One very good thing that has come as a result of my accident is that the drugs I've been on made it difficult to look at a TV or computer screen without feeling very light-headed.  This forced me to fill my time with other, more constructive, things...like reading.  On top of that, when the pain in my arm would wake me up reminding me to take my medicine, I'd have a good thirty minutes to  read before the pain would subside and I could return to sleep.  So over the past two weeks I've been able to read through a couple of good books.  The first I've already quoted from in previous posts.  "In My Place Condemned He Stood" is an excellent book which details the importance and centrality of the atonement to Christ's death on the cross.  One danger that we face today is the attempt to put God and the atonement into a rationalistic box, which leads to all sorts of false readings of Scripture.

The passion to pack God into a rationalistic box of our own making is always strong but must be resisted.  If we bear in mind that all the knowledge we can have of the atonement is of a mystery about which we can only think and speak by means of models, and which remains a mystery when all is said and done, it will keep us from rationalistic pitfalls and thus help our progress considerably.

The other book that I had the privilege to finish was C.S. Lewis' "Surprised by Joy".  This is Lewis' autobiography of his early years, what circumstances led him to atheism, and how God brought him to Christianity.  It's a book that is filled with big words and heavy intellectual statements, and therefore may not appeal to everybody.  But as he described his life journey during the early part of the 1900's, I began to notice that while there were some cultural differences between todays problems and the problems of his time, we face some very similar philosophical problems.  One of the main ones that stood out to me was what he named, "chronological snobbery", which by his definition is: "the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited."  How to respond to this?

You must find why it went out of date.  Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do?  If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood.

God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and, with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus every year, from Noah's time till ours, God turns water into wine. That, men fail to see. Either like the Pagans they refer the process to some finite spirit , Bacchus or Dionysis; or else, like the moderns, they attribute the real and ultimate causality to the chemical and other material phenomena which are all that our senses can discover in it. But when Christ at Cana makes water into wine, the mask is off. The miracle has only half its effect if it only convinces us that Christ is God; it will have its full effect if whenever we see a vineyard or drink a glass of wine we remember that here works He who sat at the wedding party in Cana.

--C.S. Lewis, in his essay entitled Miracles

Were he around today, I would so subscribe to Clive's blog.

The real trouble about the set your patient is living in is that it is merely Christian. The all have individual interests, of course, but the bond remains mere Christianity. What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call "Christianity And." You know--Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians, at least let them be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring. Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing.

It sounds familiar, doesn't it? Christianity And...Enviromentalism, Republican politics, Classical Education, End-Times Predictions, Self-Esteem, Prosperity...ad nauseum.

At the appointed time, we move from coffee and doughnuts in the hall to silence and prayer in the chapel. My four delightful friends form the core of worshipers for daily Morning Prayer, a tradition as old as any other in the Anglican Church. This morning, I was checking my email in my office when they shooed me into the chapel, where my rector asked me to lead our morning's devotion.

"Lord, open our lips," I prayed.

"And our mouth shall proclaim your praise," came the response.

These words, so familiar from years of praying the Daily Office,* tasted fresh and alive with new meaning this morning. Notice the progression these two lines demonstrate. We cannot proclaim God's praise until God opens us up. God is the cause. Our proclamation is the effect. Indeed, God activates our praise. We do not call God to us when we come together in prayer; God calls us to prayer. God is not standing on the doorstep with hands in pockets waiting to be buzzed in. God is already inside prompting within us the desire to gather. Lord, open our lips. Only when God has done this will we be ready or able to proclaim God's praise.

These words at the beginning of Morning Prayer remind us that we do not have a boxed-up God or a God carved in a piece of wood. Our God does not exist for our convenience. Our God is not a mute receptacle for our cares and concerns. Our God lives a life of radiance and moves with graceful unpredictability through a world which tries its best to forget who deserves credit for creation. God's radiant life is complete within that life, but, in a wonderful incongruity, God also moves in and through our own little lives. This movement activates our prayer. This movement gives us the desire to praise God. Our mouth shall proclaim your praise because you, Lord, have deigned to open our lips.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis comes to a similar conclusion when discussing our connection with the life of the Trinity: "An ordinary Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God -- that Christ is standing beside him, helping him pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying -- the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on -- the motive power."

God both motivates our pray and receives it. When we pray, "Lord, open our lips," we acknowledge that we would not even be entertaining the notion to praise God if God were not prompting us toward such a notion. Thus, our prayer is our ultimate expression of God's sovereignty, which (from an anthropocentric perspective) is our inability to control God. When we view prayer as our response to God's movement, we are less likely to see God as the proverbial divine genie-in-a-bottle or ATM. We are more likely to come to God humbly, overwhelmed by the proposition that the Creator of all that is would desire our mouths to proclaim any sort of praise.

The four delightful ladies with whom I share Morning Prayer understand this gift of God's presence better than most. They are there every day, expressing their joy that our radiant God moves in their midst, activating their praise.

Footnotes

* "The Daily Office" is a technical term for the various daily times of prayer, which grew out of the monastic tradition of praying the hours. In the Episcopal Church, Morning and Evening Prayer are the predominant pieces of the Office, with Noonday prayers and Compline (nighttime prayers) a close second.

It's written by a fellow who pastors a seemingly thriving fellowship right outside of MIT and Harvard in Boston.  That, in itself, is no great feat, but it does seem to be working for him.  A one time avowed atheist, Dave Schmeltzer, speaks the language of doubt with the best of them. He treads tenderly on the hallowed dirt of faith, ambiguity and mystery, while engaging that which we CAN know.  His education and extreme diversity of exposure and experience makes him capable of being conversant in current pop culture and events...something that instantly seems to set him apart of from those whose only relationship to the dominant paradigm is simply spying in order to conquer it.  He reads the New Yorker, Slate, and listens to and watches PBS.  He speaks my dialect.  

The book begins with a premise...the secular and the sacred need not be opposing elements. Because that is true the world need not be considered evil and God need not be considered exacting and rule bent.  Cliche, but still overwhelmingly true, God is about relationship, a passionate relationship with His creation. More importantly, the deeper the relationship, the more uncertainty and ambiguity plays a part.  Schmelzer highlights M. Scott Peck's four stages of spiritual/emotional development.  He abbreviates stage four as the "mystical" stage and suggests that this stage moves in connection with the Divine Other, but tentatively...humbly...with doubt as a part of faith.  

You can see that stage 4 (mystical) is a stage filled with uncertainty to the same degree that stage two (rules based) is, by definition, filled with certainty.  Or, to put it differently, stage 4 [the highest] is about questions; stage two is about answers. In this way of thinking, stage 2 looks at truth from the outside, as if it were a book that can and must be mastered. Stage 4 looks at truth from smack-dab in the middle of it, as if truth is everywhere and will take a lifetime just to begin to traverse (which is the joy of it). 

This presentation allows for a beautiful steering away from the dualistic, linear way of thinking of liberal vs. conservative (rules based vs. rebellion).  It's ok to stand LOST in the center of God as Truth and feel overwhelmed, even confused...when you're that close, you see LESS clearly...but experience MORE fully.  Truly, wonderful.

He goes on to call Truth itself, relational, instead of propositional or abstract. This is similar to Tony Jones' statements about Truth having, in the person of Jesus, needed a bath, maybe having lice, slept, ate/drank, loved..."Jesus didn't claim to be a teacher of truth. He claimed to be Truth".  Truth as a person is always on the move, is never static, and therefore the only way to encounter Truth is to be around the person (and I would insert, that Person's people who become a community of mutual question).  

