10-31-09

Dear Family & Friends,

This past week I wrote the blog for the Summit website. Here is what was posted:

On the morning of October 28th, the Summit Semester students woke up to an exciting surprise: snow! It had been predicted in the weather forecast, but it was confirmed shortly after each one woke up and looked out their windows. For probably the first time this entire semester, students were eager to get out of bed— in order to be the first to go sledding or have a snowball fight before breakfast. It continued to snow the rest of the day and most of it remained until this morning. At breakfast we were also informed (to the excitement of many and disappointment of some) that the Snow Wolf Lodge area has been moved to the “storm warning” forecast level. Since I am from California, living in the snow and experiencing this type of weather is new…but exciting at the same time. Yesterday, for exercise time, I went on a walk with friends while some other brave souls played snow volleyball or engaged in other snow activities. (That just goes to show how much we love volleyball here at Summit Semester!) Not only did snow arrive Wednesday morning, but so did Dr. J.P. Moreland, our teacher for the rest of the week. Somehow, on Wednesday morning his clock was not correct, so he was late to class by about fifteen minutes. That didn’t bother any of the students, however, because it allowed more time to continue the vicious snowball fights that began shortly after breakfast.
Dr. Moreland is currently a philosophy professor at Biola University in California, and has written a book on philosophy that we read before he arrived as well as many other books. Right at the beginning of his first lecture, Dr. Moreland told us he has two goals for us this week, that our faith in and relationship with Jesus Christ would grow, and that we would become more intelligent in engaging the culture for Christ. His lectures are based on philosophy, and the last two days of classes have mainly focused on epistemology. Epistemology is defined as a branch of philosophy that studies knowledge and justified belief. We spent a lot of time discussing the three types of knowledge, which I found extremely interesting. A question Dr. Moreland asked us at the beginning was, “Is there knowledge of God?” Beginning to understand the answer first requires an understanding of the different types of knowledge. The first way to have knowledge of God is through “knowledge by acquaintance,” simply that you know something by personally experiencing it or by being directly aware of it. The second area, “propositional knowledge,” is based more on the facts of an issue and is defined as a justified true belief. If you believe something, you’re between 51-100% sure it’s true. This aspect is essential for overall knowledge because truth without evidence is unjustified belief. The last area of knowledge is “know-how,” which is simply defined as the ability to do something well. The main point under this, which really stuck out to me, was that the Bible’s wisdom can be put to an objective test to see whether it’s true. I came to understand that by examining the question presented through each individual category of knowledge, it was easier to see that we really can have knowledge of God.
Thursday morning, we examined the statement: “There can be knowledge that God is real, and that Jesus is the Son of God.” Unfortunately most of our culture has the “emotional pragmatic relativist” view of religion and believes
that religion is based on feelings and is extremely subjective. Dr. Moreland walked us through five consecutive illustrations on how to demonstrate to people that there is objective truth and they should search for it. He expounds upon these illustrations in his book, The God Question, which I will look forward to reading when I return home (and also highly recommend that you read too!). After laying out the foundational reasons why we can know truth, Dr. Moreland began to explain the evidence showing that God really does exist. I must say that the last two lectures of the morning were so full of information; it will take a little while to process! Many scientific examples were laid before us as we examined the origin of the universe as well as the scientifically proven, precise details of the universe. We concluded that there is one personal God, who has intelligence and power, and who created and designed the universe. After analyzing so many scientific discoveries that explicitly point to a creator, it once again reinforced the idea in my mind that we can emphatically answer yes to the question, “Is there knowledge of God?”
As I sit here and watch the snow fall outside my window, I am reminded of all God’s blessings in my life, especially the ability to be here at Summit Semester, learning and being challenged in so many ways. I am thankful, and I encourage you to reflect upon, and thank the Lord for the blessings in your own life as well.

It was such a wonderful week, and as I write this, I'm actually in Santa Fe, New Mexico! We spent all day examining art and having fun together. Tomorrow, we'll be heading back to Pagosa Springs, and will begin another week of school.

Hope you're doing well!

Love,
Mae