Pollster George Barna reports in “Most adults feel accepted by God, but lack a biblical worldview” (The Barna Group, Aug, 9, 2005) that the only group in which a majority of its adult adherents believe in absolute truth is Evangelical Christians (70%). He also reports that 42% of Christians who are not associated with Evangelical churches yet consider themselves to be born-again believe in absolute truth. From there the percentages drop of perceptibly. Only 25% of Christians who do not consider themselves born-again believe in absolute truth while—surprisingly—27% of agnostics or atheists do believe in absolute truth. 16% of followers of non-Christian religions believe in absolute truth.
Okay, what can we make of this. Well, we can also throw into the mix the figure of 9%. That is the percentage of Evangelical Christian teenagers who believe in absolute truth (William Lobdell, "Pollster Prods Christian Conservatives," LA Times, 2002-SEP-14). From this one might guess that the general secular culture and America’s public educational system may be influencing students to accept the notion that there are no moral absolutes. Certainly the ideology of modern American “tolerance” and multiculturalism seems to be based on the assumption that there are no inherent truths by which one can identify competing ideologies as better or worse. According to this notion, all cultures and ideologies are simply “different” and not inherently good or bad. Though this is a self-defeating claim in-and-of-itself, we will leave that for another time. The point is that it appears Americans are drifting toward relativism. Specifically, I believe Americans are becoming emotive-subjectivists who make value judgments based upon “feelings” rather than reason. This is another brand of relativism.
I seriously question, however, whether anyone can actually be a relativist. I’ve become convinced that humans are hardwired for moral truth. Therefore, they can claim all kinds of subjectivist opinions about things, but, when it comes down to living their “real” lives, they live by a clear standard of truth. My proof for this goes something like this. It is not what people say or even how they act that determines their beliefs about moral truth. Their real beliefs are always expressed in their reactions (not their actions). It is when people react to a situation that you see their true beliefs.
Let’s look at the group of people in America who come the closest to actually living like true relativists. College professors, despite their claims regarding relativism, are not the best group to use for this thought-example. The best group is hardened criminals. Life-long criminals are notorious for violating the “rights” (actually a useless term when speaking of relativism) of others. They don’t just postulate that there are no moral truths against stealing and murder, they actually act on their beliefs by robbing and killing people. Okay, so you would think the most lawless, chaotic place on the planet would be a prison. You would be wrong. Prisons are famous (infamous) for having extremely strict moral codes enforced by the inmates. Imagine if you will, stealing a cigarette from a life-long criminal who had made a career of burglary, mayhem and murder. What do you think this criminal would do? Of course you know what he would do. If he found out it was you, you’d likely end up with your throat slashed in the shower.
The point is this, the criminal feels free to violate anyone’s rights he chooses. He doesn’t think there are any inherent moral truths that should restrain him. At least that is what he may tell you. However, his reactions betray his true beliefs. The second you disrespect him in the slightest or do anything to him that he believes is “unjust” he will instantly react. If he as the opportunity, he will act against you right on the spot. If you don’t believe me, try stealing from a thief some time.
Other relativists are the same way. Imagine having the ability to walk into the classroom of a professor who is a notorious philosophical relativist. Imagine telling him that since there are no inherent rights or wrongs, you have convinced the university to cut his pay in half. He will now have to work the same hours for half the pay. What do you think he will say? Again, it is our reactions and not our ideology or actions that betray our true beliefs about moral truth.
Aquinas said: "It is therefore evident that, as regards the general principles whether of speculative or of practical reason, truth or rectitude is the same for all, and is equally known by all" ( ST, First Part of the Second Part Q. 94, A. 4.).
|
Q. Your forthcoming book, "God and the New Atheism," is a critique of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. You claim that they are pale imitations of great atheists like Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre. What are they missing?
A. The only thing new in the so-called new atheism is the sense that we should not tolerate faith because, by doing so, we open people's minds to any crazy idea -- including dangerous ideas like those that led to 9/11. In every other respect, this atheism is similar to the secular humanism of the modern period, which said that faith is incompatible with science, that religion and belief in God are bad for morality, and that theology should be purged from culture and academic life. These are not new ideas. But there were atheists in the past who were much more theologically educated than these. My chief objection to the new atheists is that they are almost completely ignorant of what's going on in the world of theology. They talk about the most fundamentalist and extremist versions of faith, and they hold these up as though they're the normative, central core of faith. And they miss so many things. They miss the moral core of Judaism and Christianity -- the theme of social justice, which takes those who are marginalized and brings them to the center of society. They give us an extreme caricature of faith and religion.
Q. You're saying older atheists like Nietzsche and Camus had a more sophisticated critique of religion?
A. Yes. They wanted us to think out completely and thoroughly, and with unrelenting logic, what the world would look like if the transcendent is wiped away from the horizon. Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus would have cringed at "the new atheism" because they would see it as dropping God like Santa Claus, and going on with the same old values. The new atheists don't want to think out the implications of a complete absence of deity. Nietzsche, as well as Sartre and Camus, all expressed it quite correctly. The implications should be nihilism.
Q. Didn't they see the death of God as terrifying?
A. Yes, they did. And they thought it would take tremendous courage to be an atheist. Sartre himself said atheism is an extremely cruel affair. He was implying that most people wouldn't be able to look it squarely in the face. And my own belief is they themselves didn't either. Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus eventually realized that nihilism is not a space within which we can live our lives.
Q. But it seems to me that Camus had a different project. He thought there was no God or transcendent reality, and the great existential struggle was for humans to create meaning themselves, without appealing to some higher reality. This wasn't a cop-out at all. It was a profound struggle for him.
