If God exists, then he must matter to life. He must show up in lives and in the world. I do not doubt that he shows up in lives, however few...
The question is, does he show up in the world enough to say that he is a personal, good, wise, powerful God? This is to ask whether he shows up in ways that are separable from how he shows up in people's lives particularly as a personal, good, wise, powerful God.
This morning I overheard people saying that both the God of the old testament and new testament were both good and angry. Well sure! And you can point to verses to support each statement. But what if I want to know whether God is both a good God and an angry God? I have not seen God avenging his people, or rescuing the oppressed. Certainly, you can spiritualize it, but then God appears to have become weak! Can he no longer work in the world in physical ways? Is he not the creator of the world, both physical and spiritual?
The problem of evil would not be a problem if we could see that it was a good God who hated sin who was in control of the whole world who we were dealing with. Then the problem would be, "Weird, what is he up to?" and not "how could there possibly be such a God?" since we would see that God. So this is the real problem: not the problem of evil, but the problem of the hiddenness of God. And for those who have faith the problem is "weird, what is he up to?" Faith solves problems, because faith is the assurance of God, and particularly Christ.
This problem is to say "whatever happened to miracles?" It is also to say "the change which you say God has brought about in your hearts is not so great." And this latter is a problem for Christians. The change which must be brought about is a change to a sort of love which is impossible apart from God--how else could it be the way that the world can tell who is Christ's disciple? I have seen it here and there, but if Christians are salt and light, then the part of the world I get to see needs more salt, and we're working with candles over here (or I'm just cranky). And this love which is to prove God by being shown in Christians, it must not be faked--it cannot be faked--it must be real, genuine, not forced. It cannot be something learned, in the way that one learns to follow the rules, rather it must become a real part of one's character so that it is what comes out when one drops all inhibitions--drunk Christians should still be loving (which is not to say that Christians should get drunk, since it is hard to see how one would get rid of one's rationality in a loving way).
Miraculous love: love the unlovable without hesitation. I don't care if it does not happen often with you, but that is the love of God you say has been put in your heart. Is it really there or not? Don't lie. Lying won't fix this problem, it is counterproductive to fixing this problem.
I can guess what people might want to say to defend themselves from this: "but we are all broken, right?" Well, yeah, but you could at least try to be honest about it. Or at least be honest about your dishonesty! Can you at least say "we are all broken, but we really aren't showing each other as much as we should be..." and mean it. And by mean it I mean, be distressed by the fact that you are dishonest and hiding your brokenness. Besides, you don't talk like God matters, or like he is personally involved in your life. And when you do? It sounds cliche a lot of the time, it sounds fake usually (and I don't doubt that it is usually fake). What kind of Christians do you think fake being good and talk about God as an abstract ideal, or as a model of right behavior to be followed? I thought he lived in you! I thought he was with you! Act like it, or admit he isn't. Faking it is ugly, and it sometimes makes me think "well, if they have to fake it, God must not be with them at any rate."
I do believe that Christianity is true. I'm just not sure I know many people who know Christ.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
On the Logical Possibility of Single Predestination
A Calvinist will argue that God predestines some to be saved and equally predestines others not to be saved. This is called double predestination. A Lutheran, on the other hand, will argue that God predestines some to be saved and merely fails to predestine the others either way, so that they default, due to their sin nature, to being damned. They are left in their condition, not actively predestined to be damned. This is single predestination.
It may be noted that I have, before today, regarded single predestination as logically absurd. That line of thinking goes like this: God is omnipotent, thus he is able to do whatever he wills. A lack of willing to save is, given what he knows (i.e., given how things are), indistinguishable in its results from a willing to damn. Thus, if God does not will to save some, then those he wills to damn. I am not now changing my position, only raising an objection to such an over-simple argument against single-predestination which will require further investigation as to whether God must intend all that occurs or merely knowingly cause all that occurs (this distinction should become clear soon, if it is not already).
In the philosophy of morals, there is a suggested moral principle, which appears to be at work in most human moral reasoning, called the principle of double-effect. This principle, which may be regarded as an outcome of Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative (always to treat humans as ends, never merely as means), is that one may cause harm in doing good if the harm is a side-effect of doing good, and not necessary to the doing of that good. This does not yet provide a basis for single predestination.
Let us consider a variation of the classic trolley dilemmas: There is a trolley coming down the track, and if nothing is done, it will run over five men. I am at a switch. If I pull the switch, then the trolley will go on another track which reconnects to the original track before where the five men are (so that if nothing happens on the side-track, the trolley will still run over the five men). Now, let us suppose there is a large weight on the track which will stop the trolley, thus saving the five men if I pull the switch (I should note that this version of the trolley dilemma did not originate with me, but it also seems to be in a variety of places, so I am unsure of the source).
The principle of double effect may be considered as the rule that one may knowingly cause harm, but one may not intend harm. This gets us closer to understanding a possible basis for single-predestination. If I do an act, one might ask me what I am doing, and I may say "pulling a switch," and they may ask me what I am doing that for, to which I may respond "saving five people from being run over by a trolley." They may then ask how it will save them, to which I may respond, "it will make the trolley hit that large object, and thus stop before it returns to the track." Now, if there is a man standing in front of the weight, this makes no difference to my intent. However, if the weight is, itself, a very large man, then I am intending harm to a person. The first is allowed, given the principle of double-effect, the second is not.
Now, to return single-predestination, the point of single-predestination is that God intends those who are saved to be saved, but that God does not intend the damnation of the others, despite the fact that he knows that they will be damned. The argument of single-predestination is that there is no action which God does where you could ask what he is doing in any way so as to get the answer "damning some."
