Sarcasm & Myth

As I was reading Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments today (as anyone is prone to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon) I ran into a small sarcastic quip that I thought again shows Kierkegaard extremely relevant for today. It is his introduction into one of his parables to explain how "the god" lisps to his loved one in order to have a reciprocal love:

"Suppose there was a king who loved a maiden of lowly station in life - but the reader may already have lost patience when he hears that our analogy begins like a fairy talk and is not at all systematic."

It seems that the problems we have today with systematic theologians has a long history (with Philosophical Fragments written in the first half of the 19th century).

Even then history was often considered more "truthful" than parable (or dun...dun...dun..."myth") and that "husking" the narratives of Scripture to get at the "kernels" is what is really important.

What a mean and petty God we serve who gave us a book that is mostly narrative and only partly propositional so that we have to spend all of our time finding out how to reduce the narratives to propositions...Wait a minute...

Caputo on the "Right" & WWJD

Caputo's What Would Jesus Deconstruct is a really good book for anyone interested in Derridian philosophy and how it might bear on the church. It's quite simple and short but packs a lot of punch. I also love reading books that have great one-liners. Here are a few of my favorite things:

“It will be an eye opener to the Christian Right, who, having tried to blackmail us with this question [WWJD], will discover that the slogan they have been wearing on their T-shirts and pasting on their automobile bumpers all these years is a call for radical social justice!” (22).

“The question [WWJD] is tricky, not a magic bullet, because, everybody left or right wants Jesus on their side (instead of the other way around). It requires an immense amount of interpretation, interpolation, and self-questioning to give it any bite – and if it is not biting us, it has no bite – lest it be just a way of getting others to do what I want them to do but under the cover of Jesus” (24-25).

“We sing songs to the truth as if it were a source of comfort, warmth, and good hygiene. But in deconstruction the truth is dangerous, and it will drive you out into the cold” (27).

“The next time we look up to heaven and piously pray “Come, Lord Jesus,” we may find that he is already here, trying to get warm over an urban steam grate or trying to cross our borders” (30).

“The truth will make you free, but it does so by turning your life upside down” (30).

“The religious heart or frame of mind is not “realist,” because it is not satisfied with the reality that is all around it. Nor is it antirealist, because it is not trying to substitute fabrications for reality; rather, it is what I would call “hyper-realist,” in search of the real beyond the real, the hyper, the uber or au-dela, the beyond, in search of the event that stirs within things that will exceed our present horizons” (39).

"To announce the kingdom of God is to bring good news to all those who are poor in spirit and just plain poor, to those who hunger for justice and who are just plain hungry, to those whose minds are blinded by sin and who are just plain blind, to those whose hearts are bent by evil and whose bodies are just plain bent"

Aristotle on Friendship

Today, as I was researching for the discussion portion of LivingRoom (a group I am a part of that meets on Sunday nights), I re-visited some of what Aristotle says about friendship in his Nichomachean Ethics. In his discussion of "friendship among equals," he gives three foundations for such relationships.

1. Utility - Many friendships are based on a common benefit in terms of a service or good. I tend to think of this relationship as a business relationship. The two parties are friends but only insofar as they serve each other's purposes. This probably happens in many other friendships too and as Aristotle suggests, isn't a great foundation for a lasting friendship

2. Pleasure - This actually took me a little by surprise. In our day friendship is almost always based on pleasure. I am friends with people because we are similar and we enjoy "the pleasure of each other's company."

"Those who love for utility or pleasure, then, are fond of a friend because of what is good or pleasant for themselves, not insofar as the beloved is who s/he is, but insofar as s/he is useful or pleasant. Hence these friendships as well as the friends are coincidental, since the beloved is loved not insofar as s/he is who s/he is, but insofar as he provides some good or pleasure. And so these sorts of friendships are easily dissolved, when the friends do not remain similar to what they were; for if someone is no longer pleasant or useful, the other stops loving him/her.”

What I found as I thought about this is that all too often our relationships to other believers are also founded and based on the wrong things. They are all too often founded on things that are "coincidental," and we therefore love conditionally, on something found within us.

Of course, Aristotle's solution is the third type, the virtuous person, but I think that is still changeable and still in flux. It is still conditional on the virtue of the person.

For Christians however, our foundation for relationship is never found within but always without, in our being united with Christ. It is unchangeable and fixed and therefore never "coincidental" but unconditional. Christ's commitment to us is what grounds our love for other believers (and ultimately everyone on earth, i.e., our "neighbor") and since that commitment is never changing and is unconditional, so ours must be. We do not love for my sake or for the other, but for Christ's.

What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

Along with Smith's Who's Afraid of Postmodernism I am also reading the second book in the series, What Would Jesus Deconstruct by none other than John Caputo. I have enjoyed it so much (if nothing else, it reads like a philosophy book...ah, the good 'ole days). I thought I would include some of my favorite one-liners from the book so far:

About the (in)famous WWJD:

"My hypothesis is if our friends on the Right really mean to ask that question instead of using it as a stick to beat their enemies, they are in for a shock...It will be an eye opener to the Christian Right, who, having tried to blackmail us with this question, will discover that the slogan they have been wearing on their T-shirts and pasting on their automobile bumpers all these years is a call for radical social justice!"

