Monthly Archives: March 2015

on Theology

A Tangled Webb

Digressive Opening

As it happens, the day I read Stephen H. Webb’s latest was also the day my students presented on the Borges short story–which I think is parody as well as homage to its dedicatee, H. P. Lovecraft–“There Are More Things.”  The title, of course, is a reference to Hamlet (which, I am happy to report, the students readily traced to its origin and explained).  There is a sort of surreality to reading someone’s doubtful speculations on the application of quantitative infinity to deity (hint:  doesn’t work well) with Borges, Lovecraft, and the story’s reference to “Hinton’s cubes.”  A meander down that side street led to the following remarkable observation:

Where this gets interesting is if we pick up on the suggestion made by Smith, Berkove and Baker, that Flatland is a criticism of the misapplication of reasoning by analogy. They argue that Abbott was keen to critique what he saw as the over-extension of analogical reasoning of which Cardinal Newman, for one, was guilty, and what he saw as the tendency to obscure the linguistic roots of this rhetorical construction. They conclude: ‘Flatland is a cautionary tale about the dangers of the imagination when wrongly applied.’

(source: Flat Charles | The Fairyland of Geometry)

I think I disagree with this criticism, but I’ll have to reread Flatland to find out.  For the moment, suffice to say that I thought the juxtaposition of mathematization and the doctrine of analogy was pretty interesting.  (Enjoy a picture of Hinton’s cubes!)

(source: Hintonian Cubism (part 1))

Distressingly Obtuse

I keep wondering how Webb gets such a hearing, but then I also keep being reminded by his columns of side-trips and dead-ends in thought–in my thought, at times; more generally, in the history of theology.

The perplexing conclusion of Webb’s latest piece sounds like the sort of thing a Lovecraftian character in a Borges story might well say:

God is like a hypercube whose dimensions, if ever mapped for the purposes of notation, would have no apparent numerical end. If so, then it is not quite accurate to say that God is infinite, but it would make some sense to say that our potential knowledge of God most certainly is.

(source: Is God Really Infinite? | Stephen H. Webb | First Things)

As a rule, of course, any summary “God is like” statement can be expected to turn out badly.  This one is odd in two ways, though:  Odd in that, if it is intended to represent a traditional understanding of God’s “infinity,” it does so only by obfuscating what it pretends to elucidate; odd in that Webb seems to have unironically concluded that divine self-revelation and human understanding, to say nothing of the divine essence, can be spoken of in a language of quantitative specification.

Please understand:  I have myself, repeatedly, objected to the use of “infinity” as an excuse for irrationalism in theology.  I have been known, myself, to reject the conventional use of “infinity” in both Calculus and theology.  I think “infinity” too often stands in for such disparate notions as “unlimited potential” and “irrational presumption of unlimited magnitude or multitude of actual beings” and “a procedure that theoretically never needs to stop” and “really big” and “currently unspecifiable totality” without clear differentiation in popular discourse.  In those thrilling days of yesteryear when I finished my B.A. at the theological hothouse of The Master’s College, my polemics against a simplistic mixture of contemporary evangelicalism and Dordtian Calvinism triggered a relapse of rationalism, during which I would willingly have jettisoned divine aseity [which I had not come to understand properly yet], infinity in time [which I conflated with the simplistic and falsely spatialized “outside time” language that often short-circuits our understanding of the subject], and other teachings which, when read poorly and flatly through a tacit Scotist rejection of analogy and a nominalist account of divine volition, certainly seemed to describe a “God of the philosophers” who resembled the God of the Bible only very distantly.  It would take well over a decade for me to not only prefer a confessional, creedal, difficult orthodoxy to a simplistic rationalization, but also to embrace it with understanding and commitment; it would take me a long time to express how many, not merely conceptual, links were fitted in that chain.

He drew me with the cords of love,
And thus He bound me to Him.
And round my heart still closely twine
Those ties which naught can sever

(source: Hymn: I’ve found a Friend, oh, such a Friend)

I have been known to say, even recently, that when “infinity” is conventionally (mis)understood as a quantitative expression, we should probably reject the statement “God is infinite” out of hand:  God is One, which is finite; God is Three, which is finite; God is not both One and Three in the same way at the same time, so there is no ground for an irrationalism at the base of our theology.  (But of course, God is One in ways that none of His creatures are, both with regard to singularity and unity; and God is Three in ways no group of His creatures can be, not least in that these Three are One!)

When I encounter Webb’s thinking, then, I find myself entering my mental storage unit in search of the old Procrustean Bed I used to make up for God, in my poor hospitality:  a reductive framework that forces the whole of theology to shrink to the scale of the quantifiable–a theology which is scandalized by the singular. Continue reading »

Quotables

that creature who can give reasons

It takes nothing less than a revolution in thought to produce politicians and pundits who think that these issues of life and marriage are not really “political” issues, that they are somehow exotic or distant from the main, legitimate issues of politics. And what could they possibly think forms, instead, the proper issues of politics: questions utterly detached from arguments about the things that are truly right or wrong, just or unjust?

