Slightly Less Random Links

Those who have been following the debate between St. Craig and Carroll, or my own recent posts about it, might also be interested in the viewpoints contained in the following articles:

Carroll on laws and causation (St. Feser)

Cosmology and Theology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Just to make things a bit more random, about a year ago my brother (St. Lewis) wrote a blog post about data loss and death.  This post was very difficult for me to read.  Death is not just a big problem but also a little problem, and that is why even children instinctively know about it.  Fortunately the Lord is greater than death, and will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Rev. 21:4).

I am reminded also of the words of the Lord, when he appeared to my best friend St. Yoaav three times in a dream, saying “I am a God of little things, and little things are preserved in me.” (cf. Zech. 4:10, written when the Jewish Temple was being rebuilt by Zerubbabel in 516 BC.)  This occured at a time when he was getting serious about relating to God personally through prayer, but before his conversion to Christianity (from Judaism) the following year.

But we shouldn’t get so distracted by our own little tragedies that we forget that we’re destroying our own planet.  Some Christians think that because Jesus is going to come back soon, we don’t need to take responsibility for the environment, because “people are more important”.  They must not have read the passage of Scripture where Jesus says that “you do not know the day or the hour” (Matt. 25:13), or the place where it says that God will “destroy those who destroy the earth” (Rev. 11:18).  If the Master is a long time coming back, then how are we going to take care of all these people once our natural resources are all shot?  And when he does come back, he will judge how well we have fulfilled our responsibilities, one of which is to take care of God’s creation as stewards.

True, God will restore all things in the end.  But that doesn’t mean we won’t be held responsible.  If you suffocate somebody in their sleep to get their money and then—surprise!—10 minutes later Jesus comes back and all the dead are raised and it’s the Final Judgment, do you really think you won’t be regarded as a murderer because, after all, you only deprived your victim of a few moments of relaxation?  I don’t think so.  It will be the same if we are “saved by the bell” from the consequences of our own foolish decisions.  But we must also prepare for the possibility that we are here for the long haul, in which case the problem becomes all the more urgent.  Lord have mercy!