Mind of Matt

Category: theology

  • The danger of God as a thought

    First, start with watching the video “2011 حماده هلال أنا مصرى ” below or on YouTube. It is about the 2011 Egyption uprising and is underlaid with a song repeating “Allah Akhbar” (Allah Almighty) over and over. If you are from a non-Islamic culture, read on. What was your impression from watching this with an […]

  • Holistic imaging of God

    So what did God mean when he said: Let us make man, in our image? Then they made one man (Adam), in their image. So is that all? God compares himself to a single person? Mmmh. Maybe there is more to it. God intended that people multiply, and it would be absurd to assume that […]

  • Purpose of the Babylonian confusion

    What exactly was God’s purpose with the Babylonian confusion of tongues? Trying to capture it abstractly, it seems to be this: to prohibit overly synergistic / overly efficient collaboration of people in the future. Because doing this, sinful men would do something against God’s will (like building that central city with its tower instead of filling […]

  • Multiply, in generic terms

    I wonder if “Be fruitful and increase in number” (Gen 1:28) is meant as an command to individual persons or to humankind as a whole. I would rather say, to humankind as a whole, because God adds, in typical Judaic parallelism, the same content verbalized as: “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). So […]

  • Ramblings on pneumo-mechanics

    These are some philosophical, speculative ramblings about how the human spirit works and how the Holy Spirit interacts with it. Knowing ones ability to do evil (like murdering someone) is not doing evil. And suffering the temptation to do evil (like murdering someone as the seemingly easiest solution) is not doing evil either. One could […]

  • Two big problems

    This world has only two big unsolved problems. First, the truth about God is not apparent (so people cannot believe the right thing easily). Second, people are bad (so people cannot live in freedom and peace and sustainable manner). It’s an important insight that these are disconnected problems: even if Christianity is the right religion, […]

  • Have wrath, just don't do evil

    Have wrath, just don’t do evil: this seems to be the Biblical idea about how to deal with people if some tougher mode is required: if it is required, use the tougher mode (have wrath). There is no meaning in whimsy-flimsy behavior if only strength and tough, honest words lead to the goal. This phrase […]