Graduate 58: Embracing Gravity, Part 1 of 2

Embracing Gravity: A Critical Engagement with the Musical, Wicked. Part One.

I am so, so very thankful to those friends of mine who challenge me to think clearly, carefully, and critically about my ideas and beliefs.

Last week I saw the musical Wicked at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. Steve, Jessie, Alex, and I went to try to get tickets that were being raffled off two hours before show-time. Steve's name was the first one called, for two tickets! Since he and Jessie had already seen the show, they, very generously, gave the tickets to Alex and me.

I'm still not completely sure what I think about my experience that evening. On the one hand, the show was spectacularly produced. The story was extremely well-written, particularly in the second act, where there were so many revelatory moments that cleverly and surprisingly integrated the novel world of Wicked with the already-established world of Oz. The sets were amazing. I especially appreciate it when a show is well-staged and beautifully rendered. The show was well-acted, hilarious at points, brilliantly engaging; there was so much to recommend it.

And yet I found, on the other hand, messages and themes that I really could not embrace. In fact, as the story unfolded, layer-by-layer, a picture of the world emerged that was so thoroughly antithetical to what I believe and value and cherish that, at times, I almost couldn't sit still.

When I first began drafting this blog, I came on very strong (perhaps even condemnatory). The tone has been, I think, decidedly softened since I discussed my views with a close friend and revised this entry. So there are two parts to the following material. In the second part, I will present my take of the central themes and worldview presented in Wicked. But in the first part, I will attempt to lay a (preliminary) foundation for that discussion by addressing the appropriateness and validity of assessing, such things as worldview themes, in drama and literature.

WARNING: THERE ARE PLOT-SPOILERS IN THE MATERIAL TO FOLLOW. If you have not already seen the show and do not want to know what happens before seeing it onstage, in all its brilliant glory, then do not read on. (In many instances, I will just assume that the reader already knows what I'm talking about with reference to the musical.)

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So when I first presented my concerns about objectionable themes in Wicked to my friend, he surprised me with his response. Instead of challenging my interpretation with his own alternative theory, he basically challenged the propriety of my drawing any interpretation at all. This caught me off guard because I have learned to take it for granted, as an operating assumption, that narrative drama and literature convey messages and meanings--not always necessarily as an explicit or overt intention of the author, but because stories, in their shape and character, reflect a particular view of the world and life.

Along these lines, my friend challenged me on two points. Firstly, he asked whether I could really know what were the mind and intention of the author when he wrote the play. Secondly, he doubted, even if the existence of such messages and themes could be established, that they would impact the audience in any significant way.

Anyone familiar with the vast and complicated realm of literary criticism will likely recognize these questions. The quantity of literature on them, alone, is enormous. According to one of my English professors, there are four major areas on which critics focus when dealing with the meaning and interpretation of a text: (1) author's intent, (2) the text itself, (3) the social/historical context of the work, and (4) the mind of the reader or audience. Different interpretive theories emphasize each of these aspects to different degrees.

In considering the first objection, I am actually not so much interested in the author's intent, because I believe that an author might reveal much about the world (or his/her view of the world) without intending to do so. So when I say that a play or novel conveys a certain message or set of themes, I am not necessarily saying that is his explicit intention, as if he sat down to write his play and began by asking himself, "How can I convey message X to the audience."

Here is an illustration of this point. (I'll expand on it further when I actually address my interpretation of the musical's themes in the second half of this blog.) Several characteristics (in the dialogue and action) of the conflict between the animals and the Ozians reminded me of certain portrayals of the contemporary debate over gay marriage and GLBT rights, where the opposing sides are represented as the oppressed minority and the oppressive majority. My friend was a bit skeptical when I first suggested this. Another friend actually pointed out to me (this is heresay) that the play was composed during the beginning of the Iraq war when many people were concerned about racial profiling. Now one may ask, did the author intend either one of these interpretations? Perhaps not. Perhaps he intended both. Perhaps he intended something else. But notice that whichever way you interpret it, there is still an underlying "arch-theme," the juxtaposition of the oppressed minority and the oppressive majority and that is what interests me. It may not have been in the conscious mind of the author, but that is not necessary for it to be, in a meaningfully, objective way, in the play.

[I won't delve into my own complete view of interpretation and meaning in text/drama because I don't have one. But I will say this as a kind of preliminary consideration. I believe that meaning, ultimately, is created by God. It thus exists as an objective feature of the universe. Our actions and conversations and day-to-day lives are full of significance and meaning, though we may not recognize that fact. What we, in turn, create is also full of meaning--sometimes because we intend it, sometimes because its just there as a feature of every existing thing. If we are watchful, we can pick up on both kinds. So, for instance, I see the protagonist, Elphaba, as going on a very distinctive journey, from basic essentialism, to existentialism, culminating in nihilism. Was that the overt intention of the author? Perhaps. Or maybe he just described the human experience as he saw it. He need not have understood it to reproduce it powerfully on stage. But the meaning was and is there, nonetheless.]

So basically, in answer to the first objection, I do not think that the author's intention need be directly considered when evaluating the messages, themes, and worldview of a play. "But," one may then ask, "if the author can convey meaning without intending it, can he really be held responsible for objectionable meanings." In other words, if I have a problem with the messages in Wicked, is it really appropriate for me to "blame" the author for a message that he did not intend to communicate?

