Yellow and Pink

A children's classic by William Steig came across my desk today.

Yellow and Pink is the story of two wooden figures who become self-aware and attempt to figure out how they came to be. As they discuss the question of their origin, one of them, Yellow, takes on a perspective that they are accidents of chance and time, while the other, Pink, remains skeptical of the idea. Throughout the story, Yellow's explanation for their existence get more and more fanciful as Pink challenges him.

At the heart of the story is the philosophical question, "Where did I come from?" Am I an accident of nature, or do my uniqueness and intricacies suggest design? As the final pages of the story suggests, Yellow and Pink are wooden figure who exist because a man made them, which begs the question, who made the man?

Yellow and Pink, while not directly pointing to God as Designer, does offer a springboard for discussing the topic with children in a way that they can comprehend. It is not a slamdunk on evolution, and it should not be utilized that way (I could almost hear the cries of "strawman" reverberating from evolutionists as I read the story.) The classic apologetic argument of design for the existence of God is important and complex, and Yellow and Pink serves to set the stage for starting the discussion with young children in a way that they can conceptualize and understand.

A Dog Is a Dog Not a Duck: The Law of Identity

Seems obvious, right? Well, for most of history it was. The Law of Identity, which holds that a thing can be identified by its characteristics, has long been considered foundational to how we think and reason. These days, however, we can no longer assume people accept this to be a true and necessary presupposition for validating truth-claims, let alone for living life.

A well-known Christian pastor and blogger recently tweeted that before we can do preevangelism, we may need to convince people of the law of non-contradiction. While I certainly agree, I would suggest that before we can even do that, we may need to first convince them that a dog is a dog and not a duck.