RedemptioVox

“Christianity does not need a “Christian Philosophy” in the narrower sense of the word. The Christian claim that the logos who has become concrete in Jesus as the Christ is at the same time the universal logos includes the claim that whenever the logos is at work it agrees with the Christian message. No philosophy which is obedient to the universal logos can contradict the concrete logos, the Logos “who became flesh.” -Tillich

This idea has had a radical impact on my thinking. For most of my life I perceived my faith to be at war with it’s enemy, which is ‘this world.’ In this way I had subscribed to the paradigmatic dualism that dominates in modern contexts. However, when I came to the same conclusion (though much less eloquently) as Tillich I found a profound sense of clarity. 

This clarity emanates from the notion that the cosmos is sourced singularly in the logos. The greeks understood this term to express the ultimate underlying reason of things. Thus, if there is only one logos and it is the same logos that is manifest in the person of Christ then we come naturally to Tillich’s coclusion above, which is that there is no contradiction or competition between the logos of the world and the logos of Christ. They are one in the same. 

Because of this one-ness people of faith are free to embrace reality without fear of what we might find, for everything may be understood either as a product of the logos or a deviation. This should keep us from fearing science, culture, economics, poverty and oppression. Instead we can begin to understand all of these kinds of issues as platforms from which we might articulate the truth of the gospel.

Complication then enters the equation not by way of a competing logos but rather by a deviation from the singular logos which holds all things together. In this frame we then understand sin as a simple deviation on the part of creation from the originating reason which is Christ. It is a disobedience. It is a becoming that was not intended.

Is this not the very gospel itself? That in light of this deviation we are separated from the logos but Jesus himself has seen to reconciling us to god.

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If you haven’t figured this out yet, this blog is essentially a collection of excerpts from media I come into contact with. Occasionally something pseudo-original gets written. This is the former.

The following is from Brian McLaren’s book Everything Must Change.

“… we have a jigsaw puzzle in a box, but someone put the wrong lid on the box. We keep trying to use the picture from the wrong lid as a guide to putting the pieces together. With the wrong picture implanted in our imaginations, some of the colors on the pieces don’t seem to belong, and some shapes don’t fit. We may assume they were included by mistake and push them to the side, or maybe let them drop off the table edge altogether. And we keep searching for other colors and shapes that we see in the picture on the lid but which for some reason aren’t included in our box of pieces. What do we do? We push more and more unfitting pieces aside. We take out some scissors and colored markers and “adjust” some of the pieces that remain. We do our best to conform the pieces in the box to the picture on the lid. We do the best we can.

Some people become so disillusioned and frustrated that they throw out the whole thing - pieces, box, and all. They give up puzzling altogether. Others decide that it’s the box lid rather than the pieces that determines “orthodoxy,” and they zealously defend the lid and bestow on all who dare to question it the labels “heretic” and “apostate.”

Others become uncomfortable with the realization that their loyalty is more to the picture outside the box than to the pieces inside the box. They wonder what would happen if they reversed that loyalty and refused to accept a lid that doesn’t do justice to all the pieces in the box. They refuse to cut corners or alter colors. Eventually they decide the problem isn’t with the pieces - they actually fit together: the problem is with the picture on the lid.”

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In case anyone was worried, I have in fact made it past the first page of Tillich’s Systematic Theology, though I have not come far. Tillich’s writing style is not for everyone and I find myself re-reading each paragraph a few times to be sure I am getting it. Below I will include a few snippets from his lengthy introduction that I hope to have some conversation around (give me some love here Kester).

“The object of theology is what concerns us ultimately. [by ultimately he is referring to the great commandment specifically] Only those propostions are theological which deal with their object in so far as it can become a matter of ultimate concern for us.”

He goes on to make the following statement which I did not love, but then follows it up with one I like a lot… I think.

“Theology cannot and should not give judgements about the aesthetic value of an artistic creation, about the scientific value of a  physical theory or a historical conjecture, about the best methods of medical healing or social reconstruction, about the solution of political or international conflicts. The theologian as theologian is no expert in any matters of preliminary concern.”

