through the abyss

confronting the void (again)

The “founder” of existentialism was, in many ways, Kierkegaard. Derrida said that he learned much from Kierkegaard, but, obviously, Derrida was not a Christian. So, there was a structural “truth” to what Kierkegaard was about that could be reinterpreted for “the rest of us.”

One of Kierkegaard’s big ideas was “the void” or “the abyss.” Life was about dealing with this problem. For Derridians (like Peter Rollins), this void could be interpreted as the ultimate meaningless of existence. But, for Kierkegaard it very clearly was not this vague. It was more specifically Kierkegaard’s understanding of God. Anxiety, for Kierkegaard, was our state of recognizing our distance from God. Faith, then, is taking the leap from anxiety into “salvation.”

I’ve been reading some folks lately who question the entire presupposition that there is an inherent, “natural” lack in humanity. On one side is an atheistic perspective, where humans are essentially blank slates at birth, and that we are influenced by our various experiences. On the other side are those who seem to follow a certain interpretation of Augustine (like James K.A. Smith) that humanity is essentially good, but our “sins” have corrupted our true nature.

I used to think it was more “realistic” to accept the void as “the nothing”, the meaningless of existence. Of course, when I was a Christian, that void was interpreted as life without God.

But, what if this whole framework is a bit off? What if there is no “objective” meaning of life? Likewise, what if God isn’t distant at all? What if the idea that we’re “far” from God isn’t the case? What if God is here, there, everywhere, in everything in some sense? What if everything is inherently, essentially, naturally good?

If any of this is true, what of evil, sin, wickedness? What is the “problem” within myself and within everyone? What is wrong?

I don’t know. But I don’t think anyone knows. We choose to believe we have answers to these questions. My question must be which answers - or trajectories - make the most sense out of my life and those around me? Which framework best explains what we know of the world? How can the world be made better? How can I be more than what I am?

who matters?

One of the problems I’ve had with “philosophy” in general, for a long time now, is its tendency to privilege certain groups of people above others - and animals. For instance, we could come up with a complicated theory of what a human being is and that very theory could exclude many people, i.e. mentally handicapped, the deaf, the mute, the blind, etc. Is there a way to posit a universal anthropology without excluding these groups? Are there deficiencies in certain “animals” that we would tend to classify as “humans” that would deem them not a person? I’m personally not prepared to go down that route. I’m not saying that these philosophers are intentionally excluding groups of people. But, I think there is a certain elitism within these kinds of conversations that is inherently exclusionary.

I’ve also been thinking lately about NT Wright and Rob Bell’s theory that “hell” is more than a “place that some people go when they die,” but instead is a present experience. In Wright’s construct, hell into eternity is where a human becomes something else entirely, possibly resembling a human but less than human. Bell seems to focus more on how people are presently “living in hell,” and by implication are “less than human.” I guess my hesitation with this language is how does one come up with a list of actions that could qualify as making someone subhuman? Of course, there are lists like this within the Bible. And, this might be precisely the kind of thing those lists are getting at. I’m just not comfortable with this language.

I guess I still believe that each person is responsible for him or herself, and can decide what constitutes “the good life.” A society can determine which actions are “off limits,” which can only be hindered by laws and police. But, that doesn’t make those actions inherently “evil.”

For instance, who decides when a person is responsible? Our laws have landed on the ages of 16, 18, 21, 25 and others according to various actions. But, are those ages objective? Of course not. Most of us would say that pedophilia is “evil.” But, many people have been deemed by our society, permanently, as “sex offenders” because they did something to someone who was under the age of 18 (or 16). Why? Because our society has decided that those people are not yet responsible for their actions. How do we know this? We don’t. It’s a fiction. When does someone magically transform from a “child” (and therefore not responsible) to an “adult”? If a so-called sex offender has some kind of relationship with someone the day before they are “of age” is that a crime? But, the next day, it isn’t? I’m not saying these laws shouldn’t exist, but I do think we need to be careful with how we use language to demonize (dehumanize) people because of actions that we don’t approve of.

Who is or is not a human person? I definitely don’t want to give this conversation up to the philosophers. But, I also think in the wrong sort of “religious” hands, this kind of talk of someone being “less than human” could have devastating consequences. There are several prescriptions in religious texts to ostracize or kill someone who has committed a certain action. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a fundamentalist.

problem & solution?

I’m still not an objectivist about language. I think many different people are using different words and concepts to communicate the same things. I think there are multiple, legitimate interpretations of things - though I don’t think all interpretations are good or equal.