The (perhaps) surprising answer is, "Yes." Now, by that, I do not mean that anyone should be tarred or feathered. Neither do I wish to defame anyone. But the messages that an author (indirectly) conveys are a product of the way in which he or she sees the world. Now there are a variety of factors that shape how an individual sees the world. Some of these factors are outside of our control, but many of them are under our direct and indirect control. Thus, people are responsible for seeing the world in the truest light, as it really is. That might require more clarification, but I'll leave that for another time.

Now, turning to the second objection, you may already have gotten the sense that a great deal of thought has gone into my critique and analysis of the themes and worldview of Wicked. Not everybody is interested in analyzing musicals (or movies or books) to that level of detail. Is it really feasible that any messages, even if present, would interest or affect audience-members?

The difference between my and my friend's answer to this question is highly noteworthy. In our conversation, he asserted that an unrecognized message would not affect the audience. I disagreed and suggested, instead, that an unrecognized message, would affect the audience; granted, it would not effect them on the conscious level of intellectual engagement, but it would affect them at an unconscious, emotive, or affective level.

[At this point, it may be helpful (or just more confusing) to turn to a peripheral objection that we had to deal with related to this material. I already pointed to the one exemplary "arch-theme" that frames disagreement in terms of the oppressed minority and oppressive majority. This theme concerns me because real life (including the debate over gay-marriage) is more complicated and requires more nuanced categories than this basic juxtaposition admits. But, my friend, pointed out, stories, if they do convey messages, are not intended to capture all the complicatedness of life. When Cinderella triumphs over the schemes of her wicked step-mother and step-sisters, that victory is not intended to reflect all relevant aspects of real-life familial relationships. It captures only one truth about the world--possibly, the ultimate triumph of good over evil, which is why fairy tales take it for granted that "they lived happily ever after."

[Part of treating stories properly is realizing that they only capture a slice of reality. It is the responsibility of the viewer to fit all the pieces together and insert each newly-introduced piece into the larger framework and nexus of his or her worldview. So, there may be nothing wrong, per se, with a play that presents an oppressed minority/oppressive majority juxtaposition, (I'll consider that more in part two) but, instead, a great deal hinges on the engagement of the viewer. Here we will return to consider the ways in which the messages in stories may affect viewers who do not actively engage the material being presented to them, who do not intentionally analyze the meanings and consciously integrate them into their larger worldview.]

So if a person sees lots of plays and movies (and reads lots of books) in which the characters are inserted into one of these two basic categories--oppressed minority or objective majority--over time, they will begin to view their own experiences in this way. (Here I am simply accepting the premise that people are, rather than "are not," affected by the messages conveyed in drama, even if unconsciously.) They will begin to frame conflict, in their own lives, in terms of these minorities and majorities. And if the good side is good just because it is the oppressed minority, then the ability of people who hold this view to critically and rationally engage their world and the experiences presented to them will be severely reduced.

This is part of the power of drama as a medium for communication. Drama mimics real-life experience. When we experience pleasure or pain in life, we tend to generate associations to what is good and bad. It's hard enough to wade through the flood of sensorial and emotional experiences to discern real truth (e.g. vegetables are good for you even if they taste bad). Drama also generates vicarious experiences of pleasure and pain, but in much more concentrated and compelling ways (e.g. an hour-long television show may cover an entire year in the life of a character). If it is difficult to discern truth in life, it is at least as complicated to discern it in drama. And if our lives are shaped by what we experience in life, then they are certainly also shaped by our experiences in the theatrical arts.

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I have tried to explain some of the ways in which I understand meaning to be related to works of drama (on stage, in films or television, and in books). Having laid that foundation, I will go on in Part Two to describe the themes and messages that I saw in the musical, Wicked.

But it is my hope that the reader, whenever he or she views a drama or reads a book, will be attentive and consider what messages are being communicated through the action and dialogue, will take seriously the effect those can have on the individual, and will be intentionally about fitting them in to his or her overall worldview.

Until next time,
God bless,

--

God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.

Graduate 57: Limbo

So here I am again. Actually it's more of a purgatory, insofar as I still retain hope that my time in this place will soon come to an end. And yet somehow we have come to associate such times of uncertainty with the upper-most circle of hell.

All my belongings are packed away into boxes. My clothes, sleeping bag, assorted toiletries, select books, and a few other necessaries have all been packed into the back of my car. I'm all ready to move. Now I just need a place to move to.

I'm still searching for an apartment in Riverside. $500/month is my dream and prayer, but we're still waiting for the official go-ahead from the man upstairs. (I can't believe that I just referred to God as "the man upstairs" in my blog.)

So I'm in a slightly different state and frame of mind than I usually am. Transitions (a.k.a. limbo, i.e. hell) are not fun. Thankfully I was able to get some good sashimi in me last night with my friend, Steve, which helped a lot. (Anjo Japanese Restaurant in West Covina--I highly recommend it.) But one of the side-effects of peculiar states-of-mind, as you may have noticed, is peculiar blog entries.

Of course, one gets tired of always writing argumentatively and didactically. A little change of pace is appropriate. And the contrast is extreme: rambling as I am, one does get the impression that one really is getting nowhere. (That's an example of the mutual reinforcement of form and content. I write a blog, that goes nowhere, about limbo, a place that goes nowhere.)

(Gosh, I think my "transition funk" is beginning to reassert itself.)

