Does God Exist?

Well... yes. Which is why those theists who debate the subject have the unfair advantage.

One of the unfortunate aspects of growing up in faith is that one goes through strange phases such as being too cool for C.S. Lewis. (I am told by those who went to the SBL/AAR that some prominent Christian thinkers are still stuck in that old rut). Sad thing is that this phase is often hit on before one reads what Lewis actually was an expert on.

Another of the unfortunate phases is dismissal of the traditional arguments for the existence of God. In the (legitimate) wish to not be Josh McDowell, one disparages apologetics as a quasi-fundamentalist pursuit for those who feel the need to "prove" God. (Like, say, Saint Paul.) I'll have to admit I was in the phase myself, which is perhaps why I put off for so long listening to these two mp3 debates:

1. Craig vs. Dacey in Does God Exist?
2. Peter Kreeft's God's Existence. (there's also more at Veritas)

As William Lane Craig made his arguments, I'll admit however they at times rang a bit hollow. For example, his insistence at one point that Christians resort too quickly to faith in the resurrection when there is sufficient evidence was quite the stretch. Craig does make belief seem a bit too facile at points, and one can imagine Kierkegaard protesting "Where's the leap?", or at least Zizek complaining that some Christian faith lacks a degree of existential angst. Yet, I resisted the temptation to entitle this post "A pox on both your houses" (i.e. overconfident theists and atheists) because Craig's arguments are more tightly formulated and simply better than his adversary's - and that is a helpful service indeed.

Craig may have a Ned Flanders vibe, but he is consequently a very kind debater, and someone who got a Ph.D. in philosophy with John Hick (no friend of faith) and a Ph.D. in theology with Pannenberg is not lazy minded. One wishes that Craig's opponent Dacey was a little more prepared in argumentation (or at least that his jokes were funny). But as I said, being on the losing side of an argument never helps. Should someone harbor lingering fear that atheists have good arguments, such fear probably won't survive an attentive listen to Dacey, who did a great job of tearing apart a God that no Christian who passed Sunday School 101 could believe in.

But there was something a bit more natural in Peter Kreeft's defense, which covers the same territory a bit more fluidly (he's been at it longer), and ably defends against just as much hostile fire at the end. Kreeft seems a bit more aware of the mystery of faith, and that the part of God that can be rationally "proven" is a slim slice indeed. Kreeft does a better job of frontlining the fact that though faith is not irrational, it certainly is transrational. This may have to do with his Catholic tradition being more deeply rooted than Craig's Evangelicalism, but I liked them both.

For the Orthodox approach, Hart's defense against the problem of evil is indispensable (and underutilized). And certainly nothing beats the offensive wisdom of Blaise Pascal:

"God has given us evidence sufficiently clear to convince those with an open heart and mind. Yet evidence sufficiently vague so as not to compel those whose hearts and minds are closed."

The Burning

What do these Princeton flames indicate?

A. The live burning of all those who still subscribe to a metanarrative.
B. The Savonarola-style bonfire of the vanities from an unexpected mass revival.
C. The traditional way of celebrating the defeat of Harvard and Yale (which hasn't happened in 12 years).
D. None of the above.

If you pick D. please provide an alternate explanation.

Six Theses on Parallel Centuries

1a. In the 13th century, an infusion of pagan philosophy into the medieval world through translations of Aristotle led to a significant degree of theological confusion.
1b. Today, postmodern currents have led to similar (though not unexciting) disturbances in contemporary theology.

2a. In the 13th century, one reaction to the challenge of Aristotle was an indiscriminate surrender of central tenets of Christian faith. One unfortunate example would be to believe, with Aristotle, in the eternity of the earth instead of holding onto to the then unfashionable doctrine of creation.
2b. Today, one reaction to postmodernity is the same capitulation to the spirit of the age by minds insufficiently formed by the Christian faith and overly excited about postmodernity. One unfortunate example is someone who, when given the chance to publicly clarify his views in the pages of a major Christian publication, instead punts to pluralism as John Caputo did in the recent issue of Books & Culture.

3a. In the 13th century, the over-correcting response to sloppily-Hellenized Christianity was a refusal to engage Aristotle at all.
3b. Today, the over-correcting response to sloppily-postmodernized Christianity is a refusal to engage postmodern thought at all.

4a. Consequently, in the 13th century two shortsighted theological camps - Aristotelians and anti-Aristotelians - were locked in a perpetual and uninteresting debate.
4b. Today, two similarly shortsighted theological camps - postmodernist and anti-postmodernist - are locked in a perpetual and uninteresting debate.

