The More of God, the More of Me!

The more of God does not mean the less of me. Jeremy Begbie argues that music provides a key way to understand how we can follow God and be more free than ever. "God wants to re-humanize us, not de-humanize us."

My response to Peg Tittle, "Ethics without Philosophers (the Appalling State of Affairs in Business")

Here is my response to Peg Tittle's online article:

I smiled as I read your article,"Ethics Without Philosophers (the Appalling State of Affairs in Business." While I am in total agreement that ethics shouldn't be taught be non-philosophers, I disagree with your statement, "(Avoid those who teach Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Aesthetics; and run away as fast as you can from those who teach Kant and Derrida.)"

One's ethics (as well as one's politics and aesthetics) is a product of one's metaphysics. What one thinks is real and true will affect what one thinks is good and right. You call for us to "work together." But how are philosophers going to work together with non-philosophers if we can't even work together with each other?

Finally, there is also more to ethics than what Modernism would have us believe. (See Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry. http://www.amazon.com/Three-Rival-Versions-Moral-Enquiry/dp/0268018774 . You haven't addressed the contributions that Virtue Ethics is able to make to business ethics.

I submit that "this terrible misunderstanding, this doing ethics without philosophers" has come about precisely because modernism has reduced ethics exclusively to dilemmas and principles. When business ethics is reduced to a series of dilemmas, it is just a variation on the business case study. Principles alone are like mathematical formulae--just plug and chug that Principle of Utility or that Categorical Imperative or whatever "Methodology for Ethical Decision Making" you choose, and voila--you've done ethics! A person doesn't have to have a higher degree in mathematics to be able to get the answer to quadratic equation. It seems that we philosophers have allowed ethics to be reduced to a similar state, so no wonder people without philosophy degrees are becoming ethical consultants.

However, there's a bit more to ethics than just principles: there's character and there's telos/goals/ends. Of course logic and critical thinking are necessary, but they are not sufficient. (Hopefully, they are also areas in which non-philosophers will have some expertise and practice.) But philosophers are the peculiar folks who wonder about things like "what is the good life?" "What is a good person?" "what is justice?" Those are questions that non-philosophers don't have time to deal with, or aren't interested in. But in grappling with them, philosophers are stretched into areas of metaphysics, epistemology and the history of philosophy, and are able to bring a unique perspective as well as valuable expertise to business ethics, environmental ethics, medical ethics, etc.

Philosophy flies with two wings: analysis and synthesis, and business depends on its ability to soar.

Dialogue with a pagan, Part 1

My new Google+ pagan friend from the U.K.  referred  me to this video: 




Here's m y response:

As I am not a Calvinist, I have no problem believing that this fellow was once a Christian.

Our noetic structures are like rafts. The beliefs that we hold are like the logs of the raft. We are constantly adding new logs to expand our raft, and getting rid of old logs are "leaky" or which don't fit together well with the new ones. What is interesting is the criteria we use to admit new logs and to eliminate old ones. I'll be curious to hear this fellow's story, and his criteria.

KEEPER: "God can do anything!"

Six years ago  I wrote a blog entry, prompted by the children's song: 
"My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do." 
The truth is, there ARE some things that God cannot do:   

1) he can't lie ( Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29 and Titus 1:2); 
2) he can't not exist (Exodus 3:13-14)
3) he can't not be holy (Lev. 11:4-45; Ps.99:3,5; Is. 45:11, etc; 1 Peter 1:15-16 etc. ).

Why would we want a God who could contradict himself? (cf. James 1:17; Malachi 3:6) Such a God would not be sovereign, but nonsensical.

As C. S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain, 

“His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it’, you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words ‘God can’. It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”

Of course, Lewis was no nominalist. Neither am I, and because I am not a nominalist, I cannot be a voluntarist or a Calvinist. 
-------------------------------------------------------

From Jesus Creed: December 13, 2011

“God can do anything he wants!” (by David Opderbeck)
Filed under: Law — scotmcknight @ 12:06 am

David Opderbeck is Professor of Law and Director of the Gibbons Institute of Law, Science  Technology at Seton Hall University Law School. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophical Theology at the University of Nottingham. David’s post today is academic and complex, but he’s right in saying it is this distinction that was at work in the Rob Bell and hell debate with with Francis Chan. Chan’s appeal to submission to God at times sounded like nominalism. Read on, read slowly.

Nominalism, Voluntarism, and God’s Being and Will

“God can do ANYTHING he wants.” So say Preston Sprinkle and Francis Chan in their book Erasing Hell. It’s fair to say that this proposition is the cornerstone of Sprinkle and Chan’s theodicy of Hell. “Won’t God get what he wants?” So asks Rob Bell in his book Love Wins. It’s also fair to say that this question, along with the belief that God wants everyone to be saved, is the cornerstone of Bell’s theodicy of Hell.

Both Sprinkle / Chan and Bell focus on God’s will. But is there something missing from their theodicies? Theologically, the question concerns the relation of God’s will to His nature. Philosophically, the question relates to whether “universal” substances exist apart from their particular instantiations (“universals”), or whether substances are merely names for particular instances of things (“nominalism”).

Consider an apple. What is an apple? Is this particular apple on my kitchen table one instantiation of the substance “apple” – a substance with some sort of universal metaphysical (“beyond-“ or “above-“ physical) properties that are shared by all apples? Or is “apple” simply a name I apply to this object before me as a result of some observable similarities with other objects (other things we also call “apple”) that have no metaphysical connection to the “apple” on my table?

What do you think? Do nominalism and voluntarism improperly taint our conversations about ethics, justice and theodicy? Or, does “realism” about universals compromise God’s sovereignty? How can we avoid speaking about God in ways that seem either to compromise His sovereign freedom or to reduce His actions to the arbitrary exercise of power?

