a doug’s life

I have been in the habit of reading many different types of things with the intention of discovering links and correlations between them. This has been very fruitful over the years. Lately, however, since I have been doing research for my doctorate, I have been forced to read less widely with more focus. But this is besides the point. In some fashion, I am still looking for the correlations between ideas, histories, things that would give me a unique view of the world. I choose the things I wish to read with the intent of discovering, uncovering, revealing, washing away, alethia, the truth behind the standard view. There is a way of reading the world that forces the world to reveal its secrets; a way of seeing the world that forces it to shed its glamour; a way of touching reality that forces it to say its name, to speak its reality, to take its clothes off and show itself nude.

It is disappointing for the world to reveal itself, almost as if its hiddenness was intentional, that it didn’t show its face because it was afraid to be seen crying.

I wept today when I saw the new MacBook in a movie talking about its features. Ephemeral, to be advanced beyond, but beautiful nonetheless, green, minimalist, exhaustively simple, worth the money for the design alone, whatever one’s taste must be in OSs.

The world weeps in silence, hoping not to be seen. The grief of its beauty unappreciated, passed by for its utility.

Enough anthropomorphizing!

I read with the hope that my fertile mind will grow a reasonable response to all the input, a reasonable organization of all the details. My intelligence has always been organic in this way. I always feel a deep unpreparedness, a panic when I know I have to teach. It is this that drives me to read. I read, then sleep, then hope that something, a central principle would float to the surface, something to tie all the loose threads together. Sometimes it works. Today, tonight, after reading Aristotle for the last week, it doesn’t. Nothing floats to the surface, nothing coheres. Aristotle is more than a bit too deep to expect this to happen in such a short time. There is so much material, so much to consider. He was advanced in some things and archaic in others. I don’t know what key to turn to make the connection between his world and ours.

We’ll see. Tomorrow, (today).

What do you think about Greek influence on the writing of the Christian scriptures. I am certain that the answer to this question has traction about what we think of the Word of God, revelation, truth, and how we should live. What do you think about Paul saying in 1 Corinthians, about his marriage advice, that he hasn’t been compelled by God, but that he has the spirit of God guiding his remarks? What does God think about writing that is not specifically aimed at his glory, writing that is on some account, true?

Thursday’s class discussion in Ancient Philosophy about the authority of the scripture and other texts, the voice of Paul in the new testament writings, and the “development” of Paul’s writing was one of the most vigorous and useful in my memory of teaching at Evangel. The one thing I hated more than any other is that it got started just a few minutes before class ended.

This tells me two things. One, discussions about interpretation are of interest because students and teachers want to get to the bottom of things, find the truth, and act on it; two, that after thousands of years of writing and reading texts, we still don’t have it sorted out satisfactorily.

As a teacher I am thankful to have so many lively minds operating in class, with not just opinions to force, but also with lines of reasoning which show evidence of having thought through the issues. We didn’t decide much in class, except to suggest that though it may not be possible to get it completely right, it becomes possible to be fairly clear when something is wrong, and to understand the reasons it is.

I think we were struggling over interpretation of Paul’s letters when we finished. Someone suggested that Paul shows development of his theology in the NT books he writes. This raised the specter that Paul’s earlier writing had theological flaws. While I take it that no one’s theology is universally correct, that none of it is correct out of context, and that Paul wasn’t writing a theology formal, I don’t think Paul’s NT writing shows development of his theological thinking. However, to say that Paul did not develop and refine a theology as he grew in Christ leaves us with the absurd notion that nothing in his experience with God or people affected his theology.

Beside that point, to suggest that Paul’s writing is consistent or that it is entirely coherent is overstating the requirement for counting his writings inspired and authoritative. I know this may seem troubling, but if it is troubling, why have we been unable to agree entirely on the interpretation of his writings and just stop there. Well, we do agree to a very large extent, but something else is going on. Culture, nature, and language change the field of discussion perpetually so that we are unable to statically define the import of the text. We neither think the things our predecessors did, nor do we think the way they did, so the work of interpretation is an endless one.

But, what should I do then? Well, there is little dispute about the majority of things in scripture amongst ourselves. What is at dispute comes into dispute when we believe we need scientific proofs or a general ideology that unifies all the disparate statements of scripture. The systematizers have done us both a great deal of good and harm at the same time. We need to dodge the systematic bullet and keep our judgment in the Holy Spirit, not counting our rational achievement as being more than a temporary edifice, however true it is, however necessary it becomes for our lives.

