Of Bald Men and Bears

This morning, I wrote a paper for my Ethics class on "The Morality of Jephthah." It was an extremely interesting topic, and the paper didn't turn out too badly, so I thought I would publish it for your voluntary perusal. You can read it here.

It will be important for you to know Aristotle's categories in assessing the morality of an action, so you'll want to read the text I'm referencing in my paper, which is here. You will only need to read pages 6 and 7 to understand what I'm talking about, but the whole chapter is well-worth the read. Enjoy!

Judges 11:29-40:

²⁹Then the Spirit of the LORD was upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. ³⁰And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD and said, "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, ³¹then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." ³²So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the LORD gave them into his hand. ³³And he struck them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim, with a great blow. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.

³⁴Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter. ³⁵And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow." ³⁶And she said to him, "My father, you have opened your mouth to the LORD; do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the LORD has avenged you on your enemies, on the Ammonites." ³⁷So she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me: leave me alone two months, that I may go up and down on the mountains and weep for my virginity, I and my companions." ³⁸So he said, "Go." Then he sent her away for two months, and she departed, she and her companions, and wept for her virginity on the mountains. ³⁹And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow that he had made. She had never known a man, and it became a custom in Israel ⁴⁰that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.

Labels: Bible, Philosophy, Seminary, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 6:01 AM | Permalink | Comments

Yesterday in my theology class, my professor expressed his disagreement with Augustine's conception of the nature of evil. Augustine essentially argued three things:

1. God created all things, so that nothing exists that God did not create.
2. God created all things to be Good.
3. Therefore, from (1) and (2), evil cannot be a creation of God, and therefore evil cannot exist in the way that Good exists. Therefore, evil is not the presence of something in its own right, but the lack of the Good that God originally instilled in his creation.

When we examined this argument in a class I took in my undergraduate years, I found it very persuasive. My professor, however, argued that it would be silly to say that evil doesn't exist since the Bible affirms evil as a terrible reality. He likened Augustine's thought with the Christian Scientist understanding of sickness, where they say that, in reality, there is no such thing as sickness, so that we are all healthy--we simply have to believe in the reality of our health through faith. With respect, I don't think that's what Augustine was getting at.

It seems unfair to say that Augustine was denying that evil exists (rightly understood) in the world, since he spends an entire book, his Confessions, talking about how he and the rest of humanity are sinful wretches. So, he wasn't saying that there is no such thing as evil in the world, but he is merely saying that what we call evil is actually a condition where some Good that should be there is not.

This is vastly different from the Christian Scientist understanding of sickness, because, to extend the metaphor, Augustine wouldn't deny that people are "sick" spiritually. This is important, because many liberals today argue that everyone in the world is, in reality, saved (so that no damnation "exists"), and that we merely need to accept the reality of the salvation that we already have. Augustine, in stark contrast, would say that we have a very real problem, but the problem is not the existence of "sickness"--our problem is the lack of "health." That doesn't mean that we don't need to be "cured," but it does mean that we are trying not so much to get rid of our "sickness" as we are trying to re-establish our "health," even if getting rid of the "sickness" is a necessary first step in restoring the "health."

Augustine was trying to avoid the dualism that asserts that both Good and evil have existed from all eternity, a dualism where believers are encouraged to support the "good" god against the "evil" god. C. S. Lewis rightly points out in Mere Christianity (and other places) that, if such a theology were correct, there would be no real reason for us to see good as having primacy or superiority over evil, since both sides have equal claims on our lives. Evil cannot exist in the same way that Good exists, since that puts evil on equal footing with Good. Thus, Lewis talked about evil as "twisted" (i.e., corrupted) Good, and I think that he is closely following Augustine on this subject.

So, as I pondered this issue, I thought of a great illustration from the movie The Neverending Story. In the movie, the conflict is that a world called Fantasia is slowly being consumed by something called the "Nothing." I recall the book saying something to the effect of "If you looked at the Nothing, you felt as if you had gone blind." This wasn't blackness or space, since both of those are something--the Nothing was nothing at all, and that was the problem in the story.

In one sense, the Nothing was a very real problem (i.e., it "existed") because it was destroying all of Fantasia; however, in another sense, the problem with the Nothing was that it didn't exist, and that it was causing more things not to exist. Accordingly, in Augustine's thought, evil is a very real problem (i.e., it "exists") that has destroyed everything, to some extent, that God created to be Good; however, in another sense, the problem with evil is that it doesn't exist (since God only made Good things to exist), and it is causing more of the Good in the world not to exist.

In The Neverending Story, the solution could never have been simply to get rid of the Nothing--or, at least, this would never have been a satisfactory solution since too much had already been destroyed. Instead, the solution could only come about through a restoration of the Good. In our world, God could never have saved us simply by getting rid of evil as though removing our evil would leave us with Good--our incompleteness demanded that salvation could only come through New Creation, where God would recreate humanity and all the rest of creation to be perfectly Good. Put another way, it was never enough for Jesus simply to die on the cross as a punishment for our evil--the resurrection to new life was necessary in order to restore to us the Good we had lost at the Fall.

