Celtic Poets

Here is a little excerpt from Celtic Myths and Legends (p. 119)that I thought was interesting about the history of Celtic poets.

To be the subject of a curse from a poet is a terrible thing. In ancient times, the poet had high status at the king's court and could argue with the High King himself. Everyone sought the poet's praise and dreaded his satire. In the Annals of Ulster it is recorded that, in the year ad 1024, the chief poet of Ireland, Cuan Ua Lothchain, was unlawfully killed in Theba. As he lay dying, he uttered the poet's curse, the firt filed they called it, and the bodies of his murderers were said to have rotted within the hours. To challenge a poet or displease him or her - for there were banfili, women poets, equal with men in Ireland in those days - would be like playing dice with fate.

The poet's curse was not something to be chanced lightly. The Annals of Connacht record that, in the year ad 1414, John Stanley, the English viceroy, sent to rule in Ireland, died from a poet's curse.

When Tomas O Criomththain (1856-1937) wrote his best-selling autobiography An tOilednach (The Islandman) he wrote that he would abandon his day's work to go to listen to the island poet, for fear of being satirised and cursed by him.

The fear of the poet's curse caused High Kings and kings to promise the poet anything that was demanded of them to avoid the curse.

God’s Graces and Parking Places

Although I would consider myself a “spiritual person,” I am admittedly one of those who have an allergic reaction when people try to “spiritualize” everything – particularly every good thing – by attributing it to God’s good grace.

You know, stuff like:

“God helped my team to win the game.”

“By God’s grace, my candidate or party won the election.”

“God just gave me the greatest parking place.”

…and so on.

I just find it a little difficult to comprehend why God would take special time aside to open up that parking place when there are millions of people dying every day from starvation, disease, natural disasters, etc.

And I know I’m not the only person who thinks this way. One of my Facebook friends recently updated his status with:

“…thinks we should stop confusing good luck with God's grace. God isn't the reason you found that awesome parking space.”

Normally, I guess I’d rank among the 15 other people who “Liked” his status. I certainly know where he’s coming from, and I think that he is touching on valid point. However, I’ve been pondering this subject for a couple weeks now, and my view on this was challenged – yes, in the parking lot!

I was going to a coffee shop the other day, and was a little concerned about whether or not I’d get a parking spot since it was a busy time of day, and it doesn’t have the greatest parking space available. I’m new to this particular coffee shop, and wasn’t sure where to park if there were no spaces. Sure enough, when I pulled into the parking lot, all the spots were taken.

Fortunately, someone was pulling out of a spot just as I was pulling in. I pulled into my spot, and despite myself, I was washed over in a sense of thankfulness. I wasn’t sure what to do with that. While I seriously doubt that God took special energy to provide me this parking place, I couldn’t help but to want to thank God for it nevertheless. So I did.

My friend’s Facebook status prompted me to think about this some more. Something about it didn’t seem to be right about the statement, and it kind of bothered me that so many people seemed to be jumping on board, making smug comments criticizing people who “confuse good luck with God’s grace” in this way. And yet, to an extent, I agree with them.

How do I make sense of that? How can God be responsible for things like this (and thus worthy of receiving my thanks), yet without taking special effort aside to make this particular good thing happen?

---

Grace: Common vs. Special

I think that this might be best explained through the helpful distinction theologians (especially in the Reformed tradition) have made between “common” and “special” grace.

“Common grace” can be explained as the grace of God that extends to everyone, indiscriminately. In the Sermon on the Mount, for example, Jesus exhorts his followers to be like God who “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt 5:25). You might say that common grace is that grace of God that was imbued and inherent within the framework of Creation itself.

In contrast, “special grace” is a way of describing those particular times when God seems to do something “special," when God graces his Creation in a way that goes above and beyond the norm (i.e. “common grace”). The best example of this in Christian theology is the special gift of God given to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

I think this distinction between “special” and “common” grace is an extremely helpful way to resolve many tensions that we face when trying to explain how God interacts with Creation.

---

So if I were to refine the theological precision of my friend’s Facebook status, it might read something like:

“…thinks we should stop confusing good luck with God's special grace; God didn’t interrupt the natural order of things just so that you could find that awesome parking space.”

I think that’s probably what he was trying to say anyway. I appreciate that he is prodding his friends to reconsider the way they understand God’s interactions in their daily lives.

And yet, there is something in me that thinks it would be wrong to tell everyone that they are ignorant for thanking God for that awesome parking place (or whatever). Seems that there at least some sense in which, as the song from Godspell (and James 1:17) teaches us:

“All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above;”

I’d say, yes.

“So thank the Lord, thank the Lord, for all his love…”

Photo by Russell Heiman, used under Creative Commons license.

Game On

So here I go again. Trying to start blogging again...

I don't know how many times I've tried, posted a few things, and then nada.

FAIL.

There's many reasons why I fail. Hmmm... maybe that's something to write about?

Yes.

---

I was at a writer's retreat earlier this month. It was an amazing experience, but the entire time I kind of felt like I didn't belong or something. At first, I thought that the feeling was that of being a poser. But then I decided that wasn't it. I do write. I love to write – even when it kills me. And every now and then I actually write something worth reading. So maybe I can consider myself something of a writer.

I decided this feeling of inadequacy was coming from somewhere else. Even if I call myself a writer, the fact remains: writing is a tremendous struggle for me. I love it, and I hate it. Sometimes through writing, I find myself. But sometimes I lose myself. And I seldom know which will happen when I start pounding those keys.

I've heard many writers talk about how slow the writing process is for them. I doubt they really know what "slow" is.

At the retreat, I participated in an incredible non-fiction writing workshop with a group of incredible writers. We were supposed to come having read a sample of everyone's work. Part of the time, we discussed each other's work. Every now and then we would do writing exercises:

"For the next seven minutes, write something that evokes these words: peace, envy, falling in love, etc."

While everyone else was busily writing witty, profound, and wonderful things in their notebooks, I just sat there for about five minutes with a look of blank horror on my face. Seven minutes!? Yeah... sure. Okay... Hmm... words... words... evoke those words... umm.... "Peace." Yeah. That one. hmm....

Before we were told to stop, I had written all of,

"And in that moment, it was as though the cracks of --"

FAIL.

I finally decided that this feeling of inadequacy was probably best described as that which must be felt by a guy in a wheelchair just learning to play basketball with a bunch of others on a court in which he is the only person who hasn't played varsity. I'm not saying that to sound funny, or to be self-deprecatory. And I'm certainly not saying that to suggest that people in wheelchairs can't play basketball; I have seen many that do, and are so good at it that the sight is something truly sublime. But I don't think anyone in a wheelchair would deny that they face obstacles that others don't. In fact, those obstacles are part of what makes what they do so beautiful.

So I guess that's what I'm saying: I think that I face some obstacles as a writer that most people don't.

---

My senior year in college, I was diagnosed with several lovely "disorders," after which I began working with the Office of Learning Accommodations both in my undergraduate and graduate education. I was afforded "accommodations" under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). So I guess you could say that in a sense, I am a disabled writer. At least I am according to the psychologist.

But that's the weird thing about my "disorders": they aren't anything as tangible as something like the visually or physically impaired. Which just leaves me wondering, "Am I really 'disabled' in this sense? Or am I just stupid? Or lazy? Or both?" I often took advantage of those learning accommodations I was afforded in school. And yet, it was probably just as often that I didn't. Because I felt like I didn't deserve them. I felt like I was cheating or something.

Who knows? Maybe one day something will finally click. Maybe one day, some piece of the puzzle will fall into place, and I will finally be "normal."

I hope so.

*adds missing puzzle piece to Amazon wish list*

Until then... here I go again, limping my way into the blogosphere and onto the court.

Hmm….

Game on.

On "Changing the World"

In our artist small-group Monday night, we were discussing Andy Crouch's book Culture Making: Rediscovering Our Creative Calling. Afterwards, as I was working on an essay for a class on cross-cultural missions, I tried to summarize a little bit of how I perceive culture, in the process of cultural transformation.