But God is good; that continues to be the case. I am being challenged to trust Him in a variety of areas of my life. This is a time both of great doubt and strong affirmation. I am immensely grateful for the close friends who encourage me and help to keep me accountable.

--

Paul's letter to the Romans is an amazing work. I was excited when I first read Martin Luther; I thought he said some really good stuff. Now I know why his material is so good--because he got it from Romans.

I learned a new word recently: "antinomianism." It is the view that Christians are released by grace from the obligation of observing the moral law--a very dangerous view if held naively.

Steve Wilkens' recommendation of ortho-pathy as a complement to ortho-doxy and ortho-praxy keeps on coming back to me.

I highly recommend David Naugle's book, "Worldview: The History of a Concept."

I also highly recommend the sermons of Chris Brown (former APU campus pastor) whose series on the Gospel of Mark (most, but not all, of them) can be accessed at http://live.apu.edu under the links for "Kaleo Chapels" from 2001-2003. Two nights ago I listened to four of his messages in one evening. He is an extremely authentic and genuine man with a deeply passionate love for God. He does an excellent job of connecting people (and especially college students) with the gospel narrative and his material makes for an excellent introduction to (also foundation for) the life of following Jesus.

There's an exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the San Diego Natural History Museum. (July 29-December 31, 2007) I think it would really neat to go. But when to find the time...

I need to drink more tea.

I also want to read more. I wonder what it would be like to read as my primary daily occupation.

Finding God in the consistent routine is relatively easy. (Relatively.) But finding God in the midst of upheaval, turmoil, transition, and change, and holding fast to Him--that's the test and challenge.

Over all, my days are fairly mellow.

Some time soon I'll write about "new wineskins" and also about cynicism in the church.

Until then,
God bless,

--

God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.

Graduate 56: Embracing Reason, Part 3 of 3: Faith and Feelings

This is the final installment of a three-part series on embracing reason and rationality. Before continuing, I would like to make a couple acknowledgments. In the beginning of part 2 I hinted at the fact that few, if any, and probably none, of my ideas are original. That is as much true of this series of blog entries as anything. If I have succeeded in articulating and synthesizing (and, perhaps, communicating), after my own fashion, the ideas I have recently encountered and thought about, even if I say nothing truly novel, I will be satisfied. But there are a couple people I would particularly like to thank.

(1) I am very much indebted to Dr. John Mark Reynolds (Biola University). Whatever there is of truth and factuality in this material is largely a credit to him--especially to his lecture on the History of Western Civilization (Biola Christian Apologetics Program). His lectures are intellectually stimulating, challenging, and thought-provoking; but in addition to that, they are a tremendous source of encouragement and hope. In an age that is growing more and more cynical, we cannot have too much of those.

(2) I am grateful to all the friends whose conversation has helped me to mold and shape the material I've presented here. In particular, I am thankful to Steve Norris; over the past two weeks he has been receptive to my questions and been a friendly interlocutor, challenging me to clarify my ideas and helping me to refine my presentation. Whatever there is of coherence and intelligibility is a credit to him.

For whatever is lacking in any of those areas, I take full responsibility. Now to continue...

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As I reviewed the material from parts 1 and 2, I was struck by the precarious position of the contemporary Christian community, according to my analysis. We are cut off from knowledge-by-revelation because we have lost the ability to recognize God's voice and activity. We are also cut off from knowledge-by-reason because we have lost the ability to understand and accept rational arguments. All that is left is knowledge-by-experience (i.e. immediate experience). But in part 2, we saw that knowledge-by-experience, alone, is not enough to reliably navigate the world. (1) It's scope is limited to "this" moment and (2) it does not furnish a set of criteria for evaluating whether a given experience ought to be admitted as an instance of knowledge.

I will not focus on revelation in the material to follow, though I have tried to suggest that revelation is more closely tied to reason than many think. In fact, I want to say that faith is fundamental for each. Since the relationship between faith and reason is harder for many to see than of faith to revelation, I will focus on the former. During the Enlightenment, immediate experience was embraced as the paradigmatic case of certain knowledge. This has resulted, ultimately, in a weakening of reason, I suggest. In order to reverse the process, we must embrace a different paradigm--one that incorporates faith.

According to Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Notice, faith is not here opposed to evidence (which is how many people define it), but it is opposed to sight. In other words, faith encompasses everything outside of immediate experience--both past and future. When Abraham trusted in God, he did so based on knowledge of God's trustworthiness in the past. When a child obediently eats his vegetables, he does so (extrapolating, slightly) based on knowledge of expert opinions and recommendations. But in neither case does the subject know the thing in question, immediately. Abraham does not have the immediate experience of God's fulfillment of His promise. And the boy does not have the immediate experience of the vegetables improving his health. Instead, they both have faith. And they have knowledge.

Here's an off-the-wall example that might help.

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During spring break of my junior year, five or six of my friends and I spent a couple days in the bay area. One day we went into San Francisco, to the pier, and stopped to watch a street performer.

This particular act was, in my opinion, not very good. The artist did not have a very pleasant demeanor to begin with; "snide" is the word that comes to mind now. He had this habit of complaining about the audience's lack of energy in order to elicit more response; which is not, in itself, bad, except that he tended to do it frequently and very disparagingly. His jokes were not very good and many of them were decidedly "off-color." He pretended to sell cigarettes to an audience member's kid at one point and regularly spoke in sexually-connoted language. The grand finale, for which there was about forty-five minutes of build-up, consisted of him walking on broken glass--which might sound impressive but wasn't really that great.

