The Lull in Blogging + A Preview

I'm sorry for the lull in posting. I was on vacation with my wonderful wife. Tomorrow I will be posting an in-depth review of a book I've almost finished. It is without a doubt one of the best works of popular Christian writings I have ever read. Check out the review tomorrow. Check out the book right afterwards. WARNING: 18+ readers only.

Not As Off-Topic As Usual: Comic Book Reviews & Reflections

Without giving too much away, this week's crop of comics was very dark and negative for the most part some of my favorite story lines took hard negative turns. For some, it looks like this streak will continue for a while. It is like the darker parts of apocalyptic literature: the beast, etc. Without it, the truth comics reveal would be incomplete. But I find turns like this to be off-putting in a rather spiritual way. I've seen enough demons of my own for one lifetime. 

DC's "Justice League" #23

The Trinity War concludes leading to the new series "Forever Evil", which affects the entire DC universe. It was upsetting for all the right reason. It gut shot me. But the fact that it evoked such emotion is a sign of how good it is.

Art: 4.5 Stars

Dialogue: 5 Stars

Pacing: 2.5 Stars

Storyline: 4.5 Stars

Overall: 4.5 Stars

DC's "Teen Titans" #23

This is one was a bit of filler. The gang teams up to save Kid Flash. Good dialogue, but not much in the way of story.This was more positive than some of the other books. It was fun and entertaining, and after Justice League, I needed that

Art: 4 Stars

Dialogue: 4 Stars

Pacing: 2 Stars

Storyline: 2 Stars

Overall: 3 Stars

Zenescope's "Robyn Hood: Wanted" #4

This book continues to deliver. It had a twist that was rather derivative. It has both positive and negative story elements. Given the other books this week, I could've used more positive. I like this take on the classic story.

Art: 3.5 Stars

Dialogue: 3.5 Stars

Pacing: 4 Stars

Storyline: 4 Stars

Overall: 4 Stars

Marvel's "Thanos Rising" #5

The limited series recounting Thanos early years concludes. Good stuff, though a bit inconsistent with other parts of the Thanos mythos. An interesting psychological thriller. 

Art: 2.5 Stars

Dialogue: 4.5 Stars

Pacing: 4.5 Stars

Storyline: 3 Stars

Overall: 3.5 Stars

Zenescope's "Grimm Fairy Tales Unleashed" #5

The penultimate book of the Shadowlands storyline. The ending of this one was upsetting for many of the same reasons LEAGUE was. The pacing was off too. I'm not sure how I feel about this story overall. I like it best when ZENESCOPE sticks to straight fairy tale retellings.

Art: 3.5 Stars

Dialogue: 3 Stars

Pacing: 2.5 Stars

Storyline: 3 Stars

Overall: 3.5 Stars

Marvel's "Avengers Arena" #14

This book was mostly filler, though it revealed some very interesting stuff about Bloodstone. The ending was mind-blowing too. As with much of the series: good, with the potential for greatness, but missing out on it.

Art: 3.5 Stars

Dialogue: 4 Stars

Pacing: 3 Stars

Storyline: 3.5 Stars

Overall: 3.5 Stars

Off-Topic: Comic Book Reviews

DC's "Justice League: Dark" #23

The Trinity War continues and man it continues to deliver. The storytelling is still a bit too frenetic and this messes up the pacing a bit. Everything feels a bit rushed. Still, the story is riveting and the art amazing. All in all, a great book.

Art: 4.5 Stars

Dialogue: 4 Stars

Pacing: 2.5 Stars

Storyline: 4.5 Stars

Overall: 4 Stars

DC's "Trinity of Sin: Pandora" #3

This is a bit better than came before, but this comic still feels like it is missing something, but I can't quite put my finger on it. The individual parts are all there, but they just don't come together as they should.

Art: 4 Stars

Dialogue: 4 Stars

Pacing: 4 Stars

Storyline: 4 Stars

Overall: 3 Stars

DC's "Green Lantern: The New Guardians" #23

This book is not exactly a pick me up. The storyline is better than what has come before but not nearly as good as the first dozen issued were. The pacing is way off, but the Blue Lantern subplot saves the book, big time. 

Art: 4 Stars

Dialogue: 3.5 Stars

Pacing: 2 Stars

Storyline: 4.5 Stars

Overall: 4 Stars

DC's "Superman: Unchained" #3

WOW, what a book. The coloring and the art is unbelievable. The story is nothing new, but some of the thematic elements are original and very engaging. I am simply blown away by this book. It is one of the best SUPERMAN books I've ever read.

Art: 5 Stars

Dialogue: 4.5 Stars

Pacing: 4.5 Stars

Storyline: 4 Stars

Overall: 5 Stars

Zenescope's OZ #2

The first issue was not very good, and I was disappointed. But right in issue two they completely turn it around! I can't believe how well they turned it around. The pacing in this book is fantastic.

Art: 4.5 Stars

Dialogue: 4.5 Stars

Pacing: 5 Stars

Storyline: 4.5 Stars

Overall: 4.5 Stars

A Critique of Penn Gilette's "Commandments"

Penn Gilette is an atheist I deeply, deeply respect. Much of what he says I agree with. A few years back he put out his own version of the '10 Commandments'. I think they are worth a look, and as a person who often shows respect by thoughtful disagreement, I think a few are worth a think. My comments will be in Red. 

1. The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all.
I don't have any problem here except that I don't understand what an ideal is to an atheist. I understand IDEAS about right and wrong, about what we should or shouldn't do, but I don't understand what an ideal is. An ideal, as I understand it, is related to platonic ideas about abstract forms. To say something is an 'ideal' is to give it a special ontological status. My response to this is 'what the hell are you talking about?' Love, creativity, intelligence, these are no more 'special' in an atheistic universe than any other chemical reaction. They are just stuff that happens in the brain, that is all they are. It may be true even without God that we should pursue intelligence, creativity, and love, but that doesn't make them any different than anything else. I suppose one could be some kind of platonist about these things without believing in God, but I think belief in abstract ideals that actually 'exist' and that set the pattern of proper behavior in the physical world is really a kind of pantheism rather than atheism (why is this? Well that is a good question for another blog post).

2. Do not put things or even ideas above other human beings. (Let's scream at each other about Kindle versus iPad, solar versus nuclear, Republican versus Libertarian, Garth Brooks versus Sun Ra— but when your house is on fire, I'll be there to help.)
There are some ideas worth dying for, and perhaps even worth killing for. If I idealize freedom and am not willing to fight or die for it, but you idealize tyranny but you are, then tyranny wins, every time. In the end, a person with nothing bigger than himself to die for really has nothing bigger than himself to live for. If you think about it, #2 really contradicts #1. Intelligence, creativity, and love are in themselves ideas as well as ideals (can something be an ideal without being an idea? Hmmmm....), if they are the 'highest' then they are worth dying for. I don't see how one can recognize an ideal as worth dying for without in principle putting that ideal above human beings.

3. Say what you mean, even when talking to yourself. (What used to be an oath to (G)od is now quite simply respecting yourself.)
I have no problem with this as a goal, but in practice I think it is more complicated than Teller thinks. Atheists often fall into the trap of being sure that they 'know who they are' and 'are honest with themselves.' I find self-knowledge to be something essentially mystery. I am a mystery to myself. I find myself in being known, not in knowing. It is in knowing that God knows me that I know myself. Some kind of direct contact with my own motivations and reasons, intentions and self-causes is not really there. 

4. Put aside some time to rest and think. (If you're religious, that might be the Sabbath; if you're a Vegas magician, that'll be the day with the lowest grosses.)
No problem here. I just think that the profundity of rest, the almost divine experience of resting, is an experience that is itself a sign of the divine presence. Resting is a signal of transcendence. 