Labels: Bible, Books, Movies, Philosophy, Seminary, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 6:36 AM | Permalink | Comments

For those of you who watch LOST, you might be interested in the article published in today's USA Today about how the series uses the names of philosophers from history as their characters. (Thanks to Grant for finding this and telling me about it.)

Unfortunately, I thought that the article was terribly misguided, so I wrote a rather long comment in response. My contention (one that I have had from Season One) is that LOST uses the names of philosophers by giving them to characters who represent the exact opposite of the philosophy espoused by their historical counterpart. I imagine that when we one day meet a character who says and does the same things as their namesake, we should either distrust that person as a fraud, or we should be tipped off that this particular character is the most important in the entire series. Right now, I am wondering if that messianic character would be Desmond.

You can read the article and my comment (at the bottom) here. Note especially my argument about LOST's use of John Calvin in an early portion of my comment.

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Edit 8:54 p.m., 3/28/07: One of the experts that the article cited (whom I contradicted) wrote back and kindly clobbered me. Oh, and I was completely wrong about John Calvin. I guess I've just learned over the years to enjoy the taste of my foot in my mouth. :)

Labels: Fun, Life, Philosophy, Television, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments

For my theology class, I just finished reading C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. I know that I had already read the book twice, but I may also have read it a third time before this reading. Reading it again, though, showed me just how much Lewis has influenced my thinking on a number of topics. I have believed certain things for such a long time that I came to believe that my own theology was largely the result of my own thinking and Bible study, as though I have been a pioneer in Christian thought.

Rereading this book, though, shattered those thoughts: much of what I thought was mine was really something I picked up from Lewis. I imagine that if I were able to survey, in a moment, all that I have ever read or heard over the course of my life, I would realize that I have had very few original thoughts at all (if any). What a humbling thought!

So, I have been reflecting more on this verse: "What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" (1 Cor. 4:7b). Ideally, my learning, and then (from what I learn) my teaching and my writing, should all happen because of a desire to build up the church in Christ. I should confess, though, that I am a sinner, and much of what I do in the way of studying theology and of relating it to others comes as a result of a desire to be "important" in the Christian world.

So, to the extent that what I have written or said comes from an arrogance that exalts me rather than Jesus, I truly apologize. This would, by definition, be a public sin, so I want to apologize publicly. I suppose this will probably be something I struggle against all my life, but, by the grace of God, I will one day be free from all this pride, content to gaze into the face of Jesus and discerning to realize that looking at myself instead would be foolishness. Praise God for that!

Also, I have been gaining a fresh appreciation for all the people from whom I learned Christianity during the course of my life. I remember talking about Jesus with my Grandpa as we went on long walks together. I remember learning wonderful Bible stories at my small, Mennonite church in Julesburg, Colorado from Sunday School teachers who were committed to telling us children about Jesus. I appreciate the fact that I have heard at least one sermon a week for virtually all my life. What a staggering thought, to realize that what I now know about Jesus is the fruit of so many people, who knew what they knew from so many people, and on and on! What do we have that we have not received?

Perhaps it would be helpful for those of us called to teaching to have constantly in mind our own mortality. For example, my Grandpa who taught me so much is right now losing much of his mental capacity. This is terribly difficult for me to watch, but it also reminds me that I must take advantage of the time I have to pass along what he and others have passed along to me, all the time concerned about seeing the next generation come to a knowledge of the Savior. I will one day die, even if Grandpa goes a bit sooner, and then both I and he will be forgotten in this world. But, Jesus will never be forgotten, and so, if my reputation and my name are tied up in him, why should this bother me?

Let us thank God for what we have been given.

Labels: Bible, Church, Devotion, Life, Philosophy, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 6:46 AM | Permalink | Comments

I asked a few days ago whether we could consider Jesus' parables and sayings as the New Testament equivalent of wisdom literature, and, if so, in what ways we should understand what Jesus says to be different from the books of the Old Testament that we commonly label "Wisdom Literature."

First, I want to defend the idea that Jesus frequently teaches in a style and function that we can (and should) define as "wisdom." I will use the definition that Proverbs gives of wisdom literature to get us going: "Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles" (Prov. 1:5-6). Solomon here gives us a pretty wide stylistic definition for wisdom literature, but the essential thing, I think, is that wisdom literature is advice on how to live wisely--that is, how to live skillfully (the basic meaning of the Hebrew word chokmah).

Solomon defines such skillful living in the very next verse: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Prov. 1:7). I would also point out that the style of wisdom literature in Proverbs does not exactly match what we see in the book of Job, which functions in a more speculative manner. In other words, we don't really get advice on living from Job, but it causes us to think about the way in which God has wisely ordained the world to work. So, in summary, "wisdom literature" is very broad indeed, but it deals with either (1) instructional wisdom for skillful living, or (2) speculative wisdom that tackles life's big questions.

Because of all of this, I don't think that there should be any problem with labeling much of what Jesus says as wisdom. His parables often act as riddles, and his "kingdom ethic" clearly gives us advice about skillful living (e.g., those who exalt themselves do not live skillfully and will be humbled, but those who humble themselves do live skillfully and will be exalted, etc...). I think that we can easily call what Jesus does (in some places, at least) as his own "wisdom," different from other genres of law, narrative, poetry, and epistle, and so I would be interested if anyone has any further objections to why we couldn't differentiate the genres this way.

