“A page of history is worth a volume of logic.” New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U.S. 345, 349 (1921) (Holmes, J., dissenting).
Month: March 2007
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A Calvin Joke
Luther, Wesley and Calvin all arrived at heaven at the same time.
Luther entered first. After 5 minutes he came out and said “I’ve got
to go back and get it right!”
Wesley was next. After 5 minutes he came out and said “I’ve got to go
back and get it right!”
Calvin then went in. After 5 minutes Jesus came out … .
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Bloesch on Truth
This is a continuation of my posts about Donald Bloesch’s Holy Scripture.
Bloesch’s chapter “Truth in Biblical & Philosophical Perspective” is excellent. Bloesch notes that both the correspondence and coherence views of truth are Biblically flawed. “To understand truth bascially in terms of correspondence between the mind and the exterior world,” Bloesch notes, “reflects a dualistic view of reality, presupposing a bifurcation between mind and matter, spirit and nature.” This is a helpful corrective to the strong emphasis in some corners of evangelicalism on the correspondence view (to the point, in the writings of folks like Doug Groothuis, of holding that the correspondence view is the only proper view for a Christian to hold).
The coherence view, Bloesch holds, is equally flawed, because it is rooted in an idealistic monism, in which everything is capable of hanging together perfectly in human speech and thought, and in which nothing is unique or outside a systematizable perspective. Yet Bloesch is similarly critical of mysticism, in which truth is a sort of “overarching unity that dissolves particularity and individuality” and pragmatism, in which “the criterion for truth is workability and utility.”
Against all these views, Bloesch suggests that “truth” in scripture usually means “genuineness, veracity, faithfulness and steadfastness.” “In the deepest sense,” he says, “truth is identified with God himself, and the stamp of truth therefore characterizes both his words and his works. Truth is not so much an ideas as a person, not so much a formulation as an act.”
This does not to suggest to Bloesch that correspondence and coherence are irrelevant. However, while
[t]he Christian certainly shares with the unbeliever the idea of truth as a correct description of the world, . . . the correspondence theory becomes questionable when the discussion turns to ultimate or final truth. Truth in the ultimate sense is not a conforming of the mind to objective reality but the refocusing of the mind by the Spirit of God, who breaks into our reality from the beyond. Truth is being brought into accord with the transcendent meaning of the gospel, the very Word of God. It is not simply an agreement between our ideas and the gospel but a conforming of our totla life orientation to the demands of the gospel. Truth in biblical perspective is not so much the factual of the eventful. It is not the mere perception of facts but transformation by the transcendent reality that the biblical facts point to and attest.
Similarly, the coherence theory eventually breaks down because “[r]evelation cannot be assimilated into a comprehensive, rational system of truth….” However, revelation “can throw light on all human systems that purport to give meaning and purpose to life.” Pragmatism also is misplaced because “the fundamental need of human beings is not satisfaction or integration but deliverance from sin and communion with God.” And mysticism loses contact with Biblical truth because “[f]aith is not a mystical unknowing but a steadfast and certain knowledge concerning things beyond the compass of human reason and imagination (Calvin).”
Bloesch ties all this together in an assessment of evangelical controversies about scripture. He notes, correctly I think, that
The crux of the problem in contemporary evangelicalism concerning the inerrancy of the Bible revolves around different understandings of truth. The conflict is not so much theological as philosophical. Because a large segment of conservative Protestantism has unwittingly accepted the Enlightenment reduction of truth to the rationally empirical or evidential, the possibility of forging some concensus on this question is made all the more difficult. What is clear is that the cultural or dictionary understanding of truth has eclipsed the biblical understanding among many earnest Christians.
Bloesch argues for an understanding of inerrancy that is not freighted with this cultural baggage. “Biblical Christians,” he says, “can affirm the inerrancy of Scripture so long as it is not confused with total factual and scientific accuracy. . . . Inerrancy in biblical understanding means that the Bible in its unity with the Spirit guides us into all truth.”
This does not mean that the essentially historical character of Biblical revelation can be discarded.
The paramount question is not whether the Bible is true in the sense of being fully accurate in everything it reports, but whether the Bible leads us into truth, whether the Bible brings us truth. But the Bible could not lead us into truth unless its central claims were true, unless its overall witness were reliable and dependable. . . . To affirm that the Bible teaches ‘religious truth’ but not ‘historical truth’ is to overlook the Bible’s central claim that paradoxically God became historical, myth became fact.
Ultimately, Bloesch states, “[t]he texts of Scripture are steppingstones to the spiritual reality to which these texts refer, a reality inaccessible to historical research and investigation. God’s Word is truly known only when God himself speaks, an occurrence that is always unpredictable and mind-altering.”
There is so much that I think is helpful and right in this balanced, reformed understanding of truth, which nods to Barth without accepting Barth uncritically.
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A Little Guitar Music
Here’s a little noodling I was doing, wiht a capo on the third fret and a shorty capo on the forth: Rhapsody.
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Puttin on the Ritz
A night out with the wife? A benefit dinner? The opera? No, in costume for my daughter’s 12th birthday party! I knew I could make that tux (sort of) fit! And how do you like that Photoshopped background?
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A Beautiful Blessing
Last night I attended the “Watering Hole,” a men’s ministry at the new church my family has started attending. There was an informal talk with a pastor from Uganda with whom the church has a ministry partnership. It was very interesting to hear about the struggles of men and families in Africa. Many of them are the same struggles we face here in the U.S.
