The Leader of the PayPal Mafia

In 2002, EBAY purchased a small, then recent IPO for 1.5 billion dollars, a high price for a company making a fraction of that. More than 10 years later, the investment in PayPal was clearly a good one. Co-founder Peter Thiel was a big part of that transaction happening.

Peter Thiel is an interesting guy. He's on my radar because of his involvement in disseminating Rene Girard's work, whom, as I have written previously, may have the great, orignal contribution to Religion in the 20th century.

Thiel met Girard at Stanford, from where he obtained his law degree from. Amongst Thiel's accomplishments was his $500,000 early investment in Facebook, which gave his VC a 10% stake-- that is worth billions now. He also is a big supporter of biomedical science, and provides grants for ideas that, believe me, won't normally get funded by national institutions.

Thiel also is openly gay. a through-and-through libertarian, and a Christian. Not a combination that is too prevalent in the human population.

Thiel is clearly a fascinating and brilliant guy. And for me, I am quite excited he is involved with Girard. As I am going through "I see Satan fall like lightning", it is encouraging to know that a guy with the resources, worldview and intelligence like Thiel will be around to help spread the Girardian viewpoint.

We need more Gene Robinsons, embracing of homosexuals

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence [sic] of their error which was meet." Romans 1:26-27

"Your mother recognizes all you're desperate displays
And she watches as her babies drift violently away
'Til they see themselves in telescopes
Do you see yourself in me?
We're such crazy babies, little monkey
We're so fu**ed up, you and me" - Adam Duritz, Counting Crows

Upon these penned words stands what many Scripture-studying Christians have, for right or wrong, depicted homosexuality to be.

There have been many interpretations for Paul's words, however, it is fair to say that historically the majority of Christians have interpreted these words as an indictment against homosexual relationships as we know them today.

Absence of Jesus' condemnation on a subject is not a good argument, but it should be at least part of the thought-process. My thoughts are this: Jesus spent His time embracing the marginalized and condemning the religious. When we combine those things with the entire theme of Scriptures when understood rightly, Jesus as Redeemer of all people, all people in need of redemption (or Paul, "all people are the same', c.f. Adam Duritz above), it is frankly difficult to attribute the bigotry Christians have shamefully displayed towards homosexuals to anything but natural Darwinian anxiety masquerading as Scriptural instruction. Or, at the very least, condemning attitudes towards homosexuality masquerading as Scriptural attitudes.

Perhaps if Christians spent more energy learning from the homosexual community, it would be better served time. Homosexuals probably represent roughly 5% of the human population; yet is there a more powerful lobbying group in America? Yet Christians represent the majority of Americans, and we know how that lobbying is going. Instead, Evangelical Christians in Washington spend their time lobbying against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, so that the other 40 states or so can continue to allow employers to fire employees for their sexual gender (Yeah, that really can still happen). Furthermore, homosexuals are, as they should be, an integral part of the Christian community. In 2013, with all the tools we have to understand Scripture in its proper context, isn't it time to embrace our brothers and sisters instead of fearful Darwinian behavior ruling the day? While Scripture may very well have negative things to say about at least some homosexual behavior, it also does for some heterosexual behavior. Perhaps our energy is better served getting it right on our end, instead of projecting our failures on other communities.

One of the upshots I see here is voices like Gene Robinson are even more important than we know. If mainline Protestantism continues to shun the homosexual community, it will contribute to the Protestant community's continued depreciation in the Western world. And, in my opinion, this will be against the Will of the God we claim to cling to.

Nobel Laureate Hubel's death and non-Trinitarian Christianity

"Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God" John Wesley

David Hubel, Harvard Nobel Laureate and one of the greatest nueroscientists to live, died last week. Hubel made seminal contributions to the understanding of how the eye and brain talk, and how vision is processed. Hubel basically helped unravel complex networks. Nothing is more complex than the Trinity, however.

Hubel was a Universalist. Univeralists worship God with a different understanding than traditional, Nicene Creed Christians. Perhaps nothing has separated Christian thought (and Christian and Muslim thought) than what the Oneness of God means.  

If Trinitarian Theology is incorrect (and it is, largely, I fear -- but The essence I believe to be very true) there is at least one enormous problem, that I see, with this sort of theology. 

This would mean God created before He loved, better, had an object of love. If God is Love, as Christians claim, this to me is difficult to think through. If human purpose is relationship, this also is conflicting, and I believe to be, a grossly deficient understanding of God.

Only the One, Triune Creator can account for what we perceive as the purpose of mankind - loving relationship, with Creator and fellow created. 

Wieseltier v. Pinker

Leon Wieseltier had only one peer of his generation that I am aware of, and Chris Hitchens sadly died of Head and Neck cancer a few years ago.

Wieseltier, who very publically demolished Dennet's 2006 Breaking the Spell, and Rosenberg's 2011 The Atheist guide to Reality, is coming after the Harvard Psychologist, Steven Pinker. I haven't read Pinker at all, personally, and frankly have very little interest in doing so, but I have read some of his wife, er, 3rd wife, Rebecca Goldstein (36 arguments for the existence of God: A work of Fiction is one of the worst books I have ever read: Hugely derivative, dull, and, well, just awful). Pinker espouses the faith of Scientism, and Wieseltier, much like he has done with Rosenberg, is pointing out the obvious.

Here is the link to the article in it's entirety.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114548/leon-wieseltier-responds-steven-pinkers-scientism

Much like anything Hitchens has written, this is entertaining and worth the read -- particularly for those that have a street-level understanding of just how silly it is to even feign utility in the humanities, from a scientism POV... Hence, why Dawkins is brilliant in his honesty. Even Rosenberg ("humanities are nothing we have to take seriously, except as symptoms." and "the consistent atheist should be a nihilist") has turned a honest cheek. But Pinker, unlike Rosenberg (a top-notch philosopher), unfortunately, just can't seem to bring any integrity into his thought processes and worldview. And, unfortunately, those that can't think for themselves get routinely taken for the ride.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114548/leon-wieseltier-responds-steven-pinkers-scientism

Moltmann's Trinity

"They Will be just like you and me/ Pretending they're not guessing/ As if we couldn't tell." Blues Traveler, "Trina Magna"


In his much celebrated work, "The Crucified God", Jurgen Moltmann writes, very necessarily, how the move away from the Crucified Christ has impacted "Christian" theology, in all its senses. The crux of his thought is only a return to the Cross can true Christianity live.