But let's get back to the original question: what is the essential difference between what Jesus teaches and what we find in the Old Testament Wisdom Literature? In my mind, the essential difference is that the Old Testament writers taught the wisdom that they had sought out and learned; Jesus, on the other hand, is himself the definition of the wisdom that he taught (cf. 1 Cor. 1:30).

I have really been wrestling since Wednesday with what that might mean, and I would like to suggest the following explanation. Let's say that a group of people wanted to measure everything they did by a standard of whether I, Jacob Gerber, would do it. (God forbid that anyone ever makes this kind of WWJD bracelets!) So, they would try to match exactly my courage as well as my fear, my love as well as my conceitedness, etc... How would they go about determining that exact balance? Certainly, they would have to look at me and at my life.

But let's ask another question: How do I know how to live according to Jacob-ness? Is it an external, objective quality that I have simply mastered, or do I simply live according to Jacob naturally? In other words, am I simply the best at being Jacob, or do I define what it is to be Jacob? I think the answer is clearly the latter.

In the same way, when we say that Christ is our wisdom, we are not simply saying that Christ is the wisest of all that have ever lived, as though wisdom is a quality outside of him that he happened to master. Rather, he defines what it is to be wise. So, it is somewhat misleading to say that Jesus teaches wisdom if we think along the lines of the way in which Solomon and the other wisdom writers of the Old Testament taught wisdom. Rather, we are almost saying that Jesus teaches himself, and, in a sense, Solomon and the gang were trying to teach the personality of Jesus (even if they didn't really know who he would be) in what they wrote.

Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he told the crowds, "The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here" (Luke 11:31).

So, when we study wisdom literature (in the Old Testament or in what Jesus teaches), we are trying to learn and imitate his personality. We are trying to become like Jesus, because to become like Jesus is to become wise. And here is why seeking wisdom is important: this sort of wisdom transcends our ideas of personal holiness, because wisdom is a much broader category than morality, although it certainly encompasses it. Generally, when we think of morality, we reduce everything either to terms of niceness or of boldness for the truth. Wisdom, however, shows us not only when to encourage children with perfect tenderness to come to us and when to drive people out of temples with whips, but also when we should ask our antagonists pointed questions and when we should stand silent in the face of our accusers.

Therefore be wise, just as your Savior in heaven is wise.

Labels: Bible, Philosophy, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments

This past year that I have been in seminary in Alabama, I have still tried to keep up with the Daily Nebraskan, the school newspaper from my undergraduate institution, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. On Wednesday, they ran an editorial asserting that the Bible should be read as literature and nothing more. I wrote a letter to the editor in response, and they printed it today. You can read my letter here.

Labels: Bible, Books, Life, Nebraska, Philosophy, Seminary, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 4:04 AM | Permalink | Comments

The New York Times had a fascinating article on its front page today:

KINGSTON, R.I. — There is nothing much unusual about the 197-page dissertation Marcus R. Ross submitted in December to complete his doctoral degree in geosciences here at the University of Rhode Island.

His subject was the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago. The work is “impeccable,” said David E. Fastovsky, a paleontologist and professor of geosciences at the university who was Dr. Ross’s dissertation adviser. “He was working within a strictly scientific framework, a conventional scientific framework.”

But Dr. Ross is hardly a conventional paleontologist. He is a “young earth creationist” — he believes that the Bible is a literally true account of the creation of the universe, and that the earth is at most 10,000 years old.

For him, Dr. Ross said, the methods and theories of paleontology are one “paradigm” for studying the past, and Scripture is another. In the paleontological paradigm, he said, the dates in his dissertation are entirely appropriate. The fact that as a young earth creationist he has a different view just means, he said, “that I am separating the different paradigms.”

He likened his situation to that of a socialist studying economics in a department with a supply-side bent. “People hold all sorts of opinions different from the department in which they graduate,” he said. “What’s that to anybody else?”
...
And, for some, his case raises thorny philosophical and practical questions. May a secular university deny otherwise qualified students a degree because of their religion? Can a student produce intellectually honest work that contradicts deeply held beliefs? Should it be obligatory (or forbidden) for universities to consider how students will use the degrees they earn?

Read the rest of the article here. It's a new wrinkle (or a wrinkle of which I have been unaware) in the creation vs. evolution debate.

Labels: Philosophy, Politics, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments

This morning, I visited Briarwood Presbyterian Church, the founding church of the PCA denomination. It was a bit too big for my taste, but it was a wonderful church. I was privileged to see the sign of the New Covenant given to three more covenant infants, and, for the first time in my life, I sang the Gloria Patri (I'm 22 years old--how sad is it that I've never sung that before now?).

The sermon was on Psalm 1:4: "The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away." Of course, the pastor preached that verse in the context of the entire psalm. He mainly emphasized, though, the utter foolishness of living a life that amounts to being the chaff that will be blown away and burned.

