Academia & Ecclesia

Human sinfulness inhibits our abilities to enjoy the things that are designed to make deeply relational creatures, like us, genuinely happy. The genuine happiness that I have in mind involves a feeling of deep satisfaction that evokes awe in response to the beauty of a relationship that is inspired by love. For example, our tendency to be greedy inhibits our ability to enjoy the act of giving that is motivated by love. Extramarital affairs inhibit a person’s ability to enjoy the depth of a loving relationship with his or her spouse. Pride inhibits our ability to enjoy a loving relationship with other people. The act of lying inhibits our ability to enjoy the beauty of a relationship that is based on honesty. Worldly pleasures inhibit our ability to enjoy the beauty of a life that is lived in peace and tranquility. The loving God designed humans for genuine happiness. However, human sinfulness inhibits our progress to genuine happiness. So, a loving God ought to be deeply bothered by hu...

I’m not really a political junky, although I like watching shows and reading news articles on politics. With the current budget crisis in the U.S., in particular California (where I live and work), and the corruption problems with the main leaders of the Philippines (where I was born and raised), I have a pessimistic outlook on the capacities of the citizenry to immediately cause significant changes in a nation. We have conflicting expert opinions about extremely important matters that can supposedly be addressed objectively. We have politicians with selfish personal agendas. Most voters are pretty much ill-informed about what’s really up with the political world. We have business-minded popular media. We have speculations and suspicions about people in power, which are entertaining enough to be manipulated by the popular media for monetary gains. All forms of government somehow encountered failures. Political theories often have significant limitations. Look at the results of the so-c...

I am concerned with personal knowledge of God. It is a kind of knowledge that is based on acquaintance. In a sense, acquaintance knowledge generally has perceptual element. However, God, as invisible, is not perceptually accessible. So, if the invisible God, who exists, tries to reveal himself, either we do not understand what he tries to reveal or there is a way to somehow understand what he tries to reveal. Of course, it is possible that there is a God who tries to reveal himself and we do not understand what he tries to reveal. If such possibility is in actuality the case, then reflections on God are pretty much useless. It means that this God is unaware of the fact that he is doomed to fail in his attempts to reveal. Christianity is a religion that assumes that the invisible God tries to reveal himself and there is a way to somehow understand what he tries to reveal. Although God is invisible, God’s revelatory acts in human history are visible. So, his revelatory acts in human hist...