Kami Earle's Archive

I have always had a sort of fascination with the Holocaust – as strange as that may sound. It astounds me to think that people could have been so absolutely monstrous to other human beings. But in the destruction and tragedy of the Holocaust, there was also hope. Viktor Frankl saw this too. He found that when prisoners (in the concentration camps) found meaning in their lives despite the awful circumstances, those prisoners continued to live. Frankl taught that no matter what kind of situation you are in, you can make it better or worse depending on your attitude and actions. This is why I associate Frankl with both the Fall and Redemption. Although the world was falling apart around him, Viktor Frankl rose above it and inspired others to do so as well. Despite the fact that his wife, mother, and brother were all killed in concentration camps and he himself was stuck in one for three years, he found little rays of hope all around him. Frankl even found suffering to be meaningful. He is quoted as having said, “Suffering ceases to be suffering the moment it finds a meaning.” He also stated, “He who has a *why* to live can bear with almost any *how.*”

Most people associate Darwinism negatively with Creation – that is, they believe Darwinism contradicts Creation completely. I do not believe this to be true. While I do not think that humans evolved from another species entirely, such as fish, apes, etc., I do recognize that humans have in fact evolved over time. For example, our ancestors may have been more short and small because they needed to be compact in order to fit into wherever they could find shelter – usually (presumed to be) in caves. People nowadays, although ranging in shape and size, tend to be larger than our cavemen counterparts. So, did we come from apes or fish or some other non-human-like creature? I highly doubt it. Have we evolved in order to better suit our environments? Absolutely. God created us to evolve, but He created us as our own race from the beginning.

Johannes Gutenberg, due to his invention of the movable type printing press, was very influential during the Renaissance. Thanks to his printing press and his *Gutenberg Bible*, people were no longer forced to rely on the church to spoon feed them the scriptures. There was then questioning of the Catholic church as to why the sermons were still being delivered in Latin, rather than in a text than everyone understood. The invention of the printing press also spurred the religious Reformation that took place because the people now had access to information that they could not previously obtain or understand. Most people were illiterate due to the fact that literature was not common or widespread prior to the printing press, but Gutenberg’s invention encouraged literacy as well. With newfound literacy and more readily available printed information, the people did not have to rely so heavily upon the word of the Catholic church.

Plato believed that there was a world of being and a world of becoming; I relate this to Creation. When God created the world, it was in a state of being. Each thing that was created: water, earth, sky, light, etc. was in existence, but had yet to be experienced or to be touched by humans or animals. Once God created the beasts of the land, the birds of the air, and creatures of the deep, followed by mankind, the world changed to a state of “becoming.” Ever since living creatures have been placed on this planet, we have affected it in positive and negative ways, no matter what causing some sort of change, making it so that it is always in a state of “becoming,” rather than just “being.” Plato also believed in the reminiscent theory, which basically states that what we perceive as the “good life,” is what we have already experienced, but have forgotten and have to relearn. This theory can be related to The Fall because it implies that we, as beings, were once more knowledgeable, all-knowing even, and that when we came into existence in this world, we forgot our knowledge and we now must relearn it. This theory also seems to say that we were once worthy of such knowledge and now we are not – that we’ve fallen from grace in a manner of speaking.