At the end of the evening, the Ugandan pastor gave all us guys a blessing in his native language. We all stood with arms open to receive his blessing. It was a deeply moving experience. I of course couldn’t understand the actual words of his language, but I understood in my spirit the love and power of his blessing. This is what the Church is all about — people of different races, languages and nations worshiping together and blessing each other in the peace and unity of the Spirit.
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More on the Jesus Tomb
Here is a good article on the Biblical Archeology Society website by archeologist Jodi Magness. It should be noted that BAS is not in the business of finding archeological “proofs” of the Bible and that Magness is a mainstream scholar with impeccable credentials.
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Death of the Hokey Pokey Man
Someone sent me this today:
With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is
worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went
unnoticed last week. Larry LaPrise, the man that wrote “The Hokey Pokey”
died peacefully at the age of 93. The most traumatic part for his family
was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the
trouble started.
I’ve been reading Francis Bacon for a legal scholarship project on intellectual propertly law (focusing on how Enlightenment epistemology and views of progress influenced the instrumentalist basis of patent and copyright law). Coincidentally, I came across this passage from Bacon’s Magna Instauratio about the relationship between faith and science, which summarizes my present feelings quite well. It’s interesting that Bacon was wrestling in the early 1600’s with the same things we wrestle with today:
you will find that by the simpleness of certain divines, access to any philosophy, however pure, is well night closed. Some are weakly afraid lest a deeper search into nature should transgress the permitted limits of sobermindednes, wrongfully wresting and transferring what is said in holy writ against those who pry into sacred mysteries to the hidden things of nature, which are barred by no prohibition. Others with more subtlety surmise and reflect that if second causes are unknown, everything can more readily be referred to the divine hand and rod, a point in which they think religion greatly concerned which is in fact nothing else but to seek to gratify God with a lie. Others fear from past example that movements and changes in philosophy will end in assaults on religion. And others again appear apprehensive that in the investigation of nature something may be found to subvert or at least shake the authority of religion, especially with the unlearned. But these two last fears seem to me to savour utterly of carnal wisdom, as if men in the recesses and secret thoughts of their hearts doubted and distrusted the strength of religion and the empire of faith over the sense, and therefore feared that the investigation of truth in nature might be dangerous to them. But if the matter be truly considered, natural philosophy is after the word of God at once the surest medicine against superstition, and the most approved nourishment for faith, and therefore she is rightly given to religion as her most faithful handmaid, since the one displays the will of God, the other his power.
There was an amusing story in the Wall Street Journal this week about Al Gore’s indoor heated pool and the way in which he purchases “offsets” for his personal carbon emissions. According to the story: “Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh–guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year.” Gore “offsets” this energy usage by purchasing blocks of “green” power from wind farms and such.
The story also notes that Oscar attendees received as part of their “swag” 100,000 pounds worth of carbon credits from an outfit called TerrPass. Here’s how TerraPass describes itself: “When you buy a TerraPass, your money funds renewable energy projects such as wind farms. These projects result in verified reductions in greenhouse gas pollution. And these reductions counterbalance your own emissions.”
As I’ve said before, I’m not a skeptic of the basic scientific conclusions about global warming. I am, however, skeptical of international emissions trading schemes, and the above is one reason why. The market dynamics of this “offset” process mirror some potential problems with a global market — specifically the differential between the wealthy and poor concerning elasticity of demand.
Gore and his fellow Oscar winners aren’t really “offsetting” their carbon energy use. What these “offsets” are really doing is maintaining the supply of carbon energy such that the elite’s demand can be satisfied. Here, the concept of the “elasticity” of demand is important. A demand curve usually is not constant. At different places in the curve, demand responds more or less sharply to changes in price. Demand is “elastic” if demand is relatively sensitive to incremental changes in price. Demand is “inelastic” if demand is relatively insensitive to incremental changes in price.
For most of us, I suspect that demand for energy is relatively elastic. A relatively small fluctuation will cause us to change behavior — lower thermostats, not driving as much, etc. For the very wealthy, however, demand for energy probably is much less elastic. They aren’t likely to notice a few thousand dollar increase in cost of electricity for the swimming pool.
At best, then, the “offets” Gore is buying will allow some alternative energy supplier to offer energy to the more elastic segments of the market (us regular Joes) at prices competitive with traditional carbon-based suppliers. But this is highly unlikely, since the “offsets” purchased aren’t anywhere near the amount needed to make up for the higher variable costs of supplying alternative energy (not to mention the sunk costs of research and development and building infrastructure). Thus, demand for traditional energy is not likely to decrease among the more elastic segments of the market, or if it does, the decrease will be marginal.
Meanwhile, the “offsets” allow the more inelastic segments of the traditional energy market to feel good about their conspicuous energy consumption, fueling additional demand. The net is likely to be an overall increase in traditional energy usuage!
Once the problem is conceived in terms of elasticities of demand, another solution suggests itself. Where there are differing elasticities of demand for the same good, a typical efficient response is differential or “Ramsey” pricing. Differential pricing means that the more elastic segments of the market are charged more than the more inelastic segments.
This is one reason why a graduated carbon tax seems to make sense. Instead of buying “offsets,” the price of energy should be graduated based on the amount used. After a basic level, the price would increase sharply, to the point where even elastic segments of the market would feel pain for conspicuous use (either through regulation, taxation, or both). I’ll be this would do more to fuel research into alternative energy sources than an “offset” market that only allows the wealthy to buy their peace.