THE OF PAUL PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

D A Carson,Mark A Seifrid | 545 pages | 12 Jan 2005 | Baker Publishing Group | 9780801027413 | English | Grand Rapids, United Kingdom - Wikipedia

Hoppe's other clients have included the "free-trade" promoting and job-busting US Chamber of Commerce, recently outed as perhaps the tobacco industry's most influential champion not only in Washington but the entire world. Eric Cantor R-VA , the House majority leader who was found to be so deeply embedded in the money machinery of Washington's crony capitalism that he was embarrassingly trounced by an obscure tea partier running against him in their Republican primary. Now that successful challenger, David Brat, has endorsed Ryan. Oh, the temptations, the temptations ready for plucking! You get the picture. Paul Ryan, waiting to be crowned speaker of what was once called "The People's House," prepares for business-as-usual. Committed to the sad and sordid Washington game that has so angered Americans on every point of the political spectrum, he is about to be named one of its Most Valuable Players. And if anyone tells you otherwise, just recall for them the testimony of one of Ryan's own Republican colleagues, Rep. Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, who says he can't support Ryan because, "If you've got problems with a man today, and the man tells you, 'Tomorrow, I'll be a different person' - it doesn't happen. Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost? Your vote is your voice! It is your right and your responsibility. For your voice to be heard, in most states you must register before you can vote. Visit the state elections site. For the Nov 3 election: States are making it easier for citizens to vote absentee by mail this year due to the coronavirus. Each state has its own rules for mail-in absentee voting. Visit your state election office website to find out if you can vote by mail. Sometimes circumstances make it hard or impossible for you to vote on Election Day. But your state may let you vote during a designated early voting period. For some sense of change. Because in the same way we need a sense of control, we also need a sense of change. And that just messes up the whole gameplan. So you do it. But then you fall in love with a Sherpa named Domino and decide to knit saris and restart your life in the wondrous wilderness of Nepal. This newness is exciting. Thank you took the leap. This change was necessary…. Because suddenly, you find yourself in Nepal, broke and alone Domino left you for a younger, cuter, inexperienced mountain climber. Do they even wear them in Nepal? Who knows? Suddenly, you feel like that kid in the dark house again—danger and peril lurking around every corner. But not in the badass self-assured way … in the very real, animalistic way. Something could happen to you. And suddenly, you crave the safety and stability of familiarity and home. And while you may or may not regret the detour to Nepal, you know one thing: you need to get back to stability, because that is what will bring satisfaction back to your life…. How to Resolve the Paradox: When we feel a lack of control in our lives, we experience anxiety and despair. We struggle to find meaning or purpose for ourselves. And, after enough time, we begin to break down mentally and physically. To reassert control for ourselves, we seek new experiences and change. But change has consequences, and often those consequences are unexpected or outside of our control. Therefore, if we destabilize our environment and our lives too much, we fall back into anxiety and despair. Change, of course, has its limits, because the more we seek change, the more meaningless that change becomes. One new haircut is exciting. Twelve new haircuts then just becomes another routine. So, we seem stuck: pursue too much stability and life becomes dull and uneventful; pursue too much change and we lose ourselves in superficial excess. Too much stability and our control feels meaningless. Too much change and we feel out of control. To resolve the paradox of control, we must pursue both stability and change simultaneously. That means consciously changing our lives gradually and reasonably. That means setting goals. That means incremental changes done with purpose. That means creating smart habits. That means imagining the person you desire to be and taking small, baby-steps towards that person. That means practicing self-discipline. So, the correct amount of self-discipline for you might be different from me and vice-versa. But the principle remains: we achieve both stability and change through steady, controlled discipline. Jean-Paul Sartre was a dark dude. A brilliant writer, he was captured by the Nazis and held in a prison camp for nine months. Upon release, he joined the French resistance, regularly risking his life in efforts to undermine some Nazi scum. These experiences had a profound influence on Sartre and his writing which, in the decades following the war, would arguably become the most important philosophical works of the 20th century. We are each, from moment to moment and experience to experience, choosing what we wish to matter in our lives, thus giving our own lives meaning. Sartre believed that to truly generate a life of meaning for oneself, you had to be willing to risk death as in, fight some motherfucking Nazis. But he also noted that this willingness to choose something to die for is absolutely horrifying and impossibly