Monday, July 17, 2006
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Dr. Wolterstorff Weighs In
For those favored few who have been following the "St. Paul Goes to Berkeley" series, I will reveal this blog's perspective on the current topic under debate--the "death of the author"-- by quoting from Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks. Which, incidentally, is a wonderful tome for those of you who are interested in contemporary theology and hermeneutics. If a Yale philosopher's defense of interpreting for authorial discourse contra Derrida and Ricoueur is the kind of thing that gets you all hot and bothered, you need to read this. But I digress. Without further ado, here is Dr. Wolterstorff:
"...Derrida does not draw the conclusion that we ought to put authorial-discourse interpretation behind us and conduct our interpretation exclusively in accord with his alternative understanding. As we saw earlier, he doesn't tell us to put it behind us even when interpreting his own writings! Because we can't put it behind us. And we can't put it behind us because we can't put metaphysics behind us. Several times over Julia Kristeva, in her published interview with Derrida, invited him to discuss strategies for "escaping metaphysics" and to describe the workings of language after the escape. Each time Derrida's answer was the same: 'I do not believe, that someday it will be possible simply to escape metaphysics...'
This is one of the most persistent and striking themes in Derrida's writing: escape is not possible. It's not possible to conduct one's writing and one's interpreting, not much of it anyway, outside the language of ontotheology. Not possible for us, that is. One can speculatively imagine a human being escaping; but you and I cannot escape. For metaphysics is not a special language, found in the books of certain philosophers, which one can write and speak for a while and then return to our customary ways of writing and speaking. Our customary ways are all metaphysical ways. Metaphysics is not 'a regrettable and provisional accident of history,' 'a slip,' 'a mistake of thought occurring within history,' Metaphysics 'is the fall of thought into philosophy which gets history underway.'
The case against metaphysics was itself conducted, and could only have been conducted, in the language of metaphysics; we have no other language in which to conduct it....Engagement in the practice of discourse interpretation is indeed fated. Derrida is right about that--though the fate is to be located in the requirements of human community and of respect rather than in the fact that we can't escape the language of metaphysics."
"...Derrida does not draw the conclusion that we ought to put authorial-discourse interpretation behind us and conduct our interpretation exclusively in accord with his alternative understanding. As we saw earlier, he doesn't tell us to put it behind us even when interpreting his own writings! Because we can't put it behind us. And we can't put it behind us because we can't put metaphysics behind us. Several times over Julia Kristeva, in her published interview with Derrida, invited him to discuss strategies for "escaping metaphysics" and to describe the workings of language after the escape. Each time Derrida's answer was the same: 'I do not believe, that someday it will be possible simply to escape metaphysics...'
This is one of the most persistent and striking themes in Derrida's writing: escape is not possible. It's not possible to conduct one's writing and one's interpreting, not much of it anyway, outside the language of ontotheology. Not possible for us, that is. One can speculatively imagine a human being escaping; but you and I cannot escape. For metaphysics is not a special language, found in the books of certain philosophers, which one can write and speak for a while and then return to our customary ways of writing and speaking. Our customary ways are all metaphysical ways. Metaphysics is not 'a regrettable and provisional accident of history,' 'a slip,' 'a mistake of thought occurring within history,' Metaphysics 'is the fall of thought into philosophy which gets history underway.'
The case against metaphysics was itself conducted, and could only have been conducted, in the language of metaphysics; we have no other language in which to conduct it....Engagement in the practice of discourse interpretation is indeed fated. Derrida is right about that--though the fate is to be located in the requirements of human community and of respect rather than in the fact that we can't escape the language of metaphysics."
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
The Judgment of God?
Check this out: some chick from Beliefnet trashes the mainline Episcopalians and Presbyterians in an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times, of all places.
Link:
Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins - Los Angeles Times
Link:
Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins - Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Thrownness Grabs a Frisbee: Part II
If my extensive audience will but grant me that I have established in my previous post that repristinating Presbyterianism is both feasible and desirable, I will proceed with with the what of Westminster-era Scottish Christianity. Hmmm....a quick scan of my crowded inbox not having revealed any dissenters, I shall proceed forthwith.
