This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

On Personhood

I want to offer a thought or two on personhood. What got me thinking was the recent pro-abortion rally in Washington, D. C. Though it is tempting to rant on some of the excesses in evidence at the rally (not the least of which was not allowing the women who'd had had abortions and were now against abortion to have their own space to assemble), I'd really rather discuss the issue of personhood. I will make some connections to the matter of abortion, but I also want to speak about personhood in a way that goes beyond the abortion polemics.

My friend, Tripp, would want me to assert that the issue of abortion is more complex than any one aspect on which one might choose to focus. And while I admit that the issue of abortion is not a simple logical syllogism one can work out, I do think that the entire abortion question rests squarely on the question of personhood. Address the question of personhood adequately and appropriately, and you will then have a clear and immistakable response to the abortion question.

But of course, personhood is itself a very complex matter. (And Tripp, I think, would be glad to hear me say that.)

First of all, let it be noted that the question of abortion is fueled primarily by two notions: personhood as understood in fundamentally (though not necessarily exclusively) individual terms, and the mother-unborn child relationship as one of adversarial rights. But it seems to me that Christians cannot, due to the very nature of the Gospel, understand human persons or human relating on those terms.

For Christians, I do not think it can be the case that they view personhood primarily from the standpoint of the individual. I do not want to deny the uniqueness of each person--which uniqueness highlights a person's individuality--but I do want to say that individuality is not what primarily defines us. Rather, what primarily defines a human being is koinonia, or community.

We have this on good authority: Humans are made in the image of God. God, himself, is a Trinity of Persons, so God's unity is radically plural. Furthermore, it takes both male and female humans to adequately image God. And finally (to be brief), the standard unit of human relating has been, from creation, the procreative union of husband and wife. A man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. And the two will become one flesh. So a baby is a sign and symbol, as well as the reality, of the union of two persons. And each person is a sign and symbol of the reality of the Triune God.

I am choosing to primarily orient myself around the the creational norms to indicate that this reality I'm describing is not merely one religious viewpoint among many--that is to say, if I have adequately represented the Scriptural and Traditional view on the matter--but is, in fact, a reality built into the very nature of the universe. It's not as though we can look at personhood and describe it in individualist terms or in communal terms, whichever one makes more sense to us. Rather, I am asserting that one cannot but view personhood in this way. Personhood is this reality, apart from whether we believe it or not.

And the Gospel understanding of personhood only intensifies and underlines this reality with the advent of the new community, the Body of Christ. Each unique member of the Body of Christ is indentifiable, but at the same time, no member of the Body of Christ is so in isolation. We are saved as persons, and we are saved together. There is no salvation outside the Church, because there are no Christians outside the Body of Christ (God knows who are his, and he calls them by name). We are one in Christ: we in him, just as he is in God. In other words, in Christian terms, there is no such thing as a human as only an individual. Even our individuality is communal, plural. Whether in terms of creational norms or in terms of Gospel truths, human personhood is radically communal.

So Christians must rightly reject the false dichotomy which pits an unborn child against its mother. This is what makes the abortion question--and it's presumed answer in arguing for abortion rights--so seductive: it purports to solve a complex and irresoluble problem with a false alternative; it makes the theoretically difficult, the theoretically easy (though clearly no one would argue that an abortion is an easy answer to anything).

Furthermore, the Christian paradigm is not one of rights. I do not want to deny the legitimate claims we have on one another as human beings, nor to deny the legitimate claims we have on one another in the Body of Christ. These claims, to the degree that they are legitimate, are binding and valid. But the Christian paradigm is not one of rights. Christians are forbidden to go to secular courts against one another (though presumably not forbidden to have their claims handled intra ecclesiam). More to the point, the Christian paradigm is Christ himself who did not hold on to his legitimate right to the privileges of the Godhead, but took the form of a servant, became man and died for us. The paradigmatic icon of the Christian husband--who, let it be noted, is given headship in the family--is not the Roman paterfamilias, who asserts his rights accountable only to himself or to the empire, but is again, the Christ who gave up his life to make holy his Bride. Thus to assert the mother's right to choose (to kill her unborn child) over the unborn child's right to live--or even vice versa let it be noted--is not the Christian mindset.