5. Be there for your family. Love your parents, your partner, and your children. (Love is deeper than honor, and parents matter, but so do spouse and children.)
No problem here either. 

6. Respect and protect all human life. (Many believe that "Thou shalt not kill" only refers to people in the same tribe. I say it's all human life.)
Good one. 

7. Keep your promises. (If you can't be sexually exclusive to your spouse, don't make that deal.)
My problem here is with his caveat about the spouse. "If you can't keep a commitment don't make one." Who ever knows for sure whether the commitment they are about to make is fail safe? Commitments are about acting in uncertainty, not in certainty. The truth is that commitment is the very thing that drives us to fidelity and trustworthy-ness. So much of what Teller says here is about playing it safe. Don't do anything without knowing for sure why. Don't commit without knowing you can. He can't really believe that he's that self-aware can he? And without reaching beyond what is possible, we will never reach the impossible. I say, commit beyond your abilities, do what you cannot do and then turn to God, and God will help push you beyond what you know is possible for yourself. Marriage is a leap into the unknown. Everything that is must push beyond what is possible for it and reach a place of real transcendence. Of course if 'me' is all there is in my soul then I cannot move beyond that limit. The ability to self-transcend is another sign of the divine presence. Commitment is how we self-transcend. 

8. Don't steal. (This includes magic tricks and jokes — you know who you are!)
Again no problem. 

9. Don't lie. (You know, unless you're doing magic tricks and it's part of your job. Does that make it OK for politicians, too?)
Really? Never? What about if a Nazi is looking to kill a jew hiding in your house and you are asked if you know where he is. 

10. Don't waste too much time wishing, hoping, and being envious; it'll make you bugnutty.
What is too much wishing and hoping? Wishing and hoping are part of what makes life grand, without it we are nothing. How do I know when enough is enough?

A Short But Fantastic Post At MavPhil

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2013/08/made-for-thinking.html

Not Really Off-Topic: An Argument Against Reason

P1: Memory is the primary foundation of reason
P2: If the primary foundation of reason is unreliable, then reason is unreliable
P3: Memory is unreliable
C: Reason is unreliable

Now, let me say from the get-go that I don't accept the conclusion, but the argument is valid and seems quite sound. P1 seems obvious to me. I can't undertake any of the doxastic practices of reason without memory. I could not create the above argument unless I remembered what a syllogism is, and how to put one together, what soundness and validity are, etc. There is no process of reasoning that does not rely on memory. We have to remember how to do math, how to do science, etc. And in science experiments have to be remembered and so on.

If you cannot trust your memory, then you cannot trust your reason. Yet memory is currently being undermined day in and day out by psychologists and neuroscientists. Science is building a mountain of evidence that memory is not reliable.

Here are a few examples:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hidden-motives/201203/unreliable-memory
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/07/ideas-bank/your-memories-are-made-to-be-reliably-unreliable
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2010/06/our-fresh-old-memories/


All you have to do is Google "memory unreliable" and you'll get a plethora of information on the subject. Now, let's say I am convinced by all of this that memory is, indeed, unreliable....like, generally unreliable. Then I have no reason to really accept any of the outputs of reason, since everything humans do when it comes to reasoning relies on human memory. In point of fact, my ability to reason is undergirded by a broader trust in my own ability to remember, and the abilities of others to remember as well.

So here's the rub, no matter what evidence science comes up with to the contrary, I will and indeed must always trust my memory and the memory of others. For science itself, the very methodologies of science, would be undermined by the removal of trust in memory. Science, by undermining memory, would be undermining itself, and my ability to trust the outputs of the scientific method.

Indeed the above argument CANNOT WORK, for if it did work, then indeed I would have no reason to accept the argument itself. It would be, ultimately, self-defeating. For I could not trust the argument if I did not trust my memory. This shows a limit of science: it cannot undermine its own foundations. Logic is a limit on what can meaningfully be said. Reason that undercuts its own foundations is not just false, its meaningless.

Extra bonus thought (God I love the freedom of blogging): There are evolutionary psychologists who are coming up with good 'reasons' why memory is and would be unreliable. They are creating an evolutionary account of the human mind that undercuts our ability to trust memory. But indeed that only leads to the conclusion that evolutionary psychology itself is unreliable. This reminds me of Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.

Tentative conclusion: I am justified in rejecting any evidence that undermines my ability to reason using evidence.

The Yin-Yang of Faith and Reason

As I continue my new apologetics course in ministry school, I realize that part of the reason I am put off by the particular approach in the book is because of my love for Miguel De Unamuno. Unamuno's book THE TRAGIC SENSE OF LIFE, is one of my favorite texts of all time and changed me as a person. In it Unamuno argues that there is a war in the human soul between faith and reason. He goes through a pretty detailed look at the substance of that war and builds a worldview from that context. Reason ends in despair and faith in skepticism, and from this dark place both work in tandem, through conflict and struggle, to build a picture of the world that is both believable and livable.

For Unamuno, the conflict must never end, for it is from this war that all genuine creativity comes, in both philosophy and religion. Faith defies reason, reason destroys faith, and from that endless struggle a true visions is born. I've found something like this to be true in my own life, and generally I try to keep the war going.

Bill Vallicella argues something similar over at Maverick Philosopher:
http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/athens-and-jerusalem/

What seems missing from my apologetics text is a recognition of this tension, of this war. "But", you may reply "you've spent a lot of time making the argument that faith is reasonable." Ah, yes, this is true. But the reason I use is admittedly (from the get-go) an uncertain reason, admitting of it's own shaky ground. I find the yin-yang symbol useful here. Within faith there is a touch of reason, and within reason there is a touch of faith. All reasoning need some ground of trust, and that trust in the end is itself 'groundless' in the sense of allowing no certainty. But philosophy and science seek to allow as little of this to enter as possible. Any philosopher of science KNOWS that something like faith is necessary to be able to talk about truth and knowledge, but they weed out as much as possible.

Faith cannot be in all ways unreasonable or irrational. But as I argued in CONVERSATIONAL THEOLOGY, some part of faith must be non-rational. It must go beyond what we know strictly by reason, well beyond. A faith, to be truly and honestly held, cannot be counter to what we know by science and philosophy, but it can move beyond it. A faith without any grounds is arbitrary, and our choice to follow God can never be arbitrary without loosing the ability to be honest, to make any claims to truth at all. Within my faith there is enough reason to build an actual vision or structure, but not enough to give certainty or security.

And on and on the war goes. Faith points to the trust in reason and says 'see, you do it to, Tu Quoque! Tu Quoque!" Reason points to the breadth of faith and says "you trust beyond the reasonable, in you there is no reason to believe." "Ah, but faith replies, there is reason, at least some reason, see I have it here." The war Unamuno saw was not as total as he thought, and he should've known this. For the connection he found in skepticism and despair stems from the inherent connection between faith and reason. These two forces at war are brother and sister, father and son, husband and wife. And from them, the very essence of 'me' is born.

Trust, God and Understanding

Proverbs 3:5-8
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and lean not on your own understanding.
⁶ In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.
⁷ Do not be wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
⁸ It will be a healing for your flesh
    and a refreshment for your body.


The first verse of this section ("Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding) is a favorite passage among Christians, especially fundamentalists. They use it as justification for taking the Bible absolutely literally. If someone turns to the trappings of science, and does not rely on Genesis 1 as a definitive account of not just why but how the universe is created, they are supposedly relying on their own understanding, and not God. Of course, if one pointed out to them that it is circular and thus fallacious (an example of the 'fallacy of begging the question') to use a passage of the Bible to argue for plenary inerrancy, I guess to them that too would be leaning on one's own understanding. 

But in point of fact this passage, to paraphrase THE PRINCESS BRIDE "does not mean what they think it means". As is usually the case, it is important to look at it in context. The seventh verse really gives us a foundation for interpreting the rest of the text. The issue is NOT one of taking the Bible as an end-all be-all when it comes to knowledge. It is about being comfortable with mystery and accepting the limited nature of all human knowing.