For many who claim a modern scientific worldview, there are only particular objects called “apple,” which are more or less related to other particular objects in morphology and chemical composition, all of which are categorized as “apples” for the sake of convenience. What is “real,” in this view, is merely chemistry and physical laws, not any substance “apple.” In contrast, for those who believe in universal properties, “apple” implies properties that are real and transcendent of any one apple. This apple on my table has properties such as “red” in common with other apples because those common properties transcend any one particular apple. (For a good overview of the problem of “universals,” see the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

The modern nominalist view of “nature” derives from and is related to nominalist and “voluntarist” views of God in late medieval philosophy. The medieval scholastic philosophers wrestled with this question: Is God’s will a product of God’s rational nature, such that God only calls things “good” that are substantively “good”? Or is God’s will utterly unconstrained, such that God is free to call “good” whatever He desires to call “good,” without any limiting principle (referred to as “voluntarism”)?

One of the key figures in the development of these ideas was the monk and philosopher William of Ockham (c. 1288-1348). Ockham took a strong – some would argue extreme – view of Divine sovereignty in relation to morality and ethics. Here is an example of Ockham’s voluntarist approach:

I say that although hate, theft, adultery and the like have a bad circumstance annexed de communi lege [“by the common law”] so far as they are done by someone who is obliged by divine precept to the contrary, nevertheless, in respect of everything absolute in those acts they could be done by God without any bad circumstance annexed. And they could be done by the wayfarer even meritoriously if they were to fall under a divine precept, just as now in fact their opposites fall under divine precept . . . But if they were thus done meritoriously by the wayfarer, then they would not be called or named theft, adultery, hate, etc., because those names signify such acts not absolutely but by connoting or giving to understand that one doing such acts is obliged to their opposites by divine precept. (Ockham, Various Questions, Vol. 5 (emphasis added)).

For Ockham, then, there was no “absolute” notion of “the good.” “Good” is just a word we apply to whatever God commands. The parallels to both Sprinkle / Chan’s and Bell’s theodicies are obvious.

This sort of view sounds humble and pious. Who are we to question God? The problem, however, is that it begs the question of who “God” is.

Before the rise of nominalism, Christian theology generally held that God’s being and will are inseparable. God is “simple” and does not have separate “parts” such as “being” and “will.” This means that God wills and acts as He is. If God acts in ways that are “loving,” it is because in His Triune being “God is love” (1 John 4:8); and if God acts in ways that are “just” it is because in His Triune being God is just.

To be sure, Christian theology has always held that God’s essential nature is fundamentally unknowable by human beings, because God is radically other than His creation. However, many of the Church’s great thinkers believed we could know about God either through His “energies” in creation (e.g., many of the Eastern Fathers) or by “analogy” to the being of creation (e.g., Thomas Aquinas). At the very least, the apophatic theologians held that we can speak about what God is not like.

Nominalism and voluntarism, in contrast, divorced God’s will from His being, and thus drastically limited the role of theology for ethics. As theologian John Milbank notes,

In the thought of the nominalists . . . the Trinity loses its significance as a prime location for discussing will and understanding in God and the relationship of God to the world. No longer is the world participatorily enfolded within the divine expressive Logos, but instead a bare divine unity starkly confronts the other distinct unities which he has ordained. . . . This dominance of logic and of the potential absoluta is finally brought to a peak by Hobbes: ‘The right of Nature, whereby God reigneth over men, and punisheth those that break his Lawes, is to be derived, not from his creating them, as if he required obedience as of gratitude for his benefits; but from his Irresistible Power.’” (John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, at pp. 15-16 (quoting Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.))

Catholic philosopher Edward Feser recently summarized the fruits of Ockham’s reductionism as follows:

the Renaissance humanists’ revolution in culture, Luther’s revolution in theology, Descartes’ revolution in philosophy, and Hobbes’s revolution in politics also have their roots in Ockhamism. With the humanists this was manifested in their emphasis on man as an individual, willing being rather than as a rational animal. In Luther’s case, the prospect of judgment by the terrifying God of nominalism and voluntarism – an omnipotent and capricious will, ungoverned by any rational principle – was cause for despair. Since reason is incapable of fathoming this God and good works incapable of appeasing Him, faith alone could be Luther’s refuge. With Descartes, the God of nominalism and voluntarism opened the door to a radical doubt in which even the propositions of mathematics – the truth of which was in Descartes’ view subject to God’s will no less than the contingent truths of experience – were in principle uncertain. And we see the moral and political implications of nominalism in the amoral, self-interested individuals of Hobbes’s so-called “state of nature,” and in the fearsome absolutist monarch of his Leviathan, whose relationship to his subjects parallels that of the nominalist God to the universe.

I might not agree completely with Feser’s hasty appraisal of Luther. Note, however, Feser’s reference to judgment by “the terrifying God of nominalism and voluntarism – an omnipotent and capricious will, ungoverned by any rational principle….” If the governing principle of a theodicy is that “God can do ANYTHING he wants,” how does that theodicy avoid the capricious, irrational god of nominalism and voluntarism? How could even someone presently confident of his election to salvation have any reason to believe that his election will not be suddenly and arbitrarily revoked on the last day? Why should God keep His promises? At the same time, if the governing principle is that “God always gets what he wants,” how can human beings retain any moral freedom or responsibility?

Note also Feser’s linkage between nominalism, voluntarism, and ethics. If law and ethics derive from God’s commands, and God’s commands are the product of pure, ungoverned power and will, then what principle can check the tyranny of earthly rulers who claim absolute and unquestionable power on the basis of Divine right?

