Lou Pojman has died

Steve has just passed this news on to me:

I don't if you remember Lou Poijman, a professor for a short while at Notre Dame. I remember him as a chess player and committed Christian very interested in apologetics.
Years later I heard from Jay, I think, that Lou had abandoned his faith. This past week Kelly Clark sent out an SCP notice that Lou had died, but that a couple years ago he had rejoined SCP. His memorial service is being held in a Unitarian church. Who knows what all that means for the state of his soul.

Pojman was incredibly prolific; many many textbooks and lots of publications through Oxford Press, and I have several of them as desk copies. I had not known what happened to him after ND and to hear he lost his faith is sad.

Last night at our Lectio Dawn had us meditate on Luke 18:35- 43. What impressed me was the way Jesus responded to the beggar's cry, "Son of David!" He graciously stops for us even when we recognize only part of the truth about Who He is, but doesn't leave us just with that. I pray that, at some point, Lou might have come to say, "have mercy on me," even if he was confused about Who it was he was addressing; and I trust Him to have dealt with that blindness with the same compassion and patience as He did to that beggar.

There's a philosophy blog I have recently discovered called the Prosblogion. Kvanvig and DeRose commented on it regarding the Wheaton Conference issues ( see http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2005/09/wheaton_philoso.html). There is a memorium entry for Pojman on it, here: http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2005/10/in_memoriam_lou.html It's worth reading. Apparantly it was liver cancer, cirrhosis of the liver and Hep-C that took him.

WHAT IF...? or, Sometimes Brian McLaren Drives Me Crazy

Brian McLaren wrote in his article, "Why I Still Use the Term Postmodern," http://www.emergingchurch.info/reflection/brianmclaren/index.htm

"Postmodernity will more likely seek to integrate rationality with things beyond rationality, things like imagination, intuition, even faith. In fact, if the medieval era (the thesis, in a Hegelian progression) was seen as an era of faith, and the modern era (the antithesis, in the Hegelian sense) as an era of reason, we could expect the postmodern era to be a synthesis of faith and reason."

This is what drives me nuts with McLaren and some other emerging church figures--their facile philosophical and historical analysis, an example of which is demonstrated above. Wherever did McLaren get the idea that the medieval era was the era of faith, and the modern era the era of reason? This is the story that Modernism tells about the Middle Ages, not the story the Middle Ages tells about itself! In fact, the medieval era--culminating in Thomas Aquinas--was the place where faith and reason were synthesized. Read Peter Kreeft, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis or Tolkein, not to mention Etienne Gilson, Frederick Copleston, Jacques Maritain, Romano Guardini, Josef Pieper etc and one can see how it was done.

It would fit the Hegelian dialectic very nicely if McLaren were right, but what if the story actually goes this way?

Premodernism:
Greeks = culture of intellect; Hebrews= culture of faith;
Middle Ages= synthesis of Athens and Jerusalem; faith and reason;

Modernism:
Renaissance=pull back toward intellect; reason over faith
Reformation= pull back toward faith; faith over reason.
(instead of a synthesis, we get a ping-pong:)
Enlightenment=the Age of Reason: reason against faith, feeling

Postmodernism:
Romanticism/Existentialism = the Age of Sentiment: feeling against reason
Naturalism/Logical Positivism = reality is exclusively physical
(instead of a synthesis we get another ping-pong)
New Age = reality is exclusively spiritual

If what McLaren is really trying to say that we are long overdue for a synthesis, I couldn't agree more. But he is mistaken to think that one hasn't already happened!

McLaren breezily dismisses the premodern period, saying,

Let's face it: there are still quite a few more or less medieval Roman Catholics out there, and quite a few more medieval Moslems. The world of religion has a fine way of baptizing the last era and riding it until the next era is nearly over.

He assumes that history and cultures and worldviews are one big buffet for the picking:

After all, many of us postmodernsare rediscovering good things from our medieval heritage, things that modernity forgot, and were glad for those who have maintained medieval values or practices through the harsh climate of modernity

What if Alasdair MacIntyre is right, and we are not being given a buffet to choose from, but a menu is being placed before us from which we must order our future, a menu which forbids substitutions, and offers only three items: "Tradition" (premodernism), "Encyclopedia" (modernism), and "Geneology" (Postmodernism) ? (See his Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry).