Now, the moral problem of an omnipotent God saving some and not others is much more complicated than any trolley dilemma (for one, most would argue that God could have saved all, or none, if he had wanted), and it is not clear that it is right to argue that anything happens in the world which God does not intend, rather there are those who hold, and take comfort from, the belief that God intends all things for his glory and our good. The above was simply to show that, implicit in the disagreement between those who hold single-predestination and those who hold double-predestination, is a disagreement about whether God intends everything or simply knowingly causes everything, while intending only a part.
It may be noted that I have, before today, regarded single predestination as logically absurd. That line of thinking goes like this: God is omnipotent, thus he is able to do whatever he wills. A lack of willing to save is, given what he knows (i.e., given how things are), indistinguishable in its results from a willing to damn. Thus, if God does not will to save some, then those he wills to damn. I am not now changing my position, only raising an objection to such an over-simple argument against single-predestination which will require further investigation as to whether God must intend all that occurs or merely knowingly cause all that occurs (this distinction should become clear soon, if it is not already).
In the philosophy of morals, there is a suggested moral principle, which appears to be at work in most human moral reasoning, called the principle of double-effect. This principle, which may be regarded as an outcome of Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative (always to treat humans as ends, never merely as means), is that one may cause harm in doing good if the harm is a side-effect of doing good, and not necessary to the doing of that good. This does not yet provide a basis for single predestination.
Let us consider a variation of the classic trolley dilemmas: There is a trolley coming down the track, and if nothing is done, it will run over five men. I am at a switch. If I pull the switch, then the trolley will go on another track which reconnects to the original track before where the five men are (so that if nothing happens on the side-track, the trolley will still run over the five men). Now, let us suppose there is a large weight on the track which will stop the trolley, thus saving the five men if I pull the switch (I should note that this version of the trolley dilemma did not originate with me, but it also seems to be in a variety of places, so I am unsure of the source).
The principle of double effect may be considered as the rule that one may knowingly cause harm, but one may not intend harm. This gets us closer to understanding a possible basis for single-predestination. If I do an act, one might ask me what I am doing, and I may say "pulling a switch," and they may ask me what I am doing that for, to which I may respond "saving five people from being run over by a trolley." They may then ask how it will save them, to which I may respond, "it will make the trolley hit that large object, and thus stop before it returns to the track." Now, if there is a man standing in front of the weight, this makes no difference to my intent. However, if the weight is, itself, a very large man, then I am intending harm to a person. The first is allowed, given the principle of double-effect, the second is not.
Now, to return single-predestination, the point of single-predestination is that God intends those who are saved to be saved, but that God does not intend the damnation of the others, despite the fact that he knows that they will be damned. The argument of single-predestination is that there is no action which God does where you could ask what he is doing in any way so as to get the answer "damning some."
Now, the moral problem of an omnipotent God saving some and not others is much more complicated than any trolley dilemma (for one, most would argue that God could have saved all, or none, if he had wanted), and it is not clear that it is right to argue that anything happens in the world which God does not intend, rather there are those who hold, and take comfort from, the belief that God intends all things for his glory and our good. The above was simply to show that, implicit in the disagreement between those who hold single-predestination and those who hold double-predestination, is a disagreement about whether God intends everything or simply knowingly causes everything, while intending only a part.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
The Lonely World
"We do not just live in the world. We live in a picture or vision of it: of how it hangs together and what it means" --King's College Chapel, Cambridge
The above quote is on a bulletin board on the floor that houses the Philosophy, Religion, and Bible departments of my college. The problem is, "we" might not be, by itself, right, but maybe "we each." You see, given our various lives, we each see a different world. I'm not necessarily saying that what is, for you, a tree may be viewed as a chair by me, nor am I advocating any kind of relativism. What I do want to say, however, is that you do not know what world others are living in, and, yes, they do not know what world you are living in, and each of these worlds is very different, some more than others. The more different one's world is from most people's worlds, the more alone they are likely to feel. This is the lonely world. The term is usually used in reference to solipsism. Here is why the problem of other minds even comes up: you are foreign. You are not merely odd, or strange, you are living in another world which I have never been to, and I do not know. Now, your actions may turn out to be relatively predictable, but you, yourself, as a person: you are often opaque.
That this bothers us makes me think that there is something wrong with it. That there is something wrong with it makes me expect that there is something to be done about it. What?
Given that the problem is with a lack of understanding of others' worlds, the solution would seem to be to learn how others view the world. Only another can tell you how they view the world, and it will be a garbled communication, since they are speaking their language, and you are hearing it through your ears. But, slowly, you may begin to see how they use words in their context. You may begin to understand their language and, in doing so, or in order to do so--the tasks are the same--begin to understand their context, their view of the world. And then, well, there will be similarities when you get right down to the basics. And when you believe that there is another who sees the world in a way somewhat like yours, at least enough that their world doesn't feel like it is out to destroy you, or at least enough to say that it is a human world, then you are no longer alone. Maybe their world is foreign, but maybe you will find that they are people too, valuing, caring, and getting frustrated. You are not alone in this world, you are not the only one who crashes hard into walls.
But they are different worlds, different views on the world. What you see makes you act the way you do. Do not say to another "that was bad" but rather "what makes that good?" Let them say for themselves, or find for themselves, if there is some reason they cannot say "it was good" if they must say "I guess I can't reasonably say that what I did was right." Maybe they say it was good, but that doesn't mean it was. I am not a moral relativist. If something is wrong, then there is some inconsistency somewhere. But everything is based on something. What do you see, that you did that? What does the world look like, what inconsistency have you missed, that you think that was an appropriate measure to take? How can I show you that the world is not the way you think it is?