I thought the sermon was a wonderful example of what I urged in my last post, because he did not merely preach that Christianity is correct (though it certainly is that), but that it is wise. Those who delight in the law of the LORD are firmly planted like trees by a river, whose leaves and fruit are constantly in season, prospering in all they do. With the five short words "The wicked are not so" (three words in the Hebrew) the psalmist declares that the wicked will never know the joy and abundance and prosperity of the righteousness; rather, the wicked will be worthless, fruitless, desolate, and blown away.

The pastor did not appeal to pithy apologetics, nor did he attempt to lay out an elaborate, precisely accurate theological explanation for what he was saying. He simply commended the utter wisdom of living a life according to the fear of the LORD, meditating constantly on the law (the Hebrew word "torah" = instruction) of the LORD. Then, he exposed the depraved foolishness of living a life of seeking the council of the wicked, of standing in the way of sinners, and of sitting among scoffers. One way of living leads to a truly abundant and prosperous life; the other leads to worthlessness and death.

Please do not misunderstand me--apologetics and theology have their place, and a very important place at that. Their place, though, should propel us to live wholeheartedly in the fear of the LORD, delighting fully in the instruction for living that God gives us. Unless the intellectual aspect of our studies pushes us into virtuous, wise living, it is worthless.

My point is not that we should quit studying, but that we should be ever aware of God's goal for our studying: wise, fruitful, and prosperous living. What we study should convince us further of our great need for Jesus Christ and make it all the easier for us to entrust our lives to him more completely.

Labels: Alabama, Baptism, Bible, Church, Life, Philosophy, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments

This summer, I read the book Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present by Gerald Bray (incidentally, Dr. Bray was my professor this January for my Puritan Spirituality class). This line, more than any other in the book, has had me thinking since I read it:

The modern tendency to regard Proverbs as a collection of useful but rather boring advice, Ecclesiastes as the work of a jaded humanist and the Song of Songs as a piece of erotica shows how little the Wisdom tradition is understood or appreciated nowadays, in sharp contrast to earlier times, when these three books were regarded as among the choicest in the whole Scripture. Literal interpretation has removed these books from everyday church use, and they have almost ceased to be a part of the canon for all practical purposes. (p. 160)

So, what should we make of the Wisdom Literature that God gave to his people?

As I have been thinking about this, I have been wondering if we Christians are too interested in a narrow conception of "truth." When modernism rolled onto the scene, claiming scientific ability to get to the bottom of every mystery in the universe, its first task was to rid the world of "superstitious" things like Christianity. So, we Christians responded in kind: we began to direct much research toward rationalistic fields such as textual criticism (trying to get the Hebrew and Greek texts as close to the originals as possible), archaeology (trying to get definitive proof that biblical events happened in just the way that biblical writers portrayed them), and apologetics (trying to use logic and reason to demonstrate the truth of Christianity, essentially beating the scientific naturalists at their own game).

Now, these things are all good in themselves, and we have made tremendous advances in these fields. The problem, though, is that Christianity now tends toward being an intellectual, scientific philosophy rather than being a life built upon the fear of the Lord through the person and work of Jesus Christ. So, when we evangelize, we often (consciously or unconsciously) try merely to persuade people of a certain number of facts about God and about Jesus. When we make disciples out of our converts, we generally try to stuff them with Christian information.

Of course, I would be a fool if I said that I were the first to point this out. Many have become so disillusioned with this intellectual-only approach to Christianity that they have rejected the intellectual part altogether and insisted that Christianity is totally about "relationships," both with God and with other people--these are the postmoderns and the emergents. In response, some Christians have reacted by an even greater emphasis on biblical exegesis, theology, and teaching-heavy preaching. I find myself in the latter category.

But what of wisdom? In my Old Testament Survey textbook, in the section on the book of Job, John Walton writes:

An interesting contrast of focus can also be seen in modern lists of God's attributes. They often emphasize omniscience (knowing everything) instead of infinite wisdom. They tend to focus on omnipotence (being all-powerful) perhaps at the expense of sovereignty (control and maintenance). (p. 338-39)

I wonder if both intellectual, modernistic Christians as well as relational, postmodern Christians need to grow in their understanding of God's wisdom. Instead of trying to evangelize and disciple so that people merely give their intellectual assent to Christian theology, or instead of trying to reduce Christianity to its lowest common denominator, we Christians should give a renewed emphasis to our study and interpretation of Wisdom Literature.

I am becoming increasingly persuaded that one of our biggest needs as a Church is to seek Jesus Christ in order to gain wisdom rather than facts, virtue instead of narrow dogmatism, and the fear of the Lord instead of flawless theology. This doesn't devalue truth, but rather heightens its value because it puts truth in its right context. Furthermore, this doesn't devalue relationships, but finally gives us a framework within which we might understand what exactly our relationships should look like.

So, instead of doing yet another scientific study of the book of Romans or a fuzzy reflection on Jesus' friendships in the gospels, let's read and study and pray through Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. We might not only discover why the early Church and the Old Testament Hebrews were so enamored with these books, but we also might come to know God in ways in which we find ourselves desperately lacking.