Rather the Christian notes that life is a gift given, not owed, to one. We neither assert any right to keep it beyond what God ordains, nor to give it up outside of what God wills. It is a gift to be treasured, so long as it is given to us. And given that we are a community of persons, we understand the gift of our own life to be a gift also given those to whom we have also been given in koinonia. Certainly the unborn child owes the gift of its life to God and its mother and father, and cannot assert that gift in such a way so as to deny the gift of life given its mother and father. But neither can mother or father deny their child that gift. All our life is a common gift given each of us uniquely, a treasure for which we are responsible to those with whom we are in koinonia. Similarly, as mother and father, the life we engender is not a gift we can return or ask to be returned. The life we engender is as much our gift to the child as the child's life is a gift to us. We are responsible one to another for this gift, and none has the right to demand that life from the other. We are all responsible to cherish that gift and ensure its growth.

There is no adversarial rights relationship. Rather it is a communal relationship suffused with humility and self-sacrifice.

Given that more than 95% of the stated reasons for abortion do not have to do with rape or incest or the health of the mother (note my earlier post), then clearly the Christian understanding of personhood sketched out above, would preclude almost any abortion decision. And even in terms of the very difficult cases of rape, incest, and mother's health, I think the Christian understanding I've outlined gives far more fruitful ground for considering the matter, than individuality and rights. Indeed, even in these cases, abortion (understood as an action intended to kill the unborn child) would not be a very viable alternative. Rather, birth and adoption (in the cases of rape and incest), or medical actions which intend to save the life of the mother (which, though it may also result in the death of the unborn child, is not abortion), would be the compassionate, life-affirming responses. Indeed, in the case of the health of the mother, the mother may also choose that which may well be life-endangering to herself as a gift of life to her unborn child. These considerations seem naturally to flow from the Christian understanding of personhood, but do not seem to follow from individuality and rights.

But let me also consider the mother in my paradigm. If we focus on the pregnant mother as primarily an individual with rights that are opposed to the individual within her and its rights, we put the mother in an untenable situation; essentially adding to the burden she already carries. She's "on her own" as an individual with this abortion decision. Listen to the rhetoric for proponents of abortion rights: no one can make this decision for a women; it's her decision alone. But how uncompassionate. In a moment such as this a woman, it would seem to this man, would need to know that she is in fact not alone. That this is not her decision, but is rather a decision shared by all those with whom she is in koinonia, including the unborn child in her womb. A woman faced with the choice of abortion is faced with a decision about death. Either she and her way of life "die" or the child itself (literally) dies. But a woman under the Christian paradigm that I've outlined, though faced with a most difficult decision and all its physical consequences, can affirm that whether she decides to parent the child herself or allow another loving couple to parent the child, she has made a decision of life. Of course, even in that decision, there are "deaths" to be experienced, but what a difference.

Consider also the father--the largely forgotten person in this conversation. In the abortion rights scenario of individuals and rights, he is completely cut off from any of the decision making. Indeed, though clearly the killing of the unborn child is the most tragic wrongs done, the condemnation of the father to moral and parental exile is a great wrong as well. If the father has no say in a life-and-death decision involving his unborn child, then why would we expect him to think he would have a role in raising the child? And if he himself would seem to prefer it this way, by abanding the mother and his own unborn child, then how do we remedy the situation by eliminating the reality of the gift for which he bears responsibility, and indeed, the gift of life that that unborn child will be giving back to him? It has not been unheard of in the history of the human male that otherwise self-centered automatons experience redemption through fatherhood. It's not a given. But do we dare deny a father-to-be the chance of salvation and life?

I hope I have described the Christian understanding of personhood well enough, and laid enough of a sketch of a proof as to assert its plausibility, such that it can clearly be seen that the consistent Christian stance with regard to abortion has to do with affirming life (and standing against the practice of abortion).