We, myself included, speak a lot about "changing the world" and/or "transforming culture." However, it is perhaps more precise to speak of this cultural engagement as the participation of the Church in the evolution of its broader culture.

Cultures are always evolving. It is a mistake to think of culture as something that is static, and in need of being transformed from one static shape to another static shape. Rather, any given culture is in a continual process of evolution.

As such, it is not so much a matter of “culture being in need of transformation” as much as it is a matter of in which direction an already-transforming culture is going to evolve.

There is a sense in which everyone -- whether Christian or not -- is "on mission" to their own culture.  This is essentially the human vocation: to cultivate and create culture, influencing it in the direction they see most fitting.

The Christian church is only one of many collective voices who seek to exert influence in this way. Thus for the Church to be "on mission” to its culture is essentially to say that it is participating in that culture's evolution. Likewise, for a Christian to be "on mission" to her culture is essentially to say that she is carrying out her calling, her vocation as a human being.

Also, the reality needs to set in that it is not only we who are influencing culture; we are ourselves being influenced and transformed by our culture in ways we may not even be aware. And while this may be inevitable, it is not necessarily deplorable. In fact, I would suggest that along with seeking to influence our culture for Christ, we should also be seeking to find the fingerprints of Christ that already exist within our culture, and open ourselves to being shaped by that influence instead of another.

 

Technorati Tags: Culture making,Andy Crouch,transforming culture,changing the world,missions

"In the Waiting": a sermon on Ps 13 (audio)

This is an audio version of a sermon I did on Psalm 13, "In the Waiting," which will be published in the next issue of the Truett Journal of Church and Mission. 

 

(Photography: "A Magazine in the Waiting Room," by Keith Maniac)

A Christian Worldview

There is some debate, even among Christians, as to whether or not there exists such a thing as "a Christian worldview."

The concern, I think, is that if a (single) worldview is pointed to as "Christian," it will homogenize the beautiful diversity that exists within the body of Christ.

I, however, tend to think that there is indeed such a thing as a Christian worldview. We might possibly describe it, as follows, by adopting (and adapting) a metaphor of Michael Polanyi's:

A Christian worldview is what emerges when all the noise of reality is heard as the polyphonic symphony of God in Christ.

Detweiler on the Role of the Arts Pastor

I love Craig Detweiler...even if he does get a little bombastic at times :)

The kind of Christian TV Program I would actually watch...

Today, Phil Cooke asks an interesting question:

If you could produce a TV program that would impact people's lives with a message of faith - the kind of program you would watch - what would that look like?

This is my answer.

I'm not sure exactly what this might look like, but I think there is tremendous potential to construct a TV program that fleshes out C.S. Lewis's famous quote from "Is Theology Poetry?":

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

About this statement, Alister McGrath explains:

"For Lewis, the Christian faith was like an intellectual sun, illuminating and irradiating the rich conceptual landscape of the natural world, enabling the observer to make sense of, and hence appreciate, the intricate patterns of the tapestry of human experience and thought. Cultivating the art of seeing is the key to unlocking the meaning of the world." Alister McGrath, A fine-tuned universe (Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 21.

It would be, I imagine, a documentary, or perhaps even a talk show that speaks to various topics concerning Christianity, culture, vocation, the arts, the Bible, etc. The primary goal would be to, as McGrath says, "cultivate the art of seeing."

I think it would be important to have a diversity of Christian perspectives represented in the show. Of course, no program can ever be completely unbiased, but Christian television seems to often be very one-sided (and mostly right-wing conservative). It would be cool to have a program that fosters dialogue, building bridges of understanding between Christian faith traditions. Perhaps end the program not with a "This is the way it is!" but with a picture of the possibilities. And perhaps most importantly, end the program with a prayer imploring the Holy Spirit to give us eyes to see, and ears to hear, thus acknowledging, together, before each other and before the Lord, that we will never be able to figure all of this out by ourselves, but we are utterly dependent upon God's grace to light our path, and his mercy to pick us up when we stumble.

Image: Seated woman viewing red Western Sun (2008) installation by Mark Handforth, Miami Art Museum, Florida

Technorati Tags: TV,Christianity,C.S. Lewis,Alister McGrath,Culture

Nouwen, the mystical way, and artist ministry

In his book the wounded healer, Henri Nouwen offers a picture of what he calls "nuclear man," what many might seem more or less the archetypal postmodern. He writes:

Nuclear man no longer believes in anything that is always and everywhere true and valid. He lives by the hour and creates his life on the spot. His art is a collage art, an art which, though a combination of divergent pieces, is a short impression of how man feels at the moment. His music is an improvisation which combines themes from various composers into some thing fresh as well as momentary. His life often looks like a playful expression of feelings and ideas that need to be communicated and responded to, but which do not attempt to oblige anyone else.

Nouwen then describes two ways -- the mystical Way and the revolutionary way -- by which the nuclear man tries to "break out of his cocoon and fly." Both of them, he says, can be considered "modes of experiential transcendence" and "open new perspectives and suggests new lifestyles".

I want to just point at the first of these he talks about, which is "the mystical way." Of this, Nouwen writes:

The mystical way is the inner way: Man tries to find in his inner life a connection with the "reality of the unseen," "the source of being," "the point of silence." There he discovers that what is most personal is most universal (cf. Rogers' On Becoming a Person. Houghton Mifflin, 1961, p. 26). Beyond the superficial layers of idiosyncrasies, psychological differences and characterological typologies, he finds a center from which he can embrace all other beings at once and experience meaningful connections with all that exists. [...] In what ever way we try to define this mode of 'experiential transcendence," it seems that in all its forms man tries to transcend his own worldly environment and move one, two, three or more levels away from the unrealities of his daily existence to a more encompassing view which en the Ark ables him to experience what is real. In this experience he can cut through his apathy and reach the deep currents of life in which he participates. There he feels that he belongs to a story of which he knows neither the beginning nor the end, but in which he has a unique place. By this creative distance from the unrealities of his own ambitions and urges, nuclear man breaks through the vicious circle of the self-fulfilling prophecy that makes him suffer from his own morbid predictions. There he comes into contact with the center of his own creativity and finds the strength to refuse to become the passive victim of his own futurology. There he experiences himself no longer as an isolated individual caught in the diabolic chain of cause and effect, but as a man able to transcend the fences of his own predicament and reach out far beyond the concerns of self. There he touches the place where all people are revealed to him as equal and where compassion becomes a human possibility. There he comes to the shocking, but at the same time self-evident, insight that prayer is not a pious decoration of life but the breath of human existence.

I once suggested that if the evangelical church is serious about helping people like this to encounter God on their spiritual journey, it will take its patronage of the arts, and its cultivation and shepherding of the community of artists among them very seriously. And by "the arts", I do not mean a church agenda for proclaiming "the gospel" through the arts -- at least not in the sense of using the arts as propaganda. What I'm thinking about particularly is a cultivation of mature aesthetic sensibilities in the body of the church, and in the practice of corporate worship.

Now the evangelical church isn't particularly known for its mystical bent. And some might even argue that mysticism and evangelicalism don't mix. I tend to disagree. Some might suggest that instead of trying to add a mystical element to corporate worship in an evangelical church, it would be better just to send most people to another church altogether. The idea behind this would be that no church can necessarily be all things to all people. But I'm a little bit skeptical about perspective. Now I would agree that the church will never be a place in which everyone is happy all of the time, and everything happens just as everyone wants it to happen. But there's something really attractive to me about the idea of a church that is eclectic in its worship experience. We divide ourselves into categories of "mystical" and the lack of a better word "anti-mystical," and we try to send people of one inclination somewhere else, what is that saying? In my mind, it tends to create an "us versus them" mentality. I think this us versus them mentality can be remedied at least to some degree when these different kinds of people share the same space, the same physical location. I think there's even something to be said if there were different services held at that same location, and under that same church name. That establishes a common ground. Of course to be ideal if everyone could share the same space at the same time, and that might be something that the church could be aiming at, but I think there's value even that just the space is shared.