After his act was done, he invited people to give money. He made a short speech about the importance of supporting street performers and free-lance artists. So I gave him five bucks.

Are you surprised? Actually, I didn't give him five bucks, but I was about to. After all, this act was his livelihood. It's tough being a street-performer. I want to support the arts.

But what about that long list of reasons that his performance was poor, inadequate, and even offensive? What am I saying with my five bucks? Do I really want to support what this particular guy is doing?

So I kept my five bucks. And I felt really guilty.

Does that strike you as odd? I felt guilty about not giving the bad performer money. "Well, it sounds silly when you put it like that." In fact, that's exactly the point of the last little speech about supporting street performers and free-lance artists: to distract me from the actual performance and play on my emotions to get me to contribute money.

That may sound a bit cynical, but I think that it's an accurate reading of what was going on. What is even more funny is that some of my friends gave the artist money and then, as we walked away, commented on how poor his performance was. "Then why did you give him money?" "Umm... I don't know."

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After forty-five minutes of poor performance, an artist gives a two-minute speech and succeeds in drawing contributions from the audience. How does that happen? Do we need any more evidence of the short American attention-span or the experience-paradigm that I described? The response seems even Pavlovian. In that moment I wanted to give the guy money. What stopped me? Reason.

Reason allowed me to look past my immediate experience and emotional responses. Faith allowed me to take seriously my memories (from the past) and informed my present actions so that I did not do the very foolish thing of giving money for a bad performance.

Another example can be found in Graduate 50: A Pirate's Life for Me...? In that blog entry, I tell the story of the basketball class I took in college. For the first ten weeks of that course, I was miserable; my abilities (or lack thereof) were a constant source of embarrassment and frustration. What stopped me from quitting the course? Certainly not immediate experience. Instead, I drew upon knowledge from my past, from other's experiences, and was able to extrapolate into the future what I knew (by faith, because it wasn't by sight) would happen if I continued to practice consistently. And, sure enough, the last five weeks of the course saw incredible improvement and were incredibly enjoyable.

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Now both of these cases may seem relatively straight-forward and obvious. Here's another (even more off-the-wall) example that might, in a round-about way, show how complicated this can get.

I have a friend, (anonymous), from the APU music department who used to like asking unnerving and puzzling questions and scenarios. (He will appreciate that I'm posting this for all my readers, you may be sure.) One of the most memorable for me has to do with a few stray cats that were adopted by the APU cashier's office. The question: "Would you be willing to steal and kill those stray cats if offered a million dollars and the guarantee that no one would ever find out that you were responsible?"

Of course, some will be disturbed by the simple fact that I referred to this question as "puzzling"; the answer ought to be obvious. But think about it--a million dollars. How much good could you do with a million dollars? That's one aspect of the offer to consider.

Perhaps no amount of money could outweigh the blow to your reputation (e.g. kitty-killer). But that's where the second part of the offer comes in--the guarantee that no one would ever find out. That's the part that intrigues me--because it touches on the issues of motivation and integrity.

Unfortunately, as I look within my own soul, I sometimes wonder whether I am much less principled than I would like to admit. What would I do if I could really get away with it? If the offer was made sufficiently enticing, would I compromise? Or would I do what is right even if no one ever found out or knew either way?

This is one place where reason connects with ethics. Culture and society may tell us that a certain activity is acceptable. Our close friends and associates may tell us that a certain activity is acceptable. Our own desires may tell us that a certain activity is acceptable. But what if reason tells us the opposite? Are we capable of recognizing the reasonable argument and position? (Are our culture, society, friends, and associates capable of being guided by reason?) Are we capable of following through on it because it is the wisest and best course of action, even if we don't want to? Will we take that step of faith?

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I don't know how much closure there will be at the end of this. (I actually wonder if I might have the germ of an idea for a doctoral thesis in this material.) But I'll move toward wrapping things up with two more points.

(1) These last several examples have highlighted a close relationship between experience and feelings (one of the six senses that I have referenced). I mentioned the connection between these in part 2. I want to suggest that what we have in today's culture are a network of conditioned emotional responses that we mistakenly interpret as moral judgments. So pleasurable equals good and painful equals bad. But we've already pointed out that that is not always the case, but it is very much the way we've been conditioned.

I think that television and cinema are very much responsible for this conditioning in our modern time. In the course of a half-hour sit-com or an hour-long drama, a person is bombarded with so many situations--that do not actually reflect the course of real life (one show may span an entire week and one movie may cover several decades)--and yet they generate all sorts of emotional responses and associations that the viewer then takes with them into the real world. We see a married couple on television and attempt to translate, what appears to our senses to be real information about a real experience, into the really real world. Needless to say, it doesn't work that well.

It is the nature of television to abbreviate, simplify, truncate, and otherwise eliminate whatever is superfluous to the essential story. But in doing so, they also eliminate all of the complexity that characterizes real life. If we do not choose to eliminate television altogether, we must at least be aware of this fact when we watch.

(2) Toward the end of part 1 I mentioned the need to recapture salient philosophical distinctions and categories. I worried that this might appear sophistical to some--after all, draw the distinctions finely enough and you can justify anything, right? Actually, no. Instead, the prejudice against fine distinctions seems to me to be just another symptom of the irrationality of our age.