Labels: Bible, Books, Church, Philosophy, Seminary, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments

Jesus brooks no rivals. There have been, there are, many religious leaders. In an age of postmodern sensibilities and a deep cultural commitment to philosophical pluralism, it is desperately easy to relativize Jesus in countless ways. But there is only one Person of whom it can be said that he made us, and then became one of us; that he is the Lord of glory, and a human being; that he died in ignominy and shame on the odious cross, yet is now seated on the right hand of the Majesty on high, having returned to the glory he shared with the Father before the world began.

--From D. A. Carson's meditation on Matt. 17 in For the Love of God, Vol. I

Labels: Bible, Books, Devotion, Philosophy, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments

There is an interesting comparison here on the ways in which the new posthumous Johnny Cash music video for "God's Gonna Cut You Down" differs dramatically from the music video that Cash himself made for "Hurt." The author argues that, while the video for "Hurt" emphasized youth's fleetingness and foolishness, the video for "God's Gonna Cut You Down" is the exact opposite, being more of a

"Where's Waldo" of youth and celebrity. Cash's voice sings of human inability to escape the wrath to come while the images run past of current celebrities: Timberlake, Sheryl Crow, Chris Rock, Bono, Johnny Depp, Lisa Marie Presley, the Dixie Chicks.

Personally, I didn't quite know what to make of it--were the guest stars in the video cynically suggesting that they themselves were going to be cut down, or were they holding themselves out as repentant people who were planning on avoiding God's judgment? Maybe they just didn't get the point of the song at all.

Labels: Art, Blogs, Music, Philosophy

Posted by Jacob at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

Some things I've found on other blogs that you might find interesting:

Matthew Smith (one of the lead singers on the Indelible Grace albums) is offering his new solo album of remade hymns, "All I Owe," freely available for streaming download during this month--in other words, you can listen to it, but you can't keep it. Read more here.

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David Mills of Mere Comments had an interesting post on why dogmatic atheism ended up pushing him toward Christianity when he was an agnostic:

When the secularist declared that God did not exist or that a particular belief was incredible, I always wondered how they could be so sure. Friends and teachers would sweep away the supernatural with all the confidence of the Fundamentalists they laughed at, and with fewer arguments than the Fundamentalists offered. Beyond that old staple, the problem of evil, that is.

Read the rest here.

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The Presbyteer linked to information regarding a dispute within the PCA over "Federal Vision" theology. I found the written examination fascinating (and long--be warned!), and I'm going to try to listen to the oral examination over the next few days. I had heard about "Federal Vision" theology before, but this is a really good context in which to get the essentials explained from both sides.

Labels: Blogs, Music, Philosophy, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments

I just read a fascinating article in the Dec. 3, 2006 edition of New York Times Magazine called "Open-Source Spying," by Clive Thompson. (The abstract is on the internet here, but to read the whole article costs about $5. I would recommend going to a library if you want to read this--most libraries would carry the NYT Magazine.)

The main point of the article was that the United States' intelligence community is moving away from covert operations and classified secrets; instead, the tactics of terrorists (our main enemies these days) are forcing CIA spies, FBI agents, intelligence analysts, and a host of other government employees to collaborate what they are learning in government blogs and wikis (a wiki is a web page that allows anyone to update information on any given subject, like on Wikipedia). The rationale is that information is now too spread out and too rapidly moving for older methods of gathering intelligence:

Beat cops in Indiana might be as likely to uncover evidence of a terror plot as undercover C.I.A. agents in Pakistan. Fiery sermons printed on pamphlets in the U.K. might be the most valuable tool in figuring out who's raising money for a possible future London bombing. The most valuable spy system is one that can quickly assembly disparate pieces that are already lying around--information gathered by doctors, aid workers, police officers or security guards at corporations.

The premise of spy-blogging is that a million connected amateurs will always be smarter than a few experts collected in an elite star chamber; that Wikipedia will always move more quickly than the Encyclopedia Britannica; that the country's thousand-odd political bloggers will always spot news trends more quickly than slow-moving journalists in the mainstream media. (p. 101-102)

Obviously, there are technical and privacy issues for such systems (for example, how do you separate the information on declassified, Secret, and Top Secret wikis?), and such systems fly directly in the face of a long-standing "Need to Know" policy in these agencies. The article readily admits that these systems have a long way to go.

However, my main interest in this article relates to the reason I am again interested in blogging. I had gone through a huge slump--the six month silence on this blog testifies to that statement. It wasn't until I realized how important blogs have been in the formation of much of my theology and general interests that I wanted to start posting again. In other words, it wasn't until I could see the value in posting that I could justify the massive amount of time that blogging consumes.

Why not simply rely on books, which are generally more credible than blogs? In a book, I can hear someone's thoughts on a particular subject; the problem is that I can't interact with what they say. With blogs and wikis, anyone is free to ask questions, point out flaws in arguments, or offer vitally different perspectives. This type of collaborative thinking takes seriously the notion that no one individual is infallible.

Certainly, this method opens the floor to fools as well as to the wise, but that reminds me of something G. K. Chesterton wrote. Although I can't remember the exact quote (perhaps it was in Orthodoxy?), his point was that Christians believe in democracy not because we have a high opinion of human nature, but because we have a low opinion of it. We cannot trust any one person with a lot of power because that person can be easily corrupted (Total Depravity!); instead, we split the power among many who will, in theory, hold each other accountable.