difficult for most of us most of the time. We avoid this responsibility to choose what matters for ourselves. We distract ourselves and numb ourselves to it. He said that ultimately, this need to commit to something in the face of freedom crippled many of us emotionally , that it was the greatest challenge any of us would ever face. Sartre won a Nobel Prize for his work… but being the edgelord emo kid he was, he decided to pass on it in favor of smoking even fancier French cigarettes. On the one hand, we are free—we are free to choose what to do, what to believe, and what to think. But this freedom can also become overwhelming. We can become addicted to infinite options, to the constant possibility of bigger, better, more, more, more. Beyond a certain point, freedom seems to discourage commitment because we are too aware of everything that we are potentially giving up. For instance, when you commit to one partner , part of the significance of that commitment is the fact that you have given up the freedom to commit to other people. But just as we can be overwhelmed by our freedom, we can also become overwhelmed by our commitments. At some point, we need to feel as though we have an option again, as though we have a choice in our commitments. So we seek independence. We throw off commitments and labels. We try to stand alone. We break free. I choose my dainty French cigarettes! But after a while, that too can lead us to malaise, a sense that it was all for nothing. After all, if we cast off all of our commitments in favor of freedom, then our commitments meant nothing. But if we give up all of our freedoms in favor of our commitments, then our freedoms meant nothing. How to Resolve the Paradox: Much like the paradox of change vs stability was resolved by merging the two extremes, here the only way to resolve the paradox of choice is by committing to actions that multiply our freedoms— that is, making a commitment to our own growth. The ability to commit to exercise makes your body more capable and adaptable, expanding your physical freedom. The commitment of education grants you the greater freedoms provided by the knowledge you learn. The commitment to certain relationships helps you emotionally mature into an individual that is more able to flourish. Our commitments, when made out of insecurity and fear , shrink ourselves. I am arbitrarily limiting myself. Whereas if I commit to writing 72 episodes of a comedy show, I am expanding myself from my commitment, opening myself up to greater freedoms provided by my efforts. He did everything I did, agreed with everything I said, laughed when I laughed, got upset when I got upset, and so on. It was unbearable. I quickly started hating this kid. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — The Paradoxes of Paul by D. Carson Editor ,. Mark A. A comprehension of Paul's understanding of the law and justification has been a perennial problem for historians and theologians. In light of new studies on early Judaism, an international group of esteemed New Testament scholars evaluates the paradoxes of Paul in this second volume of Justification and Variegated Nomism. Contributors include Martin Hengel, Douglas J. Moo, A comprehension of Paul's understanding of the law and justification has been a perennial problem for historians and theologians. Moo, Timothy George, and Stephen Westerholm. Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. Published November 1st by Baker Academic first published August 1st More Details Original Title. Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. Justification and Variegated Nomism 2. Other Editions 1. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Paradoxes of Paul , please sign up. Be the first to ask a question about The Paradoxes of Paul. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. The Paradox of Paul Ryan: Why the Tea Party's Right to Be Wary | HuffPost

Only in a world where Cosmopolitan magazine can declare the Kardashians "America's First Family" and the multi-billionaire loose cannon Donald Trump is perceived by millions as the potential steward of our nuclear arsenal could about-to-be Speaker of the House Paul Ryan be savaged as insufficiently right-wing. This is after all a man who made his bones in Congress and the Republican Party as an -spouting, body building budget-buster slashing away at the body politic like a mad vivisectionist, as well as an anti-choice, pro-gun zealot who never met a government program he liked except the military, whose swollen budget he would increase until we are all left naked living in a national security state. But the former vice presidential candidate is widely cited among many of his colleagues as a likable enough chap who is polite to his elders in the hierarchy of Congress, and this makes the more rabid bomb throwers seethe. To them, that chummy, self-enlightened pragmatism as well as his past embrace of immigration reform qualify him as a so-called RINO, a Republican in Name Only, a "squish. The other way to look at it, of course, is that the GOP continues to drift to the Right, making yesterday's ideological heroes suspect. They have for the moment agreed to support Paul Ryan's speakership, but not with the unanimity that would constitute an official endorsement. Further, it seems that for their support to continue once he takes the job Ryan must pledge to curtail some of his powers and enable the insurgents to continue to wreak havoc on the day-to-day business of the House