If you say 'well I know this because the Bible tells me so', guess what? You are relying on your own understanding no less than the scientician who thinks that science gives all knowledge. For it is not God who translated or reads the Bible, it is you. And it is not God who interprets what you read (and it is impossible to read anything without interpretation) it is you. This passage is about trusting in the fact that we do not know, but God knows. That we are not love, but God is. It is about saying, 'yes, well, I cannot be sure if this is the right thing, but I'm going to do the best I can and throw myself on the mercy of God.' It is about acting in uncertainty, repentance and most importantly humility.

The Bible-thumper who thinks he 'knows' and is comfortable in that knowledge is just as guilty as violating this seeming commandment as the scientician who is confident that the human mind is capable of discerning any and all truth. We stand before mystery, and are confronted with the unknowable every day. Christians and non-Christians alike. Believers and non-believers alike, are faced with the limits of their own knowing. The issue is what attitude one will take before that mystery. Will one admit that one does not know, but be able to act anyways in the confidence that God does know? Can one accept that they don't even really know themselves, but that they are loved by a God who knows them? These are the questions that the passage brings up.

It is not about the ability to discern God's will. It is about the limit of that ability. I am not wise, but I stand before wisdom. I do not know, but I am known. This is the meaning of the passage. Or, rather, I think it is, I believe it is. And if I'm wrong, after all, it is God who judges.

Off-Topic: DC Animated

If you've never seen DC's animated series and films, I highly recommend you chreck them out. They are unbelievable. Entertaining, thematically rich, artistically interesting...some of the best film and television has to offer.

Great examples include:

BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES
SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES
JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE ANIMATED SERIES
JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED : THE ANIMATED SERIES
GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT (film)
WONDER WOMAN (film)
YOUNG JUSTICE: THE ANIMATED SERIES
BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD (film)
BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM (film)
ALL-STAR SUPERMAN (film)
SUPERMAN VS THE ELITE (film)
BATMAN: THE DARK NIGHT RETURNS (Parts 1 & 2) (film)

Bible Trivia of the Day

I'm starting a new series here, a near-daily Bible trivia, I'll post the question during the day and the answer at night.

Today's question is:
"The offspring of angels and humans are called what in the Bible?"

Knowing The Bible

I just saw my first episode of THE AMERICAN BIBLE CHALLENGE. I know its been around a long time, but I don't have cable, so I've had to wait for syndication. I loved it. I got probably 75-80% of the questions. Studying the Bible can be fun. I enjoy KNOWING scripture. I think it is important, if nothing else simply for consistency. If we say scripture is the center, we as Christians must KNOW it. The stories can be fun and endearing. I love my life.

DC, Marvel & The Soteriology Of Comics

It is clear that there is a difference between the way Marvel and DC approach it's heroes and the idea of "saving". There is, interestingly, an underlying soteriology operating behind both "worlds". In the Marvel universe, salvation is something that ultimately comes from within the human condition. More specifically, it is the extraordinary individuals among us who can and will save us from the forces that threaten us. Spider-Man, Captain America, The Fantastic Four, these are extraordinary individuals who through luck and personal genius attain the positions that allow them to use their "extraordinariness" to help and even save the world.

Marvel is secular or at the very least humanist. Even those characters who do descend "from on high" like Thor or Silver Surfer come to Earth and dwell among humanity for their own self-help. Humanity offers help to its "gods", the divine is not the source of our salvation.

In DC, most of the characters, certainly the biggest, come from a transcendent (in multiple senses of that word) worlds to come to earth to offer the help we need. Wonder Woman and the Green Lanterns are sent on missions to humanity. Superman is sent in hope for all he can do for us. Even Batman in some sense descends from a world of wealth to save the helpless. Underlying DC's world is the idea that we need salvation from "on high"... we cannot find the salvation we need from within.

Common people are not looked down upon. No one is inherently "special" but neither is any person inherently better than anyone else. Superman on several occasions derides a villain who sets himself as somehow "better" than the common man. There is no marvelesque Nietszchean twist.

It is interesting that the older I get, the more I am attracted to DC over Marvel. I still love much of the Marvelverse, but DC is the center of my interest. When I was young, I saw myself as special and amazing, and fantasized about being Spider-Man or Iron Man. After all the mistakes I've made, knowing now that I cannot save myself much less than anyone else, I only hope in the darkness that perhaps God will use me to further his own activity in the world. It is clear why today I read more Superman than Spider-Man.

The Quandary of Beauty and Wonder

Martha Nussbaum, in her must-read book UPHEAVALS OF THOUGHT, says that awe and wonder are non-Eudaimonistic emotions, spontaneous recognitions of inherent value in the thing experienced. Beauty, too, is much like this. Beauty, for all the Buddhist protestations against it, is a kind of universal invitation to attachment. Buddhists create sand art that they destroy with one stroke, to represent the impermanence of life. But in point of fact, there is a tension between the beauty of the art and its destruction. The gesture of the sand art is, interestingly enough, a recognition of the tension, for the significance in destroying the beauty is a kind of pronouncement against the message of beauty in general.

The world can be so wonderful, experienced as so incredible, that it almost automatically brings one to an attitude of worship. Awe and wonder are almost spontaneous worshipful responses, and they rise up in us all the time. Great beauty inspires worship. That is simply what it means to really give oneself over to the experience of the aesthetic. Beauty comes to us as information-bearing, any and all instantiations of beauty seem to be very much like a message. That message is one of sublimity and goodness. The world SEEMS TO BE saying to us: 'yes, to this you can fully give yourself.'

But in a godless universe, this is nothing more than a trick, and a trap. For all beauty is, in point of fact, passing in this world, as the Buddhist gesture attests to. Death is the final word on all that is wonderful and awe-inspiring. The horror, then, is that in the shadow of death beauty becomes something not wonderful, but terrible. For what purpose can it serve, but to remind us of all that we cannot have? What can it do but reinforce the fact that our life is inevitably incomplete? Beauty becomes the ultimate lie, an invitation to play acting and nothing more. It just makes the horror of the darkness that surrounds human life that much starker.

The very fact that the Buddhist sand art is destroyed attests to the 'danger' Buddhists see in beauty, for they recognize the message it sends. The destruction of the beautiful is a kind of saying 'no' to that message. But what if we take the message as it stands? What if we choose, in spite of the counter-evidence, to trust our experience of the beautiful? Then awe and wonder become intimations of the very eternity we seek. We say 'no, this is what it means to be human and I will not run from it', and then we let our actions and attitudes guide our beliefs. What is wrong with this? Isn't this just being honest about who we are as limited beings? You see the truth is that the passing of beauty becomes, to the person who is fully open to the wonder of the world, the death of God in the world. For if awe and wonder are autonomic responses of worshipfulness, then the fact of the passing of the object of awe can be nothing less than the destruction of that which is worthy of worship. Life becomes the story of crucifixion without resurrection.

But what if what appears to be divine is? What if eternity is calling us through those experiences to trust and choose in opposition to the counter-evidence? I think that they are, especially when taken in context of a whole range of other human experiences. Beauty is not the passing of the divine into nothingness. It is a momentary in-breaking of Eternal Divinity, into the ever-changing theatre of the mortal coil.

One-Post Wednesday: The Naive Moral Argument

One thing you would have noticed was missing from my apologetics project was the moral argument as classically conceived. The moral argument roughly runs like this:

P1: If morality is only objective if God chooses what is right and wrong
P2: Morality is objective
C1: God chooses what is right and wrong

We need an added step to get the conclusion we actually want, so if C1 is correct then the following argument is also correct:

P1: God cannot choose what is right and wrong unless God exists
P2: God does choose what is right and wrong (Pace C1)
C2: God exists

The overarching philosophical theory that morality derives from God's command is called 'Divine Command Theory'. Most Christians are Divine Command theorists even if they don't realize it. Note that if the above arguments 'work' then Divine Command Theory is true necessarily. Further, if Divine Command Theory is false, then the above arguments cannot work.