Personally, I don’t like the language of “sin.” But, I think there is a common thread among most people that there is something wrong or missing or lacking in each person and in our experience of the world as a whole. Things are, of course, not perfect or complete. Not whole. I don’t know how far to take this, but I think those who are honest among us will readily admit it. What other label could be used to describe this? I don’t know.

If I simply focus on the Jesus of the New Testament gospel accounts, it seems that the “solution” to this universal “problem” is “the Kingdom of God.” But, it doesn’t seem to be primarily a solution that is happening from some external source. Rather, those who are part of the problem are part of the solution. The means by which the problem is (relatively) solved are the people who are, themselves, needing to be changed. This seems to line up with a general interpretation of what the NT is all about and our own experience of the world. There is no “Big Other” that’s going to come in and fix things for us. But, we’re not “alone,” either. We have each other.

Can I commit myself to this?

what is it?

So I’ve been thinking about the concept of “conversion” in relation to a form of Christianity. I’m trying to understand what is actually supposed to be going on in this experience. I’ve personally given up thinking any “reason” can ultimately convince a person that Christianity is true or false. It requires something else. I’m thinking about things like Jesus walking up to a random person and that person deciding to follow him. What is that? Or, the thief on the cross. Or, the many other stories of people who don’t even have any information to go on, but are personally drawn to Jesus. Why?

I don’t know where I’m going with this. But, if nothing else, it seems to be a personal commitment that is beyond many other kinds of decisions. It’s, of course, subjective. The closest parallel I’ve been able to come up with is a person’s “love” for another - like in a marriage. There is no good “reason” for this to exist. It just does. And, it’s undeniable. Does everyone experience this? No. But, many do. And, many people will tell you the same thing about it, if they are honest.

Is there an ultimate Lover, who is wooing everyone…but many of us don’t recognize it as such? I don’t know. But, I, personally, recognize that there is something pulling me in a certain direction. I can choose to give into it, or choose not to. No one else can make that choice for me.

transcending objectivity?

Christianity and Buddhism have very different interpretations about the nature of reality.  However, we need to consider these as deep differences in interpretation rather than glibly supposing that the Christian account is objectively true and then castigating the Buddhist account for being merely an interpretation. In fact, both are interpretations; neither is objectively true… To assert that our interpretation is not an interpretation but objectively true often translates into the worst kinds of imperial and colonial agendas, even within a pluralist culture. Acknowledging the interpreted status of the gospel should translate into a certain humility in our public theology. It should not, however, translate into skepticism about the truth of the Christian confession. If the interpretive status of the gospel rattles our confidence in its truth, this indicates that we remain haunted by the modern desire for objective certainty. But our confidence rests not on objectivity but rather on the convictional power of the Holy Spirit (which isn’t exactly objective); the loss of objectivity, then, does not entail a loss of kerygmatic boldness about the truth of the gospel.

- James KA Smith

nothing outside the text

To claim that there is nothing outside the text is to say that everything is a text, which means not that everything is a book, or that we live within a giant, all-encompassing book, but rather that everything must be interpreted in order to be experienced. Thus he is what we might call—for lack of a better term—a comprehensive hermeneuticist who asserts the ubiquity of interpretation: all our experience is always already an interpretation.

Texts that require interpretation are not things that are inserted between me and the world; rather, the world is a kind of text requiring interpretation. Even experiencing a cup, such as the blue cup on the table in front of me, “in person” or “in the flesh” demands that I interpret the thing as a cup, and this interpretation is informed by a number of different things: the context in which I encounter the thing, my own history and background, the set of presuppositions that I bring to the experience, and more. Given all these conditions, the things I experience are subject to interpretation—and as such, they are subject to different interpretations.

So then, with an eye to appreciating the implications of Derrida’s claim, we could loosely translate “There is nothing outside the text” simply with the axiom “Everything is interpretation.” And, as might be expected, it is precisely at this point that many Christians become nervous, because if everything is interpretation, then even the gospel is only an interpretation and not objectively true.

- James KA Smith

why i’m not… part 2

As a followup to a previous post on “why I’m not a Christian,” I’ve tried to compile a list of common objections to Christianity:

• Christianity is…
  • socially hypocritical, bigoted, intolerant
  • morally bankrupt
  • psychologically toxic
  • historically incredible
  • scientifically implausible
  • intellectually dishonest / philosophically impossible

I don’t necessarily agree with these descriptions, but I think they have at least a degree of validity. And, they all play into my reasons for disassociating from Christianity. I haven’t been able to come up with reasonable responses to any of them.