There is more to be said, I suppose, about the love of God, and how we are not alone because Christ has promised to be with us always. About the power of the Holy Spirit which enables us to love others. About how great God is, and how he will protect us from mere harm, and how this means we do not need to worry about what others will think when we say "I see the world like this," and we think they will think less of us because of it. To love another is to care about what they do because you care about them, and that means that your care of them will not be changed by the fact that they do something stupid, or brilliant. Funny, I can talk about that without reference to God, but really, you have to care about something beyond yourself if you're going to care about anything for reasons beyond what it does for you.
And if you don't believe these things, maybe it makes sense not to let anyone know what your world is like: they might hurt you, they might hate you, they might just not care, and then you will know that at least his person doesn't care about you, just, maybe, what you do.
Here is the culture of the world--at least the western world now--your value is based on what you do. Is it surprising, then, that depression is as common as it is? There are other reasons, yes, but this is tied into our culture at a deep level. It creeps everywhere, even into churches: "having to be "on" at church exhausted me." (from this article). I can understand a certain amount of wanting to hide while being around a large group of people, and it is not necessarily a condemnation of the church to say that we aren't quite ready to share ourselves with everyone, but the church itself ought to be as willing as God is to let people be broken. If the exhaustion from having to be "on" at church is because the church isn't willing to let one relax, then there is a problem. We say that we are one body, that we are siblings. We say that we have fellowship with each other, but if it is really fellowship, then being "on," putting up a bit of a mask as it were, gets in the way. If you want to have fellowship, then let people speak their pain to each other so that each one can bear each others' burdens. Not just the little pains, the acceptable pains. I mean, not just the ones that our culture is okay with, like being busy, but also the ones that our culture is afraid of, that our church culture is afraid of. If I walk into your church and express doubts that what you are saying is true, are you going to dismiss me with easy, and unhelpful, answers? Or will you accept that there are hard questions which need to be wrestled with? There are things you cannot just say, but must show. Yes, show with words, but not just say. Express! Draw a picture. Show me, first, that you understand my questions, that you see what I see, then lead me from my world into a better, a more real world. Point to what I have not yet seen, do not just drop a Bible verse on my head. Do not just give me an answer, rather, lead me to it. And let me challenge everything you say and still be loved, not because of what I do, but just because I exist as one who, like you, values. Because God loved enough to send his son to save rebels, the church must love enough to let rebels come as they are, and let God change them.
The more you want your church to just "be good," the less it will be church. The more you want your church to know they are loved even when they sin in the worst ways, the better it will be. I cannot love if I have no notion of what it is to love, as you show love, others will see and imitate--show the love of God, and they will join you. Yes, you too will mess up, you will fail to love, but isn't that to be expected? Do you think you understand what it is to love? I know that I don't. I am irritated when others think they get this concept. Why are we bothered by constraining God who is love into a box, but we are fine with constraining what it is to love into a box? Go, in the love of Christ, by the power of the Spirit, under the sovereign protection of the Father, and love in the grace in which you are forgiven for your failures to love, and for you inadequate love. He loves you, and it does not depend on whether you love anyone at all... but you will.
The above quote is on a bulletin board on the floor that houses the Philosophy, Religion, and Bible departments of my college. The problem is, "we" might not be, by itself, right, but maybe "we each." You see, given our various lives, we each see a different world. I'm not necessarily saying that what is, for you, a tree may be viewed as a chair by me, nor am I advocating any kind of relativism. What I do want to say, however, is that you do not know what world others are living in, and, yes, they do not know what world you are living in, and each of these worlds is very different, some more than others. The more different one's world is from most people's worlds, the more alone they are likely to feel. This is the lonely world. The term is usually used in reference to solipsism. Here is why the problem of other minds even comes up: you are foreign. You are not merely odd, or strange, you are living in another world which I have never been to, and I do not know. Now, your actions may turn out to be relatively predictable, but you, yourself, as a person: you are often opaque.
That this bothers us makes me think that there is something wrong with it. That there is something wrong with it makes me expect that there is something to be done about it. What?
Given that the problem is with a lack of understanding of others' worlds, the solution would seem to be to learn how others view the world. Only another can tell you how they view the world, and it will be a garbled communication, since they are speaking their language, and you are hearing it through your ears. But, slowly, you may begin to see how they use words in their context. You may begin to understand their language and, in doing so, or in order to do so--the tasks are the same--begin to understand their context, their view of the world. And then, well, there will be similarities when you get right down to the basics. And when you believe that there is another who sees the world in a way somewhat like yours, at least enough that their world doesn't feel like it is out to destroy you, or at least enough to say that it is a human world, then you are no longer alone. Maybe their world is foreign, but maybe you will find that they are people too, valuing, caring, and getting frustrated. You are not alone in this world, you are not the only one who crashes hard into walls.
But they are different worlds, different views on the world. What you see makes you act the way you do. Do not say to another "that was bad" but rather "what makes that good?" Let them say for themselves, or find for themselves, if there is some reason they cannot say "it was good" if they must say "I guess I can't reasonably say that what I did was right." Maybe they say it was good, but that doesn't mean it was. I am not a moral relativist. If something is wrong, then there is some inconsistency somewhere. But everything is based on something. What do you see, that you did that? What does the world look like, what inconsistency have you missed, that you think that was an appropriate measure to take? How can I show you that the world is not the way you think it is?
There is more to be said, I suppose, about the love of God, and how we are not alone because Christ has promised to be with us always. About the power of the Holy Spirit which enables us to love others. About how great God is, and how he will protect us from mere harm, and how this means we do not need to worry about what others will think when we say "I see the world like this," and we think they will think less of us because of it. To love another is to care about what they do because you care about them, and that means that your care of them will not be changed by the fact that they do something stupid, or brilliant. Funny, I can talk about that without reference to God, but really, you have to care about something beyond yourself if you're going to care about anything for reasons beyond what it does for you.
