divine design and common sense

divine design and common sense

fiction
edward w pritchard

devine design and common sense

Little Wanda was listening to her two uncles argue. She was about twenty feet away and was the only one except them left in the large room.

Phil and his brother Larry had been arguing for about twenty minutes. Tempers were flaring and the relatives had left the room. Both had long since past the point where a practical person would have agreed to disagree and been sitting instead with a cold beer and watching the football game.

Wanda who was eight was listening intrigued by their conversation. She didn't understand most of what they were saying but their methods were fascinating. She knew they did this often and then somehow were able to talk again afterward, but maybe not for a few weeks.

Wanda listen to what they were saying carefully:

They were arguing about things being irreducible, creation history, and scientific theory and evolution. Bacon introduced the empirical approach which was central to modern science.

Wanda loved bacon. She had smelled bacon cooking when she came to Grandma's twenty minutes ago and she got up and ran up to her Grandmother's kitchen to get some.

Aunt Josie was talking about Uncle Phil and Uncle Larry in the kitchen. Wanda again listened carefully to Aunt Josie talk about her brothers:

Larry was logical and thought that argument was teleological and often used the Socratic method to enlighten others.

Phil believed that words revealed truth but the individual often didn't comprehend meaning or significance. Phil had faith but was unsure why. He felt more than understood and often talked or wrote of dreams as inspiring or directing his understanding. Phil admitted there were many things he didn't under stand.

"About Five minutes to brunch, Wandie said Aunt Megan"

Wanda wandered back down and sat and listened again to her uncles again. Both were too engrossed to see her leave or return:

Uncle Phil called Uncle Larry a sophist of the literal, and Uncle Larry called Uncle Phil an impractical fool and architect who wouldn't never demolish a decrepit building.

Uncle Phil said Evolution cannot adequately account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on Earth.

Uncle Phil said Uncle Larry delighted in confounding and confusing. Uncle Larry spent his time breaking and destroying any system but his own.

Uncle Larry said Both Jews and Christians had been considering the idea of the creation history as an allegory

Five minutes were up. Wanda went upstairs. Food was everywhere and her Aunt's were helping her cousins fill their plates. Before Wanda took a large plate of bacon for herself she got two large bowls of the fresh cold blackberries, two of the best spoons, and put a little whip cream on a third plate and took it to her Uncles on a small silver platter that grandma kept under the dish buffet in the dining room.

Uncle Phil was talking when she walked in:

Literal sense is for human needs; but allegorical sense is real, which only the initiated comprehend.

Both Uncles stood up. Where did you come from Panther said Uncle Phil. Uncle Larry took the platter and Uncle Phil rubbed Wanda's head in a circle like he had been doing since he had first looked at Wandie when she one day old.

Wanda sat a minute and watched her Uncle's eat. Both thanked and thanked her for the delicious black berries. Uncle Larry liked whipped cream on his but Uncle Phil didn't.

Wanda sat a minute or two to be polite and then raced upstairs to get a plate of bacon before her cousins took it all. On the way to the kitchen she asked her Aunt Vell how God made blackberries.

End