fruitful faith » love

a trinity of ‘knowledge-lights’…

Dale — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:42:35 +0000

Epistemology is the most foundational of topics in philosophy. How trustworthy is human knowledge? Or worded another way: How much ‘faith’ (Greek ‘pistis’ for ‘trust’) can we put in what we think we know? At one end of the spectrum, you have narrow, ‘verificationist’ epistemologies (such as: logical positivism & naive realism) that only trust knowledge that can be ‘verified’ by empirical methods. At the other, you have skeptical ‘post modern’ epistemologies (such as the phenomenalism of Maurice Merleau-Ponty – The Phenomenology of Perception) which hold that all we can truly ‘know’ is the ‘sense data’ of our perceptions.In his book, The New Testament and the People of God, N.T. Wright follows the thought of renowned Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan (particularly his Generalised Empirical Method) discussing a kind of middle-way between positivism and phenomenalism: ‘critical realism’. Elsewhere, he has described an ‘epistemology of love’, where love is that which a) respects the ‘otherness’ of the other, while at the same time b) remaining in rich subjective relationship to it. Critical realism is first critical in that it is aware of its potential for self-deception and the distortion of perception, but it is not so critical that it does not take the second post-critical step of then daring to describe the reality it believes it actually ‘knows’.

I’ve been recently intrigued, however, by a talk on Epistemology by Mark Strom (audio here) where he claims that all human knowledge involves not only acts of love, but also faith and hope. I find this really compelling. Our knowledge of any activity, person, principle or thing involves faith, hope and love – in some form, and at some level.

Scientific knowledge, for an interesting example, involves all three. The natural scientist must first have faith (Greek pistis, meaning ‘trust’) that his object of study, the natural world, will, under the exact same conditions, always behave exactly the same way in the present and future as we’ve observed it to in the past. She also hopes that the hunch followed will be fruitful, that the experiment designed will be sufficient, and that the knowledge gained will be helpful and worthwhile. And finally, there is also love – the relational dynamism between a subject and object; in the case of science, between the observer and the observed, the cosmologist and the cosmos, the neurologist and the neurons.

Faith, hope and love (I thought for a few minutes today), then can be thought of as the ‘vehicles’ by which knowledge comes to us. However, this, I decided, is too anthropocentric a metaphor. Better to see them as ‘lights’ by which we are enabled to ‘see’ Truth. But of course, this vision remains imperfect, blurry and ‘dim’…

Love never ends. Prophecies? They will be set aside. Tongues? They will cease. Knowledge? It will be set aside. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when what is perfect comes, the partial will be set aside. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” – Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians 13:8-13

the (w)hole in our confession

Dale — Tue, 10 May 2011 04:19:36 +0000

Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind & strength
Love your neighbour as you…
Love your self.

Love of God, neighbour and self are all interwoven. I’ve been thinking lately about confession, which – like love – occurs in relationship. Protestants often are quick to give reasons why they don’t confess to a priest like Catholics. “Through Christ, we can confess [but do we!?] directly to God…” Fair enough. But one thing about confession to a priest is that at least they are confessing horizontally as well as vertically.

I may be wrong, but I suspect that Protestants are not that great at horizontal confession. When we do it, we often only confess the really easy-to-confess stuff. “Oh, I just have to be honest with you… I’ve allowed myself to get too busy this week.” In the ModWest, being busy is a virtue, for crying out loud – that’s hardly confession… Rarely do we [OK... I!!] have a) the courage, and b) the quality of relationship to confess the darkest, deepest, hardest-to-confess stuff.

My theory is that our vertical confession is at least complimented (and, at most, completed!?) by our horizontal confession. I reckon it can be all too easy to create a ‘god’ that suits our (vertical) confessional needs; that responds to our confession with just the perfect amount and flavour of gentleness, assurance, anger, frustration or whatever makes us feel better – which is too often the reason for doing it anyway…

Confession, like love, is meant to be so holistically real that it touches all of our person – our emotions (heart), our identity (soul), our thoughts (mind) and our actions (strength). May we be truly honest, real and vulnerable in our confession – vertically to God, horizontally to our close, trusted friends, and even internally to ourselves!!

Confess to the Lord, with all your heart, soul, mind & strength
Confess to your neighbour as you…
Confess to yourself.

activist theologian

Dale — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:17:04 +0000

I picked up a copy of Gustavo Gutierrez‘s ‘A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation‘ for a) my growing interest in the biblical theme of ‘Freedom’/'Liberation’, and b) the ‘Themes in a Missional Spirituality’ block-course I’ll be taking this semester at Carey Baptist College – with guest lecturer – and author and theologian – Charles Ringma (very exciting!).