And here's what I enjoyed most about this book...people.  The author fills the pages with names and faces. He, as if truly believing that Truth is relational, presents his truths relationally, in bursts of story.  That brings up a complaint about much of post Don Miller writing...everyone does the memoir schticknow ...mostly, badly.  By badly, I mean that their stories are so point driven that they cease to be interesting STORIES!  Thankfully Schmelzer avoids this pitfall for the most part and his stories are actually interesting, rather than being drawn out battering rams for a theological point that everyone understands within the first sentence.  

One point of interest..."Not the Religious Type" offers an interesting spin on something that most "high minded" academically oriented head cases probably wouldn't touch: hearing the voice of God.  Some of the narrative that surrounds it, about his tempestuous early dating relationship with his now wife, reads like Jeremiah or Job.  Dave screams at God.  God talks back.  God makes a deal Dave can't refuse.  Dave gives God a timeline (or was it the other way around?).  Etc..  And that may sound like an affront to the "modern" moderation of Christians (such as myself), who hesitate to say, "God told me..." Truthfully, it is.  But, Dave suggests that over time, starting in small ways, as you relate to God in a way that suspends disbelief, we discover a place where God and man meet, where God speaks.  It's as if doubt propels us towards a void, a void where the object of Faith compels us to know and be known.  Really, Schmelzer is saying, "Why not try it?"  He admits that speaking with God, hearing His voice, is a learned taste, it takes time and patience.  Very interesting...And I believe it too.  

Ok...some questions for Dave Scmelzer:

1.  Where's the jumping off point?  When does doubt embrace certitude and take the existential, "leap of faith"?

2.  In a pluralistic society how do you hold your path loosely while still embracing it whole heartedly?

3.  Are we happier people for believing in God and embracing Christianity?

4.  Is the defining characteristic of Christianity grace?  If so, how are our lives transformed in more than an abstract way?  In what way does God's good news for our spirit become good news for our marriage, neighborhood, environment, and global village?

All in all...a great book.  I recommend it.

Doctor Tim Keller wrote a very popular book called The Reason for God. He says a lot in this book, but it seems to be emerging that one particular illustration is catching the eye of many readers. Keller uses what many are calling “The Elephant Analogy” which Christians seem to find very convincing and non-Christians seem to find appalling. I think the drastic differences in reactions stem from the options for belief left open to readers, which Keller does not make clear. What follows is an attempt to help on this point.

WHAT ISN’T BEING SAID

It should be said first that the argument of the entire book is not at stake with this analogy. Those with great love for this work need not assume a defensive posture lest the book be rejected completely. It is a feature of the strategy that Keller adopts (something like an “inference to the best explanation” argument for Christianity) that it allows parts to fall short while the overall argument can still remain convincing. So this is not an argument against Keller’s book or the cause of Christianity. Instead, I hope Christians will take this as a charge to be more charitable in their understanding of non-Christians’ objections and refine their own arguments to better communicate across worldviews.

That said, following an unconvincing presentation, the view this analogy was meant to address remains open and still functions as a defeater belief. For Keller to succeed in his project, this objection needs to be revisited. An explanation of the analogy’s ineffectiveness and clarification of the defeating quality follows.

THE ELEPHANT ANALOGY

The relevant passage from The Reason for God:

 
“Each religion sees part of spiritual truth, but none can see the whole truth.”

Sometimes this point is illustrated with the story of the blind men and the elephant. Several blind men were walking along and came upon an elephant that allowed them to touch and feel it. “This creature is long and flexible like a snake” said the first blind man, holding the elephant’s trunk. “Not at all—it is thick and round like a tree trunk,” said the second blind man, feeling the elephant’s leg. “No, it is large and flat,” said the third blind man, touching the elephant’s side. Each blind man could feel only part of the elephant—none could envision the entire elephant. In the same way, it is argued, the religions of the world each have a grasp on part of the truth about spiritual reality, but none can see the whole elephant or claim to have a comprehensive vision of the truth.

This illustration backfires on its users. The story is told from the point of view of someone who is not blind. How could you know that each blind man only sees part of the elephant unless you claim to be able to see the whole elephant?

There is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp, but if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth it is in fact an arrogant claim to a kind of knowledge which is superior to [all others]… We have to ask: “What is the [absolute] vantage ground from which you claim to be able to relativize all the absolute claims these different scriptures make?”

How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?¹

ELEMENTS OF THE ANALOGY

I think all parties take the blind men to each be representatives of the various world religions. Most likely, the elephant represents God or at least some ontological truth about reality. It could be anything one supposes is true and we have experience of (like the laws of nature, the existence of other minds, or that everyone is themselves God) but for Keller’s purposes, it’s fair to limit the elephant to representing God. As God, the elephant is the object of the blind men’s religious claims.

Feeling the elephant represents the way in which we apprehend this object/truth. If the elephant were supposed to be the laws of nature, then feeling the elephant would presumably be experimental tests which support the hypothesis about the elephant-law. In Keller’s case, with the elephant representing God, what it means to touch the elephant is much more vague and ambiguous, but we can probably assume it means religious experience in general. Religious experience in this case would include many kinds of things, some of which might include: answered prayer, interpreting written revelation, a certain kind of observation about the world, and the phenomenon we generally call “hearing from God” (which comes in many shapes, sizes, and mediums across the many different religions in question). There is plenty of room for legitimate disagreement on what populates this category, but it is not important to the form of Keller’s argument. However, all parties would do well to weigh the content of religious experience to be clear in their discussions about what exactly is at stake! Objections to what counts as legitimate religious experience could bring this analogy to a grinding halt, but it is a particular discussion for another time and the specific content will vary from person to person.

In conventional 3^rd person storytelling, the narrator is ignored and isn’t considered a participant in the story. However, Keller’s very point hinges on this distinction, and since it’s his analogy, it’s fair to consider. In fact, Keller’s whole point can probably be summed up by claiming that this is the kind of story which is impossible to tell in the 3^rd person and must be told in the 1^st person. Given the terms—the blind men as all world religions, feeling as religious experience, and the elephant as the object of their claims, God—there is nothing else relevant to the discussion. (i.e.: the trees, ground, sky, or potential for other beings aren’t relevant.) It is the point of the first half of his book, in fact, that every person alive is feeling some part of the elephant in one way or another—even when consciously refusing to do so. Disagreement on this point is for a discussion outside of The Elephant Analogy and happens at other places in the book. But his purposes here, Keller is almost certainly right about this point.

WHERE CHRISTIANS AND NON-CHRISTIANS DIVERGE

It is what results from the confusion of narrative perspective that causes the disagreement between Christians and non-Christians. Christians insist the non-Christian is putting him or herself in the impossible position of an omniscient 3rd person narrator. This is Keller’s point when he (somewhat sloppily) answers the objection with a rhetorical question: “How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?” The problem with this rhetorical response is that there are more answers to his question than Keller assumes, and at least one of these answers is the very starting point of the analogy!

Keller’s point with his rhetorical question is that when a non-Christian—one of the people touching part of the elephant—makes a claim about another person’s religious experience, the only way to do so is through the position of a 3^rd person narrator—a position presumed and granted impossible. That the religious experience in question is that of another person, and not the speaker, is vital!

Keller is right that a 3^rd person narrator is in a qualified position to make a claim about another person’s religious experience. I grant that he is also right in claiming that this is a position impossible to hold by any human being. In this case, it is analytically true (true by definition) since in the analogy, every person alive is touching the elephant and therefore, not the objective narrator. The non-Christian started this analogy as a person touching the elephant, and thus, not the 3^rd person narrator. Keller’s point is that the only way to make a claim about another person’s religious experience is to remove oneself from elephant touching and assume the position of a 3^rd person narrator. It is this claim which doesn’t hold and is the crux of the non-Christian’s offense and befuddlement with The Elephant Analogy.