Divine Command Theory has a big problem though, and it was pointed out by Plato a long time ago (399 BC, roughly) in a work known as EUTHYPHRO. It is set up as a dialogue between Socrates and an interlocutor named Euthyphro. Euthyphro essentially argues that the will of 'the gods' defines what is right and wrong. This is basically a Hellenized version of the Divine Command Theory. Socrates retorts by pointing out the following problem:

Why does God (or the gods) will what he (they) wills as good? Is something good BECAUSE God wills it? Or does God will it because it is good?

If God wills what He wills because it IS good, then goodness is something outside of God. God could be an expert in the good, and that is all well and fine, but then goodness is something independent of God. If, on the other hand, whatever God wills is good by Him willing it, then it is possible (in modal language, there is a possible world) that God could will rape to be good, and then it would be good. "But God would never do that" someone might retort. Ah, but WHY wouldn't God do that? Because it would be wrong to? You can see how problematic the Socratic dilemma is.

Additionally, we call God 'good'. The Bible certainly does. But how can we describe God as good if goodness is simply whatever God wills? If God can will rape to be good, then it makes little sense to call God good. God is beyond moral categories, in that case.

The truth is that though most Christians are tacitly divine command theorists, in reality the Christian community pictures God not as willing the good, but as being good. Goodness simply is a reflection of God. Whatever God IS, that is what is good. In this sense God is the Platonic 'form of the good'. But one might ask why we need God, then, to posit goodness. Why can't there just BE a 'form of the good'? Moral truths can exist just as mathematical truths do: necessarily and abstractly.

A further problem with the naive moral argument is it ignores the mountains of work done by various philosophers and other thinkers who find ways to justify objective moral discourse without talking about God at all. Virtues ethics, utilitarianism, deontology...all of these have a wonderful tradition that includes tons of great work. We ignore that work at our peril. Ah, but you may point out that none of this work is conclusive, that we have no reason to give these endeavors the level of certainty we do, to say, science. But so what? Apologetics is no better. If people who believe in God, with their own uncertain and risky grounds, have the right to believe in God, then certainly the atheistic moral objectivist has similar rights to believe in a moral order, and leave it at that.

Is there no answer to the Euthyphro problem? Is Divine Command Theory dead? To my mind, it is. And so is the naive or simple moral argument. But William Wainright came the closest to making me believe DCT was still viable in his wonderful, must-read book RELIGION AND MORALITY.

It is also in that book that I found much better, surer moral arguments that don't suffer from the weakness of being dependent on the DCT. Wainwright's version of Kant's Moral Argument, and his argument from the phenomenology of moral experience, I find much more persuasive. Indeed, the strongest moral argument I know is from Peter Berger in his book A RUMOR OF ANGELS. His inductive faith arguments are the best I've encountered anywhere.

But all of these argue not from the fact of morality, but from what it is like to BE moral, from moral experience. Such an argument lays claim to less certainty than the naive moral argument does. They aim not at proving God's existence, but to show that it is reasonable to believe in God, that we do have some evidence, however uncertain, that God exists. They aim to provide reasons to believe, not reasons to know. In the end, any good apologetic seeks this more modest end. It is the only way to speak to the risk and venture of the religious endeavor, without just willy-nilly accepting for no good reason the label of 'irrational' that non-believers are so apt to slap on those who believe.

Purified By Hell, Empowered By Heaven

I'm in this weird pattern where every night I have first a gut-wrenching, horrific nightmare or vision that is hellish in nature. I wake up Midnight-1 AM sweating and out of breath from the terror of it all. Then about 3 AM I usually have some transcendent, heavenly dream. I am starting to wonder if the nightmare is my soul cleansing itself of the evils thought and performed throughout the day. Like I have to face my sin to move past it. Then once faced and forgiven, I can move on to my deeper self, which is in the image of God. Am I being nightly purified by hell and then empowered by Heaven? It sure feels that way.

It Means Something

We all have the experience of having our lives mean something. Meaning is just a basic encounter with the world. But how often do we really reflect on what we mean by 'meaning'? Rarely, I gather.

When a person tells me that there is meaning even without God, I have to wonder what they mean. I know what I mean by talking about meaning, but I'm not sure what they mean. I guess they mean that things 'mean something' to them. But what does 'mean something' parse out to? If someone helps them, it has a positive 'effect' on them, that is the answer I usually get. But doesn't this just amount to saying that they like or don't like certain things? Is that all meaning amounts to?

In truth, this isn't simply what they mean. What they are talking about is having some kind of impact on the world. But, in truth, not all impact can be meaningful. If I hurt you, that has an impact on you too. But that means that hurting people is just as meaningful as helping them. Does this sound right to you? It doesn't to me.

Of course mattering 'to me' isn't really enough anyways, despite the hand waving. "Matters to me" can't be equivalent to "it matters" any more than "it is purple to me" is the same as "it is purple." If a person sees green as purple because of some genetic defect, then the purple appearance to that individual has no real bearing on the actual color of the object. A momentary, subjective encounter with meaning is no sign that anything is, in fact, meaningful.

A person may momentarily try to insist that a passing meaning is enough, but in point of fact, they betray that it is not enough in various ways. Most people (and I've found this is particularly true of atheists), want to make an impact that lasts beyond them. They care about being remembered, they care about creating something that has a long effect in this world. People are fascinated by ancient things like the pyramids because they have lasted so long. They are in awe of mountains because they seem eternal. Awe and wonder are responses to perceived significance. Additionally, as soon as you seek remembrance beyond your lifetime as a route to meaning you have already admitted that 'life is not enough.' The momentary change in my own being is not enough to satisfy your sense of significance.

In point of fact, though, both 'mattering to me' and 'making an impact beyond myself' are both important components in understanding our experience of meaning. The truth is that making an impact beyond oneself is only important because one might make an impact on others' subjective experience. One wonders why we stand in such awe of stars and mountains, frozen by their seeming meaning, if much of that is about their lasting without observation. Who cares if a mountain is there forever, if there is no one there to see it. Subjective experience, while on it's own not enough to account for meaning, is still an important part of it.

So let me suggest that, in the end, our talk of meaning really parses out to something else: significance. We want to know that what we do makes an impact, and impression, that really lasts. Reflection always threatens our sense of meaning, because it threatens our sense of significance. That mountain may seem significant, and thus meaningful, because it lasts a long time. But we know that next to the span of the universe, that sense of significance is reduced to nothing, for a mountain's lifespan is tiny compared to the lifespan of the universe in which it dwells. Similarly, contemplation of the universe makes us aware of our own insignificance, because it reveals just how tiny we are. The momentary changes in our experience even more so.

A universal context may seem to save our sense of mattering and meaning and significance, but in reality it doesn't. For it is quite likely the universe is just one instantiation of an eternal set of physical laws. And 15 billion years is nothing, nothing, nothing...bare nothingness, compared to eternity. What's more, what we want to have a lasting impact is that which we value. That is why our intuitions about meaning are frustrated when we realize that other people value things we consider evil. What matters to me is this moment, this subjective encounter with the world. There will never be another me, looking out over the beauty of the world, and soaking it all in as me. That subjective encounter with the world, that experience of this moment, which is mine and can be no one else's, is what I really value. That is why changes in that subjectivity seem meaningful in themselves.

But those changes lack significance, because they fail to make any lasting change in the world. Think about this: if you were a robot, with no subjective experience, but all the same behaviors, your impact on the world would be the same. For all the glory of our own subjective encounter with the world, they make no difference. They have no real impact. They are, in fact, meaningless.