Finally, note Feser’s reference to epistemology. This relates to the broad question of universals versus nominalism, because a belief in metaphysical universals suggests that God first conceives of and then brings into existence by His commands a reality with stability and purpose. For Augustine and Aquinas, universals were Ideas in the mind of God, and so to investigate the order of things was to learn something of God. For Ockham, there was no reason for any similarity between things other than God’s choice. This lead Ockham to conceive of “science” as a strictly empirical and logical investigation into particular things, a move that led to the sort of empiricism in which God is no longer a necessary “hypothesis” (ala Pierre Simon-Laplace and Richard Dawkins).

1. This in many ways gets to the heart of Calvinist theology which is in the forefront of many theological discussions these days. Even my daughters, whom I homeschool, have picked up on the idea that God can do anything he wants. When I have expressed that God cannot act outside of his nature, they are incredulous.
   My problem with this thinking, as expressed by Ockham and even somewhat by Aquinas is that it ignores scripture and presents a God who resembles Allah more than Jesus. Lewis writes of God worthy of worship, not because of his power, but because of his goodness.
   We worship a God who lives in loving relation within the Trinity and with creation. While I can’t get to the point of all will be saved, as some don’t want to be, I also can’t accept that God is choosing who will go to Hell just because without him becoming a monster. If we are to trust God, then we must believe in his inherent goodness.
   Comment by Gina Wright Hawkins — December 13, 2011 @ 12:50 am

KEEPER: "Authority, Social Contract Theory, and Christian Faith"

Authority, Social Contract Theory, and Christian Faith
by By Paul DeHart,

What is the Christian philosopher of politics to make of the pretensions of social contract theory—namely the requirement of consent for the legitimacy of any given regime and, in some versions of the theory, not merely the stipulation that consent is necessary for legitimate government authority (or for the establishment of society) but also sufficient? At one level the Christian political philosopher need not respond as a Christian but can respond, rather, simply as a political philosopher. Responding as a political philosopher, such a person might note the self-referential incoherency of voluntaristic accounts of obligation per se—which is to say, of any account of obligation whatsoever, whether moral, political, or legal. Responding simply as a philosopher, such a one might note also the impracticability of obtaining actual consent (whether express or tacit) in a way that clearly underwrites the authority of any given regime. As a result of that impracticability, no extant regime has obtained the clear consent of most of its citizens (nor has any society obtained the unanimous consent of all those it takes to have the full responsibilities of citizens). Responding again simply as a philosopher, such a person might note that many presentations of social contract theory seem to commit the genetic fallacy. And, finally, responding as a philosopher, the Christian political philosopher might note the incoherence of deriving any normative content from hypothetical social contracts (and hence from hypothetical consent), such as occurs in Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. Whatever we are to make of theories of covenant or consent, it is clear that the early modern theories of social contract—such as those proffered by Hobbes and Locke—leave much to be desired on purely philosophic grounds.

To return to my question, though, how should the Christian political philosopher respond as a Christian political philosopher? Just here I think it’s worth taking into account the work by outstanding Christian analytic philosophers working in logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion—philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, to name two. On Plantinga’s epistemology, any person x can said to know something y just in that instance where y is a true belief that x holds precisely as a result of the proper functioning of his (or her) cognitive faculties. And x’s cognitive faculties are functioning properly if they are functioning in accordance with their design plan and in a proper environment. Such an account of knowledge is quite different from the strong foundationalist account I described, following Plantinga, Wolterstorff, and others, in any earlier post on the problems with Jeffersonian philosophy. Given what Plantinga and Wolterstorff call “Reformed Epistemology” (an epistemology that Plantinga builds on Aquinas, Calvin, and Reid), it is plausible that one knows the claims of faith of to be true even without any evidence (or without any evidence under the definition of evidence advanced by strong foundationalists). Such claims could be properly basic. It is possible that I hear such claims from a trustworthy source, that I believe them, and that they are true. In such a case, if my cognitive faculties were designed to produce true beliefs as a result of testimony from some trustworthy source, it is plausible that I have knowledge of such claims. Now, I see plenty of reason to reject the dominant alternative of the Enlightenment—its strong foundationalism—just because that account is self-referentially incoherent. And so far as I can tell, no one has offered a knock down argument (such as that which led to the demise of Enlightment evidentialism) against the account just described. But given all this, it is plausible that the Christian person knows (if Christianity is true) the particular claims of the Christian faith--and this whether or not the Christian person can demonstrate (i.e., show) by rational argumentation the truth of such claims. But if that’s the case, then why shouldn’t such claims be taken into account in the practice of political philosophy? Why shouldn't the Christian engaged in the practice of political philosophy make use of all that he or she knows to be true?

Given Christianity, one thing the Christian person knows by faith is that Jesus of Nazareth is LORD (kurios) and king. Moreover, the Christian person knows by faith that Christ has a kingdom—such a person is by faith a member of that kingdom. Such a person accepts by faith (and not irrationally) Christ’s claim, in Scripture, that all authority has been given to him as a result of his conquest of death through his death, burial, and resurrection. It is just because all authority has been given to Jesus of Nazareth that, according to the Scriptures, “The kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our of God and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.” That is, Jesus of Nazareth, not Caeser, is the King of kings—the authority over authorities. His Kingdom is the Kingdom over the kingdoms. And the Christian is, by faith (and faith freely given), a member of this Kingdom of kingdoms. Thus, St. Paul writes to his fellow Christians that their citizenship (or polity) is in Heaven. And he says so in the present tense. The resurrection of the Christ, according to the Christian faith, establishes Jesus of Nazareth as the word’s rightful kurios, as its ultimate authority. And he has this position by virtue of who he is and what he has done and without the consent of those over whom he rules. According to Christian scripture, Jesus of Nazareth will judge the nations. It says nothing of their consent to his judgment. Christian Scripture says that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus of Nazareth is kurios. But, again, nothing here about consent.

