9 posts tagged “philosophy”

"I ought to talk to myself in the third person more often," I said out loud to myself.

Self-talk is can be taken as a sign of mental imbalance. Like the man I saw last week walking down a city street, disheveled, talking loudly to himself. You've seen people like that before, right?

But let's face it: in all of us, there is a constant conversation going on inside our heads. That's one of the proofs philosophers point to as evidence for the immaterial world, for the soul. No one can hang onto the notion that the things we "hear" inside our heads are merely neurons firing off in semi-ordered, semi-random ways. No: men have souls.

When Christians talk about being "made in the image of God," this is part of what they mean. God, as a Tri-Personal Being (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit), has perfect communication--communion, even--within Himself.

I read recently about Herschel Walker's 'dissociative identity disorder' which is the name now given to persons having a multiple personality diagnosis. I'd like to read his book.

A film I like a lot--Fight Club (Brad Pitt, Edward Norton), based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk (see my review here)-- explores the dimensions of sane, and insane, self talk. And soap. (How could I forget the soap?)

The Kingdom of God is among you," Jesus said. This means that Heaven has invaded earth, and is now controlling the media, so to speak. Our self talk is intended to be guided by God's grace as we rehearse God's promises to ourselves.

As we do, we are to remind ourselves of the character of a loving Father who, in perfect tria-logue with himself, agreed with the Son and the Spirit to give Himself to Death that we might have Life.

As I've continued to grow in my spiritual understanding, I've discovered--or rediscovered--the importance of, and the power of--prayer. Here are some things that I've learned.

The Christian tradition teaches that prayer is a means by which God has determined to accomplish His will. But, there is great mystery here: an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-determining God has not only commanded human beings to pray, but has promised to act in response to prayer.

Rather than foray into this philosophical territory, however, most folks simply pray. This is probably as it ought to be. Not many of us are called to be philosophers.

St. Paul, no mean philosopher himself, was content in most cases to stand on this simple ground: "pray and wait for God to act." In many of his letters (which make up the bulk of the New Testament sacred texts) he asks for prayer.

In one famous example, which concludes his letter to the believers in ancient Greek city of Ephesus, he writes:

Paul says, "Pray for me." And what does he ask for? Interestingly, never known for his timidity, Paul asks for boldness. For courage. What does this teach us?

First, this teaches me that Gospel boldness is a gift from God. But that's not all. Notice that Paul asks that "words may be given to me." This echoes Jesus' promise in Matthew where he encourages His disciples that they will have the necessary thing to say, and that they shouldn't worry when they are hauled into court for their faith.

Words are gifts. So are ears and eyes.  I also read earlier this week in Proverbs that the "hearing ear and the seeing eye, the LORD has made them both" (Prov. 20:12).

Here then is the mystery, in short: God knows and commands all things. He has determined to act in response to our prayers. And thus when He provides for our needs, in this case, both speaking and hearing, He is shown to be the "giver of every good and perfect gift."

What an amazing God!
As you pray, pray for my hearers (those who listen) and see-ers (those who read and see my materials) will be given eyes to see God's good work!

In the American Geek column of Newsweek (July 21, 2008), N'Gai Croal brings the "crackberry" commentary to a new, philosophical level when he ties our constant use of PDAs to Aristotle's famous maxim, "Nature abhors a vacuum."

So far from seeking new levels of productivity, Croal confesses, "even the work I did on my PDA was a way of filling the void with some form of electronic activity."

This isn't multitasking, Croal says. It is a new form of "mobile perpetual tasking" where "moments of spare time are steadily filled in by constant communication."

This was poignant after returning from a vacation in the New Hampshire wildlands, where neither I nor my wife had any cell-phone connectivity. Our closest "option" was a rotary-dial phone in our camphouse.

In fact, the closest "berry" I had was cracking open an ancient recipe for blueberry jam, which I made with baskets-full of fresh blueberries from the woods in which we stayed.

I went four straight days without any email, internet, or cell-phone access. On the fifth day (hear the reverberating tones of Genesis chapter one), I drove twenty minutes into town where I finally "plugged in" again.

As I sat drinking a hot cup of coffee, I couldn't tell which was more stimulating: the caffeine or the e-universe?

Making things more interesting, the "novels" I had chosen to read on vacation was the science fiction trilogy by John Scalzi (Old Man's War, Ghost Brigades, and The Last Colony).

In these well-written books (but not for kiddies), Scalzi paints a compelling, if brief, overview of the future multi-verse in which people's PDAs are basically hardwired, and then, genetically and organically "soft-wired" into the brain itself.

At one point in the series an alien race figures out how to "turn off" these brain-based PDAs and the human fighter species are rendered practically helpless.

Besides being great reading, and entertaining, Scalzi's future vision has one obvious present-day implication for all perpetual-taskers like Croal and myself: shut the thing off and find out if you still know how to sabbath. I did, I do, and I'll do it again, too!