In theory, this is the way the world of blogs works. A vast range of people post, and, over time, the best ideas rise to the top--the others end up somewhere in the middle or at the bottom. Instead of giving any one person the power to present his thoughts and beliefs, the entire world has that opportunity. Certainly, the best writers might have the larger readership, but that in no way stops anyone else from continuing to write, potentially making an enormous contribution at some point in the future.

As for me, even if very few people end up reading what I write, and even if what I write amounts to very little, I humbly offer my thoughts to the blogosphere in the hopes that what I write might sharpen others, and that what others write might sharpen me. Of Bald Men and Bears might not ever stop a terrorist plot, but perhaps God will use some of this, somehow, in bringing about someone's salvation and/or sanctification.

Labels: Blogs, Philosophy, Technology, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments

"We believe in whatever we consider useful," Bazarov said. "These days negation is more useful than anything else - so we negate."
"Everything?"
"Yes, everything."
"What? Not only art, poetry, but even...it's too shocking to utter..."
"Everything," Bazarov repeated with indescribable coolness.
Pavel Petrovich stared at him. He had not expected this. Arkady, on the other hand, flushed with pleasure.
"But look here," Nikolai Petrovich broke in. "You negate everything or, to be more exact, you destroy everything. But who is going to do the building?"
"That's not our affair. The ground has to be cleared first."

-Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

Labels: Books, Philosophy

Posted by andrew at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments

Lately I've given a little thought to the idea of proof texting (i.e. citing only a few Bible verses to support a doctrine or point). My slightly PoMo/Emergent side (hey, I scored pretty high on the survey!) has always been slightly suspicious of proof texts. However, I've come to the conclusion that they have their purposes, which I'll try to outline.

Biblical proof texts derive a great deal of their meaning from the larger context (or "metanarrative"...5 more Emergent points for me!) of the entire Bible. The larger narrative (the story of God's redemption of human kind, for example) provides the context in which to understand a single verse. However, because this larger narrative is composed of individual verses, each verse (potentially) contains a point of truth for the whole narrative, and thus (potentially) a single verse can be cited as stating one particular truth. So the value of proof texting is that it can concisely point out one particular detail of the overall narrative. The danger with proof texting is that it is not terribly valuable in apologetics or polemics, where someone is likely to reject your understanding of the narrative, since often the over-arching narrative is important for interpreting the proof text in question. Unless both parties are operating within the same narrative, it seems likely that they can completely disagree as to the point of a proof text.

To use an example, when the Westminster Confession says "Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized," and cites Genesis 17:8 in support ("And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee"), this verse is only going to provide support for infant baptism to someone who accepts the "narrative" of covenant theology. A dispensationalist can affirm the truth of this verse, but disagree about its impact on baptism within the church. If someone's over-arching narrative differs from yours, and they can twist any verse to fit within their own understanding of the narrative, the proof text will be useless in proving your point.

All this to say that I think proof texting should be used when working with someone with whom you share the same understanding or "metanarrative", and polemical debates are better resolved by presenting the big-picture, metanarrative to the opposing party rather than proof texts.

Labels: Baptism, Bible, Philosophy, Theology

Posted by andrew at 8:07 PM | Permalink | Comments

I should be writing my religion paper, but I've been thinking about this all day, and I'll try to make it fast. Also, this blog is in serious need of new material (ahem...Jacob) so I feel obligated to contribute something every now and then.

Today in my History of the Enlightenment class we were discussing the writing of history. My professor made the point that when historians have a particular agenda in their writing of history, they end up skewing the facts and giving us an inaccurate view of history. He distinguished this from merely having a point of view or thesis. One always has a thesis when writing history. One ought, he claimed, to avoid having an agenda while writing history.

I think I differ fundamentally with this understanding of historiography. (I should preface these thoughts by saying that they're heavily influenced by the first few chapters of N.T Wright's New Testament and the People of God.) All historians have an agenda. "Agenda" is really just a pejorative term for "point of view." Since all historians are writing from a particular worldview, all historians have a particular, subjective point of view. History, then, is presenting a story about the past from your point of view and using the available information to support your story. If your story of the past can make more sense of the available information than the next guy's story, others are more likely accept your story. All of our stories have an agenda or a point to them. Even the professor who's goal is to simply publish "objective" history accepts the agenda of Enlightenment rationalism which places confidence in man's ability to remove himself from his own subjectivity and disinterestedly observe history. (Perhaps he is the most endangered by his agenda because he fails to recognize that he has one.) In short, it's impossible to step out of one's worldview to write "objective" history.

What makes one person's explanation of history better than another isn't that one is more "objective" than another. Rather, it is that one story presents a more coherent picture of historical experience than another. As a Christian historian, I'm convinced that history told from a Christian perspective presents the most coherent view of our historical experience. If someone wants to challenge this, they in turn present an alternative story, and this story then interacts with/challenges mine. If it can point out incoherences in my story, then I'll be forced to reevaluate or modify my story.