Just here an important objection might emerge. Aren't human beings creatures with free will? Doesn't St. Thomas rightly note that such creatures are governed by God in accordance with their special nature and so in light of this very important feature of human nature? And precisely at this point I must register my enthusiastic endorsement of not only the spirit behind the question but also of the proposition that animates the objection. For I believe, contra Hobbes or Mackie (or some other determinist), that humans not only have free will but also that this free will is only rightly understood as free will of the incompatiblist sort. I believe human persons have what philosophers call libertarian free agency (not in the political sense of "libertarian") or contra-causal freedom. Moreover, I believe that the Kingdom of Heaven is about right relationship with God and that right relationship among free creatures can only be established freely and without compulsion. Even more, on Christian belief, God became man in order to restore human persons to right relation with Him (the right relation of man to God being part of what Augustine of Hippo means by pax in his De civitate dei).

Even so, when the Christian person by faith enters the Kingdom of God, part and parcel of what that person freely does is to acknowledge the LORDSHIP of the Messiah of God as the universe's rightful kurios. Indeed, part of what the Christian freely does is to submit to that Lordship--which is, of course, nothing but the Lordship of infinite love and the authority of infinite Goodness. But this means that in his or her freedom the Christian person freely recognizes and submits to something that, according to the Christian gospel, already obtains--namely the LORDSHIP, and hence, the authority--of Jesus of Nazareth. Moreover, I think there is an important modal distinction between the way in which Jesus of Nazareth (and likewise, the God of Israel) exercises that LORDSHIP and the ontological ground of that LORDSHIP. When it comes to entering or living as part of the Kingdom of the Heavens, then that LORDSHIP (because of who the God of Israel is and because his human creatures bear his image) is exercised in accordance with our free will. But, as the exercise of LORDSHIP is distinct from the possession of it, the way in which YHWH exercises LORDSHIP over creation and the way in which the Messiah of YHWH exercises authority in His Kingdom, is distinct (modally so) from the possession of that LORDSHIP and so distinct from the ontological ground of it. Christ exercises his governance in accordance with our free will (at least to some extent) but not on account of it.

To reiterate the initial point, Christian Scripture clearly teaches that the ground of the LORDSHIP of Israel's Messiah is his death, burial, and resurrection from the dead. As a result of these things, part of the Christian gospel (as N. T. Wright says) is the announcement of His ascension to the right hand of the Father. This Christian proposition is a Hebraic way of saying that He has been exalted to the place of rulership--the place of authority over the entire cosmos and over all other authorities and powers. And, if Christian belief is also true belief, then the Christian knows these things by faith.

Now, to return to social contract theory and the principle of consent . . . Given the foregoing, we can note two things. First, the Christian political philosopher as political philosopher knows (or can know) that conventional social contract theory, which stipulates that consent is both necessary and sufficient for the establishment of authority among human persons, is self-referentially incoherent. The Christian political philosopher as Christian knows that in the paradigm instance of authority—the authority of God and of his Messiah—consent is not even necessary. At the base of things, consent is neither necessary nor sufficient for authority per se. Therefore, when the Christian person enters arguments about the nature of political authority among merely human persons, he or she must reject arguments that, without qualification, establish consent as sufficient or even necessary for authority per se over human persons.

The Christian person may of course subscribe to the proposition that consent is required in particular circumstances--which is to say that consent is conditionally, though not absolutely, necessary. For instance, there are occasions upon which we are not dealing with the outright exercise of authority but only with the stewardship of human affairs in particular times and places--times and places in which people equally valued and loved by God find themselves in need of human governance but also find that God has neither established a human intermediary between God and a certain people (such as with Moses and Israel) nor appointed a judge (such as Samson) nor anointed a King over his people (such as with Samuel's anointing first of Saul and then of David). In such a situation, it would seem that Locke is right. The only way that authority (for the governance of temporal matters) can obtain among people who are equal, when the divinity has not ordained some particular ruler, is through their consent. But such stipulations as are given here and as, in fact, are given by Locke himself entail necessarily that consent is not an absolutely necessary condition for the governance of even temporal matters. That is, to reiterate, consent is neither necessary nor sufficient for authority as such. Nor is it absolutely necessary (nor, for that matter, sufficient) for authority relations among human persons. Even in the world as we have it, on Christian revelation, consent only applies to people in certain circumstances. It is a matter of contingency. Consent is not an unimportant contingency. For I would stipulate that consent is a necessary condition for government legitimacy for most people at most times and in most places--for instance, people situated such as we are. Still, consent is never more than conditionally necessary.

Here’s what I'm trying to get at. When you read a political theorist like Hobbes or like Filmer you find, the gaping canyon between them notwithstanding, a surprising agreement. They both think the power of human sovereigns mirrors the sovereignty of God. That is, they think divine authority and human authority are both species of the same thing—authority—which are considerably alike in nature. Thus, one should take Hobbes seriously when he refers to the Leviathan as the mortal God. The source of the power to bind for Hobbes’ immortal and mortal God is much the same—irresistible power. But what the Christian knows by faith seems clearly to entail something quite the contrary—namely that divine and human authority aren’t much alike at all (perhaps not even analogically similar). For only God exercises authority in the proper sense; mere humans never do. Though, just here, it must be noted that most Christians would not attribute to the immortal God the sort of "power" that Hobbes ascribes to Him. For the Christian also knows, by faith, that God is good--not tame, to be sure, but certainly and unequivocally good. For the Christian person, the authority (or power of God) just is the authority (or power) of goodness--and substantive goodness (both in the metaphysical and moral sense), though infinite, goodness at that. Hobbes, of course, will have none of this. But why think his conception of power or authority as such is right or even that it matters much at all? But to return to my point--mere humans never, on the Christian account, exercise authority as such. Rather, given Christianity, the most that a human "ruler" ever exercises is something given in trust. Such "rulers" or "authorities" within human polities, whether they be one, the few, or the many, only ever exercise a stewardship over human affairs. As the Apostle says in Romans 13, the "authorities" are God's--which is to say that rulership over things human ultimately belongs only to Him. Moreover, that the "authorities" are God's is something, given Christianity, that the Christian person knows by faith.