But the goal, I think, would be that those who aren't naturally inclined in the direction of mysticism might possibly be able to grow in such a way that they can appreciate that. I kind of see it analogous to developing taste for food or for drinks. Then on my own experience, for example with coffee, I had to grow into that taste. And now I really love coffee. There are ways in which we can grow and develop the ability to appreciate experiencing God in different ways. The psalmist says "taste and see that the Lord is good." My imagine here is a community of believers that are committed to tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, and willing and open to exploring new ways to taste, and new ways to see. That is, I think, part of the work that should go into arts ministry.

The arts don't have to be propaganda in order to help people to come to know the gospel. I remember reading a quote from Bono that said something like "I don't understand why people try to make music evangelical; it's intrinsically evangelical." I think what Bono was trying to get at here is that mystical quality that music and the arts often have. Now I would not want to say that all art has to be mystical and quality, but that is a feature that much art -- especially much of the best art -- seems to possess. When the church purposes to cultivate artists into being the best that they can possibly be, one result is going to be art with this mystical characteristic being produced, thus creating space within the evangelical Christian community for Nouwen's "nuclear man/woman" to be able to break out of his or her cocoon.

Toward a missio Dei Model of Abundance...

This is a response to a response of David Fitch to a response of Ben Sternke to David's interview of Frank Viola...  This is a model of missio Dei theology that I'm working out.  Take it for what its worth (which is probably not much at all compared to what these guys bring to the table!).

I'm particularly responding to this statement of Ben's:

In the end, I think that any paradigm that seeks to place missiology "ahead of" or "prior to" ecclesiology (ala Hirsch) is problematic, because the church always ends up being provisional and/or optional.

To put it bluntly: Yes, God needs the church.

It seems much, much more "problematic" to me to think of God a

s needing anything than it is to think of the church as ending up "provisional and/or optional."  It is a problematic dilemma of which I am sure anyone can spot: How can God, a perfect being, need anything? 

In our theology of the missio Dei, it seems clear to me that a paradigm of Divine abundance would be far superior to a paradigm of Divine need.

This is a model of abundance that seems to make more sense to me.  It seems to make more sense to me that God doesn't need the Church (the corpus Christi) in the process of re-creation and redemption any more (or any less) than he would need the Adam (the imago Dei) in the process of creation.  As I see it, it was not out of a lack in Himself, or a 'need' for human co-creativity that he created the Adam.  It was out abundance, out of the overflow of God's joy and ("It was good") pleasure in His creative activity.  Out of the excess (not need), He wanted to share this joyful vocation of creativity with humanity. 

As there seems to be a striking analogy between the imago Dei (the Adam) and the corpus Christi (the Second Adam), it appears also that this analogy might hold true between the missio Dei via imago Dei and the missio Dei via corpus Christi.  It would likewise not be out a lack or need that God in Christ missions through the Church.  It is out of excess and abundance of joy.  We are graced by the overflow--not recruited because of the need--to be participants in the joyful, life-giving re-creativity of Christ.

At least that's what seems to make sense to me.  But this is, of course, based on a chain of reasoning into which I could not go in depth here.

 

 

Technorati Tags: missio dei,missiology,ecclesiology,imago dei,mission,missional church

Why 'Arts Ministry'?

Technorati Tags: arts ministry,arts pastor,david taylor,theology,art,artist,aesthetics

 

David Taylor is really a pioneer in the vocation of Arts Pastor. I love the guy. I have known him now for several years, and in Summer 2007 had the privilege of having him as my mentor for my semester of mentorship as a part of my M.Div at Truett Seminary.  David earned his M.A. and Th.M. from Regent College, Vancouver. 

Although there are many churches who have positions with titles such as "Creative Arts Director" or "Fine Arts Pastor," the function for the vast majority of these positions is specifically to incorporate the arts into Sunday Morning worship.  This is a task that needs to be done, and it is a blessing to the church to have ministers performing those important functions.  However, David's decade-long task as "Arts Pastor" of Hope Chapel's arts ministry (Austin) was as shepherd--shepherding artists, and shepherding the arts in general outside of the scope of Sunday morning worship.  He is currently writing a book for Baker Academic that is going to be the first of its kind (so far as I'm aware) addressing this task of shepherding.  Yet this pastorate does not only have implications for artists, but for the body as a whole, for we all can be served by a someone to help us navigate the complicated waters of the the cultures of art (from fine art to popular art) that have such a profound effect upon our lives.  Moreover, we can all benefit by someone helping us to be better able to "taste and see that the Lord is good." 

This locus of ministry is something that I think is drastically needed in the church today, and this for many reasons.  I don't say this flippantly, and I have much reason to believe I am not saying this naively: I foresee this sphere of ministry as being a next logical step for the evangelical church (and seminary).  It is, in fact, already happening.  It is a hunch I've had since the beginning of my career here at Truett Seminary, and the need for this kind of ministry has since been confirmed time and time again in almost every class I've taken--from missions, to practical theology, to scripture, to homiletics, to pastoral ministry, etc.. 

It just makes too much sense for me to ignore.  With respect to the Platonic triad of Truth, Beauty and Goodness, the Evangelical Church has traditionally paid tremendous attention to Truth.  It has more recently also seen the importance of Goodness, engaging quite effectively with social justice.  This is evinced in the rise of publications such as Sojourners, the M.Div/Social Work degree at Truett, and the evangelical political support of policies addressing social justice.  What there has not yet been widespread evangelical attention given to is the locus of Beauty.  The Arts have a special connection to Beauty that seems to be obvious.  However it is also inextricable from Truth--as Paul Tillich was particularly apt to point out to us--and also Goodness--as some such as Iris Murdoch and Elaine Scarry, as well as all the poet-prophets from the ancient Hebrews until today make manifest to us.  Even disciplines as oft-reductionistic as the sciences have turned their attention more and more to the important place Beauty--elegance, parsimony, etc. The reality that seems to be making itself heard is that all of these things--Truth, Beauty, Goodness--exist in a kind of perichoresis, interpenetrating one another.  As such, a truncated approach that specializes in only one or two of these elements will only end up depriving itself even of a true understanding of those two elements.  A holistic approach is necessary for a proper grasp of each part.

I could go on (and on...and on) about the matrix of reasons supporting why this locus of ministry makes sense, but the short of it, as far as I see it, is this: the signs of the times for the evangelical church point quite forcefully in the direction of this kind of arts ministry.  I think it behooves Christian seminaries, colleges, and churches to seriously consider this, and start more intentionally seeking ways to engage in the conversation that is already going on regarding this locus of ministry, and to educate ministers and laity in this regard.  Fuller Seminary and Regent College--among others (most recently Duke Divinity)--have already done significant work in this regard, even offering graduate and post-graduate degree concentrations in the arts. 

If you can't tell, I am passionately convinced of the importance of this.  I trust that if I am misguided in writing this, and if this is not in the best interests of the Church, then the Holy Spirit will make that clear to the reader.  Yet if I have indeed been prompted by the Spirit to share this, I trust that the Spirit will make this need perceivable to you as well.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

Academic Research Tools, Tips, Software, Applications, etc., etc., weeeeeeee!

So... I've kind of started a quest for academic research tools and tips! I haven't had time to go into great depth with it, but what I've thus far discovered has been very interesting.

To go on a quick tangent... There is apparently a lot of effort being done right now toward Web 2.0 academic research, building communities of academic research through various tools. I'm fascinated with this idea. It really confounds me why academic research and writing seems to always be approached so autonomously and individualistically (that's so "Enlightenment" era...). I really hunger to see theological academics approached communally, with "many members of one body" coming together, balancing out each others' weaknesses. End tangent....

Just last night I did some more searching and found what looks to be a very interesting program called NoteScribe (http://www.notescribe.net). I watched a few introductory videos on it last night, and tested it out the demo version of it today. It's pretty cool. You can organize notes under different keywords and categories and subcategories. You can also attach files (like .pdf of articles or books), and use it as a bibliographic manager as well, but it's strongest attribute is its ability to organize a database of notes, and access them in many different ways. Quite worth checking out for academics, novelists (background research, notes on characters, etc.), and pastors (it would be an awesome bank for illustrations, etc.), etc.