But that sense of things brings us back, as ever, to Aristotle and the recognition that the political order is marked by the presence of law, and law can spring only from the nature of that creature who can give reasons over matters of right or wrong.

(source: Handwringing Over “Polarization” – The Catholic Thing)

Quotables

Newman changes his mind

While I am now as clear in my acceptance of the principle of dogma, as I was in 1833 and 1816, so again I am now as firm in my belief of a visible Church, of the authority of Bishops, of the grace of the sacraments, of the religious worth of works of penance, as I was in 1833. I have added Articles to my Creed; but the old ones, which I then held with a divine faith, remain.

3. But now, as to the third point on which I stood in 1833, and which I have utterly renounced and trampled upon since,—my then view of the Church of Rome;—I will speak about it as exactly as I can. When I was young, as I have said already, and after I was grown up, I thought the Pope to be Antichrist. […]  From my boyhood and in 1824 I considered, after Protestant authorities, that St. Gregory I. about A.D. 600 was the first Pope that was Antichrist, though, in spite of this, he was also a great and holy man; but in 1832-3 I thought the Church of Rome was bound up with the cause of Antichrist by the Council of Trent.

(source: Newman Reader – Apologia (1865) – Chapter 2)

Public-Personal, Reflections

Attending to Intention

In many current discussions–this colloquy with my friend Jeff, for instance–it becomes important to ascertain the intention of an action, not just the fact of a behavior.  In other contexts, “behavior modification” is often a useful goal; in matters of justice, however, we must determine who is liable to punishment for an action, and who is liable for the consequences of an action.

When we do that, may I humbly suggest that we take as our operational definition of “intention” the “victory condition” or “success condition” of the action?  That is both cognitively realist and consistent with the formative tradition of our best understandings of justice.

When we speak of the “end” that we “aim at” or “tend toward” in an action, we often accidentally shift the ground of argument. Continue reading »

on Theology, Public-Personal, Reflections

A Question of Life and Death

My excellent friend Jeff, who has all that medical background I lack, raises an interesting and potentially very important question on the back of a rather controversial Connecticut case:

the broad issue [seems to be] whether a government can rightfully force someone to undergo some treatment. […] Church teaching is that yes, there are medical cases in which a governing body can rightfully prevent the cessation of certain medical treatments because sometimes prevention of such cessation is a matter of justice.

(source: Not Moralizing a Hospital: Cassandra’s Lymphoma)

I concur.  I think Jeff and I are both hearing the same lesson.  So far, we agree in principle.  I would point out that we should differentiate “cessation,” as in, taking away a treatment, from initiating a treatment.  I think that whether to initiate a treatment was at issue in the case in point.  I’m going to emphasize some key moments in Jeff’s continued analysis, here:

Let’s assume [the cancer] was detected in its early stages and the chemotherapy drugs in question are the medical community’s standard treatment for [such] cases and tend to yield favorable results. Additionally, let’s assume that Cassandra’s proposed alternative treatments are considered by the mainstream medical community to probably be hogwash. Under these circumstances, Cassandra would be refusing a treatment that could reasonably be argued to not be extraordinarily burdensome […] and pursue a treatment that is about as effective as doing nothing[…]. To intentionally perform such actions is immoral, for it is morally obligatory for one to, barring treatment-based suffering that is disproportionate to expected results (some expected span of life), avoid your own death

(source: Not Moralizing a Hospital: Cassandra’s Lymphoma)

Let me just enumerate some points of agreement and disagreement in this analysis, then I want to propose some texts for careful study and reflection. Continue reading »

Quotables

Love these guys!

For the past several months, Wyoming Catholic College has been analyzing the benefits and risks of participating in these programs. And while the financial benefits are undeniable, the increasingly burdensome regulatory requirements are clearly troubling for faith-based institutions.

“By abstaining from federal funding programs,” said President Kevin Roberts, “We will safeguard our mission from unwarranted federal involvement—an involvement increasingly at odds with our Catholic beliefs, the content of our curriculum, and our institutional practices.”

(source: Wyoming Catholic College: News » College Decides Not to Participate in Title IV Programs)

Public-Personal, Quotables

Cicero Called It

But in determining the process for vetting the finalists, a couple of tenacious notions encroached upon our proceedings: angst over any semblance of an exclusionary or elitist process and a quest for so-called enfranchisement. In the past, an unspecified practice of “self-selection,” as senior colleagues used to put it to me, was thought to be sufficient for assuring that the appropriate professionals were involved in the hiring process. But this time, a non-tenure-track faculty member with friends of all ranks was one of the candidates for the position, and the department’s non-tenure-track faculty—which in recent years had grown steadily in size—wished to self-select into the hiring process.