The non-Christian supposes that a person can interpret and make legitimate claims about another person’s religious experience and what it entails about the beast by means which don’t necessitate being a 3^rd party omniscient narrator. In fact, this ability is inherent in the analogy. Communication between the blind elephant-observers is exactly how the illustration starts. When one blind man makes a statement to the others about the features of the elephant he’s identified, each other blind man hears this statement and notes differences with what they feel. While this is happening, the non-Christian blind man realizes that some of what he has felt of the elephant is not present in the statements of the other blind man he heard. This leaves exactly four options for the non-Christian blind man: 

(1)  Assume that his experience is true and other claims are false.

(2)  Assume that his experience is false and other claims are true.

(3)  Assume that all claims about the elephant are false, including his own.

(4)  Assume two or more claims are true, but incomplete.

In truth, there are different non-Christians in the real world who hold each of these four options and different Christians who hold at least three of them. In this analogy, Keller only acknowledges the possibility of options (1) and (2). Although his book is admittedly broader than this little story, I don’t recall him coming back to the other possibilities. But interestingly, the options Keller leaves available to the blind elephant feelers are: (1), which is essentially the claim to be be an omniscient narrator—which Christians claim through "special revelation" (see the "third" point); and (2) which sounds a lot like conversion. By limiting the possible options a hypothetical non-Christian elephant feeler could take in this analogy, Keller insights riot from non-Christian readers who found the analogy plausible on the grounds of (3) or (4).

While I think the omission of half of the available options is sufficient to count this analogy as a bad one, more should be said on the plausibility of options (3) and (4). (3) is a claim usually made by two sorts of people: the crazy people who claim really bizarre, often nonsensical, and always unfounded things they tend to (improperly) label as “metaphysics,”² and those of the science community who dismiss all religious claims out of hand.³

(4) on the other hand tends to be the option that “spiritual” non-Christians usually favor. This option carries with it not just the appearance of humility, but an actual admission that one’s knowledge about religious matters is incomplete. This is the option I believe all thinking people—Christian and non-Christian—end up holding but in varying degrees. The degrees of identification with this option vary according to how incomplete one is willing to admit their knowledge is. Interestingly, C. S. Lewis—the patron saint of modern day evangelicalism—went farther than most Christians are willing to in admitting what he didn’t know inside of orthodox Christianity. In Mere Christianity (with which Keller’s book has been hastily compared), Lewis makes a very non-Kellerian admission when he says, “We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him.”⁴

There are even more possibilities available to the perceivers of pachyderms. These options are admittedly obscure in this telling of the elephant analogy, but can highlighted by a clarification in terminology. What non-Christians mean at least as often as “no one can see the whole truth” is better stated as “no one does see the whole truth.” The first is a statement about the human noetic system and what it’s possible to know; the second is a statement about observed information about extant religious systems and supposes a hypothesis about reality that more exists beyond what we currently know. The first is a stronger claim and the second a more modest one. Nonetheless, ability to see the whole truth is, at best, inherently assumed to be limited by the observers being blind or, at worst, left out of the analogy entirely. Conceivably, the blind men could team up and bring in more observers. Or who says they can’t move around the elephant? These extensions of the analogy have their corollary in the real world of religious experience by what usually comes with religious pluralism.

To answer Keller directly, the way a blind man could “know that no religion can see the whole truth [without] you yourself hav[ing] the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have” is by 1.) feeling the elephant for oneself, 2.) hearing the account of another person’s perception, 3.) acknowledging that something true you felt isn’t included in the other’s statement, and something they said isn’t including in your experience, then 4.) accepting (4) as the best way to charitably and honestly reconcile the various information.

THE KELLERIAN OBJECTION

For a respondent steeped in Keller’s thinking, one might object to the previous discussion and claim that Keller’s challenge to the non-Christian still stands: there is still an unprovable exclusive belief system being assumed by every non-Christian blind man—even those who opted for (4)—and in turn, imposed on the other blind men (perhaps against their will if they choose (1), (2), or (3)).

To this objection, a few concessions might first be admitted. Yes, the belief system is assumed and was even noted in each objection above. They all start with “assume.” What’s more, that assumption is used to assert in varying degrees that the other claims are not true. More specifically, (4) does in fact say to (2) and (3) that they are false. But note: this is very different than saying the experiences of those people are false! It is rejecting their interpretation. (4) also says to (1) that the component of (1)’s claim of exhausting the bounds of truth is false. Admittedly, these are unprovable assumptions. But the criteria for determining the best way to interpret religious experience was never and could never insist on making no assumptions of any kind. Interpretation of any kind always necessarily brings with it assumptions. This objection only says that all belief systems inherently do the very same thing; in fact, this is likely an essential part of what it means to be a belief system: you include assumptions. It is therefore no reason for rejecting or even disinclining a person from any particular system. 

What’s more, the criteria could not be that it deny the logical entailments that follow (ex: believing (4) entails the whole denial of (2) and (3) and partial denial of (1), and can’t be denied on that reason alone), or belief would necessarily be irrational.⁵ In fact, denying a belief system on the grounds that it entails a denial of opposing belief systems is likewise irrational! To deny (4) on the grounds that it does not allow (2) or (3) to be true is, by definition, irrational since (2) and (3) entail (not 4). If I believe (4) which includes (not 3),” it would be irrational to try to believe (4) and (3). So if not careful, someone meaning to defend Keller will fall victim to the very claim they want to protect.

On top of all that, one could appeal back to the analogy given in the first place as justification for why (4) is—while including an unprovable assumption levied on others—nevertheless the best way of interpreting religious experience. But for reasons mentioned, we would do well to retell the analogy, accepting Keller’s restriction on a 3^rd person narrator, but also accounting for the missing options…

THE ELEPHANT ANALOGY RETOLD

“Each religion sees part of spiritual truth, but none actually sees the whole truth.”

“Hey, I think I feel something,” I said, wishing I weren’t blind.

“Yeah, I think I feel it too,” I heard three other blind men say.

“Do any of you know what it is?” I asked.

“No, but it has a tough, rubbery texture,” I heard the second blind man say.

“Yes, it does,” we all agreed.

“We’re probably all feeling the same thing,” supposed one of the other blind men and again we all agreed.

“It feels long and flexible, like a snake,” said the first blind man.

“What I’m feeling is thick and round like a tree trunk,” said the second blind man.

“What I can touch is large and flat,” said the third.

“I feel something different,” I said. “Are you all sure that really is what you’re feeling?”

They each answered in turn. “Yes, it is confirmed. That is what I can feel.”

“Well, I think you are all wrong,” I heard the first blind man say. “I’m the only one who is actually feeling correctly. Your sense of touch must be messed up if you think you’re feeling anything but a snake.”

“You must be right,” the second blind man capitulated. “I don’t trust my senses. So if you say you are right, then despite feeling like a tree trunk, I’ll believe this is a snake—unless I heard you wrong…”

“No, man. Since we disagree, we’re all wrong,” said the third blind man. “Forget this touching idea. We’re all really on the beach right now. Can’t you smell the ocean air? Smell it quickly before the aliens come to take us all away!”

“Gentlemen,” I interrupted. “I know we’re all blind and so we’ll probably never know everything there is to know about this animal—like what color it is—but, since we have good reason to think we’re all touching the same animal, wouldn’t it be best to suppose that this thing is larger than we first thought and we all might be touching a different part? We should combine what we’ve learned and see if we can work together to understand it better.”