without fear of punishment by the grown-ups. There's a paradox to all this. Despite his ideological kinship with the anti-government crowd, Paul Ryan is the embodiment of the troika of money, power, and politics that corrupts and controls the capital, the very thing the tea partiers detest. He speaks Washingtonese with the best of them. Just look at Ryan's choice as his new chief of staff: David Hoppe, the personification of the supreme K-Street lobbyist, his footprints stamped all over the tar pit of Washington patronage, his hands chapped from rubbing at the prospect of the big bucks corporations pay for government favors. A year veteran staffer on Capitol Hill, he's a poster child for the revolving door through which members of Congress and their staffs rotate in the endless cycling between public service and private lucre. In Hoppe's case, the rush of air from the revolving door would jumpstart the windmill in a Dutch landscape painting. The indefatigable journalistic sleuth David Sirota went digging into federal records this week and reports that, "Hoppe has lobbied for such major financial industry interests as insurance giant MetLife, the National Venture Capital Association and Zurich Financial Services. Imagine: this man will now be sitting right there beside the Speaker of the House after working for a company which, Sirota writes, "could be affected by efforts to change federal financial regulations and which could benefit from a recent proposal to shift military pension money into a federal savings plan managed in part by the Wall Street giant. What's more, Hoppe has lobbied for Cayman Finance, "whose business 'promot[ing] the development of the Cayman Islands financial services industry' could be affected by legislation to crack down on offshore tax havens. Hoppe's other clients have included the "free-trade" promoting and job-busting US Chamber of Commerce, recently outed as perhaps the tobacco industry's most influential champion not only in Washington but the entire world. Eric Cantor R-VA , the House majority leader who was found to be so deeply embedded in the money machinery of Washington's crony capitalism that he was embarrassingly trounced by an obscure tea partier running against him in their Republican primary. Now that successful challenger, David Brat, has endorsed Ryan. Oh, the temptations, the temptations ready for plucking! You get the picture. Paul Ryan, waiting to be crowned speaker of what was once called "The People's House," prepares for business-as-usual. Committed to the sad and sordid Washington game that has so angered Americans on every point of the political spectrum, he is about to be named one of its Most Valuable Players. And if anyone tells you otherwise, just recall for them the testimony of one of Ryan's own Republican colleagues, Rep. Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, who says he can't support Ryan because, "If you've got problems with a man today, and the man tells you, 'Tomorrow, I'll be a different person' - it doesn't happen. Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost? Your vote is your voice! It is your right and your responsibility. For your voice to be heard, in most states you must register before you can vote. Visit the state elections site. Likewise, God cannot make a being greater than himself because he is, by definition, the greatest possible being. God is limited in his actions to his nature. The Bible supports this, they assert, in passages such as Hebrews , which says it is "impossible for God to lie. Another common response to the omnipotence paradox is to try to define omnipotence to mean something weaker than absolute omnipotence, such as definition 3 or 4 above. The paradox can be resolved by simply stipulating that omnipotence does not require that the being have abilities that are logically impossible, but only be able to do anything that conforms to the laws of logic. A good example of a modern defender of this line of reasoning is George Mavrodes. Such a "task" is termed by him a "pseudo-task" as it is self-contradictory and inherently nonsense. Harry Frankfurt —following from Descartes— has responded to this solution with a proposal of his own: that God can create a stone impossible to lift and also lift said stone. For why should God not be able to perform the task in question? To be sure, it is a task—the task of lifting a stone which He cannot lift—whose description is self-contradictory. But if God is supposed capable of performing one task whose description is self-contradictory—that of creating the problematic stone in the first place—why should He not be supposed capable of performing another—that of lifting the stone? After all, is there any greater trick in performing two logically impossible tasks than there is in performing one? If a being is accidentally omnipotent , it can resolve the paradox by creating a stone it cannot lift, thereby becoming non-omnipotent. Unlike essentially omnipotent entities, it is possible for an accidentally omnipotent being to be non-omnipotent. This raises the question, however, of whether the being was ever truly omnipotent, or just capable of great power. If a being is essentially omnipotent , then it can also resolve the paradox as long as we take omnipotence not to require absolute omnipotence. The omnipotent being is essentially omnipotent, and therefore it is impossible for it to be non-omnipotent. Further, the omnipotent being can do what is logically impossible—just like the accidentally