If there was a defining issue for Presbyterianism in the 17th century, it was worship. I do not mean to say that worship held a central place in their theological system; the Calvinistic revolt was always a battle with many fronts. Not until Abraham Kuyper reformulated (Dutch) Calvinism in the late 19th century was Calvinism really considered to have a central theme. [Kuyper indicated that the key concept of Reformed theology is the sovereignty of God (his Neo-Calvinist heirs have generally followed him in this). B.B. Warfield responded that the key concept is actually the glory of God. Warfield seems closer to the mark, but it appears to me that Calvinism was originally too organic an approach to be thought of as having a central concept.] The importance of worship to the Scots was the result of two distinct phenomena, closely related in the Scottish reality: one was the emphasis that they inherited from Calvin on the simplicity and spirituality of worship, the other was the recurring insistence of the English that the Church of Scotland accept the Episcopal liturgy.
Most of you will remember Jenny Geddes, who in 1638 at Greyfriars, Edinburgh, threw her stool at the priest, shouting, in response to the newly imposed reading of the Episcopal liturgy, "Villain, dost thou say mass at my lug?" [Most of you will simultaneously be loath to admit that pretty much every Presbyterian church you have ever attended voluntarily includes many, or most, of the then objectionable practices in its liturgy.] This was the beginning of the popular revolt that spawned the renewal of the National Covenant in 1638 at Greyfriars, the Bishops' Wars of 1639 and 1640, and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643-the Solemn League and Covenant being the document that convened the Westminster Assembly.
Of all the Assembly's discussions, some of which were rancorous and long-lived, the discussion on worship was fairly short. This is because British Calvinists in the 1640s, whether Presbyterians or Independents, agreed on the structure and elements of worship. Worship consisted of a minister praying, reading from the Old and the New Testament, preaching, and blessing the people. The congregation was silent except in the singing, which was restricted to metrical Psalms unaccompanied by instruments. Sometimes a male member of the congregation acted as precentor in leading the singing. There was a rough order in the worship which was generally followed, but there was never a liturgy such as that found in The Book of Common Prayer-even the Westminster Assembly only produced a Directory for public worship, which was a recommended order instead of a prescribed format. In particular, British Calvinists, but especially the Scots, found kneeling, genuflecting, vestments, images, incense, hymns, and instruments troubling. These Calvinists believed that adding any element to worship that did not have express warrant in the Apostolic church of the canon involved committing the sin of Nadab and Abihu.
There are more idiosyncracies to 17th-century Calvinistic worship that a 21st-century Presbyterian would find odd: there was no passing of the plate for alms, and the Lord's Supper, when it took place (quarterly or yearly), was at a table with a common cup (of real wine) and a common loaf. The Lord's Supper was only open to members of the national church. Presbyterians, and Independents with them, did not celebrate any holidays, observing only the Lord's Day and occasional, spontaneous days of supplication or thanksgiving-which were often declared by the magistrate. In those churches that had seating, the congregation stood only for prayer and remained seated at all other times. Funerals were not allowed, as they were considered superstitious prayers for the dead. Congregational singing, utilizing the metrical psalter, was in unison, with no harmonies and no printed tunes (did I already mention that there were no instruments?).
Combined, these elements strike one with a quality of primitiveness. That was precisely the idea: to return to the severely simple worship of the Apostolic period. It was at the time of the Awakenings that Psalm paraphrases, then hymns, and then instruments were introduced, all for the purposes of creating a more emotive atmosphere in worship. British Calvinism became American Calvinism, a revivalistic evangelicalism that was more a product of the 18th and 19th centuries than of the 16th and 17th. And today, as conversionist evangelicalism is getting threadbare at its Victorian seams, contemporary Calvinism is diffusing into either postmodern evangelicalism or seeking roots in Anglican/Lutheran/Roman Catholic liturgical practices. Of course there is always a dogged minority that defends the Victorian status quo; this usually fails to inspire, since the sawdust of the tent revivals is by now giving off a rather rancid smell. Now that we are entering the era of the "emerging church" and the exploration of medieval liturgies, maybe the time for a return to Calvinism's own medieval anti-liturgy has come. If you're a dedicated Presyterian, the other options kinda suck.