5a. The resolution to this dilemma in the 13th century required a mind formidable enough to thoroughly comprehend and appreciate Aristotle, yet Christian enough to know what aspects of the faith could not be forsaken, that is, a mind able to assimilate Aristotle into Christianity instead of the other way around. Due to the necessary combination of natural giftedness and adequate training, such minds are rare - but one came along in Thomas Aquinas . The result of was theology enhanced by the truth contained in Aristotle, and immunized against its mistakes - to the benefit of both Chritsianity and Aristotle.
5b. The resolution to the dilemma today requires a mind formidable enough to thoroughly comprehend and appreciate postmodern theory, yet Christian enough to know what aspects of Christian faith cannot be sacrificed to it. Due to the rare combination of natural giftedness and proper training, such minds are rare. Yet (though probably not as epoch-defining as Aquinas), in David Bentley Hart such a mind has come along.

6a. Aquinas, both during and after his lifetime, was misunderstood. The Aristotelians saw him as too Christian, the anti-Aristotelians saw him as too pagan. The result was that many stayed stuck in the tired debates of opposing camps, when they could have transcended them by reading Aquinas. But it being hard to get a copy of an Aquinas manuscript back then, they can be forgiven.
6b. Hart is similarly misunderstood, but it being so easy to get a copy of his work, staying stuck in the tired postmodern or anti-postmodern camps is a much less forgivable offense.

Garden of Nerdly Delights

That was how my wife referred to the conference on Byzantine Studies I attended this weekend, though I enjoyed it very much. Some thoughts:

1. Sokal inspired spoof papers should be randomly inserted into each day of any serious academic conference program both for entertainment and to encourage academics to take themselves less seriously. In addition, to add a thrilling "Where's Waldo?" effect each conference paper should be forced to include one randomly chosen word such as "wangle" or "mooncalf" without compromising the integrity of its argument.
2. Boiling a 25 page paper down to 10 for presentation at a conference calls one's academic bluff. It is also the best writing exercise imaginable.
3. Anthropoligical investigations that unsympathetically critique aspects of other cultures by modern standards should first consider how devastating an anthropological investigatoin of modern academics would be.
4. Secular Biblical scholars who shows the Bible's apparently "faith threatening" manuscript variants share one characteristic with the secular Byzantine historian who shows the apparently "faith threatening" political aspects behind the early church councils: They are both completely unthreatening (and even helpful) to a properly grounded Christian faith.
5. Scholars unable to fathom the contours of Christian theology often end up applying external theories to make sense of its impact. That such supplementary theories change every few years is illustrative of how ineffective this approach has been, and continues to be.

On an unrelated note, this talk on political liberty by Nicholas Wolterstorff shows the Rawlsian interpretation of democracy to be a deeply truncated one, and does a fantastic recovery job of the Jewish and Christian antecedents to the modern concept of individual rights. It is also the clearest overview of the Stout/Hauerwas debate that I've come across.

If it helps the medicine go down for anyone, although he makes the case for liberal democracy, Wolterstorff can certainly not be accused of being on the religious right.

Concession to Borat

I got tricked into seeing this movie by a nation of film reviewers asleep at the wheel. I did not enjoy seeing it. I believe in voting with my dollars and in retrospect I wish I could have. I would have left, but I was in the middle of a crowded row. As the saying goes, these are two or so hours of my life I will never get back again, not to mention the images that will always be there. Do yourself a favor: Don't see this film.

But... spoiler alert (if one can spoil what is already rotten), as I drove home wiping off the culture slime, thinking of all the better ways I could have spent an afternoon, I had to make a concession. Although I may be taxing the credulity of those who disagreed with my interpretation of The Departed, it dawned on me that Borat was an explicitly Christian film.

Borat burns through all tiers of American society in the now tired "equal opportunity offender" genre of comedy. Keep in mind however that these are real Americans, not actors. Paralleling our civilization, Borat sinks lower and lower, until at rock bottom he finds himself outside a Pentecostal assembly hall. A surface viewing would assume that here we just get more of the same. But something shifted. True the tongue-speaking and aisle-dancing provides more fodder for derision, until the preacher has Borat comes forward.

"Can Jesus heal my empty heart?"
"Yes."
"Does Jesus love my retarded brother?"
"Yes."
"Does Jesus even love my neighbor Nusef Tugliagby?"
"Yes."
"But nobody loves my neighbor Nusef Tugliagby!"