"If the cross of Jesus is understood as a divine event, i.e. between Jesus and His God and Father, it is necessary to speak in trinitarian terms of the Son and the Father and the Spirit. In the case the doctrine of the Trinity is no longer an exorbitant and impractical speculation about God, but is nothing other than a shorter version of the passion narrative of Christ in its significance for the eschatological freedom of faith and the life of oppressed nature. It protects faith from monotheism and atheism because it keeps  believers at the cross" (Moltmann, "The Crucified God", p. 246).

He continues, "When God becomes man in Jesus of Nazareth, he not only enters in the finitude of man, but in his death on the cross also enters into the situation of man's godforsakenness" (Moltmann, p. 276).

Here is a good litmus test whether you may believe and not even know, or not believe and think you do. Simply put, you can be assured you are a follower of the trinitarian God if you know -really know -- that you hate Him. If you understand you hate the God of Israel, you may find the Cross, and through that intersection learn to love Him.

For the Christian, conversion begins by hating God, then self, through illumination of the Law, then forsakeness of self. The vicious circle Paul outlines in Romans 7 becomes our own. "Sin and law urge each other on and bring men to death." (Moltmann, p. 293). Sounding like Girard, Moltmann makes the point that Christainty faith does not believe in a new "idea" of God, but rather in "a new situation of God" with the Crucified Christ (Moltmann, p. 274).

Moltmann quotes Paul Althaus:
"...the full and undiminished deity of God is to be found in the complete helpnessness, in the final agony of the Crucified Jesus... Christology must take seriously the fact that God himself really enters into the suffering of the Son and in so doing is and remains completely God... The Godhead is there hidden under the manhood, only open to faith and not to sight. It is therefore beyond any possibility of a theory. That this is the case, that God eneters into the hiddeness of his Godhead beneath the human nature, is kenosis."

This idea of interpersonal personhood has been expanded by not just Moltmann and Althaus, but Leonardo Buff, Catherine Mowry Lacugna, Wolfhart Pannenberg and others.

Ted Peters, in his must-read "God as Trinity," calls Moltmann's trinitarian theology "perhaps the biggest step away from the substantialist unity of God toward a relational unity in which the divine threeness is given priority." (p. 103). Here he quotes from Moltmann's "The trinity and the kingdom", "God suffers with us -- God suffers from us -- God suffers for us: it is the experience of God that that reveals the triune God."   

Why does this stuff matter? Is it, as, one of all-time favorite artists, John Popper, belches out in "Trina Magna", his apparent attempt to wash-away his Catholic upbringing, "They Will be just like you and me/ Pretending they're not guessing/ As if we couldn't tell." Are the rich history of Catholic thinkers just guessing about the essence of God?

Well, not really. When understood correctly, the whole Bible from front to back is about the Trinitarian God that has, in very definitive and subtle ways, revealed Himself to Jew and Gentile alike. And as Peters points out, "[the Trinity] is thought to be so integral that the idea of the Trinity is being used to sharpen the distinction between general notions of God and the unique Christian commitment" (p.81).

These distinctions are not and never have been abstract, despite the notion of the Trinity sharpening over time. When we hate God, and He loves us back through His suffering for us, this distinct understanding affects how one thoughtfully reacts and acts towards every bit of Creation. While Moltmann's views may be considered pushing the limits of the Christian understanding of monotheism, The Crucified God is a worthy read, and Moltmann clearly a thinker worthy of our attention.

Godel and Jesus

Some of the greatest logicians of the past 100 years have been Christians, with men like Godel (though he was a closet Christian), Knuth and Church popping to mind. But how about Jesus as Lord and logician?

Here is a thought-provoking piece from Dallas Willard from Christian Scholar's Review, written about 10 years ago.

Jesus The Logician

Christian Scholar's Review, 1999, Vol. XXVIII, #4, 605-614. Also available in The Great Omission, San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2006; and Taking Every Thought Captive, edited by Don King, Abilene Christian University Press, 2011.