If there was a defining issue for Presbyterianism in the 17th century, it was worship. I do not mean to say that worship held a central place in their theological system; the Calvinistic revolt was always a battle with many fronts. Not until Abraham Kuyper reformulated (Dutch) Calvinism in the late 19th century was Calvinism really considered to have a central theme. [Kuyper indicated that the key concept of Reformed theology is the sovereignty of God (his Neo-Calvinist heirs have generally followed him in this). B.B. Warfield responded that the key concept is actually the glory of God. Warfield seems closer to the mark, but it appears to me that Calvinism was originally too organic an approach to be thought of as having a central concept.] The importance of worship to the Scots was the result of two distinct phenomena, closely related in the Scottish reality: one was the emphasis that they inherited from Calvin on the simplicity and spirituality of worship, the other was the recurring insistence of the English that the Church of Scotland accept the Episcopal liturgy.
Most of you will remember Jenny Geddes, who in 1638 at Greyfriars, Edinburgh, threw her stool at the priest, shouting, in response to the newly imposed reading of the Episcopal liturgy, "Villain, dost thou say mass at my lug?" [Most of you will simultaneously be loath to admit that pretty much every Presbyterian church you have ever attended voluntarily includes many, or most, of the then objectionable practices in its liturgy.] This was the beginning of the popular revolt that spawned the renewal of the National Covenant in 1638 at Greyfriars, the Bishops' Wars of 1639 and 1640, and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643-the Solemn League and Covenant being the document that convened the Westminster Assembly.
Of all the Assembly's discussions, some of which were rancorous and long-lived, the discussion on worship was fairly short. This is because British Calvinists in the 1640s, whether Presbyterians or Independents, agreed on the structure and elements of worship. Worship consisted of a minister praying, reading from the Old and the New Testament, preaching, and blessing the people. The congregation was silent except in the singing, which was restricted to metrical Psalms unaccompanied by instruments. Sometimes a male member of the congregation acted as precentor in leading the singing. There was a rough order in the worship which was generally followed, but there was never a liturgy such as that found in The Book of Common Prayer-even the Westminster Assembly only produced a Directory for public worship, which was a recommended order instead of a prescribed format. In particular, British Calvinists, but especially the Scots, found kneeling, genuflecting, vestments, images, incense, hymns, and instruments troubling. These Calvinists believed that adding any element to worship that did not have express warrant in the Apostolic church of the canon involved committing the sin of Nadab and Abihu.
There are more idiosyncracies to 17th-century Calvinistic worship that a 21st-century Presbyterian would find odd: there was no passing of the plate for alms, and the Lord's Supper, when it took place (quarterly or yearly), was at a table with a common cup (of real wine) and a common loaf. The Lord's Supper was only open to members of the national church. Presbyterians, and Independents with them, did not celebrate any holidays, observing only the Lord's Day and occasional, spontaneous days of supplication or thanksgiving-which were often declared by the magistrate. In those churches that had seating, the congregation stood only for prayer and remained seated at all other times. Funerals were not allowed, as they were considered superstitious prayers for the dead. Congregational singing, utilizing the metrical psalter, was in unison, with no harmonies and no printed tunes (did I already mention that there were no instruments?).
Combined, these elements strike one with a quality of primitiveness. That was precisely the idea: to return to the severely simple worship of the Apostolic period. It was at the time of the Awakenings that Psalm paraphrases, then hymns, and then instruments were introduced, all for the purposes of creating a more emotive atmosphere in worship. British Calvinism became American Calvinism, a revivalistic evangelicalism that was more a product of the 18th and 19th centuries than of the 16th and 17th. And today, as conversionist evangelicalism is getting threadbare at its Victorian seams, contemporary Calvinism is diffusing into either postmodern evangelicalism or seeking roots in Anglican/Lutheran/Roman Catholic liturgical practices. Of course there is always a dogged minority that defends the Victorian status quo; this usually fails to inspire, since the sawdust of the tent revivals is by now giving off a rather rancid smell. Now that we are entering the era of the "emerging church" and the exploration of medieval liturgies, maybe the time for a return to Calvinism's own medieval anti-liturgy has come. If you're a dedicated Presyterian, the other options kinda suck.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
St. Paul Goes to Berkeley, Part 3: Advocatus Diaboli Claims Reification for the Gauntlet
Dear Promotor Fidei,
I adore your predilection for the disputatio: it is a format which in its ceaseless alternation between argument and counterargument embodies that Heraclitean flux to which we are all so liberatingly bound. I fail to see how you have simulated the disputatio in your missive, but I am pleased nonetheless.
