What hath God mixed?

Lots of stuff swirling about in my head. I feel like cake batter; but what will come out of the oven? And how long must it bake before it gets burned and unable to be served?

or, to change the metaphor: sometimes I feel like a pencil constantly being sharpened. When will I be able to be used to write?

"They also serve who stand and wait."

1. Brad's Sunday, May 6 blog entry:

Dr Francis Beckwith, the president of the Evangelical Theological Society and a professor at Baylor University, has become a Roman Catholic -- again. Evangelical theologians are a bit dazed and baffled by it all. It was a complicated decision, says Beckwith. See his post on the Right Reason blog. Don't miss the comments section at the bottom of Beckwith's post where Doug Groothuis, in true form, reams him out.
Posted by Brad Boydston at 5/06/2007 0 comments
Saturday, May 5

2. Groothuis' comments:

http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2007/05/my_return_to_th.html
Dear Frank:
This is a sad day for all true sons and daughters of the Protestant Reformation, for all who lived and died for its truths.

Having abandoned the distinctives of the Reformation (which are deeply rooted in Holy Scripture), you are embracing serious theological error. I wish I could say otherwise, but conscience-bound, I cannot.

By joining Rome, you are putting an institution above God; you are putting men (and I mean males) ahead of the pure gospel of Jesus Christ (See Galatians 1:6-11).
However, you are doing the right thing to resign from your position at ETS.
I have appreciated much of your writing over the years, but I lament what you have now done.
Sincerely,Doug Groothuis
Posted by: Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. May 5, 2007 4:39 PM

3. Numbers 23

19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
20 I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.
21 "No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. [a] The LORD their God is with them; the shout of the King is among them.
22 God brought them out of Egypt; they have the strength of a wild ox.
23 There is no sorcery against Jacob, no divination against Israel.It will now be said of Jacob and of Israel, 'See what God has done!'
24 The people rise like a lioness; they rouse themselves like a lionthat does not rest till he devours his prey and drinks the blood of his victims." 25 Then Balak said to Balaam, "Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!"
26 Balaam answered, "Did I not tell you I must do whatever the LORD says?"

4. What Steve recently showed me:

("This ought to get you all fired up!")

In his Explorations in Theology, V. I: The Word Made Flesh, (p. 121) Hans Urs von Balthasar quotes Nebel (Das Ereignis des Shonen, Stuttgart, 1953, p. 188)

Anyone who is concerned with the world in all its range, with forms and proportions, with man's heroism, with morality, with the splendor of forms, witht he exploration of the sphere of myth, will feel repelled by protestantism. Luther destroyed the rich treasury of myth, and replaced it with an arid, official Institute. Anyone enamored of beauty will shiver in the barn of the Reformation, just as Winckelmann did, and feel the pull of Rome.

5. Gerard Manley Hopkins:

"In the tradition of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas affirms that all being is good, true, beautiful and one (the four transcendentals)."

http://www.gerardmanleyhopkins.org/lectures_2002/aquinas.html