Now many will by now be almost unrestrainable in wanting to assert: But you haven't asked the most pressing question of all! When do fetuses become persons? I would hope that given the convictions outlined above, that this is understood to be a question without an answer, under the Christian paradigm, because it fails to understand the underlying reality. It's like asking your physician at your annual physical: But what about whether I should itemize on my taxes or not? It's a question that doesn't make sense because it asserts presuppositions the Christian doesn't accept. There is no point at which a fetus becomes a person, because in the Christian paradigm, we are always already born into community, and thus persons, and it is community that marks our personhood. When do we become a person? Precisely when we come to be. And we only come to be in the conjugal union of man and woman, who themselves were always already in community when they came to be, and so on back to Adam and Eve, and beyond them to the very life of the Trinity.

But this is the Christian conception--or at least I take it to be so. What about those who are not Christians? How can we persuade them to change their minds and accept our views, and--most importantly--get the laws changed? I would submit that, given the conception above, this, too, is a question that does not make sense. If one is not part of the Christan community, why would they want to accept its premises? Should Christians try to persuade them? Yes. Should Christians try to get the laws changed? Yes. Of course. But we must understand that this is a corollary of the premise: we must extend the life of God to those who are dead, so that they, too, may live. Changing laws can change people's hearts. But changing people's hearts is the fundamental task.

But more specifically, we need to reframe the abortion question in Christian terms. It will not do to stay within the paradigm of individuality and rights. We must put new wine into new wineskins. But of course, we must then live the life we talk. It will not do to talk life and live death--seeking affluence, shrugging off sexual immorality, accepting a divorce rate equivalent to those outside the Church. It's time to demand more of ourselves, and to live the humble sacrificial life we profess. We must take in women in crisis pregnancies into our own homes. We must pray for them. We must adopt their children. If all they know of us is our shouting and picketing, we are not preaching life to them. We must also stand alongside them before they get to the abortion clinic.

We must change our thinking on abortion to conform with the Gospel. Our words and our lives must image the life we have been given. We must show them what personhood in Christ really means. Some accept the life-giving Gospel. Some will not. We are only called to be faithful.

The Fatherhood Chronicles XXXVI

We live each of these days under the shadow of mortality. This is a damnable thing, a thing to be hated.

Yesterday, after work, I walked to the bookstore and there met my wife and daughter. Sofie, in Anna's arms, saw me as I came up to them. She smiled and raised her arms in greeting. And she laughed. My breath almost stopped for joy at this precious gift: a daughter's gleeful anticipation of her father's embrace.

This morning, I awoke and as I always do, took Sofie in my arms, wishing her good morning, and announcing to her God's love. Our time together this morning was cut short as I had an early meeting at the APA downtown to get to. Anna lay next to her in the bed, and Sofie kept pulling herself up to a standing position. She would then let go, balancing on her own two feet for an eternity of seconds. Then down she would go, plopping--as only young eight month old daughters can plop--bouncily on her diapered bottom. Her infant giggles were infectious and I could not help but burst out laughing. I grabbed her up in my arms. After some hugs and kisses, I made to put her down. She clung to me, refusing to break the embrace. I said, "I have waited eight months for this"--this daughter who knows her papa, and in her own way cherishes his affection.

My joy was so intense as to be painful. I kissed her almost weeping, and kissed her mother, too. Telling Anna I loved her, I signed the cross on Sofie's forehead. As I was stepping through the front door, I tossed back over my shoulder, "Bye-bye, beautiful Healy women."

My father's heart was created for this, this child's faith. This is a sign for us. A sign of the garden. A foretaste of the final consummation. It is God's "This is my beloved Son" given us by adoption. It is the fellowship of the cool of the day, the fellowship before the question, "Where art thou?"

But this joy is pierced by a sword. I do not have the mother's heart in which these things are pondered. Rather, mine is the fitful sleep, the dreaming vision. I must be told, the reality made clear for me. And these are the words: it is given unto men once to die and after that to face the judgment.

For there is another garden this signifies. Here in the cool of the night fall drops of blood. Here there is the "Nevertheless" and the bitter cup. This joy, this daughter's laugh, and my father's heart will one day be stilled. Over us will the earth be piled, until we, too, become once again earth. My daughter, my wife, I, myself, have only these numbered days, these finite hours in which to live and to love. All around us the forces of the enemy stand arrayed, seeking our destruction. It is for us to defy them, to claim our inheritance, and to fling this morning laughter, these kisses and hugs, and most of all the purity of our love sanctified by the cross, back in their faces.

