Introduction

I don't have anything profound to say. I started this blog to force myself to write... anything. I'll probably be focusing on Theology for a while, because that is what I am interested in right now. But then, maybe I won't, because theology is one of those things that I can read about, think about, and talk about, but can't really write about. I know that from experience. I'm writing, or rather trying to write, a research paper. I've lost count of how many times I've changed my thesis. I started out to prove that the will of man is in bondage to sin. Martin Luther already covered that pretty extensively, so I moved on. Sticking to the same general topic, I tried total inability. Too big. On the suggestion of a wise friend, I decided to counter the heresies of Pelagius, and set out to demonstrate that faith is a gift of God, not man's contribution to his own salvation. I liked that one, and I still think I might do a paper on it some time, but I realized that I had too many threads going. There was no way I'd ever be able to pull them all together, so I gave up trying. It was too confusing to establish a warrant for the argument that there is a connection between Pelagius's moral neutrality and modern man's meritorious work of faith; I decided just to focus on his assertion: Men are morally neutral, neither good nor bad by nature. Are men basically good, morally neutral, or totally depraved? Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, this has been a bone of contention in the Christian church for centuries. It's actually rather shocking to discover that many renowned men of the faith have denied original sin, or at least the extent of it's influence. There's a lot of dirt on Charles Grandison Finney, hero of the evangelical movement. His Lectures on Systematic Theology focus more on ethics than anything else. A Presbyterian minister, he hadn't (or later claimed he hadn't) read the Westminster Confession of Faith before his ordination. Anyway, after all that, I'm writing an argumentative research paper in defense of original sin. It's due on Friday, and I changed my thesis yesterday. I've got some work to do.

Needless to say, I'm a bit of a procrastinator. And no, I'm not proud of it.