A. Yes, it was. But his earlier life was somewhat different from his later writings. In "The Stranger" and "The Myth of Sisyphus," he argues that in the absence of God, there's no hope. And we have to learn to live without hope. His figure of Sisyphus is the image of living without hope. And whatever happiness Camus thought we could attain comes from the sense of strength and courage that we feel in ourselves when we shake our fist at the gods. But none of the atheists -- whether the hardcore or the new atheists -- really examine where this courage comes from. What is its source? I think a theologian like Paul Tillich, who wrestled with the atheism of Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus, put his finger on the real issue. How do we account for the courage to go on living in the absence of hope? As you move to the later writings of Camus and Sartre, those books are saying it's difficult to live without hope. What I want to show in my own work -- as an alternative to the new atheists -- is a universe in which hope is possible.
Q. But why can't you have hope if you don't believe in God?
A. You can have hope. But the question is, can you justify the hope? I don't have any objection to the idea that atheists can be good and morally upright people. But we need a worldview that is capable of justifying the confidence that we place in our minds, in truth, in goodness, in beauty. I argue that an atheistic worldview is not capable of justifying that confidence. Some sort of theological framework can justify our trust in meaning, in goodness, in reason.
My example is crime victims. When it directly impacts people, they scream for justice. Any notion that right and wrong are relative and not universal truth flies out the window. Then people don't care any more why the act was done, they just want justice because it was done.
That sense comes from inside. As Aquinas noted, correctly I think, we all know it. Ignore it at one's own peril. Relativism is a wide road to a bad end.
The whole notion of subjectivity is dependency on something else, usually ourselves. Does God's existence depend on our belief? If you think it does, from there you can question the subjectivity of your own existence which is the foundation of your ability to believe. Such subjective dependencies can regressively be called into question indefinitely. At some point you have to claim an absolute basis that is not itself subjective or consider your chain of subjectivity as absolutely nothing. If it's all just nothing, sit down and die. If not, label the absolute basis as "God". Now it seems you have two choices, either you are God or you are not. Most of us have sense enough to realize we don't qualify. The best assumption is to start looking for God.
On the contrary, religion is the greatest lover of reality seeking beyond that which our senses and minds do not readily perceive or grasp. All that God is and creates is reality and is good. A religion that hates reality embraces nothing and is a failed religion.
"Subjectivity
Kierkegaard emphasized subjective truth over objective truth, or "the truth that is true for me". By this, he did not necessarily deny objective, propositional truth, but rather, he asserted that truth, especially the claims of religion, must be appropriated subjectively to have any effect on, or value for, the thinker. If we choose to relate to God objectively, he can mean nothing to us, because we will not be related to him anymore than if we deny his existence. Subjective truth is inwardness.
Kierkegaard posits the sundering of thinking and being. If we could approach a thing, he says, and know it as it is in itself, then thinking would be identified with being, that is, our conception would conform exactly to the actual thing that we have conceived. This, he says, is an impossibility. When we say that our thought conforms to the thing that we are conceiving, yet at the same time remain unaware of the mediation that would be required to know the object—a mediation that does not come into being—or, to put it another way, when we identify thinking with being—we then deceive ourselves. The "dialectical middle terms", if any, are simply ignored in such a fallacious cognitive construction. An example may suffice.
Suppose that there were two individuals, one of whom was an atheist, and the other a deist. Viewed ontologically, they have diametrically opposed belief systems. One says definitively that there is no God, and the other says there is. But viewed existentially, they both believe the same thing. Neither can turn to a God in prayer. The former has no God to turn to, and the latter has a God who does not interact with man. Similarly, imagine two individuals, one of whom says that there is no objective truth, and the other who says that there is (or may be) objective truth, but that nothing can be known objectively. Though they have opposite belief systems, neither can know objective truth objectively.
Kierkegaard sometimes talked as if there were no objective truth, because he believed that nothing can be approached objectively. Again, the statement that "truth is subjectivity" does not mean that "anything goes"; it means that all truth must be appropriated subjectively. This is due both to our nature and to the very order of things.
Furthermore, since an object of knowledge is not complete in itself, that is, it has not yet passed through the phase of ceasing-to-be and thus is still in the process of becoming, and, since we too are in the process of becoming, how can we approximate accurate knowledge of the thing? What would be the mediating factors to accomplish this task? Kierkegaard concludes that when we claim to have knowledge of a thing, we do so solely through an act of faith. This is why he had no tolerance for apologetics, which seeks to objectify that which cannot be objectively believed."
See Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p. 198f.
http://sorenkierkegaard.org/primer.htm
Offered for discussion.
ron
●I came across a snippet of Haught’s critique on a webzine. I think he is on to something. One of his points that I really like is that the new atheists want to have a society denuded of real religion; yet, keep all of the morality, order and good people that religion produces. This, of course, is pure fantasy. I maintain that Pelican Bay Prison (part of the California prison system) is the type of society that pure secularism would give us. Pelican Bay is an extremely violent and racist environment. Why? Well, what makes society possible is the “taming” of men. Men give up their profligate and violent ways to provide protection and provision for their families. Religion, particularly monotheistic religion, nurtures the family and gives men something to live for beyond ripping things apart. Pelican Bay is loaded with men that have not been acculturated by fathers.
Frankie wrote: You start of talking about absolute truth but by the second paragraph you are calling it moral absolute, Shame on you.
●Yes, it is true that one can speak of absolute truth as something different than moral absolutes; however, moral absolutes are what pollsters are quizzing about when they ask people if they believe in absolute truth. Virtually everyone believes in absolute truth in the sense of the “law of gravity” or mathematics. Not everyone believes there are moral absolutes. Barna was asking about moral absolutes.