At that point, a general antipathy toward hierarchical structure made it practically impossible for otherwise rational colleagues of all ranks to acknowledge differences in professional roles and responsibilities among the various types of faculty members. As a result, the conversation was dominated by a demand for equal “rights”—not about better pay and benefits for poorly compensated adjuncts, but about professional, institutional decision-making power.

(source: Who Gets a Vote in Departmental Decisions? – Advice – The Chronicle of Higher Education)

when all things are carried by a democracy, although it be just and moderate, its very equality is a culpable levelling, since it allows no gradations of dignity

(source: The Political Works of Marcus Tullius Cicero, vol. 1 (Treatise on the Commonwealth) – Online Library of Liberty)

Public-Personal, Quotables

A Melodrama of Power and Consent

This Chronicle column is fascinating because, although I radically disagree with some of the author’s presuppositions and conclusions, it seems to demonstrate that we should all be able to come to a more sensible decision about where to draw the lines–and how far to imagine ourselves deterministic puppets in the hands of the nominally powerful:

There was more, but my eye was struck by the word “survivor,” which was repeated several times. Wouldn’t the proper term be “accuser”? How can someone be referred to as a survivor before a finding on the accusation—assuming we don’t want to predetermine the guilt of the accused, that is. At the risk of sounding like some bow-tied neocon columnist, this is also a horrifying perversion of the language by people who should know better. Are you seriously telling me, I wanted to ask the Title IX Committee, that the same term now encompasses both someone allegedly groped by a professor and my great-aunt, who lived through the Nazi death camps? I emailed an inquiry to this effect to the university’s general counsel, one of the email’s signatories, but got no reply.

For the record, I strongly believe that bona fide harassers should be chemically castrated, stripped of their property, and hung up by their thumbs in the nearest public square. Let no one think I’m soft on harassment. But I also believe that the myths and fantasies about power perpetuated in these new codes are leaving our students disabled when it comes to the ordinary interpersonal tangles and erotic confusions that pretty much everyone has to deal with at some point in life, because that’s simply part of the human condition.

(source: Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Continue reading »

Reflections

Where Each One Must Go Eventually

A man, not a character, is gone; but a man who gave us thoughtful entertainment–the silly with the serious–without becoming a buffoon or giving scandal.  A very human alien; a human who relieved our alienation, at least a little.

A funny man, too.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPkByAkAdZs?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0]

John Fund, on the passing of Leonard Nimoy:

Shortly after Star Trek: The Motion Picture premiered in 1979, I decided to go back to college, but the experience had changed my life. At one of the last conventions I did, Leonard Nimoy remarked to me on how he had observed my growth from the first time we had met: “You seem to enjoy turning plans into reality, and that is the essence of becoming an adult.”

His comment meant a lot to me, and he was right. I had been handed responsibility at a young age and succeeded with it. I was no longer shy, I had developed some self-confidence and social skills. I had learned to interact with adults and gained their respect.

And I had helped build support for the goal of reviving a series that had entertained and inspired millions and that didn’t deserve to die. Neither did Leonard Nimoy, a gracious and good man, but he accepted the inevitable. His final tweet last week was incredibly poignant:

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP

(source: Star Trek Loses Its Muse, Spock)

And Kevin Williamson, whose attraction to the character I definitely echo:

But there was something else to Spock, one that spoke to seven- or eight-year-old me (Star Trek was in syndication by that point) the way I am sure it did to many others. Half human and half Vulcan, the young Spock made a conscious decision to retreat from sentimental human entanglements into logic. When another character tries to get under his skin, he observes: “I have no ego to bruise.” In a chaotic and threatening world, to be able to set aside, even if imperfectly, the aspect of one’s self that is vulnerable to the chaos is an alluring prospect: There is no threat if there is nothing there to be threatened. Twenty years later, I’d discover that this was the juvenile (a word that in this context is not pejorative) version of Stoicism, which makes substantially the same promises as Spock’s kolinahr discipline (possibly the nerdiest clause I have ever written), offering the same state of resolute tranquility that is, for the more than half-human, equally elusive. It is science fiction — and it is camp — but there is something in that that leaves me still convinced that a more Spockian approach to life would be eminently desirable, that water becomes transparent only when it is clean and still.

(source: Live Long and Prosper)

And I certainly cannot possibly resist being one of the many who think of this video immediately:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtQUePN5y40?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0]

Though in fact, “Amazing Grace” may not be the obvious choice– Continue reading »

Public-Personal, Quotables

Quiet Revolutions? Not (necessarily) what you think

Russ Saltzman has a good column for the season, and neither the lede nor this excerpt give you the full flavor.  You’ll just have to Read It Yourself.

Tell you what: As part of your Lenten discipline, pray for your least favorite public office holder. Just a couple times, perhaps, until you get the hang of it, then with more regularity. It may do him or her some good, but I think it might be of more benefit to the rest of us.

(source: Pity the Politician | Russell E. Saltzman | First Things)