That's all I can do now, although there's plenty more I could work out if anyone wishes to discuss it.

Labels: Philosophy, Theology

Posted by andrew at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments

Here's a not-so-interesting question Jacob and I were discussing earlier tonight: does the word "lie" always include with its meaning the intention to deceive?

According to Merriam-Webster, it does not. "b: an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker." Thus if I told someone it was raining outside and it wasn't, but I believed it to be raining outside, I would be lying.

I have to disagree with good ol' MW on this one. I think "lying" always means (or at least implies) intentional deceit. Someone who argues for untrue beliefs that they believe are true is not lying, but is just wrong. What they are telling is simply an untruth, not a lie.

I think the terms "lie," "lying," and "liar" get tossed around a lot more in political and religious discourse than they should be. They seem (even if MW disagrees with me) to always indicate a malicious, deceitful intent on the part of the other party which is not always actually there.

Labels: Philosophy

Posted by andrew at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

A thought (probably neither original nor of particular weight) just struck me:

The doctrine of total depravity provides the necessary corrective against the Enlightenment rationalism of modernity. By stating that sin has affected every part of our being, including the intellect, the doctrine makes a similar critique of modernity as that of post-modernity: the impossibility of the intellect to discover objective truth on its own.

And as I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I probably stole the idea from Wright who sometimes says, "Perhaps it is the role of post-modernity to preach the Fall to arrogant modernity." However, I'd perhaps add that if total depravity had been properly understood and taught in Christian circles, such postmodern critique would be unnecessary today.

Labels: Philosophy, Theology

Posted by andrew at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments

Having thought about this stuff a bit more, I first want to address your second point, about narrative.

-1-
I'm beginning to think the question I originally addressed ("narrative" vs. "system") is not really important. Part of my reason for this is that narrative seems a very broad category and encompasses all sorts of things I previously would have classified as merely "propositional" (such as my quote from the Westminster Confession.) Here Peter Lamarque's "On Not Expecting Too Much from Narrative" (in the journal which I mentioned last time) has been extremely helpful. He begins by defining narrative:

"So what exactly is narrative? To narrate is to tell a story but the minimal conditions for storytelling or for what counts as a story are indeed minimal. One condition is that a story must be told, it is not found. More on that later. Another is that at least two events must be depicted in a narrative and there must be some more or less loose, albeit non-logical, relation between the events. Crucially there is a temporal dimension in narrative, not just in the sense that component sentences are tensed but there must be a temporal relation between the events, even if just that of simultaneity. ‘The sun shone and the grass grew’ is a narrative but ‘Bill kicked the ball and the ball was kicked by Bill’ is not because the latter does not involve two events temporally related but a single event represented in logically equivalent sentences. Narratives can be identified from formal features alone of individual sentences or sentence strings and no implications about reference, truth, subject matter, or discursive ends, can be drawn from such formal identification. Narrative per se is neutral on such matters, in the sense that narratives can be about real or imaginary entities, they can be true or false (or truth-valueless, depending on one’s view of fiction), they can be about virtually any subject, and can serve a multitude of ends, from entertaining or informing to philosophising. Very little of substance can be inferred from the premise that a piece of discourse is a narrative."

[At this point I realized people might be getting bored with our discussion so I thought I'd add a dancing hamster.]







Based on this definition of narrative, many basic propositional statements (like the Westminster quotation) are narrative, despite their lack of poetic/storytelling/fictional elements. I think one of the reasons the Emergent people seem so excited about narrative is they only have in mind a certain type of narrative (fictional) where there no actual correspondance between the narrative and the "outside world". Thus, when they think of narrative as comprising most of life, they think of life as a sort of create-reality-through-narrative that appeals to the postmodern mind. (I'm sure I'm grossly over-generalizing.) Lamarque says:

"The mistake is to treat some particular modes of narrative, notably fictional narrative, as archetypal. Narrative is not identical with fiction and to classify a discourse as narrative has no implications for reference, truth-valuation, or any other kinds of value."

All this to say, Lamarque's piece has challenged my naive acceptence that "narrative" is somehow different and automatically priveleged to propositional truth statements in describing reality.

-2-
Regarding the first discussion of logic and Christianity: At the heart of logic is the principle of non-contradiction. It is impossible for something to be both A and not A at the same time. This basic principle has to be true of God as well, if we're even going to say that God is logical and mean anything close to what is commonly meant by "logical". My point then is that if someone points out a real contradiction in Christianity (such as "God is loving" and "God is not loving," as opposed to "God is loving" and "God is just" which is not a contradiction) we either have to admit that something we believe is wrong, or that what we believe is true, but illogical. I gathered from the passage that Chesterton wouldn't really have a problem with saying the latter (although I think what he means by "logic" might differ from what we're talking about here). But if we go that route, we can no longer say that Christianity is completely logical, which is what Clark and you (and I) wanted to say in the first place. Also, if we go that route, we can no longer critique other systems of belief as being false because they are illogical (contradictory, inconsistent, or "self-imploding") because we have ourselves claimed that Christianity is contradictory but true.