“Just get it off my foot!” screamed a fifth man.

CONCLUSION

If nothing else, these analogies demonstrate that the nature of discussion on these issues always, and perhaps must, take place on the level of analogical language. This is how we understand and give meaning to our world: through metaphor.⁶ As we communicate across cultural and ideological lines, the vagueness and ambiguity of these kinds of discussions deserves to be explored charitably by all parties toward making the issues clearer and the goal of greater understanding. The approach that we assume in coming to the discussion—options (1), (2), (3), and (4) above—is a choice each person makes apart from how they judge their particular religious experience. It has been a hope for this work to suggest (4) as the approach best suited for providing understanding and ultimately unity among people who find themselves feeling different parts of the elephant.

² This is definitely a gross distortion of the term and I neither mean to suggest that their claims have the semblance of the branch of philosophy with the same name, nor that philosophical metaphysics is as dismissible as the crazy guy who stops you in the supermarket.

³ Alvin Plantinga has made a very interesting and philosophically rigorous argument for a properly basic human sense of the divine in Reason and Belief in God.

⁴ Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. (This quote is found four paragraphs before Book III. There are no page numbers in my electronic text.)

⁵ The definition of “irrationality” is holding a proposition and it’s negation: P and ~P

⁶ For a brilliant discussion of this, see Metaphors We Live By, by George Lackoff and Mark Johnson.

It will be on some kind of apologetic theme like, “Does God intend for Himself or His Word to be defended by using mere human arguments?” or something like that. I’ll take a few swipes at “The New Atheism” and even a few at the Old Atheism just for kicks. Poke at the Postmoderns and peeve the Empiricists.

Presuppositional or Evidential or Classical? What about the sciences? Haven’t they made God a needless encumbrance to progress? Now that we have conquered the atom, fished out the Big Bang, and figured out daylight savings time, what else do we need?

Should we be intellectual pacifists? Or thoughtful aggressivists? Or maybe just prone toward cultural engagement? Culture wars? Are things directed at the Church or the World? A replacement for evangelism or a sidearm?

Some people think it’s a needless thing. If God is “wholly other” why would He care? He wouldn’t even know we exist. If God is unknowable does He know you’re reading this right now? If you know you’re reading it and you can’t know the same things that God knows then I guess he can’t. It makes Him out to be a bit slow. But a God that is unknowable seems every bit as important as a God that does not exist.

If everything is an analogy what is it an analogy of and what could any of that possibly mean? If God is not logical, and He knows He is not logical, isn’t that a logical distinction? If God knows He exists instead of not existing that seems logical too.

To we who speak using mere human logic it all this seems like a good bit of rubbish. But is logic merely human or an aspect of being created in the image of God in knowledge and original righteousness as the confessions teach?

Still, Christian apologetics seem so droll. All head and no heart. But if someone is hurting in their heart because of the weight of the philosophies of the world pressing down upon their faith it might not be a bad idea to have a few answers hanging around?

Maybe the key is that after you’re done with all that book-learnin’ we need to be able to not sound so bookish. Being able to communicate profound truths in simple ways without loosing the integrity of the content is as much a part of the apologetical endeavor as anything else.

So why apologize?

Christopher Neiswonger on Sunday October 12th at Communion Prebyterian Church in Irvine. www.communionpres.org

http://www.communionpres.org/index.html

I don't know if it's because I'm female that I am finding Jane, who has similar visions to Harry Potter, to be a much more interesting character than her husband, Mark, in this story. He is very caught up in the politics of college fellowships and oligarchical, ideologue, essence before person, corporations; the name of which, N.I.C.E., is also reminiscent of Rowling's acronyms (or vice versa).

Some noted quotes,

About Mark's essence-first education,

"It did not quite escape him that the face of the backward labourer was rather more interesting than Cosser's and his voice a great deal more pleasing to the ear.[...] All this did not in the least influence his sociological convictions. Even if he had been free from Belbury and wholly unambitious, it could not have done so, for his education had had the curious effect of making things that he read and wrote more real to him than things he saw. Statistics about agricultural labourers were the substance; any real ditcher, ploughman, or farmer's boy, was the shadow.Though he had never noticed it himself, he had a great reluctance, in his work, ever to use such words as "man" or "woman." He preferred to write about "vocational groups," "elements," "classes" and "populations": for, in his own way, he believed as firmly as any mystic in the superior reality of the things that are not seen."

The description of the young couples' recounting of their time apart once they are reunited seems well-done to me,

"And so, all evening, the male bird displayed his plumage and the female played her part and asked questions and laughed and feigned more interest than she felt. Both were young, and if neither loved very much, each was still anxious to be admired."

Ouch. I guess it depends on one's motives for divulging or not.

One last note at this juncture, both Jane's and Mark's struggle to know who to trust and who to commit to provides a good amount of tension and suspense.

In addition to speaking, we had some down time with the students at a few points which is always fun.  Check out the chubby bunny madness below.  This was a rematch from my wife's sister and a guy named Tori.  They are both at college now but supposed "champions" at Chubby Bunny.  Priceless.

Love it.

-jordan

"To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of these October fruits, it is necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air. What is sour in the house a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these apples might be labeled, "To be eaten in the wind." It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit. . . The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past. It is a fruit which will probably become extinct in New England. I fear that he who walks over these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples. Ah, poor soul, there are many pleasures which you will not know! . . . the end of it all will be that we shall be compelled to look for our apples in a barrel."
~ Henry David Thoreau

"Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words."
~ Dylan Thomas

i love october.  it's the best month of the year.  the weather is perfect.  well, except for the recent rain.  that i can do without.  but, the typical cool breezes and crisp air of a new england october make for perfect hoodie weather, and i love hoodies :)  summer's sweat and heat and humidity is past, winter's frozen bite is not here yet...we're right in the middle, the perfect balance, and hopefully i can find some balance and center myself during this month b/c i'm sorely in need of it.  maybe these songs will help...

up first, of course, is u2 with "gloria" from their 2nd album october (a very underrated album, imo)

hailing from the same island as the northside dublin bhoyos, though sadly not the same country (yet), is belfast's van morrison, and here's his classic "moondance" (as performed by that michael buble dude, b/c there's apparently no videos of van doing this song!).  it's definately inferior to van, but what can you do.

what the hell, let's stay in ireland for one more!  i haven't heard much from jj72 since i left ireland back at the very end of '01.  but "october swimmer" is a great track.

let's jump 'cross the irish sea to britain and the greatest band to ever come out of wales, the manic street preachers, with a live verison of their great "autumn song"

i'm not a huge fan of haste the day, and i think they might be wasted in this vid, but the song "autumn" is good.  here's an in-store version.

kurt wagner is a wicked talented dude.  he fronts the ever-revolving door member band lambchop, and this is "autumn's vicar", from a live solo set.

let's get jazzy.  here's the bill evans trio with "autumn leaves".  the bassist is wicked badass.

i remember my 6th grade teacher, mr. gould, making us watch videos of the beatles, csny and james taylor during free period.  it was better than doing homework!  though i was all about mc hammer and vanilla ice at the time (i had yet to discover real hip hop), i was able to appreciate the quality of the music he introduced us to.  here's jimmy t with the dixie chicks doing "october road".  i love natalie maines.

so i'm looking for thursday's "autumn leaves revisited", and it's all crappy live cell phone vids, and i find this one.  it's a gal named holland mariah, and her voice is wonderful.  this is what i want to do, play guitar with a girl whose voice melts faces - like i did with heidi!  here's "autumn leaves"

sadly there were no videos for rosie thomas' "october", the good life's "october leaves" or jets to brazil's "autumn".  so, let's end it on an ironically funny note.  i think.  maybe not.  oh well, whatevs.  it's fall out boy's "grand theft autumn"

i actually did like their first album.  i mean, c'mon, my favorite line from my favorite film is the name of the opening track!  how could i resist?  the 2nd album was ok, too.  what?  did i just lose all my cred?  whateva!