He ends the Conclusion with this:

We must be careful not to fall into intellectual self-satisfaction, into a kind of triumphalism of erudite and advanced ‘new’ visions of Christianity. The only thing that is really new is to accept day by day the gift of the Spirit, who makes us love – in our concrete options to build a true human fellowship, in our historical initiatives to subvert an order of injustice – with the fullness with which Christ loved us. To paraphrase a well-known text of Pascal, we can say that all the political theologies, the theologies of hope, of revolution, and of liberation, are not worth one act of genuine solidarity with exploited social classes. They are not worth one act of faith, love, and hope, committed – in one way or another – in active participation to liberate humankind from everything that dehumanizes it and prevents it from living according to the will of the Father. (p.174)

modesty and attraction

Dale — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:34:06 +0000

Modesty isn’t (on one hand) wearing body-hiding, beauty-suppressing clothing to prevent even the possibility of someone having any kind of attraction. Nor, of course, is modesty (on the other hand) wearing body-flaunting, beauty-distorting clothing to ensure every possibility of every kind of attraction.

Modesty and being attractive are not at all at odds with each other. Proper attraction between two people happens through attractiveness of various kinds – i.e. an attractive personality and attractive attire. Being attractive in the truest sense is to act, speak, behave and dress in a way that fosters healthy mutuality and relationship with an other.

Prudism is unattractive in the passive/negative sense, because it witholds the whole person from an other. Exhibitionism (used here to refer to the opposite of prudism) is also unattractive in the active/positive sense, because it forces too much of the person onto an other.

Therefore, the problem with immodesty (whether the immodesty of prudism, or the immodesty of exhibitionism) is not that it is too attractive, but that it is not attractive enough.

who is my neighbour?

Dale — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:52:19 +0000

In chapter 10 of his gospel (or not far into the Jerusalem journey narrative as he would have seen it – he didn’t divide his gospel into ‘chapter and verse’), Luke presents an exchange between an expert in the Law (of Moses – i.e. Torah) and Jesus. The lawyer is first trying to ‘test’ Jesus, and uses a fairly standard question of the day to do so.

Both Matthew and Mark also record this question asked of Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

I don’t want to bother with the whole discussion of what this question means and what it doesn’t mean (suffice to say that it does not mean ‘how moral must I be to get into heaven after I die’). I’m more interested in how Jesus answers this “law expert”.

Jesus’ initial response is very rabbinic (or Socratic) in that he answers the question with a question. His responding question assumes that ‘eternal life’ (literally: “the life belonging to the age to come”) has to do with… well… doing life the way God wants; in other words, doing what the Law says. Luke doesn’t need to spell this out, even for his Greek audience (‘Theophilus’); everyone knew that Jews were people of Torah.

Anyway, Jesus’ responding question is also a demonstration of the non-shocking fact that first century Jews had differing understandings of their Scriptures in general and the Law (Torah) in particular. His response is this: “What does the Law say? How do you read it?”

Again, every Jew would have known the general assumed answer to the question. If you want to attain to the eternal kind of life, then (duh!) do what God says in the Torah. The real question-behind-the-question, however, is what does the Torah (and thus God) require of us? So Jesus’ initial response turns the question back onto this Law expert, essentially saying, “Well, what do you think? What do you think the Law says we must do? What is your interpretation?”

The man’s response is spot-on: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength; and Love your neighbour as yourself.”

Jesus responds approvingly: “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.” He essentially says, “That’s it. That’s the correct summary of the whole thing. That is what the Law/Torah is all about.”

Now, the conversation could have been over with at that point. But then…

“And who is my neighbour?” This was a question which was perhaps common. Where is the line between ‘neighbour’ and ‘enemy’; just how far do we have to take this command!? But Luke specifically also tells us that the man’s respose was in attempt to justify himself. The tighter the boundary for ‘neighbour’ the better for this Law Expert.

In response to the ‘who is my neighbour’ question, Jesus then tells the story of what we know as the ‘Good Samaritan’, who has compassion on a man left ‘half dead’ by robbers, bandaging him, pouring oil/wine on the wounds, taking him to an inn, staying with him the rest of the day and that night, and giving the innkeeper enough money for weeks of care for the man, and a promise to return and pay any extra charges. Amazing. And of course, Jesus is being very provocative and offensive by casting a Samaritan as the hero and examplary character in the story (to say Jews disliked Samaritans puts it mildly); and casting the Priest and the Levite as the scumbags.