But the program that looks most impressive to me (especially since it is FREE) is Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/). I was introduced to this when I found this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmKKFvKxXj4) that demonstrates Google Scholar, OneNote, and Zotero. Zotero is an add-on to Mozilla Firefox web browser you can use to easily download bibliographic info from the web to Endnote and into Word (you just download the plugins for Firefox and MS Word). In fact, you don't even need another bibliographic manager (like Endnote or Refworks), because this does all of that. The only advantage having EndNote that I could think of is the "cite while you write" feature, which makes Endnote easier to do the actual writing/citing. But it's not that much harder to use Zotero's plugin for Word. For each bibliographic item in Zotero, you can make limitless notes, keywords/tags, and even attach files (like journal articles, etc.), or attach a hyperlink to wherever the file is on your harddrive, or attach links to the web...whatever. In addition to all of that, you can also capture web pages, attach them to the biblio. entry, and highlight and make notes in the margin. Plus, you can do simple or advanced searches that will actually search the *content* of your documents attached (however much you decide to index). That is just phenomenal. Similar programs I have seen cost $200-$400. This Zotero demonstration video knocked my socks off (http://www.zotero.org/static/videos/tour/zotero_tour.htm). It would be great to use with NoteScribe.

I'm very interested in how MS OneNote might be utilized for managing academic research and writing. It has great promise especially for outlining. Lately I've been using ActionOutline (http://www.actionoutline.com/) for outlining, and I like it better than OneNote for outlining because you can very easily move information around. While it has been very helpful, I'm not entirely satisfied with it. It doesn't seem to really intersect well with other applications (drag and drop functions, etc.), and it needs a more user-friendly highlighter functionality.

Okay, that's all for now. If you discover any helpful tools or strategies for academic research, please let me know. Leave a comment about it.

-Adam

** I am going to try to keep this blog post updated as I continue to figure things out.



UPDATE: 1/28/09

• For searching full texts of documents (including .pdf, .doc, .docx, and more), I think Google Desktop looks about as good as anything, and it is free. It might help to get this plugin for desktop that allows you to tweak the indexing a little bit.
• For hyperlinking to certain points in a Word document (e.g. "Chapter 3"), you can create a bookmark. Copy that bookmark, and then paste it into another program (like OneNote), and you have a convenient little hyperlink. I can't figure out how to do this with .pdf though.
• I highly recommend Foxit PDF viewer for research purposes. It is free, much faster than Adobe, and takes up less space. But what I REALLY like about it is that you can actually highlight the .pdf text. There is only one thing that I really wish they could change on the product. When you highlight something, and then copy it, and paste it into another program, it does not carry the highlighted aspect of the text, but pastes it as plain text. If there was a way to fix that, that would be perfect.
  
• http://www.pdf-search-engine.com/ This is a cool little tool for those who like to keep a eBook/article library.

UPDATE: 1/29/09

• Some other excellent tools to use for research...
• scholar.google.com : search tool for academic articles and texts
• books.google.com: search full texts of thousands of books of all kinds
• Amazon.com: also has capability of searching full texts of many books.
• Other Search Engines: This link has a thorough list of many academic search engines.
  

GatewayArts New Exhibit: "Fruit"

I’ve been working this summer in the budding arts ministry at Gateway Community Church, and this last weekend, we just opened our new visual art exhibit: “Fruit.” The goal of the exhibit is to creatively explore and enflesh the “Fruit of the Spirit.” But we tried to do this in an untraditional way. Alex Villareal did an excellent job of conceiving the exhibit, and encouraging everyone to create. One thing he urged us to try to do was to contrast the “fruit” against whatever its opposite would be.

This was my first time to create a piece to be hung in any exhibit. Visual art is not a skill I have spent a long time developing in myself. I have always loved to draw. I wanted to be an animator for Disney when I was a little kid. But I soon discovered that there were far, far better artists (like my friend Scott Hickmon!) than myself, and they could produce art much more quickly than I could. That’s about the time I started focusing more on acting. But art is still something I enjoy doing, whenever I actually do it. So I thought I’d give it a “go.” I’ll try to post an image of my piece, and tell about the process that went into making it in another blog.

Anyway, I really enjoyed observing people checking out the art in our exhibit. I especially liked watching people’s reactions to Alex’s installation “In Search of Peace” (snapshot by Elizabeth Wright pictured here). Installations are so big, they demand people’s attention. And how could you not take a gander at anything surrounded by hundreds of black ants? He was trying to capture the way people try to find peace in the midst of anxiety through escape, such as the escape of watching TV shows like Leave it to Beaver.

While people’s reactions to Alex’s piece were most acute, it seemed like all of the pieces in our exhibit had the effect of somehow bringing people to life—especially Sunday morning. People didn’t really come to church expecting to see a new art exhibit. I think they were pleasantly surprised. Some people were bothered by some of the pieces. Others were amused by those same pieces. In both reactions, I think there was a kind of “waking up” involved. It gave people something to talk about. It caused them to think. It stimulated their senses and imagination. It helped bring them alive, I think.

What better way to start a week?

Why the Cross-born King?: a sermon on John 12

I've been trying to blog more lately. Well... more precisely, I've been trying to publish on my blog(s) what I've been writing outside of it. This seems to be the only way I'll ever have a remotely consistent blog. My writing seems to be mostly occasional--written to someone in particular about something in particular. While those thoughts are never fleshed out perfectly, or thought through perfectly, there is great care given to them, and they reveal a bit of who I am and what I'm about--at least at the moment.

One reason I haven't been posting things like this on my blog is simply because I want things to be perfect before I post them. It's finally sinking in that that is never going to happen, at least for me. So why not just post things that aren't perfect? Why not essentially put the label "In development" or "rough draft" on everything I post in my blogs? Perhaps being okay with my own imperfections is itself a step in the process of perfection? At very least, it helps me overcome some of my obsessive perfectionism.

The following is a sermon I did this past semester for a class on preaching. Let it be said: I am not a preacher. I did not go to seminary to become a preacher. If I had to do a sermon every week, I think I would nearly kill myself. I don't know how REAL preachers do it. But I do fancy myself as an aspiring writer. I enjoy the writing process, and the research process. I don't mind the actual preaching either, if I have plenty of time to prepare for it. This sermon is, of course, not perfect. But it does unpack some things that I have been thinking about. Here you go...

Why the Cross-born King?: a sermon on John 12

Delivered: 4/28/2008

Monday night, I pulled another all nighter trying to get my work done for this week. So I packed up my stuff, and left my house about 3:45 AM, and drove up to Waco. About 5:15 or so, I pull into the parking lot of the Pilot Travel Center/Gas station just south of town on I-35 (it’s where I go to pull all-nighters when I’m in Waco).

Before my car is even in the parking space, a guy in a Camaero pulls up next to me, looking at me with his window rolled down, and I just knew he was going to ask me for money.

I got out of my car, and of course he did just that: “Hey man, my mom is in ICU in Austin, and I need money to make the trip cuz I’m out of gas… think you can help me at all?”

I’m thinking: “Fantastic! I just made a $45 trip up to Waco, and now this lying idiot wants me to give him free gas.” I’m so sick of these people who try to take advantage of people like me, who think they can actually fool me into believing them. But I have this principle that I give them money anyway, because Grace is not about what people deserve.

I gave him $10 worth of gas, but I made sure he was clear that this was going to hurt me financially, that this was a sacrifice. But I didn’t do it out of love, but out of wanting to make him feel like crap for lying to me. And that was vain. Because I bet he just drove away in his Camero with a grin on his face saying, “Ha ha, See ya, sucker.” He didn’t feel guilty. He played me; I was his victim.

I wonder… I can’t help but to wonder if they said the exact same thing to Jesus when they put him on the Cross: “See ya, sucker.” I wonder if they thought they had played him?

But I don’t think Jesus felt like a victim. Somehow… somehow what Jesus did on the Cross transformed his “being a victim” into “victory” itself. Even as the victim, He won, and he knew it. He knew what was going to happen on the Cross all along, and he knew it was going to confuse a lot of people, because not at all what they were looking for.

At least that’s what we see in the Gospel of John. Over, and over again, Jesus predicted what would happen to him—that he would be ‘lifted up’—and he warned that most people would be confused. And the crowd never got it.