Again, McLaren displays his ignorance of the Middle ages when he writes, "medieval faith without modern reason didn't work." But to say this is to ignore Albertus Magnus (teacher of Thomas Aquinas) was not just a theologian, but a scientist. He and Roger Bacon proved that faith and science go hand in hand, and without them the modernist Scientific Revolution of Copernicus and Newton would have been much delayed.

One other reason I havent given up on the term: I actually believe that people of faith like you and me can play a role in defining not just the term, but the era itself. In other words, I sense in this transition an openness--no, more: a desperate need--for people of faith to enter the fray and help create a new postmodern synthesis. Medieval faith without modern reason didn't work. But modern reason without faith didn't work either. Maybe there's an untried alternative that we can help to pioneer? Maybe we have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Maybe this opportunity is part of what keeps me hopeful about the times we are in, and that hopefulness keeps me using the term.

But what if what McLaren really is longing for is what T.S. Eliot pointed to in part V of "Little Gidding," in his Four Quartets? Christians, least of anyone, should be a people without a history, because Kairos depends upon Chronos. What if the way people of faith, like you and me, are called to define the postmodern era by arriving where we began? What if McLaren and the emerging church folk were to give history and Tradition (in MacIntyre's sense) the respect they deserve?

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph.
And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration.
A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Heaven and Hell, I: the October 2005 Wheaton Philosophy Conference

Steve and I just returned from the 2005 Wheaton College Philosophy Conference. It was great to think together with Jay Wood, Steve Evans, Jon Kvanvig, Pat Manfredi, and Jerry Walls, among others.

Jerry L. Walls, professor at Asbury Seminary and fellow Notre Dame philosophy alum gave the keynote addresses. His first was on Hell, and here's a digest of what he had to say:

"The traditional doctrine of Hell has three theses:

(1) Some people will reject God's grace
(2) They will go to hell
(3) There is no escape from hell."

Walls then suggests that people have challenged each of these three theses. For example, there are are those who challenge (1) and say that in the end, no one will reject God's grace. This position has been called Universalism.

I assume that is what the writer of the web site Collin Smith referred me to must hold, as he seems to think that it is impossible to believe that if God is love, that He would reject anyone, and that anyone would reject Him. The problem here is that then we have a loving God who ultimately winds up needing to coerce people to love/accept/receive Him. On the universalist view, God cannot be Love and ultimately allow anyone not to love Him--for that would mean separation from Him, which is one way to define hell. So, despite a person's desire to continually reject God and establish her own autonomy, the loving thing for God to do would be to override that person's will and force her to accept Him.

That doesn't sound very loving to me. What kind of love is it that is coerced? Yes, the Bible says that someday "every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Philippians 2:10) but it also says that even the demons do the that already (James 2:19), and I suspect that one day some people will do so, but still be in rebellion against Christ. The point is that love is always free, not forced. In that glorious description of love, 1 Cor. 13, nowhere do we read, "Love is coercive" or "Love knows better than the beloved and so-- if necessary-- bludgeons the beloved to love in return." Bottom line: if universalism is true, then human beings ultimately cannot have free will, because it will not be logically possible for anyone to resist God--that is, to choose against Him. Personally, I have too high a view of human freedom to go this route.

Now it is important to remember that not everyone defines "free" the same way. Here are three possible definitions:

1) Libertarianism = the position that a person is free if and only if she could have chosen to do otherwise in a situation; to act against internal and external causes that force her to do something. Thus sometimes this is position is called "contra-causal power." Heredity and/or environment may exert a strong pull on me, but I am not free unless I can choose to act against them. For example: I may have a genetic propensity for alcoholism, but I choose not to drink, thus acting against my heredity. My grandfather, father, uncle and brother may all be ministers, but I do not have to be a minister, thus acting against environment.) Personally, this is the only definition that Steve and I think makes any sense.