1. Where do we come by this "shared standard of behavior" that we all regularly appeal to?  What does the Bible say about its' source?

I believe Romans 1 is seminal to this point, and that it is God Who has placed this Law in the hearts of men, ostensibly before the Fall, but certainly at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

2. What is the path of authors that Lewis is resting on when he invokes the phrase, "Law of Nature"?

I am not sure of a full answer here.  It would seem that Aristotle and Plato both build on this same concept.  It seems to be such a universally accepted Western notion that modern folk had to write volumes in an attempt to break from it.

3. What is implied by the fact that this Law of Nature is the only law man is able to choose to obey or disobey?

That of all our study in the laws of nature, such as in science, et. al., this is the only one whose study can actually change what we do.

4. How does Lewis defeat the notion of relative or cultural morality?

He simply points back to human action.  We might seek to intellectually deny such a law, but we act as though it is in place, especially when “wronged” by others.

5. What are the two basic points of this chapter?

That there is a real Law of Nature that all men know, and that all men break this law regularly.

I am currently happy to be reading through the work with some parents in my school and as part of my two oldest sons' homeschool curriculum.

Here on "Speaking of Books" I thought I would simply try to engender discussion by asking questions.  Some of them I have thoughts about, some are beyond me. 

If I have thoughts, I put them right after the question in a "quote" format, just so its easy to see what is what. 

Jump in, the book is great and the thoughts run deep.

We here alot of people these days theists/atheists claiming that "Jesus was not God;However he was a good moral teacher and a nice person" Does anyone else realize what hypocrisy lies in a statement like that!??!

Jesus was either

1. Lunatic: Jesus was not God, but he mistakenly believed that he was.
2. Liar: Jesus was not God, and he knew it, but he said so anyway.
3. Lord: Jesus is God.

please spare me the crap about how He was "A good teacher" if He wasn't who He claimed to be, Then it would either make him about as bright as a squirrel or as deceitful and persuasive as Adolf Hitler. He would be a mob leader who ravaged through cities and caused riots, who went and destroyed property and in the end would be the cause of thousands of deaths...

C.S. Lewis recognized this and stated the following about this "trilemma" in his book Mere Christianity:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the "Son of God", or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

So politics is not our savior. You may be involved in the political process, but only if that is not where your heart is. If you heart is there, then your treasure is stored up in a ballot box, where thieves break in and steal. As you are involved in this, your only goal should be to have God see what you are doing, and to honor it. You should not care what the magistrates of Vanity Fair think. When God has done His work through us, over centuries, we can rename the town we live in.

check it all out here

Links
-The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis. If you haven't read this yet, do it now.

Music
-By far the best music this week was Anberlin's New Surrender. but I already wrote about that here.
-Second best music was (rebel) by Lecrae. This guy is an awesome hardcore Christian who knows his stuff theologically and is a great rapper.
-Also you HAVE to check out the new single from the Killers. 'Human'. I can't stop listening to it. Go to their website and it will start playing.

This past week I came across some real gems in my search for intellectual stimulation and entertainment. Usually I get all of this from four sources: books, blogs, radio and *ahem* television. I had to be honest and throw the last one in. Although we don't even own a TV and I never really want to, there are a couple of TV shows we follow through Netflix and/or www.hulu.com. They really are a source of entertainment, so I can't deny them when I'm writing about my entertainment for the week. But these two shows, The Office and House, aren't featured in this weeks Top Five chart, so why don't I move on?

This was a particularly good reading/listening week, and I'd like to share the highlights with you. Some are entertaining, some inspiring, some educational. All, in my opinion, are interesting.

The Friday Top Five:

1. Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper. I already wrote an entire post about my excitement in discovering this book, so I won't repeat myself here. I still encourage anyone reading this blog to check it out from the library, or at least take a look at the Desiring God resource library where you can download the whole book for free. Let Piper encourage you not to waste your one and only, precious God-given life.

2. How Sharp the Edge? Christ, Controversy and Cutting Words delivered by Mark Driscoll at the 2008 Desiring God National Conference. This year's conference was on The Power of Words and The Wonder of God. Oh, how I wish I could've been there! Thankfully, this expansive ministry is open-handed with their materials so they posted all the conference messages on the Desiring God website. I look forward to watching each one. Driscoll's message was razor-sharp, as the Sword of the Spirit should be, compelling and convicting. It's not a message for the faint of heart, but it is a message for the humble Christian who seeks to understand why and how God sometimes uses harsh language in dealing with his people. Driscoll had me on my knees in tears at one point. Yes, I slid straight off my computer chair onto the floor. That's how good it is.

3. God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics by C.S. Lewis, edited by Walter Hooper. No matter where I wander as a reader, I always come back to C.S. Lewis. Every Lewis book I own is dog-eared, marked in and clearly well loved. As I've mentioned before, no writer has impacted my life as significantly as C.S. Lewis. He is, quite simply put, one of my heros. This particular collection is a superb anthem of essays, letters and interviews by Lewis. As a writer, it's interesting for me to read about the mind behind masterpieces like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy. The essays and interviews in God in the Dock give a unique peek into a mind who considered reason, knowledge, imagination and faith of utmost importance when writing about Christian themes. I have much to learn from Lewis. One of my favorite chapters, from a writers perspective, is "Cross Examination." It begins like this:

Mr Wirt:

Professor Lewis, if you had a young friend with some intrest in writing on Christian subjects, how would you advise him to prepare himself?

Lewis:

I would say if a man is going to write on chemistry, he learns chemistry. The same is true of Christianity. But to speak of the craft itself, I would not know how to advice a man how to write. It is a matter of talent and interest. I believe he must be strongly moved if he is to become a writer. Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch'. Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I for one must get it out. (God in the Dock, Page 258)

4. The Comforts of A Muddy Saturday, by Alexander McCall Smith. I love everything by McCall Smith, best known for his series The Number One Ladies Detective Agency and its heroine, Mma Ramotswe. I respect McCall Smith because when he writes he does more than create a good story. He writes about characters we love, the details of every day life, and opens them up to the kind of philosophical and moral thought we all engage in, often subconsciously. Muddy Saturday is the latest novel in his Isabel Dalhousie series, set in Edinburgh, Scotland. Isabel, owner and editor of The Review of Applied Ethics, has an unavoidable compulsion to help those in her "moral proximity." Her friends call it interfering, she calls it moral responsibility. It's always an adventure. 

5. Corduroy Mansions, by Alexander McCall Smith. I always thought it would be fun to publish a serial novel online. Perhaps on this blog if I ever get a good idea going. Well, McCall Smith is doing it now at the Telegraph online! I'm already a fan of 44 Scotland Street, a serial novel published chapter-by-chapter in an Edinburgh newspaper and then released in book form. Corduroy Mansions is McCall Smith's first ever online novel. A new chapter appears each weekday (for 20 weeks!) and readers are encouraged to comment and give suggestions. As a writer, it's really fascinating to follow McCall Smith's story-telling day by day like this. 