You see, the people in the crowds were looking for this thing we call the Kingdom of God to come, except they were looking for something the same shape of all the other ‘kingdoms’ of the world they knew. They were looking for a King who would rule by the Sword with strength and force.

And this was exactly what they thought Jesus was going to be. This guy astounded them. His fame was spreading throughout the lands because of the amazing wonders he performed, turning water into wine, healing the lame and sick and blind, walking on water. He fed five thousand people—that is a legion of people—out of one kid’s dinner! In fact, it says in 6:14 that when he did that, he had to slip away because the crowd was going to (quote) “make him king by force.” And then, as if that wasn’t enough, he raises some guy from the dead whose been gone from this world for three days! I mean, that is pretty stinking awesome (pun intended, Lazarus), and everyone who saw was so blown away, the text says that they couldn’t stop talking about it!

It says in chapter 12 that (quote) “great crowds” of Jews were coming to see Jesus (and Lazarus) because the news of Lazarus that was being spread so rapidly. Now if there was already a legion of people who had come to see Jesus because of some healings, you can imagine the kind of support he could muster up with a resurrection.

Honestly: Who else could you possibly imagine would be a better candidate for overthrowing Caesar, and taking Israel back for Yahweh?! If a warrior messiah was literally what they were looking for, and they just saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, you know they had to have been talking to each other like:

(surfer accent) “Dude, think about it. This guy leads a couple of Legions of people against Rome… I mean, so what if Caesar’s army is bigger, cuz Jesus is a necromancer, man: people die, and he’d just zap ‘em back to life, you know? I’d be like ‘There’s one Jesus.’ Zap ‘There’s a few more over there.’ Zap. Zap. ‘Oh, you missed one Jesus.’ Zap. You know? It’d be awesome!”

That’s obviously what I’d be thinking, anyway…

So people came in swarms to welcome him into Jerusalem with palm branches and praises:

“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—

the King of Israel!” (Jn 12:13)

So many people had come to see Jesus, it says in verse 19 the Pharisees, who were plotting to kill him, just basically told each other that they might as well give up, because there is no way they could get to Jesus now.

So far, with all these signs and wonders, Jesus fit the crowd’s bill. So far, the Messiah they were expecting, and the Messiah Jesus was, were the same thing. And now was the time of the Passover! How perfect! Just as Israel was freed from Egypt, they would now be freed from Rome!

It all made sense to them. Jesus’ miraculous feats just kept getting bigger and better as if they were building up to the glorious climax, and it would make sense for that climax to be the overthrow of Rome.

But that wasn’t the climax he was building up to. And they were going to be extremely disappointed.

See, the glorious climax Jesus was building up to was something inconceivable to them: Christ (Messiah), King, crucified.

And now, in 12 verse 23, Jesus makes this clear:

²³ Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

²⁴ Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ²⁵ Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶ Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

²⁷ “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. ²⁸ Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” ²⁹ The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” ³⁰ Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. ³¹

Now is the judgment of this world;

now the ruler of this world will be driven out. ³²

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth,

will draw all people to myself.”

³³ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Well, the crowd still doesn’t get it. Jesus was going to be “lifted up”; Jesus was going to die, and that death is going to be the glorious climax that he has been building up to this whole time—his death was going to be his glorification. His death would be his Kingdom Come.

Instead of being a warrior messiah who strides into Jerusalem swinging a sword to drive out the ruler of Rome, Jesus is the suffering servant who “drives out the ruler of this world” by hanging on a Cross. Instead of being the mighty king who usurps his Kingdom by force of arms, Jesus is the mighty king who draws “all people” to himself when his arms are forced to a tree.”

Oh yes, Jesus is glorified in this hour. This hour is his glorious inauguration, but you have to have the eyes to see it as he is crowned in thorns, and takes his throne on two wooden beams.

The absurdity of it demands that we ask: why in the world? Why would he do it like this, when he could have done it exactly like everyone expected him to? Why? What is it about the Cross that makes it superior to the Sword?

There are a lot of theological reasons I think you could justifiably list that make the Cross superior to the sword, but I’m going to focus on one thing that I don’t think is really talked about enough, but has radical implications on how we live our lives as agents of the Kingdom of God.

You see, the Cross is inextricably connected to God’s Love for the world (Jn 3:16). God’s love for the world wants the world to be made whole, to be healed from its brokenness—that is what Christ being “lifted up” is referencing: the Golden Serpent that was “lifted up” on a pole so that anyone who looked at it would be healed of their snake bites. But because he loves us, God wants the whole human being to be healed, both internally and externally.

The Sword simply can’t do this.

Greg Boyd says it best, I think:

“The power of the sword…can never transform a person’s inner being. While the use of the sword tends to deepen the resolve of the punished rather than transform it, Jesus’ aim was to transform hearts and, by that means, transform the world.”[1]

The Kingdom of the World, you see, wields the Sword. The Sword gives us the ability to control these external factors, which very honestly make life easier for us much of the time. It is something that is reliable, and for the most part manageable, and we like that in the world. When the Sword is applied to Government, it makes laws, and punishes lawbreakers. With our vote, we can even have a say in which laws are created.

But we don’t just apply the sword to Government; it happens all the time with Religion as well. I recently came across a list of rules that one Christian High School has for its students. It had lots of stuff like “No physical touch between the sexes.” I think there were about thirteen paragraphs concerning the length and type of clothing girls are allowed to wear. What really amused me was this one: “Any behavior that is not consistent with the Bible will not be tolerated.” Really? Well, have fun figuring that one out…

You see, this is an example of the sword, manipulation, control. Sure this helps to get us the results of external compliance, but what we see time and time and time again is that kids who grow up in these environments often end up rebelling against that oppressive religious regime. Sure these kids don’t look like they are ‘sinning’ on the outside, but they were not healed on the inside. Their appearance of healing was superficial and caused by fear of punishment. And when they get out on their own, once that fear is removed, so is their ‘good’ behavior. They have not been healed, because they have not been Loved. They have not been loved, because they have not been shown the Cross.

Now, I don’t want to say that rules and laws and everything that goes along with the Sword should necessarily be done away with absolutely. If I was older and wiser, maybe I would say that. As for now, I think maybe it is something that is needed sometimes. Maybe a balance needs to be found. But what I think I can say with confidence is this: it is not the ideal. If used at all, the Sword must ever be a last resort, and never be our default mode.

That said, it remains true that rules and punishment can only promise external change. It may often bring better tangible and certain ‘results,’ but the change it brings is not lasting, and it is caused out of fear of suffering—fear of the Cross that we are threatening them with!—and that has got to bother a people who are disciples of the one who was on the receiving side of the Cross.

In Jesus “lifted up” on the Cross, we see a loving King who does not rape, but woos. The Sword can only command us externally, but the Cross can captivate our hearts. The King on the Cross shows us love, respects our freedom, and inspires and awakens the Kingdom of God from within us. When our hearts are freely his, everything else follows. This is a change that, unlike the extreme external discipline of that Christian school, remains even when fear of punishment is lifted. It is a change that has the quality of “eternity”—it has an “eternal” kind of life to it.

The Cross is not as certain, and not as “safe” in the way the world prefers; in fact it is risky. But Jesus tells us that risk is not necessarily a bad thing, because life results from death, just as a fruit-bearing plant results from the death of a seed. Jesus not only tells us this, but he shows it to us on the Cross, when He is lifted up, and brings healing, and draws all people to Himself.

The Martinez family used to have a quiet, comfortable life, living in a beautiful home, secluded in the Colorado mountains. But in 2000, they decided to trade their comfortable life for a home in one of the most violent and troubled neighborhoods in Albuquerque, NM. This was a neighborhood flooded with drugs, and prostitution, and gang violence.

Why did they move? Because they—even their kids, all younger than 15, wanted to bring change and healing to these people.

In an interview with the children, the girls said that it was scary sometimes because there would always be people walking through their yard, and there were shootings. One time, they said, their dad got beat up by a gang. The gang took him, and beat him senseless with 2x4s and beer bottles. He came back to his wife, bruised and bloody, and her reaction was, “We are not going to lose this. We are going to stay here, this is our calling, our purpose.”

