Turning to the Reader’s Digest Family Word Finder (New York: Reader’s Digest, 1975) for our “Word Wednesday” feature today, I picked out another familiar word which has good Greek roots – the word “automatic” (and a few related ones!). Turns out that what seems to be quite ordinary is really quite interesting. Here is the entry for this word:
automatic adj. 1 “Use an automatic dishwasher’: self-operating, self-acting, self-moving, self-propelling, electric, mechanical, push-button, automated. 2 ‘Breathing and blinking are automatic reactions’: occuring independently, involuntary, reflex, instinctive, unconscious, spontaneous, nonvolitional, uncontrolled, unwilled, inherent; mechanical, routine, habitual.
ant. 1 manual. 2 voluntary, conscious, intentional, controlled, deliberate.
Exploring the Word: Greek ‘autos’ means ‘self’ and gives us many words including: ‘autobiography’, writing about one’s own life; ‘autocrat’, one who rules by himself, an absolute ruler; ‘autograph’, literally to write one’s own name; ‘automatic’, self-acting; ‘automobile’, a self-moving vehicle; ‘autonomy’, self-rule, self-governing; and even ‘autopsy’, literally a seeing for oneself, a doctor’s seeing for himself the cause of a death by a postmortem examination of a body. (Our word ‘automation’ is a modern blend of ‘autom’ [atic] + [oper]’a-tion’.) p.70
Clearly, there are many good things and activities that should come automatically in our lives. But as Reformed Christians, we should make sure that our daily dependence on the Lord and our thankful lives of service to Him are never automatic according to the above definition. Rather let them be strictly voluntary, conscious and controlled – through the Spirit of our risen Savior!
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