Problems with Time Travel

I've recently started watching the show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I really enjoy it, and it has me thinking again about the things I love, and hate, about the Terminator series of movies. Most of it has to do with time travel.

So the premise of the original Terminator was that John Connor, the future leader of the human resistance against the Machines, has sent a soldier back in time (to the 1980's) to protect his mother Sarah from a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), sent back in time to murder Sarah Connor and prevent John from ever being born. The soldier (Kyle Reese is the character's name, if I remember right) does manage to protect Sarah from the Terminator, though he dies in the process. Just as important is the fact that he also fathers John Connor with Sarah during his time protecting her. So the future John Connor guaranteed his own existence not only by protecting his mother and maintaining his own safe arrival into the world, but also by providing himself with a father. (I don't remember if he knew, in the original movie, that Kyle Reese was his father.)

The original Terminator on its own stands alone very well. In fact you could say that the Machines made a big mistake by sending a Terminator back in time. Skynet must not have realized that you cannot change the past. By taking steps to change it, you only end up guaranteeing that it will happen just as you remember it. The same goes for the future, as Oedipus learned so painfully and so well. "Fate" is just the progress of time, and it is set in stone. Even those who don't recognize the providence of God typically have some notion of fate, and the idea that you can change fate is just a cheap fantasy that the original Terminator avoids. By sending the Terminator into the past, Skynet set in motion the chain of events that would lead to the birth of its arch-enemy! If Skynet had never interfered with the past, John Connor would never have arisen to oppose it. But of course Skynet had to do what it did, because the Terminator was a part of the past all along, and the past cannot be changed.

This beautiful arrangement is totally disrupted in the second movie, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In this sequel, John and Sarah Connor, together with a reprogrammed Terminator, manage to keep Skynet from ever destroying the world in the first place. That's very nice, and I like to think that the nuclear holocaust of 1999 just never happened. Who would want it to happen? But by doing that, doesn't anyone realize that they've kept John Connor from ever being conceived? If Skynet never arises, then it never sends the first Terminator back in time to prevent John's conception, and if the first Terminator never goes back, then the future John Connor never sends his own father back, and so he's never conceived. John's existence depends upon the future playing out just as it always has.

Then there's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which I hated at first because Judgment Day turns out never to have been averted, just "put off" for a time. Now the inevitability of Judgment Day no longer bothers me--in fact I see it as a necessity--but what's all this about the future being "put off" temporarily? That's even worse. And yet again we have more Terminators being sent back in time to mess with the past.

Now we have this show, which I enjoy and find deeply interesting, but it brings with it all the same problems. It eschews the simplicity of the first movie and now we have virtually countless time-travelers messing with the past. It seems that in nearly every episode, someone or something has come here from the future to change his/its own present. If it's really possible to change the past, then there will be absolutely no end to this cycle. Skynet can always send more Terminators back, and the resistance can always send people and re-programmed Terminators to foil them.

I'm interested to see what happens with the new Christian Bale movie, Terminator Salvation. It seems that the future that John Connor faces is quite different from what his mother had told him about. How can that be? I guess we'll find out.

So in general, I get very frustrated with movies and stories that have people traveling back through time and changing the past. Frequency does the same thing. If Jim Caviezel's character has changed his family past, why doesn't he remember things differently? How can he remember a time when his parents were dead if he's changed the past such that it never happened? Time travel adventures depend upon the protagonist existing outside the normal progress of time. He alone remains unaffected by the changes he makes, and that only in certain respects.

There are two stories I've read/watched that handle time-travel well, though, as far as I'm concerned. One is the movie Twelve Monkeys (too depressing to be enjoyable for me), in which Bruce Willis's character as a child witnesses his own death as an adult--the grown-up Bruce Willis travels back in time to fail in foiling a terrorist plot that spreads a deadly virus world-wide, and his actions tend inevitably toward the scene that he remembers in his dreams. He manages to change nothing in the past, but the past depends upon his interference to progress in the way that it always has. The other story is the third Harry Potter installment, The Prisoner of Azkaban, in which Harry and Hermione travel back in time thinking that they will "change" things, but end up doing things that their past selves had already witnessed. And strangely (and interestingly), their actions are essential to make the present what it always had been, and the present turns out to have been happier all along than they'd realized. Delightful.

So I'd like to see more stories that recognize the past as totally unchangeable. The present and future depend upon it. I'd like to see a protagonist who influences the past with confidence, because he knows that whatever he does will result in the present that he already knows.