omnipotent—and have no limitations except the inability to become non-omnipotent. The omnipotent being cannot create a stone it cannot lift. The omnipotent being cannot create such a stone because its power is equal to itself—thus, removing the omnipotence, for there can only be one omnipotent being, but it nevertheless retains its omnipotence. This solution works even with definition 2—as long as we also know the being is essentially omnipotent rather than accidentally so. However, it is possible for non-omnipotent beings to compromise their own powers, which presents the paradox that non-omnipotent beings can do something to themselves which an essentially omnipotent being cannot do to itself. For He is called omnipotent on account of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering what He wills not; for if that should befall Him, He would by no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is omnipotent. Thus Augustine argued that God could not do anything or create any situation that would, in effect, make God not God. In a article in the philosophy journal Mind , J. Mackie tried to resolve the paradox by distinguishing between first-order omnipotence unlimited power to act and second-order omnipotence unlimited power to determine what powers to act things shall have. There has been considerable philosophical dispute since Mackie, as to the best way to formulate the paradox of omnipotence in formal logic. Although the most common translation of the noun "Logos" is "Word" other translations have been used. Gordon Clark — , a Calvinist theologian and expert on pre-Socratic philosophy, famously translated Logos as "Logic": "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God and the Logic was God. God obeys the laws of logic because God is eternally logical in the same way that God does not perform evil actions because God is eternally good. So, God, by nature logical and unable to violate the laws of logic, cannot make a boulder so heavy he cannot lift it because that would violate the law of non contradiction by creating an immovable object and an unstoppable force. This raises the question, similar to the , of where this law of logic, which God is bound to obey, comes from. According to these theologians and , this law is not a law above God that he assents to but, rather, logic is an eternal part of God's nature, like his or . Another common response is that since God is supposedly omnipotent, the phrase "could not lift" does not make sense and the paradox is meaningless. An alternative meaning, however, is that a non-corporeal God cannot lift anything, but can raise it a linguistic pedantry —or to use the beliefs of Hindus that there is one God, who can be manifest as several different beings that whilst it is possible for God to do all things, it is not possible for all his incarnations to do them. As such, God could create a stone so heavy that, in one incarnation, he could not lift it, yet could do something that an incarnation that could lift the stone could not. The lifting a rock paradox Can God lift a stone larger than he can carry? With these assumptions made, two arguments can stem from it:. The act of killing oneself is not applicable to an omnipotent being, since, despite that such an act does involve some power, it also involves a lack of power: the human person who can kill himself is already not indestructible, and, in fact, every agent constituting his environment is more powerful in some ways than himself. In other words, all non-omnipotent agents are concretely synthetic : constructed as contingencies of other, smaller, agents, meaning that they, unlike an omnipotent agent, logically can exist not only in multiple instantiation by being constructed out of the more basic agents they are made of , but are each bound to a different location in space contra transcendent . asserts that the paradox arises from a misunderstanding of omnipotence. He maintains that inherent contradictions and logical impossibilities do not fall under the omnipotence of God. Lewis argues that when talking about omnipotence, referencing "a rock so heavy that God cannot lift it" is nonsense just as much as referencing "a square circle"; that it is not logically coherent in terms of power to think that omnipotence includes the power to do the logically impossible. So asking "Can God create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it? This is justified by observing that for the omnipotent agent to create such a stone, it must already be more powerful than itself: such a stone is too heavy for the omnipotent agent to lift, but the omnipotent agent already can create such a stone; If an omnipotent agent already is more powerful than itself, then it already is just that powerful. This means that its power to create a stone that is too heavy for it to lift is identical to its power to lift that very stone. While this does not quite make complete sense, Lewis wished to stress its implicit point: that even within the attempt to prove that the concept of omnipotence is immediately incoherent, one admits that it is immediately coherent, and that the only difference is that this attempt is forced to admit this despite that the attempt is constituted by a perfectly irrational route to its own unwilling end, with a perfectly irrational set of 'things' included in that end. In other words, the 'limit' on what omnipotence 'can' do is not a limit on its actual agency, but an epistemological boundary without which