It’s a moving story. One of the most humane stories known to humanity. It contrasts utter selfishness with total selflessness.

But what I think is brilliant is the way Jesus uses this story.

He finishes it up by putting a question to the Law Expert, “Now, which one of the three was a neighbour to the man?”

The man (Jew thick and through) cannot even say the word ‘Samaritan’, so he simply says the obvious answer, “The one who had mercy on him.”

But wait. Jesus has also done something else…

The man’s question had been ‘who is my neighbour’. Jesus has just asked ‘which one was a neighbour to him’. Jesus refuses to give the ‘who is my neighbour’ question the dignity of a response.

The Law Expert’s summary of the Torah was brilliant - Love God, Love neighbour – but his ‘justifying’ question about who his neighbour was had essentially robbed his accurate summary of it’s relevance (what good is a command to Love Neighbour, if you’re confused about who your neighbour is?). Jesus has reframed the question; and has put the emphasis back on the imperative to Love. The implication is this: it doesn’t matter who the person is, love them as yourself. Don’t worry about who your neighbour is, just be a loving neighbour.

This, after all, is what the Law, the Torah, was all about. This is what the eternal kind of life is all about.

Love. This is Jesus’ answer to the ‘what must I do’ question. Which is why Jesus wraps up the conversation saying, “Go, and do likewise.”

teleology & ethics

Dale — Tue, 26 May 2009 11:41:51 +0000

The word ‘teleology’ (from Greek τελος ‘telos’ – meaning ‘goal’, ‘end’, ‘purpose’ or ‘that toward which things tend’) is not a street-level term. However, the concept of a purpose, goal, function or ‘end’ to things most certainly is. It’s a common as anything. Teleology is blindingly relevant.

It’s worth noting (as I have before) that one cannot speak of anything being truly good or bad, well or poorly functioning without some kind of teleological concept. From complaints (or amazement) about how poorly (or well) ‘designed’ the universe is (if designed at all – see this rebuttal), to the largest complaint of all – the ‘problem of evil’ (which has an often forgotten twin, the ‘problem’ of good); every kind of value-judgment we make assumes some kind of teleological concept.

Teleology, then, underlies the whole prospect of moral and ethical enquiry. If things merely ‘function’, but do not function toward a certain end, goal or purpose, then there can be no such thing as a truly or ultimately immoral action. Nothing can be said to ultimately or truly right or wrong with either the universe or human behaviour.

One can give an account of the ‘functioning’ of an event/thing in purely numerical, metrical or otherwise descriptive terms: human ‘a’ swings their right arm with tightly-closed digits in such a way that the digits impact the face of human ‘b’ with ‘x’ amount of force, resulting in human ‘b’ losing the state of balance and falling to the ground… etc. This is a statistical, and purely ‘objective’ account of an event. No ethical comment here.

The moment someone begins to say that one person should not have hit someone (or should have in the case, for example, of self-defense or protecting a helpless person being raped or otherwise harmed), they are imposing a teleological assumption onto the set of events. They are no longer giving a merely descriptive account of the event, they are giving a prescriptive account.

As a Christian, my ethical thought (and hopefully my action too!) is shaped by my belief that creation has a telos. Things are being brought from a state of chaos (Genesis 1 creation poem says ‘tohu vo vohu’ – wild and waste – formless and void) to a state of more and more orderedness. Things are going somewhere – toward an ‘end’. Things are meant to behave in a certain way and not another way. This, in a basic sense, is what the notion of God’s “will” (desire) means.

The most tightly compacted summary of the desire of God is one word – Love. Jesus summarised the entire ‘Law’ and ‘Prophets’ in two commands: Love God. Love Others as Self.

A summary that I’ve found helpful is the desire of God for humans to be in right relationship 1) with God, 2) with other humans, 3) with ourselves, and 4) with creation.

Christianity views humans as having a unique status (and therefore responsibility) within Creation. This anthropocentricism is not, however, to devalue the rest of creation. All of creation is seen to ‘reflect’ God’s beauty and creativity. But humans as the ‘crown’ of creation, the ones with the capacity to bear God’s ‘image’ in a unique way, have a special role. Humans are put ‘in charge’ of creation, commissioned to take care of it, and use it wisely – working to bring it to the fullest expression according to God’s will/desire.

Interestingly, no matter what one believes about God or whether or not humans reflect a God, it is manifestly obvious that humans have the greatest power to either utterly wreck things or to behave in a way which helps creation, humanity included, to flourish. (And we note, again, in passing, that things being ‘wrecked’ or things ‘flourishing’ are meaningless concepts with no teleology.)

