Douglas M. Jones III Quotes

We could begin to allow the history of science to curb scientific awe by imposing a rating system, like those used with movies and television. Any scientific claim that lasts longer than a millennium, we'll rate "GC" for "Getting Close." For claims that stand for five hundred years, we'll rate "KP," for "Kinda Probable;" for a century, "PF" for Probably False;" for fifty years, "ACF" for "Almost Certainly False;" for twenty years and less, "TLA," for "Treat Like Astrology.

There comes a point when careful argumentation fails, a time when we are "casting pearls before swine." As Proverbs tells us: "Don't answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him" (Prov. 26:4). Reason is wasted. Other tools must come to play. And humor can penetrate deeply where arguments get clogged. Humor can shake us out of our own mental cave and force us to see our silliness from another person's angle.

Even more interesting is that with all these millions of "fortuitous" colors, it appears that particularity is so rampant that any object we identify as, say, "blue" shares almost nothing in common with any other object we might identify as the same color. We tend to
think that color operates like crayons. We use one crayon to fill in a tree, a bird, jacket, and a roof. But it appears that the same color can be served by very different microstructures. For example, what we see as simple blue can be produced by incandescnce, transitions, vibrations, refraction, scattering, diffraction, etc. As Hardin points out, the "same blue" found in the sky, water, a rainbow, a beetle, a sapphire, the star Sirius, and a television dot results from very different microstructures. This may be a tough swallow for some Platonists who hope for a uniform basis for each color, but it should be a joy for those who seek to honor our God of the details. Like the true particularity of the persons of the Trinity, creation boasts in real individuality too.

The love for stories is sometimes portrayed as a self-centered, individualistic concern. But if story-grip stems primarily from an interest in other lives, then those who love stories will be the least egocentric. They know that there are too many other human paths that are equally or more interesting. Perhaps, then, a distaste for fiction is a sign of self-centeredness.

In our day, most of popular evangelicalism has little realization of the wonders of justification by perfect righteousness. Without any covenantal moorings and by seeking to
avoid speaking of God as angry with sinners, modern evangelicals have little left to say about justification except to focus on one's faith, one's very personal, individualistic relationship with Christ.