omnipotence could not be identified paradoxically or otherwise in the first place. In fact, this process is merely a fancier form of the classic : If I say, "I am a liar", then how can it be true if I am telling the truth therewith, and, if I am telling the truth therewith, then how can I be a liar? So, to think that omnipotence is an epistemological paradox is like failing to recognize that, when taking the statement, 'I am a liar' self- referentially, the statement is reduced to an actual failure to lie. In other words, if one maintains the supposedly 'initial' position that the necessary conception of omnipotence includes the 'power' to compromise both itself and all other identity, and if one concludes from this position that omnipotence is epistemologically incoherent, then one implicitly is asserting that one's own 'initial' position is incoherent. Therefore, the question and therefore the perceived paradox is meaningless. Nonsense does not suddenly acquire sense and meaning with the addition of the two words, "God can" before it. It is easier to teach a fish to swim in outer space than to convince a room full of ignorant fools why it cannot be done. The philosopher is frequently interpreted as arguing that language is not up to the task of describing the kind of power an omnipotent being would have. In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , he stays generally within the realm of until claim 6. Wittgenstein also mentions the will, life after death, and God—arguing that, "When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words. Wittgenstein's work expresses the omnipotence paradox as a problem in —the study of how we give symbols meaning. The retort "That's only semantics," is a way of saying that a statement only concerns the definitions of words, instead of anything important in the physical world. According to the Tractatus, then, even attempting to formulate the omnipotence paradox is futile, since language cannot refer to the entities the paradox considers. The final proposition of the Tractatus gives Wittgenstein's dictum for these circumstances: "What we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence". Wittgenstein's approach to these problems is influential among other 20th century religious thinkers such as D. In the 6th century, Pseudo- Dionysius claims that a version of the omnipotence paradox constituted the dispute between Paul the Apostle and Elymas the Magician mentioned in Acts 13 :8, but it is phrased in terms of a debate as to whether God can "deny himself" ala 2 Tim Thomas Aquinas advanced a version of the omnipotence paradox by asking whether God could create a triangle with internal angles that did not add up to degrees. As Aquinas put it in :. Since the principles of certain sciences, such as logic, geometry and arithmetic are taken only from the formal principles of things, on which the essence of the thing depends, it follows that God could not make things contrary to these principles. For example, that a genus was not predicable of the species, or that lines drawn from the centre to the circumference were not equal, or that a triangle did not have three angles equal to two right angles. This can be done on a sphere, and not on a flat surface. The later invention of non- Euclidean geometry does not resolve this question; for one might as well ask, "If given the axioms of Riemannian geometry , can an omnipotent being create a triangle whose angles do not add up to more than degrees? A version of the paradox can also be seen in non-theological contexts. A similar problem occurs when accessing legislative or parliamentary sovereignty , which holds a specific legal institution to be omnipotent in legal power, and in particular such an institution's ability to regulate itself. In a sense, the classic statement of the omnipotence paradox — a rock so heavy that its omnipotent creator cannot lift it — is grounded in Aristotelian science. After all, if we consider the stone's position relative to the sun the planet orbits around, one could hold that the stone is constantly lifted—strained though that interpretation would be in the present context. Modern physics indicates that the choice of phrasing about lifting stones should relate to acceleration; however, this does not in itself of course invalidate the fundamental concept of the generalized omnipotence paradox. However, one could easily modify the classic statement as follows: "An omnipotent being creates a that follows the laws of Aristotelian physics. Within this universe, can the omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that the being cannot lift it? Ethan Allen 's Reason addresses the topics of , and several others in classic Enlightenment fashion. He argues, "the one cannot be without the other, any more than there could be a compact number of mountains without valleys, or that I could exist and not exist at the same time, or that God should effect any other contradiction in nature. In , Descartes tried refuting the existence of atoms with a variation of this argument, claiming God could not create things so indivisible that he could not divide them. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Religious concepts. Euthyphro dilemma Logical positivism Religious language eschatological Theodicy Augustinian Irenaean Best of all possible worlds Inconsistent triad . Theories of . Philosophers of religion. Justification and Variegated Nomism, Volume II: The Paradoxes of Paul | Logos Bible Software