2) Compatibilism= (aka "having your cake and eating it too"). A person is free insofar as she is not externally compelled. However, internal causes may determine her actions. Example: if you are holding a gun to my head, to force me to become a Muslim, then I have not freely embraced Islam. But if I have been raised in Saudi Arabia, have been taught in exclusively Muslim schools, and have never heard of Jesus Christ--in short, if my mind and will are formed as Muslim, then on the Compatibilist view I have freely embraced Islam. This is the "Soft-core" Calvinist/Presbyterian definition of freedom. It allows my actions to be internally caused (determined) yet hold me morally responsible for them. Insofar as they originated from within me, they are free. Hence, "compatible-ism," a position that blends determinism and freedom. I have my cake (determinism by internal causes) and can eat it too (freedom from external causes).

3) Determinism: this is the position that denies freedom; human actions can be traced back entirely to biological or environmental causes. E.O Wilson, the sociobiologist, is a determinist, because he says that everything you do is a product of your genes. B.F. Skinner is a determinist, because he says that everything you do is a product of your environment (stimulus and response.) You cannot act against causes; you have no contra-causal power. The problem here is that it becomes impossible to establish moral responsibility, because if you couldn't do otherwise, how can you deserve blamed or praise for your action? Really hard-core Calvinists are theological determinists, because they insist that God is so sovereign, so in-control of the universe, that it is impossible for there to be any other sort of causality besides Him. Steve and I adamantly reject theological determinism.

I can't see how anyone can be a Universalist and hold a high view of human freedom (Libertarianism.) To be a Universalist you have to either be a Determinist and say that at some point God overrides those last remaining human wills that are holding out against Him and externally forces them to accept His grace; or be a Compatibilist, and say that at some point God overrides those last remaining human wills that are holding out against Him by miraculously changing them, internally, so that it is now their will to accept His grace. If you reject this sort of interference, and want to insist that human freedom means having the power to act against causes-- internal, external and even divine--then you can't be a Universalist.

Being a libertarian has distinct advantages later on if we get to talking about the Problem of Evil. (Remember David Hume's challenge? "How can an all good, all powerful God be real, and there be evil? Either He is good, but not powerful enough to stop it; or he is powerful, but malicious, in not wanting to, or evil is an illusion.Any way you go, Christians who hold that God is all good, all powerful, and that evil is not an illusion are being inconsistent.") So there is no way that I will give up a libertarian definition of freedom, for it will be the key to defusing Hume's criticism.

More later.


Here are some interesting related sites:
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~kd47/univ.htm
Keith de Rose from Yale explains why he holds universalism to be true. A very articulate guy. He adapted a lot on this site for the paper he delivered at the Wheaton Conference; but in the discussion people nailed him on his not being able to hold a strong libertarian conception of freedom.

http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2005/09/wheaton_philoso.html
Gives a schedule of the papers delivered at the Conference, and includes a conversation where two of the participants (Jon Kvanvig, Keith de Rose) respond to a question from James Gibson, who asks for books and articles where the traditional idea of hell as a place of eternal punishment is defended.

Beheading Christ

An excellent column by Keith Drury was printed today (10-18-05) on Abet. http://www.drurywriting.com/keith/Beheading.Christ.htm

"It is popular for some today to try to take Jesus and reject the
church, the body of Christ. This leaves them with a beheaded
Jesus—Christ without His body. It is a handy way to escape being
tarred by the brush that paints all Christians, but it is not the
religion of Jesus Christ. I do, however understand the temptation.
I'd like to do this myself if I could. But I have not been able to
behead Jesus and remain a Christian. Here's why:

1. I was not able to behead Christ and leave His body behind...."

When Worlds Collide: Thoughts on Communication, Non-contradiction, and Homosexuality

from a conversation on Abet, "A Rift Worse than a Schism," 10/10/03, regarding an article by Kew on the homosexuality issue in the Episcopal church:


Richard Kew wrote,
"So it is clear from statements like those coming from the Presiding Bishop, we are just not communicating -- perhaps because we are no longer able to do sowithout a huge effort on the part of both sides, and neither side is readyto make such an effort."

