May 8th, 2013
by Max Andrews
UPDATE: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/on-air/as-seen-on/LambesisCharges_San-Diego.html
UPDATE 2: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/May/09/lambesis-murder-for-hire-san-diego-arraignment/?#article-copy
UPDATE 3: http://lambgoat.com/news/20388/Tim-Lambesis-victim-of-setup-says-lawyer
UPDATE 4: http://lambgoat.com/news/20444/Tim-Lambesis-bail-lowered;-steroids-blamed
UPDATE 5: http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/Music/2013/05/19/Lawyer-Tim-Lambesis-took-steroids-before-alleged-murder-for-hire-plan/UPI-39071368980516/
It’s in the middle of the night and I can’t sleep. I’m absolutely heartbroken over the news of Tim Lambesis’ (lead singer for As I Lay Dying) arrest for allegedly attempting to hire someone to murder his wife. AILD is my favorite band. I feel especially close and drawn to this band for many reasons. Outside of their amazing, heavy sound, their lyrics are unique and insightful.
It’s been several hours since I first read the news and I feel physically sick over this. Allow me to be completely honest and open for a moment. This isn’t something I’d normally share but my heart yearns to share [a part of] this. For about two years now I have had an existential battle. A few months ago, on a Sunday, I woke up and went to church with my wife and a couple friends. I was desolate all morning. I
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Posted in Culture, In The News, Personal | 3 Comments »
April 26th, 2013
by Max Andrews
The knowledge of God, it is claimed, comes to us as a gift, and to indicate its distinctiveness by the word ‘revelation’ is simply to remain true to the phenomenological analysis of belief in God, for such belief testifies that it arises through God’s making himself known to us, rather than through our attaining to the knowledge of him.Of what kind is the knowledge of God, where that which is known towers above us, as it were, and it is as if we ourselves were known and brought into subjection?
The first case is our everyday relation to things, as objects of which we make use or have knowledge. They are at our disposal, and even by knowing them, we acquire a certain mastery over them; for instance, we can predict natural phenomena and be prepared for them.
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April 18th, 2013
by Max Andrews
Man is alienated from himself, from other persons, and from God, and as a result man has been burdened with absurdity. Absurdity ought to be understood in a dichotomous manner. Absurdity is experienced subjectively, such that the individual experiences it in an autonomous manner. The objective absurdity is the metanarratives of life. This would include a lack of ultimate meaning, incentive, value, and purpose.
Overcoming this alienation and the notion of absurdity, primarily objective absurdity, can only be done so by a divine telos.[1] It does seem that man lives his life as if he does have an ultimate meaning, incentive, value, and purpose. However, if God does not exist, then the absurdity is not only subjective but itreally is objectively absurd. The existence of a divine telos enables man to live a consistent life of meaning, incentive, value, and purpose. There is a reconciliation of man to himself, others, and God by overcoming this absurdity.
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Posted in Existentialism | 1 Comment »
April 17th, 2013
by Max Andrews
You have put me in the lowest pit, in the dark places, in the depths. Your wrath has rested upon me, and you have afflicted me with all your waves. Speak up, my ears are growing weary. I’ll sing this song to the end and watch the waves crash over me.
I am shut up and cannot go out. But I, O Lord, have cried out to you for help. And in the morning my prayer comes before you. O Lord, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me? I was afflicted and about to die from my youth on; I suffer your terrors; I am overcome. There’s not much to overcome with enough time to turn it all around.
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April 17th, 2013
by Max Andrews
Now, I know this isn’t a term heard often but the imprecatory psalms are the psalms that make requests or desires known to God that are… well… evil. Here’s a few.
Let death come deceitfully upon them; let them go down alive to Sheol, for evil is in their dwelling, in their midst. Ps. 55.15
O God, shatter their teeth in their mouth… Ps. 58.6
May they be blotted out of the book of life and may they not be recorded with the righteous. Ps. 69.28
Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. Ps. 109.9
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock. Ps. 137.9
I would encourage you to go to these passages and read them yourself. Understand the contexts in which these words and thoughts were expressed. Let’s not be too quick to say, “There’s no wrong in this!”, ”This is the Word of God, these Psalms cannot be evil!” I’m not saying the psalms are evil, I’m saying that aspects of what are being expressed are evil. The psalmist, David for the most part, is desiring justice and vengeance. He wants them to have death be surprised upon them, for them to be buried alive, for their teeth to be knocked out, for them not to receive salvation, and for their children to die in the manner in which his people’s children have been murdered. I’m just guessing but if I had not set up these imprecatory psalms in a biblical context already you would think that they were pretty evil–no?
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April 17th, 2013
by Max Andrews
April 16 is a significant day for many. Most people think of the recent Virginia Tech massacre. April 16 is different for me and many in my family. On Easter Sunday of 2006 my family got the news that Jessica, my brother’s wife at the time, had unexpectedly died. She was seven months pregnant with my niece, Alyssa. My brother was in Iraq at the time. They flew him back to the States within a day. We never found out how they died, which is hard for closure.