And if you don't believe these things, maybe it makes sense not to let anyone know what your world is like: they might hurt you, they might hate you, they might just not care, and then you will know that at least his person doesn't care about you, just, maybe, what you do.
Here is the culture of the world--at least the western world now--your value is based on what you do. Is it surprising, then, that depression is as common as it is? There are other reasons, yes, but this is tied into our culture at a deep level. It creeps everywhere, even into churches: "having to be "on" at church exhausted me." (from this article). I can understand a certain amount of wanting to hide while being around a large group of people, and it is not necessarily a condemnation of the church to say that we aren't quite ready to share ourselves with everyone, but the church itself ought to be as willing as God is to let people be broken. If the exhaustion from having to be "on" at church is because the church isn't willing to let one relax, then there is a problem. We say that we are one body, that we are siblings. We say that we have fellowship with each other, but if it is really fellowship, then being "on," putting up a bit of a mask as it were, gets in the way. If you want to have fellowship, then let people speak their pain to each other so that each one can bear each others' burdens. Not just the little pains, the acceptable pains. I mean, not just the ones that our culture is okay with, like being busy, but also the ones that our culture is afraid of, that our church culture is afraid of. If I walk into your church and express doubts that what you are saying is true, are you going to dismiss me with easy, and unhelpful, answers? Or will you accept that there are hard questions which need to be wrestled with? There are things you cannot just say, but must show. Yes, show with words, but not just say. Express! Draw a picture. Show me, first, that you understand my questions, that you see what I see, then lead me from my world into a better, a more real world. Point to what I have not yet seen, do not just drop a Bible verse on my head. Do not just give me an answer, rather, lead me to it. And let me challenge everything you say and still be loved, not because of what I do, but just because I exist as one who, like you, values. Because God loved enough to send his son to save rebels, the church must love enough to let rebels come as they are, and let God change them.
The more you want your church to just "be good," the less it will be church. The more you want your church to know they are loved even when they sin in the worst ways, the better it will be. I cannot love if I have no notion of what it is to love, as you show love, others will see and imitate--show the love of God, and they will join you. Yes, you too will mess up, you will fail to love, but isn't that to be expected? Do you think you understand what it is to love? I know that I don't. I am irritated when others think they get this concept. Why are we bothered by constraining God who is love into a box, but we are fine with constraining what it is to love into a box? Go, in the love of Christ, by the power of the Spirit, under the sovereign protection of the Father, and love in the grace in which you are forgiven for your failures to love, and for you inadequate love. He loves you, and it does not depend on whether you love anyone at all... but you will.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Wittgenstein's Birthday
"I am certain that we will not understand [him] unless we feel some sympathy and comprehension for [his] persistent intention to change his whole manner of life" --Maurice Drury about Wittgenstein
"We tend to take the speech of a Chinese for inarticulate gurgling. Someone who understands Chinese will recognize language in what he hears. Similarly I often cannot discern the humanity in a man." --Wittgenstein
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." --the last line of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
"What can be shown cannot be said." --and an earlier one.
"to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life." --from his Philosophical Investigations
So often misunderstood, it seems reasonable to think that his native language has never been common.
What is the use of translating a text which speaks in a completely unknown language? This is more than simply to translate from one language to another, but also to make the context clear. There are some who live in a certain context which is so alien from how others live that, though the language is, at surface, the same, the language is itself quite different. The more different our contexts--our ways of life--the more different our languages. There is enough similarity to be frustrating, and some are lucky enough to have others who speak a relatively similar language, but then there are those who stand in the world and live in a way that is so different from others that the gestures others make about themselves look more akin to the kind which a dog makes by scratching at the door. Sure, the dog gestures toward what seems to be a desire to go out, but surely I ought to expect people who are like me to make more important gestures than that? You want to go here, do that, but so few even bother to scratch at anything of real value. This is what it is to be alone in the world: to find yourself among fools--"persons" who don't care about anything worthwhile. Or perhaps they do... but so often the gestures do not gesture right. They do not treat people as valuable, really. It is as if I were to say "I love cake" but never eat any, even refuse it when offered. People speak, but they do not show, and thus their speech is wasted. And these inconsistencies: at least dogs are consistent! People say one thing, but they lie. Do they care that they say one thing and show another? This at least would show that I am not alone, since I admit I fail to be consistent. But I hate that I am inconsistent, whereas so many laugh it off. Do you think it's funny? Do you think you are here for fun and games? Is that enough? You mock yourselves! Surely there is something that you value like nothing else, with awe and reverence? And yet these words fall flat in front of you, I could write them in Latin or Greek! Fear? You hate fear, but not because you understand it. Don't you think there is anything bigger than you? Something that could destroy you? Haven't you seen the pictures from disasters? If that is the only way to make you stop being chipper, happy without cause, then you are pathetic and shallow. Oh, be joyful, but have a reason! What can inspire joy in the face of such hideous evil but something on your side which may put even death in the position of having this hanging there over its head, able to destroy it. And if you can have joy, if such a thing exists, well, surely it could annihilate you several times over! Does it matter that it is on your side? That gives you joy, but the fear is still proper. If you never really fear, then you have no basis for joy. The exhilarating awe, that is fear and joy. Imagine holding a magnificent, sharp sword in your hands. Fear the blade! It cuts. It doesn't matter that you hold it, and how much more if all you know that the power is on your side. Maybe you don't like it. Maybe it will hurt you to keep you from getting killed. Don't you fear this power? Do you think it is on a leash? Do you think it is predictable? You can fear something even when you are certain that it is for your good. But you don't even know what a "solemn assembly" is well enough to even fake one!