Well, there's this Friday's Top Five. I hope these help steer you toward some good stimulating and entertaining activities. You may have noticed that I have wildly ranging reading habits. Sometimes I just have to laugh at the collections I pick up from the library. Here's an example from this week. Monday I picked up:

1. Don't Waste Your Life, by John Piper

2. God in the Dock, Essays on Theology and Ethics by C.S. Lewis

3. The Perfect Hamburger and Other Juicy Stories, by Alexander McCall Smith (a children's book)

4. The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Waterson

5. The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Waterson.

Hmm... Theology, apologetics, children's stories and comic strips. Hey, life can't be all heavy reading. Sometimes I just need a laugh.

Happy reading!

Both are from The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, which I finished today.  Onto The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery.  But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing.  Those who chose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.

Sweet Jesus, what an honest truth.  Please save me from the misery and pity I'm constantly looking for in the situations I'm in (and I'm not just talking about Uganda).  Joy.  Pure, holy, amazing joy, Jesus.

Our light can swallow up your darkness; but your darkness cannot now infect our light. No, no, no. Come to us. We will not go to you. Can you really have thought that love and joy would always be at the mercy of frowns and sighs? Did you not know they were stronger than their opposites?

(Emphasis added.)  Truth.

Morning Has Broken

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around about drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are too easily pleased." --C.S. Lewis

we are too easily pleased

my vice: i want it now. i want the satisfaction, the pleasure, and the recognition now. later is too late. i want it now because my self-serving heart is not willing to wait until the proper time. it feels as if my heart will not thump another beat until it is convinced that it's had its portion. emptiness follows the thump; it's been fed nothing. it's a vicious cycle. the proverbial hole in the heart analogy comes into mind. i'm like a young child playing with a sphere, many holes in the sphere in which to put the matching shapes. it's like i'm forcing a square into an triangular hole, and all the holes are triangles. i know it won't go, but i'm convinced that it can go in. once the piece falls through, disfigured and mangled, i feel a false sense of contentment. i am too easily pleased.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy, went and sold all he had and bought that field.

-Matthew 13:44

the triangular piece

God's infinite pleasures are the triangular piece. compared to what the earth can offer... how can i even compare the two. the joy of the Lord is infinite. morning has broken, and my eyes are open. my heart is satisfied, but it is not full. my heart longs for the presence of my God.

Christology

The SGM’s kernel of truth within the husk of scripture is the Social Gospel realized in the Kingdom of God which is discovered in the teachings of Christ. The SGM is not so much concerned with who Jesus was, but more so with what Jesus taught and what he demonstrated to us. Therefore their Christology will be mostly focused on the ethical teachings of Jesus and not on his nature. This view was popularized by Charles Sheldon’s work of fiction titled In His Steps. In this book, the story goes that a poor, out-of-work gentleman, walks into a church and berates them for caring about the worship of God, but not caring about their fellow man. He then drops dead in front of them. This leaves such a tremendous impact on the church’s life that they decide to carefully guide their lives with this simple ethic: “What would Jesus do?” The end result is that a business manager in the church treats his employees better, an investor closes his prized saloon, a woman sings Christian hymns for the Lord and out of her heart and not for applause, a father treats his wife and kids more honorably, and the preacher preaches Christ-centered sermons.

The problem with this “ethics professor” view of Jesus is that it comes as a result of the rejection of any transcendental doctrines of scripture. There was an assumption against the existence of miracles and out of the liberal use of the historical-critical method came the movement to demythologize scripture. So, anything that Jesus may have been (such as God incarnate, a miracle worker, born of a virgin, etc) was either rejected or at least pushed aside by the SGM in favor of the tangible yet universally applicable ethical teachings of Jesus. This leads to another problem with this view of Jesus: once you get rid of any divine attributes that Jesus has, then what makes his teachings so special? You do not even have to be religious to believe in the ethics that Jesus taught—the communists proved that.

But, does the Bible leave room to think of Jesus as just a moral teacher? C.S. Lewis famously said, “You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.” It is without a doubt that Jesus taught ethics. However, He taught much more than that. He taught and demonstrated that He was indeed God incarnate. It is a wonder how the Social Gospel proponents could believe that Jesus actually taught the kingdom of God, but deny His divinity since there are examples where, in the same scriptural context of His teachings about the kingdom of God, Jesus performed mighty miracles that reveal to the reader His divine nature. Only a reader who is philosophically committed to empiricism would dare make such a division.

Sin and Judgment

Since their Christology was focused on the ethical teachings of Jesus, the Social Gospel proponents ultimately had no use for the penal-substitutionary atonement of Christ. According to Ritschl, Jesus’ death was simply a fulfillment of the vocation that God the Father had given him.[4] Later, both Niebuhr and Martin Luther King Jr. would only go a half step closer to the orthodox view of the cross by admitting that the cross not only shows the limitlessness of God, but also the weakness of man.

This does not mean they did not believe in sin. Their view of sin was much, much different then the historical, orthodox view of sin. They did not deny individual sin, but argued for a more dangerous form of collective sin. Niebuhr stated their position well. By presupposing the moral dualism between individuals and groups Niebuhr makes a radical distinction between individual and group morality, and accepts group egoism as our inescapable reality. According to him, although man has selfish impulses, it is easier for man to act morally on an individual level. Individuals are morally sensible in their ability to consider the interests of others. Individuals can be unselfish. However, in a society—a group of individuals, it is difficult to handle the interest of the group by means of the human rational faculty because groups are only the collection of individuals’ selfish impulses, not of their unselfish consideration for others. This collective egoism of individuals becomes more powerful. Once this collective egoism gains its power, it has a tendency to suppress men. So, as Rauschenbusch said, it makes oppressed “men who are the gentlest and kindliest friends and neighbors, relentless taskmasters in their shops and stores, who will drain the strength of their men and pay their female employees wages on which no girl can live without supplementing them in some way."

To take this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, if a corrupt society causes men to sin more, then a society where corruption is kept in check is favorable because it brings about salvation. Rauschenbusch said, “The establishment of a community of righteousness in mankind is just as much a saving act of God as the salvation of an individual from his natural selfishness and moral inability.”Atonement, apparently, was not to come through the cross after all—it was to come through social reform.

The question that must be asked then is, “Saved from what?” If there is no salvation from personal sin that we are held accountable to God for, then what are we saved from? Rauschenbusch at best only toyed with the idea of eternal judgment as being the way in which we are born again in the conditions we deserve. So, the daughter of one who might be considered an oppressor would die and come back as one of the little girls who worked in that oppressor’s factory. This is not even remotely Biblical. At best, this is more representative of the reincarnation theories of eastern religions. Not to mention it is self-refuting because if it is true that the daughter of an oppressor is born again as one of the oppressed, then it is actually right for the oppressor to continue his oppression since he is furthering the righteous punishment of the former oppressor! But, all this discourse is merely academic musing, because the SGM was not interested in putting much stock in the Biblical place called hell. Ultimately, all the SGM has to go on to answer that question is: Saved from poverty and oppression; saved to become middle class!

I agree with the Social Gospel advocates that the collective egoism of individual sinners do multiply the selfishness in them. Where I disagree is the reverse of this thinking. Individuals are not necessarily more capable of acting moral. The Bible is replete with examples of those who were not being oppressed and yet acted very selfishly as individuals. The first two recorded sins in history are good examples: the sin of eating of the fruit that Adam and Eve committed and the disobedience and murder that Cain committed. In both examples, neither party was compelled by some outside impeding oppressive influence, yet they still felt the need to sin. The famous story of Augustine of Hippo stealing the pears out of his neighbor’s yard is another example of somebody doing something out of utter rebellion even though he was not under any compulsion (like starvation) to do so.