ABSTRACT: In understanding how discipleship to Jesus Christ works, a major issue is how he automatically presents himself to our minds. It is characteristic of most 20th century Christians that he does not automatically come to mind as one of great intellectual power: as Lord of universities and research institutes, of the creative disciplines and scholarship. The Gospel accounts of how he actually worked, however, challenge this intellectually marginal image of him and help us to see him at home in the best of academic and scholarly settings of today, where many of us are called to be his apprentices. _________________________________________________ Few today will have seen the words "Jesus" and "logician" put together to form a phrase or sentence, unless it would be to deny any connection between them at all. The phrase "Jesus the logician" is not ungrammatical, any more than is "Jesus the carpenter." But it 'feels' upon first encounter to be something like a category mistake or error in logical type, such as "Purple is asleep," or "More people live in the winter than in cities," or "Do you walk to work or carry your lunch?" There is in our culture an uneasy relation between Jesus and intelligence, and I have actually heard Christians respond to my statement that Jesus is the most intelligent man who ever lived by saying that it is an oxymoron. Today we automatically position him away from (or even in opposition to) the intellect and intellectual life. Almost no one would consider him to be a thinker, addressing the same issues as, say, Aristotle, Kant, Heidegger or Wittgenstein, and with the same logical method. Now this fact has important implications for how we today view his relationship to our world and our life--especially if our work happens to be that of art, thought, research or scholarship. How could he fit into such a line of work, and lead us in it, if he were logically obtuse? How could we be his disciples at our work, take him seriously as our teacher there, if when we enter our fields of technical or professional competence we must leave him at the door? Obviously some repositioning is in order, and it may be helped along simply by observing his use of logic and his obvious powers of logical thinking as manifested in the Gospels of the New Testament. * Now when we speak of "Jesus the logician" we do not, of course, mean that he developed theories of logic, as did, for example, Aristotle and Frege. No doubt he could have, if he is who Christians have taken him to be. He could have provided a Begriffsschrift, or a Principia Mathematica, or alternative axiomatizations of Modal Logic, or various completeness or incompleteness proofs for various 'languages'. (He is, presumably, responsible for the order that is represented through such efforts as these.) He could have. Just as he could have handed Peter or John the formulas of Relativity Physics or the Plate Tectonic theory of the earth's crust, etc. He certainly could, that is, if he is indeed the one Christians have traditionally taken him to be. But he did not do it, and for reasons which are bound to seem pretty obvious to anyone who stops to think about it. But that, in any case, is not my subject here. When I speak of "Jesus the logician" I refer to his use of logical insights: to his mastery and employment of logical principles in his work as a teacher and public figure. Now it is worth noting that those who do creative work or are experts in the field of logical theory are not necessarily more logical or more philosophically sound than those who do not. We might hope that they would be, but they may even be illogical in how they work out their own logical theories. For some reason great powers in theory do not seem to guarantee significantly greater accuracy in practice. Perhaps no person well informed about the history of thought will be surprised at this statement, but for most of us it needs to be emphasized. To have understanding of developed logical theory surely could help one to think logically, but it is not sufficient to guarantee logical thinking and except for certain rarified cases it is not even necessary. Logical insight rarely depends upon logical theory, though it does depend upon logical relations. The two primary logical relations are implication (logical entailment) and contradiction; and their role in standard forms of argument such as the Barbara Syllogism, Disjunctive Syllogism, Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens--and even in strategies such as reductio ad absurdum--can be fully appreciated, for practical purposes, without rising to the level of theoretical generalization at all.1 To be logical no doubt does require an understanding of what implication and contradiction are, as well as the ability to recognize their presence or absence in obvious cases. But it also requires the will to be logical, and then certain personal qualities that make it possible and actual: qualities such as freedom from distraction, focussed attention on the meanings or ideas involved in talk and thought, devotion to truth, and willingness to follow the truth wherever it leads via logical relations. All of this in turn makes significant demands upon moral character. Not just on points such as resoluteness and courage, though those are required. A practicing hypocrite, for example, will not find a friend in logic, nor will liars, thieves, murderers and adulterers. They will be constantly alert to appearances and inferences that may logically implicate them in their wrong actions. Thus the literary and cinematic genre of mysteries is unthinkable without play on logical relations. Those devoted to defending certain pet assumptions or practices come what may will also have to protect themselves from logic. All of this is, I believe, commonly recognized by thoughtful people. Less well understood is the fact that one can be logical only if one is committed to being logical as a fundamental value. One is not logical by chance, any more than one just happens to be moral. And, indeed, logical consistency is a significant factor in moral character. That is part of the reason why in an age that attacks morality, as ours does, the logical will also be demoted or set aside--as it now is. Not only does Jesus not concentrate on logical theory, but he also does not spell out all the details of the logical structures he employs on particular occasions. His use of logic is always enthymemic, as is common to ordinary life and conversation. His points are, with respect to logical explicitness, understated and underdeveloped. The significance of the enthymeme is that it enlists the mind of the hearer or hearers from the inside, in a way that full and explicit statement of argument cannot do. Its rhetorical force is, accordingly, quite different from that of fully explicated argumentation, which tends to distance the hearer from the force of logic by locating it outside of his own mind. Jesus' aim in utilizing logic is not to win battles, but to achieve understanding or insight in his hearers. This understanding only comes from the inside, from the understandings one already has. It seems to "well up from within" one. Thus he does not follow the logical method one often sees in Plato's dialogues, or the method that characterizes most teaching and writing today. That is, he does not try to make everything so explicit that the conclusion is forced down the throat of the hearer. Rather, he presents matters in such a way that those who wish to know can find their way to, can come to, the appropriate conclusion as something they have discovered--whether or not it is something they particularly care for. "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." Yes, and no doubt Jesus understood that. And so he typically aims at real inward change of view that would enable his hearers to become significantly different as people through the workings of their own intellect. They will have, unless they are strongly resistant to the point of blindness, the famous "eureka" experience, not the experience of being outdone or beaten down. * With these points in mind, let us look at some typical scenes from the Gospels: scenes that are of course quite familiar, but are now to be examined for the role that distinctively logical thinking plays in them. (1). Consider Matthew 12:1-8. This contains a teaching about the ritual law: specifically about the regulations of the temple and the sabbath. Jesus and his disciples were walking through fields of grain--perhaps wheat or barley--on the sabbath, and they were stripping the grains from the stalks with their hands and eating them. The Pharisees accused them of breaking the law, of being wrongdoers. Jesus, in response, points out that there are conditions in which the ritual laws in question do not apply. He brings up cases of this that the Pharisees already concede. One is the case (I Samuel 21:1-6) where David, running for his life, came to the place of worship and sacrifice supervised by Ahimelich the priest. He asked Ahimelich for food for himself and his companions, but the only food available was bread consecrated in the ritual of the offerings. This bread, as Jesus pointed out (Matthew 12:4), was forbidden to David by law, and was to be eaten (after the ritual) by priests alone. But Ahimelich gave it to David and his men to satisfy their hunger. Hunger as a human need, therefore, may justify doing what ritual law forbids. Also, Jesus continues (second case), the priests every sabbath in their temple service do more work than sabbath regulations allow: "On the sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are innocent." (Matthew 12:5) It logically follows, then, that one is not automatically guilty of wrongdoing or disobedience when they do not keep the ritual observances as dictated, in case there is some greater need that must be met. This is something the Pharisees have, by implication, already admitted by accepting the rightness in the two cases Jesus referred to. The still deeper issue here is the use of law to harm people, something that is not God's intention. Any time ritual and compassion (e.g. for hunger) come into conflict, God, who gave the law, favors compassion. That is the kind of God he is. To think otherwise is to misunderstand