Although his survey is not comprehensive, he helpfully indicates the degree to which the issues and questions posed by the NPP have influenced if not determined the leading edge of Pauline scholarship. This imprint of the NPP ensures that, years after the NPP is no longer in vogue as a scholarly movement, its reverberations will be perceptible both in the academy and the church. In a discussion of Rom , Mark Seifrid simultaneously challenges E. Sanders' thesis that Paul reasoned from "solution" to "plight;" and N. Wright's "Sin-Exile-Restoration" construct. The apostle, rather, unfolds a profound and global anthropological pessimism that distinguishes him from main-line first century Judaism. Simon Gathercole, treating Rom , ably argues that we must "reassert the importance of [justification] Douglas Moo, addressing Rom , helpfully shows that NPP readings of Rom effectively turn these chapters into an inexplicable appendage to the letter, and defends Paul's critique of the law in Romans as essentially touching "not its social function Martin Hengel, furthermore, shows that Paul's convictions regarding Christ, the law, and justification had been formed well before his missionary journeys. Justification, then, was hardly Paul's ad hoc effort to ward off his opponents, as many critics have contended. Robert Yarbrough and D. Carson query whether the NPP has not failed to account adequately for the salvation-historical or biblical-theological acumen of the apostle Paul. Dunn and Wright, for instance, are well known for stressing Paul's continuity with his Jewish past and environment. They do so partially in reaction to the inordinate emphasis that earlier critical scholars had often placed upon Paul's discontinuity with Judaism. Yarbrough provocatively suggests that had the historical critical tradition heeded the methods and conclusions of such pre-NPP salvation-historical interpreters as Hofmann, Schlatter, Goppelt, and Cullmann, a more balanced portrait of Paul's relationship with Judaism might have emerged. Carson, in an essay that in many respects ties the volume together, considers "two pairs of polarities" in the writings of the apostle: promise and fulfillment; hiddenness and revelation In so doing, Carson marshals evidence both for Pauline continuity and discontinuity with his pre-Christian past, pointing the way to a more balanced synthesis than the NPP has accomplished. Topics such as Paul's view of humanity, "righteousness," "conversion," and the nature and character of first century Judaism also receive careful attention. Timo Laato illustrates how NPP readings of Paul have neglected the genuine and central concern that the apostle shows for the plight of the individual sinner. Seifrid refutes Wright's contention that Pauline "righteousness" is divine covenantal faithfulness. O'Brien reviews the biblical testimony, in Acts and the letters, that Paul in fact experienced a "'paradigm shift' in life and thought" along the lines of a conversion , quoting R. O'Brien also challenges the adequacy of Sanders's construct of first century Judaism "covenantal nomism" , even in modified form, to explain Paul's thought. After asking and answering in the negative whether the NPP has "properly understood the theological and historical context of the Reformers," George highlights the striking similarities between the doctrine and experiences of Martin Luther and of the apostle Paul Blocher poses a number of vital theological questions that many NPP readings of Paul have either neglected or unsatisfactorily answered. This volume illustrates at least three points that are worth underscoring in the ongoing discussion of the merits of the NPP. And, after enough time, we begin to break down mentally and physically. To reassert control for ourselves, we seek new experiences and change. But change has consequences, and often those consequences are unexpected or outside of our control. Therefore, if we destabilize our environment and our lives too much, we fall back into anxiety and despair. Change, of course, has its limits, because the more we seek change, the more meaningless that change becomes. One new haircut is exciting. Twelve new haircuts then just becomes another routine. So, we seem stuck: pursue too much stability and life becomes dull and uneventful; pursue too much change and we lose ourselves in superficial excess. Too much stability and our control feels meaningless. Too much change and we feel out of control. To resolve the paradox of control, we must pursue both stability and change simultaneously. That means consciously changing our lives gradually and reasonably. That means setting goals. That means incremental changes done with purpose. That means creating smart habits. That means imagining the person you desire to be and taking small, baby-steps towards that person. That means practicing self-discipline. So, the correct amount of self-discipline for you might be different from me and vice-versa. But the principle remains: we achieve both stability and change through steady, controlled discipline. Jean-Paul Sartre was a dark dude. A brilliant writer, he was captured by the Nazis and held in a prison camp for nine months. Upon release, he joined the French resistance, regularly risking his life in efforts to undermine some Nazi scum. These experiences had a profound influence on Sartre and his writing which, in the decades following the war, would arguably become the most important philosophical works of the 20th century. We are each, from