Soular Rocket Science

I don't feel like I have much to write about this week. We spend much of this week discussing the details of arguments for the existence of God, which in the end were largely discounted because they were either wrong or simply out of date, no longer appealing to the modern (or rather, post-foundationalist) mind. In a way it seemed like we were chasing our own tail, knowing that God exists, seeing the conclusion only inches away but ultimately being unable to prove his existence to a non-believer through rational argument.

So what was the point of the week spent in philosophical debate? Is David just wasting our time with philosophical arguments? We know David a little bit by now, so my guess is he isn’t just wasting our time.

But why do we study philosophy? Is there a point to studying in detail something with so little seeming application? I think there is. We are studying those assumptions which we take for granted about who God is and the reasons why we believe them. We are defending and defining our faith. Now in this exercise it is very, very important to get the exact definitons, wordings and ideas because we are doing rocket science of the soul.

Perhaps that is a little dramatic, but let me explain what I mean. For satellites to precisely orbit the earth, they must be launched to exactly the correct altitude and given exactly the correct amount of thrust. If the velocity or altitude of a satellite in orbit is unstable, the consequences are ultimately catastrophic. A faulty orbit may show only slight deviations from the predicted trajectory, but over the years these deviations grow and compound towards an ultimate fiery demise. For this reason, the most important thing about launching a satellite is not so much that all the electronics work as those problems can be fixed as go along our journey (case in point, the Hubble Telescope mirror which was fixed following initial launch), but there is a stable orbit.

In the same way we are trying now to set our trajectory for our year and Lord willing the rest of our lives. So during this time we may run multiple pre-flight checks, double and triple checking our basic assumptions, carefully calculating our goals and purposes, and making sure that we are ready for a long service life.

So lets try to be patient, and really put our energy into a little bit of spiritual rocket science so that we can work out the less essential points from a stable orbit.