This is the struggle, the frustration of one who looks out on featherless bipeds and hears about video games and movies and drama with no sounds of weeping or awe. No one is unsettled. No one is surprised in their cozy little happy worlds. And then it breaks. Because, if nothing else, we are all squishy mammals, and the world is certainly able to break in, and eventually does, and then you are crushed. Or are your worlds not cozy and happy? Well, then, don't lie to us. Weep, fear, show awe. Gesticulate madly and without thinking, show that you care about something beyond stuff and emotions in themselves! There must be something beyond those that underlie why you care about them. What is it?
So, why do you translate this book? Look: the Bible is utter gibberish if you don't understand the language. And they didn't have an easy time understanding it in its time: look at the disciples' reactions to Jesus. To understand the Bible requires one to see another way of life. One where people are valuable and God is awesome and sin is ugly and God is love. Well! "God is love"! That's easy enough, right? Hah! One might think it is simple because most people have given up trying to figure it out. "Love" Do you have any context for that concept? In the context of an awesome and magnificent and powerful God? Really? Explain! Show this context! Explain this way of life! Or is it rather like this: we cannot speak about this, but only show it? Well, then, how are we to start? To show a concept which no one can explain, we mimic the ones who have seen it. Ah, but has anyone really shown it? Who am I to follow? Jesus? What the Bible says he does is certainly expressing it, but this amounts to circularity: I do not understand this way of life. Is it not, rather, the case that I cannot do what must be done? We can show, sort of, what this love is, but in the end it takes another understanding the language and living in this way of life for us if we are to really get it at all.
"We tend to take the speech of a Chinese for inarticulate gurgling. Someone who understands Chinese will recognize language in what he hears. Similarly I often cannot discern the humanity in a man." --Wittgenstein
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." --the last line of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
"What can be shown cannot be said." --and an earlier one.
"to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life." --from his Philosophical Investigations
So often misunderstood, it seems reasonable to think that his native language has never been common.
What is the use of translating a text which speaks in a completely unknown language? This is more than simply to translate from one language to another, but also to make the context clear. There are some who live in a certain context which is so alien from how others live that, though the language is, at surface, the same, the language is itself quite different. The more different our contexts--our ways of life--the more different our languages. There is enough similarity to be frustrating, and some are lucky enough to have others who speak a relatively similar language, but then there are those who stand in the world and live in a way that is so different from others that the gestures others make about themselves look more akin to the kind which a dog makes by scratching at the door. Sure, the dog gestures toward what seems to be a desire to go out, but surely I ought to expect people who are like me to make more important gestures than that? You want to go here, do that, but so few even bother to scratch at anything of real value. This is what it is to be alone in the world: to find yourself among fools--"persons" who don't care about anything worthwhile. Or perhaps they do... but so often the gestures do not gesture right. They do not treat people as valuable, really. It is as if I were to say "I love cake" but never eat any, even refuse it when offered. People speak, but they do not show, and thus their speech is wasted. And these inconsistencies: at least dogs are consistent! People say one thing, but they lie. Do they care that they say one thing and show another? This at least would show that I am not alone, since I admit I fail to be consistent. But I hate that I am inconsistent, whereas so many laugh it off. Do you think it's funny? Do you think you are here for fun and games? Is that enough? You mock yourselves! Surely there is something that you value like nothing else, with awe and reverence? And yet these words fall flat in front of you, I could write them in Latin or Greek! Fear? You hate fear, but not because you understand it. Don't you think there is anything bigger than you? Something that could destroy you? Haven't you seen the pictures from disasters? If that is the only way to make you stop being chipper, happy without cause, then you are pathetic and shallow. Oh, be joyful, but have a reason! What can inspire joy in the face of such hideous evil but something on your side which may put even death in the position of having this hanging there over its head, able to destroy it. And if you can have joy, if such a thing exists, well, surely it could annihilate you several times over! Does it matter that it is on your side? That gives you joy, but the fear is still proper. If you never really fear, then you have no basis for joy. The exhilarating awe, that is fear and joy. Imagine holding a magnificent, sharp sword in your hands. Fear the blade! It cuts. It doesn't matter that you hold it, and how much more if all you know that the power is on your side. Maybe you don't like it. Maybe it will hurt you to keep you from getting killed. Don't you fear this power? Do you think it is on a leash? Do you think it is predictable? You can fear something even when you are certain that it is for your good. But you don't even know what a "solemn assembly" is well enough to even fake one!
This is the struggle, the frustration of one who looks out on featherless bipeds and hears about video games and movies and drama with no sounds of weeping or awe. No one is unsettled. No one is surprised in their cozy little happy worlds. And then it breaks. Because, if nothing else, we are all squishy mammals, and the world is certainly able to break in, and eventually does, and then you are crushed. Or are your worlds not cozy and happy? Well, then, don't lie to us. Weep, fear, show awe. Gesticulate madly and without thinking, show that you care about something beyond stuff and emotions in themselves! There must be something beyond those that underlie why you care about them. What is it?
So, why do you translate this book? Look: the Bible is utter gibberish if you don't understand the language. And they didn't have an easy time understanding it in its time: look at the disciples' reactions to Jesus. To understand the Bible requires one to see another way of life. One where people are valuable and God is awesome and sin is ugly and God is love. Well! "God is love"! That's easy enough, right? Hah! One might think it is simple because most people have given up trying to figure it out. "Love" Do you have any context for that concept? In the context of an awesome and magnificent and powerful God? Really? Explain! Show this context! Explain this way of life! Or is it rather like this: we cannot speak about this, but only show it? Well, then, how are we to start? To show a concept which no one can explain, we mimic the ones who have seen it. Ah, but has anyone really shown it? Who am I to follow? Jesus? What the Bible says he does is certainly expressing it, but this amounts to circularity: I do not understand this way of life. Is it not, rather, the case that I cannot do what must be done? We can show, sort of, what this love is, but in the end it takes another understanding the language and living in this way of life for us if we are to really get it at all.
