Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

This worldly hope and the gospel of Jesus

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Dallas Willard, in Renovation of the Heart, noted that human character is both formed over time, but that it can also be transformed. These are very mundane observations (p 14). Mundane though they be, many people do not consider either fact. If you make a plan for improving your character, it is, at least, your plan. If you do not, then your character is being formed/transformed, but into what? I submit that Christian repentance is (though the Spirit of God enables it) a decision to plan one’s life based upon the gospel of Jesus rather than on whatever program you had previously been using. So, you character is formed (that’s how you got to be yourself) and it can be transformed. Willard goes on

And on these two points lies the inescapable relevance of Jesus to human life. About two thousand years ago he gathered his little group of friends and trainees on the Galilean hillsides and sent them out to “teach all nations” – that is, to make students (apprentices) to him from all ethnic groups. His objective is to eventually bring all of human life on earth under the direction of his wisdom, goodness, and power, as a part of God’s eternal plan for the universe.

We must make no mistake about it. In thus sending out his trainees, he set afoot a perpetual world revolution: one that is still in process and will continue until God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. As this revolution culminates, all the forces of evil known to mankind will be defeated and the goodness of God will be known, accepted, and joyously conformed to in every aspect of human life. He has chosen to accomplish this with and, in part, through his students. (p 14-15)

Christianity is more than a moral revolution for those who conform their lives to the teachings of Jesus in history, but it is not less. Christianity and the gospel thereof certainly includes the atonement, heaven, a future resurrection and judgement, etc. But it is also what Willard has described. For me that creates tremendous hope. When you invest time in somebody who really wants to change, but really doesn’t seem to make much progress you have to remember that Jesus’ revolution is in space time. It, therefore, takes time. We cannot control that time, we can only respond to his teachings and to his creation with care and attention. But, that was, as Willard notes, Jesus’ plan all along. He wants students, not simply people who sign dotted lines. He wants people who know, accept, and conform themselves to God’s goodness not simply people who talk about it. This is what the monks who basically invented the modern hospital believed as well as the martyrs, political revolutionaries, reformers of various stripes, and hopefully many Christians today believed and continue to believe.

This passage of Willard’s work summarizes important themes in the four gospels, 1 Corinthians 15, Romans 5-12, 1 Thessalonians 1, Isaiah 40-66, all of Ephesians, and Revelation 20-21. Caring for people can be tiresome, burdensome, and down right awful. In some cases it involves getting in the face of people who want you dead. Sometimes it means spending time with a boor. Sometimes it means going without. Sometimes it means going about business as usual. But, there is hope. Jesus is on the move.

Synder on Gospel Distortions

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Howard Synder posted fourteen ways that we can distort the gospel. h/t to Jim West. Number 10 was particularly striking to me:

10. “Believers” instead of disciples.

Jesus calls and forms disciples so that the body of Christ becomes a community of kingdom-of-God disciples. The New Testament rarely uses the word “believers.” Today this fact is distorted by the tendency in modern translations to use “believers” in place of “brothers” (in order to be more inclusive) or in place of pronouns such as “them.”

What counts is not the number of believers but the number of disciples, and thus the ministry of disciple-making.

Though Paul and Jesus (in John’s gospel) teach a great deal about salvation by means of faith, the question is still, “What does that faith look like?” We often take words like “believe” and “faith” and insert modernized meanings into the words. But Paul, nor Jesus really let us do that. For instance, Jesus tells a group of believers this, “If you continue in my word, you are really my disciples.  (32)  And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.(Joh 8:31-32)” He wants the group of people who trust in him to be synonymous with people who do what he says. Similarly, Paul who says over and over again that we are justified by faith, notes what kind of faith this is in Romans 1:5, “Through him we received grace and a commission as an apostle to bring about faithful obedience among all the gentiles for the sake of his name.” Thus, for Paul, the very faith he later says justifies, is a faith that is obedient to Jesus. Not just Jesus as cipher for this or that theological position or political hobby horse, but the Jesus who says to do difficult things, “take up your cross,” “when you fast,” “make disciples of the nations,” “when you give alms,” “whoever wishes to be first must be the servant of all,” etc.

*Note: Bible translation used is ISV. I normally use my own, but was in a hurry today.