Metaphysical reality, then. I prize metaphysics almost as much as my collection of Neolithic artifacts, and in much the same way. I suppose that in your attempt to push our topic of "the death of the author" to a higher level of abstraction, you are taking the tack of that favorite Dutch theologian of yours, whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, but whose method generally consists in avoiding the question at hand. So, you would thwart my language games by an appeal to Platonic realism. Very well.
Regarding problem (a): I find it difficult to imagine how a text could "contain" metaphysical reality, and almost equally perplexing to conceive of a metaphysical reality to which it could "correspond." Surely you do not wish to revive either the Aristotelian essence or the Platonic form?
Regarding problem (b): of course the text exists externally to the reader; it is material. It is the significance claimed for the text which is created by the reader, not the text itself.
Regarding problem (c): I deny all metaphysical reality in the strict sense. I consider all attempts at metaphysics, at least in the classic Western tradition, to be pernicious avoidances of the human question(s).
Regarding problem (d): hmm, hermeneutical obligations. Consciously constructing interpretations of texts in such a way that marginalized persons/groups are "read back in" comes to mind.
Is the problem of the author truly a metaphysical one? I fail to see how it must be, although I understand how it could be made to appear so. It seems a more or less straightforwardly hermeneutical problem to me. As far as external reality is concerned, I don't think that we'll disagree much over the independent existence of the material universe. Of course there is a correlation between the external object and the noetic process; it is only the significance attached to the external object that is a construction.
Mirabile dictu or not, these questions are much older than the Enlightenment. Gorgias comes to mind.
I believe, my friend, that in your "counterstroke" you have conflated "meaning" with "univocity." My claim is not that there is no shared sphere in which language games can take place; my claim is that entrance into the language games entails the equivocity innate in the disparate natures of multiple minds. You seem to understand "meaning" as a hermetically sealed unit that can be shuttled back and forth between minds without contamination. Of course your words have meaning; there is a phonetic sequence that you have produced which signifies something. That particular something which is signified, though, is almost certainly different for both of us: not utterly different, for then we would have no communication, but substantially different, or otherwise we would have identical minds.
Take, for instance, your use of "Luddite." "Luddite" is at the present moment most commonly used as a pejorative against those who distrust technology. You seem to use the term to mean a person who avows archaic beliefs. So we share the term "Luddite," it has a referent for both of us, but that referent is substantially different in both cases-though this does not preclude discourse. It only precludes a univocal meaning for your term.
So I deny that I assume "meaning" in your sense when I write to you. I assume a shared exercise in arbitrariness, which we call "language," I assume that you are reading this as English prose and not as numerology, but I do not assume that these words will mean precisely to you what they do to me. My words, in your mind, will be different entities from what they are in mine. In particular, my dear Promotor, because you have no access to the intentionality which produced these words. You understand this text as it enters your mental matrix, not as it proceeds from mine. And this is not the death of meaning, as you claim. It is rather the birth of meaning. For the blood of univocity is the seed of infinite meanings.
I will pass by your Steiner quotation, as it seems rather far-fetched for recognition. I obviously deny the charge, as would most of your compatriots in orthodoxy. There are fideists, and there are those who have fallen off the edge of fideism. Your proposed ally appears to be one of the latter.
Promotor, you might better comprehend if you attempted to understand language, not as something inviolable which was dropped out of the sky by the gods on a particularly beneficent day, but as itself a construction of "humankind." Language is a game, its rules are arbitrary and constantly subject to change-except for the rule that there can be no teams.
Entertaining as all this has been, I repeat the untouched (by you) original pronouncement: the author is dead, and no amount of nostalgia for univocity is going to resuscitate him.