So in the end I think all our talk of meaning really grounds out in a search for the eternal. We are looking for that endless ground in the sea of change. Buddhists and Platonists talk about looking for a 'changeless' ground, but in fact that isn't quite right. What we want is a place where the changes we make in ourselves find eternity, where our subjective encounter makes a difference in the world.

I want to suggest to you here that only process conceptions of divinity speak to the fullest range of our experience of meaning. Only in a certain understanding of God as sharing in life and thus eternalizing our own encounter with the world, can we find some sense in our talk of meaningfulness. What I experience is my own, and it is as me, but it is shared by God. Every change, every positive value experienced, every beauty known, as me, by me, is also known as me, but by God. What happens to us, and what we do, both have an eternity in the life of God. In this way what matters TO ME has at least the potential to really matter, since experienced value is shared by God, remembered by God, and makes a difference in the life of God. Who, incidentally, also uses that value to help build the world, not just now but forever. We find the eternity we seek, and the ability to make a difference too.

Some may question why an eternal meaning is to be preferred to a momentary meaning. To answer this, I can only point back to our desire to be remembered, our awe at long standing structures and natural formations, and our dissatisfaction at knowing our subjectivity dissipates into nothingness. It is not like we have a choice between a momentary meaning and eternal meaning, making an eternal difference through our subjective encounter is just what meaning IS, on this account. I really can't understand it any other way. I've tried. You may know what you mean when you talk about a momentary and passing 'meaning', but I don't know what you mean. Significance has to do with scale, and no scale can satisfy a mind that can abstract except an eternal and infinite scale. Everything else is just smoke, to me.

Some Nights

There is this song by the band Fun called "Some Nights." There is this one line where the singer talks about how his sister's love was a 'con' but that when he looks into his nephew's eyes he sees the amazing things that come from some terrible lies. That line speaks to me, very much. It is the theme of my life. I am a liar, and I have done everything in my life wrong. Yet God somehow brought me to a place beyond my imagination, a place of grace and even plenty. It also reminds me of that line from BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES where Commissioner Gordon talks about Batman reaching into the muck and being willing to get his hands dirty. Or the SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION where the main character "crawls through 1500 yards of waste and filth I don't want to imagine" and comes out "clean on the other side". Grace is transformation. God reached into my life and took garbage and made in into a diamond. Truly, this is the power of God: the power to receive, to transform and to transmit. Maybe this is why the Combat Motif appeals to me so much: the idea of God creating something good out of the chaotic monster speaks to the pattern of my own life.

Psalm 82 Again

Psalm 82 was one of the readings in church this Sunday. I've written on it before. It is one of my favorite Psalms, for various reasons. It is a mystery and mysterious passages are often my favorite. The mystery is this: who are the 'gods' of which Yahweh speaks in the Psalm?

It may be that Yahweh is referring to the kings of Israel and Judah, the Davidic line whose members were adopted by God as His own children. That act of adoption elevated them to levels beyond humanity but only slightly less than divine. Yet these kings acted in often terrible ways. They did not lead God's people as they should. Perhaps this Psalm is about God's desire to remove them from office and take direct control of His people.

Or it may refer to the so-called sons of god from Genesis 6. Semi-divine or angelic beings that God had set over the world, to govern it. They fell from grace by their bad stewardship, and so God is promising to remove them from power and take direct control of the world. On this latter interpretation, the Psalm is about answering the problem of evil and looking forward to the End Times when it will be a problem no more.

The simple fact is that either interpretation is a good one, and it is unlikely we have any way to know for sure which is the correct one. That mystery is what attracts me to the passage. Additionally, the language is powerful and moving. The poetry is sublime here, it is simply the best the Psalms have to offer. It is an easy and exciting text to read out loud. For all of these reasons and more, this is one of my favorite Psalms.

MavPhil On The Comforts of Naturalism

Here:
http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2013/08/would-naturalism-make-life-easier.html

This strikes me as largely right. There are psychological benefits to both belief and unbelief. Those benefits show neither one to be purely wish-fulfillment. Or could both be?

The Faith of Jonah & The Faith of the Ninevites

Many Christians' favorite pass times is to judge the faith of other Christians. What is demanded of each and everyone is a kind of absolute certainty or a commitment that allows of itself no cracks. Such a level of certitude and commitment may be commendable, but it seems to me that faith, whatever it amounts to, cannot be boxed in so easily. 

One can see this in the Book of Jonah. Jonah is not a very good person, nor a very nice person, but he is a person of deep faith. When the boat he is sailing in meets a terrible storm, he sleeps soundly in the confidence that, in the end, he is protected as a prophet of God. Everything Jonah does is grounded in the presupposition that whatever happens, God will take care of him. And indeed, over and over again that faith turns out to be justified. When Jonah faces death in the jaws of the great deep, God send a fish to save him from death. Salvation is, for Jonah, retreating from victory that is already assured. 

The faith the Ninevites find is very different. They are given no hope in Jonah's message. Some people focus on the fact that the Ninevites repent, and make the mistake of attributing a message of repentance to Jonah. But in point of fact, Jonah's message is unambiguously negative. "In Forty Days this city shall fall", this is the substance and limit of Jonah's message. The Ninevites repentant response to that message is unsolicited. They act without knowledge and lacking any certainty. "Perhaps", they say "God will relent and save our city." Their faith is not an act of certainty, but of uncertainty. It is a groping in hope, a whim and a prayer. 

But the Ninevites receive in their uncertainty the same salvation Jonah does. Their hope is justified as Jonah's confidence was. We all go around spending time defining faith any number of ways, often using very limited English understandings of the Hebrew and Greek concepts of faith to create a box that either someone fits into or doesn't. Perhaps, in the end, what God really wants from people is honesty. There may be more honesty in the hopeful doubter than in self-righteous certainty. And some people who grope in the darkness grope in only the false illusion of hope, and not with any real desire to live differently as a result of their quest. For God, faith may be a much wider thing than we think it is. I for one, hope so. 

On Gross Misuse of the Big Bang Theory

Both atheists and theists are apt to get modern physics to bear more metaphysical weight than it can. Scientists try to turn scientific theories in to scientistic (pertaining to the philosophical position of scientISM) panaceas and theologians try to turn them into some kind of evidence for the existence of God. Science is supposed to disassociate from metaphysical beliefs, and so in both cases most of what is going on is sophisticated BS-ing. 

Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking have both written that science has explained how the universe can come into existence 'out of nothing'. They do this by claiming that the laws of physics can be eternally existing, and so all of space, time, matter and energy can derive from them. This is the worst kind of BS, as it is simply speaking out of both sides of one's mouth. For whatever the laws of physics amount to, they are not 'nothing'. You cannot explain how something can come from nothing by showing how something can come from something. What's more, and Hawking well knows this, whether the laws of physics are eternally existing is a controversial statement. For the Big Bang Theory is simply this: the farther one looks out on the universe, the smaller and hotter the universe will look, until one reaches a certain point beyond which no information can be gleaned. The universe expanded and cooled as time went on. That is the first and simplest part of the Big Bang Theory. The universe exists as a singularity, and so beyond a certain point, we can receive no new information about the universe. This is the second and more difficult part of the theory.

We don't know what happened before the universe began expanding and cooling, and indeed we probably cannot know. Scientists form beliefs about this stuff based on mathematics and certain epistemic values. But belief is not knowledge. There can be no doubt that one can be completely rational and consistent without belief in God, by appealing to eternally existing physical laws as the foundation upon which all other things exist. But one cannot appeal to those eternally existing laws and then claim one believes the universe came 'from nothing'. One is denying the universe did, indeed, come from nothing.