This became clear to me in a recent discussion I had about gender differences. My friend thought that emphasizing differences between the sexes necessarily tended toward sexism. And it is true that in the past, certain ideas about the "natures" of men and women have led to oppressive ideologies. But need that be the case? It seemed obviously foolish to me to try and hold that there were no significant social or psychological differences between men and women (with the understanding that there are exceptional cases).

Now in attempting to reach a compromise, we could choose to set the two views at opposite extremes and say that the ideal position was somewhere in the middle. That, in my opinion, was not a great solution. But then I thought, here is a perfect occasion for a salient category distinction.

According to Christian theology, men and women, alike, are made in the image of God and it is in virtue of this that there is a equality between the sexes, in terms of their fundamental humanity. But men are also created to be different from women, at least physiologically (and, I expect, in other ways as well) and in these areas there are differences to be acknowledged. Now I will not discuss here what the implications of their common humanity and differing genders are for men and women, but this seems a much more promising solution than the other I suggested.

In Christian theology a similar category distinction is at the heart of the doctrine of the Trinity. God is one in essence or being, but also exists as three persons. One being and three beings would be a contradiction. One person and three persons would also be a contradiction. But one being and three persons--there's no contradiction there.

Human beings are related to all the other animal species in terms of biological make-up. But human beings are fundamentally different in terms of their unique rational capacities. "Same" and "different" would be a contradiction except that they are in terms of different categories.

Again, we need to develop the ability to process our experiences in terms of these various and overlapping categories and distinctions if we are to become rational.

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As with all disciplines, thinking rationally will be hard and seem unnatural at first, for the person who is not accustomed to approaching the world in that way. But with time, it becomes as natural as riding a bike or driving a car or any of the other activities that we engage in so regularly as to not require even a second thought to accomplish them. So just in case one gets the idea from what I've written that all humanity is doomed, permit me to borrow a page from Dr. Reynolds. Let me say without reservation, there is hope.

--

God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.

Graduate 55: Embracing Reason, Part 2 of 3: Experience

This is the second in my series of blog entries on the topic of reason and rationality. In the last entry we took a second look at the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac in order to reevaluate the presuppositions that shaped our view of the story. Many people think of faith as being very far removed from reason, but I tried to demonstrate how they might be brought closer together. That exercise was one step in the process of moving out of my "postmodern slumber." (That phrase, by the way, is an allusion to a line from Kant, in which he credits Hume with having wakened him from his own "dogmatic slumber." I wonder if Kant was not better off asleep.) Here I expand somewhat on the nature of the problem of postmodernism for reason.

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It is interesting to look back on the course of my undergraduate college education and reflect on the things I have learned and the journey of personal and intellectual growth that has brought me to where I am right now. I like to joke about all the remarkable and profound philosophical insights I have developed over the years. Every time I think I've discovered or invented something new, I later learn that someone already beat me to it (usually by about five hundred years). Indeed, education, itself, is a remarkable thing--to be exposed to the collective thought of hundreds of brilliant men and women from across the centuries. In fact, the key to all human progress seems to be this important ability to preserve and communicate the wisdom and discoveries and experiences of past individuals and peoples to living people in the present. Without that ability, each generation would have to begin at square one and likely wouldn't get very far beyond that.

As sensible and intuitive as this introduction may seem, there are schools of thought that, when carefully considered, seem to work against this most basic principle of human culture, society, and history. Drawn to their logical conclusion, these philosophies can undermine, not only communication across time, but also across cultures, and between individuals. How might one come to such a (pessimistic) view of the world?--through an opposing, yet equally-compelling set of intuitions.

We readily recognize our ability to communicate meaningfully with people around us, to understand the message of a written text, and to interpret language. Yet we have also had the experience of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and misinterpretation. As our exposure to the diversity of cultures that inhabit this globe increases, so does our awareness that many people see the world very differently than do we; different people groups hold to fundamentally different worldviews. And with that comes an ever-increasing awareness of the factors that shape and mold our own view of things. This can lead very naturally to a deeply dividing skepticism about the possibility of understanding reality or communicating with other human beings.

Within the discipline of Christian theology, this has led some to doubt whether we can truly know or communicate anything about God or His nature/character. Aren't we bound by our finitude? Aren't we "merely" human? Mustn't our language always fall short of capturing who God is?

This question was posed to me recently by a close friend of mine with whom I regularly discuss philosophical and theological issues. And my own reply surprised me somewhat, because for much of the past two years, I have been enamored of this very way of thinking. Don't get me wrong--I have never been completely comfortable with the skeptical and relativistic implications of thinking strongly-worldviewishly. But thinking in terms of worldviews does make a lot of sense to me. It comports well with certain Biblical ways of speaking. But in its strongest form, it has the unwelcome consequence of making every human being the determined pawn of his or her upbringing and history. Why do you believe what you believe?--because of the way you were raised. And, it leads people to view their individual experiences as fundamentally unique and non-communicable.

In shaping my answer to my friend's question, I did not focus so much on worldview and presuppositions. Instead, I began to push for a reorientation. Instead of asking the question, "Can we know or communicate truths about God?" I began to ask, "Are we capable of recognizing a truth about God if and when it is presented to us?"

