reasoning behind its necessity will become evident, and in eternity we will see the glorious Trinity and why God could have mercy on someone such as myself.
Our son was home for break from law school last week and we pulled out the chess board for a very infrequent game. We played for maybe 90 minutes and had to retire for the evening. We never got back to the game but it did not matter to me. There was no winner or loser, and to me that is good. I think that I related a Peanuts comic before, Linus had run up to Charlie Brown and said "Charlie Brown, you missed it. It was the greatest game. The lead went back and forth and when it was over the winning team jumped all over the place and hugged each other celebrating the win!" Charlie looked at Linus and said "And what did the losing team do?" I love competition, I just don't like the end. The fun for me in the chess game was in thinking through it.
About a year ago, our son was studying for his LSAT tests for law school. He gave me a sample question. It had something to do with 15 pool balls, their weights and a scale. Now, they probably have about 15 minutes to answer each question. I worked on this for about a week when he said to me "There's no real answer to this question, they just want to see how you go about working it." "Oh."
It was maybe 25 years ago and a friend of my wife's came over for the evening. the conversation came around to religion. She, an atheist, said "You really should read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian. I was able to walk over to the bookshelf and pull the book out, saying "You mean this?" One of the issues Russell had was the concept of Hell, which he said that wasn't talked about much at that time. It was 1927. As with other theological issues,
I've thought about Hell often. I know that there is probably no literal answer in explaining it, so it does not bother me as it might some, but I still try to conceptualize it. I might start with the things that I do know. There is a judgement and some go left and some go right. I know that there is no time in eternity, as we know it, so the concept of billions of years of judgement does not come into the equation. I know that the Trinity is Biblical truth and it is a mystery. I know that we cannot do works for our salvation and that God chooses to have mercy on whom He chooses to have mercy, another mystery. I know some other things, I know that my intellect is not near that of Marilyn vos Savant's from where the first problem came, it's probably closer to Marilyn Monroe's, but compared to our Creator's intellect, we are merely two peas in a pod. Consequently, I know that these questions that come from truths of the scriptures will be answered, perfectly, and to my complete acquiescence of the wisdom in our not needing to know them now. Scripture says that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. To demand the surroundings, the ambient temperature and what senses will directly be effected in causing weeping and gnashing of teeth is not necessary. If the concept of Hell is giving you pause in your spiritual quest, you might want to put it on the back burner for a while. It will never be fully explained but the logic and reasoning behind its necessity will become evident, and in eternity we will see the glorious Trinity and why God could have mercy on someone such as myself.