"In my view, a deconstruction is good news, because it delivers the shock of the other to the forces of the same, the shock of the good (the "ought") to the forces of being ("what is"), which is also why I think it bears good news to the church."

"We sing songs to the truth as if it were a source of comfort, warmth, and good hygiene. But in deconstruction the truth is dangerous, and it will drive you out in to the cold."

Finally...Someone gets it

For my first post back from Christmas hiatus, I would like to recommend a book I have been reading this past week. It's about a year old now but is worth reading. It's James K.A. Smith's Who's Afraid of Postmodernism. It has been an easy-to-read (for the very basic philosophical literate) epistemological breath of fresh air in the midst of a polluted world of badly argued Christian critiques against men like J. Derrida, M. Foucault, and Lyotard. Even though I agree with where Smith takes a lot of his arguments, the main thing I appreciate is that he is competent enough to bring Derrida to the realm of the understandable without misunderstanding and misapplying him (unless he consciously chooses to).

But further than just giving Derrida a fair read, Smith agrees with the basic sentiment of Derrida that "There is nothing outside the text." And yet, he argues that this isn't antithetical to the Christian faith but in fact has bailed us out of an unholy marriage with modernity. Sadly enough, he had to spend a fair number of pages showing that Derrida does in fact believe in things and that he is not simply saying that the cup I see before me is a jumbled mess of letters. Are you serious? But hey, it had to be done. Anyway, I have made it only through the section on Derrida, but if the rest is like the first, it will be a great introduction to how Christians can/should respond/resist/absorb ideas from some great thinkers.

Is it just me or would Christianity not be in the mess it's in if it would've just listened to Kierkegaard in the first place? Truth is Subjectivity...ring a bell?

Plato & a Platypus Walk Into A Bar...

Yesterday, as I turned on my radio for my daily NPR-listening ritual on my way to school I happened to catch the title of a book that sounded fascinating, it's called Plato & a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes.  When I got home I was able to find an interesting and short interview NPR did with the authors back in May when the book came out.  You should take a listen here. After listening, I am even more determined to buy the book.  

For me, it seems like the book hits on something Jesus found out a long time ago, people resonate with stories and pithy sayings (e.g. parables).

Alice's Language Games

I have really wanted to read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (which is a pseudonym for famous mathematician Charles Dodgson I just learned) for quite a while now. A few weeks ago I stumbled across a used book sale at my community library and stumbled across a 50 cent copy of Alice in Wonderland, o what fate. I finished it about a week ago and I absolutely loved it. Now, Alice is no Derrida or Wittgenstein, but for a children's book, the language games are everywhere, a fun read if nothing else for odd people who love language. A few examples:

"There's glory for you!"

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't - till I tell you. I mean 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "

"But 'glory' doesn't mean a 'nice knock-down argument,' " Alice objected.

"When I use a word, " Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all...They've a temper, some of them - particularly verbs: they're the proudest - adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs - however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenatrability! That's what I say...I meant by 'impenatrability' that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppse you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life."

"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Or try this one:

"Aren't you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobod to take care of you?" Alice asked.

"There's the tree in the middle," said the Rose. "What else is it good for?"

"But what could it do, if any danger came?" Alice asked.

"It could bark," said the Rose.

"It says 'Bough-wough!' " cried a Daisy. "That's why it's branches are called boughs!"

In the first excerpt above, I quoted so much of it because of the way everything plays out. It starts out with a very meaningful conversation about language but ends up unraveling into a mere deconstruction of language, playing with language. Which is typically what you'll find throughout the book. You won't find profound statements about language but the way the characters interact with language says something, if nothing else, the oddity of languages.

But if I could read into the two excerpts a bit, there may be something more to be had. This entire book could be a critique on a realist theory of language or correspondence theory, that words have real referents or referents in reality, a thought Derrida spent much time dismantling (in most cases rightly in my opinion). I found it to be a critique in that it presents what an absurd world we'd live in if a correspondence theory of langauge really obtained. The book then is, in a sense, hyper-literal, almost satirically so. At many places in the book, the characters in 'Wonderland' assume that the signifier has intrinsic connection (by way of form - spelling, sound, etymology) to the thing signified, which ends up with Alice scratching her head at such absurdities. The thing that makes it so funny is that you follow right along, you understand the logic, faulty as it is: they aren't just arbitrary incoherent strands of words. So whether you want to have a good book to read to your kid, love to play with language, or want to blow past any notion of authorial intent (maybe?) and have yourself a full blown satire of language, Alice in Wonderland is the book for you!