It is this mortality which infects this father's joy with pain, laces the laughter with tears. It is this mortality I curse as these father-daughter moments seem so difficult to cultivate, these moments which seem to require being stolen from other obligations. But it is this joy, this laughing communion which is also my salvation. God has given me Anna, and that crucifixion of myself brought me to a certain redemption. God, Anna and the Theotokos have given me Sofie, and this second crucifixion has deepened that other redemption.

These things with which I have been filled overflow me. They are difficult to articulate. They are a Lenten joyful sorrow. They presage the final Pascha. I laugh. I weep. And I hope.

Faith, Reason, Knowledge III

One of the important matters related to this understanding of the relationship between faith, reason and knowledge is our ability to know God, and to know God we must come to some conclusion about whether or not he exists. If it is granted that he does exist, then what are his attributes? How can we know them?

I want to say more about faith, reason and knowledge specifically, but it has been helpful for my thinking to lay the groundwork for further discussion by running through the ancient sceptical arguments against whether one can dogmatically assert God's existence and make claims about his attributes. I will use the third chapter of Book III of Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism, especially paragraphs 6-12, as my working text.

Sextus is thought to have lived in the late second century A.D., and his work is a summarization of one line of ancient scepticism that purports to date from Pyrrho in the early fourth century B.C. Sextus's work falls into four neat divisions: Book I discusses Pyrrhonian scepticism in general, including terms and concepts, and the famous ten modes and the so-called "Agrippan" modes on which sceptical thought is based and from which it derives its critical force. Book II applies those concepts and modes to the ancient philosophical subject and discipline of Logic (or Dialectic), and Book III further applies these modes and concepts to the areas of Physics (or the Causes, primarily motions--chapters 1-21) and Ethics (chapters 21-32).

Our text falls in the third chapter of Book III. After some discussion about the necessity of remaining undogmatic (we would say agnostic) about God's existence and claims about his attributes, Sextus writes:

Further, in order to form a conception of God one must necessarily--so far as depends on the dogmatists---suspend judgment as to his existence or nonexistence. For the existence of God is not preevident. For if God impressed us automatically, the dogmatists would have agreed together regarding his essence, his character, and his place; whereas their interminable disagreement has made him seem to us nonevident and needing demonstration. Now he that demonstrates the existence of God does so by means of what is either preevident or nonevident. Certainly not, then, by means of the preevident; for if what demonstrates God's existence were preevident, then--since the thing proved is conceived together with that which proves it, and therefore is apprehended along with it as well, as we have established--God's existence also will be preevident, it being apprehended along with the preevident fact which proves it. But, as we have shown, it is not preevident; therefore it is not proved, either, by a preevident fact. Nor yet by what is nonevident. For if the nonevident fact which is capable of proving God's existence, needing proof as it does, shall be said to be proved by means of a preevident fact, it will no longer be nonevident but preevident. Therefore the nonevident fact which proves his existence is not proved by what is preevident. Nor yet by what is nonevident; for he who asserts this will be driven into circular reasoning when we keep demanding proof every time for the nonevident fact which he produces as proof of the last one propounded. Consequently, the existence of God cannot be proved from any other fact. But if God's is neither automatically preevident nor proved from another fact, it will be inapprehensible.

The typical sceptical move in Sextus is simple: there are disagreements about whether or not God exists, therefore we must suspend judgment about whether or not God exists. For if it were clear ("preevident") that God exists, then there would be no dispute. But since there are disagreements, God's existence must be demonstrated.

Now those demonstrations are either: clear ("preevident") or unclear ("nonevident"). But they cannot be preevident, because if they were preevident then a) the implication is that God's existence would be demonstrated and there would be no disagreement and b) since what is preevident must be conceived together with the proof that is preevident, then God's existence would also be preevident with the preevident fact; but in fact God's existence is not preevident.