God and to cast him in a bad light. Thus Jesus quotes the prophet Hosea: "But if you had known what this means, 'I desire compassion, and not sacrifice' , you would not have condemned the innocent." (Matthew 12:7; cp. 9:13) Thus the use of logic here is not only to correct the judgment that the disciples (the "innocent" in this case) must be sinning in stripping the grain and eating it. It is used to draw a further implication about God: God is not the kind of person who condemns those who act to meet a significant need at the expense of a relative triviality in the law. Elsewhere he points out that the sabbath appointed by God was made to serve man, not man to serve the sabbath. (Mark 2:27) Now the case of sabbath keeping--or, more precisely, of the ritual laws developed by men for sabbath observance--is one that comes up over and over in the Gospels, and it is always approached by Jesus in terms of the logical inconsistency of those who claim to practice it in the manner officially prescribed at the time. (See for example Mark 3:1-3, Luke 13:15-17, John 9:14-16, etc.) They are forced to choose between hypocrisy and open inconsistency, and he does sometimes use the word "hypocrisy" of them (e.g. Luke 13:15), implying that they knew they were being inconsistent and accepted it. In fact, the very idea of hypocrisy implies logical inconsistency. "They say, and do not" what their saying implies. (Matthew 23:2) And legalism will always lead to inconsistency in life, if not hypocrisy, for it will eventuate in giving greater importance to rules than is compatible with the principles one espouses (to sacrifice, for example, than to compassion, in the case at hand), and also to an inconsistent practice of the rules themselves (e.g leading one's donkey to water on the sabbath, but refusing to have a human being healed of an 18-year-long affliction, as in Luke 13:15-16). (2). Another illustrative case is found in Luke 20:27-40. Here it is the Sadducees, not the Pharisees, who are challenging Jesus. They are famous for rejecting the resurrection (vs. 27), and accordingly they propose a situation that, they think, is a reductio ad absurdum of resurrection. (vss. 28-33) The law of Moses said that if a married man died without children, the next eldest brother should make the widow his wife, and any children they had would inherit in the line of the older brother. In the 'thought experiment' of the Sadducees, the elder of seven sons died without children from his wife, the next eldest married her and also died without children from her, and the next eldest did the same, and so on though all seven brothers. Then the wife died (Small wonder!). The presumed absurdity in the case was that in the resurrection she would be the wife of all of them, which was assumed to be an impossibility in the nature of marriage. Jesus' reply is to point out that those resurrected will not have mortal bodies suited for sexual relations, marriage and reproduction. They will have bodies like angels do now, bodies of undying stuff. The idea of resurrection must not be taken crudely. Thus he undermines the assumption of the Sadducees that any 'resurrection' must involve the body and its life continuing exactly as it does now. So the supposed impossibility of the woman being in conjugal relations with all seven brothers is not required by resurrection. Then he proceeds, once again, to develop a teaching about the nature of God--which was always his main concern. Taking a premiss that the Sadducees accepted, he draws the conclusion that they did not want. That the dead are raised, he says, follows from God's self-description to Moses at the burning bush. God described himself in that incident as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." (Luke 20:35 ) The Sadducees accepted this. But at the time of the burning bush incident, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been long 'dead', as Jesus points out. But God is not the God of the dead. That is, a dead person cannot sustain a relation of devotion and service to God, nor can God keep covenant faith with one who no longer exists. In covenant relationship to God one lives. (vs. 38) One cannot very well imagine the living God communing with a dead body or a non-existent person and keeping covenant faithfulness with them. (Incidentally, those Christian thinkers who nowadays suggest that the Godly do not exist or are without conscious life, at least, from the time their body dies to the time it is resurrected, might want to provide us with an interpretation of this passage.) (3). Yet another illustration of Jesus' obviously self-conscious use of logic follows upon the one just cited from Luke 20. He would occasionally set teaching puzzles that required the use of logic on the part of his hearers. After the discussion of the resurrection, the Sadducees and the other groups about him no longer had the courage to challenge his powerful thinking. (vs. 40) He then sets them a puzzle designed to help them understand the Messiah--for which everyone was looking. Drawing upon what all understood to be a messianic reference, in Psalm 110, Jesus points out an apparent contradiction: The Messiah is the son of David (admitted by all), and yet David calls the Messiah "Lord." (Luke 20:42-43) "How," he asks, "can the Messiah be David's son if David calls him Lord?" (vs. 44) The resolution intended by Jesus is that they should recognize that the Messiah is not simply the son of David, but also of One higher than David, and that he is therefore king in a more inclusive sense than political head of the Jewish nation. (Rev. 1:5) The promises to David therefore reach far beyond David, incorporating him and much more. This reinterpretation of David and the Messiah was a lesson learned and used well by the apostles and early disciples. (See Acts 2:25-36, Hebrews 5:6, and Phil. 2:9-11) (4). For a final illustration we turn to the use of logic in one of the more didactic occasions recorded in the Gospels. The parables and stories of Jesus often illustrate his use of logic, but we will look instead at a well known passage from the Sermon on the Mount. In his teaching about adultery and the cultivation of sexual lust, Jesus makes the statement, "If your right eye makes you to stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell," and similarly for your right hand. (Matthew 5:29-30) What, exactly, is Jesus doing here? One would certainly be mistaken in thinking that he is advising anyone to actually dismember himself as a way of escaping damnation. One must keep the context in mind. Jesus is exhibiting the righteousness that goes beyond "the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees." This latter was a righteousness that took as its goal to not do anything wrong. If not doing anything wrong is the goal, that could be achieved by dismembering yourself and making actions impossible. What you cannot do you certainly will not do. Remove your eye, your hand, etc., therefore, and you will roll into heaven a mutilated stump. The price of dismemberment would be small compared to the reward of heaven. That is the logical conclusion for one who held the beliefs of the scribes and the pharisees. Jesus is urging them to be consistent with their principles and do in practice what their principles imply. He reduces their principle--that righteousness lies in not doing anything wrong--to the absurd, in the hope that they will forsake their principle and see and enter the righteousness that is "beyond the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees"--beyond, where compassion or love and not sacrifice is the fundamental thing. Jesus, of course, knew that if you dismembered yourself you could still have a hateful heart, toward God and toward man. It wouldn't really help toward righteousness at all. That is the basic thing he is teaching in this passage. Failure to appreciate the logic makes it impossible to get his point. * These illustrative scenes from the Gospels will already be familiar to any student of scripture. But, as we know, familiarity has its disadvantages. My hope is to enable us to see Jesus in a new light: to see him as doing intellectual work with the appropriate tools of logic, to see him as one who is both at home in and the master of such work. We need to understand that Jesus is a thinker, that this is not a dirty word but an essential work, and that his other attributes do not preclude thought, but only insure that he is certainly the greatest thinker of the human race: "the most intelligent person who ever lived on earth." He constantly uses the power of logical insight to enable people to come to the truth about themselves and about God from the inside of their own heart and mind. Quite certainly it also played a role in his own growth in "wisdom." (Luke 2:52) Often, it seems to me, we see and hear his deeds and words, but we don't think of him as one who knew how to do what he did or who really had logical insight into the things he said. We don't automatically think of him as a very competent person. He multiplied the loaves and fishes and walked on water, for example--but, perhaps, he didn't know how to do it, he just used mindless incantations or prayers. Or he taught on how to be a really good person, but he did not have moral insight and understanding. He just mindlessly rattled off words that were piped in to him and through him. Really? This approach to Jesus may be because we think that knowledge is human, while he was divine. Logic means works, while he is grace. Did we forget something there? Possibly that he also is human? Or that grace is not opposed to effort but to earning? But human thought is evil, we are told. How could he think human thought, have human knowledge? So we distance him from ourselves, perhaps intending to elevate him, and we elevate him right out of relevance to our actual lives--especially as they involve the use of our minds. That is why the idea of Jesus as logical, of Jesus the logician, is shocking. And of course that extends to Jesus the scientist, researcher, scholar, artist, literary person. He just doesn't 'fit' in those areas. Today it is easier to think of Jesus as a "TV evangelist" than as an author, teacher or artist in the contemporary context. But now really!