Christian Philosophy

In this post and the next few to come I'd like to share a few thoughts on Christian Philosophy. 

Let me begin with this caveat- I was not a stellar student. For one, I came into the Philosophy department having spent the first two years of my college experience as a History major, and so I didn't have as deep or wide a foundation as a student would have who had taken philosophy courses from the word go. For another, I was working full time, and often neglected my studies in favor of my career. Finally, I was an angry young man, and the chip on my shoulder was so large as to sometimes obstruct my view of the page I was reading. Let me also say that, as a mere undergraduate, one ought to read what I'm writing with a grain of salt, at least until I get a few more impressive letters after my name. 

At any rate, I studied Philosophy at UNCG, where I think it's safe to say that there was a majority of professors who were not Christian believers. I didn't get a lot of hostility toward the gospel, aside from the normal antipathy toward the Jerry Falwell/moral majority types that liberal intellectuals love to hate, but I did get a lot of indifference. Where it was discussed in detail, it was recalled as something one struggled with while one was being raised in a Christian home, and which one finally heaved off one's shoulders as he ascended the airy heights of intellectual endeavor. 

Professors being educated in the 1950's, 60's, and 70's have two things going against them in terms of Christian belief, in my opinion: the intellectual climate, and the Christian alternative.

The first is the prevailing intellectual wind at the time, being saturated with the behaviorism of Skinner and Watson on the psychological front and the verificationism (and resulting scientism) of contemporary epistemology and the sciences. 

Behaviorism is the theory that people learn by being conditioned. The most famous instance of this principle comes from Pavlov's experiments on his dogs. Every time he fed them, he would ring a bell. He did this for a length of time and then, one day, rang the bell without feeding them. The dogs had so closely associated the bell with lunch that their mouths began to water without there even being food present. It was taken from this that the brain forms associations between two things, and that what cements that association is pleasure and pain. The result is something called "Conditioning." 

Everyone accepts this, but some people thought that it accounted for EVERYTHING we learn. These people were called Behaviorists. "Give me a child", Skinner famously boasted, "and I'll turn him into a doctor, a lawyer, or whatever you want." One merely had to carefully control the input- after all, garbage in, garbage out.

This view caught on because we had just beaten the Nazi's, who thought that people's value came from their lineage. The intellectuals of the 50's and 60's were still reeling from the horrors of the Holocaust, and the theory that people could be in charge of their own development was a welcome alternative- and so the pendulum swung from nature to nurture (There was a lot of Marxist dialectical materialism in there too, but let's not go there for now).

Verificationism is the belief that it only makes sense to believe something if you can prove it beyond doubt, and the only way to prove something beyond doubt is to prove it by science- that is, using the five senses to do experiments which produce predictable and reproducible results. Since religious claims can't be submitted to scientific testing, people thought that not only were they wrong, but meaningless.

Just as the parable of the sower illustrates, it would be difficult to believe in the gospel surrounded by such thick brambles as these. But now consider the Christian alternative.

During the 60's, 70's, and 80's, evangelical Christianity was largely confined to fundamentalist circles. An anti-intellectual strain has always existed in the Church and has been combated since the early fathers, but as the academy became not only increasingly secularized, which had been happening since the enlightenment and especially since Darwin, but also more and more hostile to theistic belief, the American community of believers became increasingly reactionary, aiming to produce "Christian versions" of the sciences and largely withdrawing from the Philosophical community. Intellectual rigor is often lacking in these separate versions, and many fail to pass what good old Dr. Terrence McConnell called "the straight face test."

The mid-20th century intellectual, therefore, looked at a Christianity which emphatically insisted that to be a good Christian meant puppy-like devotion to things like six literal, twenty-four hour days and a young Earth, and found it profoundly intellectually dissatisfying. 

Consider this exchange between Christian philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig and a questioner. It's a bit long, so bear with me:

The question:

"I really can't see how God would punish me, if I lead a good, honest, a compassionate life but just feel that [naturalism] is the only position that makes sense of the world around me and what I understand about it. This does not seem to me to be worthy of condemnation when I compare my attitude to standards of evidence and investigation to those of some Christians, especially those who hold extremely unreasonably dogmatic positions. If I accept the findings of science, will God punish me but reward those people who reject all scientific evidence and adhere only to scientifically insupportable positions, such as a literal interpretation of Genesis whereby the entire universe was created between 6 and 10 thousand years ago?