Frankie wrote: Religion is the fundamental hatred of reality, and its microscope, and loud speaker, the human mind, the only faculty on earth for perceiving and identifying reality. You use Aquinas rather than Aristotle, because Aristotle is too real.
●One can believe that the human mind is the means by which we come to know reality and also be a theist. Theists simply note (along with Aristotle) that an effect reflects something of its cause. While God cannot be directly apprehended, His effects can be. Aristotle would have no argument with this. And Aquinas is the West’s greatest commentator on Aristotle.
Timbo wrote: Kierkegaard emphasized subjective truth over objective truth, or "the truth that is true for me". By this, he did not necessarily deny objective, propositional truth, but rather, he asserted that truth, especially the claims of religion, must be appropriated subjectively to have any effect on, or value for, the thinker.
●Yes, while Kierkegaard himself did not deny objective truth, I think a Scholastic critique of him would be that he cut the cord between the two. Truth for humans is the correspondence between the object and the intelligible in the mind. If one’s subjective perception (intelligible) does not correspond with the object of apprehension, then the perception is not true.
●My personal critique of Kierkegaard is that he moved Christianity too far in the direction of “my faith” rather than “the faith.” If, therefore, “my faith” is incredibly sincere and intense; yet, it does not correspond to “the faith”, then it is a false faith.
Aquinas acknowledged a limit to what could be proved by reason alone however and distinguished between the ineffable reality of God and human doctrines about Him. He said God's real nature was inaccessible to the human mind:
"Hence in the last resort all that man knows of God is to know that he does not know him, since he knows that what God is surpasses all that we can understand of him." Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia q.7,a.5.ad14.
Even for Aquinas, religious experience was primary and reason an important accompaniment.
I think this is why God provided the great gifts of scripture and reason. It allows for the inner experience of faith, that necessary religious experience, while providing a guide for testing and measuring the truthfulness of that inherently subjective view of the ultimate reality. One without the other cannot be authentic.
Faith may exceed the bounds of reason but faith never contradicts reason.
Well, I happen to agree with you that truth and its negation falsity are real features of reality. But I’m a Christian and we all know that Christians believe there is more to life than physical properties.
You wrote: “Truth is reality, if it ain't true it ain't real.”
I’d like to know (through the lens of naturalism) what truth really is. But you need to tell me using physical terminology only!!! In my view, truth doesn't seem to be a consequence of natural reality because truth is not a physical object located in any spatio-temporal location. Truth is a mental state or representation of reality and we know that reality is not identical to its representations. Mental states have intentionality (ofness or aboutness); Rocks do not! AND, no amount of physical information can entail any definitive conclusion concerning mental content. “This is the point of arch-naturalist W. V. Quine when he states that “physical facts do not logically entail mental facts, just as physical facts do not logically entail moral facts. Getting an “about” from an “is” is just as impossible as getting an “ought” from an “is”, and for much the same reason.” This is why your bald assertion only makes sense if truth and physical objects (i.e. reality) are identical. Unfortunately, they are not.
CS Lewis suggested a similar thing in his fine *second book* edition, “Miracles.”
Barna has determined that "Relatively few Protestants/Catholics- just one out of every six - believe that spiritual maturity is meant to be developed within the context of a local church or within the context of a community of faith." Where 70% of all evangelicals (who represent 25% of that population) believe in absolute truths (not necessarily the same truths) it appears unlikely that they would generally credit their own church life for that level of spiritual maturity. Like all other Protestants and Catholics, they find it in their regular lives.
I can't speak for "all other protestants and catholics" but I honestly draw no distinction between my "church life" and my "regular life". I have a life. Just one. There isn't church Timbo or regular life Timbo, there is just Timbo, every day. It is what it is. I'm pretty certain that I'm not all that unique as well so I don't think that this statement holds water. It certainly cannot be "all" of us.
I look forward to adding some of my own - but I am in a conference for the next two long days
ron
A person's church life is too often that person's alter ego. Such a person lives a fiction of their real life while at church. This should seem obvious. They do not commit nor receive their abortions at church, nor commit adultery at church, nor practice murder on their video games at church, nor worship the same God at church, nor live the many other unrighteous components of their carnal lives at church. So many are overcome by that conflict while loving their real life so much, that they do not attend regularly.
Of course I am not talking about the fellow hiding behind the wet bar over there.
I agree, it isn't too hard to see hypocrisy among a church community. In fact, I would suggest it is evident in every church. It can be a horrible distraction if one is "on the alert" for it. It is true that all church goers are sinners. Not all sinners are hypocrites though.
In America, where there is no risk to joining a faith community, it is inevitable that some would attend for reasons other than God. There are multiple other interests that might bring someone into church.
I try and follow the advice of Jesus and focus on the log in my own eye rather than the splinter in another's. Its no solution to allow the insincere to be a diversion from one's own path.
"Hence in the last resort all that man knows of God is to know that he does not know him, since he knows that what God is surpasses all that we can understand of him." Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia q.7,a.5.ad14.
Even for Aquinas, religious experience was primary and reason an important accompaniment.
●If Peter is out there, he may want to weigh in on this subject.
●Yes, Aquinas acknowledged the limits of not only what can be proved about God but what can be known about God. I say this because I believe he would note that there are certain things that are self-evident regarding God which cannot be proved; however, they can be known. This is why he was such a strong advocate of divine revelation as a means of knowing God. I think he would say that without divine revelation only a very few men, who gave great effort to the project, would ever discover much about God. And even this would be mixed with error and foolishness.
●Ultimately, even with divine revelation one can only have an imperfect knowledge of God in this life (i.e. Paul’s “looking through a dark glass”). A direct knowledge of God is reserved for the next life through contemplation of His being. Until then all men are stuck with apprehending God through the doorway of their senses. This is why I think it is vitally important to avoid cutting the cord between the objective world and the subjective inner life of humans. Christianity has this “real world” view of faith. It is a faith delivered in time and space to the apostles that is separate from “me” and part of objective history.