But neither can God's existence be proven by a nonevident fact, because it would need a preevident fact to provide proof for itself. But a nonevident fact cannot be proven by a preevident fact because the nonevident fact would have to be preevident along with the preevident fact which provides the basis for accepting the nonevident fact. But similarly, a nonevident fact cannot be proven by another nonevident fact, because either one assumes the conclusive proof in the premise (which is circular reasoning) or one would have to provide yet another nonevident fact to prove the nonevident fact proving the first nonevident fact, and this would only lead to infinite regress.

Thus, Sextus concludes, since there are only preevident or nonevident facts, and neither is a ground for proving God's existence, there are no proofs of God's existence.

But while this argument works for the limited operations of reasoning, one cannot assume that reason is the only way of knowing God. If God is a person, as we Christians, among others, take him to be, then while reason is one component of our knowledge of him, he is not circumscribable by reason. In fact, precisely because God is a person, one might well expect that his existence could not be proven on the basis of human reasoning alone. Think for example of attempting to prove the existence of one of your friends to another friend who does not know him and has not had direct contact with him. In the end, the "proof" would have to rely on your testimony, supported by various reasonings.

But all this is not the same thing as denying God's existence. Sextus himself notes that one cannot, by lack of proof, assert that God does not exist, because this stance itself would need demonstration. But that demonstration would fall prey to the same sceptical attack. In short, the best that reason can do with regard to God's existence is to remain agnostic. (It seems to me that Kant makes basically this same move in the first Critique.)

Next, Sextus explores God's attributes: forethought (or foreknowledge), will and power, and how these relate to God's goodness or malignancy.

There is this also to be said. He who affirms that God exists either declares that he has, or that he has not, forethought for the things in the universe, and in the former case that such forethought is for all things or for some things. But if he had forethought for all, there would have been nothing bad and no badness in the world; yet all things, they say, are full of badness; hence it shall not be said that God forethinks all things. If, again, he forethinks some, why does he forethink these things and not those? For either he has both the will and the power to forethink all things, or else he has the will but not the power, or the power but not the will, or neither the will nor the power. But if he had had both the will and the power he would have had forethought for all things; but for the reasons stated above he does not forethink all; therefore he has not both the will and the power to forethink all. And if he has the will but not the power, he is less strong than the cause which renders him unable to forethink what he does not forethink: but it is contrary to our notion of God that he should be weaker than anything. And if, again, he has the power but not the will to have forethought for all, he will be held to be malignant; while if he has neither the will nor the power, he is both malignant and weak--an impious thing to say about God. Therefore God has no forethought for the universe.

This essentially is an early version of the theodicy problem. If God is all-good and all-powerful, why does evil exist? Sextus' move runs something like this: God forethinks things in the universe, or he does not. But if he does, then his forethought encompasses all things or only some things. But if he forethinks all things, since evil exists in the universe, this would make God responsible for evil. This seems impious to attribute to God. So it cannot be that God forethinks all things.

But if God only forethinks some things, why certain things and not others? If he does not forethink all things, then either he does not have the will to do so, or he does not have the power to do so, or yet again he has neither the will nor the power. If he had the will and the power to forethink some things, then he had the will and the power to forethink all things, but we have seen that he did not forethink all things, so he either doesn't have the will or the power. If he does not have the power to forethink all things, even if he has the will, then the things he does not forethink are more powerful than he, but this is a contradiction to our understanding of God that he be all-powerful. If he does not have the will to forethink all things, but has the power to do so, then he is evil, for it is a contradiction to our understanding of an all-good God that he would willfully tolerate the existence of evil. But if he has neither the will nor the power, then God is both evil and weak--and this is an impious thing to think about God. Thus God is not foreknowing.

Again, this makes a fundamental mistake with regard to God's nature. Sextus--among other ancient and modern philosophers--equates God's attributes with his essence. And if one assumes that God is utterly simple, this makes perfect sense, God is the attributes he evidences. But if God is essentially a person, then philosophical assertion that God is utterly simple cannot be true, because personhood is a complex nature irreducible to a single attribute or set of attributes. Christianity teaches this: God is three Persons in one Nature. Paradoxically, God is both simple and complex. But this is precisely the experience we have of human persons. They are not reducible to a single essence. One cannot sum up one's spouse in a single word, a relationship into a concept. Thus, God's personhood is irreducible to his foreknowledge, his will, his power, his love. But at the same time, it is proper to say, God is love. (Note: Precisely because God is a person, one cannot reverse subject and predicate. It is wrong to assert Love is God.)

