Joy of Pi

Math is fun, says my daughter! Today she's memorized the first 37 digits of pi, and legofied them!

Doctrinal Bones

I read this great quote of Eugene Peterson as soon as the Jan/Feb 2007 print issue of Modern Reformation arrived in our mailbox.  But then the issue disappeared and was found this afternoon during house-cleaning.  It's on p. 35 (vol. 16, no. 1).

"Christian faith without doctrine is kind of like being a jellyfish.  There's no bone structure.  We need some bones.  But, here's the thing:  When you look at a person, you don't see the bones.  And if you do, there's something wrong."

Lunar Eclipse Saturday (if you live far enough east)

Tell your friends and family back east!

Unless you live near the west coast, you get to see the upcoming total eclipse of the moon immediately after sunset on Saturday, March 3.  (Europeans and Africans can see the whole show!)  As the sun goes down (around 6pm Eastern near Hamilton, earlier further east and north, later further west and south), you look in the opposite direction (east), and you will see - if the sky is clear - that the moon, which should be full, is in the shadow of the earth.  In fact, it will likely be a dim red due to all the collected and refracted sunrises and sunsets of the whole world.  (If you're in the central time zone, sunset will be somewhere between 5:30 Central (eastern end of the time zone) and 6:30 (western end), and the moon may already be emerging from the shadow.  Read on.)

At 6:58pm Eastern (5:58pm Central) the moon will begin to leave the earth's full shadow, and leaves the full shadow by 8:11pm Eastern (7:11pm Central).  During this period of 73 minutes, the curved shadow of the earth on the moon should be visible.  This is the single best direct evidence most people can have that the earth is actually round.  I often engage in an exercise in my class where I challenge my students to explain why they think the earth is round, without having to rely on other agencies or people to support their position.

All the details are here (note that Eastern time is UT minus 5 hours, Central is UT-6).  The moon begins to enter the earth's full shadow at 4:30pm EST (before it rises) and completes its departure at 8:11pm EST.

Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, in The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, suggest that the apparent sizes of the sun and moon in the sky were designed to be close to one another so that eclipses would be visible and so that we could discover more about the universe.

Enjoy and give God the glory!

B.B. Warfield: True Light Lighteth

We must not, then, as Christians, assume an attitude of antagonism toward the truths of reason, or the truths of philosophy, or the truths of science, or the truths of history, or the truths of criticism. As children of the light, we must be careful to keep ourselves open to every ray of light. If it is light, its source must be sought in him who is the true Light; if it is truth, it belongs of right to him who is the plenitude of truth. All natural truths must be--in varying degrees indeed, but all truly--in some sense commentaries on the supernaturally revealed truth; and by them we may be led to fuller and more accurate comprehension of it. Nature is the handiwork of God in space; history marks his pathway through time. And both nature and history are as infallible teachers as revelation itself, could we but skill to read their message aright. It is distressingly easy to misinterpret them; but their employment in the elucidation of Scripture is, in principle, closely analogous to the interpretation of one Scripture by another, though written by another human hand and at an interval of an age of time. God speaks through his instruments. Prediction interprets prediction; doctrine, doctrine; and fact, fact. Wherever a gleam of light is caught, it illuminates. The true Light, from whatsoever reflected, lighteth.

Let us, then, cultivate an attitude of courage as over against the investigations of the day. None should be more zealous in them than we. None should be more quick to discern truth in every field, more hospitable to receive it, more loyal to follow it whithersoever it leads. It is not for Christians to be lukewarm in regard to the investigations and discoveries of the time. Rather, the followers of the Truth Indeed can have no safety, in science or in philosophy, save in the arms of truth. It is for us, therefore, as Christians, to push investigation to the utmost; to be leaders in every science; to stand in the van of criticism; to be the first to catch in every field the voice of the Revealer of truth, who is also our Redeemer. The curse of the Church has been her apathy to truth, in which she has too often left to her enemies that study of nature and of history and philosophy, and even that investigation of her own peculiar treasures, the Scriptures of God, which should have been her chief concern. Thus she has often been forced to learn from the inadvertent or unwilling testimony of her foes the facts she has needed to protect herself from their assaults. And thus she has been led to borrow from them false theories in philosophy, science, and criticism, to make unnecessary concessions to them, and to expose herself, as they changed their positions from time to time, to unnecessary disgrace. What has the Church not suffered from her unwillingness to engage in truly scientific work! She has nothing to fear from truth; but she has everything to fear, and she has already suffered nearly everything, from ignorance. All truth belongs to us as followers of Christ, the Truth; let us at length enter into our inheritance.

This is from Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. 2, Edited by John E. Meeter, published by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1970, as provided at http://incolor.inetnebr.com/stuart/incarnate.htm, of which the above is about a tenth.