I say that the Christian knows all this by faith. What I mean is that if the articles of Christian faith are true and if the Christian person believes them to be true as a result of properly functioning cognitive faculties, then the Christian does in fact know such things by faith and in the rational sense of know. Of course the Christian person will not have Cartesian or Lockean certainty about the tenets of the faith. But, as a number of philosophers point out, no one can have such certainty about much of anything and maybe about nothing at all. But why think one need Enlightenment certainty in order to have knowledge? The self-referential incoherency of the standard Enlightenment account opens the door to knowledge of the tenets of faith where the knowledge in question is not beliefs held with Cartesian or Lockean or Clifforidan certainty. Indeed, the self-referential incoherency of those accounts opens the door to knowledge of the articles of Christian faith even in the case where the efficient cause of the beliefs in question is the transmission of testimony through reliable sources (and even in that cases where the sources are reliable but we remain unable to establish, to a certainty, there reliability). So, from the Christian standpoint, if the tenets of the faith rule out the social contract account of authority as such, then so much the worse for conventional social contract theory. If, as a result, the ontological ground of human authority is not to be found in consent, then we must look elsewhere. If the Declaration of Independence nevertheless suggests that all governments acquire their just powers only from the consent of the governed, then we will have to reply that this is to claim too much for consent. The government of God--or of the Messiah of God--requires the consent of none. Nor does God require the consent of men when He ordains and establishes, in trust, human "authorities" among them. Consent is at most conditionally necessary for authority among human persons--such as those instances in which God has not anointed a King or chosen some judge and yet in which His creatures, made for society and equal among themselves, nevertheless require some form of governance (instances which, to be sure, we think obtain for most persons at most times and places). But, given rulership of Jesus of Nazareth at the Right Hand of God, given that He is King of kings whether or not He is recognized as such, there is no absolute necessity in consent. Consent is not one of those bedrock principles of reality--of even political reality--that goes all the way down.

Jerry Walls, Evangelist of the Mind

This afternoon on Talk of the Nation, Neal Conan had Jerry Walls as his guest for a brief segment on the upcoming end of the world and our fascination with "end times." Jerry fielded a Swedenborgian and other callers, and gave a clear orthodox affirmation of his faith: "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." Great stuff!

We knew Jerry when we were at Notre Dame. In 2005 we heard him as keynote speaker for the Wheaton Philosophy Conference: "Philosophers Think about Heaven and Hell." Jerry is an engaging speaker, and a vocal Arminian, as the clip below shows:
Jerry Walls



Jerry's Bio, from The Christian Studies Center

B.A., Houghton College
M.Div., Princeton Seminary
S.T.M., Yale Divinity School
Ph.D., Department of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame

Jerry Walls is one of the most respected Christian philosophers in America. His engaging, energetic lectures make Jerry a student favorite, and his lively debates outside the classroom help students learn to think and communicate Christianly on a variety of topics. For many years, Jerry taught at Asbury Theological Seminary and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame. He has authored and edited nearly a dozen books and has been a contributor to almost 20 others. Jerry has published a pair of books that make a philosophical defense of Christian views on the afterlife, Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy and Hell: The Logic of Damnation. He is also an editor of a volume in the prestigious Oxford Handbook series, The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. Two of his other books explore the thought of C.S. Lewis, C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer (with Scott Burson) and The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy (with Gregory Bassham). Not merely a cut and dry philosopher, Jerry also won a national poetry contest in his college years, and in 2009, he published his first book of poetry Who Watch For The Morning. When he is not writing books, Jerry serves as a pastor, guest lecturer or avid sports fan.










Areas of Specialty: C.S. Lewis, Heaven and Hell, Calvinism and Arminianism

Antony Flew Dies

I just read that Antony Flew died on April 8. The famed atheist-turned-deist was 87.

Here is his New York Times obituary, and here is a controversial article by Mark Oppenheimer, "The Turning of an Atheist," which caused as much of a stir as Flew's own rejection of atheism. (See Roy Vargheses's rebuttal of Oppenheimer's article here .)

Flew's There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind has been panned by some atheists as the rantings of a senile old man and overly praised by some Christians, who seem to mistake deism for theism.

I have not read the book yet, but from what I understand, Flew's changed position was due to his reconsideration of Intelligent Design and disgust with the arrogance of the New Atheists.

Good night, Antony, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. May that give you the remaining evidence you need to make the final turn.

Going Rogue, and Getting it Wrong, Part I

John Mark Reynolds, conservative Christian from Biola, offers a live, chapter by chapter reaction on Sarah Palin's Going Rogue in Evangel, a First Things blog. He is not the only one who worries about her need to convince us that she is a thinker.

Chapter One

...Palin obviously was justifiably upset by accusations she is dim, but so far this book is not helping her case. She keeps describing herself as a reader and even named C.S. Lewis as a favorite writer, but so far there is no description of anything in a book that moved her and changed her life.