I would add to this by saying that many of the advocates of this position, so called Young Earth Creationists, disseminate outright falsehoods and misinformation and everything from astronomy, to geology and biology, any field of science which disagrees with their reading of what they regard as divinely inspired scripture."

To which Dr. Craig responds:

"...at the heart of the Christian doctrine of salvation is God's unmerited grace.

This teaching is obscured today by a sort of cultural Christianity which has shaped American culture. Cultural Christianity teaches that if your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, then God will forgive your bad deeds and reward you with eternal life in heaven. (How Jesus Christ fits into this picture is unclear—maybe as a living illustration to us of what God is like.) By contrast biblical Christianity teaches that no one is good enough to merit heaven. To be judged on the basis of our deeds would be the worst possible thing that could happen to us, for none of us measures up to God's moral law (perfection)...

So forget about the Young Earth Creationists! Why let them stand between you and God? Why not receive God's transforming grace yourself and then be better than the Young Earthers? You know that I don't hold their views about the age of the universe. Neither do most evangelical Christians, despite the high profile of their movement in churches. So why not become a Christian and then be a better thinker than they are? (In fact, you just might find that God will do a transforming work in your own heart, replacing what seems to be hatred and resentment toward these folks with a genuine compassion for them.)"

So much for the prevalence of atheistic philosophy on contemporary college campuses. I'll follow up soon with some thoughts on my own experience of Christian Philosophy, and how it didn't come together for me until I read the existentialists. 






For the masochists among you who actually want to read further about the subjects I've mentioned, find here some useful links:


The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries on the subjects:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-empiricism/


The exchange between Dr. Craig and the skeptic in its entirety:

Will God's Judgement be more Tolerable for Atheists than for Young Earth Creationists?

We All Matter to Someone

The following is a reproduction of an article of mine that ran in the June 20th, 2014 edition of the Greensboro News and Record:


Know This: We All Matter to Someone

Asked which three words of the English language carried with them the greatest measure of Pathos, I'd wager that the average man on the street would breezily respond with "that's easy-'I love you.'" Allow me to submit an alternative, familiar to anyone who's suffered loss: "now we can't."

"Now" evokes the passage of time, from which none are free, and the point at which we are closest to eternity. "We" is the pronoun of communion, of "I and thou." "Can't", as observed by many a manager and coach, is a seemingly innocuous but ultimately corrosive conversation ender. It stifles debate, and defies reason, because it doesn't come from reason. "Can't" is an emotion, a belief, as is “can”- consider the recent success of "yes, we can!" As a slogan. “Can’t” is informed by experience but is ultimately a condition of the heart, to be overcome only by the will, and the aid of Providence.

I offer this missive in memorandum of my dear friend, who, in the cosmic equivalent of taking his ball home because he didn't want to play anymore, took his own life in June of 2011.

Suicide, like the M*A*S*H* theme says, brings on many changes (though it is indeed not painless). Everything changes, and nothing changes. Author Wendell Barry observed this in a short story in which the reality of a beloved cousin's untimely death is lost on the young protagonist until he saw, hanging on a hook in the barn, the dead boy's coat. This was now a world, he realized (though it had been all along), in which a coat could be hung up and never retrieved; in which people can leave and not come back, and the unthinkable was not impossible. This, in my view, is the loss of innocence, from which many never recover.

Read these words, and really let them sink in. Whether you believe in a morally ordered universe divinely governed, or prefer instead the great purposeless chaos of a cosmic car crash, you matter to someone. Without you, nothing will change- the world will keep on spinning, and the price of tea in China will still fluctuate-but everything will change as well. Everything you could have said, or been, or did, or meant to those around you, would be gone. And that would be tragic.

Fans of "House, M.D." will recall the curmudgeonly doctor's observation that "almost dying changes nothing, but dying changes everything." I almost died of cancer a couple of years ago- allow me to recommend against it if you're given the option- and I can therefore confirm this sentiment. I liked, and continue to like, gummy bears, video games, and making snide remarks, both before and after remission. What has changed, however, is that sense of infinite possibility, the waxy wings with which so many young people fly too close to the sun. The world will get on without me, as it happens, as deflating as that realization was, but without my unique contribution, or yours, which no one can make in our stead, the world will not be what it could be.