Melting Asphalt and God as a cipher

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An atheist writer over at Melting Asphalt wrote this:

In light of this view of religion (as a tribal strategy), I’d like to share a little hack I sometimes use to make sense of religious practices. Whenever I hear someone say “God,” I try substituting “society” in its place. E.g.:

  • God is great becomes society is great.
  • When someone says, praying before a meal, “We give thanks to God for this food,” I hear praise of society, of civilization
  • When a Muslim says that Islam is all about submission to Allah, I understand this as submission to society.

Though that’s a neat little mind hack, he’s missing some things. Many religious people often, after they come to believe in a deity, find themselves living lifestyles that are in stark contrast to society and thus in conflict with its mores and its most powerful members. To adhere to a religion in a serious fashion often puts an individual at odds with society. So though it is a nice hack for an atheist trying to play nice with religious doofuses (make no mistake the irenic author calls religious beliefs crazy, in a sense that either means obviously untrue, therefore being held delusionally or perhaps in the sense of outrageously unintelligent to hold), it does not work as a descriptor of actual religious belief. A central piece, for instance, of the New Testament message is that:

If anyone thinks that he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but instead deceives himself, his religion is worthless.  (27)  A religion that is pure and stainless according to God the Father is this: to take care of orphans and widows who are suffering, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:26-27)

It is precisely that there is a society that makes widows and orphans into a group of undesirables that makes the message of Jesus necessary. Incidentally, God, in the book of James is precisely not anthropomorphic (a claim the aforementioned blog makes several times). God is rather, unchanging. God sustains the universe, free agents therein do evil.

Every generous act of giving and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father who made the heavenly lights, in whom there is no inconsistency or shifting shadow. (James 1:17)

Many theistic religions would claim that, for whatever reason (some have explanations and accounts of how/why this is and some do not) there is evil in the world, but ultimately God is goodness as such. Thus, God is for the well being of the cosmos and of discrete creatures but not discrete creatures at the cost of the whole cosmos. This is a vast oversimplification, but God is not a substitute for society. When a society is evil, God, being goodness as such, is then manifestly opposed to that society’s actions and ideologies.

For people who have trouble with the concept that God is goodness, I recommend reading the posts here at Ed Feser’s blog. God’s existence is a matter of metaphysical demonstration, not a matter of symbolically replacing society with a super-person. Religious people claim either to be trying to live good lives because it is morally appropriate in light of God’s existence or they are a part of a community which claims to have revelation from God (or a combination of the two). That can lead to beliefs that seem crazy but that remains to be demonstrated based on the logic of the claims that the best representatives of the group make, not based on “obviousness.” It’s obvious that humans are internally symmetrical based on their exterior until you dissect one.

When a journalist writes about a scientific theory he/she accepts, its explication will usually not touch its technical nuances and difficulties. The same with religious folk. A Thomas Aquinas or Samuel Clarke would be considered better representatives than a pious shop-keeper just like a laboratory researcher is a better representative than a science-y journalist.

By and large I do find the asphalt article to be thoughtful. But there’s a massive misunderstanding of what makes people religious. Pointing out that religious beliefs are clearly false, therefore religious people must subconsciously mean something else by them isn’t going to cut it for most people who sincerely practice there faith (a Buddhist will not agree that nirvana is a cipher for society).

I may have totally misunderstood this fellow’s post, but those are my thoughts. It is interesting stuff to read. Have a look.

Oatmeal

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Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 dictionary of the English language said thus about Oats:

‘a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.’

All the athletes I know who eat oatmeal would perhaps concur that oatmeal helps them to run, lift, and jump like horses. I’ve elsewhere heard it jokingly described as Oatanobol (reference to a steroid that increases protein synthesis and aggression and thus muscle size and strength).

Anyhow, I suddenly remembered that fact about that dictionary. A co-worker of mine loves Scotsmen (he is one and so was Adam Smith) but he hates oatmeal and he often recounts that quote.

Books of 2013

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In 2013 I read, what felt like, less than ever. Nevertheless, here’s what I came up with when formulating a list. I wrote the list ether adding books right after I finished them or while cataloging the books in our study and realizing which ones I had read this year. I’ll briefly comment on anything worth noting in the list if you care to look through it. 

Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide by Edward Feser – This book is marvelous. I’m writing a full length review now, but if you wish to review Aquinas’ five ways more in depth than you did in Systematic Theology class or if you want an introduction to Aristotle’s metaphysics, this is a must have at a very, very low price. 
Reformed and Feminist by Johanna Wijk-Bos – If you’re interested in the feminist movement in the church (whether sympathetic or not) this book is one that tries to endorse the inspiration of Scripture while exegeting it in a feminist way. Take it for what its worth. She does this with Ruth in the last few pages. 
How to Read Psalms by Tremper Longman – This book is useful, cheap, and brief. 
New Perspective on Jesus by James Dunn  – Best insight from this is Dunn’s remark to the effect that even if all we have in the gospels are impressions of Jesus upon his followers, they are still impressions left by Jesus and thus tell us something of the man. 
Philosophy and Civilization in the Middle Ages by Maurice De Wulf  – Useful, I intend to reread some chapters this year to help me with chronology during that era. 
The Making of the Middle Ages by R.W. Southern – same as above. 
Honor by James Bowman – Good book for understanding honor and why we do not value it as much or in the same way in modern western culture. Whether you agree with his history of honor or not (which I’d say could learn a bit from Bruce Malina or Dave DeSilva for the ancient era), his cultural commentary in the last chapter is very provocative.  
Practical Programming by Mark Rippetoe 
Fit by Lon Kilgore
Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe – The three fitness books above are pretty good. FIT and Practical Programming have a lot of very logical programming suggestions. I’m no elite athlete though, so many of them are simply infeasible for me. 
Wisdom’s Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza  – She defines several strains of feminism in the book. That made it the most useful. Other than it wasn’t particularly helpful for learning to interpret Scripture. It was more useful for understanding why certain feminist scholars interpret things the way they do. 
Who Stole Feminism by Christina Hoff Sommers
The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers – both of these books were written by a feminist philosopher who has apparently spent a great deal of time studying logic and statistical analysis. Both books are useful for getting past a great deal of nonsense argumentation used in certain circles that make false generalizations about males based of misunderstanding things like statistics. 
How God Became King by N.T. Wright  – Excellent book about the gospels, but Wright often writes with an “I don’t know why this isn’t obvious to all the other people” tone that is off putting. Nevertheless, the content of the book is very useful. 
The Psalms: Why They Are Essential by N.T. Wright  -This is more of a meditation upon the Psalms than a book about how to interpret them. He proposes looking at the earthiness of the Psalter how time, space, and matter intersect. In other words, read to Psalms to help you answer questions like what time is it in God’s timeline, where am I in relation to God’s work on earth, and what am  I doing in my body? 
The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight – Excellent book about how the gospel narratievs are the gospel message that was preached by the apostles in the New Testament Era.
Being and Essence by Thomas Aquinas  – Want to know what Aquinas did with the Aristotelian distinction between being and essence? Read this. 
The Last Superstition by Edward Feser – Feser here defends Aristotle’s metaphysics and then some of Aquinas’ insights about God, nature, and ethics. The last superstition, for Feser, is the mechanistic universe and the abandonment of Aristotle’s metaphysics (which he right argues is presupposed in science, but since it is explicitly denied in philosophy has lead to so many crazy ideas out there). 
Ancient Faith and Modern Physics by Stephen Barr – Book by a physicist who actually knows the old arguments for God’s existence and why they are valid. 
Four Gospels, One Jesus? by Richard Burridge  – Decent book. The gospels are ancient biography and thus give useful pictures of Christ. 
Impossibility by John Barrow – This was a let down. He’s a mathematician who confuses logic with rhetoric. He often finds a logical conundrum, points out how he’s baffled by it, then thinks he’s convinced people that both sides of the debate are wrong. 
Black and Tan by Doug Wilson  – I’ve met Doug several times now. I read this because he’s been accused of racism several times and I just never saw it. Anyhow, he’s not a racist. He just thinks that the Civil War wasn’t about race (whether right or wrong) and he thinks that the gospel takes time to work into the hearts of whole people groups.
Lights in the Deep by Brad Torgersen – Excellent sci-fi shorts. I especially liked Outbound. Its about a boy who ends up exiting the solar system with a very unusual married couple. 
The Irrational Atheist by Vox Day  – Vox is a video game programmer with some very eccentric ideas about God and the world. Even his ideas which I disagree with aren’t irrational so much as (by my lights) wrong. Anyhow, in this book he fairly thoroughly dismantles the previously famous atheist superhero team of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett. The arguments are fairly obvious to anybody who chased down their footnotes or knew the history that was misreported, but Day’s statement of it all is hilarious. 
The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris  – Harris attempted to prove that science provides the material for constructing morality. In some sense that’s not particularly threatening. From a Christian point of view there are many goods to seek that are lesser than God but which it is a moral requirement to discover, seek, and improve our efforts toward. The problem is that Harris has to redefine what good is, thus making his book not about morality after all and he rants for pages about Francis Collins being a dangerous person. It’s neither a careful nor useful book. For a while he was offering money to anybody who could refute it in 1000 words. I still may try to write one using Aristotle and A.J. Ayers (who argues that philosophy and ethics are just non-sense).
How to Read Proverbs by Tremper Longman – Best book on proverbs ever. It’s good devotional material, good intro material, and it is brief. 
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis 
Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis – Lewis’ children’s stories are just as fun as ever. 
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis – I wrote my review. It is here.
Reading the Gospels Wisely by Jonathan Pennington – A much more thorough book on the gospels than Wright’s previously mentioned effort. If I were to start a seminary this would be one of the first year texts for all students. It is just that good. Here’s his description of the gospels, “Our canonical gospels are the theological, historical, and aretological (virtue-forming) biographical narratives that retell the story and proclaim the significance of Jesus Christ, who through the power of the Spirit is the Restorer of God’s reign. (pp 144)”