What Lewis does she like? Is the Lewis of That Hideous Strength or the Lewis of Til We Have Faces? Is she a fan of the Narnian Lewis or the argument in Abolition of Man? Did she poke the backs of closets when she was a kid?

We get none of this and so we are left wondering if she read books deeply or as a television substitute in the Alaska of her youth.

It is easy to see the difference when she talks about sports. She can describe in detail what she learned from running, but she never mentions what she learned from a book. There are mentions of Pascal and Plato (!) in the first chapter, but they are referenced as sources of “thoughts” and not as a source for critical ideas or challenges to her life.

I don’t believe a pol has to read Plato for fun to be effective. God knows that many a liberal arts graduate has proven useless at doing things and that Palin has done more in her way than I ever will. Anybody from my home state of West Virginia knows scores of people whose common sense would serve us better in government than angst ridden college graduates whose very uncertainty leads them to believe that they alone should be our philosopher kings.

May Obama be our last president of that sort!

But the ridiculous use of quotes or “big ideas” from great writers that one does not really read or know should end as well. When Palin artlessly writes: “Plato said it well, ‘Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,’” did she know the context of the quotation? Is it even in Plato? I cannot find it, don’t remember reading it, and I suspect that it is spurious. Can someone give me a reference?

It looks like the sort of thing Google tells you Plato said, but where the reference is impossible to find.

I am willing to bet at this point that Plato never said it, but if he did I am even more willing to bet that Palin and her writer are quote mining. If Plato said such a thing, it was likely in the context of the battle of each man against his lower nature. For Plato the chief battle was the inner one, but Palin uses it to reference our need to sympathize for people’s physical pain and life torments.

It is hard to imagine the Socrates of Phaedo making such a statement. So even if Plato said it (and he wrote so much it is hard to be sure), I am guessing that the context is wrong.

Why do I care? Partly, this is a live blog of my reading and I am a Plato guy so you are stuck with reading what I am thinking, but mostly because I find this kind of misuse of Plato irritating. Why do it? What is gained? Why quote mine?

Chapter Two

On Aristotle

Palin begins her second chapter with a quote from Aristotle. I think I must be going mad, but I cannot remember this quotation either. Where is it?

I cannot find a reference in any book I own . . . but then I am writing this as I read her book. Can someone help me? Did Aristotle say, ” Criticism is something we can avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing?”

I want a reference to the text.

It is surely not possible that in less than one hundred pages that Palin got two ancient quotations wrong?

It is bad enough if they are used as motivational slogan writers, but couldn’t we at least get the philosopher right?

Maybe I am just having a memory failure. Can some Palinista deliver Sarah by pointing out the reference in the Philosopher’s work?

We have all been taken in my an urban legend. I once read (in a book!) that Alfred Wallace was a “lord” and got properly spanked for passing this piece of nonsense on, but I am beginning to worry about the fact checking in this book.

As Plato did not say, “Getting this sort of thing wrong too often and too quickly is hard on the soul of the reader.”

I strongly suspect that the ghostwriter Googled her way through ancient philosophy quotations. Learn from this students . . . the fact that someone says Aristotle said a thing does not mean that he did.

NOTES to SELF: On Maritain and Gilson

"A Thomistic Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Étienne Gilson, edited by Peter A. Redpath

"Gilson and Maritain: Battle Over the Beautiful," by Francesca Murphy
p. 103-104

"Maritain, as a convert, who began by seeing the need for reason and worked his way from there to faith, and Gilson, as a cradle-catholic, who experienced faith as a given, were at tempermental antipodes from one another.

The differences between them were more than psychological. Gilson created a philosophy for theology. Maritain developed a philosophy grown into fruition in the shelter of his spiritual life, but not intended to be the direct and inseparable expression of his Christian belief. Gilson positions his starting point in faith, or theology, Maritain in philosophy. Gilson's philosophy is intended to illuminate his theology. Maritain's philosophy is intended to explain experiences universally accessible to all rational human beings, regardless of their religion.

...I have no doubt that we have an equal need of Maritain's philosophical and Gilson's theological apologetic. In the years to come, Gilson will serve as a reminder that, as Augustine knew, cultural conservativism is not enough: it is not even a beginning.

My Ways Are Not Your Ways:

The Moral Character of the God of Abraham

Not long now until Steve and I will be attending a Center for the Philosophy of Religion conference, "My Ways Are Not Your Ways" at the University of Notre Dame. The last time we were away together for such fun was in 2005, when we went to the Wheaton Philosophy Conference, "Heaven and Hell," with Jerry Walls as keynote speaker. It's about time for another get away.

Here is a description of the conference:

The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible

Adherents of the Abrahamic religious traditions contend that human beings are made in the image of God and that modeling the character of God in one’s life represents the pinnacle of human flourishing and moral perfection. Defenders of this tradition commonly point to passages in the canonical texts of the Jewish and Christian faiths that portray God as loving, merciful, patient, etc. in support of such a position.

Since the seventeenth century, however, numerous critics of these Abrahamic traditions have argued that God, especially in the Hebrew Bible, is often portrayed as anything but a moral role model. On the one hand, historical narratives in these texts describe God apparently committing, ordering, or commending genocide, slavery, and rape among other moral atrocities. On the other hand, a number of commands purportedly issued by God seem to commend bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia. In recent days, similar criticisms of the Abrahamic traditions have been raised by philosophers (Daniel Dennett), scientists (Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris), social commentators (Christopher Hitchens), and others.