the education of desire

…Liturgies - whether “sacred” or “secular” - shape and constitute our identities by forming our most fundamental desires and our most basic attunement to the world. In short, liturgies make us certain kinds of people, and what defines us is what we love. They do this because we are the sorts of animals whose orientation to the world is shaped from the body up more than from the head down. Liturgies aim our love to different ends precisely by training our hearts through our bodies. They prime us to approach the world in a certain way, to value certain things, to aim for certain goals, to pursue certain dreams, to work together on certain projects. In short, every liturgy constitutes a pedagogy that teaches us, in all sorts of precognitive ways, to be a certain kind of person. Hence every liturgy is an education, and embedded in every liturgy is an implicit worldview or “understanding” of the world. And by this I don’t mean that implanted in the liturgies are all kinds of ideas to be culled from them; rather, implicit in them is an understanding of the world that is pretheoretical, that is on a different register than ideas. That is why the education of desire requires a project that aims below the head; it requires the pedagogical formation of our imagination, which, we might say, lies closer to our gut (kardia) than our head.

- James K. A. Smith

why i’m not a christian…

Recently I’ve been rethinking a lot of the reasons that I no longer feel comfortable self-identifying as a Christian. I am going to try to explain those reasons. These are totally out of order and completely off the top of my head:

1. Philosophy: In a purely philosophical sense, according to the most common arguments made today, God does not exist. I’ve gone over and over every argument that I could find - from multiple sides - and it seems to me that the odds are usually stacked against the idea of the kind of God that orthodox Christians believe in. That, of course, doesn’t completely eliminate the possibility of a deity, but it makes it very difficult to accept the entire foundation.
2. Morality: The “problem of evil” became huge for me a long time ago. The only Christian thinker who, from my perspective, made a decent attempt at resolving this problem was NT Wright. But, his attempt also requires some other core beliefs that I cannot commit to. There are also many common Christian moral stances that I cannot go along with (abortion, homosexuality, divorce, etc.). 
3. Science: I probably have an interesting “philosophy of science” (i.e. Polanyi, Kuhn) but it seems that the community of scientists are in agreement that some of the core ideas of a certain kind of orthodox Christianity simply cannot be resolved within any worldview that gives weight to the scientific body of knowledge. The “new atheists”, though, have essentially made an idol out of science, and, from my perspective, have given it too much power (i.e. Sam Harris on morality).
4. The Bible: I rejected inerrancy a long time ago, but being able to articulate what the Bible actually is, what it was meant to be, how it is to be interpreted, etc. has become increasingly difficult for me. I completely accept that there is an a priori “faith” commitment at the core of everything we do, but taking that huge leap of committing oneself to this ancient collection of texts would take nothing less than a miracle.
5. History: Like the majority of historians today, I am in large part a multi-perspectivalist regarding history. History works with probabilities, and multiple causation. I don’t think we can ever know “what really happened.” But, I think there are credible theories about the past, and there are stories that are really nothing more than myths. The “historical Jesus” could be one such myth, when all the evidence is weighed. The history of Ancient Israel, likewise, may be primarily myths - stories that are powerful, but not objectively demonstrable. I used to be convinced by NT Wright’s argument for the resurrection - which is claimed to be central - but I’ve found many alternate, credible theories since then.
6. Public Perception: This has become another huge thing for me. When a people group has self-identified as one thing, but the evidence of their lives almost completely contradicts what they say, the label just becomes completely meaningless. There are theological arguments (i.e. Tim Keller) to defend the idea that Christians should be “worse” than everyone else, but this makes no sense to me anymore. It seems that most of those who self-identify as Christians have lost the right to.
7. Psychology: Many psychological theories - together with neuroscience - have stood the test of time. But, these theories, in many cases, directly contradict much of what passes for orthodox Christian teaching. For instance, the theory that humans are “born sinful” may help to build up a theological construct for Jesus’ incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection to solve, but it actually creates more problems and questions than provides reasonable answers. 

I’m sure I could keep going with this. But, those are the kinds of things that I have spent a lot of time thinking through. This is where I’m at.

Should our phenomenology of revelation recognize it as first and foremost a kind of precognitive, affective seizure of our desire—a capturing of our imagination on a register that is not readily commensurate with the intellect?

A more persistent rejection of intellectualism and rationalism in philosophy of religion will eschew intellectualist pictures of the human person and instead emphasize that we are primarily affective, desiring animals—and that the thickness and particularity of the Gospel (which, it seems to me, remains still thicker than “canonical theism”) grips our “hearts” before it ever gets articulated as a “theism”—even a rich, canonical theism. While the event of revelation/divine confrontation is “world-constituting,” it is important to emphasize—following Heidegger—that constitution happens at a level that is precognitive. Before they’re ever “intellectual,” “ordinary believers” are gripped by divine revelation in a way that is irreducible to the cognitive.

- James K.A. Smith