God and Explanations by Christopher Martin – This book covers Aquinas’ understanding of knowledge, of science, and of metaphysical demonstration. Martin goes a long way to clear up misunderstandings of Aquinas’ arguments for God’s existence. Favorite quote, “If we want to know about the existence of God, or about the nature of science, we should read Aquinas, not merely the writers of this century. If we want to study Aquinas we should pay him  the compliment of treating as important what he thought of as important. To study Aquinas as Aquinas is a poor piece of flattery, since Aquinas cared very little for Aquinas, while he did care for God and for science. (203)” This book is best checked out from a library because it costs 130 dollars. I found it in an e-book library at my local community college. 
Saving Leonardo by Nancy Pearcey – This is an excellent book that traces the change in philosophical worldview in our culture through our art. She isn’t correct about every discrete piece of art work, but she gets enough of it correct. It’s not a must read, but it is a pleasant read. I’m now curious about the relationship between thinking through a worldview explicitly to determine if you’re correct and that affecting your view of art and then how art can attract somebody to the worldview of the artist. The relationship between our appetites and our reason is all the more intriguing to me after this book.

The Devil and Pierre Gernet by David Bentley Hart – This is a strange collection of short stories. I love it. Many of them I think I’ll revisit. Hart describes food far too often and in too much detail. His vocabulary is also astounding. One story in particular is written from the point of view of gnosticism and is hauntingly beautiful and ultimately dissatisfying and depressing. 
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis – This book is often over praised or under examined and unfairly dismissed. Lewis’ case for Christianity remains good in my opinion. His undeniably skillful prose also makes it pleasant to read. Few atheist writers match him for eloquence. I’d say maybe Nietzsche could be as interesting and accessible. 
The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart – Best book I read all year perhaps. Hart goes through the classical arguments, definitions, and concepts surrounding the idea of God (not as a name, but as a designation for being as such). He shows how the word for God has fallen into frustrating disrepair and thus made attacking theism really easy for the uninformed.
Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy – This book is about female complicity in the rise of raunch culture. It is somewhat dated (though only 6 years old). The book is important because it points out how the “you go gurl” attitude of sleeping around and acting like a frat boy actually does not achieve female empowerment. The author is, sadly, unwilling to claim that such a lifestyle is stupid, dangerous, and evil for men and women. But it’s a start. 
The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark – I know one historian who disputes Stark’s understanding of the rise of capitalism, but he’s the guy who gave me the book. It was astoundingly good. It’s about how medieval Europe, precisely because of Christianity and its desire to appropriate Aristotle’s best insights for the sake of moral progress, gave us modern science, careful philosophical reasoning, the technological revolution (because slavery became illegal), and capitalism. Good stuff. 
Saving the Appearances by Owen Barfield – This book packs a punch. I tried to write a review, but I need to reread it. Barfield covers too much. He essentially challenges a major shift in how we understand the ancients and therefore, how we understand ourselves, reality, and our access to reality. All of this ends in a discussion of idolatry and God’s kingdom. It is, from what I can tell, a tour de force that have been utterly ignored by people who are afraid of its import. Or maybe he’s just wrong and I missed it. 
Aesop’s Fables – These are great. My mom read them to my brother when we were children. Loved them then and love them now. 
Deep Exegesis by Peter Leithart – Leithart tried to recover the Quadriga in New Testament interpretation. I get it, but I think nobody will read this and be convinced. I loved the book and have used something like the quadriga for a while, but getting New Testament interpreters to take a misunderstood, maligned, and mocked system that is (on the basis of Christian liberty) adiaphora is a difficult task. I thank him for trying. 
Discourse on Method by Rene Descartes – I use Descartes to teach my students problem solving, but his meditations take you through his argument for God’s existence. Good stuff. 
Common Morality by Bernard Gert – He tried, but it’s mostly just a poor attempt to tell people to be nice. 
Desiring the Kingdom by James K.A. Smith
Imagining the Kingdom by James K.A. Smith  – Smith’s books attempt a radical revision or revisiting of an older anthropology of the human person based upon both ancient sources, post modern insights into personhood and embodied human practices, and modern brain science. It’s good stuff. Imagining the kingdom is the best of the two. 
The Electric Sky by Donald Scot – Scot challenges modern cosmology. Not sure if I’m convinced, but he’s got a doctorate in electrical engineering. Doesn’t make him right, but reading the book is like reading a detective novel about stars, quasars, gravity, and electricity. 