I am not saying that the Social Gospel advocates would deny that these acts of individual selfishness happen. Niebuhr, in fact, was surprisingly committed to at least some form of the doctrine of total depravity. What I am saying is that their high view of man as an individual is overly optimistic and is inconsistent with the Bible’s teaching on the sin nature of man. Jeremiah said the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). Jesus taught that all the moral evil in this world starts at the heart and works its way out (Mark 7:21-23). Paul said there are none who are righteous, no one who is good (not even individuals) (Romans 3:10,11). There is not one passage of scripture that supports the idea that the individual is more capable of righteousness than the collective. Isaiah went so far as to say that our righteous deeds are as filthy rags in God’s eyes (Isaiah 64:6) With scriptures like these in mind, I conclude that it is simply impossible to bring about righteousness by breaking up the collective and favoring the individual. Even if we could do that, then the individual will just creatively find other ways to fulfill those selfish impulses and sinful inclinations.

Unfortunately, the nature of the beast is such that we cannot directly say that their view of bringing about the breakup of the sinful collective will not come to fruition, unless God transforms this society into the kingdom of God. They have also left this back door to their Christology (of Jesus as ethics professor) open as a way of saying, “See? The only reason why our Christology does not work is because we do not have this kingdom of God set in place.” So, now we will turn our attention to this kingdom of God to see if their excuse for poor Christology and poor harmatology is a good excuse.

The Kingdom of God

Although the SGM spent most of its time unpacking the meaning of the kingdom of God, I spent most of this essay dealing with the authority of scripture because it is their view of scripture which lead to their view of Christ, which lead to their view of sin, and all of that culminates in their view of the kingdom of God. Had they had an inerrantist’ view of scripture their view of Christ would have been one of the incarnate God coming to save the world of their individual sins. This would have made the kingdom of God passages take on a completely different tone than the one the SGM put forth.

As I said before, much of Rauschenbusch’s and the SGM’s inspiration came from Ritschl and, concerning the kingdom of God, Adolf von Harnack. Ritschl believed that God’s own self-end, his reason for being, is the same as ours—the kingdom of God. Although he did not deny the transcendence of God, it was his fascination with the kingdom of God that exposed his tendency to focus on the immanence of God too much. He saw the kingdom of God as the unity of humanity organized according to love. Harnack took this idea one step further by saying the kernel of truth within the husk of scripture is the Gospel (which consists of three interrelated truths: the kingdom of God and its coming, God the Father and the infinite value of the human soul, and the higher righteousness and the commandment of love.)

This new focus that liberal theologians gave of the imminence of God, manifested in the life of Jesus, and experienced today through the Kingdom of God, allowed the later adherents to the Social Gospel the theological justification for pushing social reform. As Rauschenbusch said it so strongly, “If theology is to offer an adequate doctrinal basis for the social gospel, it must not only make room for the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, but give it a central place and revise all other doctrines so that they will articulate organically with it.” Concerning our role as the Church he said, “The institutions of the Church, its activities, its worship, and its theology must in the long run be tested by its effectiveness in creating the Kingdom of God.”

What they meant by the Kingdom of God was a fully realized Gospel. Quoting Luke 4:18 [14], Rauschenbusch believed that Jesus was ushering in a full kingdom with his Gospel. He believed that although the church was the fellowship of worship, the kingdom was the fellowship of righteousness. This kingdom is both present and future but only future if the prophetic future of the kingdom does not hinder redemptive action now.

There is a sense in which they are correct. Along the lines of In His Steps, it is true that a fully functioning Gospel would side with the oppressed, feed the starving, develop an honest, Christ-like business ethic, and so forth. Personally, I believe Evangelicals have done a poor job reaching out to the widowed, the unemployed, the racially oppressed, and any other outcast in society. We have also done a poor job in improving the working conditions for low-level blue collar jobs, educating the illiterate, and taking care of the sick and the elderly. This is not to say that the politically and theologically liberal are doing a better job. In fact, one could say that, even with the best of intentions, they are actually doing a worse job because they are using a method that has not brought about the desired change. This method (which is discussed in the next section) has lead to private citizens shrugging their shoulders in continual apathy when it comes to helping the poor. After all, why should they help those who are being helped by our tax dollars?

The bottom line is that the kingdom of God was to be spread by the regenerate church—meaning those individuals who repented of their personal sins and put their faith in the Son of God as the savior of their sins. Moreover, the vehicle in which the kingdom of God would be carried out was through the local church—an assembly of regenerate believers who are taught by elders and are served by deacons—not by the government. There is not one example of the early church attempting to use governmental coercion to bring about social justice.

Onward to part three...

I found this convincing—or more precisely, reassuring—in earlier days while I was a Christian. It seemed obvious that I could gain so much and risk nothing. It wasn't until I began to consider the issue from the outside that I started to see the problems here.

Pascal's Wager presents a false dichotomy. His options are:

(BELIEF)  Risk nothing in this life (cost); Gain everything in the next life (benefit).

(NON-BELIEF)  Risk everything in the next life (cost); Gain nothing in this life you wouldn't have otherwise (benefit).

Each of these statements includes a cost and a benefit (or lack thereof).

For (BELIEF): cost = 0; benefit = ∞.

For (NON-BELIEF): cost = ∞; benefit = 0.

I would challenge the "cost" portion of (BELIEF) first on the assumption that there is nothing risked. Life as a Christian makes large demands on one's life! Luke 14:26 has from Jesus's mouth that a Christian (follower of Christ) must "hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also." Even given a faithful/charitable understanding of this passage and granting that Jesus is speaking metaphorically, his point is that there are great demands on anyone who would follow him. Again, in the story of the rich young man of Matthew 19, Jesus's point again and again is that the costs of discipleship are extreme! There are many more examples of "counting the cost." So it can be fairly said that what it costs a Christian is far from nothing, and Pascal's "cost" of (BELIEF) is wholly inaccurate.

As a real example of one such cost of Christianity, I offer a story from my recent life. Like myself, several of my non-Christian friends are friends with Christians. I have lately been hearing from these non-Christian friends how their friendships with Christians are suffering due to Christian faith. I understand their frustrations because I have been experiencing the very same thing with some of my Christian friends. The experiences we are independently having is that a Christian friend can build and maintain a friendship only as long as there is hope that the non-Christian will convert to Christianity. After enough time, the Christian comes to realize that the non-Christian friend does in fact understand Christianity and is still certain they don't want to convert. Invariably, this has led to the Christian friend withdrawing from the relationship—much to the sad bewilderment of the non-Christian friend. Whether as an article of faith or just as a social/personality side-effect, Christians seem to inherently limit their relationships that cross religious lines. I think this is unquestionably a cost to Christian faith—or at very least, it is an example of something that could be gained in this life, contrary to Pascal's "benefit" of (NON-BELIEF).

Aside from costs in this life, there is another elephant-sized objection to Pascal's Wager: Rewards of the next life. Pascal assumes that options for the next life are binary based on faith in Christ: either reward or punishment; either eternal life or eternal suffering; either Heaven or Hell. Setting aside the belief of many Christians in the "middle ground" of Purgatory or something similar, one should at least admit the logical possibility of the truth of other religions' claims. The options are far greater than belief or non-belief in Jesus's redeeming work. They include all the other options of other religions. What if Islam were true? Then the "cost" of (BELIEF) in this life would result of the "benefit" of (NON-BELIEF) in the next life. Or consider if Christianity were true enough that Christians were rewarded with eternal life, but also—as C. S. Lewis suggests in Mere Christianity—people of other beliefs were also "saved" through Jesus. In this case, a person could live with (NON-BELIEF) in this life and still have the "benefit" of (BELIEF) in the next life.