moment to moment and experience to experience, choosing what we wish to matter in our lives, thus giving our own lives meaning. Sartre believed that to truly generate a life of meaning for oneself, you had to be willing to risk death as in, fight some motherfucking Nazis. But he also noted that this willingness to choose something to die for is absolutely horrifying and impossibly difficult for most of us most of the time. We avoid this responsibility to choose what matters for ourselves. We distract ourselves and numb ourselves to it. He said that ultimately, this need to commit to something in the face of freedom crippled many of us emotionally , that it was the greatest challenge any of us would ever face. Sartre won a Nobel Prize for his work… but being the edgelord emo kid he was, he decided to pass on it in favor of smoking even fancier French cigarettes. On the one hand, we are free—we are free to choose what to do, what to believe, and what to think. But this freedom can also become overwhelming. We can become addicted to infinite options, to the constant possibility of bigger, better, more, more, more. Beyond a certain point, freedom seems to discourage commitment because we are too aware of everything that we are potentially giving up. For instance, when you commit to one partner , part of the significance of that commitment is the fact that you have given up the freedom to commit to other people. But just as we can be overwhelmed by our freedom, we can also become overwhelmed by our commitments. At some point, we need to feel as though we have an option again, as though we have a choice in our commitments. So we seek independence. We throw off commitments and labels. We try to stand alone. We break free. I choose my dainty French cigarettes! But after a while, that too can lead us to malaise, a sense that it was all for nothing. After all, if we cast off all of our commitments in favor of freedom, then our commitments meant nothing. But if we give up all of our freedoms in favor of our commitments, then our freedoms meant nothing. How to Resolve the Paradox: Much like the paradox of change vs stability was resolved by merging the two extremes, here the only way to resolve the paradox of choice is by committing to actions that multiply our freedoms— that is, making a commitment to our own growth. The ability to commit to exercise makes your body more capable and adaptable, expanding your physical freedom. The commitment of education grants you the greater freedoms provided by the knowledge you learn. The commitment to certain relationships helps you emotionally mature into an individual that is more able to flourish. Our commitments, when made out of insecurity and fear , shrink ourselves. I am arbitrarily limiting myself. Whereas if I commit to writing 72 episodes of a comedy show, I am expanding myself from my commitment, opening myself up to greater freedoms provided by my efforts. He did everything I did, agreed with everything I said, laughed when I laughed, got upset when I got upset, and so on. It was unbearable. I quickly started hating this kid. Within a few days, I was making fun of him in front of other kids and telling him to fuck off I know, I know… but I was fourteen; fourteen-year-olds are evil. Looking back, like me, he wanted to make a friend. The problem is, he went about it exactly the wrong way. But it backfired. By acting exactly like me, he prevented me from feeling like a unique individual. And because I was prevented from feeling like a unique individual, everything I thought or did became pointless. Jeff did get a life. And about a year later, we became friends. It was only when he allowed himself to be an individual and different from me that I respected him for those differences and accepted him. This, in a nutshell, is the paradox of relationships. We all want to be connected with others. We conform. We look for a group or crowd to be a part of. This helps us feel secure and as though we are loved and needed. But if we conform too much—i. And because we have no sense of who we are or what we want, that surrender renders the relationship meaningless. I had a friend a few years ago who made his wife the center of his universe. He was like her Jeff: he followed her everywhere. What differentiates a steward from a philanthropist or a hoarder? Under what circumstances could it be right to not give to someone who asks? Application questions: How does the gospel bring peace but also divisiveness? What peace did Christ bring at this first coming? What peace will Christ bring at His second coming? Application questions: In what context and frame of mind is it appropriate to judge? When is it wrong? Application questions: How and when should Christian engage foolish talk and actions? How should these verses guide social media interactions? It requires serious study and a familiarity with the grand narrative of Scripture. Consider how you might engage your church community to dive into such paradoxes—Scripture pairings designed by God to reveal deep truths about Himself and His people. Thanks for this. This is a great starting place. Good stuff. Glad it was helpful. Hey Aaron. Long title, so we usually just call it the Healthy Tensions series. Our church has responded really well to them. There is one on money in there that was not really a part of the series and someone else gave that message, but it KIND OF went with it, so we lumped it in there. The rest of them are the ones I planned for though.