--if he were divine, would he be dumb, logically challenged, uninformed in any area? Would he not instead be the greatest of artists or speakers? Paul was only being consistent when he told the Colossians "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are concealed in him." (2:3) Except for what? There is in Christian educational circles today a great deal of talk about "integration of faith and learning." Usually it leads to little solid result. This is in part due to the fact that it is, at this point in time, an extremely difficult intellectual task, which cannot be accomplished by ritual language and the pooh-poohing of difficulties. But an even deeper cause of the difficulty is the way we automatically tend to think of Jesus himself. It is not just in what we say about him, but in how he comes before out minds: how we automatically position him in our world, and how in consequence we position ourselves. We automatically think of him as having nothing essentially to do with 'profane' knowledge, with learning and logic, and therefore find ourselves 'on our own' in such areas. We should, I believe, understand that Jesus would be perfectly at home in any professional context where good work is being done today. He would, of course, be a constant rebuke to all the proud self-advancement and the contemptuous treatment of others that goes on in professional circles. In this as in other respects, our professions are aching for his presence. If we truly see him as the premier thinker of the human race--and who else would be that?--then we are also in position to honor him as the most knowledgeable person in our field, whatever that may be, and to ask his cooperation and assistance with everything we have to do. Catherine Marshall somewhere tells of a time she was trying to create a certain design with some drapes for her windows. She was unable to get the proportions right to form the design she had in mind. She gave up in exasperation and, leaving the scene, began to mull the matter over in prayer. Soon ideas as to how the design could be achieved began to come to her and before long she had the complete solution. She learned that Jesus is maestro of interior decorating. Such stories are familiar from many areas of human activity, but quite rare in the areas of art and intellect. For lack of an appropriate understanding of Jesus we come to do our work in intellectual, scholarly and artistic fields on our own. We do not have confidence (otherwise known as faith) that he can be our leader and teacher in matters we spend most of our time working on. Thus our efforts often fall far short of what they should accomplish, and may even have less effect than the efforts of the Godless, because we undertake them only with "the arm of the flesh." Our faith in Jesus Christ rises no higher than that. We do not see him as he really is, maestro of all good things. * Here I have only been suggestive of a dimension of Jesus that is commonly overlooked. This is no thorough study of that dimension, but it deserves such study. It is one of major importance for a healthy faith in him. Especially today, when the authoritative institutions of our culture, the universities and the professions, omit him as a matter of course. Once one knows what to look for in the Gospels, however, one will easily see the thorough, careful and creative employment of logic throughout his teaching activity. Indeed, this employment must be identified and appreciated if what he is saying is to be understood. Only then can his intellectual brilliance be appreciated and he be respected as he deserves. An excellent way of teaching in Christian schools would therefore be to require all students to do extensive logical analyses of Jesus' discourses. This should go hand in with the other ways of studying his words, including devotional practices such as memorization or lectio divina, and the like. It would make a substantial contribution to the integration of faith and learning. While such a concentration on logic may sound strange today, that is only a reflection on our current situation. It is quite at home in many of the liveliest ages of the church. John Wesley speaks for the broader Christian church across time and space, I think, in his remarkable treatise, "An Address to the Clergy." There he discusses at length the qualifications of an effective minister for Christ. He speaks of the necessity of a good knowledge of scripture, and then adds, "Some knowledge of the sciences also, is, to say the least, equally expedient. Nay, may we not say, that the knowledge of one (whether art or science), although now quite unfashionable, is even necessary next, and in order to, the knowledge of Scripture itself? I mean logic. For what is this, if rightly understood, but the art of good sense? of apprehending things clearly, judging truly, and reasoning conclusively? What is it, viewed in another light, but the art of learning and teaching; whether by convincing or persuading? What is there, then, in the whole compass of science, to be desired in comparison of it? "Is not some acquaintance with what has been termed the second part of logic (metaphysics), if not so necessary as this, yet highly expedient (1.) In order to clear our apprehension (without which it is impossible either to judge correctly, or to reason closely or conclusively), by ranging our ideas under general heads? And (2.) In order to understand many useful writers, who can very hardly be understood without it?"2 Later in this same treatise Wesley deals with whether we are, as ministers, what we ought to be. "Am I," he asks, "a tolerable master of the sciences? Have I gone through the very gate of them, logic? If not, I am not likely to go much farther when I stumble at the threshold. Do I understand it so as to be ever the better for it? To have it always ready for use; so as to apply every rule of it, when occasion is, almost as naturally as I turn my hand? Do I understand it at all? Are not even the moods and figures above my comprehension? Do not I poorly endeavour to cover my ignorance, by affecting to laugh at their barbarous names? Can I even reduce an indirect mood to a direct; an hypothetic to a categorical syllogism? Rather, have not my stupid indolence and laziness made me very ready to believe, what the little wits and pretty gentlemen affirm, 'that logic is good for nothing'? It is good for this at least (wherever it is understood), to make people talk less; by showing them both what is, and what is not, to the point; and how extremely hard it is to prove any thing. Do I understand metaphysics; if not the depths of the Schoolmen, the subtleties of Scotus or Aquinas, yet the first rudiments, the general principles, of that useful science? Have I conquered so much of it, as to clear my apprehension and range my ideas under proper heads; so much as enables me to read with ease and pleasure, as well as profit, Dr. Henry Moore's Works, Malebranche's Search after Truth, and Dr. Clarke's Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God?"3 I suspect that such statements will be strange, shocking, even outrageous or ridiculous to leaders of ministerial education today. But readers of Wesley and other great ministers of the past, such as Jonathan Edwards or Charles Finney, will easily see, if they know what it is they are looking at, how much use those ministers made of careful logic. Similarly for the great Puritan writers of an earlier period, and for later effective Christians such as C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer. They all make relentless use of logic, and to great good effect. With none of these great teachers is it a matter of trusting logic instead of relying upon the Holy Spirit. Rather, they well knew, it is simply a matter of meeting the conditions along with which the Holy Spirit chooses to work. In this connection it will be illuminating to carefully examine the logical structure and force of Peter's discourse on the day of Pentecost. (Acts 2) * Today, by contrast, we commonly depend upon the emotional pull of stories and images to 'move' people. We fail to understand that, in the very nature of the human mind, emotion does not reliably generate belief or faith, if it generates it at all. Not even 'seeing' does, unless you know what you are seeing. It is understanding, insight, that generates belief. In vain do we try to change peoples' heart or character by 'moving' them to do things in ways that bypass their understanding. Some months ago one who is regarded as a great teacher of homiletics was emphasizing the importance of stories in preaching. It was on a radio program. He remarked that a leading minister in America had told him recently that he could preach the same series of sermons each year, and change the illustrations, and no one would notice it. This was supposed to point out, with some humor, the importance of stories to preaching. What it really pointed out, however, was that the cognitive content of the sermon was never heard--if there was any to be heard--and does not matter. Paying careful attention to how Jesus made use of logical thinking can strengthen our confidence in Jesus as master of the centers of intellect and creativity, and can encourage us to accept him as master in all of the areas of intellectual life in which we may participate. In those areas we can, then, be his disciples, not disciples of the current movements and glittering personalities who happen to dominate our field in human terms. Proper regard for him can also encourage us to follow his example as teachers in Christian contexts. We can learn from him to use logical reasoning at its best, as he works with us. When we teach what he taught in the manner he taught it, we will see his kind of result in the lives of those to whom we minister.4 NOTES See my paper, "Degradation of Logical Form," in Axiomathes, Number 1-3, 1997, 1-22, especially pp. 3-7.  Return to text. From Selections from the Writings of the Rev. John Wesley, edited by Herbert Welch, New York: Eaton & Mains, 1901, p. 186.  Return to text. Ibid., p. 198.  Return to text. For necessary elaboration of many themes touched upon in this paper, see J. P. Moreland's crucial book, Love Your God with All Your Mind, Colorado Springs: Navepress, 1997.  Return to text.