It's hard to argue with Grandma.

Of the many "wise sayings," she often told me, one came to mind the other day as I was helping a neighbor clean: "if everyone swept in front of his own front door, the whole world would be clean."

Problem is, though, sometimes others can't sweep in front of their own front door.

So as true as my grandmother's old proverb is, its radical emphasis on the individual ignores the power of, and central significance of, the community.

In the end, neither the individual, nor the community, can exist without the other.

Philosophers have long struggled to answer, or solve, this problem of individual vs community, also known by the technical term, "the problem of the one and the many."

Some theologians have argued that this "problem" can only be solved with the historic orthodox concept of God as "three-and-one."

Sweeping, as it turns out, is a project for the Trinity.

Bertrand Russell, a famous 20th century logician and self-described rationalist, writes in his essay called "Liberal Decalogue" the following interesting observation:

...every opinion now accepted was once considered eccentric.

Further on, Russell elaborates on an aspect of eccentricity, namely, the ability and freedom to dissent; this bit is phrased as a command:

Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than passive agreement...for if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

This reminds me of the way we find truth wherever we go, whether we're looking for it or not. Clearly, Russell's assumptions and the starting point for his purported "rationality" is different than mine. But he's captured truth here, clear, biblical truth. How is this?

I think the answer is that God has traced His grace with an indelible pen across all of creation. This autograph of God includes the thoughts of unbelievers, non-believers, and former-believers. Folk like Russell.

So, while much could be made of dissecting Russell and his arguments against Christianity, and against theism, for the moment, I'm relishing in his golden insights.

(A good summary of Russell's career as a logician and philosopher can be found here. Go here for Russell's essay, "Why I Am Not a Christian." Here, for his essay, "Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?"

Reading the New Yorker recently, I came across a fantastic quote:

Without a killing, there is no feast.

Doing a quick search online, I found that it is quoted nowhere else except here, by an actor and instructor of acting, on his blog. (Interesting blog, too.) I'd love to know the author of this quote, someone who is, apparently by the author of the article, a "philosopher."

But its significance to me goes beyond the field of acting or even philosophy.

Think for a moment: the Christian faith is compared to a feast. Themes of satisfaction, fullness of joy, and being filled (with the Holy Spirit, with grace, with love, etc.) abound.

What is remarkable is that this bounteous feast of grace has been prepared for us through the death (and resurrection) of Jesus. Even more remarkably, the one who prepared it, the Host, is the one whose death was required.

Reading elsewhere online, I came across this quote from Old Spurgeon, the famous 19th century Baptist pastor:

Gospel joys are elevating, they make men like angels. As in the gospel God comes down to men, so by the gospel men go up to God. I might also have shown you how absolutely peerless are the provisions of grace. There is no feast like that of the gospel, no meat like the flesh of Jesus, no drink like his blood, no joys like that which crowns the gospel feast. (Spurgeon on Isaiah 25:6)

Sam Harris's new book, Letter to a Christian Nation, is a rant against Christians, specifically, and all theists, generally. It is not deeply argued. Harris gets away with ad hominems ad nausea, and fails to demonstrate that his assumptions (as an atheist) are better than mine (as a theist).

A central theme in the book is his definition of morality as the alleviation of suffering and the promotion of happiness. Interesting definition given the fact that Harris offers no basis for the belief that suffering is bad and happiness is good.

So, while he charges God-believers with all manner of evils, including the "evil" of circular reasoning, Harris fails himself to rescue himself out of his own circularity. (Sam, let us know if you ever catch your tail.)

On the whole, it is a good book for a Christian to read as it presents at least the basic problems that unbelievers and atheists have with the Faith. It is also a good book for unbelievers to read, as it shows that ranting does little to quench the thirst in the human soul for transcendent truth. Sorry, Sam. It is the way you were made.

I take a naturalist to be someone who deligihts in the flora and fauna of creation, and relishes the journey. He has scientific knowledge, but is more of an artist than a lab technician. Philsosophical naturalism, then, is not some new theory of the world, the universe, and everything, but describes a hiker's journey through the world which awaits His Redemption.

What does the name mean? Coffee is an aesthetic flourish for a meal, and goes especially well with chocolate, I think. Bitter-sweet; bitter-sweet. Semi-sweet. Culture and kingdom are vectors which emerge from the banquet ended well with coffee and chocolate. Culture is the downwarrd, immanent, engaging vector. Kingdom is the upward, transcendent vector.

Take this as a brand of pastoral philosophy. By brand, I mean a promise wrapped in an experience. The promise hopefully won't disappoint like so many jelly donuts: you bite into them four times before you get the payoff. Alas and alack!

If you're looking for technical theological statements, you can find them here. You'll just have to poke around a bit. But if you're looking for fun, interesting, and thoughtful meditations on Jesus and our world, welcome to Coffee Culture Kingdom.