Last night I witnessed the creation of a black hole near a hotel by the sea I was staying at. It was a bit of matter that was compressed into a black hole with a diameter of a few millimeters. It fell into the earth, collecting matter as it went to the core of the earth. Of course there is really nowhere to run from something like that, but I ran away from some local effects, such as terrible winds and waves, rain and the slow destruction of the hotel. I went farther and farther away finding people left behind. (Of course the scientific team that made this mistake was already evacuated from the earth.) Let me just say that it was bad, and I was still running when the dream was over.

A student I respect for the work she does said this about the old or young earth controversy in the Church.

“Personally, this is one of my contentions on Creation, God did it, ok. So it’s not the young vs. old that gets me, because there is evidence. It is the theories that can come out of it that bother me. I don’t believe God made a couple of mistakes and then got it right with us. I also think we can hold too much to science, that can be proved wrong. This coming from a science type geek.

I don’t take offense, I just don’t think it’s my place to argue either way, since I’m sticking to scripture and am willing to listen.”

My response:

I am sticking to scripture vigorously. I don’t think Genesis tells us how God did the creation thing, or that Genesis gives us a timeline, or that the Bible should be consulted for scientific information.

Yes, science gets it wrong sometimes, but in this case it has been moving toward a better explanation for over 200 years (and many christians have been on the cutting edge of this scientific enterprise) and has fairly zeroed in on a very plausible dating scheme. Absolutely correct? probably not, but the issue lands within a few hundred million years of the current mark, not billions of years allowing for the “scientific” creationist’s view.

I failed to mention, that even though, for an insider to Christianity it is of no consequence whether we think the earth is young or old, it certainly matters to an outsider.

If we care one shred what happens to the people outside the Church, if there is even one shred of evangelistic blood in our veins, we will consider more deeply what we think on this issue. The skeptic does not commit because she doesn’t want to make a mistake, but seeing within evangelical christianity this adherence to something worse than mythology certifies her opinion against Christianity. Why would she want to get saved if they cannot even get this simple thing right.

It is as if Christianity is still accepting the Genesis cosmology (with concentric spheres around a flat earth) instead of a heliocentric one with the vast universe our telescopes give us. Would you believe anybody telling you about salvation who believed such an obviously false view? No, of course you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t either. In fact, when the young earthers make claims about christianity, I totally ignore them, their way of life, their supposed claim to scriptural knowledge, etc. If they want to live in a box, fine. I would rather open my eyes and stand up in this complex world and let the truth emerge wherever it will. Is it possible that the young earthers may be correct about something? Yes. But I will take their word only conditional on further corroboration of their evidence from sources untainted by their cosmology. Is it possible that one of them speak the word of God to me? Certainly, but then I have the spirit to bear witness of that on the spot. But, then I would take the word of an atheist as well if God through the spirit confirmed it to me.

This happens to be the time I am working through a series of problems in the Christian worldview. It is uncomfortable because on the surface of it I appear to be advocating lifestyles that are problematic. However, let me be clear about this. Though I advocate the legalization of drugs in the United States, and indeed, in the world, I do not think that abuse of currently illicit substances is either recommended or promoted in the Christian scriptures, and that it is God’s design that people be free from those sorts of physically destructive behaviors. For today’s problem: with respect to homosexuality, I do not think that the homosexual lifestyle can be consistently adopted within Christianity. But, I don’t think that Christianity can consistently adopt a homophobic political position either.

With respect to drugs and homosexuality, I believe that God’s mission for his Church is to be the advocate for people, to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to uphold the poor and weak and those who do not fit society’s view of itself against the physical and political depredations of majority rule. Again, this does not mean the acceptance of a drug abusing or homosexual lifestyle, or indeed any other lifestyle the Christian scriptures and the Church deem to be problematic or immoral, but what it does mean is that the Church will not posture itself as the enemy of any group of people, or any individual whose behavior is not explicitly violent towards others or whose behavior does not imply the abuse or removal of the freedom of one’s neighbors.

I believe this way of thinking, though it is uncomfortable for some of my brothers and sisters, is nonetheless unproblematic if we place the cause of Christ as our first priority. If we believe that God’s project is to bring people to himself, then, we should raise no stumbling stones as barriers to this. Simply, this means the Church must allow the Holy Spirit to negotiate peace with respect to the things in a person’s life that are publicly or politically questionable as they are approaching God.