Christian ethics, then, are based on a Christian understanding of God’s purposes for His creation; namely to bring it to full and rich orderedness. An orderedness characterised by not control but freedom to be all that it was made for. And an orderedness characterised by Love.

Here are a few (quite random) examples of my out-working of this:

Education: Knowledge is to serve relationships. Humans are to celebrate any/all kinds of knowledge which enrich their relationship to/with creation, each other and the creator (i.e. medical knowledge, social knowledge, scientific knowledge, relational knowledge, etc.), while not letting knowledge –or the pursuit of it– become an idol or an enslaving thing.
Sexuality: Sex is to be used in such a way as to bring an orderedness characterised by freedom, and not slavery. Many forms/expressions of sexuality are characterised by human slavery to sexual desire. Sex is for humans, not humans for sex. Also, sex is to bring relational fullness, not relational pain. Sex should thus be respected as the powerful thing it is, and used in ways that reflect freedom and full relationships.
Poultry production (one of my favourite examples): God’s desire is not for chickens to live the life of a chicken in a cage covered with it’s own feces, and to be injected with steroids and killed in a mechanical and abusive fashion, etc. God’s desire is also not for chickens to be deified to the point where they are forbidden to be eaten. Chickens are a part of God’s good creation, and are to be farmed, ‘egged’ (hens) and processed/eaten in a way that is characterised by order and freedom (the ‘free range’ movement is brilliant here).
Eating (while on the topic!): Humans (like other animals) need to eat to survive, but eating should not be treated as a merely biologically sustaining thing, but rather in a way that brings dignity to both what is eaten and who eats it. One of the most degrading and undignified forms of eating is (we all do it) fast food. Where speed and efficiency of production is the telos of eating. The food is mass-produced, the food preparers have little/no relationship to the eaters, and the eating experience is rushed and shabby. Contrast this with a community that grows and harvests their own crops, and where the cooks sit at the same table with everyone, serving each other and sharing in the creativity of food preparation and the joy of sharing the eating experiene (the culmination fo the whole process) together.
Work: Work is to bring freedom not slavery and enable us to bless, rather than participate in being a curse. Laziness and greed are equally destructive things. Slacking on the job or working 60+ hour work weeks are ways of cheating and enslaving (or being enslaved). Industry and production should serve to bring about the flourishing of creation – including humans. Work in fields such as education, social-work, government, police-work, food industry, transport/travel, clothing, entertainment, etc. can all be done in either a dehumanising way or a humanising way.
Music/Art: Art (including poetry) is a deeply human thing, and should reflect the creativity of the creator. Art can deeply reflect reality in a way that other things cannot. Art can be characterised by chaos and confusion with no hint of redemption or freedom, or it can speak of healing, order, justice and transformation (even while acknowleding brokenness and pain). Sadly, much ‘Christian’ art is often cheap copies of what has been done before, and has no staying power (it is quickly forgotten).
Technology: All technology (from eating utensils to wireless broadband) should serve to bring order, freedom and to deepen relationships. Sadly, we often end up being enslaved to our conveniences. Technology allows us to have higher frequency and quantity of contact with other people – bringing the sad reality of ever-increasing numbers of ‘contacts’ and ever-shallowing depth of relationship with family and friends. Transportation technology takes us further and faster away from home than ever before, giving us more options than we know what to do with. Add to this, the constant reminders that our basic normal life is boring, and that we ‘deserve’ another trip to this or that resort place to ‘escape’, and we find ourselves often on a treadmill-ish pursuit of ‘happiness’, being less and less satisfied with ‘normal life’ and seeking more and more after the elusive reality we see in the advertisements.
Medical Activity: Medical knowledge and activity should serve to bring order to the chaos of disease and injury and freedom from blindness and pain. It should always be used in the service of rich human life, not to destroy it. Surgery should be about healing (even if it temporarily makes you bleeed), not about making a womans breasts look like this or that super-model or about doing away with an inconvenient developing pre-born child.
Violence: Violence is only justified when in the service of bringing freedom and preserving relationships – for example protecting those who cannot protect themselves from rapists, thiefs, abusers, torturers and (actual) terrorists. The power to inflict violence (and control people by doing so) comes with great responsibility.
Community: Obviously, community is a place where relationships are central. True community is characterised by freedom and whole and holistic relationships. Community that leaves people enslaved to things, experiences or addictions, etc. is not a community characterised by love. Also, community that controls and micro-manages people is to treat people as cogs in a system and is therefore dehumanising rather than humanising and thus not characterised by freedom. True human-ness if found not in isolation from all others, nor in being forced into conformity with them, but in a community which values true genuine human flourishing and which is characterised by loving, patient and consistent transformation to it.
Money/Possessions: All possessions are to be held with gratitude, and to be not merely ‘used’ or ‘consumed’ with our comfort/survival/convenience as the telos, but rather to be shared with and passed on to others. Life’s telos is not acquisition or status, but transformation and wholeness; and our handling of money and possessions should reflect this.
Clothing: Clothing is a wonderfully rich and creative human thing. It can be used (both by wearers and producers) to enrich our freedom and relationship to others, or to enslave us. Fashion, for example, can often serve to alienate and degrade those who are not able (for either financial or body-style reasons) to keep up with things. This divides and dehumanises, and is not God’s desire. Although modest dress will look differently from place to place and time to time, for each culture/place, there will be uses of clothing that either serve to enhance a person’s personality and humanness or which will serve to rob them of their person-hood, and make them into an object. Clothing design and production can and should be a creative and body-honouring thing which encourages human relationships.