●I think we can see the seeds of excessive subjectivism coming to harvest in our society. Vast numbers of people believe that their inner subjective experience of God or their “Jesus” is fully adequate as faith. However, in my view, all they are doing is worshiping their “self.”
●I, along with Timbo, am not going to give you a big argument over this. In fact, this sort of thing began in the embryonic church. Remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5? Or, how about the problems Paul was dealing with in the Corinthian church (1Corinthians)? I maintain that if my church had half the moral problems of the Corinthian church I’d be called on the carpet in my denomination. Imagine someone doing something so awful that God struck him dead on the church grounds. I say this not to excuse misbehavior, but, just to remind us that there was never a period in church history when hypocrites and sinners didn’t attend church. This is the “real world” in to which Jesus called His disciples to minister the gospel.
Did you see the op/ed piece last Saturday in The Fresno Bee about "Being Born Again"? It would be interesting to hear your thoughts--the topic is kind of similar to this particular post of yours.
The "Cloud of Unknowing" is kind of an advanced "how to do it" book that appeared during a renewed interest in Dionysian Mysticism. In this form of Christian mysticism, the Song of Songs (viewed as a text of affective, or positive mysticism) is fused with Dionysian thought as the basis for negative mysticism.
From Chapter 4: "Try to understand this point. Rational creatures such as men and angels possess two principal faculties, a knowing power and a loving power. No one can fully comprehend the uncreated God with his knowledge; but each one, in a different way, can grasp him fully through love. Truly this is the unending miracle of love: that one loving person, through his love, can embrace God, whose whole being fills and transcends the entire creation."
The "Cloud's" most original contribution is its distinction between the "cloud of unknowing" (the darkness and ignorance that persists between us and the hidden God) and "the cloud of forgetting" (which the contemplative must place between him/herself and all created things.
I don't think the "Cloud's" author lacked an appreciation for the role of reason in the preparatory stages of mystical assent, but he weighed the balance strongly in favor of love.
Dionysian mysticism uses negative statements about God to emphasize the ineffability of God and to describe him. The idea is to deny the names and symbols of God in the process of stripping away (aphairesis) leading to the darkness of unknowing (agnosia) in which union is attained (henosis). An example from Chapter 4 of "The Mystical Theology" is helpful:
"The Preeminent Cause of All That is Sensible is Not Himself Sensible"
"We therefore maintain that the universal and transcendent Cause of all things is neither without being nor without life, nor without reason or intelligence, nor is he a body, nor has he form or shape, quality, quantity, or weight; nor has he any localized, visible or tangible existence; he is not sensible or perceptible, nor is he subject to any disorder or disturbance, nor influenced by any earthly passion, neither is he rendered impotent through the effects of material causes or events; he needs no light, he suffers no change, corruption, division, privation or flux; none of these things can either be identified with or attributed to him."
The next chapter takes it a step deeper. It does give a different sense of the nature of God.
Fascinating and thanks to John for introducing the subject.
The real challenge in today's society is getting people to contemplate Truth at all. Many people seem to live their lives on the most superficial level imaginable. People don't seem to think about anything much beyond their next pleasure. Are we too shallow in America to even attempt to think big thoughts anymore?
You comment about people living on a very superficial level in our contemporary culture reminds me of an article I read regarding building relationships in the modern youth culture.
The basis and introduction to this article laid out the interesting conflict within the youth of today. That is, our culture, and especially the generation of 12-20 year olds today, is relationally overloaded. Never before have so many people and so much opportunity to know each other. This blog is an excellent example. I could have never known each of the people here prior to the past leaps of technology. This young generation spends hours online, in malls, and at school with "friends" but they are relationally starved. They feel free to share the deepest secrets in relatively anonymous settings, but have no relationships which they can grow from.
The article went on to describe how to build mentoring relationships, which is why I read it originally. Basically it is about cutting through all the superficial garbage and building real relationships that offer growth and maturity.
I just thought I'd throw that out there since your comment brought it back to my mind.
I think I want to read some of that unknowable cloud book. It sounds interesting. I tend to think that the highly rational approach to knowing God is not perfect, but I don't think a purely "love" based approach would be either. I'm guessing that a love driven by reason and founded upon the Word is really the only way to know God to the fullest that we are capable.
●I think we can see the seeds of excessive subjectivism coming to harvest in our society. Vast numbers of people believe that their inner subjective experience of God or their “Jesus” is fully adequate as faith. However, in my view, all they are doing is worshiping their “self.”
That is a terrific observation.
I've noticed that an awful lot of people describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious." Usually, when they offer their testimony about why they are "spiritual but not religious", they sound very smug about transcending the "superstition" and childishness of those who are merely "religious" (because no one is ever "spiritual and religious.")
Needless to say, I find something jarring about this description, but I've never been able to get to the nub of my objection. After all, it would seem to require a defense of religion and in this day and age that is pretty difficult.
I think that the answer is that "spirituality" in the modern sense is simply narcissism - which is an extended childhood that puts the self at the center of everything. Let's admit it, this is a pretty attractive perspective since we can jettison everything that is inconvenient and uncomfortable.
Religion, however, binds believers to each other - the word religion comes from the Latin "religare" which means "to bind" - and to God. Religion is the opposite of narcissism because it says that there is Something transcedentally Other which leaves the self a trivial point in comparison; not a valueless point but something that in comparison is very small indeed. From that perspective, the religious are adult because they know that they can't simply walk away from people or practices or beliefs that are inconvenient.