Certainly, the Church should not permit within itself the advocacy of behavior it thinks to be wrong, but it cannot afford to destroy the individual who is struggling to come to grips with their own person in God, before the individual has made every effort to find and adopt God’s will. The Church, in light of God’s purpose, cannot afford to tolerate prejudicial behavior when God loves all people and wants to save them from themselves and from an often cruel society. The Church should be a safe place for an individual to grow in God, not a place to exchange one set of problematic prejudices for another.

Problematically, relationships have been eroticized in our society with the result that people cannot afford to be seen as friends because of the implicit assumption of immoral behavior. For men and women, men and men, or women and women to be “too close” carries with it the assumption of wrongdoing, even though there may be nothing wrong with their behavior at all. The result of this prejudice against relationship is that we live lonelier lives, depressed and disconnected. This post is just one move toward alleviating that, not only for me but for our society. It is a suggestion, a hint that something has gone wrong that needs to be fixed.

More later.

The first question I have about Genesis is how to classify it. I take it that some classifications of the book are so absurdly wrong that they barely countenance a reasonable response. A list should suffice though: The book of Genesis is 1. dictated by God to Moses; 2. a science textbook (anachronistically of the modern sort); 3. a history text (anachronistically of the modern sort).

The consequence of these views is so outlandish as to prevent further discussion. They all require a literal reading of Genesis of the sort that requires number 1., the dictation theory, as if people were barely involved at all, as if the word of God were nothing but the product of scribes, not the sort of persons who could lead a people, as if the scribes actually had no thoughts at all, did not live in a culture, or a world, or have a history of their own. In this sort of view the text is raised above historical accountability, above questioning, above logic and consistency, above literature. The theories arising from this sort of ahistorical deification of the text is used as justification for all sorts of foolishness in our age, from young-earth creationism to the strangest sort of anthropology.

What might Genesis really be. Well, for starters, it was written as a compilation of stories by an historical person, Moses by internal attribution, though the exact authorship with editing forces the inclusion of at least one other if not many other writers. For simplicity, there is no need to think more deeply than that, unless there is good external justification. To say that Moses wrote the pentateuch and that someone else finished/edited the last bits of Deuteronomy is fair enough to get past the initial issue of authorship. For the textual scholars who wish to multiply authors I suggest that it provides no special interpretative advantage. If one wishes to dismiss the authority of the text, one may do so without appeal to modern textual interpretation, another anachronism.

The first step toward redeeming this text I think is to historicize it appropriately. To do this, first the book needs to be split into at least two if not three sections. For my purposes two sections will suffice. The division comes at the beginning of the Abram story. Abram is the first historical figure that left traces or evidences of being here, for whom we can show a continuity in lineage with contemporary peoples and historical sites that, though not without caveats, can be attributed to his being in history. The previous portion of the text from creation to the flood up to Abram leaves us with more questions than answers, little to no historical traces and problematic logical, historical, and scientific plausibility.

Dealing with the creation story to Noah’s children is the problem we have left. As a believer, I do not question the truth of the scriptures, but I ask in contrast, “How is the scripture true?”

I want to answer that, but I need to keep reading for my PhD. See you later.

I am tempted to speak of cooperation instead of causality. Here’s my reasoning. What the standard explanations of miracles do is assign a cause to them, God, in particular. The problem with this thesis is that causality is fine as long as it is done within the range of human experience. But as soon as the cause for miracles extends to the time prior to human experience, there is a problem. First, the Bible doesn’t record any miracles prior to the emergence of man. Second, before the emergence of man, no miracle is necessary. The emergence of man is a result of natural causes within the universe God made.

The emergence of humans is the moment when miracles become necessary. Why? Because miracles are a product of the cooperation between people and God. At least for the recorded history of people, including the Bible and its analogues in other cultures, miracles have been recorded. But they are illustrative of a process, not a determinate intrusion. The process includes people, especially people who ask for divine assistance, or respond to God’s voice.

Does God cause miracles? I’m not sure causality is a term which can be used to express this. I have said that the presence of God becomes known to intelligences. And that intelligences are the natural byproduct of a universe such as ours which computes complexity resulting in multilayered reality including planets, life, and intelligence.