All this with "There is Power in the Blood" up on the Power Point presentation. Surely this must have all been a set up to lampoon the paper-thin conversion experiences of those crazy born-againers, but Borat actually changes:

He forgives an alienated friend. He and "Mr. Jesus" go in pursuit of Pamela Anderson, but now for a legitimate Kazhek marriage. When the plan fails, Borat lawfully marries a prostitute instead and takes her home as his wife. He takes the gospel back to his Kazhek village, announcing "We are Christians now." As far as we can tell the village of sex-offenders goes chaste, and what was once a sex toy is used as a prosthetic arm for a village cripple. The Christianized town even gives up on its relentless anti-Semitism. True the insistence that his village is Christian is followed up by a scarecrow-Jew on a cross being poked by a pitchfork, but think about it - it's a Jew on the cross, not a Jew doing the poking. A fair interpretation of the scene is that the village came to understand its offense (seeing that their savior is now a Jew), and are performing some standard liturgical reenactment.

Borat comes to America, exposes our range of oafish contradictions, and comes away changed by the love of Jesus Christ. I hate to admit it, but this comedy that advertises itself as the spare-nothing variety spares the gospel, and exhibits the scandal of a God who shows grace, yes, even to Americans, a nation as imperfect as this movie makes us out to be.

Is there just enough sacredness left in our society that even the "nothing is sacred" comedy can't find the stomach to desecrate "Mr. Jesus"?

Perhaps at least for now.

Offending Mammon

Our youth group sponsored a church carwash the other week (yes, it was rather late in the season). Up pulled one car with a Bush 2004 sticker proudly displayed. Then up pulled a car with something resembling Lisa Simpson's "America Out of Everywhere" sticker, also proudly displayed. We washed both.

If there was room in the band of disciples for Matthew (a tax collector allied to the status quo) and Simon the Zealot (a political radical against it), then there is room in the Body of Christ for both conservatives and progressives... with one stipulation: Both need be willing to be transformed by the higher dictates of the Kingdom of God.

As differing Christians undergo the transformation that accompanies our primary citizenship, it sure would be nice if...

1. Neither side would be so confident as to label their particular position, "God's Politics."
2. Both would remember that cartoons are for children - especially cartoons of one's enemies.
3. Neither would claim to have "the prophets" exclusively on their side. (Biblical prophets exhibited conservative tendencies at least as much as progressive ones).
4. Neither would claim to have "the poor" exclusively on their side. Serious Christians can't debate God's preferential option for the poor because it's a given. What they can debate is how to best care for them. Here is an example of two Christians thinkers doing just that (I think it gets interesting at 50 minutes in). We should listen and decide for ourselves which position is more soundly thought through, or if necessary, forge another.

I'm not getting my hopes up for any of these four suggestions, but there they are.

The chief concern of Christians is not movement on the horizontal spectrum between the statist and libertarian poles, but a vertical one that offends Marxist and rich young ruler alike - by offending Mammon. In a volume containing a nice assortment of some of the best theologians writing today, R.R. Reno gets the idea:

"We can celebrate the dynamic and wealth-generating economies of democratic capitalism as providential gifts, or we can rally in the streets to smash capitalism and establish a social system in which it will be impossible to be greedy. In both cases, like the idol worshiper and the iconoclast, we want our decisions about political parties or social policies to be spiritually pure. In both cases, we raise the god of the world life - Mammon - to the level of God of heaven and earth, either to insure comity or initiate combat" (231).

For an alternative, Reno combs early Christianity for torches that can kill the many-headed hydra of Mammon. He finds there contemptus mundi and wanton charity. This involves being wary of the "spiritual danger of progressive preachers who bring us to serve Mammon by using the Sermon on the Mount to critique American society rather than the hearts of Christians" (231). It means not only the prudent transfer of funds between one's own and a given charity's stock options, but also a more foolish sort of giving. "For the well-meaning and philanthropic American Christian, an act of charity that has no promise of bearing worldly fruit may be a very important way of escaping form the subtle insinuations of avarice" (235).

Finally, it means engaging in politically subversive acts such as wearing your Che t-shirt... I mean prayer and Bible study. "The discipline of prayer is the stick in the eye of worldly necessity... Pile up the lexicons and commentaries. If we will exhaust ourselves in the study of Scripture, then nothing is left to be consumed by Mammon (236).

Such counsel brought to embarrassing light how many times Mammon (i.e. wordly necessity) has convinced me to do neither. No surprise though - Mammon's big around here.