Rough Sketch of Solution
I take it that a person is one who values. I am a person (I cannot help but be one who values). Because I have values, I must order these values: I must be consistent.
You gesture towards your mind. I must take that as either a gesture toward a mind or a lie. If a lie, I should stop using those gestures to indicate my own mind, thus, I take the gesture to be honest. Therefore I believe you have a mind.
There is more to it than this (what I have here given has certain gaps left in it), but I have little interest in writing it all out at the moment. What I have given seems sufficient to allow one at least to be able to take breaks from the problem, and this is all I feel the duty to do.
You gesture towards your mind. I must take that as either a gesture toward a mind or a lie. If a lie, I should stop using those gestures to indicate my own mind, thus, I take the gesture to be honest. Therefore I believe you have a mind.
There is more to it than this (what I have here given has certain gaps left in it), but I have little interest in writing it all out at the moment. What I have given seems sufficient to allow one at least to be able to take breaks from the problem, and this is all I feel the duty to do.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Love Your Neighbor
"Love your neighbor as yourself." What? How? I do not mean "what actions does that imply that I should do?" but "how is it even possible to love another as myself?" I know myself, or, at least, I feel like it. I have first-hand experience of things, and those experiences of my feeling such-and-such a way, of experiencing things in certain ways, those things are what I mean when I say that I am conscious. For simplicity's sake, allow the assumption that I love myself as a conscious being, when I love myself. Well then! How am I to love another as a conscious being? How can I even be aware that they are conscious? Am I going to experience what they experience? That would make no difference anyway, it would still just be my experience--my being conscious. If I experience their consciousness, that is just me experiencing consciousness, perhaps differently. What would it even mean to experience their being conscious--to experience their experiencing something?
The problem of other minds is a problem for Christians. If we cannot solve it, then this command is absurd, as is "Love God." If I cannot solve the problem of other minds, then what do I even mean by "God"? If I cannot show how it is that I am justified in believing that other humans have their own minds, how can I possibly show that I am justified in believing in such a mind that is so different than I am?
What is a mind? What do I love when I love myself as a conscious being? Even if I knew, what kind of evidence could I possibly bring to bear on the question whether other humans also have consciousness?
I am a valuing being, with values about those values (metavalues), and, perhaps, a way of thinking about things and values (one might add beliefs in here as well, but I actually think all one needs are the values with their metavalues). I do not come at the world with a fixed point of view, nor with an objective point of view. I value. Suppose all this constitutes a mind. Suppose that my consciousness consists in my metavalues, and values about the way I think about things and values. Very well, but what can I know about the existence (or not) of other minds? How do I know that you value? Is it merely self-reporting? You could be lying, although I might not want to use that word if you are not conscious. What then? Is the command "love your neighbor as yourself" absurd?
I present this as a problem greater than the problem of evil, and applicable to more worldviews. Shall we say that belief in other minds is a "properly basic belief"? Bravo! Why not call anything I can't prove one way or another a "properly basic belief"? My chair is conscious! What? Can you show me that such a belief is unjustified without showing how my belief that you are conscious is also unjustified? Shall we preach to furniture now, too? Ah, but they don't have ears. Our computers, then--the microphones should work well enough.
I could say that they act like me, and I have a mind, so they probably do. It is an argument from analogy, but really, how much like you do other people act? And if this is how you solve the problem, then you really ought to regard anything that acts like you to a similar extent as other people as having a mind (thus, if some robot were to pass the Turing test, you would have to consider it as having a mind). And what about people who don't act much at all like you? Really, is this not simply "they look like me, they act like me, so I like them"? What a selfish, easily prejudiced way of determining whether someone has a mind--if they are enough like me, I'll say they have a mind, if they are not much like me, I'll say they don't have a mind, and then, well, they aren't really people, so I don't have to love them. Monstrous! Or is there some way of showing that there is some particular thing to look for? Well, then, that isn't the same argument anymore, but good luck.
To love another as a valuer, and as a metavaluer, I must value, not necessarily their values per se, but that they value, or, perhaps more correctly, them as one who values. Well then, how do I know that anyone besides me values at all? And if I say that it is because of how they act, well: rocks fall, does that mean that they value obeying the law of gravity? Again: what allows us to distinguish between people, on the one hand, and computers with microphones, on the other, when we preach? There must be something, right? What? Metavalue? But computers could be said to have metavalues: a value implies some "act like this" a metavalue implies some "value like this" well, why do computers act like they do? That can be translated into a metavalue, whatever it is.
Certainly, love, or care about, the other person's facts. That is simple and easy to understand. What it is to love the person themselves, as a person: that is the trouble. Sure, I want them to act in a way that is more consistent with what they say they want. Do I want their good? I want their facts to fit each other and the world, but is that because inconsistency irritates me, or because I love them? It is simply that I want what you do and say to fit how I think the world is, given how I look at the world. I want you to fit into my world, but is that love? It may look the same. Am I doing it because I want to have a consistent world, or because I want you to have a consistent world? But the problem: for the second to be the case, I have to believe that you actually have a world such that its consistency is even able to be improved or doubted.
The problem of other minds is a problem for Christians. If we cannot solve it, then this command is absurd, as is "Love God." If I cannot solve the problem of other minds, then what do I even mean by "God"? If I cannot show how it is that I am justified in believing that other humans have their own minds, how can I possibly show that I am justified in believing in such a mind that is so different than I am?
What is a mind? What do I love when I love myself as a conscious being? Even if I knew, what kind of evidence could I possibly bring to bear on the question whether other humans also have consciousness?