Passing of Dallas Willard

The worlds of Academia and Christianity lost a powerful thinker today, long time University of Southern California philosopher, Dallas Willard, at the age of 77.

A prolific writer, Willard was known as an intellectual giant, yet an extraordinarily humble man. Much of his thought was centered around the reality, meaning and mystery of the Resurrection, as well as the spiritual transformation of those united with Christ. His seminal work is probably The Divine Conspiracy http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Divine_Conspiracy.html?id=IbtMAgAACAAJ

Willard has looked noticeably thinner the past years, and succumbed to some sort of cancer this morning. As a teacher at a major university and prolific and effective writer and speaker, he touched an excessive amount of lives.

Men that live well seem to die well. Alas, Dallas Willards' last words were reportedly, around loving family members and friends. simply, "thank you."

A humble man full of gratitude to Christ and one whose loss will be felt throughout the Christian community for quite some time.

Frans de Waal and morality

"If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in." Groucho Marx

I recently had the chance to listen to Frans de Waal talk about morality, reciprocity and empathy.

Frans de Waal is a worldwide leading primatologist now at Emory University, and has written a whole host of books about primates, morality and, in particular, the empathetic concept. He doesn't consider the question of God interesting, and his worldview is materialistic.

The talk can be viewed here: http://www.veritas.org/Talks.aspx#!/v/1317

His co-presenter is Jeffrey Schloss, a well-known Christian apologist who was born and raised an Atheist. He is a Biologist at Westmont College -- and also a really smart guy. The only problem with the talks is you cannot see the slides well, so when they are showing videos we don't have good access. The nice things about talks, however, is they sum up the latest research often, and, best of all, are usually free.

While the data is still largely coming in, empathy and reciprocity can surely find some roots in the animal kingdom.  For Theists, this should not come as any surprise, particularly those familiar with some of the Creation stories throughout the Old Testament.

I also like what de Waal says about human emotion. I think if I didn't believe in a benevolent Creator, I would think that without an anchor of a good Creator, one should provoke that we are slaves of our emotions and not of logic. Emotions must trump logic in an atheist worldview, I believe.  Frans de Waal certainly does not say this and I would imagine he would not believe this, but I think he would find himself in a conundrum to argue the other way around. Of course, for the Theist, logic can of course trump all other behavior, as it is rooted in a logical entity; we can override our impulses and emotions if, for instance, we want to serve God and love others instead of ourselves and our naturalistic impulses. This is our choice, so at least the Theist believes.

Humans attach moral salience with a ton of things that have reproduction and fitness benefit. Clearly, there is a connection. However, this supports a top-to-bottom worldview as much, and I would argue, much more, than a bottom-up worldview.