There are several events I’ve experienced that changed my life forever: 1) my wedding, 2) being diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, 3) suffering through Crohn’s and a major surgery, and this, 4) the death of Jessica and Alyssa. I was still 18 at the time. Their funeral was, and I still consider it to be, the worst day of my life. That was the first day I experienced pain and suffering on the existential level. Then, my pain wasn’t my own. My pain was for everyone else. My pain was seeing the pain and suffering of my family and that I couldn’t do anything. They were only married for five months. Why hold on to this? It’s family. The experience of pain and suffering isn’t in the immediate present of the event… pain and suffering follows for years afterwards. We all grieve, give respects, honor, and remember those whom we loved and have lost in different ways through different times. Forcing this process to be something other than what it is doesn’t help–it hurts.
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Posted in Pain and Suffering, Personal | 3 Comments »
April 16th, 2013
by Max Andrews
Forgetting Your Forgiveness—2 Pt. 1.3-11
God’s Power in Our Lives
V3—God has made available everything we need spiritually through Him
If 2 Peter was written to fight Gnosticism, then spiritual necessity is not esoteric
Believers are called to live in harmony with God’s moral character
“Excellence” (arête- virtue) used to sum up all desirable character qualities
V4—“Partakers” (koinonos- sharer) we never become part of God but this can found mostly in Peter’s sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2.14-41) through the Holy Spirit)
“Divine nature” a term Peter could use to relate to Hellenists about understanding the idea of conforming to the image of Christ
“Having escaped…” at conversion we are delivered from the corruption of the world
Where does the world’s corruption come from?
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April 16th, 2013
by Max Andrews
Just because you’ve read the Bible do you think that you know God? You could probably predict what Hebrew word was used for a specific word based on the context… but you’ve never felt the passion behind David’s imprecatory prayers and the prayers of suffering. You can parse every Greek word Paul uses in the book of Romans… but you’ve never felt the riddance and self-betrayal like he felt in chapter seven.
You can tell me how to encourage someone or what to do when counseling a depressed friend… but you can’t put yourself in his mind and ask yourself what it’s like to be him. You equate by analogy. You can tell me how much you love your neighbor… but you condition it. You can tell me how much God loves you… but you can’t understand the death of God and his spiritual and physical anguish as he passed from death to new life with you in mind.
You can quote Scripture, Ephesians 6 and the psalms, describing spiritual warfare and what to do… but you’ve never resisted sin to the point of blood. You can quote theological works that systematically define God and who he is… but you’ve never experienced what it’s like to align planets and create stars, to watch you spit on his creation and cross, the gifts he gave for you for the very reason of your anticipated existence.
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Posted in Pain and Suffering, Personal | 2 Comments »
December 22nd, 2012
by Max Andrews
I understand very few, if anyone, would consider Dostoevsky to be a theologian; however, his philosophy has a tremendous impact on existential theology.
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, a story of four brothers in Russia is a grim description of the reality of what the world would look like if God were not to exist. One brother, Ivan, an atheist, tells another brother that there are no objective truths, specifically that there are no moral absolutes. Ivan’s brother then kills his father, an act that obtains no condemnation if God does not exist.
This can be understood as ☐(~Eg ⊃ ∀ϕ~Wϕ),[1] also known as Karamazov’s Theorem. It is necessarily true that if God does not exist then any action cannot be wrong. It may also be true if a conjunct of rightness is inserted into the theorem. This ultimately leads to moral nihilism—a nonexistence of value. Without God, everything is permitted. Nothing can be praised and nothing can be condemned. This world, as Dostoevsky understands it, is a world of nothingness.
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Posted in Philosophy, Theology | 1 Comment »
December 19th, 2012
by Max Andrews
Friedrich Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols commences with his maxims and missiles, the wisest of proverbs Nietzsche embodies his thought in. Initially, the maxims are not so clear and one may only speculate as to what Nietzsche really intends for them to mean. His succeeding work is an exegesis of these maxims, an illumination of the text, and an expository revelation of Nietzsche’s assailment of the Christian church.
“The Problem of Socrates” was Nietzsche’s understanding of the life of the philosopher, or better yet, the death of life. Socrates was the philosopher, one who embodied the reason, virtue, and happiness, one who understood the vanity of life. Life was a sickness, as an individual philosophizing and as an aggregate society. Socrates and Plato were the “symptoms of decline” for life. Life’s sickness progressed as more reason revealed the sickness many covered. This revelation was only known through the philosophers. What then is the value of life? Nietzsche’s response, a paradox:
A living man cannot [estimate the value of life], because he is a contending party, or rather the very object in the dispute, and not a judge; nor can a dead man estimate it—for other reasons. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life, is almost an objection against himself, a note of interrogation set against his wisdom—a lack of wisdom.
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