A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

So today's lesson from work is this: A wrong bit can bring down one's entire system. (A bit is a '0' or '1'; eight bits make a byte, and a typical program is many kilobytes. Our system is over 15 megabytes.) Just one bit in 120 million wrong, and the entire system would not start.

Cooking, I'm told, is the opposite. Many of the chefs I know simple say "add a pinch of this" or "a handful of that". It drives me crazy that the measurements are so imprecise, but I think cooking is that way because food is flexible: Different amounts produce different but tasty results. A fraction of a cup too much flour rarely spoils the whole dish.

On many issues, I view theology like programs: Precision matters. Matters a lot. There's a right answer, and the wrong answers lead to a lot of grief. But perhaps theology is more like cooking, where good dishes come out regardless of the exact beliefs involved. More importantly, perhaps: Which issues are like programming and which ones are like cooking?