And then there is the ministry of Jesus. Biologists tend to think, while they disagree on how precisely morality, and why it evolved, and even if it is at all a product or by-product of evolution,  that morality is some sort of cognitive innovation. That should be interesting for Theists and Christians in particular.

Enter Jesus of Nazareth into the human sphere. The Sermon of the Mount. Matthew 5. Healing the soldier's ear after Peter struck him. "Please forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."

Jesus' entire ministry served to override man's religion and his non-religion, at the same time. If Jesus was God and a biologist (though I know several biologists that think they are God, this should not be confused), I envision Him saying something along these lines: "Your brain has now evolved to be able to reason and be logical. It took some time, but here you are. You have a tremendous amount of selfish tendencies, which govern your overall will to live and survive. Indeed, you share the same essence with all animals and bacteria to survive and reproduce. You can follow your Darwinian roots, or you can rebel, and be a revolutionist and join me. For those that came before me, and will never hear my message, you still hear the message inside your hearts -- it is your conscience and My image.  Go now, because it is your choice. You now have evolved to have cognitive innovation. Use it forever -- or lose it forever".

At any rate, I recommend Frans de Waal. Unlike his old colleague, Marc Hauser, his field data seems wholly legit, and though Christian biologists and non-biologists won't agree with some of his conclusions, he is a smart guy that is worthy to listen to.






  

Normal, Boston strike back

In case anyone has been in a coma, ending an unprecedented week in Boston, more than a thousand authority figures captured the second suspect, aka "white hat", the younger of the two brothers who killed at least four people in the past week, under a boat canopy in a the Watertown neighborhood of Boston, last night. Incidentally, about two miles from where my wife and I lived the majority of our last 12 years.

Everyone, rightfully so, has an opinion on what has happened. I will just say to those who are not familiar with the area or the specifics, it was an astonishing display of force, quick-thinking, and impressive organization from the Boston Police Department and local FBI, in particular. It is difficult not to be proud and in awe of the job that they performed, under the instant, global scrutiny of most governments and indeed human beings.

It is humbling to know how lucky we have got over the past few years (car bomb in Times square in 2010 that did not go off, and the heroic actions of first responders and police to minimize the damage in Boston this past week, to name a couple). It is clear we are going to have to deal with terrorist attacks on soft targets in America over at least the next generation or so. America is too big and there is too much personal freedom. Hopefully we can do some reasonable things, like install camers at each intersection in major cities, perform random bag checks, and, perhaps most important, stop being childish and naive about racial profiling and listen to much more experienced countries when they tell us it simply works. Feelings hurt are much better than people.

And how about today in Boston? Sports is always a great neutralizer and normalizer, and today I can't remember a better example. At a sold out and packed Fenway, David Ortiz, the face of the franchise, began the game with the microphone and stirred an already emotional crowd, in the presence of some of the Boston law enforcement heroes, by forcefully reminding all that want to promote fear and chaos, "This is is our f-ing city." As the Fenway crowd erupted, even the FCC got into the mix, letting the public know not only would Ortiz get a pass for his profanity, that they "stood by him" (they actually tweeted that, like they were so fired up themselves they couldn't wait 'till after the game to release that statement and their support).

Fast forward to the bottom of the seventh, where, Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" is played during every home Red Sox game. Unknown to 4 Yawkey Way, following suspect 2's apprehension last night, on a whim and his own dime, Neil Diamond hopped on a jet and traveled across country. Getting in this afternoon, he walked out on the field and led a crazed Fenway, live in song. Only to be outdone 15 minutes later, when, with two outs in the eighth and the Sox trailing, Daniel Nava, the young, Rudyesque (he was a team manager at Santa Clara, and, as an aside, is a devoutly Christian guy) who was already one more early season big hit away from being a write-in, shoo-in candidate to replace Menino next year as Mayor, hit a ball 400 feet into the stands. A very different kind of explosion erupted, and, as much cliche as it is (and it is), a better script could not have been written. The Sox won, and of course Boston won as well.

After the game, Nava spoke about how obviously a win, no matter how important, couldn't even begin to address the pain that many families are going through after this past week. Of course he is right. But the distraction is welcome, and feeling good about something, when you feel bad about a lot of things, no matter how short that distraction may last, is welcome and just, refreshing.

Boston's (and humanity's) great need for justice will be obtained. A little bit of it was already dealt out by the Boston Heroic on a normally quiet street in Watertown. To those in ivory towers that claim people and this world are getting less violent, this week was yet another painful reminder how wrong they are. The genocide of this world is sadly very much alive, perhaps only mitigated by our mostly successful removal of many communist dictators and mass murderers across the globe (of course, again, at the cost of many American lives). Otherwise, we live in a dare I say increasingly volaitile, dangerous and corrupt world. Things like overpopulation and resource depletion will surely not help.

This weekend and the upcoming weeks are about healing, and all the unexpected and encouraging gestures and actions from people empathetic to other people's hurts. This is again a situation where nobody wins; the good that does come out should and is amplified and celebrated. Today it was centered around Fenway Park. Sadly, next year, it could be somewhere in L.A. Or Memphis. or anywhere.

But just as New York did twelve years ago, Boston has clearly stood up and said something very important to the rest of the world.

It was a terrible week for this city and country. As Daniel Nava's baseball sailed out over the cheap seats today, we forgot. And that is the point. We live in a country where we are guaranteed the rights to do things that allow us to forget. To get in your car, drive anywhere you want, say Fenway park on a beautiful Spring afternoon. To sit in a stadium next to a bunch of people with very different backgrounds than you and to freely engage them and enjoy them. To explain to your boy what a double play is, or to have a beer with your buddy in the sun-drenched bleacher seats. To get up the next day and Worship God in the way you think is the most truthful. Or to not Worship, or to not believe at all. The rights to hug whom we want and to marry whom we want. To go out hunting if we want. To talk to our daughters about college and careers and that they are not limited by gender or race or class. These are our choices and our rights that this country has guaranteed us through hundreds of years of bloodshed. They are unique, and special, and great.

America and its citizens should always be the most compassionate and caring country in the world. But, if we must, we will protect freedom for the generations to follow. So, one day, our kids can take their kids to Fenway. And so on.