Clearly, the parties are not communicating. But is it because they are:
(1) able to, but unwilling to make the effort, or
(2) unable to, and thus even if they are willing to make the effort, they are prevented from doing so for some reason?

I want to explore that question. Kew skirts the it. If I read him correctly, it would seem he hopes (as would we all!) that communication is failing as a result of (1.) That would seem to allow the Holy Spirit to move "more easily:" to convict persons of sin, to bring them to repentance, to lead them to truth, to restore fellowship. That is, the changes He would be initiating would be primarily within the hearts/wills of those involved.

However, if it is failing as a result of (2,) His scalpel must cut far deeper, into the intellect as well as the will. It will not just be open heart surgery; it will be a simultaneous surgery on heart and mind. If it is (2), what could possibly be the reason preventing communication?

I would suggest it is the presupposition of all rational thought, speech and action: the principle of non-contradiction: A cannot *at the same time, and in the same way* be not-A. Apples cannot be not-apples. Three cannot be not-three. Justice cannot be not-justice. Sin cannot be not-sin. God cannot be not-God. George Orwell, for all his failings, got that much right when he warned us against "doublethink" in "1984." (Recall that "doublethink" means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.)

But some would say this is to view the world in a modern, or pre-modern way. They would insist that the principle of non-contradiction is a relic of world views which have been surpassed by a newer, emerging one: "postmodernism,"
(whatever that is/will be!) If this is the case, they either must point to another "reason" for the breakdown in communication, beside one group holding the principle of non-contradiction as basic, and the other not holding it; or else they must deny that there is even a "reason" able to be given.

If it is the latter, then the cause for the breakdown of communication can only be a matter of the will, not the intellect. That would mean that ultimately union can be reached only by imposition of the will of one group over the other. Pre-moderns (including yours truly) hold that the law of non-contradiction cannot be mocked. It is not arbitrary: it is not even an act of God's will; rather, it is a reflection of His very nature. Otherwise He who cannot lie is He who can lie He whose very essence is love is at one and the same time He whose very essence is not-love Ultimately, He whose essence is "I AM" is He whose essence is simultaneously "I AM NOT." But that would require a rewriting of Titus 1:2, 1 John 4:8 and Exodus

"Nonsense, however pious, is still nonsense," writes C.S. Lewis. In Luke 10:27, the Lord calls us not only to moral virtue, but intellectual virtue. One part of becoming intellectually virtuous is being able to discern what is nonsense and what is truth. (NOTE: Accepting "A cannot simultaneously be not-A" does not mean that mystery is evicted from the universe, only that nonsense is. For example, it is a mystery, or a paradox, how Jesus Christ can be both God and Man, but it is not a contradiction, as Tom Morris has argued in his "The Nature of God Incarnate." There is room in the Kingdom for mystics--and I expect even the confused!--but there is not room for idolaters.)

So the question is whether the presuppositions which underlie Kew's two world views are mutually contradictory. If so, there will be no way for the two groups to communicate rationally. As indicated above, discussion will be then be impossible, and interaction will be limited to non-rational levels (emotions, imagination, or power-plays.)

Just what are those presuppositions? THAT is the question. Is it that the conservatives hold:
A1) Human beings stand "under" the authority of the Scriptures
and the Gene Robinson camp holds:
A2) Human beings do not stand "under" the authority of the Scriptures

or is it the conservatives hold:
B1) The scriptures must be interpreted "traditionally," the way the majority of the church has done throughout the centuries.
and the Gene Robinson camp holds
B2) The scriptures must be interpreted "non-traditionally," in new ways that permit the unmasking and liberation of victims of those in power.

or what? What are the basic beliefs which drive the thinking that is done by these parties? At the very least, it seems there is this impasse:
the conservatives hold:
C1) Homosexual practice is sinful and against God's intention for humans.
and the others hold:
C2) Homosexual practice is not sinful and can be part of God's intention for humans.