I am a valuing being, with values about those values (metavalues), and, perhaps, a way of thinking about things and values (one might add beliefs in here as well, but I actually think all one needs are the values with their metavalues). I do not come at the world with a fixed point of view, nor with an objective point of view. I value. Suppose all this constitutes a mind. Suppose that my consciousness consists in my metavalues, and values about the way I think about things and values. Very well, but what can I know about the existence (or not) of other minds? How do I know that you value? Is it merely self-reporting? You could be lying, although I might not want to use that word if you are not conscious. What then? Is the command "love your neighbor as yourself" absurd?
I present this as a problem greater than the problem of evil, and applicable to more worldviews. Shall we say that belief in other minds is a "properly basic belief"? Bravo! Why not call anything I can't prove one way or another a "properly basic belief"? My chair is conscious! What? Can you show me that such a belief is unjustified without showing how my belief that you are conscious is also unjustified? Shall we preach to furniture now, too? Ah, but they don't have ears. Our computers, then--the microphones should work well enough.
I could say that they act like me, and I have a mind, so they probably do. It is an argument from analogy, but really, how much like you do other people act? And if this is how you solve the problem, then you really ought to regard anything that acts like you to a similar extent as other people as having a mind (thus, if some robot were to pass the Turing test, you would have to consider it as having a mind). And what about people who don't act much at all like you? Really, is this not simply "they look like me, they act like me, so I like them"? What a selfish, easily prejudiced way of determining whether someone has a mind--if they are enough like me, I'll say they have a mind, if they are not much like me, I'll say they don't have a mind, and then, well, they aren't really people, so I don't have to love them. Monstrous! Or is there some way of showing that there is some particular thing to look for? Well, then, that isn't the same argument anymore, but good luck.
To love another as a valuer, and as a metavaluer, I must value, not necessarily their values per se, but that they value, or, perhaps more correctly, them as one who values. Well then, how do I know that anyone besides me values at all? And if I say that it is because of how they act, well: rocks fall, does that mean that they value obeying the law of gravity? Again: what allows us to distinguish between people, on the one hand, and computers with microphones, on the other, when we preach? There must be something, right? What? Metavalue? But computers could be said to have metavalues: a value implies some "act like this" a metavalue implies some "value like this" well, why do computers act like they do? That can be translated into a metavalue, whatever it is.
Certainly, love, or care about, the other person's facts. That is simple and easy to understand. What it is to love the person themselves, as a person: that is the trouble. Sure, I want them to act in a way that is more consistent with what they say they want. Do I want their good? I want their facts to fit each other and the world, but is that because inconsistency irritates me, or because I love them? It is simply that I want what you do and say to fit how I think the world is, given how I look at the world. I want you to fit into my world, but is that love? It may look the same. Am I doing it because I want to have a consistent world, or because I want you to have a consistent world? But the problem: for the second to be the case, I have to believe that you actually have a world such that its consistency is even able to be improved or doubted.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
An Existentialist Pro-Life Argument
To learn about the value of something, you must, in a sense, see the value of it. You cannot simply be told that it is valuable. Currently, the value of life is debated. Now, it is possible that someone may learn that life is valuable because of these debates, but they will not come to know life as valuable through reason alone. To know life as valuable, life must be seen as valuable--life's value must be seen. There is no place for arguing about the value of life, anymore than there is a place for arguing about the value of a car. Show me that the car runs, then I may see its value. If we disagree about values, then we disagree about where to look for values. Now, show me why an unborn life has little to no value? Where are you looking for their value?
If life has no purpose apart from the purpose that person gives it, then we cannot argue that any life has value before the one living it gives it value. Since Sartre, at least, people have claimed that our lives only have purpose insofar as we give our own lives purpose. But there is more, even in Sartre, than that. Sartre said that we, by our actions, choose a purpose for all lives. In Sartre's view, if I do something, I am claiming that what I did was a good action for anyone. By my living, then, I claim that everyone ought to live. Is it situational? Maybe, but what situation are you pointing to? Is life so worthless that you do not fight for it? I do not care what one thinks about whether people have souls, what I care about is whether they will be like you in any way. Do you think that because they will never be able to understand what you can, that they are less human? Or is it because they cannot do what you can? Well, then, may the PhD.s and marines, etc., live, and all others--incompetent as they are--be put to death. Do you think this is a strawman? It is not, it is simply shifting perspectives and shrinking the gap. You can argue that ordinary people can do things that PhD.s and soldiers can't, but then, are you sure I can't use that against the original argument?
Besides, are people valuable because of what they do, or because of what they show? The most incompetent person can show the worth of living, simply by their valuing their own life. If life is valuable because of what people do or understand, then people have most value in the prime of life, but we don't act like it. In December we showed that we do not value people by what they do or understand. We mourned when children died. Do you find value in possibility, in potential? But if we do not have value except as we make it, then we do not have value except as we make it, and we cannot make potential. You cannot know what a person might have achieved. You cannot assess a single person's value by their potential, only by what they have achieved. Maybe you use statistics? "only 0.1% of people born like this ever achieved anything." What an absurd statistic! How do measure whether someone achieved anything? What must they do? Invent something? Go to the moon? Become president? But children and idiots can change people's lives. If they are capable of life at all, then they can love people, and that can change people.
Where do you look for value? If value is found in fulfilling a purpose, then who are you to decide another's purpose cannot be fulfilled? If they do not fulfill a purpose, it is their own fault, according to Sartre. Either, at birth, a person's purpose is nonexistent, in which case why should any of us live? We all have the same claim to life at that point. Or, again at birth, a person's purpose is indeterminate, in which case how do you know their purpose won't be as simple as "to live"? There is a third option, that there purpose is determined, "to glorify God," but, in a materialist world, that cannot be allowed, and besides, it still doesn't give any reason to stop a life from existing.