My New Position on the Upcoming Election

A few months ago, I was resigned to voting for Senator McCain out of a moral obligation to oppose, as effectively as possible, the election of Senator Obama. I reasoned that Senator McCain was more likely to appoint justices to the Supreme Court who would, given the opportunity, vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, thus allowing the states once again to outlaw the crime of abortion. Several things have happened since then, though, to change my mind. Here are the ones that stand out:


1. In light of increasingly unfavorable polls, Senator McCain has pulled his campaign out of Michigan. He has given up on the one-time battleground state in which I am now registered to vote. If Senator McCain has decided that my state is a lost cause, why should I waste my vote on a candidate that I dislike to begin with and who is now a guaranteed loser in my state?


2. Senator McCain is not the boon to the anti-abortion cause that I had thought that he was. In last week's debate he claimed that he would not impose a pro-life "litmus test" (an expression that has become one of my pet peeves!) on any potential appointees to the Supreme Court. He weakly, reluctantly, and unconvincingly added that support for the bad law inherent in the Roe v. Wade decision might render a candidate unqualified, but the gist of his statement was that liberals needn't worry that he'd be too much of a stickler on the whole question. I seriously doubt that, given the opportunity, Senator McCain would appoint the kinds of justices we need.


3. We actually don't even need justices appointed to end the federal ban on state bans of abortion! Congressman Ron Paul's Sanctity of Life Act would constitutionally (Article III, Section 2) restrict the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction on the question of abortion. We can end abortion in this country through congress, not just the Supreme Court via the Presidency!


4. I was at first enthusiastic about Governor Palin, but in the last few weeks I've become convinced that the liberals are actually right about her being unqualified for the Presidency, and she has heartily embraced all that I dislike about Senator McCain. Both she and Senator McCain support tightening federal regulation of the economy. (By the way, it irritates me so much how government intervention in our economy, especially in the monetary supply, has cause our present financial crisis, and now the media, together with both major candidates and their running mates, claim that the crisis was caused by too little government intervention! Now there will be more and more of a push toward socialism in this country, which will make things worse and worse, and all the while they can claim that it was a failure of the "free market"--which we don't really even have--that made such extreme economic lengths necessary...)

So what does this all mean? I now plan to vote for Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate (U.S. Taxpayers' Party candidate on the Michigan ballot) who has been endorsed by Congressman Ron Paul, who supports the Sanctity of Life Act, who respects the Constitution's restrictions on the power and extent of the federal government, and who recognizes the value of sound money (i.e. no fiat currency issued by the Federal Reserve--only gold and silver coinage!). He won't win (barring a miracle, and there is precedent for that), but at least my vote will count. If I vote for Senator McCain, my vote will be lost among the millions who will vote for a candidate who will lose in Michigan anyway. If I vote for Chuck Baldwin, then if I accomplish nothing else, at least I will add to the number of those who have expressed their dissatisfaction with what both major parties have been offering us.

Would anyone like to try to convince me otherwise? Please feel free.

"Lex orandi lex credendi": A Phrase That Can Afford To Be Retired

I was reading Rev. Klemet Preus's fine book The Fire and the Staff today, and I was distressed to see him quote favorably the old axiom, "Lex orandi lex credendi." Actually, the axiom isn't that old. It's a fairly recent innovation that contains a pernicious teaching. Rev. Preus attributes it to Prosper of Aquitaine, but what St. Prosper actually said was, "ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi," "that the law of what is to be beseeched in prayer may confirm the law of what is to be believed." That means that because St. Paul commanded prayers on behalf of the secular authorities (a true "lex supplicandi"), and these prayers would naturally include the supplication that pagan rulers would be converted to Christ, the grace of Christ precedes any act of human free will in the miracle of conversion. This fact lends support to the "lex credendi," i.e. the binding article on sola gratia. It does not mean that practice in general reflects doctrine in general (Rev. Preus's point), and it especially doesn't mean that the liturgy independently determines doctrine (what most who say "Lex orandi lex credendi" usually teach).

I'm tired of hearing Lutherans use this axiom. It's a fantasy of those behind the modern liberal liturgical movement, those who find the "beauty of the liturgy" far more compelling than the beauty of pure doctrine as actually taught by our Lord Christ. It's fine to say that doctrine must inform, yea, must determine practice. It's fine to say that good practice can teach pure doctrine. It's fine to say that corrupt practice leads to corrupt doctrine. But when you say, "Lex orandi lex credendi," you're using a "made-up" phrase (it can't be attributed in that form to Prosper of Aquitaine), you're associating yourself with a disgusting trend, and you're tossing around a slogan that's either meaningless or actively pernicious. Pope Pius XII had the sense to invert the axiom (how refreshing!). Why can't Lutherans do the same, as did Hermann Sasse? or, better yet, just not use the phrase at all? Please let's have done with "Lex orandi lex credendi."