Choice as Neglect

I was at a party on July 4, talking with JR Briggs of Resonate about books. He said that he gets anxious in a bookstore because every book he chooses is his choosing 1000 other books to NOT read. I can definitely relate to that. But as I thought about that statement later I found it to be true in almost every sphere of life. In fact Derrida talks about this in his Gift of Death, which is an excellent book by the way. But it is true that our choice in almost everything is a choice that excludes almost an infinite amount of other possibilities. And this has very practical implications in our Christian lives. Every time I choose to eat a fancy restaurant, I am choosing to not send that money to a starving family in Africa, and I am responsible for that decision. But every time I choose to send that money to a starving family in Africa, I am choosing to neglect a starving family in Asia. Of course this could go on infinitely, but hopefully it helps us to see that our choices affect more than just those things or people that are directly influenced by that decision. So it seems somewhat funny and trite when we think about this concept in terms of books, but not so funny when we think about it in terms of hurting people in this world. Now this could easily lead to despair, a labyrinth of neglect, a drowning in the awareness of the profundity of every decision we make, but it doesn’t need to. But then again, maybe that’s the point.

Derrida on Death

The Phaedo explicitly names philosophy: it is the attentive anticipation
of death, the care brought to bear upon dying, the meditation on the best way to
receive, give, or give oneself death, the experience of a vigil over the
possibility of death, and over the possibility of death as
impossibility.
-Derrida in The Gift of Death

The idea of "being-towards-death" and "facing your own death" are central to existentialism. However, it seems odd to me that the for Heidegger and other existentialists, these terms mean the exact opposite of Kierkegaard's notion of "facing your own death," with Kierkegaard being the supposed Father of Existentialism. For Kierkegaard "facing your own death" is relational and exoteric (the subject before God). For Heidegger, etc "facing your own death" is esoteric (the subject before the subject). It seems then that for the unbelieving existentialist, "facing your own death" is merely resolving to the fact, a sort of neo-Stoicism. But with Kierkegaard it is a living faith, a relation by constant choice.

Maybe a practical implication:
For the common American, life is the material. But death is non-material and therefore cannot even be in the purview of the material mindset. It precludes the notion of death, it is inauthentic in the Heideggerian sense of always losing oneself in the crowd so as to not have to face one's own death. It needs a material ending and that ending is (perhaps?) retirement.But for the spiritual, death can be faced since it is not only not precluded but included in the very nature of the spiritual. The material is taking and can decide when to stop taking, when it's had enough (retirement). But the spiritual is giving and so cannot decide when to stop giving, only death decides. But it is a death that can be accepted, it is truly the believer's retirement.



The importance of death to the believer cannot be stressed enough.

As we learn to acknolwedge and admit the reality of death,
rather than deny it, we can prepare for our own death by familiarizing
ourselves with it while it remains (probably) at some distance...We should not
downplay or suppress the reality of death in our worship. Every occasion
of worship, after all, harks to the death of Christ on a cross. Every
baptism is a death, a drowning, and we should not gloss this.

-Rodney Clapp, Tortured Wonders

So then, this life brings death and this death brings life (just as Jesus taught). This is the paradox of the Christian life. It brings life now, but only insofar as its hope is in the future, not in this life. To grasp your own death as a Christian is to truly "hide your life in Christ" (Colossians 3; II Corinthians 4:18; Hebrews 11:1).

A Little Clarification Please?

Schleiermacher in his Hermeneutics & Criticism very importantly distinguishes between a philological reading of the text and a dogmatic reading of the text. The philological reading isolates every text of every writer while the dogmatic reading regards the New Testament as One work of One writer. Importantly, he places these in opposition.

"In the application to the N.T. the philological perspective, which isolates every text of every writer, and the dogmatic perspective, which regards the N.T. as One work of One writer, are opposed" (52, #22).

Now Schleiermacher will go on to posit that these are in a dialectical relationship (mutually dependent although in opposition). He does however say that the philological explanation must precede approaching the N.T. as a whole.

Translation (while running the risk of nuancing and oversimplifying): We cannot lose sight of the individual writers in the New Testament (with all their idiosyncrasies and different 'theologies' if you will) by saying that it is all written by the Holy Spirit in some way. In fact, we must first start with understanding what Paul meant (not just broader theologies, but also individual words) and take that seriously before we broaden out to understanding a general "NT theology".

This also seems to play into our understanding of the role of Systematic Theology. Most scholars would agree that if a Systematic Theology is even possible (which many in the non-conservative camp deny) it has to rest on a good grammtico-historical exegesis of the text. In the words of Richard Gaffin, "Systematics rests on good exegesis".

My problem is when these lines are blurred. When we talk of things like a "Two-Adam Christology" in Paul or a Kline-ian reading of the "theophanic glory-cloud" or possibly even an "abeyance of eschatological judgment" found in Genesis 3 (although this is a little different in my mind), how much can we call this reading "Pauline"? When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 did he in fact have in mind a 2-Adam Christology that he was trying to get across to a new and morally immature church in Corinth? I am not in any way denying the validity of such a reading, I am only saying it falls under the realm of a dogmatic reading rather than a philological one and by calling such a system "Pauline" we might be blurring the distinction.