I mentioned the linguist John McWhorter's book on the degradation of of language and music that he conveniently pegs as starting in the year of his birth in the mid-1960s. McWhorter documents the decline as being related to the rise of "authenticity", which is yet another form of narcissism.
So, again, it seems that in culture as in faith, we can turn inward as if the summum bonum was to be found there, or we can turn outward. For those of us who know that Truth won't be found in ourselves, the answer seems obvious.
On another point, Catholic Answers had Dinesh D'Souza as a guest last week. It's well worth listening to (go to the link and scroll down for options on downloading or listening.) D'Souza makes some points about feelings and the new atheism. He also has a knack for incorporating Thomistic points into practical arguments.
Frankie has room to equate religion to an unrealistic view of the world because the rest of you, in your need to pretend religious compatibility one to another, create here unreal world.
The predominant international answer of the evangelical Bush Sr and Jr has been hellish war and neglect at home. $4 per gallon?
●Great question! One thing that is certainly true—which I have written on before—modern attention spans are greatly diminished. For instance, in studies conducted by Dr. Dimitri Christakis Director of the Child Health Institute at the University of Washington and the Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, he notes the negative effects of early television viewing on children:
Psychologists and media experts are concerned, but not surprised, by a landmark study suggesting that frequent TV watching by infants and toddlers may shorten their attention span by age 7…The research, in today's Pediatrics, finds that the more television very young kids watch, the more likely they are to have trouble concentrating and to become impulsive and restless… Things happen fast on the TV screen, so kids' brains may come to expect this pace, "making it harder to concentrate if there's less stimulation," says study leader Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle… Meanwhile, even veteran teachers with superb child-managing skills are reporting "more kids that are off-the-wall... It started about 10 years ago," says Susan Ratterree, a 25-year school psychologist supervisor in suburban New Orleans. Awareness of ADHD is increasing teacher reports of attention problems, "but the kids are changing, too," she says.
●The article has a surprising conclusion:
Educators may need to change their methods to keep the attention of stimulation-saturated children, says Los Angeles media psychologist Stuart Fischoff. "Rather than seeing these kids as pathological, maybe we should see them as adaptive, pointing the way to how our society is evolving. Brains may be changing, and we don't know if it's going to be bad or not."
“Frequent TV watching shortens kids' attention spans”,
By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY
●My point is that it is literally becoming very difficult for people to concentrate on any given thing for more than a few minutes. Many times I have heard people complain that “it hurts my head” to focus their attention long enough to grasp a basic theological or biblical concept. This may bode well for advertisers with big budgets but it doesn’t suggest that the church is going to do well communicating its truth to a generation of media saturated people with ADHD.
Gecko: why must you be a constant bomb thrower? Why not just reflect on the discussion?
Is he nuts? Apparently, if we devolve into TV morons who cannot pay attention long enough to read a chapter of a book in one sitting, thats not such a bad thing? That is one stunning proposition. The implications- hoo wee! This guy seems to think the best plan is to go with the flow. He cannot be for real.
What exactly is a "media psychologist" anyway? Is that like a cigarette apologist insisting that there isn't proof that cigarettes are harmful?
If we are creating all these people with attention problems, and it is likely a biological problem since brain development is critical in the early years the article refers to, how can one hope to even generate interest in discussions and study like the ones mentioned here?
Thinking about the nature of God cannot be wrapped up nicely and done in a half hour including commercials. Even that may be too long in the you-tube age. Its like staring at the beginnings of another dark ages in an electronic age. Any complex concept better be explainable in under 5 minutes or forget it.
I'm not sure the answer is obvious to 1700 years of Christian Mystic thought. Augustine of Hippo (354-430)is an example. (See Sermon on Psalm 41). I don't think this area of Christian thought and experience is understood well in the west. Dismissing it out of hand excludes the experience and thought that I think is an important part of a full Christian understanding.
This isn't to say that I disagree with your point about unguided, modern spirituality being narcissism. There is a huge difference however, between Christian Mysticism as practiced for many centuries which is characterized by structure and discipline and the feel good spirituality of humanism or watered down churchianity.
What appear to be bombs ARE my reflections.
Because in your skipping about from treetop to treetop the conversation here provides in thought that which mimicks the life of Paris Hilton. The conversation here damages the view of others to the Christianity for which each of you are self-declared professionals.
Do you not GET IT?
People of this world yearn for real substance that can heal their lives. their lives are caving in on them. If you got it, deliver it.
In your elevated, priviledged, pastoral lives (Hilton again), from those treetops, you ignore those below you on the ground. There is great irony in this.
Tim,
Are you not aware that increasingingly, these whom you so characterize have been one and same who have worshipped with you and have rejected you? (Corroborated by previously identified research)
Did you not listen intently upon the words of a self identified humanist in the video I posted not too long ago?
It won't be available for long.
"Tim,
Are you not aware that increasingingly, these whom you so characterize have been one and same who have worshipped with you and have rejected you? (Corroborated by previously identified research)
Did you not listen intently upon the words of a self identified humanist in the video I posted not too long ago?"
Gee Gecko, try and keep up, huh? I was responding to Peter and "unguided, modern spirituality being narcissism." Its a shame that out of that you focus on four words. This thread is loaded with possibilities for thought and growth and thats all you have? Sorry.
In fact, I kind of expect the lovers of the world to reject me. The path is narrow. In the same vein, I'm sure they are unconcerned that I reject their ego driven world of desire and discontent. Free will.
People of this world yearn for real substance that can heal their lives. their lives are caving in on them. If you got it, deliver it."