So while reason can properly show our limitations in speaking about God's foreknowledge, will and power, and the reality of evil in a universe of his making, it cannot disprove God's existence (or at least prohibit the assertion of his existence), because God is not reducible to his attributes.

But if he exercises no forethought for anything, and there exists no work nor product of his, no one will be able to name the source of the apprehension of God's existence, inasmuch as he neither appears of himself nor is apprehended by means of any of his products. So for these reasons we cannot apprehend whether God exists. And from this we further conclude that those who positively affirm God's existence are probably compelled to be guilty of impiety; for if they say that he forethinks all things they will be declaring that God is the cause of what is evil, while if they say that he forethinks some things or nothing they will be forced to say that God is either malignant or weak, and obviously this is to use impious language.

Sextus concludes then, that if God does not exercise forethought, then nothing that exists can be demonstrated to be his work. And there will be nothing by which his existence can be apprehended. Thus God's existence is inapprehensible. And those who dogmatically assert God's existence are being impious because in so doing they assert that he is the cause of evil, or that he is himself evil or weak.

But since this argument has all along failed to understand God as a person, then it similarly fails to understand that God's attributes are an extension of his person, and, as it were, under his volitional control. This is preeminently revealed in the Incarnation, in which, Christ, who in his very nature was God, chose not to exercise his foreknowledge at various points in his earthly ministry, and remained ignorant of specific matters (for example, the day and hour of his return). Philippians 2:5-11 clearly highlights the loving condescension of God who chose not to continue to grasp his divine perogatives, but became as one of us and suffer and died. Christ did not cease to have the attributes attributed to God's person, but he chose not to exercise them out of love for us.

Clearly mine is only a sketch at an attempt to answer Sextus' sceptical critique. There are gaps in my reasoning which clearly need filled in, not the least of which are the implications of what it means for God not to exercise his attributes, and whether, indeed, God's attributes are as separable (or, better, distinguishable) from his person as I seem to be claiming they are.

But what I have intended is to show that the sort of knowing reason engages in is only one sort. There is a knowing that we have as persons of other persons that is not reducible to rational terms, and that this sort of knowing may be said to be governed by the rubrics of faith. As I have mentioned in my reflecting on the unity of faith and reason, these two sorts of knowings are not in conflict with one another--or at least need not be--but neither can one be reducible to the terms of the other.

Next I will take up the relationship between faith and reason through the activity of knowing.

Men and Church

Jennifer, et. al., are wondering about the feminization factor in mainline Christianity and what churches generally need to do to attract men.

Here's one man's reflections.

I've had it up to here with "getting in touch with my feelings." I'm not advocating being a self-unaware automaton, but Jesus didn't say, "Look into your navel everyday, then come follow me." He said, "Take up your cross daily." If I understand that correctly, it sure don't mean focusing on myself. It means dying to myself.

I've had it up to here with trying to find explanations for sinful behavior that have to do with everything else but our own sinful choices. Decades of focusing on systemic injustice hasn't obliterated injustice. If anything, it's simply allowed the proliferation of irresponsibility for our own actions.

I've had it up to here with the unreflective belief in progressivism; that somehow just because we come later in time than the Christians that have gone before us that we know better than they did on a whole host of issues: sexuality, the family, the ordained ministry, the sacraments, Scripture, and so on. Ours is the world that has given us the reality of more than 40 million infants killed in the womb. Ours is the world that has given us the reality of billions and billions of dollars of consumer debt. Ours is the world that has given us the reality of more than half of marriages ending in divorce. Need I go on?

In other words, I'm sick to death of churches who think they have it so together they need to tell St. Paul where he's wrong. Really.

I want a church who knows it's full of sinners, doesn't excuse it, and knows with that that the only way to relate to God and each other . . . and to those who've gone before us . . . is with humility.

I want a church who is less sure about what is and isn't the cause of our sins, and more sure about what is and isn't the Christian Faith.

