Dr. BJ Condrey

Unexamined Faith: Socrates is one of the most famous philosophers in Western history. Like Jesus, he never wrote anything down. We know about him and what he taught via his followers. Socrates is famous for saying: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” However, I found a faith-adaption of this quote in Burton Porter’s The Good Life. It reads: “We can also say that the unexamined faith is not worth holding.” We need more thinking Christians. When Thomas doubted, Jesus provided empirical evidence—He did not reply, “Just have faith” (Pearcey). Such responses aren’t helpful to non-Christians. Along these lines, I just started an audiobook that promises to be good and helpful: Nancy Pearcey’s Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes. Here is one line: “Materialists deny the reality of the mind while using their minds to advance materialism. Determinists deny the reality of human choice while they choose determinism. And Relativists deny the fact of right and wrong while they judge you if you disagree.”

The Transformative Power of Travel: René Descartes is known as the Father of Modern Philosophy. He published his magnum opus in 1642: Meditations on First Philosophy. Yet, another one of his publications is a delightful read: Discourse on Method (published in 1637). In it, he takes time to talk about the transformative and liberating power of traveling outside of one’s country. It is worth considering. He writes: “For to hold converse with those of other ages and to travel, are almost the same thing. It is useful to know something of the manners of different nations, that we may be enabled to form a more correct judgment regarding our own, and be prevented from thinking that everything contrary to our customs is ridiculous and irrational, a conclusion usually come to by those whose experience has been limited to their own country.”

C.S. Lewis on Beauty: As I stated a few days ago, I am reading the collected letters of C.S. Lewis in chronological order. He is 22 right now in my reading. I was struck last night by what he said of beauty. He writes: “On the contrary beauty seems to me to be always an invitation of some sort & usually an invitation to we don’t know what. . . . [something] seen as ‘beautiful’ seems rather to say ‘come into me.’” Of course, when one begins to view and experience God as the ultimate Beauty and source of all other beauty, one can better understand Lewis’ claim that beauty invites us to “come into me.” This has been God’s desire all along: that we are in Christ and that He is in us.