The older I get, the more I understand how valuable freedom actually is. It is an astonishing gift. Astonishing.  Big Papi isn't going to write a novel anytime soon, but i dont know of any novelist or columnist that could sum it up better. This is our f-ing city. This is our f-ing country.

I don't like "Sweet Caroline". I think the song is not good. Most people obviously (or at least ostensibly) don't agree with that. But today you had to like it. After a week of total abnormal, it was normal. It was as routine as a 6-3 ground ball, or the peanut guy whizzing overpriced food past your face to the guy who has over the years exercised his American freedom to eat in excess.

We are creatures that are comforted by things that are comfortable to us. For my daughter it is her "two cozies". For our baby it is his Mom's touch. For 37,000 Bostonians on Yawkey today, and many others watching on TV or listening on the radio, it was an offbeat rendition of the seventh inning stretch anthem. It was the green monster, not two on-the-loose monsters. It was David Ortiz singling through the David Ortiz-shift-causing-hole on the left side of the infield. It was Jerry and Don being the two biggest homers in baseball. It was watching the extremely likeable Nava cross home plate with a grin on his face normally reserved for small kids discovering the small joys of this world for the first time.

It was Spring baseball at Fenway.  It was normal and pure.

 And man, it was nice.


 

The Beautiful Music of Justice

“I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountain top. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”  - (Excerpt from Dr. King’s last speech, before he was assassinated on April 4; see The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr., NY, Newmarket Press, 1983, p. 94).

At Boston University, where I spent some of my graduate training, there lies smack in front of the Marsh Chapel, in the middle of the expansive campus, The "Free at Last Sculpture", in honor of BU's most famous alumnus. 

Dawkins, Shermer, Stenger and the like, center their arguments, whether they realize it totally or not, by confusing epistemological attacks on some god with indictments on the political failures of the God of Christianity or of Islam.

A reflection on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. is alone sufficient to refute that logic. Here, stands a man of men. A man that stood and fell on purely altruistic terms, that was not clouded by the religious institutions that have largely deserved the harsh criticisms of those of the Atheist faith.  Dawkins, in a mistake he repeats over and over again, crosses over from mechanistic explanations to metaphysical nonsense when he blindly shouts, "DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music."  One of the reasons i truly admire Dawkins is, like the original founders of the new Atheism -- Nietzsche, Marx and Freud-- Dawkins maintains his integrity when thinking through the implications of the Atheist worldview. Dawkins, for example, would explain MLK Jr.s life away as an evolutionary misfiring -- like the antithesis of a sociopath -- a selfless compassion that is genetic suicide.

One of the many areas where Atheism has failed its followers is by being forced to dismiss justice as evolutionary illusion, since it follows that good and evil are co-ilusions, rooted only in subjectivity.  If your neighbor rapes and tortures your child, according to the materialist worldview, it cannot be objectively bad or evil. Justice can be nothing but illusory, perhaps an amorphous feeling that aids the group fitness of our species, but it, by definition, can be nothing beyond that.

One of the main reasons why I am a theist is precisely because both my intuition and my rationality, and I suspect yours, rejects the idea that justice is illusory. As a result, my worldview, that morality and justice are rooted in objective truth and reality, is the only consistent reality that reflects the reality I intuitively and rationally sense.

Put it a different way: as many Theists have eloquently argued, the same rational for trusting our intuitions and basic beliefs, are in the same ontological category as trusting our senses that they actually relay truthful information about our surroundings. Moreover, it is in the same ontological category as our ability to reason itself; unless reason and intellect are grounded in an objective source of reason and intellect, it would make no sense that we have any reason to trust our ability to reason. If you think otherwise, you simply do not understand evolutionary biology. Charles Darwin poignantly pointed this out after publishing his seminal "On the Origin of Species."  To accept that our logic can evolve naturally with no rooting in any logical grounds, to me, and to thoughtful Theists, at worst is total absurdity, and, at best, is a faith system I am simply not willing to put my belief in. To accept it as brute fact seems to me to be absurd to any open-minded, thoughtful person.

And beyond this, it would mean that one of our great American heroes fought and died for nothing;which would seem particularly peculiar in the light of today's inauguration event, which was dripping in sweet, cosmic irony.


Richard Dawkins, speaking as an intellectually honest materialist, would want you to believe that reality demands that MLK Jr. was just dancing to the music of his DNA: waltzing for freedom, bopping for human rights, two-stepping for justice, in a meaningless, random, uncoordinated chemical accident.

Huh.

On this inauguration day, as a fellow Theist, Barack Obama continues to fight for those things Dr. King is no longer here to fight for. And as a fellow human being, I choose to endorse that. Because what "ought" to be is something I cannot accept as just illusory; materialism offers nothing to humans, and takes everything from humans, explicitely free will, justice, love, and purpose. It is a false utopia -- it nicely gets rid of eternal judgement and sin (what person does not want to get rid of their responsibility to their Creator, Atheism is surely the easiest worldview for that). But it by necessity throws away all justice in the process.

If indeed as materialism claims, MLK Jr. was just dancing to the music of his DNA, a bullet might have ended that dance, but that music was as beautiful then as it is today. And, as Barack Obama took second-term office, that music could be heard playing loudly all over our Nation's Capital, and from redwood forest to gulfstream waters and across the globe. And, as surely as human beings continue to fight for the oppressed and the marginalized, that music will keep playing.

And no Dr. Dawkins, that music isn't the music of Dr. King's DNA. It is the music of justice. The composer is Christ and the orchestrators are people of Faith. And that music plays on today. And it will play tomorrow. And it will play until He is done wiping every tear from the eye of the oppressed and the marginalized and the poor in spirit, in the ages to come.

"This situation of the complication and the order to function of an organism, where the sum is greater than its parts (i.e. has a higher order), becomes more astonishing every year as the scientific results become more detailed. Because of this, many scientists are now driven to faith by their very work. In the final analysis it is a faith made stronger through the argument by design. I simply do not now believe that the reductionalist philosophy, so necessary to pursue the scientific method and, to repeat, the method which all scientists must master and practice with all their might and skill in their laboratory, can explain everything". Allan Sandage, eminent astronomer and born-again Christian in the late 20th century