lamb omnipotence

Dale — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:52:37 +0000

omni (all) + potent (powerful)

All red herrings about making rocks too heavy to lift or making a 5-sided triangle aside, the notion of God’s omnipotence at least implies that God has the potential to do literally anything.

Now, I’m sure that the writers of the Bible would agree that the Creator is ‘all-potent’ in this way, yet they don’t seem the least bit concerned with splitting philosophical hairs about whether or not God is able to do every literal conceivable thing. Quite clearly, there are lots of conceivable things that God would be free/able to do, but doesn’t.

Rather than speculating about God’s hypothetical actions, they seem infinitely more concerned with what God’s actual actions (note the grammatical redundancy).

The picture of God and his actions gets fuller and fuller over time and in Scripture. First monotheism is distinguished from polytheism, then child-sacrifice gets a firm ‘no’, and so on… all giant leaps of understanding for those people at those times. The New Testament writers believed that the picture of God had fully come into focus with Jesus. To know Jesus equals knowing what God is like.

Paul speaks of the cross of Christ as a stumbling block to the Jews. A Messiah who was crucified and killed? Not the Messiah we’re looking for… and hanging on a tree = cursed by God. He then says the cross of Christ is foolishness to the Greeks. A saviour? Killed? He certainly cannot have any kind of favourable dealings with the gods. What a silly notion!

But then Paul then speaks of the cross – this audacious and foolish looking spectacle; this scandal – as the power of God.

The writer of Revelation has a slain lamb on the throne of God.

How’s that for an omnipotent God?

I recently heard someone speak of God’s power as always being “Lamb power”, which resonates fully with the New Testament picture of a Creator who redemptively suffers with and for the Created.

For Paul, Christ is known through the Spirit who is (of course) the Spirit of Christ – who is the Lamb. The fruits of that Spirit can be seen to describe this kind of “Lamb power”…

Love power. Joy power. Peace power. Patience power. Kindness power. Goodness power. Trustfulness power. Gentleness power. Self-control power.

Paul gives a one-word summary of God: Love.

He later describes Love to the divisive, elitist and arrogant Corinthians. His description of Love is often used to describe the Lamb who is Love.

The Lamb has patience, The Lamb is kind; The Lamb is not envious; The Lamb is not vain, The Lamb is not puffed up; The Lamb does not behave indecently, The Lamb does not pursue [his] own things, The Lamb is not easily provoked, The Lamb thinks no evil; The Lamb does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. The Lamb quietly covers all things, The Lamb believes all things, The Lamb hopes all things, The Lamb endures all things. The Lamb never fails.

The Biblical picture of the omnipotent God comes into clearest focus here.

tommy-tramp time

Dale — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:02:26 +0000

Went ‘tramping’ (‘hiking’ for my U.S. friends!) today with Thomas and a couple friends in the Y-tax (a.k.a. Waitakere Ranges). Was great! gotta love that baby bag and flowered pouch thingy (photo below)

how nice…

Dale — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:20:42 +0000

…of “all of [them] on the Facebook Team” to wish me a happy (30th) birthday (on the ’30th’ of January).

I feel truly loved.

caption competition

Dale — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:00:30 +0000

I thought it would be a bit of fun to put this INCREDIBLE (but I’m not biased) picture up and let people try out some captions for it…
Have fun!

caption competition on...