Instead of turning them into the police, the family reached out to the attackers. They made friends with them, loved them, welcomed them into their home, and by becoming completely vulnerable to these people, they inspired change within them. The crime rate in that neighborhood has now dropped 50%.

This is the way of the Cross. It does not make us as safe and comfortable as the Sword does, but is often risky and painful. We can’t control the results of the Cross, because transformation can only happen when the Holy Spirit gives them eyes to see its worth. Many people will walk away unchanged, just like they walked away from Golgotha with a hardened heart. In others, change may happen, but we will never see it because it doesn’t happen right away. The world demands to see results, but we cannot live that way if we follow the Cross.

And a lot of times, people will look at what we have done through the Cross, and they’ll only see how they have ‘played’ us, and they’ll walk away saying, “See ya sucker.”

I’m never going to see the results of my little encounter with Camero guy. I seriously doubt it will have any results, because I did not bear the Cross in love like I should have. I didn’t want to inspire him to greatness out of my love, I just wanted to make him feel like trash for lying to me. I essentially turned the Cross into a club, and beat the guy over the head with it—that’s just another version of the Sword. I was the victim, and I made him a victim as well.

But if I would have practiced the Cross out of love, neither of us would have been the victim. I would not have been a victim because, just as G.K. Chesterton once said, “You cannot defeat the Cross, for it is defeat.” The Cross turns victim into victory. But much more important than me not being the victim is this. If I would have practiced the Cross, this last Tuesday morning at 5:15 AM, Adam Langley might have died a martyr’s death, a death that bears witness to the beautiful life-giving Grace of God.

The Cross is not just about not using the sword. It is about dying, dying a kind of death that—like the death of a seed—might have sprung forth life out of the dead soil of that guy’s heart.

As agents of the Kingdom of God, we have to let the question remain in our minds on constant vigil: Is this the way of the Cross or the Sword? Am I trying to coerce the Kingdom to happen externally through strength and determination of the sword? Or am I trying to inspire the Kingdom to happen internally through the love and sacrifice of the Cross? In what instrument am I placing my hope and my trust? Do I find my hands with a hammer? Or do I find my hands with nails?

---

[1] Myth of a Christian Nation, 33.

My Two Cents on “Jesus Mythicism”

This is a cut-and-paste response to a Christian friend of mine, Mr. James Panetti, who was wrestling with this thing sometimes called “Jesus Mythicist” theory, which maintains not only that the Jesus represented in the Gospels is not historical, but that there was never even a historical figure known as “Jesus of Nazareth.”



Yeah, I think you are reckoning with some of the same things that I have been investigating. The underlying question you are dealing with is "How do we know stuff?" (That is what epistemology is all about.) What you are essentially pointing to is two different channels of "knowing" reality: "heart" and "head." You might even differentiate them as "intellect" and "imagination." There are probably several ways you could distinguish them.

For a long time, the two trajectories of knowing have characterized "art" and "science" separately. Science, employing the intellect, has been about the business of "objectively" withholding belief until "proof" has been offered to it. What I was touching on in my own note was the fact that they naively ignore the fact that they have not applied this methodology to the scientific method itself. My point has been essentially to show that science is not as strictly "scientific" as it assumes itself to be. The very method it asserts is assumed through a kind of intuitive "leap". In your own terms, you might say that they assume this scientific method because it is appealing to their "heart." Another way of saying it: they assert the scientific method because they find it beautiful.

Here is a very interesting excerpt from a biography on Einstein called Einstein: His Life and Universe:

---------

One day during the 1930s, Einstein invited Saint-John Perse to Princeton to find out how the poet worked. "How does the idea of a poem come?" Einstein asked. The poet spoke of the role played by intuition and imagination. "It's the same for a man of science," Einstein responded with delight. "It is a sudden illumination, almost a rapture. Later, to be sure, intelligence analyzes and experiments confirm or invalidate the intuition. But initially there is a great forward leap of the imagination."

---------

There have been several books and articles written that deal with this role of the imagination in scientific discovery, and the "leaps" that are taken in order for science to advance.

The particular struggle you have been wrestling with sounds like what has been called the "Jesus Mythicist" movement. This movement has come about in conjunction with the "New Atheism" that has recently emerged with Dawkins and Harris and others. I have two or three cents to say about both of those movements, and I’ll share that in generalizations that do not necessarily hold true for each person individually, but it might be said characteristic of the movements as a whole. They are often called "fundamentalist atheists," and for good reason: they characteristically ignore most of the significant intellectual advancements that have developed in postmodernism and what might be called post-postmodernism (we don't quite know what to call what comes after postmodernism yet!).

This atheism (and the Jesus Mythicist movement along with it) is a popularized rehashing of old out-dated enlightenment assumptions about reality. What is strikingly (and absurdly) ironic about it is that it wears the guise of "intellectualism", but it really practices what might be called "emotionalism." You will notice in debates between many of these atheists and Christian apologists (for example, the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath) that the atheist will depend largely upon wise-cracks, insults, over-generalizations, and charisma, whereas the “irrational” Christian they debate is raising powerful intellectual points to reckon with, which the atheist completely ignores, or else shrugs off with yet another wise-crack. I’ve noticed too that many of these atheists seem to absolutely relish in being as crass as possible (for example, the “Christ-my-ass” day of the “Rational Response Squad”) which is, of course, very cool, objective, and rational…not!).

As far as Jesus Mythicism goes, it assumes that if Jesus was indeed who the Church says he was, there would be scores of undeniable historical documents proving this. They assume a "Foundationalist" epistmeological posture that refuses to believe anything unless it can be proven (but only in the way that they happen to prefer things to be proven), and this with nearly absolute certainty. Because the other extrabiblical accounts of Jesus' life can be questioned (if you really think about it, is ANY historical document immune from doubt?), they reject them as proof.

What is happening, I think, is that these Mythicists are emerging in an age of information revolution. With the internet, everyone is a published writer, and any bit of information you could imagine is at your fingertips. My impression is that mythicists quite naively assume (though they wouldn't admit as much) that the ancient world was at least somewhat the same way: "If there really was a miracle-working Jesus, surely Joe Nazereth would have blogged about it." The fact is, however, that the process of documentation and writing, etc., was extremely time consuming and expensive, and there were not many people who even had the literacy to undertake such an endeavor.

Yet even if they did have the time and resources to write about Jesus, there would also need to be the additional requirement of people preserving that document for 2000 years. People would need to think this document was important enough to take the trouble of preserving it, and making copies of it, etc., in order for us to be able to have a copy to point to today.


It is nothing new to doubt that the Gospels portray the actual history of a man named Jesus from Nazareth. The whole "quest for the historical Jesus" movement tried to deconstruct the "historical Jesus" from the "theological Jesus." These guys didn't doubt there was an actual historical person based upon which the Gospel writers told tall tales, they were just trying (unsuccessfuly) to figure out which tales were tall, and which were short.

It's one thing to say "If Jesus did all the things the Gospels say he did, then you would expect to see extrabiblical materials documenting his existence." But I imagine that part of the reason why those in the historical Jesus quest didn't go so far to claim he never existed is because that if Jesus didn't really do all the fantastic things claimed of him, then there would be absolutely no reason whatsoever for the historians contemporary to Jesus' day to document his life. Even if he did do all the things the Gospels claim, it would not be justified to expect scores of extrabiblical accounts talking about Jesus. How much less if he wasn't extra-ordinary?

There are many other methodological assumptions concerning history that factor into this discussion; this is only the tip of the iceberg. But it is also, as I mentioned, assuming a foundationalist methodology: "I don't believe something until I have proof." The reality is: that is not even what they practice themselves concerning their assumptions of right methodology. They reject the "leap" the Christian makes into belief of Jesus' existence, but they make a "leap" themselves into the assumption that some absolute proof is required for belief in Jesus' existence.

The point that Alister McGrath is making in The Open Secret is that these "leaps" are required in the epistemic process--even with science. When we make the "leap" of belief in Jesus (which is not a "blind" leap that is completely without reason), and we are undergirded with good theology, we see from the inside that it is beautiful (in your terms, we "know with our heart" that Jesus is real).