Finally, the reason this argument might have its initial persuasive quality is because it executes a category confusion to allow begging the question and sets the "benefit" of (BELIEF) up against the "cost" of (NON-BELIEF), and vice versa. I've hinted at this confusion in the preceding paragraphs by sliding in the terms "this life" and "the next life." For Pascal, the "cost" of (BELIEF) is something in "this life" alone; the "benefit" of (NON-BELIEF) is also something in this life alone (and vice versa). We are inclined to inherently value the realm of "the next life" more than that of "this life," because (presumably) "this life" is finite and "the next life" is infinite. On those terms, the greatest sacrifice in "this life" would inherently be worth the smallest gain in "the next life." In fact, the only thing at all that matters is what happens in "the next life." So in framing the discussion in those terms, Pascal wins before he begins. If, on the other hand, there is no reward in "the next life" or there is no life at all after this one, when the cost of anything in "this life"—great or small—is weighed against an empty set of potential rewards in "the next life," even the smallest cost in "this life" is an immeasurable loss compared to gaining nothing in "the next life."

All of this suggests why Pascal's Wager is only convincing (reassuring) to Christians, and utterly without value to thinking non-Christians. If you presuppose a Christian view of "the next life," then Pascal's Wager works by definition of the terms; but if you don't assume the certainty of reward in "the next life," then Pascal's zero-cost assumptions about Christian belief in "this life" forfeit parts of living which have incredible value! Since "reward in the next life" is exactly what is in question, Pascal pulls a fast one in assuming that to make his fallacious case.

A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.   -G.K. Chesterton

Look for a story.  Stories have the power to change lives. 

For years now I have been scratching out notes every chance I get.  As a result, I have a dumpster full of notes I carry around with me every where I move.  People often ask me when they catch me writing away, What are you doing?---especially when I scribble all over the palm of my hand because I don't have a notepad handy.  I've borrowed more scratch paper than an average household uses in a life-time. 

I'm constantly on the lookout for a good story.  

I have read wonderfully written books that are entirely unsatisfactory to me because I do not believe that the author was writing a story. The author was writing a book. There is a great difference.   -Kaitlyn Ramsey        

I'd say we get too hung up on finding the story, as if it were hiding---when there are countless stories waiting to be told if we'd only open our eyes and see them. 

One of modern day literature's most prolific and genius writers died on the twelth of September---he was 46 years young.  David Foster Wallace was tormented for nearly twenty years by depression and ended his pain by hanging himself at his home in Claremont, California---only to be found by his wife of four years.  Tragic story.  The NY Times described Wallace as a writer [who] mapped the mythic and the mundane.  I'd like to think of myself in those terms, a writer who unwraps incredible insights within the most ordinary of circumstances. 

To often however, it's the extraordinary we either botch up or shrink down to bite sized pieces.  

Wallace was a crafty storyteller, and it was largely his hunger for finding a story that set him heads and shoulders above his peers.  He is quoted as saying, We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader.  And maybe that helps to explain our hesitancy to use story in our writing.  We'd rather spout off our opinions about a story or write a dissertation about the lessons to be learned from a story---rather than simply tell a story.  

Are we are afraid our readers may take it the wrong way?  You may remember that people misunderstood Jesus, but he didn't throw in the towel on the art of storytelling.  I've had several folks give me a hard time about sharing stories that extol the wonders of God's grace---they've said I'm giving people the wrong idea and that people will abuse grace if you share it too much.  We share it too little really, people will abuse anything they want to abuse.  So I won't stop talking about grace just because a few religious types get all bent out of shape. 

We need to tell our stories despite the naysayers.          

Tune out the noise and get found in your writing.  You have to listen to write anything of value.  

Getting quiet is imperative when it comes to listening.  And great writers have learned the science of not only listening well---but of listening to the sounds that count.  Wonder and beauty and mystery aren't always hanging out in the broad day light.  We have to peek around in the shadows, the margins, and the back rooms if we are going to uncover it.  It's nearly impossible to develop any kind of narrative when you are steeped up to your eyeballs in the details of every day living.  You have to unplug.  Go sit out in a field if you have to.  

If any man wish to write in clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts; if any would write in noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.    -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ernest Hemingway's friend and long time fishing partner, Gregorio Fuentes, had this to say about Hemingway's inspiration for one of his most famous works (The Old Man and the Sea)---When we went to sea, we found the old man and the sea. We found him adrift on a little boat with a big fish tied there... 

It is imperative that we find our own sea, whatever it may be.

We must learn to crowd everything that distracts us.

Devote yourself to your holy must.  If writing isn't flowing through your veins and taking up space in your brain---it isn't for you.  Get out while the gettin' is good and do yourself a favor.  Save yourself the thankless hours invested and the gray hairs and the endless pots of coffee and the sleepless nights.  Find your passion---what you excel at, what you can't live without.  And if you are gonna stick it out as a writer, some good questions to ask yourself are obvious ones: What will I write about?  What is it that I have written about that has most enlivened me?  What is it that I most wish to say and if I don't say it, will most regret not having done so? 

Write about those things.

Just like an uncaged bird has little capacity in his life for anything that doesn't include flying---so it is for the serious writer when it comes to writing.  Good writing is rarely the byproduct of a mere hobby. 

You can have so many irons in the fire that you can't keep any hot. 

One desire has been the ruling passion of my life.  One high motive has acted like a spur upon my mind and soul.  And sooner should I seek escape from the sacred necessity that is laid upon me, let the breath of life fail me...   -Abraham Kuyper

Can we say that writing is a sacred necessity for us---a holy must?

Let me close this short series of posts by stating that what I have shared certainly didn't come to me on my own---I have much credit to pass along but wouldn't even begin to know where to start.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." -C.S. Lewis

I sat next down next to a dear friend at Hume Lake this past July minutes after I arrived. She had already been up at the camp for several weeks, so we had much to catch up with in each others lives. I was excited about a few things that had been going on recently, and yet I was so hesitant to just let myself go, and to jump in with both feet. Being the incredible friend that she is, she kindly told me that I had an issue. Shortly after explaining to her my fears and reservations she told me to follow her to her dorm, she had something she wanted to read to me.

Little did I know that with 6 short sentences the very way that I lived my life was challenged. Vulnerable had been one of the most frightening words in my vocabulary for far too long and she new exactly what I needed to hear. It is safe to say that I felt completely beat up by the words of C.S. Lewis.

The rest of the week that followed was spent considering these words. Was I willing to become 'unbreakable, impenetrable and irredeemable'? No. Was I afraid? Yes. There comes a point in a persons' life I think, when they must decide that they will no longer live to live up to the expectations of others. I didn't want to be the strong one all of the time, the emotionless one or the control freak. I realized that I feel more like a human being when I am hurt or broken. And when I feel hurt and broken, it most likely stems back to the love of something – values, ideals and more often than those: a person.

As much as those words convicted me, and still continue to do, I understand change to be a process, one that seems to never have an end. I am more vulnerable today than I was 3 months ago, and I pray that I will continue to move forward and never backward.

I share this because I believe that we live in world ridden with dishonesty, betrayal and cynicism. We rarely know who we can trust, and even the most sacred of commitments to another person are broken more than 50% of the time. These statistics and realities of our world give plenty of reason to be shut down, cold hearted and turned off toward relationships of any kind. If I have remembered one thing that I have studied this semester it is that we create our own reality, and it is my intention to create a reality better than the one presented to me by those statistics that break my heart.

I hope that the words of C.S. Lewis are a challenge to you in the way that they are to me. What a sobering thought, that our lack of vulnerability is the embodiment of our selfishness.

May we all be persons whose hearts are able to be broken, penetrable and redeemable.