No, I think some yearn for real substance. A huge number of people in this country don't think about 5 minutes from now. They don't bother worrying about real substance. Its about instant gratification. I want it now. And Thom's link gave us a "media psychologist" who wants us to believe that this is normal, adoptive and perhaps good.
People want to "have it all". They even want to be God. Those that are truly searching can find Truth if they are honest with themselves first. This is the first step of redemption. Honestly admitting who and what we are.
Tim - I'm not sure the answer is obvious to 1700 years of Christian Mystic thought. Augustine of Hippo (354-430)is an example. (See Sermon on Psalm 41). I don't think this area of Christian thought and experience is understood well in the west. Dismissing it out of hand excludes the experience and thought that I think is an important part of a full Christian understanding.
It wasn't my intent to dismiss Christian mysticism. There is a long tradition of mysticism within my faith tradition, including St. John of the Cross. Even St. Thomas Aquinas at the end of his life observed that everything he had written was like straw compared to the moment he had of a mystical experience of God's presence.
I think that mysticism has something to offer to religion, and, in fact, the mysteries of God are at the heart of the tradition to which I belong. Ideas about "substance and essence", for example, offer a way of understanding the Eucharist that does not conflict with reason, but at the end of the day we don't know if that is how God does it or why He does it at all. All we are left with is the sense of awe from commuing with the body, blood, soul and divinity of God.
Likewise, as a fan of St. Augustine, I don't necessarily denigrate the idea that the search for God might begin with an inward turn. According to Professor Philip Cary's book on Augustine:
So, for Augustine - according to Cary - we first turn in and then up to God.
The last action is essential because the soul is not God and we are not God, albeit there has to be a kinship between us and God if we are to find God and if we are able to eventually find rest in God. In other words, if God was totally alien and totally Other, then our natures would be totally alien to each other and we could never find ourselves in God or our end in God's end.
I think it's the last part that modern man is missing. Moderns turn inward, but they turn up, undoubtedly because they feel that they are the "measure of all things." Augustine would never have understood the narcissism and self-worship that is featured on the self-help bookstands of most modern bookstores. (Or he would have understood it as idolatry.)
And that leads to two additional points about the intelligibility of God and mysticism.
First, God is intelligible to some extent because we are in some way related to him as His creatures. Aquinas repeatedly affirms that we cannot in this life know God’s essence, but, he says, we can observe His effects which are in some way related to Him and we can then know something about Him – or we can know how He is not like us.
I think at bottom that Aquinas predicates his faith in reason on the idea that God is not totally Other because God relates to us through Creation and through desire, love and hope. If God were entirely alien, there would be no such relationship as we see.
Second, mysticism is great, but it has some severe limits. My favorite passage of Fides et Ratio goes:
Mysticism is essential because mystery makes everything new, but mysticism without reason leads to superstition.
Moreover, mystical experiences are intrinsically a personal experience. Mystical experiences can’t be universalized, which threatens to turn religion into that a free phenomenon which denies the idea of truth.
Truth, however, is a general proposition, which means that it has to be something that can be communicated and is subject to reason. Hence, truth has to lie outside ourselves in that which is something other than us, but which is not totally Other.
I don't think we are far apart although I think you (and the Pope) are both more eloquent. Earlier in the thread I posted this:
I think this is why God provided the great gifts of scripture and reason. It allows for the inner experience of faith, that necessary religious experience, while providing a guide for testing and measuring the truthfulness of that inherently subjective view of the ultimate reality. One without the other cannot be authentic.
"Faith may exceed the bounds of reason but faith never contradicts reason."
(I forget where but I read the last statement somewhere.)
Thank you for the link to Fides et Ratio.
The mere possession of knowledge gives no assurance of benefit therefrom.
It is said that during an epidemic of cholera in a great city, a scientific man proved to his own satisfaction, by chemical and microscopical tests, that the water supply was infected, and that through it contagion was being spread. He proclaimed the fact throughout the city, and warned all against the use of unboiled water. Many of the people, although incapable of comprehending his methods of investigation, far less of repeating such for themselves, had faith in his warning words, followed his instructions, and escaped the death to which their careless and unbelieving fellows succumbed. Their faith was a saving one. To the man himself, the truth by which so many lives had been spared was a matter of knowledge. He had actually perceived, under the microscope, proof of the existence of death-dealing germs in the water; he had demonstrated their virulence; he knew of what he spoke. Nevertheless, in a moment of forgetfulness he drank of the unsterilized water, and soon thereafter died, a victim to the plague. His knowledge did not save him, convincing though it was; yet others, whose reliance was only that of confidence or faith in the truth that he declared, escaped the threatening destruction. He had knowledge; but, was he wise? Knowledge is to wisdom what belief is to faith, one an abstract principle, the other a living application. Not possession merely, but the proper use of knowledge constitutes wisdom. (Articles of Faith, pp. 96-100.)
If we get with the program and move forward with living application, then we can determine wisdom with its truth. Writing in abstraction we exchange dead words, spiritually.
I just spent one and half hours with Richard Rohr as the talked about his new book, Things Hidden.
He made a point to say that he did not buy into postmodernism or relativity. At the same time, he argued for doing away with dualism - that Jesus and the Desert Fathers (who were about mysticism as is being discussed here) were about getting people connected to the Father. I thought this was an interesting point. I am going to read the book and see if I agree.
he did say that we have focused more on 'religious attendance' as a characteristic of following Jesus than we have on character development.
ron
I didn't think that we were all that far apart, but writing this minor magnum opi gave me a chance to work my "philosophical muscles." (Also, a chance to learn how to put colors into posts.
I think my observations about the question of God's Otherness and how much we can relate to God, and why, comes out of this excellent lecture series on Medieval philosophy. Apparently, that question separated Aquinas from Scotus to a certain extent.