There is a subjective element to that, but it is not relativistic, nor is it (necessarily) completely unobjective. The objectivity of it can possibly be found in this idea of "resonance" or "best explanation." McGrath points out that the Christian worldview has a powerful explanatory power, not only concerning the world, but even the very existence of other worldviews. There is a quality of resonance or equilibrium that Christianity (at its best, not its corrupted forms) can offer that other worldviews and religions do not seem to possess. But that is a whole other discussion....

Einstein on Science and Poetry

The following is an excerpt from the book Einstein: His Life.

One day during the 1930s, Einstein invited Saint-John Perse to Princeton to find out how the poet worked. "How does the idea of a poem come?" Einstein asked. The poet spoke of the role played by intuition and imagination. "It's the same for a man of science," Einstein responded with delight. "It is a sudden illumination, almost a rapture. Later, to be sure, intelligence analyzes and experiments confirm or invalidate the intuition. But initially there is a great forward leap of the imagination."

A dialog on scientific and theological methodology: “Proof” vis-a-vis “Presupposition” in Synergistic “Resonance”

The following is from a dialog I’ve been having with an atheist on this discussion board thread: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/14534. The atheist’s responses follow the colons: “::”

It is a somewhat technical (albeit amateurish) discussion on epistemology. These responses are “off the cuff”, not exquisitely refined. They are nonetheless a little window into what I’ve been exploring recently, especially in critical realist epistemology, and Alister McGrath’s approach in his new book “The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology”. I’d, of course, love to hear your thoughts, if you’re interested in this kind of nerdy stuff, and have the tenacity to tread through this whole thing!

Here goes…

I do not disagree that the empirical method is a reliable and extremely helpful tool for knowing and understanding reality. The reason I harp on its limitations is because it is, for many atheists I’ve discovered, assumed to be the ONLY reliable and helpful tool for knowing and understanding reality, or indeed the tool that trumps all other competing ways of knowing and understanding reality.

The question that was naïvely ignored by modernity (and many atheists…and Christians, too, for that matter) is: “But how do we know the empirical process itself?” You see, I would say (following many respected epistemologists) that all knowledge comes through the use of certain tools or channels or methods. The empirical process is one channel for knowing reality. But what is the channel or process through which we come to know the empirical process? What lies tacitly beneath your statement “There is no reason for doubting my senses”?

This is simplified and imperfect, but I think it looks something like this:

(a) data is transmitted to your senses

(b) your senses transmit data to your brain

(c) You make some fallible assumptions into which you must take a “leap” of uncertainty:

(C1) That the data transmitted to my senses is accurate

(C2) That my senses work properly in transmitting that data to my brain?

(C3) That my intellect capable of properly interpreting this data?

(c) You test out the reliability of those assumptions in step (c).

(d) You discover that those assumptions seem to be reliable and resonate well with the big picture of life.

Again this is oversimplified, but it is somewhat helpful for our conversation. The reality is that the process of knowing is both top-bottom as well as bottom-top. There is a kind of synergism involved here. Only through this synergistic process can you say “There is no reason for doubting my senses.”

So to say “I believe because there is no reason not to believe” is to assume that the default position of the human knower is to believe that which is presented to him (again, an oversimplified statement). I would agree. This is true not only of our senses, but also the testimony of others, and—I would say—even our intuition. (There are probably more things we could throw into that “default” as well.)

We assent to things until some kind of cognitive dissonance is introduced into the picture to make us question the validity of that thing. As such, we believe p because p “resonates” with everything else we understand concerning reality. When we are presented with a choice between p and q, we decide between them based on which option resonates best with our experience of reality.

I understand that this process is very similar to what Thomas Kuhn describes in Structures of Scientific Revolutions. McGrath points to Jean Piaget’s model of “equilibration” as another example of this. Here is an excerpt from McGrath’s book The Open Secret, the chapter on “The Psychology of Perception”:

The account of perception that we have given thus far is of a dialectic process in which sensory input is made sense of in terms of pre-existing perceptual schemas, which have themselves developed as part of the process of acting on sensory input. The perceiver both acts on the world and is acted upon by the world. Processing is both top-down and bottom-up. The perceiver organizes data, but the organizational system employed is itself influenced by the type of data it is required to handle, and has some invariant features or predispositions built into it, presumably as the outcome of natural selection.

------------------------------------

McGrath:

The two sides of this process have been referred to as “assimilation of” and “accommodation to” the world by Piaget. For Piaget, there exists a process of “reflecting abstraction” through which human beings interact with their environment. Human beings are not born with such structures, nor do they absorb them passively from their environment: they construct them through a process of interaction (which Piaget terms “equilibration”), in which equilibrium is achieved between assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation may be defined as the “act of incorporating objects or aspects of objects into learned activities,” where accommodation is “the modification of an activity or ability in the face of environmental demands.” Generally these two processes balance each other, but accommodation to the world begins to dominate when the perceiver encounters phenomena that do not readily fit into existing schemas. This sort of situation involves cognitive challenge and possibly stress, but the outcome may often be a reorganization or development of schemas so that they are more differentiated, complex, and in keeping with the sensory phenomena. Thus there is a cycle of assimilation–challenge–accommodation–assimilation–challenge–accommodation under-

pinning the process of perception and its development.

(end of excerpt from McGrath)

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So anyway, this is essentially the process through which the empirical method is appropriated and affirmed as a reliable epistemological tool. The ideas of “resonance” and “equilibrium” are essentially the same, I think.

:: I only claimed certainty regarding FACTS, nothing more! Facts are certain, unless you can present evidence that facts and our senses are untrustworthy. Your only argument for this was the fallacy from inductive uncertainty when you said that we could not be absolute certain about our senses. This is a red herring. That fact our senses are not absolutely certain does not mean they are not untrustworthy.

I never said that our senses are “untrustworthy” because we cannot be absolutely certain about them, did I? My only contention was that you cannot be absolutely certain about them, not that they are untrustworthy. Those are two completely different things. “Trustworthiness” does not necessarily entail “absolute certainty.”

This is a trustworthy, but not “absolutely certain” statement: “When I turn the key in my car’s ignition, its engine will start.” It’s trustworthy because that is what usually happens, and I do not have reason to doubt it will happen. It is not “absolutely certain” because something could have happened to my car without my knowing that will cause it not to start (e.g. someone siphoned the gas from my tank, etc.).

I would agree that (per your definition) “facts” are trustworthy. I do not agree that “facts” are “absolutely certain.” There is absolutely no fallacy in that recognition whatsoever, so far as I can see. If you think there is, then please justify that statement rather than stamping it with a so-called fallacy. Explain why it is a fallacy. Show me the error in this argument:

1. That the sky is blue is a “fact” (per your definition).

2. We know the sky is blue because our senses tell us so.

3. We cannot be absolutely, 100% certain that our senses give us accurate information about reality

4. Therefore we cannot be absolutely certain about “facts”

Note, again, that this says nothing about “trustworthiness” of the senses. It is merely the recognition of a threshold limiter to our certainty that cannot be surpassed into “absolute certainty.” The lack of recognition of this epistemic boundary is one of the weaknesses of Enlightenment Foundationalism, pointed to by theistic and non-theistic philosophers alike.

:: This is already been explained to you! We know [that the scientific method is reliable] via the scientific method.

No. All you have done is demonstrate circular reasoning. To justify the validity of the scientific method with the scientific method itself is circular. That should be obvious to you. It is like me saying “I know that the Bible is true because it says it is true.” That is circular too. My point is that, to a certain degree, circularity is a necessary aspect of the epistemological process. This has been demonstrated by Jean Piaget, as well as Michael Polanyi (both of whom were both very scientific epistemologists who include a significant amount of scientific research in their arguments, and neither of which had a theistic agenda to their work) and many others.

:: The scientific method limits/removes bias, is the most objective method we have, and it is continuously successful.