Kind regards,
Advocatus Diaboli
I adore your predilection for the disputatio: it is a format which in its ceaseless alternation between argument and counterargument embodies that Heraclitean flux to which we are all so liberatingly bound. I fail to see how you have simulated the disputatio in your missive, but I am pleased nonetheless.
Metaphysical reality, then. I prize metaphysics almost as much as my collection of Neolithic artifacts, and in much the same way. I suppose that in your attempt to push our topic of "the death of the author" to a higher level of abstraction, you are taking the tack of that favorite Dutch theologian of yours, whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, but whose method generally consists in avoiding the question at hand. So, you would thwart my language games by an appeal to Platonic realism. Very well.
Regarding problem (a): I find it difficult to imagine how a text could "contain" metaphysical reality, and almost equally perplexing to conceive of a metaphysical reality to which it could "correspond." Surely you do not wish to revive either the Aristotelian essence or the Platonic form?
Regarding problem (b): of course the text exists externally to the reader; it is material. It is the significance claimed for the text which is created by the reader, not the text itself.
Regarding problem (c): I deny all metaphysical reality in the strict sense. I consider all attempts at metaphysics, at least in the classic Western tradition, to be pernicious avoidances of the human question(s).
Regarding problem (d): hmm, hermeneutical obligations. Consciously constructing interpretations of texts in such a way that marginalized persons/groups are "read back in" comes to mind.
Is the problem of the author truly a metaphysical one? I fail to see how it must be, although I understand how it could be made to appear so. It seems a more or less straightforwardly hermeneutical problem to me. As far as external reality is concerned, I don't think that we'll disagree much over the independent existence of the material universe. Of course there is a correlation between the external object and the noetic process; it is only the significance attached to the external object that is a construction.
Mirabile dictu or not, these questions are much older than the Enlightenment. Gorgias comes to mind.
I believe, my friend, that in your "counterstroke" you have conflated "meaning" with "univocity." My claim is not that there is no shared sphere in which language games can take place; my claim is that entrance into the language games entails the equivocity innate in the disparate natures of multiple minds. You seem to understand "meaning" as a hermetically sealed unit that can be shuttled back and forth between minds without contamination. Of course your words have meaning; there is a phonetic sequence that you have produced which signifies something. That particular something which is signified, though, is almost certainly different for both of us: not utterly different, for then we would have no communication, but substantially different, or otherwise we would have identical minds.
Take, for instance, your use of "Luddite." "Luddite" is at the present moment most commonly used as a pejorative against those who distrust technology. You seem to use the term to mean a person who avows archaic beliefs. So we share the term "Luddite," it has a referent for both of us, but that referent is substantially different in both cases-though this does not preclude discourse. It only precludes a univocal meaning for your term.
So I deny that I assume "meaning" in your sense when I write to you. I assume a shared exercise in arbitrariness, which we call "language," I assume that you are reading this as English prose and not as numerology, but I do not assume that these words will mean precisely to you what they do to me. My words, in your mind, will be different entities from what they are in mine. In particular, my dear Promotor, because you have no access to the intentionality which produced these words. You understand this text as it enters your mental matrix, not as it proceeds from mine. And this is not the death of meaning, as you claim. It is rather the birth of meaning. For the blood of univocity is the seed of infinite meanings.
I will pass by your Steiner quotation, as it seems rather far-fetched for recognition. I obviously deny the charge, as would most of your compatriots in orthodoxy. There are fideists, and there are those who have fallen off the edge of fideism. Your proposed ally appears to be one of the latter.
Promotor, you might better comprehend if you attempted to understand language, not as something inviolable which was dropped out of the sky by the gods on a particularly beneficent day, but as itself a construction of "humankind." Language is a game, its rules are arbitrary and constantly subject to change-except for the rule that there can be no teams.
Entertaining as all this has been, I repeat the untouched (by you) original pronouncement: the author is dead, and no amount of nostalgia for univocity is going to resuscitate him.
