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"A day without death." (continued from March 7)

In 1st-century Roman Palestine it had been almost two weeks since the tomb of the executed Jesus was found empty. The New Testament narratives and other historical accounts tell us there were reports of some who claimed to have seen him alive and believed he had risen from the dead. True or not, in some sense Jesus was still causing trouble for Pontius Pilate and the Jewish authorities. They unmistakably killed him and needed him to stay dead to squash the uproar he had created. In the 2016 film Risen, a Roman centurion named Clavius was forced to become a detective to find the missing corpse and was reeling from the shock of his discovery that this crucified Jesus of Nazareth may not be actually dead at all. In part 1 of this piece (2 down) I tried to give you a grasp of the plotline of Risen and some broad brushstrokes about its themes. Now I want to go deeper. Recall the last sentence of part 1 in which I said “…what started as his problem became his salvation.” 


  • 11 April 2016
  • Author: Scott Cherry
  • Number of views: 15842
  • Comments: 0
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Tao and Tawheed is dedicated to exploring the mysteries of faith, reason, and meaning. We aspire to provide articles and videos that stimulate the serious consideration of truth as seen through the lens of these and related ideas: logic, purpose, order, beauty, hope, love, morality, happiness, natural law, intelligibility, science, and divine revelation to expand the list. Our presupposition is that all these things exist and create the tapestry of reality. They are so fundamental they both govern and drive us whether we know it or not. And through the art of good thinking, metacognition and civil discussion they are discernible to us as the rational beings that we are. This is what makes humanness wonderful. To ask questions or start a conversation send email to scott@taoandtawheed.com.


But why "Tao and Tawheed"? Because it's mysterious? Yes. But also because of what they mean to us. Tao is an eastern idea for which the religion of Taoism is named, although we are not Taoists. It refers to the comprehensive order and harmony of the universe despite things that seem chaotic. (In fact, we hold that there really is no chaos.) The late British philosopher C.S. Lewis used the notion of Tao to refer to natural law, or the moral order that permeates all cultures everywhere. Tawheed, or Tawhid, is Muslim concept that captures the idea of absolute unity. specifically the unity of God, or Allah. But we use it more broadly. To us it suggests that no matter how much diversity we see in the universe it is always still one. The opposite is also true, of course. Further, although we are not Muslims there is a powerful rational for monotheism that we embrace. Together we think they capture something profound: Faith, Reason and Meaning. 

But there is another word embedded in our emblem, do you see it? It's the Greek word "logos" from which the word logic derives. It is a very broad concept that by itself captures all the meaning of Tao and Tawheed together. Logos is a word that the ancient Greek philosophers used to refer to 'the logic of everything' or the 'order of all reality' consisting of both particulars and universals. Centuries later the New Testament writer John also used it in the very first sentence of his gospel. Without abandoning the earlier philosophers' notions, but with the claim of divine revelation, John appropriated 'logos', in word and principle, to Jesus the Messiah. This website recognizes and celebrates that. Therefore, our intent is to hold all ideas up to the light of the Logos personified.

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