I believe Kew is right to condemn power and pride:
"However, in the wee small hours as I lay awake at night I find myself wondering what is gained from an 'in the face' response to the 'in the face' power plays that have been brought against the theologically orthodox. "
But I am afraid that no matter how much both parties might wish to communicate, no matter how well-intentioned they might be towards one another (and of course that is giving them the benefit of the doubt!) there still this dilemma:
can a person simultaneously say both C1 and C2 are true, and remain intellectually virtuous?
or if he rejects one, and embraces the other, what will be the "reason?"

Reasons are a product of world views. The world view of A1, B1 and C1 is a pre-modern one. The world view of A2, B2 and C2 is a postmodern one. We are witnessing the titanic crash of two world views, much like the scraping of tectonic plates, with no less earthshaking results. How to stand fast and still be humble? How to resist without violence? When rifts are being created, how to maintain an attitude of reaching out without giving up? How to be in Christ?

It is a time for much prayer:

Heavenly Father, Creator of heaven and earth, who gives order to our minds and hearts;
Lord Jesus Christ, Savior who redeems us from the sin which mars our minds and hearts,
Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth who directs our minds; Paraclete who assists and encourages our hearts;

Humble us all to receive your wisdom and love, at this difficult time.We pray with your disciple Peter, who you nicknamed "Rock" and who was no stranger to controversy and suffering:
Purify us by obedience to your truth, so that we might love one another deeply from the heart.
Guard us from using our freedom as a cover-up for evil.
Give us clear and alert minds; make us self-controlled, so that we might be ready to give a gentle, respectful defense for all we hope for in You.
Help us to resist our Enemy, the Deceiver.
Help us stand firm in the faith, and thus stand fast in your grace and peace. And always, we praise you for your forgiveness and the possibility of new beginnings through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

Jars: A Parable for the Emerging Church

Once there was a Master who had many servants. He gave them a special Jar which he would fill to overflowing with the waters of life, and they would drink from it together and be filled. But over time, the Jar became worn and dirty. The servants loved the cool sweet water it contained, but were indignant that it should be placed in such a filthy container. So one day, some of the servants decided they would clean it up.

But as they held it and scrubbed, it slipped from their hands and smashed to the ground into a million pieces. Some began moaning and crying, but some others with cooler heads reasoned," we will not have time to reassemble the entire Great Jar again before the Master comes to fill it; but maybe each of us could assemble a small jar for ourselves individually, and when the Master comes, He can fill those jars which are assembled first, and then later move on to fill those which are assembled last.

So that is what happened. The Master was grieved that the Great Jar was broken, but knew that if his servants did not drink from the water of life, they would die, so graciously filled each of their individual jars. But those jars were smaller, and cracked, and leaked, and it grieved Him even more that His servants seemed content with them.

Many generations passed, but after a long time the sons and daughters of those servants finally understood that though they drank from the smaller jars, they were still thirsty for more Water. "It is because our jars are small and leaky," they realized. But then they reasoned: "Let us smash them once more, however this time, let us not make individual jars, but one Great Jar which the Master can again fill to overflowing. That way we can all drink, and never again thirst."

SO they smashed their individual jars and worked to create a new great jar. But though it was one jar, it was made of many shards, and the places where it was glued were still weak and leaky. It was a mosaic of shards, assembled according to the fashion of jars of the time, and though it bore some resemblence to the original Jar, it was not at all the same Jar, for it was cracked and crazed. Yet they brought it proudly to the Master, and expected Him to be pleased.

But instead the Master sighed. "Oh, my beloved but foolish servants," he said. "If only your ancestors had given me the Jar and asked Me to clean it, it never would have been broken in the first place! But even then, if you had given Me the pieces, and asked, I would have given you a clean and newly-restored Jar, one without spot or crack, one which would have held more Water than you could ever have hoped to drink. You would never have been thirsty again. But see, I am a gracious Master, and even now, if you ask me, I will give you that Jar. You cannot make it yourself; you can only receive it. So ask, and it shall be given to you!"

Copyright 2005, Beth Bilynskyj