The Paradoxes of Paul by D.A. Carson

Committed to the sad and sordid Washington game that has so angered Americans on every point of the political spectrum, he is about to be named one of its Most Valuable Players. And if anyone tells you otherwise, just recall for them the testimony of one of Ryan's own Republican colleagues, Rep. Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, who says he can't support Ryan because, "If you've got problems with a man today, and the man tells you, 'Tomorrow, I'll be a different person' - it doesn't happen. Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost? Your vote is your voice! It is your right and your responsibility. For your voice to be heard, in most states you must register before you can vote. Visit the state elections site. For the Nov 3 election: States are making it easier for citizens to vote absentee by mail this year due to the coronavirus. Each state has its own rules for mail-in absentee voting. Visit your state election office website to find out if you can vote by mail. Sometimes circumstances make it hard or impossible for you to vote on Election Day. But your state may let you vote during a designated early voting period. You don't need an excuse to vote early. Visit your state election office website to find out whether they offer early voting. US Edition U. Coronavirus News U. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Newsletters Coupons. Terms Privacy Policy. Part of HuffPost Politics. All rights reserved. Tap here to turn on desktop notifications to get the news sent straight to you. Calling all HuffPost superfans! Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter. Join HuffPost. Voting Made Easy. Register now. Congress Washington, D. House of Representatives. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — The Paradoxes of Paul by D. Carson Editor ,. Mark A. A comprehension of Paul's understanding of the law and justification has been a perennial problem for historians and theologians. In light of new studies on early Judaism, an international group of esteemed New Testament scholars evaluates the paradoxes of Paul in this second volume of Justification and Variegated Nomism. Contributors include Martin Hengel, Douglas J. Moo, A comprehension of Paul's understanding of the law and justification has been a perennial problem for historians and theologians. Moo, Timothy George, and Stephen Westerholm. Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. Published November 1st by Baker Academic first published August 1st More Details Original Title. Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. Justification and Variegated Nomism 2. Other Editions 1. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Paradoxes of Paul , please sign up. Be the first to ask a question about The Paradoxes of Paul. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Nov 12, Nick Roark rated it really liked it Shelves: Not Too Shabby. Jun 30, Aaron Carlberg added it. There has always been controversy about Paul and his view of Justification, in this book various contributors including Martin Hengel, Douglas J. It is very interesting and I have always liked D. Carson and Timothy George. Jun 05, J. Rutherford rated it really liked it. Those form the NPP who shrug it off without actually dealing with the content are confirming the verdict of this volume and the previous one that, for the most part, their position is unfounded in the biblical and historical evidence. Oct 03, Hank Pharis rated it it was ok. Dense but very important response to the claims of the new perspectives of Paul. Thankful for scholars like these. Todd Price rated it it was amazing Apr 05, Joel rated it it was amazing Feb 19, Jordan B Cooper rated it really liked it Jul 14, Josh rated it it was amazing Mar 06, https://files8.webydo.com/9586111/UploadedFiles/7D820D2A-BCD6-99B1-F244-9EFA1F061CC1.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9586388/UploadedFiles/BA41759E-BCB0-C9A8-930F-4BA34E8D43BD.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9586169/UploadedFiles/FF7C08D7-719A-DA79-B712-C6F6DF129EE0.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9585865/UploadedFiles/05432856-F372-4FF1-35F9-7754B06C40F7.pdf https://static.s123-cdn-static.com/uploads/4639945/normal_601fcdc57f0a0.pdf https://uploads.strikinglycdn.com/files/a4833c2e-c137-451d-90cb-1bfda330f2c0/zahlenatlas-der-schopfung-des-menschen-und-des-ewigen- lebens-teil-2-german-edition-202.pdf https://static.s123-cdn-static.com/uploads/4639362/normal_601ec2fc95cce.pdf