What Tillich is saying here is that there is one ultimate concern, which is the great commission and it is the work of the theologian to deal only in matters directly related to the that particular mandate. Thus we see the distinction between ultimate concerns and preliminary concerns, which are essentially all other areas of society and life. What makes these thoughts interesting to me is how Tillich goes on to relate preliminary concerns to ultimate concerns. He offers three possibilities for this relation, however in an attempt to avoid quoting the entire work I will only relate the one that is most compelling in my opinion, and his.

“The third relation between the ultimate concern and the preliminary concerns makes the latter bearers and vehicles of the former… Nothing is excluded from this function. In and through every preliminary concern the ultimate concern can actualize itself. Whenever this happens, the preliminary concern becomes a possible object of theology. But theology deals with it only in so far as it is a medium, a vehicle, pointing beyond itself.”

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My latest re-shelve contains a great story that I would like to recreate here on the vox.

“In 1990, Elizabeth Newton earned a Ph.D. in psychology at Stanford by studying a simple game in which she assigned people to one of two roles: “tappers” or “listeners.” Tappers received a list of twenty-five well-known songs, such as “Happy Birthday to You” and “The Star Spangled Banner.” Each tapper was asked to pick a song and tap out the rhythm to a listener (by knocking on the table). The listener’s job was to guess the song, based on the rhythm being tapped.”

“The listener’s job in this game is quite difficult. Over the course of Newton’s experiment, 120 songs were tapped out. Listeners guessed only 2.5 percent of the songs: 2 out of 120.”

“But here’s what made the result worthy of a dissertation in psychology. Before the listeners guessed the name of the song, Newton asked the tappers to predict the odds that the listeners would guess correctly. They predicted that the odds were 50 percent.”

The author goes on to explain that the reason tappers think they will be understood half the time is that they are hearing the tune in their head while they are tapping. Thus the experience of the tapper is to hear both the tune in thier head and hear the tapping of their fingers. It seems reasonable to the tapper that the listeners should be able to guess based on this. However the listener only hears the tapping without the mental accompaniment. The result is almost always failure.

The Heath brothers call this problem the curse of knowledge. “Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind.”

For some reason when I read this I immediately inserted myself into the story as the listener. I am not sure why since I spend much of my time in the tapper’s role. Yet the the listeners role became mine and I immediately felt the frustration of poor explanation, the embarrassment of failing the tapper and the longing for the experiment to finally be over. Certainly, over the course of my life I have been the listener and have gotten “the look” from the tapper. You know the one, when he looks at you with condescending disbelief that something so simple manages to evade you…

Starting today, I want to remember that everyone else isn’t hearing the tune.

Today I want to be a more understanding tapper.

I am working on a new idea. In the mean time I am gnawing on these thoughts from Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology. Tell me what you think.

“A theological system is supposed to satsify two basic needs: the statement of the truth of the Christian message and the interpretation of this truth for every new generation.”

“They [Tillich is referring to most theologies here] confuse eternal truth with a temporal expression of this truth.”

“Fundamentalism fails to make contact with the present situation, not because it speaks from beyond every situation, but because it speaks from a situation of the past. It elevates something finite and transitory to infinite and eternal validity.” 

All this comes from the very first page… could be very interesting.

Thoughts?

Obviously I have a lot of catching up to do. Over the past few months I have had the privilege of designing my own reading list. I believe this is the first time that has happened in over 3 years. The result has been a voracious consumption of books of all sorts. One of the most recent is Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. The book is the story of Howard Roark, a highly talented, idealistic and progressive architect. In the early days of his career Roark is forced to work for his parasitic counter part and fellow architect, Peter Keating. The following is an exchange wherein Roark is asked to once again fix a drawing that he utterly despises in principle. 

