Month: June 2008

Categories
Epistemology Theology

Stackhouse on Certainty

John Stackhouse wrote a wonderful post recently on certainty.  I”ve been reading some of Stackhouse’s books recently (will blog on them soon) and am finding much resonance with how he thinks through things.  Here is the heart of it:

The Bible, that is, doesn’t promise somehow to lift me above my human limitations into an epistemic situation such that I can know something truly and also know that I know it truly and could not possibly be wrong. How could I, as a human being, ever experience something like that?

(And those who quote passages such as Luke 1:4 and Hebrews 11:1 need to consult the Greek lectionaries to see what is actually meant in the English translations that use “certain” words therein. Those words do not mean certainty in the former sense I’m defining here.)

No, the Bible promises that I can know with such assurance, such conviction, such well-grounded faith that I then can and will act in accordance with that faith—and thus be faithful.

This is, finally, the point of it all. We Christians “live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7)—and so does everybody else, actually, since no human being can transcend our common situation of epistemic finitude. In fact, if we enjoyed all the certainty (in the former sense) that some Christians say we should claim, well, then, we wouldn’t need faith anymore. We would just know things, and we would know that we were entirely right about them.

Instead, we know things more or less well, just like I know various people more or less well, or various songs more or less well, and thus I have more or less confidence in my knowledge of them. I don’t know anyone or anything in such a way that I could not possibly be wrong about them.

Is that a bit scary? Yes, it is, and I think fear motivates a lot of people who spout off about absolute truth and certainty and the rest of it, and who condemn anyone who suggests that we can’t be as sure of things as they say they are. But claiming certainty in a big, belligerent voice doesn’t alter the situation one bit. And I wish such bullies would calm down and face, so to speak, reality.

Welcome to the human condition, friends. We have to sort out the world as best we can, with whatever help we think we have found.

Categories
Poetry Spirituality Uncategorized

Peach Trees

Peach trees grew here years ago,
when the summer days flowed like a lazy river.
They let cool nectar run down their chins,
unworried that the garden would yield to muddy March ground,
trampled by growing children not yet born.

Now the dried out stumps of broken peach trees
mark a line the grass dared not cross,
rich loam meant for deeper roots and
heavy branches thick with fruit.

We will plant something here again.
This patch will glow green once more,
and we will eat the warmth of the summer sun,
until our time in the garden passes
and the ground is ripe with growing children not yet born.
Categories
Science & Technology

Colliding Galaxies

This visualization is amazingly cool:

Categories
Culture Science & Technology

Microsoft, Google, and White Spaces

Microsoft, Google and other information technology and electronics companies are lobbying the FCC for access to the expanded “white spaces” between digital television broadcast signals. White spaces are buffer zones that prevent signals for different television channels from interfering with each other. They offer the potential for gigabit-speed Wi-Fi access. Existing Wi-Fi technologies, however, cannot exploit this space without creating interference with television signals. Television broadcasters therefore are resisting the approval of white space Wi-Fi devices.

This presents some interesting questions about the information infrastructure commons. Television broadcasters and equipment manufacturers have invested heavily in what could be considered pre-infrastructure — broadcast equipment, programming, and television sets — for use on the digital broadcast spectrum infrastructure. Does that investment privilege television use of the spectrum infrastructure over Wi-Fi use? Are television and Wi-Fi truly separate uses given the convergence of video with Wi-Fi? Will my neighbor’s video conference call interfere with my sacred right to wach “Lost” in high def?

Categories
Culture Spirituality Theology

Everyday Journal

During exams I got behind in my blogging and failed to mention the latest issue of The Everyday Journal.  Among other notable articles is this interview with Brian McLaren by Thom Turner.  An excerpt from the interview:

If I want to see change in the world, the change needs to begin in myself. If I want to see the world become more peaceful, for example, I need to become a person of peace. If I want the world to become less consumptive, I need to become more self-disciplined, and so on. So, to be the change we want to see in the world, we need spiritual practices that help us change. If you imagine a bunch of greedy people trying to make the world more generous, or a bunch of bitter people trying to make the world more forgiving, you see the folly of seeking local, national, or global change without paying attention to spiritual formation.

And this reflection by Meagan on finder herself changed forever after missionary work in Alaska: “even today, talking to my friends from SEND of Alaska’s Summer Missionary Program (SMP) sometimes reminds me of what I imagine an AA meeting to be like.”

As well as much other excellent stuff!

Categories
Historical Theology Spirituality Theology

Eucharistic Baptists?

The evanglical / sort-of-Baptist church I attend had a “liturgical” service today.  It really spoke to me!  I think it’s so great to connect with the historic traditions and confessions of the Church — the Apostle’s Creed (or a Baptist version of it?!!) and a eucharist in which everyone comes forward to identify with the body and blood of Christ.  This is exactly the kind of service I’ve been looking for — contemporary worship mixed with historic confession and observance of the Lord’s Supper, but still with a Biblical sermon. 

In fact, I’d be interested to explore and push a little further how we treat the eucharistic meal in the economy of salvation.  Growing up in evangelical / fundamental / pietistic churches, I’ve always heard the communion meal prefaced with some statement about how communion doesn’t have anything to do with salvation.  The churches I grew up in were eager to distance themselves from what they (mis)understood to the the Roman Catholic view on the eucharist as sacrament — actually the closed Bretheren church I went to as a little kid was hatefuly anti-Catholic — but even then I felt the “communion merely as rememberance” view was unsatisfying. 

I wonder if it isn’t time for us as evangelicals to recapture the Patristic and Reformational view of the eucharist as something more mystical than merely a remembrance — or maybe I should say, to reinfuse the term “remembrance” with soteriological meaning.  I like Calvin’s view that salvation comes by grace alone mediated by faith as a gift of the Holy Spirit — and so the eucharistic meal is not a “means of grace” in the Roman sense of it — but that partaking in the eucharist is a kind of sign and seal of faith.  I think that the Baptistic evangelical tradition has gone too far in the direction of defining faith as internal experience — we’ve over-reacted to more sacramental forms of the faith.  Internal experience, IMHO, is important, but highly variable and also highly unreliable — particularly for people like me who struggle sometimes with anxiety, depression, doubt, etc.  The fact that someone stands up in front of the congregation and receives the bread and cup is itself an expression and act of faith — and something very real and mysterious happens at the spiritual level in that moment.  (I want to use the phrase “soteriological meaning” above not to signify a sacrament that is required for salvation, but to understand participation in the eucharist as part of what happens along the “way of salvation” — part of the process of the saved / “being saved” // already / not yet of life in Christ).
 
I’m not sure if Calvin ever went in this direction, but I’m kind of thinking of a pneumatological theology of the eucharist.  When someone takes the elements in faith, the Holy Spirit is present to that person and in the gathered community of faith in a special way, supplying, confirming, reinforcing, directing, invigorating faith.  I wonder if this is a sort of evangelical way forward from a kind of stale view of the eucharist without getting in to the question of the “real presence” in either its Catholic or Lutheran versions.  I wonder, if by understanding the Holy Spirit to be present in a special way when the elements are taken in faith, we are able to recite the actual text of scripture:  “this is my body, broken for you” “this cup ???????? ????? ????????is the new covenant in my blood” without having to get into the ontological status of the physical elements.