Theologians on the other hand point to the Big Bang Theory as some point at which the universe 'began'. They then posit God's existence as a first cause. But the BBT doesn't SAY that the universe began at some certain point. It simply says that there is a point beyond which we cannot KNOW anything, because the universe is a singularity. People like Hawking, who is one of the fathers of the modern BBT, believe that something DID exist before the Big Bang: eternally existing physical laws. You may think that the term 'before' doesn't apply because the Big Bang began time, but this stems from a misunderstanding about physics: at a quantum level, relativity doesn't apply, and quantum events are describable in terms of absolute time. Appealing to the Big Bang as some 'beginning' for the universe shows a gross misunderstanding of how physics works and what the BBT actually says.

Take as an example: some physicists believe that there are universes inside of black holes. And indeed, our own universe may be inside a black hole in another universe. This is a strange theory, and you may think it sounds absurd, but the mathematics works and so some scientists think it is a viable theory. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But the point is that there are ways of understanding the BBT that make room for an eternally existing universe, if one uses the term universe to mean "the sum of all of physical reality". 

The eternality of the physical universe doesn't really have much bearing on whether God exists. For the universe can be eternal, and still supervene on God. The question is one of metaphysical contingency and necessity, not of causal priority. God doesn't have to some how 'precede' the universe for the universe to be in need of God for it's existence. The question is whether the laws of the universe are contingent or necessary. Do they stand in need of explanation or not? Answering this question is a matter of feeling and intuition, and it isn't clear which is right. There is certainly no scientific way to adjudicate the problem. There are some matters that require choice: one cannot run from taking responsibilities for one's beliefs. This is true even in highly abstract and philosophical issues. One should not seek to yoke up the trappings of science to flee from them. 

For more on this, see this post:

http://ljtsg.blogspot.com/2013/08/on-first-causes-and-explanations.html

Not-Really Off Topic: Quantum Leap

I recently finished a Bible study using the old 80s television show Quantum Leap. Now I'm rewatching the series. Man, this show was good. Additionally, it was a show that I could've used as a Bible study for like five years. This was such an interesting, absurdist (in the best way) hodgepodge of science fiction and faith play. It was DOCTOR WHO meets TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL. Becket was a time traveller whose experiment was taken over by God. Like God was waiting for someone to do what he did so The Big Guy would have this new weapon against evil. The experience of being leapt from life to life captured the called life perfectly. You touch lives, you move on. I often reflect on all the relationships I've forged in my life as a youth minister, many very intense but short lived. I've cried as I've said goodbye to many people, only to move into new duties with new people to care about almost instantly. I feel like Sam, doing my God-given duty, working on the world like a Kingdom Builder, but living like my home is Somewhere Else.

One-Post Birthday: Re-Post On Sabbath

Today is my birthday, and I am taking it as a Sabbath. To understand why this is important, check out this re-post from a few months ago. It is a reflection on the Sabbath

http://ljtsg.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-importance-theological-significance.html

The Importance & Theological Significance of Sabbath

The Sabbath was a very important religious development in Hebrew religion. In it is a profound moral truth which is more and more being recognized by science and secular philosophy, and an even more profound theological truth that is often missed. 

Today will be a Sabbath for me. It will be a one post day, and I am off of work (both jobs). I will do as little work of any kind as possible. The Bible's concept of Sabbath pulls in, in one fell swoop, the entire meditative tradition found in other philosophies. We need quietness, and a time set aside for extended introspection and indeed worship. We think that only activity is productive, but indeed rest and inactivity can be very productive if the goal is shoring up the inner resources needed for the rest of life. This message, as you can tell, is the corollary to the one I gave on 2/3. Life is work and play, and work and play are good. But a life that is void of extended periods of inactivity loses the vitality that makes those activities spiritually productive. Indeed, there are several studies that show the health benefits of having a time of Sabbath.

The theological significance is that in this period of inactivity and rest we see some fundamental truth about the divine. The Old Testament tells us that the Sabbath was established by God's day of rest after the creation of the world. Almost all living things have some period of inactivity, of something like sleep or rest. And indeed many non-living complex systems seem to have natural 'rest' periods as well. Few ever really reflect on the Biblical insight that this tendency is grounded in the nature of God. For it reveals a God that is NOT completely invulnerable and self-sufficient. An in-all-ways all-powerful God has no need for rest. 

We need to rest, we need Sabbath. But we need to rest REFLECTIVELY and thus the importance of worship as a part of Sabbath. For in our resting we can find a window into the life of God. 

One-Post Wednesday- My Grand Apologetics Project: Conclusion

Conclusion

So in the end, I think I've been a little sneaky in this apologetics. Sneaky in the sense that I have not tried to really argue for the existence of God in the traditional sense of making up some kind of proof to the end that God exists. I have rather, in a kind of roundabout way, tried to show that belief in God is basic to many of our most basic encounters with the world. I'm showing you that at times, whether you believe or not, you act, and feel, as if you believe.

In the end, we are stuck with the basic questions that started the journey: is life really an adventure? Am I at one with the whole of things? More precisely: is fundamental vulnerability a fact of life and is it a good thing? Our deepest, most affective experiences may be nothing more than illusions, lies we have to live to make it through a hard life. But Charles Pierce once said you should never doubt in your philosophy that which you sincerely believe in your heart. I cannot, for one, live one way and believe another. To do so creates in me a cognitive dissonance that leads only to despair and angst.

I have lived long enough to know that vulnerability is kind of the key to everything. Living a full life means learning to come to terms with, and navigate, vulnerability. Yet vulnerability and our ability to navigate it is very tricky indeed. There is a strength that hides weakness, and weakness that exists as a kind of strength. Any attempt to show the reasons for belief in God that tries to side step this vulnerability undercuts truth, and I continue to be committed first and foremost to the truth.

Humor, play, vulnerability, meaning, the moral quest, beauty...these are fundamental to my very existence. More than that, they are everything that makes life worth living. I can pretend to be some 'strong person' who can live with lies when necessary and put them aside when they are not. But that is not me, and being honest about that is the most rational thing a person can do, I think.

Is it you? In your heart, are you that boy I spoke of in Part 9, pretending to the world to be some mature adult who knows that his deepest desires have no satisfaction in life, but really hiding the fact that you do, in fact believe. Apologetics, when done honestly, admits of uncertainty, because life simply is uncertain. This project was more about giving permission to believe, about asserting what William James called 'the right to believe.' That is as far as this kind of project can really go. The pretense to certainty is a way of undercutting the adventure which was supposed to be the entire reason why we care about this religion stuff in the first place. I am a Christian because I believe that the Bible, understood properly, helps us see the world as it is: a place of both goodness and risk, a place where we can embrace all we are and be true to ourselves and the brute facts with which the world confronts us.

Despite all that, let me end with a bold statement: I truly believe that religion, in the end, is the more honest path, simply because it engages the fullest range of the human experience: both internal and external. It is about bringing together ALL we know: about ourselves and about our world. But I do not think I can prove that statement true. But I can, I think, argue that it is rational to accept it. If I've done that here, then I've accomplished much. I tried to make my case, and that is really all anyone is required to do. You state why you believe what you believe, you give your account, and then leave the argument out there for people to evaluate on their own. In the end no one is the final arbiter of your place as a rational agent besides you and God.

My Grand Apologetics Project Part 8

I'm bringing this back because I've decided to turn the whole series into a booklet to give people when they try to prod me about why I believe. It would be nice to say 'well just read this'.

Part 8: Some Other Reasons To Believe

Part of what I've tried to do in this project is to show people how they already, at various times, live and act AS IF they believe in God. I think that I have shown fairly conclusively that many paradigm human experiences put us in a place attitudinally in a place that is already very much like faith. That we must then make a decision as to whether we are going to 'leap into' these experiences is something that is harder to argue for, but I think I've done a good job there. But the element of choice cannot be denied. In the end, we choose one way or another what we believe on these issues. I only think I need to show that the choice is not 'arbitrary' and starts from somewhere genuinely reflective to show that religion is indeed rational. 

