While I was anxious to move past the middle ages and into the Enlightenment, when men rediscovered the value of reflective thought, certain disagreements have arisen regarding my treatment of the Vikings. Without trying to resolve the issue of whether I have been fair or unfair to the Vikings, I think it is safe to say that for the people whose peace and established way of life were disrupted, the attacks by armed warriors from across the sea appeared to be an unmitigated disaster. If those people were Christian, and many of them were, it may have felt as though God had forsaken them, that what the Apostle Paul had testified to might not be true after all: (KJV Romans 8:28) “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.”
Such doubts can easily be forgiven one who has just been run through by a naked sword. Rather in most likelihood, with no time to receive his last rights, the victim was occupied in commending his soul to his Maker to do with as his Most Merciful thought best. In either case, from the vantage point of my easy chair in the 21st Century and a modicum of knowledge of the history of the intervening centuries, perhaps a little more might be expected of me as I reflect upon Paul’s testament. Should I disregard it as sentimental pap or swallow it whole in unreflecting belief? Or might I attempt to reach a deeper understanding of a biblical statement that has the ring of truth, but for which evidence is often contradictory at best?
Upon reading the whole chapter (Romans 8) in an attempt to put Paul’s declaration into context I discovered something interesting. The full chapter did not clarify Romans 8:28. Rather 8:28 is the statement of an initial assumption inserted to bolster Paul’s other contentions. To consider its veracity requires a larger context. When is it true and when might it not hold up, as when our innocent is watching his life’s blood run out of him?
Clearly, it is a truth of eternity. It would only have meaning to a dying mortal if he has established a relationship to eternity. Indeed, this takes us to the heart of what it means to be a religionist – one who is bound back to eternity.
Philosopher’s Corner – Gene Ross