Kind regards,
Advocatus Diaboli
Saturday, July 08, 2006
My Belly Button Is Really Deep
It's not often that I read a book written in the last half-century, and it's quite uncommon that I spend my precious commuting time on a new release. But, occasionally, I feel that I ought to have some contact with the present, so I read a book published in the calendar year in which I happen to be living. (Parenthetically, C.S. Lewis' advice about giving a volume at least 30 years from publication before deciding its worth seems wiser and wiser as I read more.)
I bought Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz for my wife after it got a good review in the New York Times. Supposedly it was a true crime story, written by the victim, which included reflections on her own experience and the phenomenon of violence in America. I hadn't intended to read it, but life in Bay Ridge started to get hectic, so I set aside Nick Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse for Strange Piece of Paradise, just to give my brain a break.
Terri Jentz was bicycling across the country with a friend from Yale in the summer of 1977 when, at a roadside park in Oregon where the girls had camped for the night, the two were run over in their tent by a pickup truck and subsequently axed-nearly to death. Their attacker was never apprehended, and the statute of limitations on attempted murder in Oregon at that time was 3 years. However, 15 years after the event, Jentz felt that she needed to solve the crime herself in order to experience closure, so the bulk of the book deals with her amateur detective work on her own attempted murder, and her psychological ordeal in trying to get past the event.
Paradise is at least twice as long as it needs to be. Not only that, but its author seems to think that the fact that she graduated from Yale means that anything that strikes her as profound actually is so. This is obsessive introspection paraded as insight on a 542-page scale. In addition to this, coincidence is invested with significance in ways that seem like caricature-except that there is no humor in this book. The book is driven by obsession and neediness in such a way that one is not likely to sympathize with the author; one rather sympathizes with the other girl, who was more seriously injured but learned to live past the crime. "Shayna Weiss," as she is named in Paradise, refuses insistently to play the game that Jentz is so keen on. "Weiss" fades out of Jentz's life, with an occasional admonition to Jentz to seek professional help.
The limpness of this book is increased by the fact that, although Jentz devotes 8 years to the investigation, she never confronts the suspect, and never amasses enough evidence to be damning (though she thinks she does). To me, Jentz's effort is intriguing only as a display of a phenomenon which Kierkegaard noted in The Book on Adler: absolutely anything can seem profound if one ruminates on it enough. Kierkegaard considered that Magister Adler's writings were quite banal; the only thing that kept Adler from noticing this is that he had repeated his thoughts to himself with such studiousness that they appeared impenetrably deep. Jentz, I think, is guilty of the same crime. Sustained navel-gazing can present one with the illusion that one's belly button is incredibly profound; poking a tape measure in there usually produces a different conclusion.
I bought Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz for my wife after it got a good review in the New York Times. Supposedly it was a true crime story, written by the victim, which included reflections on her own experience and the phenomenon of violence in America. I hadn't intended to read it, but life in Bay Ridge started to get hectic, so I set aside Nick Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse for Strange Piece of Paradise, just to give my brain a break.
Terri Jentz was bicycling across the country with a friend from Yale in the summer of 1977 when, at a roadside park in Oregon where the girls had camped for the night, the two were run over in their tent by a pickup truck and subsequently axed-nearly to death. Their attacker was never apprehended, and the statute of limitations on attempted murder in Oregon at that time was 3 years. However, 15 years after the event, Jentz felt that she needed to solve the crime herself in order to experience closure, so the bulk of the book deals with her amateur detective work on her own attempted murder, and her psychological ordeal in trying to get past the event.
Paradise is at least twice as long as it needs to be. Not only that, but its author seems to think that the fact that she graduated from Yale means that anything that strikes her as profound actually is so. This is obsessive introspection paraded as insight on a 542-page scale. In addition to this, coincidence is invested with significance in ways that seem like caricature-except that there is no humor in this book. The book is driven by obsession and neediness in such a way that one is not likely to sympathize with the author; one rather sympathizes with the other girl, who was more seriously injured but learned to live past the crime. "Shayna Weiss," as she is named in Paradise, refuses insistently to play the game that Jentz is so keen on. "Weiss" fades out of Jentz's life, with an occasional admonition to Jentz to seek professional help.