In the end, though, there are a number of other practical reasons to believe that help push us in the direction of faith. I would not appeal to these on their own as arguments for belief. But they reasons to believe besides. I address some of those here. 

a. The Ultimate Play
If you ever go to a comic book convention, you will see a great many people play acting parts from movies, television and video games. People live into fantasy all the time 'as if' it is real. There is this great scene from the film GALAXY QUEST, where a trekker-like fan of the fictional show GALAXY QUEST is talking to one of the actors, who is now trapped in outer space on an adventure taken straight from the episodes. The boy begins by explaining to the actor that he knows that GALAXY QUEST wasn't real, and that his grasp on reality is better than the actor gives him credit for. The actor stops the young man and says "its all real dude" and the young man yells out "I knew it!"

In the end, I think many of us have a part of us that believes in our fantasies and our dreams. It is scary to admit this, for we fear being thought a fool. Life is dangerous if you believe lies, and an unbending commitment to truth is important for any mature human being. But the hardest truths to face, sometimes, are truths about ourselves. The truth is that many of us are still just big kids, and in our deepest hearts we believe, maybe we know, that the adventures of imagination that thrill us are more than just fiction. Religion can exist as a kind of justification for this attitude. It points to a truth, too big for any one imaginative expression, that lends some reality to every such expression. This is the ultimate vindication of the earlier-discussed experience of play. Religion gives us permission to be ourselves.

b. The Quest For Meaning
When speaking about the meaning of life, you have to be careful. I do not want to deny that atheists do very good things and can be good people. Some of my best friends are non-believers. Denying a ground for purpose may be seen as denying them a ground for morality, and I am not arguing that. But all of us, all the time, live as if what we do matters. To me, talk of meaning is simply talk of 'making a difference'. It is a matter of doing something that seems to make the world a different place. We experience life as ultimately valuable. But that experience has no justification in an atheistic world. Appeals to 'mattering to people' have no weight. For what matters to one person or another, varies based on taste. The serial killer's actions are meaningful 'to him'. And if all possible decisions are meaningful, than none are. In this world, all you do is wiped away by death. The world will be no different for you having been here, in the end. Unless there is a God that sees what you do and remembers. In the mind of God we have hope to make a real, lasting difference. I think our experience of meaning and purpose can only rightly be made sense of in a world with God.

The Physical And The Mental

In ancient times, personal experience was everything. The truth of the matter is, that nothing is more present to us than the direct, phenomenal encounter with the world, or what is known as 'phenomenal consciousness'. Everything comes to me as this rich internal existence. Nothing is closer to me than my own mind, and indeed all that is exterior to that mind is received in and through it. Putting aside the question of pan-experientialism, what is surely true is that for me, at least Whitehead is right. Apart from experience there is nothing, nothing, nothing bare nothingness.

It makes some sense, then, that ancient peoples would seek to explain the physical in terms of the mental, or rather spiritual. That everything happened by the will of some Higher Being, made a lot of sense, since mind seems to each and every person, whether they realize this or not, as the more ultimate fact of life. The physical, then, was thought to be grounded out in the mental. Projecting mind, I think, is less about some evolutionary trick than simply about the fact that everything we encounter in the world is within the field of the experiential, and therefore the mental.

The scientific revolution did us a great service by ending this picture. Man is not the measure of all things. It is humbling, in a rather morally significant way, to realize that our mental life is not the field in which the physical take place but is rather something that exists within the very midst of the physical. We are physical beings, as much as we are mental beings. And the universe is a physical place. Focusing on the physical, an account of how physical systems worked became possible. We realized that physical events take place because of physical laws. It is the physical that explains the physical, not the mental. My physical existence is not explained by some appeal to some mind, but by realizing that I am a part of a physical universe. The story of what I am, of where I came from, is really the story of the entire cosmos. This is one of the benefits of adopting 'a view from the material'. I know now that my physicality, my being here physically, is the result of me sharing in the physicality of the universe. I exist because the universe exists, and my physical life, all that I am as an object is the result of my sharing in the materiality of the universe.

The problem with this view is that we now have little place for persons, for real minds within that system. Most scientistic thinkers have a hard time, if not an impossible time, fitting phenomenal experience into their picture of the world. Many deny the very existence of experience, which to me is tantamount to cutting off your pant legs and celebrating that you fit them into your suit case. Experience remains the most present part of life to each and every person. We need room in our worldview for persons, and not just physical bodies.

Thinking about the universe as having a mind, or being a person, makes some sense of this for me. Just as I participate in the physical nature of the universe, I can also participate in the mental. Mind, too, is for me a field in which I live. My consciousness is part of that which God is whole. Each and every thing's story is the story of the whole of existence. If this is true when it comes to the physical, if my physical existence is a participation in the physical existence of the universe itself, might not my mental existence similarly be a participation in the mental life of the whole?

We can see, too, then why ancient peoples were able to have some access to the mind that is over all and through all, for their focus was always on the consciousness that was so present to them. Their lives were mental lives first and foremost. We have gotten to the point where we focus more on material existence. But an either/or is not necessary here. We are physical and psycho-spiritual. Our story is the story of the Universe and of God.

All explanations end somewhere. Describing a falling ball in the context of a universal gravitational force leaves out the explanation of where that universal force came from. For the scientist the laws are the end of the story. They are brute facts, requiring no explanation. But it doesn't change the fact that the motion of the ball is now explained, and that a great many phenomenon remain now explained by the appeal to the universal law of gravitation.

Mind, too, may be best explained by appealing to a universal fact. God, universal mind, just is. It is as brute a fact as the existence of the physical laws. But explaining my own mind as participation in this Greater Mind does have explanatory value. Pan-psychism is an explanatory vision, then. But it is not science. For science is about the physical and the 'without'. Religion and this type of the philosophy of mind is about the psycho-spiritual, and the within.

On Intelligence & Faith

http://news.yahoo.com/religious-people-are-less-intelligent-than-atheists--study-finds--113350723.html#upCr476

This article sites extensive research that shows that, on average, the more intelligent you are the less likely you are to believe in God. There are some problems with the research, at least as it is presented in the article.

First of all, it cites some very old data without even commenting on new data, such as a more recent Pew Poll that found that more scientists believe in God than previously thought . Further, it defines being 'religious' simply by believing in God. For an extensive and important explanation for why this approach to defining 'religious' is off, I suggest Guenter Lewy's spectacular book WHY AMERICAN NEEDS RELIGION. Believing in God does not necessarily make one religious. Being religious is more about pulling one's social circle from a religious community. It also defines intelligence according to IQ score, which as my neuroscientifically minded friend Andy Forceno has told me many times, is a rather poor way to track overall intelligence. Finally, it didn't control for education or class differences. The fact is that it has long been known that the more educated and wealthy you are, the less likely it is that you will be religious.

But let me say that the general thrust of the article is probably correct: it is likely true that more intelligent people do, on average, believe in God less than those who are less intelligent. The article gives several reasons why this might be, the biggest being that intelligence creates material benefits that cause people to live less on the margins of life, and so they need religions less. This, no doubt, is a part of the equation. So on this point, too, the article gets it right.

Let me suggest that there is another, less wholesome reason why intelligence tracks with atheism: being smart tends to make one more full of oneself. One of the central tenets of Christianity is that the central sin is the desire to put the self above God. This impulse, this 'original sin' infects all we do, taking our greatest achievements and coloring them with ego. Intelligence is excellent food for the self-aggrandizing ego. It gives us an illusion of control and what is more, intelligence is power. That power is grand and amazing: the march of science and technology is impressive and this cannot be denied. But the temptation is to think that this power is more than what it is: that we know more than what we know and that we can control more than what we can control. I know this from personal experience: my intellectual arrogance is all but legendary. One of the reasons religion is so important to me is my monumental struggle against this tendency. Humility is born of knowing just how little one really knows, and how paltry is all human power. And the religious spirit seeks humility.