Seriously, the political banter today does not seem to be going anywhere. On a web page before primary elections, I remember answering a few questions that were supposed to lead me to the candidate I should favor since most of my beliefs would fall into their domain. I thought it was a pretty smart device. All but one thing. Even though I may vote for a person, that gives me no assurance that their public belief set is the same as their private or political operating method. All the candidates have been shined up like pretty little buttons on the straight jacket of the natural limitations for government. I do take it that Ron Paul is closer in his behavior to his speech than many of the others. I have no way to judge the others.

I mean, did anyone in 1979 think George W. Bush was going to try to lead us into another un-winnable war like Vietnam, or propose that we also attack Iran? I call on God to wake us up. I believe George is a Christian person. I believe he prays and seeks counsel of wiser men than himself, but in all my imaginings, I can’t conceive that George’s Christianity would have led him to pick this fight with Iraq. As a Christian, I would have thought that George would at least have tipped his hat to just war theory which would never have permitted this battle.

On what grounds did we have reason to start this war? Well the one touted in public was the threat of WMDs, specifically nuclear, (or should I say nuculer for George’s sake, so he would understand me.) OK, that’s fair. Nukes have changed the global balance of power and the threat level of any attacking force, especially some force that thinks I’m wrong just because I don’t believe the way they do. So that was the only reason? No, horrors, they wanted to build bases on Iraqi soil to pressure the obeisance of surrounding nations, a “peacekeeping mission.”

I do respect ex-president Clinton for getting out of Somalia when it was clear that no mission could succeed without wholesale slaughter of innocent people in a nation that could not make its mind up how to govern itself.

Are these people who support the Federal Government at every move even thinking of the consequences of our policies on other nations? How many people have to die for us to be happy that we have fulfilled our manifest destiny?

Now, to the questions I don’t have answers for (aside from the aforementioned.)

What does it mean to be a right wing or a left wing person?

What does it mean to be a liberal or a conservative?

What does it mean to support our government?

Why do we need to support our government (especially if what they are doing appears to us to be wrong)?

Why should we be offered our hat if we believe resisting the government is the correct behavior?

I have a suspicion that many of these government supporters in these times of unrest, if they found themselves on the other side of the debate, would be furious and cry foul. I also think that the kind of unreflective adoption of a Christian ideology found in these people would have approved of the government when Christianity and the government did not speak against slavery. The status quo as long as it doesn’t touch these people personally, is God’s will. As soon as it touches them, they would be completely perplexed, or as Os Guinness said in The Dust of Death mystified.

Amos Yong challenged me to draw a plausible connection between my view of the universe, that it was created with the power not only to organize itself but also to generate life and intelligence. My suggestion is that God made the entire universe in his image and that intelligence, whether it be my cat’s or mine has immediate access to God through that intelligence which is made in the image of God. Bluntly, the communication is only possible because we have the same type of radios. Unselfconscious beings like my cat, nonetheless do communicate with God through the Holy Spirit, but it is primal, unreflective, mirroring my animal’s capacities.

The Holy Spirit when communicating to me however, is the reflective, substantive, communicating God. But how would I characterize this communication in biblical terms? Well, there seems to me to be a couple routes to take, a couple topics to discuss. First of all, I take it that any method God used to speak to people in the text of scripture is available to today’s person. Nothing is by logic or law forbidden. Whatever was permitted in communication is still permitted today. So if God does want to use a messenger of some sort, nature, the spirit of God, or whatever, I ask why not? Second, I take it that of all the methods used, the most effective and salient archetype is Jesus Christ himself. So that in most circumstances, the speech I hear will reflect what Christ said and did while he sojourned with us. In the paraclete sayings of John 14:15,26, 15:26, and 16:7-15 we learn that the work of the spirit will be like that of Christ. Logically, if the spirit is God, there will be nothing the holy spirit says or does that was not first said or done, at least in type by Jesus. His mission is the same.

My thesis, that the voice and the extraordinary acts of God in the world including miracles correspond to intelligence, means that we are capable of hearing God by the very fact of the emergence of our intelligence in the world. I don’t think, however, that miracles are a breach of natural law, instead they transcend natural law. What we call natural law is, however, only a rough estimate of a mathematical description of of the constitution of the universe. And we are closer but still a long way off from understanding the way the universe works.