Labels: Philosophy, Theology

Posted by andrew at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments

(I am responding to Andrew's comment here. The commenting system would have limited the HTML that can be used, and I am again wanting to boost my permanent stats.)

Good points. I'll see what I can do about responding, and I will respond with numbers corresponding the points you made with your numbers (i.e., my point 1 responds to your point 1, etc...).

(1) To get us on the same page about what "Christian logic" really is, I really like what G.K. Chesterton said in his book, Orthodoxy (chapter 6). He writes:

The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. I give one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose some mathematical creature from the moon were to reckon up the human body; he would at once see that the essential thing about it was that it was duplicate. A man is two men, he on the right exactly resembling him on the left. Having noted that there was an arm on the right and one on the left, a leg on the right and one on the left, he might go further and still find on each side the same number of fingers, the same number of toes, twin eyes, twin ears, twin nostrils, and even twin lobes of the brain. At last he would take it as a law; and then, where he found a heart on one side, would deduce that there was another heart on the other. And just then, where he most felt he was right, he would be wrong.
...
Now, actual insight or inspiration is best tested by whether it guesses these hidden malformations or surprises. If our mathematician from the moon saw the two arms and the two ears, he might deduce the two shoulder-blades and the two halves of the brain. But if he guessed that the man’s heart was in the right place, then I should call him something more than a mathematician. Now, this is exactly the claim which I have since come to propound for Christianity. Not merely that it deduces logical truths, but that when it suddenly becomes illogical, it has found, so to speak, an illogical truth. It not only goes right about things, but it goes wrong (if one may say so) exactly where the things go wrong. Its plan suits the secret irregularities, and expects the unexpected. It is simple about the simple truth; but it is stubborn about the subtle truth. It will admit that a man has two hands, it will not admit (though all the Modernists wail to it) the obvious deduction that he has two hearts. It is my only purpose in this chapter to point this out; to show that whenever we feel there is something odd in Christian theology, we shall generally find that there is something odd in the truth.

I think Chesterton is really onto something here--for example, Christianity would say that right living generally makes life easier (e.g., if I abstain from sexual behavior before marriage, I do not have to worry about diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and the extreme emotional and psychological pain that comes from sex outside marriage), but Christianity does not go so far as to say that bad things never happen to good people (for the best example of such a doctrine, see the crucifixion of Jesus). I am not sure how I would formulate a logical expression from this, but I think that it can be reasonably argued that such a doctrine "fits":

This is why the faith has that elaboration of doctrines and details which so much distresses those who admire Christianity without believing in it. When once one believes in a creed, one is proud of its complexity, as scientists are proud of the complexity of science. It shows how rich it is in discoveries. If it is right at all, it is a compliment to say that it’s elaborately right. A stick might fit a hole or a stone a hollow by accident. But a key and a lock are both complex. And if a key fits a lock, you know it is the right key. (Chesterton, Orthodoxy, ch. 6)

You ask, "Can't [other worldviews] too say that their system is consistent, if only we were able to properly understand it?" Again, I would point to Chesterton's work (he really grows on a person--I can see not only what C.S. Lewis saw in him, but how it affected the way he thought about Christianity). I am not familiar enough with the books to point you to specific passages, but his works, especially Everlasting Man, provide penetrating insight into why various other religions implode on themselves.

So, returning to the question of logic, I do not think that Christianity lends itself to logic in the sense that we might be able to make a proof that would once and for all prove Christianity's correctness. I do, however, think that we can reasonably argue Christianity, but, in doing so, I think that we must appeal to things in the universe that are both more basic and more ethereal than the sorts of things we are used to deal with. (This last statement would take an extremely long post to explain fully, so I'm just going to leave it at that for the time being.)

(2) I would actually say that what you quoted from the Westminster Confession is not actually narrative, but propositional--notice that it simply declares what has happened without actually leading us through the process of what happened. I think that what you would make of narrative (based solely on your calling this example "narrative") would make absolutely every conceivable sentence narrative. The distinction, I think, has more to do with elements of poetry and of story-telling than with whether facts are presented in a linear, logical fashion.

For example, Christ's parable of the prodigal son was narrative because Christ used story-telling techniques (plot, character development, imagery, etc...). If Christ had instead summed up his teaching by saying something like, "Our father in heaven is so gracious that, even if you stray as far away as possible, he is ready to greet you with open arms at yourepentancece," he would be giving a more propositional explanation of who God is (i.e., "God's character is such that..."). It almost seems like this could be narrative, because there is a kind of linear progression (1. You stray; 2. You repent; 3. God welcomes you with open arms), but this is not "narrative" per se.

As far as my Oxford English Dictionary comment, what I was trying to get at (albeit not very well) is that our systematic theology textbooks are arranged to cover every nuance of a particular theological term (as a dictionary would cover every nuance of a particular term), instead of moving us through a progression of a story (as a novel would). So, as I said in my last post, systematic/propositional theology causes us to "descend" onto a framework of truth (each piece being buttressed by texts from across the Bible) instead of moving through a story, with all the parts moving in and out of the spotlight.

Those are my thoughts, but keep in mind that I have not read the piece you suggested yet.

Labels: Philosophy, Theology

Posted by Jacob at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments