The last one, I promise. If you missed the first and second ones, no big deal.

This one comes from movie # VI: The Undiscovered Country. The fans are ahead of me, already anticipating that the moment takes place in Cap’n Spock’s quarters as he and fellow (mostly) Vulcan Lt. Valeris discuss the very impressionistic-looking painting hanging there: The Expulsion from Eden. It’s Spock’s reminder to himself that “All things end.” (Which is sort of appropriate, since this is the last film to feature the original cast.)

But the moment comes a few lines later:

Spock: “History is replete with turning points, Lieutenant. We must have faith.”

Valeris: “Faith?” (Well, this would be an unusual concept to the all-logical Vulcan mind.)

Spock (apparently paraphrasing Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata): “That the universe will unfold as it should.”

Valeris: “But is that logical? Surely we must ….?”

Spock (apparently quoting his human mother, who once expressed being “sick to death” of logic): “Logic, logic, logic. Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris – not the end.”

Okay, that’s pretty close to Proverbs 1:7. Sort of. The fear of the Lord is logical. Right?

But my real question is whether we can, in a faith as profound as Ehrmann’s (or the legendary Spock’s), believe that the universe will unfold as it should.

I believe in prophecy. I believe that Old Testament prophecy proved true in the New Testament. I believe that New Testament prophecy proves to be true as well. I believe that it says, in very few words of summary, that the universe unfolds as it should.

God wins. Satan loses.

Our faith in that truth – though tested by accident, natural disaster, crime, war, evil, even political assassination of presidents or prime ministers – will not be in vain.

That’s logical too. Isn’t it?