Swift likes babies- like a good Calvinist. :D..... :P

My favorite of the readings was actually A Modest Proposal and An Essay on Man, and through these readings I made several notes and was challenged in quite a few things. First, I’ll go through An Essay on Man, but quickly because many of my points were addressed in class… One of my most significant observations was the proposal of partial evil being sometimes necessary to reach a universal good. This will all tie into our knowledge and revelation that suffering leads to truth.

The example I want to bring is Child Birth. There is nothing good about labor- it is painful for the mother, stressful for the baby, and a danger to both. In other words: IT HURTS A LOT. However, one can never reap the blessings of having offspring if one is not willing to go through this pain. Pain is the partial evil (we know this is an evil because it is a malady allotted to us because of the influence of Sin), and the child is the Universal Good (well… some may disagree). No mother would trade their child in order to not feel that pain. In fact, women willingly go through this feat SEVERAL times to get more blessing.

Another example that Honors Vets students know well is the story of Jacob wrestling with God. He would not let go of God until He blessed him. Jacob limped for the rest of his life after this encounter; however, I know he would never trade his blessings for a straight stride.

Thought 2- What makes us think that we are the center and most perfect part of creation. Yeah, I know we are made in God’s image- but we also attest that the earth is vile- but in reality it was intended to be perfect. In fact, God intends to make a NEW, perfect earth at the end of time! The earth was never meant to belong to the devil. It was meant to give God glory! It wasn’t made for us- he gave us charge over it, but that doesn’t mean he made it FOR us. In reality, he made it for us to PROTECT. It was made first and we were made after…. It could be suggested that WE were in fact created for IT. Now, not only did we disobey God in the Garden by eating of the fruit, (yes, I say WE- because Adam was acting in the principle of representation, symbolizing the collective disobedience of Man) but we ruined (and are still ruining) his creation. We STOLE his glory, we desecrated his holiness. ‘For God so loved the WORD’, yes- YOU are included into the world. Yes, Christ dies to justify you- but he was able to justify you because his soul purpose in sacrificing himself was to make back pure what was tainted. “Sin was like a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow…” All things said- out of his creation, it IS man that he is mindful of, by grace- not because we are superior… but because of grace… just like he chose Israel, a nation of slaves- he chose man, an unworthy species.

(that wasn’t very quickly)

Now, on to other things. My response to A Modest Proposal will be short (for real this time)- but hopefully challenging. You guys know the back ground of the story because it is written prior to the text… so knowing his purpose; we ought to be very much so challenged. We should be outraged by the injustice that our fellow man is living through. YES- we ARE their keepers. To not act and plead according to their case makes us NO different than baby eaters. I’m not trying to be funny. There are kids starving and people lost in our world- in our nation. Knowing that there our people suffering such things makes and not DOING something about it makes us inhuman- and we might as well just sell them, or better yet, eat them- so they can reach some sort of worth. Not acting shows their value to us: a slab of cheap meat.

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