The limpness of this book is increased by the fact that, although Jentz devotes 8 years to the investigation, she never confronts the suspect, and never amasses enough evidence to be damning (though she thinks she does). To me, Jentz's effort is intriguing only as a display of a phenomenon which Kierkegaard noted in The Book on Adler: absolutely anything can seem profound if one ruminates on it enough. Kierkegaard considered that Magister Adler's writings were quite banal; the only thing that kept Adler from noticing this is that he had repeated his thoughts to himself with such studiousness that they appeared impenetrably deep. Jentz, I think, is guilty of the same crime. Sustained navel-gazing can present one with the illusion that one's belly button is incredibly profound; poking a tape measure in there usually produces a different conclusion.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Ignorance Is Bliss
"...Eve erred in not regulating the measure of her knowledge by the will of God. And we all daily suffer under the same disease, because we desire to know more than is right, and more than God allows; whereas the principal point of wisdom is a well-regulated sobriety in obedience to God."
-Calvin, Commentary on Genesis III.5
It's Thursday morning, I'm walking the regular route from Herald Square to 8th Avenue while indulging in a well-worn daydream: I'm wishing that I had the raw brainpower, not to mention the training, to solve at least one of the festering questions that has always plagued Christianity. (My innermost secret is that I would like to have developed a rigorous and completely new argument for the existence of God; but you didn't hear that from me.) I've thought for a while that I would like to generate a compelling solution to the problem of interaction; double agency would be okay, too. Theodicy is for amateurs.
But I'm a good Calvinist, and I'm familiar with Moses: I know that the secret things are private property, no trespassing allowed. But if we could just reframe the nagging issues...just put a new spin on an old concept...if there were only some crowbar we could stick in the door of academia, or at least of the mainstream media. Machen got a tip of the hat from Mencken; can you imagine Thomas Friedman doing that for R.C. Sproul? The theologian has gone the way of the poet-maybe never to return, in this culture. Slam goes the office door.
But then, on lunch, I break out the Hendrix Publishers copy of Calvin's Commentary on Genesis, which I keep in a drawer, ostensibly for the purposes of regular reading. And I remember, as I encounter one of Calvin's most characteristic sentiments, that the thorniness of the much-touted difficulties is evidence, not of the problematic nature of Christian theism, but of the wickedness of man's heart. The conundrums are man's problem, the problem of boundless pride, of rebellion against the "but" following "of every tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat." So I let my best buddy Johnny remind me that ignorance is sometimes bliss, and, as I step outside on the last minutes of my break, feeling better, I wonder what a solution to the problem of interaction would even look like.
-Calvin, Commentary on Genesis III.5
It's Thursday morning, I'm walking the regular route from Herald Square to 8th Avenue while indulging in a well-worn daydream: I'm wishing that I had the raw brainpower, not to mention the training, to solve at least one of the festering questions that has always plagued Christianity. (My innermost secret is that I would like to have developed a rigorous and completely new argument for the existence of God; but you didn't hear that from me.) I've thought for a while that I would like to generate a compelling solution to the problem of interaction; double agency would be okay, too. Theodicy is for amateurs.
But I'm a good Calvinist, and I'm familiar with Moses: I know that the secret things are private property, no trespassing allowed. But if we could just reframe the nagging issues...just put a new spin on an old concept...if there were only some crowbar we could stick in the door of academia, or at least of the mainstream media. Machen got a tip of the hat from Mencken; can you imagine Thomas Friedman doing that for R.C. Sproul? The theologian has gone the way of the poet-maybe never to return, in this culture. Slam goes the office door.
But then, on lunch, I break out the Hendrix Publishers copy of Calvin's Commentary on Genesis, which I keep in a drawer, ostensibly for the purposes of regular reading. And I remember, as I encounter one of Calvin's most characteristic sentiments, that the thorniness of the much-touted difficulties is evidence, not of the problematic nature of Christian theism, but of the wickedness of man's heart. The conundrums are man's problem, the problem of boundless pride, of rebellion against the "but" following "of every tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat." So I let my best buddy Johnny remind me that ignorance is sometimes bliss, and, as I step outside on the last minutes of my break, feeling better, I wonder what a solution to the problem of interaction would even look like.
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