When one is counted as alive does not matter. That one will be counted alive, if nothing gets in the way, is enough to count one as alive.
This all was triggered by this: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2013/04/11/the-story-you-may-not-have-heard-warning-graphic-reading/ but I should note that my tiredness of certain arguments against abortion (that the soul originates at conception, that it is murder, that it is an offense to the image of God in them, etc.), which ignore where the actual differences are, contributed to my actually writing it. The problem is that we don't agree about where to look for a person's value. From this arises disagreements about the value of fetuses, confusion about the value of various different kinds of people, confusion about what I am saying about your value when I say you did, or are doing, something wrong.
The love of God: independent of what we do or understand, but only dependent on his mercy in Christ Jesus our Lord, granting us to know his love and to depend on his grace to enable us to live in him. Our value is Christ, and if we cannot claim independent worth, then why should we look for some in others? Rather we look on them as justified--either, as we would rather, in Christ or by themselves suffering the justice of eternal punishment for sins in hell, thus having their guilt removed from them (once the eternal punishment is done)--this is to live in light of eternity: to accept that their sins will be removed by God, not by us, even if it is never completed, as is the case if they suffer the eternal punishment by themselves. Therefore, because it is God who justifies, we can love all others with his love. They are not now just, and will never be finally just apart from Christ, but one day they will receive what they deserve--either due to their own sins or Christ's perfection--and we therefore have no right to condemn them now. So, this http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2013/04/12/confessions-of-a-performancist/ is how we view value, and that makes a huge difference in where we look for the value of people, and that is why we care about the people who are, really like us, incompetent, deformed, idiots, poor, and helpless.
If life has no purpose apart from the purpose that person gives it, then we cannot argue that any life has value before the one living it gives it value. Since Sartre, at least, people have claimed that our lives only have purpose insofar as we give our own lives purpose. But there is more, even in Sartre, than that. Sartre said that we, by our actions, choose a purpose for all lives. In Sartre's view, if I do something, I am claiming that what I did was a good action for anyone. By my living, then, I claim that everyone ought to live. Is it situational? Maybe, but what situation are you pointing to? Is life so worthless that you do not fight for it? I do not care what one thinks about whether people have souls, what I care about is whether they will be like you in any way. Do you think that because they will never be able to understand what you can, that they are less human? Or is it because they cannot do what you can? Well, then, may the PhD.s and marines, etc., live, and all others--incompetent as they are--be put to death. Do you think this is a strawman? It is not, it is simply shifting perspectives and shrinking the gap. You can argue that ordinary people can do things that PhD.s and soldiers can't, but then, are you sure I can't use that against the original argument?
Besides, are people valuable because of what they do, or because of what they show? The most incompetent person can show the worth of living, simply by their valuing their own life. If life is valuable because of what people do or understand, then people have most value in the prime of life, but we don't act like it. In December we showed that we do not value people by what they do or understand. We mourned when children died. Do you find value in possibility, in potential? But if we do not have value except as we make it, then we do not have value except as we make it, and we cannot make potential. You cannot know what a person might have achieved. You cannot assess a single person's value by their potential, only by what they have achieved. Maybe you use statistics? "only 0.1% of people born like this ever achieved anything." What an absurd statistic! How do measure whether someone achieved anything? What must they do? Invent something? Go to the moon? Become president? But children and idiots can change people's lives. If they are capable of life at all, then they can love people, and that can change people.
Where do you look for value? If value is found in fulfilling a purpose, then who are you to decide another's purpose cannot be fulfilled? If they do not fulfill a purpose, it is their own fault, according to Sartre. Either, at birth, a person's purpose is nonexistent, in which case why should any of us live? We all have the same claim to life at that point. Or, again at birth, a person's purpose is indeterminate, in which case how do you know their purpose won't be as simple as "to live"? There is a third option, that there purpose is determined, "to glorify God," but, in a materialist world, that cannot be allowed, and besides, it still doesn't give any reason to stop a life from existing.
When one is counted as alive does not matter. That one will be counted alive, if nothing gets in the way, is enough to count one as alive.
This all was triggered by this: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2013/04/11/the-story-you-may-not-have-heard-warning-graphic-reading/ but I should note that my tiredness of certain arguments against abortion (that the soul originates at conception, that it is murder, that it is an offense to the image of God in them, etc.), which ignore where the actual differences are, contributed to my actually writing it. The problem is that we don't agree about where to look for a person's value. From this arises disagreements about the value of fetuses, confusion about the value of various different kinds of people, confusion about what I am saying about your value when I say you did, or are doing, something wrong.
The love of God: independent of what we do or understand, but only dependent on his mercy in Christ Jesus our Lord, granting us to know his love and to depend on his grace to enable us to live in him. Our value is Christ, and if we cannot claim independent worth, then why should we look for some in others? Rather we look on them as justified--either, as we would rather, in Christ or by themselves suffering the justice of eternal punishment for sins in hell, thus having their guilt removed from them (once the eternal punishment is done)--this is to live in light of eternity: to accept that their sins will be removed by God, not by us, even if it is never completed, as is the case if they suffer the eternal punishment by themselves. Therefore, because it is God who justifies, we can love all others with his love. They are not now just, and will never be finally just apart from Christ, but one day they will receive what they deserve--either due to their own sins or Christ's perfection--and we therefore have no right to condemn them now. So, this http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2013/04/12/confessions-of-a-performancist/ is how we view value, and that makes a huge difference in where we look for the value of people, and that is why we care about the people who are, really like us, incompetent, deformed, idiots, poor, and helpless.
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