Publications in one page

Day 5: Time and Mental Health

 Reflection Question: 

When you feel most stressed or overwhelmed, where does your mind tend to go—are you occupied by the past, or worrying about the future? How can you gently bring yourself back to the decisive present?

Day 4: Cognitive Time

Reflection Question:
Think of a deeply meaningful memory. How do your intellect (the facts of the event), your emotion (how it felt), and your volition (how it shapes your current choices) work together to keep that past moment alive in your present?

Jesus and Paul: Shared Visions, Divergent Paths

Long ago—perhaps ten years ago—I first envisioned a book on Jesus and Paul. Since then, I have occasionally revisited the idea and even drafted an initial proposal, but I held back because the project didn’t yet feel ripe. Recently, however, the idea has resurfaced with renewed clarity and appeal. My plan is to critically examine both figures through their theological teachings, their relationship to tradition, and their core similarities and differences. Most importantly, I want to explore their distinct personalities and leadership styles.

Day 3: The Arrow of Time (Entropy and Renewal)

Reflection Question: 

If my life is a temporary "localized rebellion" against the universe's drift toward disorder, what specific kind of order, beauty, or love am I choosing to build with my limited energy today?

A new book project on science, religion, and faith

I am slowly yet steadily developing a future book project that addresses a broader scope than my previous work: the intersection of science, religion, and faith. The tentative title is The Horizon of Trust: Science, Religion, and the Practice of Faith in an Uncertain World. The fundamental objective of this book is to explore the nature of belief and trust in an age of reason and scientific dominance coupled with existential crisis. This volume demonstrates that science and faith are not mutually exclusive; instead, it reframes the discourse on faith through an interdisciplinary lens, arguing that we can—and should—hold science and faith in creative tension. Ultimately, this book seeks to answer what it means to live meaningfully in a scientific era marked by profound uncertainty.

Day 2: The Definition of Time

Reflection Question: 

If the physical universe is driven by entropy and the constant flux of anicca (impermanence), how might accepting decay and change as fundamental laws—rather than failures—alter my relationship with control and attachment?

Day 1: The Illusion of Time

Reflection Question: 

If the past has no physical reality and the future is unwritten, what power does my current, present-moment self actually hold over my life's narrative?

The Architecture of Occurrence

Yung Suk Kim, PhD

The Architecture of Occurrence: Classical Causation, Quantum Indeterminism, and the Mind

As a biblical scholar, my vocation is deeply rooted in the rigorous analysis of ancient texts, historical contexts, and the enduring quest for human meaning. However, the questions that animate our sacred traditions have never been confined to antiquity alone; they inherently demand that we stretch our thinking beyond traditional boundaries to engage the contemporary world and the wider cosmos. This reflection represents such an expansion. By looking past conventional disciplinary lines, I find myself standing at the fascinating intersection of modern physics, sociology, and philosophy. What follows is an exploration of how classical determinism, quantum indeterminism, and human community collide—inviting us to reconsider the invisible architecture that shapes our minds, our histories, and our place in a structured universe.

Nothing happens in a universe by accident. We often think an event occurs accidentally or suddenly, but strictly speaking, nothing happens apart from its structural causation. In the macroscopic cosmos, reality conforms to classical mechanics—a rigorous chain of cause and effect where physical laws dictate predictable outcomes. Yet, when we descend into the microscopic realm of quantum mechanics, we encounter absolute indeterminism. Crucially, this subatomic randomness is not lawless chaos; it is governed by precise probabilistic laws and mathematical wave functions. The cosmos paradoxically utilizes microscopic uncertainty to construct macroscopic certainty, establishing statistical probability as a fundamental physical law. To live with an informed perspective, we must recognize the profound divergence between our subjective expectations and this complex, objective reality.

How does this impact our lives today? First, we must perceive realities far vaster than ourselves and the multifaceted laws that govern them. We are active participants in a universe uniquely suspended between deterministic order and quantum probability. Even within our human communities, nothing happens without a underlying reason, though the sheer density of socio-historical variables often mimics blind chance. When we dive into the human mind, the dynamic becomes more complex still, mirroring this cosmic tension between fixed constraints and spontaneous possibility. The macro-universe of predictable effects and the micro-universe of structured randomness are intricately interwoven within human consciousness. How can we understand this vast nexus of causation and occurrence within our minds, our world, and the cosmos? By recognizing that even the existential uncertainties of life operate within a larger, mathematically elegant framework of reality, we discover a deeper grounding for our place in the universe.

Transformation at the borderlands

Today, I highlight the essay written by Daniel S. Schipani, Emeritus Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary: "The Good News of a Struggle to Care (Matt 15:21-28)," in my edited volume, At the Intersection of Hermeneutics and Homiletics. Schipani analyzes the narrative through the lens of Latin American liberation hermeneutics combined with intercultural sensitivity, emphasizing the importance of openness, creative dialogue, and mutual learning at the borderlands.