Thom can vouch for the quality of the presentation, albeit I would wait for it to come back on sale.
I don't know who said "Faith may exceed the bounds of reason but faith never contradicts reason," but the gist of it is pure Aquinas. For example, Aquinas did not believe that it was possible to prove the doctrine of the Trinity, which was something we could know only through Revelation.
- Timbo talked about a 1700 year tradition of mysticism. It seems to me that it goes back to the beginning, not just not as well documented in the early years. I think Christ Himself was a mystic, often going off by himself to pray. Doesn't His temptation during His forty days ring of a mystical experience, as did his prayer in the garden the night He was betrayed?
- The practice of mystic prayer has as much potential for danger as any other Christian activity. Certainly narcissism is one. Those who have taught on the subject warn that guidance of someone experienced who can discern the spirits is very important. For examples, inspirations to 1.) forsake normal mundane duties / prayer or 2.) place the value of the mystic experience over obedience to superiors or 3.) see one's own experience as making themself better than another are not from God. Mystic prayer has its own discipline if it is to be valuable.
- Mystic prayer isn't pitted against reason. God's garden is varied with many forms of prayer and many ways to come to know, love and serve Him. As long as we follow down the road He has chosen for us, we should never be jealous of or question the road He has chosen for someone else. If we are to envy someone it should be with a holy envy the recognizes and loves what another does or has and that leads us to redouble our own efforts.
I like your points.
I listened to a Catholic Answers broadcast on the "spiritual dryness" of Mother Theresa. As we've learned, after having intense mystical experiences of God's presence in her youth, she thereafter felt a very long "dark night of the soul."
The speaker speculated that the feeling of God's absence was a spiritual gift to St. Theresa, who was thereby reminded of and confirmed in her mission to care for those who likewise had experienced an abandonment by others.
That sounds a lot like your observations.
●This is a wonderful insight that has many profound implications. The key, as I see it, is discerning the things of God as they relate to us which are the same and those things which are “other” without measuring God by “me.” “I,” of course, must do these things; but, I need to be grounded in divine revelation and guided by others who came before me.
●Eric Hoffer, the longshoreman philosopher, and author of The True Believer noted that our greatest strength is at the same time our greatest weakness. One of American’s greatest strengths is its gritty individualism. The downside of this is an attitude of anti-historical narcissism. You can see the strength and weakness of American individualism prominently on display in my Christian tradition—Evangelicalism. On the one hand it is vibrant with heart-felt worship of the true and living God and demonstrates a willingness to sacrifice deeply for the cause of Christ in the world. On the other hand it can devolve into all manner self-centeredness. For instance, George Barna is ballyhooing his new study and book called Revolution (Tyndale House). He says the following (http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?):
We found that while some people leave the local church and fall away from God altogether, there is a much larger segment of Americans who are currently leaving churches precisely because they want more of God in their life but cannot get what they need from a local church. They have decided to get serious about their faith by piecing together a more robust faith experience. Instead of going to church, they have chosen to be the Church, in a way that harkens back to the Church detailed in the Book of Acts."
●In my view, Barna’s presupposition (apparently shared by many Christians) is that one can have “more of God” by having less of the church. He grounds this concept in—of all places—the book of Acts. The idea that a person can “be the Church” without “going to church” is totally fallacious. The word church actually comes from a Greek word which means “gathering.” The church is the Christian equivalent of the Jewish synagogue gathering to worship God. One of the central ideas of the church is that God uses other people to forge virtuous character into our lives. Barna is simply propagating the heretical notion of “I love Jesus, I just hate Christians.” “Revolution” is the next level of a downward spiral into individualistic narcissism.
You quoted from Fides et Ratio: It is an illusion to think that faith, tied to weak reasoning, might be more penetrating; on the contrary, faith then runs the grave risk of withering into myth or superstition.
●Amen. My experience has been that “reason” has greatly enhanced my contemplation of God. Before my study of Aquinas I had very few tools by which to contemplate God as an independent Being. Now I can actually spend time thinking about and pondering His divine Person.
You wrote: Thom can vouch for the quality of the presentation, albeit I would wait for it to come back on sale.
●Yes I can! I’ve shared my copy with others and now am on my second time through Prof. Williams’ lectures. I’m again awed by Boethius.
This does not excuse the atrocities one commits but it does place the burden of awareness on those who remain willfully blind to the actions of others or assumes all people think and act the same.
The price of freewill is compassion for all life and the knowledge to what that truly is.
Thought provoking post...well done
The mere possession of knowledge gives no assurance of benefit therefrom.
●Hey, thank you for providing a helpful insight. I certainly agree that biblical faith is more than the possession of religious knowledge—even truthful knowledge. My simple definition of faith is: The ascent of the will to the truth of the gospel as illuminated in the mind by the Holy Spirit.
●The one thing in your definition that I am struggling with is the statement that “belief is founded on reason, faith largely on intuition.” Augustine held that faith was grounded on “authority”—authority that we have heard (i.e. “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”—Rom 10:17). In other words, while we cannot “see” the gospel, we can place our trust in God based on the authority of the witnesses of the gospel. However, I am curious as to what you mean by faith being grounded on intuition.
FYI Professor Cary has a guest post up at this link on Calvin's view of the Eucharist. Prof Cary is monitoring the comments if anyone has a particular interest in that subject.
The post derives from a dispute on the Reformed Catholicism site. I originally promoted Reformed Catholicism as an intellectual ecumenical site, but it has slid into an Anti-Catholic "Truly Reformed" gravity field, driven off most of its members and proceeded to blast anyone who disagrees with hard-core Calvinism as moronic. The Cary post derives from some RefCath claims that Calvinism is as supportive of the Real Presence as Lutheranism and Catholicism. I take it that Cary settles the argument that it's not.