It is very helpful in the search for objectivity, but it does not limit/remove the bias of its own assumed truth-bearing nature; it is not (indeed cannot be, I don’t think) objective with relation to itself. The only reason you can say it is “continuously successful” is because you once assumed it to be reliable, and it has not proven otherwise. It is “continuously successful”, but only “from the inside” of presupposing that it is true.

:: And you've presented no alternatives.

Yes I have. Testimony, for example. I even provided you links to some excellent writing on the epistemology of Testimony (the last issue of Episteme journal, for example). Intuition is another factor worth seriously considering, rather than dismissing it categorically without good reason. As I understand, epistemologists such as Alan Goldman have defended intuition (with qualification) through Reliabilism. There are other factors in the process of knowing too, such as prioritization and the fact that a person has to feel like something is worth knowing before they seek knowledge of it. “Resonance” and equilibrium also play into this process. And that’s the tip of the iceberg. McGrath gives an excellent assessment of the psychological aspects of this process in his chapter on the “Psychology of Perception” in The Open Secret: a New vision for Natural Theology (the chapter is actually written by Joanna Collicutt, who is a lecturer in psychology).

Seriously consider the Matrix movie. Try to put yourself in the position of Neo. It is a hypothetical situation in which the very signals being sent to our brains, giving us data about reality, is called into question. This data typically goes without being questioned at all because, as you point out, we don’t have a reason to doubt it.

Think of the expression “the squeaky wheel gets the oil.” When we drive our car, we are not really consciously aware of all the mechanisms that work together to put us into motion, until something goes wrong. When something does go wrong, we pop open the hood and try to see what is the matter, and notice our oil is low, or radiator fluid is leaking, or whatever. When things work well all the time, we can easily take things for granted as being much simpler than they really are. When things go wrong, it forces us to think about these things we take for granted.

The Matrix/BIV analogies are really just a helpful way of causing us to stop and think about the epistemic complexities that we take for granted. If someone we had known for a long time, who we really respected, who had always proven to be a reliable source of information were to tell us in all seriousness that our experiences of reality were really just fabrications of computers being transmitted to us via electronic signals to our brains, we would be forced to reckon with (among other things, such as the epistemic nature of testimony) why we should or should not trust our senses. We couldn’t use science to prove that our friend was mistaken, because science itself would be called into question; science itself would be part of the illusion.

In the process of seeking objective truth, it should be our goal to bring our attention to the tacit epistemological processes that usually do not get our attention. It should not necessarily take a “squeaky wheel” to get us to think critically about it. We should be seeking it anyway. No we don’t have a reason NOT to believe our senses, but that should not keep us from trying to explore the process behind why we DO believe it.

Objectivity is explicitly concerned with thinking critically about our presuppositions. If “our senses tell us the truth” is a presupposition (which it is), then we should be critically examining it. That is exactly what postmodern epistemologists (and philosophers after them) have done. That has been what I understand Alister McGrath has been concerned with in his three-volume Scientific Theology: looking closely and thinking critically about the methodology behind science and theology that has often gone unexamined.

That methodology consists (at least in part) of what I outlined in my last post. But there are many places in which people explain it far better than me (such as McGrath’s chapter on psychology of perception).

:: You've STILL not presenting reasons for why our senses are untrustworthy. You're only making naked assertions!!

I’m not saying they are untrustworthy. Nor is it relevant whether or not there are those “reasons” (see above). Consider the fact that you are making the “naked assertion” that we should let our belief in our senses remain without question unless we have good reason to doubt them.

:: I however can make an argument for the reliability of our sense: our senses are repeatably and independently confirmed via the scientific method to such a degree that there is not reason to doubt them.

Again, in the Matrix scenario, your argument would be irrelevant, because the scientific method would be irrelevant as “proof” (though not irrelevant as “resonance”). You must come to grips with this, but as of yet you have not. All those scientific “confirmations” you point to would be alleged fabrications of the machine to which you’re hooked up. Yes, it would be “reliable”, but that reliability would only be “from within” the Matrix. It would be “reliable” in that it is intrinsically/internally consistent and thus “resonant.”

The reason I don’t believe I’m in a Matrix is not because of the scientific method per se, but ultimately because that belief would not be useful in anyway to help me live my life. If I do not see proof, or other good reasons to believe in the Matrix, then the proposition of the Matrix does not disturb my “equilibrium” enough to force me to adjust the paradigm of my worldview. The best “resonance” is achieved, then, through NOT believing in the Matrix, believing instead in the truth-bearing nature of the signals sent to my brain. I maintain that paradigm (“I can trust my senses”) until equilibrium is disturbed, or an alternative with greater equilibrium and resonance is found.

:: Unless you can present a method that is as good as, if not better than empiricism, at verifying claims, then your complain is a red herring. So far you've failed to to this. What you presented was not only not on par with empiricism, it could not even be used to verify the truth of claims..

I beg to differ. Not only is it “on par” with empiricism, it is what empiricism itself demands and employs. The “method” of which I’m speaking is the very method we use in order to affirm empiricism. I recommend you re-read what I’ve said about “best explanation”, “resonance”, etc., as well as the process of “equilibration”. Better yet, go read some of the articles I posted, or buy or check out from the library McGrath’s book The Open Secret, or look into his Scientific Theology series.

:: The default position is to withhold belief unless we have evidence/reason to accept. We are to assume it is wrong until we have reason to believe otherwise. With our sense and the scientific method, we DO have evidence of reliability, we thus are justified in holding them as trustworthy.

Ok, now think about this. You now say the default position is to withhold belief. If that is the case, then you should be applying that to the scientific method itself. The process would look something like this:

Step One: Withhold belief that the scientific method is true

Step Two: Find evidence that the scientific method is true.

Step Three: Believe that the scientific method is true.

Again, the problem with this is that you are applying the scientific method itself as “evidence” for Step two. This is circular reasoning.

Take the same approach to the Matrix/BIV scenario:

Step 1: Withhold belief that the signals being sent to your brain accurately reflect reality.

Step 2: Find evidence that the signals being sent to your brain accurately reflect reality.

Step 3: Believe that the signals being sent to your brain accurately reflect reality.

Here too you are applying the scientific method to step 2. The problem is that the scientific method rests upon these signals (you get data from the scientific method via these brain signals). If you are “withholding belief” from these brain signals, then you would also, necessarily, be withholding belief from the scientific method. If you are withholding belief from the scientific method, then you cannot use it in step 2 in order to get to step 3 without your reasoning becoming circular.

Your approach is (unbelief-evidence-belief). But as I’ve pointed out, this process is viscously circular. But as I think about it (at 4:21am!!!), it seems that the converse (belief-evidence-unbelief) actually avoids that circularity (at least the “visciousness” of it). You see, your approach explicitly demands non-circularity, but tacitly employs it, and is thus self-contradictory. The converse approach does not demand non-circularity, but acknowledges the necessity of a degree of circularity (at least in the “leap” that is necessary to step into the proposition and test its resonance), and unabashedly employs it. You don’t necessarily have to find absolute proof in order to believe it. You find the evidence to believe it (at least partly) from the inside of that belief—the evidence being that it is a reliable process. No, that reliability is not “proof” (for example) that signals sent to the brain are true to reality. But the more you find yourself in equilibrium from within that position, the more you see it as reliable, and the less it really matters that you find that “proof.” The proof then only matters when dissonance (i.e. evidence against it) is introduced.

But that (above), again, is an over-simplification. The reality is that the process is quite complex and synergistic. Your approach (doubt-evidence-belief) might be called a “bottom-top” approach. The converse (belief-evidence-doubt) might be called a “top-bottom” approach. I think that the process of knowing is synergistic, incorporating both “bottom-top” and “top-bottom,” somehow. We process data (or evidence) using pre-existing schemas; and yet those schemas are also shaped by data. Which comes first: the chicken or the egg? It is difficult to say. Perhaps it is best to think in terms of synergistic process than an absolute starting point? I don’t know.

Sorry this is so long (and took me so long). I’m really trying hard to communicate clearly, but at the same time, this is a process of discovery for me even while I’m writing. I’m certainly not a pro at this (in case you couldn’t tell—ha!). Thanks for your patience! Have a good day!