Are these apparent commendations and commands of the Hebrew Bible consistent with the claim that the Abrahamic God is perfectly good and loving? Those defending this tradition have two avenues of response open to them. The first response would be to argue that the aforementioned troubling narratives or commands should simply be rejected. Those taking this approach would have to explain how they think such passages could be rejected without placing in peril the Abrahamic religions, which have traditionally claimed that the Hebrew Bible is, represents, or contains the inspired word of God. The second response would offer explanations aiming to show that the apparently untoward consequences can be avoided without rejecting the narratives or commands. Those taking this approach must explain either why the untoward consequences do not follow, or why they are not, in the end untoward.

However, while defenders of this tradition have both routes available to them, few of these defenders seem to have taken the challenge to heart. Despite these recent, forthright criticisms, only a handful of theologians or philosophers in these traditions have sought to respond to the criticisms.
The present conference aims to remedy this deficiency, taking as its focus the charge that the Abrahamic tradition should be rejected because of its foundation in the Hebrew Bible, which portrays God as immoral and vicious. The presenters and commentators include philosophers—both theistic and nontheistic—as well as Biblical scholars.

The papers, comments, and replies from the conference will be collected in a volume provisionally titled Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham. We have a contract with Oxford University Press for this volume and expect it to be published in 2010.

Participants include

Alvin Plantinga – University of Notre Dame
Eleonore Stump – Saint Louis University
Richard Swinburne – University of Oxford
Peter van Inwagen – University of Notre Dame
Michael Murray – Franklin and Marshall College
Michael Rea – University of Notre Dame
Stephen T. Davis – Claremont McKenna College
John Hare – Yale Divinity School
Daniel Howard-Snyder – Western Washington University
Christopher Seitz – Wycliffe College, University of Toronto
Mark C. Murphy – Georgetown University

But most exciting is the discovery that one of our VCC students who attends Calvin College will be attending. We look forward to seeing Kaylee and her friends, and sharing some great conversations.

Check out the Society of Christian Philosophers website. Some great quotes on the masthead. I especially am fond of the ones by these women: St.Teresa of Avila, Eleanore Stump, and Marilyn McCord Adams.

Thomistic Pilgrimage site

Just one of the delights of our trip to Toronto was touring the University of Toronto campus. The Pontifical Institute was where my hero, Etienne Gilson worked for the latter part of his life. The Unity of Philosophical Experience is probably his most widely known work Here is an excerpt:

The only way to ascertain what the free will can do is to define what it is. Knowing its nature, you will find in that knowledge a safe rule to define the power of the will as well as its limitations. If, on the contrary, you start on the assumption that it is safer to keep a little below the line, where are you going to stop? Why, indeed, should you stop at all? Since it is pious to lessen the efficacy of free will, it is more pious to lessen it a little more, and to make it utterly powerless should be the highest mark of piety. In fact, there will be mediaeval theologians who come very close to that conclusion, and even reach it a long time before the age of Luther and Calvin. Nothing, of course, would have been more repellent to St. Bonaventura than such a doctrine; the only question here is: was St. Bonaventura protected against it? If we allow pious feelings to decree what nature should be, we are bound to wrong nature, for how could we find in piety a principle of self-restriction? In theology, as in any other science, the main question is not to be pious, but to be right. For there is nothing pious in being wrong about God!

If piety is not theology, still less is it philosophy. Yet it cannot be denied that, as a philosopher, St. Bonaventura sometimes allowed himself to be carried away by his religious feelings....

Philosophy Humor

HUMOR: The Profzi Scheme

DEBATE: Hitchens vs. Craig, April 5, 2009

SUNDAY, April 5. 2009
4:00 pm
at
Valley Covenant Church
3636 W. 18th Avenue
Eugene, OR 97405

http://www.valleycovenant.org/events/doesgodexist.htm

Christopher Hitchens, author of "God Is Not Great," is one of the most outspoken atheists of the last century. In this debate, he squares off against William Lane Craig, one the finest Christian philosophers of our time.

We invite you to join us for an exclusive web rebroadcast of this debate, which takes place live at Biola University the night before.
This debate is sold out at its original site and will not be televised. The webcasts are expensive, so this is the best way to see it now. We will give you a comfortable seat, a hot beverage and some munchies, as we watch the debate on a big screen. Then afterward, if you like, you're invited to stay and talk about it all with other interested and interesting folks.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of which "side" you might be on. We would like this to be an opportunity for open and honest sharing of ideas and an airing of the best arguments and support for and against belief in God.

There is no charge for this event, although donations to the ministries of Valley Covenant will be accepted. Please contact us with any questions or to RSVP at (541) 345-0055, but anyone is welcome to drop-in whether or not you called beforehand

Advaita Ad on Facebook

Across my foundering deck (aka Facebook) has flashed this ad: 10 Week Course in Practical Philosophy. Sounds intriguing, I thought. Wonder what they mean by "practical" philosophy, I thought. Wonder if they need any online instructors, I thought. So I hit the icon. Then I read:

This course is for anyone who’s asked themselves ‘What am I doing here?’, who wants to expand their world, their thinking, and the view they have of themselves.

Discussions are underpinned by the philosophy of unity, or Advaita, a universal, non-denominational teaching literally meaning ‘not two’. This is Eastern in origin, but of universal application because it points to the unity underlying all things....

Advaita is a universal non-denominational teaching that points to the unity underlying all things. The key principle is that within each of us there is something that is common to all and is unchanging, pure and free.
Many people believe the concept of Advaita is implicit in Western teachings and philosophical works including the Bible, Plato, Shakespeare and Emerson.

The School believes this philosophy to be of real value in dealing with the problems that arise in our everyday lives, and also with the conflicts between communities and nations.

The approach to teaching philosophy is essentially practical, based on the notion that the only way we can really know something is to observe or experience it for ourselves. Participants are therefore asked neither to accept nor reject the ideas put forward for discussion, but instead to put them to the test in practical experience, and use what is found to be valid and helpful.