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So after that rather winding introduction, let me clarify what is being discussed here: knowledge and the communication of that knowledge. The two are very closely related because if our knowledge is to encompass more than just our immediate experience, we must rely on a system that preserves and communicates the truth content of that knowledge. With postmodernity has come a deeply dividing skepticism about the ability of individuals, in light of their fundamentally different and supposedly incommensurable worldviews, to receive knowledge from and convey it to other people.

Can we draw certain or definitive knowledge of God from the pages of Scripture? Can we draw certain or definitive knowledge about anything from anything other than direct experience? Our culture would tend to say, "No." Instead, "Seeing is believing," and personal experience trumps all other forms of knowledge.

Enter sweeping generalizations: Consider junior-highers, high schoolers, and college students. They never believe what you tell them. Smoking is bad for you. Alcohol can really mess up your life. Bad company corrupts good morals. Every limit or boundary that you set for them, they will challenge and break--why? Because they won't believe what you say until they've experienced it for themselves. They actually have to experience a hang-over before they'll consider limiting their alcohol-intake. (In a tragi-comic moment of irony, even Christian college students will listen to a guy's testimony about his battle with alcohol--including the ways it ruined his life--and will defend their drinking on the basis that Jesus turned water into wine.)

Two clarifying remarks before I continue: (1) Drinking, in and of itself, is not a sin. My critique focuses on the reasoning that goes into the decision to drink. (2) The fact that adolescent guys challenge boundaries in the way I have described is due, in large part, to their stage of cognitive development. Poor reasoning and irrationality comes with the territory. (Ha ha ha!) But it's not actually my intention to censure adolescents. Alcohol-consumption is just a useful example.

The youth who questions his elders may wonder whether their information is correct, whether it applies to him, whether his experience might be different. He often insists that the only way that he can really know is to try something for himself. Now this is alright up to a point, but it can quickly become dangerous. Must one try marijuana, cocaine, or other dangerous drugs before one can know that they are dangerous? What about experimenting in the area of sexuality? Must one participate in every vice before one can really know that it's bad or unwise?

And what about positive, beneficial, or virtuous activities, which often require patience and perseverance before they bear visible fruits? How many people abandon or never engage in long-term enterprises because they cannot see the results.

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The paradigmatic case of certain knowledge in the modern era is immediate experience through the senses, which includes the five physical senses and the emotive/affective senses (pleasure, pain, happiness, sadness). But notice two significant implications of this fact. (1) In employing this model, it becomes impossible to know anything of which we are not immediately aware and (2) this view assumes that the senses are always truthful and accurate in what they convey.

Let's tackle the second point first. There is a tendency in today's culture to associate the pleasurable with the good and the painful with the bad. This is no accident; in fact, this tendency has grown up out of certain systems of ethical thought (like utilitarianism) that tried to generate a naturalistic morality. But consider common experience. Is the good always pleasurable? Is the bad always painful? Give a five-year-old the choice between a diet of vegetables and one of cookies--which will she choose? Give a twelve-year-old the choice between playing video games and practicing piano--which will he choose? Give a casanova the choice between an enduring monogamous relationship and a different woman every night--which will he choose? Give an uncooperative (and short-sighted) patient the choice between taking her medication regularly and disregarding the doctor's (troublesome) advice--which will she choose? For most of history, reason has served as a check on the appetite (i.e. desire for pleasure-fulfillment). Some things that feel good are good; some are not. Some things that feel bad are bad; some are not. But notice that the apparatus for discerning which is which is not tied to the immediate senses.

Recognizing the value of a balanced diet requires the ability to think about the consequences of one's actions that extend beyond immediate experience. Choosing to practice piano involves commitment to a project that may not bear fruit for years. Choosing to marry means being devoted to more than just instant gratification. And following a doctor's (troublesome) instructions involves recognizing that there is more to wellness and human flourishing than getting to do what I want. Do we know that vegetables are good for one's health? Yes. But notice, there are only two ways you can know that for certain. (1) Personal experience: You always eat your vegetables and at the moment of your death you can judge whether yours was a healthy life. (But notice that you cannot then be certain that consistently eating cookies instead of vegetables would have been less healthy for you. So you'll never really know.) Or (2) reason: Drawing on the experience of other people and the advice of doctors, you can conclude that vegetables, more than cookies, will lead to overall better health. But this second approach is ruled out by a standard of certain knowledge that only admits immediate experience; that is the essence of the first point listed above (i.e. that in employing this model, it becomes impossible to know anything of which we are not immediately aware).

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Here's the bottom line: If we are to learn from history or from the testimony of other people, we must be able to step outside of our own experience. If we are to know anything about God from Scripture and tradition, we must be able to step outside of our own experience. If we are to know anything that extends beyond what I immediately see, hear, touch, taste, smell, and feel, we must be able to step outside of our own experience.

But our culture has conditioned us in such a way that we increasingly refuse to take seriously anything but our own experience. So while many people are asking, "Can we have certain knowledge about God and the world?" I want to ask, "Are we even capable of recognizing a true fact about God and the world." I want to suggest, perhaps quite controversially, that our culture is moving in a direction that makes it impossible for people to recognize good rational arguments and sound truths and certain knowledge.

We need to take seriously the possibility that the deeply skeptical individual is not suffering from a lack of evidence, but from an inability to recognize and comprehend a rational argument or position, even when it is presented to her. She may simply be irrational.