A scientist trusts in the power of his own mind, for good reason. That trust is not unwarranted. But the danger is believing that this trust has no real limits. Believing in oneself quickly falls into believing one is more than what one is. Towing that line is difficult. Deifying the mind may even, in some cases, help one push one's research to greater heights. But it is a poor environment for spiritual growth. Is it any wonder then, that the "less intelligent" (and I use the scare quotes deliberately) who are sometimes far more self-aware than the "more intelligent", aware of their own limits, are more likely to be aware of just how reliant they are on something deeper and broader than themselves? And this brings up another, more fundamental problem with the article: there is a kind of intelligence that can't easily be tested for...moral intelligence and self-awareness. There is a spiritual IQ that may be lacking in those who pass standardized tests, but who hold those of us who only can stand in awe of their deeper brilliance to listen like children at their feet.

Book smarts come relatively easy to me. I can grasp what a text says and remember it with some ease. But humility of spirit, knowing what the right thing to do in any situation, empathy and awe and wonder gleaned from the everyday...I find these far more challenging. I have known people who believed in a 6 day creation who understood some other truths I have only begun to fathom. In the end, I prefer that deeper knowing, it is far more satisfying.

On First Causes And Explanations

In my ministry school, I am entering my senior year which focuses on philosophy and theology. I expect to do quite well this year, to be honest. These are just things I'm good at. As I engaged in the home study this weekend, one of the issues that came up was that of the Cosmological Argument. The CA is basically the idea that the universe had to have a first cause, and that the best posit for this 'first cause' is an agent, and thus this proves, or at least lends credence to belief in, the existence of God.

I am loathe to get into the arguments in detail here. To learn more, in ascending order of scholarship and difficulty, you can read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/
http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/cosmological-arguments/
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/in-defense-of-the-kalam-cosmological-argument

My main goal here is to talk about two particular objections my study guide brought up, given to us by Bertrand Russell. In it Bertrand Russell brings up two points:
1) If everything that exists must exist because of some 'cause', and God exists, then God too must need some 'cause' to explain his existence. Thus the Cosmological Argument is set on a vicious regress.
2) Given (1), it must be reasonable to posit something existing forever. The universe is as good a candidate for something that eternally exists as any. The universe doesn't need some 'first cause', agent or otherwise, it could've always existed.

The thing that Russell fails to realize or address (I don't know which), is simply that we have varying intuitions about what kind of thing stand in need of explanation. Some facts 'cry out' for an explanation. Some facts do not. People can easily conceive of some things needing causes and other things they easily conceive of not having any cause at all. Take a simple example: "2+2=4". This simple, mathematical fact, doesn't strike me (and I doubt it strikes most people, if anyone) as in need of an explanation. People accept this as a brute fact, one that could not possible be false. Followers of Plato, of course, conceive of these things existing as abstracta, as some kind of timeless forms in an abstract world. Most necessary truths, truths that cannot conceivably be otherwise, strike us as standing 'in no need of explanation'.

In point of fact there are some necessary truths that DO cry out for explanation, at least to some people. Take this one: "every contingent being requires something other than itself to exist." This is an analytic truth, derived from the meaning of 'contingent', and it is no less hard and unchangeable as "2+2=4". But in fact it does require an explanation, for it requires an intelligible world in order to be true. So it stands in some kind of need for explanation.

Now we know that the physical existence of the universe does indeed require an explanation, because the quest for such an explanation is a basic component of the methodologies of modern theoretical physics. What is at issue is whether the physical laws on which that universe supervene 'cry out' for an explanation. Does it make sense to just accept them as existing necessarily? Or are they the kind of thing that must be explained, that must require some cause to make sense of their existence. In fact physicists themselves differ on this point. Some say 'yes' others say 'no'. Some believe that SOME of the laws exist necessarily, while others don't, and some think they all exist necessarily and without need for cause.

And what about God? Would God, if He exists, be the kind of thing that 'cries out' for an explanation. In point of fact, people have much more comfort just positing any spiritual being without the need for explanation. It is the physical universe that strike people as needing explaining. Once one has conceived of the spiritual, imagining its eternal existence isn't very hard. I have no problem imagining a world of many gods and spirits, where all of them have always been. But I have a much harder time conceiving of anything physical existing without cause or reason, though in point of fact, I do believe in an eternally existing physical universe (a consequence of my process theism).

The point is that our intuitions on these matters are unsure and uncertain. It seems reasonable to believe in an eternal universe, but it also seems reasonable to believe in a first cause of the universe, but not of God. We have many conflicting intuitions when it comes to the 'explanatory need' I've spoken of here. What is true is that for most people the physical almost naturally cries out for explanation, whereas the spiritual does not.

One last point to be made, this explanatory question extends to persons and purposes also. Most people take reasons as end points in a causal chain. "Why is there a pot of water boiling on the stove?" asks one person "Because I wanted tea", answers the other. Most people don't think any more explanation is required. A desire is the end of inquiry, for most. Of course many scientists do think are desires have antecedent causes, always, and they investigate those antecedent causes. Our very purposes stand in need of explanation for some, and not others. I am inclined to think that there are reasons that require causes and reasons that don't. Sometimes the causal chain ends with my decision. This, too, has some consequence when talking about God as First Cause.

Many of these thoughts are rough. I'm just thinking about what I would say to the teacher if I were talking to him. But those often produce the best results for a blog. Blogs are raw, not refined.

Off-Topic: Comic Book Reviews

Marvel's AVENGERS ARENA #12

Note: Though the issue feels a bit rushed, it continues what has been a good recent run of good writing for this book. Starting of slow, AA has been getting better and better. Today it is one of Marvel's best books.

Art: 2.5 Stars

Dialogue: 4 Stars

Pacing: 2.5 Stars

Storyline: 4 Stars

Overall: 4 Stars

DC's EARTH 2 #15

This issue is not the best this book has offered. The issue is split between two stories. This threw off the pacing this time, which is hard not to notice as EARTH 2's pacing is usually incredible.

Art: 4.5 Stars

Dialogue: 3 Stars

Pacing: 2.5 Stars

Storyline: 3 Stars

Overall: 3 Stars

Big Dog Ink's LEGEND OF OZ: THE WICKED WEST #10

The brilliance of this comic is on full display here. The mystery aspect is really emphasized. This story draws you in and you really feel the uncertainty of the characters themselves, and all without being overly cryptic.

Art: 4.5 Stars

Dialogue: 4 Stars

Pacing: 4.5 Stars

Storyline: 4.5 Stars

Overall: 4.5 Stars

Zenescope's WONDERLAND: DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE #3

While the WONDERLAND series have gotten a little repetitive, the art and dialogue are still good enough to make the comic more than worth buying.

Art: 4 Stars

Dialogue: 4 Stars

Pacing: 3 Stars

Storyline: 2.5 Stars

Overall: 3 Stars

Marvel's HUNGER #s 1-2

I'm including both issues here because they both came out recently. This book has me really excited. There is a comedic aspect to the dialogue that rocks but doesn't overpower the book. Check these issues out.

Art: 3 Stars

Dialogue: 5 Stars

Pacing: 4 Stars

Storyline: 4.5 Stars

Overall: 4.5 Stars

DC's PHANTOM STRANGER #11

This is only my second issue of PS but wow am I impressed. The Trinity of Sin storyline is absolutely riveting. The theological themes are handled so well. Simply sublime.

Art: 3 Stars

Dialogue: 3.5 Stars

Pacing: 4 Stars

Storyline: 5 Stars

Overall: 4.5 Stars