Note: I read several other books on feminist theory, but they were for a research assistantship I did and I found them unenlightening. 

Where are you staying?

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In John’s gospel there are themes that relate to root words and concepts that reappear throughout the narrative and in various discourses of Jesus and rejoinders by his opponents. 

στραφεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ θεασάμενος αὐτοὺς ἀκολουθοῦντας λέγει αὐτοῖς· τί ζητεῖτε; οἱ δὲ εἶπαν αὐτῷ· ῥαββί, ὃ λέγεται μεθερμηνευόμενον διδάσκαλε, ποῦ μένεις; (Joh 1:38 BGT)

Then, when Jesus turned and observed them following him, he said to them, “What do you seek?” Then they said to him, “Rabbi, (which translates teacher), “Where are you staying?” (John 1:38)

Now, the obvious meaning of this passage in context is that the two men who decided to geographically follow Jesus (perhaps not even as his disciples yet) just wanted a private place to talk to the guy. But John, in his characteristically ironic manner, makes the passage mean a great deal more. 

λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἔρχεσθε καὶ ὄψεσθε. ἦλθαν οὖν καὶ εἶδαν ποῦ μένει καὶ παρ᾽ αὐτῷ ἔμειναν τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκείνην· ὥρα ἦν ὡς δεκάτη. (Joh 1:39 BGT)

He said to them, “You should come and see.” Then they cam and saw where he stayed and they stayed with him that day. It was the tenth hour. (John 1:39) 

Later in the gospel, these two disciples (Andrew and probably John), come and see Jesus’ identity. That’s another story altogether though. The import for this post is that Jesus tells them he’ll show them where he’s staying and he does (in terms of his physical house), but as the gospel continues Jesus uses the same Greek word to indicate that people should “abide in me,” “abide in my love,” “if you abide in my word,” etc. 

By chapter fifteen this happens:

9 Καθὼς ἠγάπησέν με ὁ πατήρ, κἀγὼ ὑμᾶς ἠγάπησα· μείνατε ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ τῇ ἐμῇ.
10 ἐὰν τὰς ἐντολάς μου τηρήσητε, μενεῖτε ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ μου, καθὼς ἐγὼ τὰς ἐντολὰς τοῦ πατρός μου τετήρηκα καὶ μένω αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ. (Joh 15:9-10 BGT)

Just as the Father loves me, so also, I love you; stay in my love. If you keep my commands, then you stay in my love just as I have kept the commands of my Father and I am staying in his love. (John 15:9-10)*

I intentionally translated the Greek word the same way throughout, though it normally is translated, “abide.”

The idea I’m getting at is that when Jesus answered their question, “Where are you staying?” with “Come and see,” John, with his penchant for irony, points out that all along Jesus’ answer was, “In my Father’s love.”

Jesus is the one who, in a unique way lives in God’s love. He does so in such a way, according to John, that he makes God’s love available to all. 

*Note: I translated the aorist here ἠγάπησέν and here ἠγάπησα as gnomic aorists (contra ESV, ISV, and others). I didn’t mistake them for present tense. It just seems that Jesus is stating a constant fact using the aorist, whereas he uses the perfect idea in the very next verse with “I have kept.” If the aorists were meant to convey the perfect idea, then it seems John would have just put them in the perfect.