Monday Night Christopher Cooking

I've decided to prepare supper on Monday evenings since Monday is my day off. That way I can give Leah a break from worrying about meal preparations and dish clean-up, and develop my own cooking skills. Last Monday was canned soup and frozen french-bread pizza. Tonight was sauteed mushrooms and onions with sea scallops. I suppose I'm getting better as I go. Maybe next time I'll move up to hotdogs.

Where To Find My Sermons

After a month and a half on vicarage, I've finally started working in earnest on keeping the sermons at the frankentrost.org website up-to-date. I post the audio for Pastor Loest's sermons, and I post audio and text for my own. Unfortunately I have no audio for my first sermon (10 August), and some audio is missing for Pastor's sermons over the last few Sundays, but from here on out, the website should stay pretty current. I would welcome any feedback on my own sermons.

A Project: The English Luther Bible

I've been working on a project for a while... It's called "Biblia, that is, the entire Holy Scripture. English. Christopher Neuendorf. Frankentrost." (By the way, Frankentrost, MI is where I am right now, serving as Vicar of Immanuel Lutheran Church, supervising pastor Rev. Mark Loest.) It will be a translation of the Bible from the Greek and Hebrew, but compared with Luther's German version. That means that translational choices will be decided based on Luther's version. For example, did Eve say, "I have acquired a man with the help of the LORD," or "I have acquired a man, the LORD"? In my English Luther Bible she will say the latter, since Eve viewed Cain (wrongly, of course) as the fulfillment of the promise in Genesis 3:15 that the woman would give birth to the Seed, viz. the Christ, who would crush the serpent's head.

It also means that specific terms will be somewhat different than they've been in previous English versions. There will be no "gentiles," only heathens (Luther translated "ethnoi" by its German cognate "Heiden," English "heathen," which gets across the idea that "the nations" are pagan--they exist outside of God's blessing until such time as the Christ should come). There will be no "uncircumcision," only the Foreskin (St. Paul's actual term for the mass of uncircumcised heathen). There is very little "justifying," but there is a lot of making/becoming righteous.

It also means that the choice of base original texts will be different, at least for the New Testament. I am using the Byzantine text-type (which I believe to be authentic, unlike the Alexandrian, which is what is typically used in Protestant seminaries, including Lutheran), and where Luther's base text (Erasmus's Greek New Testament) adds something, I will indicate that in my own footnotes.

It also means that there will be no verse divisions (these may be indicated in the margins) and therefore no artificial breaks in the text. There were no verse divisions until after Luther's death. There will be marginal glosses, translated from Luther's own, often helpful, sometimes quaint, always entertaining. My own notes will be presented in the form of footnotes and will alert the reader when Luther's translation differs from what I consider to be sound modern scholarly opinion, or when Luther takes extreme liberties with translation (which he often does, and which I will follow as closely as possible in my translation--hence the need for footnotes).

It also means that the books of the Bible will be presented in the order in which they are found in Luther's Bible, with the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments, and Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation relegated to the back, since they are not (in Luther's judgment) apostolic (Hebrews denies the possibility of repentance following post-baptismal apostasy, James contradicts the clear words of St. Paul and fails to center his letter on Christ, Jude quotes from apocryphal texts, and Revelation is too obscure to be Holy Scripture. And they are all antilegomena, so we are free to discuss whether or not they are apostolic). There will be introductions to the Old and New Testaments, translated from Luther, and prefaces to those books and groups of books for which Luther provided prefaces.

All I have so far is Galatians, two chapters of Romans with two thirds of its preface, a few chapters of Genesis (not consecutive), and a Psalm. It's slow going, but I haven't had the opportunity to be imprisoned in the Wartburg for months on end.

This will not be the Lutheran Study Bible (coming soon from CPH!). It will be the English Luther Bible.

What do you think?

To What I Owe This Blog...

I've thought for a long time off and on about maintaining a blog, but I've never had the courage or motivation to do it until I learned this afternoon that my younger brother had started one. He encouraged me to do the same, and I was eager to do so until I read his posts. I'm more and more blown away every time I read something written by Matthew. He's a much better writer than I am, probably because he reads so much more than I, and most of it's in English. Reading Greek, Latin, and German helps with a lot of things, but truly great English prose isn't necessarily one of them. So I was scared--I knew that I could never live up to the standard that Matthew had set.

But then I noticed the beautiful layout of Matthew's blog itself. I had to have one just like it. So I started this blog using the same service and the same template. I guess I copy Matthew in a lot of things. I grew up in the same household as he did, I went to the same high school and college as he did, and now I have the same blog template as he does.

I do earnestly encourage at least a peek at Matthew's blog.