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Of course, in any case of a person-in-doubt, there is the possibility that his doubt is warranted and appropriate; that possibility must be taken seriously. But is the pervasive, all-encompassing skepticism generated by postmodernism, that undermines our knowledge of everything really legitimate. Remember, we've all had experiences of miscommunication and misunderstanding, but the reason we are able to work and live and function as a society is that most of the time we don't have a problem communicating or understanding one another. So I want to suggest that the problem does not lie in the kind of reasoning we engage in, but just in our lack of reasoning.

Next time I'll take things a step further and suggest that faith is not only compatible with reason, but an integral and essential part of any complete epistemology.

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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.

Graduate 54: Embracing Reason, Part 1 of 3: Abraham

This is the first of a series of blogs (I think there will be three but I haven't actually written the other ones yet, so we'll see) on the topic of reason and rationality. My views have been changing over the past several weeks and I think I am emerging from a kind of postmodern slumber. The key feature of postmodernity with which I am grappling is the deep skepticism about the ability of human reason and language to genuinely engage the world, grasp objective truth, and communicate meaningfully with other people. My recent thoughts are still in their nascent form, but I am excited about their direction.

I'm not sure that the following material makes for the best introduction to my thoughts, but it came together the most readily and makes, I think, a useful point that may help to illuminate my later meditations. It is an engagement with the biblical narrative of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac.

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Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." And He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you." So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.

On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. And Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go yonder; and we will worship and return to you." And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.

And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" And Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together.

Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there, and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." And he said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. (Genesis 22:1-13)

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This passage of Scripture raises troubling questions for many people. I've participated in several conversations with friends who have serious qualms about the message and content of this story.

Why would God ask Abraham to kill (or murder, as some put it) his son? How can Abraham be praised and revered for his willingness to kill his son? We would never believe a person who claimed to have received such a command from God today so how can we take Abraham's experience seriously?

One of the most famous treatments of this passage comes from the Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), in his book, Fear and Trembling. There he wrestles with the tension between (what he takes to be) Abraham's intended action--i.e. murder--and the veneration that he receives for his "faith." In order to generate the tension, Kierkegaard draws upon Kantian ethics, which was the prevailing ethical system at his time and posited an absolute moral law. According to the "categorical imperative" at the center of that system, ethical actions are those that can be universalized, acted out publicly, and ***. These are the principle components of a rational ethical system. Now Abraham's intended action fails to meet the criteria of an ethical action according to Kant's system. Certainly one would not wish to universalize an ethical principle permitting one to kill his son. (in the same way that one would wish to universalize a principle to always tell the truth). And if Abraham's intentions were made public knowledge, certainly his community would not have allowed him to follow through. ***. And yet in spite of all this, Abraham is praised for his actions and his faith.

Kierkegaard recognizes that "faith" trumps "ethics" in this case. But he also concludes that since "faith" moves in a direction contrary to (rational Kantian) ethics, faith must be irrational.

The influence of Kierkegaard's thought can be seen in the large number of people who think that faith, believing or following God, is fundamentally irrational and always contrary to best reason. And many people are troubled by the thought that God might call upon an individual (like Abraham) to do something plainly foolish (or wicked) and simply expect them to do so. And so we ask questions like those listed above.

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But is that really all there is to the story? Faith is necessarily irrational.

How about considering a different approach, beginning with a few clarifying remarks.

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Isaac was not just Abraham's son. He was the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham.

Abram's story begins in Genesis 12, when God appears to Abram and says,

"Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father's house,
To the land which I will show you;
And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (vv.1-3)

And Abram trusted in God and followed His instructions; he went to that foreign land and settled there. God protected Abram from the Egyptians (despite his foolishness and attempted deceit). He increased Abram's wealth and influence. When the land was not able to sustain the flocks of him and his nephew, together, Abraham allowed Lot the choice of land. Lot chose to claim the best, most well-watered, and fertile land. But did Abram suffer because of that? No, instead, he continued to prosper and God continued to provide for him.

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After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying,

"Do not fear, Abram,
I am a shield to you;
Your reward shall be very great."

And Abram said, "O Lord, GOD, what wilt Thou give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "Since Thou hast given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir." Then behold , the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "This man will not be your heir; but one who shall come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir." And He took him outside and said, "Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." Then he believed in the LORD and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

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Isaac was the son of promise, born to Abraham when he was over a hundred years old--his first-born son (through Sarah). Not only that, but he was the tangible fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham regarding his legacy to future nations.

The thought has occurred to me and others that since child sacrifice was not uncommon in the Ancient Near-East, then it may not have been such a big deal, speaking culturally, for Abraham to sacrifice his son. But that "solution" is only a red herring. Clearly Isaac was not just another son and Abraham's plight, in being called-upon by God to sacrifice his son, is not made easier by this fact. And while that fact may help some to reconcile in their minds the ethical status of Abraham's action, ultimately it distracts from the message of the actual narrative.

Isaac was the child of Abraham's old age, his pride and joy, the fulfillment of his hopes and dreams, his future hope--so why would he be willing to sacrifice Him when asked by God??? Why did he not confront God and point out that sacrificing his son would be counterproductive to God's expressed intention for him. Was it just blind faith? Blind obedience? A fear of wrath on God's part? A fear stemming from superstitious, unsophisticated, and primitive cultural beliefs (with, by extension, no useful application for people in an enlightened, modern age)?

No, the simple answer is that Abraham was willing to surrender all his hopes and dreams and happiness to God, because he trusted in God.