Find what you're good at, O reader. Find what brings you joy, and then find out where they meet. Use those gifts to help people, to alleviate their suffering, and to empower them to use their own gifts. Be, in military terms, a force multiplier. "Be the change you wish to see in the world." You can’t relive the past, but here’s what we CAN do: "do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can." People will notice. Because you matter to someone.

Church Time

Columnist Peter Hitchens once remarked that the King James Version of the Bible was written "to be remembered, to lodge in the mind and to disturb the temporal with the haunting sound of the eternal." (Full article here) I share his sentiment about the beautiful, ancient language of that translation, and would add something else to the list: the liturgical calendar.

I first encountered the liturgical calendar at the top of the program I was given as I entered Ebeneezer Lutheran Church on Walker Ave. in Greensboro as a college student. I read that the day I had come was a "Sunday of Epiphany". I had no idea what that meant. Shortly afterward, as soon as I had gotten used to the flow and melodies of a Lutheran service, the music abruptly changed one Sunday as we entered into Lent. Believing I had things down, I sang out confidently the wrong melody and drew some embarrassing attention to myself. 

The idea is that, at different time of the year, Christians focus their energies and attention on different aspects of their spiritual lives. The time we presently find ourselves in is the season of Advent.

Advent is comprised of the four weeks before Christmas. It's a season of expectant waiting. But waiting for what?

Before Christ was born, people who believed in God and trusted Him to fulfill His promises knew that He was sending someone to redeem them from their sins and set things right. Jewish tradition called this person the "Messiah", or anointed one (for an interesting list of predictions concerning the Messiah and their fulfillment, check this out).

I've never really attached any significance to dates. Aside from the avaricious hunger for stuff that I experienced as a kid waiting for Christmas, I don't ever remember eagerly anticipating or reveling in a day simply due to it's occurrence on a calendar. This can be good, for instance, when I don't experience a breakdown on the anniversary of a tragedy, but also dangerous, causing me to be extra diligent to remember my girlfriend's birthday or our anniversary. 

But the liturgical calendar calls me to attend to the realities that shape my existence. Advent is a reminder that a lot of my life is built upon waiting for the things I've been promised. Some passages from Hebrews 10 come to mind:

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds... -Heb 10:23-24

You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For, "In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay." Heb. 10:36-37

The life we're called to live is difficult. If the Bible is right, and we're not made to live in this world, then we're called to live somewhere we don't belong, and that's a hard thing. But it won't always be that way. Advent reminds us that waiting is part of life, and also affirms that it's not forever. We will receive that which we patiently seek- for every Advent, there is Christmas. 

"We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!"

-1 Corinthians 13:12The Message (MSG)

Some Reflections on Friendship

I've been blessed with many friends in my life, and during this season of reflecting on the gifts I've been given, I want to talk about the gift of friendship. Aristotle, the Greek philosopher who got the human race started on pretty much everything, somehow found time in his busy schedule to write a treatise on the institution. In it, he describes two tiers of friendship. The first is defined by a series of mutual goals, desires, or interests. A shared love of golf, sports, or music creates pleasure for the interested parties, and a friendship begins. Writer C.S. Lewis opines that "the typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one." 

Aristotle believed that there was another level of friendship, as well. While the first one rose and fell along with the interests and goals, and fell away when the mutual desires were met or discarded, the second was characterized by a deep and abiding regard for the well being of the other. This higher friendship wants what is best for the other for their own sake. He also believed that it took a certain kind of person to be capable of this higher form. He called such a person a καλὸς κἀγαθός (kalos kagathos), which means, roughly, "man of wisdom and virtue". 

His point was that it takes someone who is capable of selfless love to love selflessly. But while he believed that such love was off limits to everyone except the very best, I believe that all of mankind is stamped with the image of God, and can, as such, speak the language of love. Anyone who's spent any time with a mother of a newborn can apprehend this. 

I believe that friendship is a gift we're given. Here's Lewis again:

“In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.”  

Let me encourage you to look at the friendships in your own life, and thank God for the people He's brought alongside you.