“Where is it, this time?” Keating produced sketches from a drawer and said: “I know it’s perfectly right, just as it is, but what do you think of it, generally speaking?” Roark looked at the sketches, and even though he wanted to throw them at Keating’s face and resign, one thought stopped him: the thought that it was a building and that he had to save it, as others could not pass a drowning man without leaping in to the rescue.

Then he worked for hours, sometimes all night, while Keating sat and watched. He forgot Keating’s presence. He saw only a building and his chance to shape it. He knew that the shape would be changed, torn, distorted. Still, some order and reason would remain in it’s place. It would be a better building that it would have been if he refused.”

Accepting that I am an idealist to some degree I am forced to wonder if I care about my hopes and dreams in such a way that better could be enough. Many times I have wanted to throw my ’sketches’ into the face of those who have asked my opinion. In fact, I think I probably have done just that. This character Roark though, in the midst of his self oriented objectivism has such passion for his work that he cannot help but take the opportunity to make buildings better. Most idealists cannot accept any deviation from their hopes and visions and yet Roark’s love for buildings overrides his idealism.

I am struck by this. For such a concession seems the opposite of idealism. How can an idealist accept anything less that his ideal? Doesn’t his cooperation testify against the very things he claims to hold in such high regard?

As I thought on this I realized that Roark’s cooperation speaks to a greater commitment to his ideals than his refusal possibly could have. It is out of great love for buildings that Roark is able to pursue the ideal by way of what is merely “better.”

This leaves me to wonder, with regard to the things that I find myself idealistic about, do I love them enough to pursue what is better? Can I embrace my ideals globally by generating something better locally?

Or, do I fail to love my ideals enough and simply insist that they must be manifest entirely or not at all? 

And for you, how do you reconcile the ideal with what is merely better? 

I am learning to appreciate the better while continuing to hope for the ideal.

There is no THE thought from my most recent re-shelve. Rather this book spoke to me in like an old friend. You know the kind. It’s the friend who mostly agrees with you but not always. The one who tells you like it is. Most of all this book is like the friend who gets the stuff that matters in that way we can’t quite define. Frankly it is really worth while for anyone who is thinking about where the church is headed.  That said I will leave you one snippet from the text to chew on: “It’s tempting, in our efforts to strip back the church from the empire created by Christendom, to overdo it and end up with the belief that any old bunch of believers sitting together in the same room is a church. But the six of us sitting around that table that night were not a church. We had no mutual commitments, shared no long-term calling, we were completely unaccountable to one another, and our purpose for gathering was mainly social. Of course, as Christians, our conversation centered on Christian things, and by the end of the evening we were encouraged in our faith and individual callings. We were doing some of the things a church might do, but our involvement was not permanent.”

THE thought from my most recent re-shelve:Here Lencioni is speaking to decision making within the organization. “Make clarity more important than accuracy. Remember that your people will learn more if you take decisive action than if you always wait for more information. And if the decisions you make in the spirit of creating clarity turn out to be wrong when more information becomes available, change plans and explain why. It is your job to risk being wrong. The only real cost to you of being wrong is loss of pride. The cost to your company of not taking the risk of being wrong is paralysis.” - Pat Lencioni from The Five Temptations of a CEO.

THE thought from my most recent re-shelve:”…Wanting their organizations to be ‘nimble’ they (executives) hesitate to articulate their direction clearly, or do so in a less than thourough manner, thus giving themselves the deceptively dangerous luxury of changing plans midstream. Ironically, truely nimble organizations dare to create clarity at all times, even when they are not completely certain about whether it is correct. And if they later see a need to change course, they do so without hesitation or apology, and thus create clarity around the new idea or answer.” -Pat Lencioni from The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive

Atlas Shrugged is not only beautiful and compelling, it also has a pretty good chance of messing you up. On Monday, Atlas celebrated it’s 50th birthday and continues to be one of the best selling books in history. It is not for the faint hearted or the weak minded. But if you are interested in a putting your cards on the table and seeing what you’ve got, this is a must read. Unless of course, you’ve resigned yourself to hopelessly asking, “Who is John Galt?”