The book of Hebrews expands on this point: "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, "In Isaac your descendants shall be called." He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he also received him back as a type." (11:17-19)

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But, one may ask, isn't such trust naive? After all, one couldn't really know for certain that God would not abandon Abraham instead of restoring his son to him.

And the response: Certainly one could not know that who did not already know God. But Abraham did, and that's exactly the point. Those who think that Abraham's faith and trust in God are contrary to reason or naive forget that the reason that Abraham trusted in God is because he knew God.

He had spoken and interacted with God over several decades at least. He had relied on God regularly, seen God's faithfulness demonstrated on multiple occasions. Abraham knew God. It's easy to forget that God did not first introduce Himself to Abraham and right-off-the-bat demand his son's life of him. God did challenge Abraham to take a risk--he told him to leave his home country and move to a foreign land. Abraham obeyed and saw God provide for his needs. And over the years, Abraham experienced God's faithfulness and provision, so that when his character was put to the most extreme test, he held true and stands as a model and example for the hundreds of generations that have followed and read his story.

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There is a hypothetical objection that asks what would have happened if a demon had appeared to Abraham, disguised as a messenger from God, and asked for the life of his son. The scenario supposedly implies that Abraham, since he was not basing his actions on any rational principle, would have sacrificed his son just as readily to a demon (which would definitely be contrary to God's will) as to God. But given our discussion so far, it should now be clear that Abraham would never have been taken in by a demonic deception. Why? Because he knew God. And because he knew God, he would have recognized an imposter.

Here's where things get a little hyperbolic, so please don't be offended: Some people have trouble believing that a person could discern the difference between a genuinely God-sent vision and a demonic deception. And the fact that they have that doubt just shows that they don't know God.

Again, don't be offended. I don't know that I could tell the difference between a God-sent vision and a demonic deception. That's also why God would not ask me (or most of the people in the history of the world) to sacrifice my first-born son. Those kinds of tests only come to those who have walked with God for a long time and grown to a very high level of maturity in their relationship with God. The rewards that come from having such faith are also only available to those who have grown strong in their walk with God.

Unfortunately, there are many Christians who don't know God. Or, put another way, the only thing they know about God is that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on a cross so that those who believe in Him would go to heaven. And there's nothing wrong with having only that much knowledge--for a beginning Christian. But to have been walking with God for ten, twenty, forty, eighty years and still not know more of God's character than that, to not be able to trust God when He asks you to take a risk and have faith in Him--that is a grave situation. The Christian life is to be one of growing in the knowledge of God; it starts small and gets bigger as one takes risks and trusts in God, sees Him work, listens for His voice and learns to recognize when He is speaking.

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But enough sermonizing for the moment. Hopefully it is becoming clear that faith, understood in this way (which I take to be truer to the biblical text than Kierkegaard's well-intended interpolation), is not fundamentally irrational or grounded in ignorance. It is true that there are unknowns and risk involved, but faith and the proverbial "leap of faith" do not have so much to do with one's ignorance about the circumstances and outcomes as they have to do with one's certain knowledge of the nature and character of the God who controls all things. So that even when things turn out badly and not as one expects, one can still believe that there is a larger purpose and plan that are being worked out, and trust that, in the long-term, "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)

Now one may remain unsatisfied with the explanation given up to this point. Even with all this stuff about trusting in God and knowing God, one may ask, isn't God still asking Abraham to murder his son? And isn't that a problem?

(Preliminary comment: we need to recapture a variety of significant distinctions important for meaningful discourse on these and other complex topics. The equation of murder with sacrifice betrays, I think, a failure to take seriously the important differences between these two forms of death. For many today, killing is killing and that's the end of it. I will not treat the differences here, but it is something that must be taken seriously.)

My answer to the question may be equally unsatisfying for some to hear: I don't think I can begin to answer that question until the questioner undergoes another radical reorientation. We have begun one kind of reorientation: instead of focusing on one's ignorance of the circumstances and outcomes, we are focusing on one's certain knowledge of the nature and character of God. That is a kind of intellectual reorientation, but there is another existential reorientation that must take place, viz. we must move God out of the dock (the witness stand where we pepper Him with questions and call on Him to account, to our satisfaction, for all His actions) and onto His rightful throne (where He rules the universe and all the affairs of humankind and our own lives as good and righteous and holy king). We must get to know God as He is; only then can we hope to begin to understand His actions.

God is not inscrutable. God is not unknowable. God is higher and greater than we are, yet he is not inaccessible. But we must approach Him in the appropriate way. This is true of knowledge in general and Abraham's story serves as an excellent case study on just that point. Kierkegaard took for granted that Kant's categorical imperative captured the essence of rational ethics so when "faith" led Abraham in the opposite direction from what Kant's model dictated, he concluded that faith must be irrational. But what if we didn't start with Kant's categorical imperative? What if we began by walking with God and talking with God, working with, listening to, following, and trusting in God? We might come to slightly different conclusions.

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The very idea that we could have knowledge of spiritual or religious things strikes some as absurd. On their understanding the spiritual and religious belong to the realm of faith and belief while the scientific and physical/natural belong to the realm of facts, knowledge, and reason. I want to suggest that these two realms are much more closely intertwined than many think. Reevaluating the story of Abraham is one step in this process of closing the divide between faith and reason. I will clarify, in my next entry, how this, in turn, works toward an awakening from postmodernity.

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*** I can't recall the third characteristic at this time.

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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.