Does anybody know anything about these people? It sounds like quite a racket, if not something worse. Are they affiliated with these people?

(from the FAQ's:)

Who are the instructors?
Following the principle of learn and teach, instructors are appointed on the basis of having a firm understanding of the philosophic principles. They have attended the School for a number of years and demonstrated an appreciation of the practice of philosophy in their daily lives. All instructors remain students as well since the learning process never ends. No remuneration is received for tutoring in the School.

How much does it cost?
In New York City, the cost is $175 for the 10 sessions with a price of $85 for full-time students. If claiming a student discount, you will need to register in-person with your student-id. Check the Locations/Register page for details on other locations.

For distance learning:
The fee for this course, will be $100 for the ten sessions. In addition, we will schedule a one-on-one session prior to the first class to check out the technology and make sure you are comfortable with and capable of joining the web-conference.

Some final thoughts:

1) It's stuff like this that makes Christians suspicious of all philosophy, and interpret 1 Cor. 1:18-25 to be prohibiting it. But that is exactly what the Enemy wants. If he can't get us to hold a worldly philosophy, then he wants us to reject philosophy altogether. Anything but having the mind of Christ!

2) "Many people believe the concept of Advaita is implicit in Western teachings and philosophical works including the Bible, Plato, Shakespeare and Emerson." How many of us would be able to engage in a discussion with the instructors, to challenge the idea that the Bible is consistent with Advaita?

3) Since the economic collapse, I'm noticing that people are more open, seeking answers to these perennial questions: "What can I trust?" "What is real?" "Is there some one thing which underlies and unites everything, or is what is real just a lot of diverse, individual things?" "Is everything changing, or is there anything that is unchanging?" "Is it spiritual or material?"

Christians are the only people who can give a both-and response to these questions, rather than take one side against the other. This is because we believe God is Trinity. We need to be able to communicate the Father, incarnate the Son and be led by the Spirit, so as to provide the waters of Life to those who are metaphysically thirsty.

4) I'm remembering Steve's sermon last Sunday, where he preached on this very passage, as he works his way through Corinthians:

"What Paul is trying to get across to us is that we must never expect Christian faith, especially the message of the Cross at the center of our faith, to be justified by popular practical wisdom. Whenever we think that our faith can be justified in terms of what the world wants and values, then we’ve abandoned real Christianity, abandoned the message that the world in all its seeming wisdom just can’t understand."

Our faith can be justified, though, in terms of Christ's power to transform us, to make us into the people we really ought to be. May we live out our faith in Him, not only with our minds, but in our hearts, souls, bodies and relationships with others.

Quote: Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

there are days when I wish I could haul out Avicenna for my students...

Those who deny [Aristotle's] first principle should be flogged or burned until they admit that it is not the same thing to be burned and not burned, or whipped and not whipped.

- Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

QUOTES: from John Maynard Keynes

Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests which are dangerous for good or evil.


--John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

(Thanks to Joanna for bringing this quote to my attention.)

40ft stack of books sculpture at the Berlin Walk of Ideas. The Walk of Ideas is a set of six sculptures made for the 2006 FIFA World Cup football event at Berlin in Germany. The set of sculptures was unveiled on 21 April 2006 at Bebelplatz, a square near the Unter den Linden, at the entrance to Humboldt University. The exhibition was part of the event entitled, Welcome to Germany, the land of ideas and the opening of the exhibition was covered by reporters for the international mass media. The sculptures were displayed until September 2006. (via Wikipedia

Atheist Bus Ads in London

Scot McKnight wrote:

Have you seen this? What do you think of the approach? The Bible verse chosen? What verse or verses would you choose?

The word of God is on the move in London -- literally. Beginning Feb. 9, three separate Christian groups will launch advertisements on more than 200 of London's buses to convince pedestrians of God's existence. "It may be unpopular and unpleasant, says David Larlham, the assistant general secretary of London's Trinitarian Bible Society, a group that distributes bibles worldwide, "but there is a whole lot of truth in the bible that people need to get to grips with." His organization has paid $50,000 to display posters on 125 of London's red double-decker buses that quote Psalm 53: "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God."

Here's my two cents:

It's too bad a potentially interesting conversation is happening in such an unfortunate venue. Psalm 53 inspired the venerable Ontological Argument, which Alvin Plantinga has retooled in a thought-provoking modal form. It cannot be captured in a bus ad! Admittedly, these days most people consider it unfashionable to argue for God's existence, but does that mean philosophical conversation must be marginalized? ;)

The very fact that these atheists are using bus ads to further their cause indicates that they are more interested in people's hearts than their minds. While this is a legitimate approach--one that the Holy Spirit uses constantly!--the atheists cannot have it both ways. They cannot pretend to be appealing to "reason," while simultaneously they are using media which frustrate and undermine it.

So, the bottom line: Christians don't further the kingdom when we perpetuate contradictions. Let's imitate Paul and "become all things to all people" by fighting the bus ad battle using Travis Greene's method*, and fighting the International Philosophical Quarterly battle using Plantinga's.

*Travis Greene's method: Put up bus ads that read: "There is a God, and he's saving the world. Come join him."

A Metaphysics Quiz for Physicists

Are periodic tables of the elements

1) discoveries, or

2) inventions?

That is, does a periodic table correspond to something that exists independently of it, pointing us toward that reality; or is it a way human minds can impose an arbitrary order upon an otherwise confusing set of perceptions?

Are there really such substances as helium and polonium "out there" or are they just conventions that enable us manipulate matter in the ways we want?

If you choose 1) explain why there is a correspondence between such tables and reality.

If you choose 2) explain why these tables "work."

You have one hour. ; )