One of the nice things about a blog (as compared to a web page or even a discussion board) is that you can pretty much shoot from the hip and worry about the niceties later.
So, having thought about this long and hard and even, arguably, professionally, I'm going to venture a quick, sketchy proposal or hypothesis or whatever on revelation.
We all know that we're alive and that life, despite suffering, is good. We also all know that someday we're going to die, along with everyone we've ever loved, every cause to which we've committed ourselves, every project or production or accomplishment we've helped bring about.
The vast majority of the human race, and their loves, projects and causes, will be forgotten one to two hundred years after their death.
On the face of it, that would - it appears to me - paint a very pessimistic view as to the nature of human life.
But humans (whether Christians, atheists, Buddhist or none-of-the-aboves) don't see it that way.
Despite all empirical evidence to the contrary, we speak and act as if our speech and actions had ultimate meaning, value and purpose.
And, again, we do that in the face of the empirical, overwhelming and inescapable evidence of the reality and finality of death.
I would affirm that this wispy, apparently ungrounded hope in the face of the iron reality of death is the greatest evidence for the providential presence of God in Christ in human life, whether individual humans or communities describe it in Christian terms, the terms of other religions or completely secular or atheistic terms.
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