●Ron, I am curious as to what Rohr means by doing away with dualism. While I do not agree with radical dualism—the kind that says that the spiritual is “good” and the material is “evil”—I recognize that there is a legitimate dualism. Obviously, I am not a materialist so I believe there is a spiritual realm and that man can self-consciously relate to that spiritual realm. I don’t see, though, how being “connected to the Father” necessitates doing away with dualism. To me, connecting with the Father starts by recognizing that there is more than just a material realm. Perhaps you can fill in the blanks on this.
Thus in Luther's reckoning when unbelievers receive the sacrament but not the thing it signifies, this means that they receive no grace or spiritual benefit in the sacrament, but they do receive Christ's body. For unbelief separates signum from res, but it cannot prevent the sacrament from being the sign that it is. So long as the sacrament is present, the sign is present, which includes Christ’s body. Thus even in receiving a “mere sign” the unworthy eat Christ’s body, whether they believe it or not. They are partaking of the body to their own harm. (There is no paradox in this, for Christ's bodily presence has always been an occasion not just of blessing and grace but of scandal and unbelief. It was, after all, quite possible to receive Christ's body and nail it to a tree.)
●Obviously, Prof. Cary is much more learned than I in regard to the nuances of Calvinist verses Lutheran sacramental theology. Therefore, I can only offer a couple of simple observations.
●First, I’m sure to an outsider observer it must seem amazing as to how much detailed theologizing has been developed around the Lord’s Supper. I certainly understand why this has happened and I am not disparaging this fact. It still seems amazing.
●While Prof. Cary notes that Luther and Calvin worked at understanding precisely how the bread and cup impacted a non-believer who received it in an “unworthy fashion,” the ironic thing is that Paul was specifically not writing about non-believers. He was writing about believers getting drunk on communion wine. I seriously doubt that Paul would have thought that an unbeliever who received the bread and cup would have per se come under the judgment of God. Here is Paul’s statement:
1 Cor 11:27-30 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. 30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.
●It seems to me that Paul’s “big idea” is that Christ is supernaturally made available to the partaker in the communion. Therefore, treating communion (the Eucharist) in a profane way is the same as treating Christ profanely. Hence, it is my belief that if a non-believer receives communion with an open heart to the things of God; Christ will present Himself to that person. This is probably a side issue of a side issue.
I wasn't trying to sidetrack the discussion into Eucharistic theology. There is enough of that on those other blogs, and they will never get answered. I thought you might like to see Prof. Cary in live action, which is a very nice feature of the internet.
I feel that I know Prof. Cary, although I don't. I did send him a note telling him how much I liked his presentation on Luther, and he was nice enough to respond.
Incidently, I'm cranking out a demurrer on behalf of an Episcopalian church in Northern California that is trying to leave the Evil Empire. So, I've been taking a break from that by posting here.
Concerning your observations, I, obviously, have a different slant, and, it seems, a different translation of 1 Cor. 11 from the USCCB.
Clearly, my version is much more conducive of the "real presence" than yours, which is why there are different translations.
Another version I have takes the "answer for" and "guilty of" in v. 27 and says "profane," which seems pithier.
That does suggest some interesting questions that may point to the significance of how physical one's theology about the Eucharist is. Hence, getting drunk on Eucharistic wine clearly "profanes" the Eucharist, but does taking the Eucharist in an unrepentant state of sin profane the Eucharist? Does taking the Eucharist while thinking it is piece of bread with no particular significance run afoul of Paul's warning?
Obviously, I would say "yes" and "yes."
Again, I don't want to derail the discussion, but these things occurred to me.
It is called “It’s not your father’s religious right.”
An excerpt:
“Beliefnet's poll revealed that a third of all evangelicals now believe that Christian political activism is "damaging to Christianity." This isn't an isolated poll. As Christian pollster David Kinnaman writes, "The number of young people in our culture who now embrace unflattering perspectives about Christians and politics is astounding. Three-quarters of young [non-Christians] and half of young churchgoers describe present-day Christianity as 'too involved in politics.' " Twenty percent of all evangelicals believe that adopting a conservative Christian political agenda has helped destroy the image of Jesus Christ.”
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022202383.html
This might be a little off topic too but mighty interesting nevertheless.
I'm skeptical of the significance of that article.
The author is David Kuo who has, as I recall, an axe to grind against the traditional evangelical leadership, and he's relying on an on-line poll at Beliefnet, which is hardly going to be representative of anything other than the people who go to Beliefnet.
Kuo might be right, but I wouldn't stake a lot of money on his predictions. I think he's carving out a niche position of being the liberals favorite Evangelical. Kevin Philips has held a similar niche for being the "conservative" that the liberals know will bash conservatives.
I didn't mean to imply I agreed wholeheartedly with the article. Normally, I'm pretty skeptical about how Christianity in general is portrayed in the media (mostly they get it wrong) but I do think its important to pay attention to articles like these, if only to know what is being spread about. (I heard about the article on Talk of the Nation today on NPR so it is getting some play)
I do think that there is a danger in Christianity being identified too closely with a political ideology (at least in the popular media) that can and does damage it. This is particularly true of younger Americans I think. Politics necessarily has a certain kind of stridency and coerciveness that strikes many people as conflicting with the fundamental message of Jesus. Especially if all their information comes from 3 minute TV news stories and the news is more interested in scandal than any meaningful analysis.
If Christian political activism gets in the way of Christian witness, its a problem. The article suggests this is what is happening. It easy to see how the polarization of politics could create barriers for people on a worldly level that hinders their spiritual path. Conversely, its harder to see how political activism brings people to Christ.