I want a church who knows that "being all things to all men" does not mean abandoning its own unique and distinctive identity.

I want a church who is less worried about what the world thinks of us (that is to say, less worried about being "relevant"), and has the, ahem, gonads to stand up to the world and say, "You're wrong." Abortion? Wrong. Sex outside of marriage? Wrong. Consumerist Christianity? Wrong.

I want a church who knows the enemy isn't the gay man, the conservative politician, big business, big government, or that guy over there, but is the Enemy, himself, Satan. (Oh, and I want a church who believes in the reality of Satan, sin and evil.)

I want a church who is less worried about attracting anything with a body temperature of 98.6 but is serious enough about what it believes that it is willing to tell me the truth to my face and risk having me walk out never to return.

I want a church that is less worried about making me fit in and serious enough about me that it will demand things of me: things I would never demand of myself, like praying everyday, confessing my sins, serving the poor, loving my wife, that raising my daughter is more important than my career (or leisure time).

I don't want a repackaging of current fads in music, diet and health, psychology, sexuality, relationships, and so forth. If I wanted what the world had to offer, I'd take it. The marketing is much more persuasive, and it comes without any of the guilt. I want something which will warn me of the death that comes behind the label.

I want a church that will give me life.

But then again, that's just me.

The Fatherhood Chronicles XXXV

I had not intended to do any blogging till after 5pm today (when my grades are due), but Sofie didn't synchronize her sleep schedule with my grading today. She's up. I really can't focus on grading. She's in her bouncy saucer next to me at the computer, and seems content for a few minutes. So here goes.

There have been a couple of occasions over the last month which have really highlighted something for me. My language is more G-rated. And I'm not as funny as I used to be. And it's all Sofie's fault.

When I was graduating from Bible college, I had gone through a couple of years questioning some of the major tenets and social mores of my conservative evangelical upbringing. I had discovered and developed an appreciation for great classical human achievements in the arts and music and philosophy and literature (this was a good thing). I had also come to realize that consuming wine and other alcoholic beverages was not the ultimate sin--though one must of course not be drunk on wine but filled with the Holy Spirit. Though smoking is not to be encouraged, I also developed an appreciation for smoking a pipe--though it takes me about a year and a half to work through two ounces of tobacco. Neither of these things are bad in themselves, though potentially destructive. Then there was the "liberalization" of my tongue. I came to a rather casuistrical understanding that swearing, far from being a huge sin, was, gosh, a rhetorical tool.

Then Sofie came. Arts, music, literature and philosophy: still good things. Wine, beer, Scotch: adiaphora. Smoking a pipe: caution is to be observed. Swearing: CLEAN UP YOUR ACT, BUSTER!!

I could see Sofie appreciating arts, music, literature, and philosophy. I could see her enjoying and responsibly using wine. Smoking? Um, rethinking that one. Swearing: Yeah, right. I want to see my daughter rip off "Shut the f*** up you g****** m******F*****!!" (Shudders. Wipes brow.) No. She'll hear it soon enough from the world. She needs to know it's not appropriate. She can only learn that it is inappropriate from me (and her momma).

I'm also not finding the humor in things I once did. Take for example the religion articles in The Onion. I have on a couple of occasions started to post a couple of stories at which I chuckled. Then I thought better of it. What is Sofie going to think when at church we worship Christ the Harrower of Hell (depicted in our wall-sized icon in the sanctuary), but at home Daddy laughs his head off at: "Christ Converts to Islam"?

Don't get me wrong. I understand there's a place for satire. And if one can't mock one's own failures and hypocrisies (which satire attacks), then one has a real problem.

But Sofie is too young to know the difference. And won't know the difference for some time.

No, I'm raising a daughter now. I am at this very moment teaching her the Faith . . . or disavowing it through my words and behavior. She needs to know that a mouth that praises God cannot speak in ways that dishonor God. She needs to know that God gave us humor, but not everything is to be laughed at.

Did I say it was Sofie's fault? No. It's not her fault. Rather, I have been given the grace to see myself through her eyes. I didn't like what I saw. Time to change.

Well, If I Do Say So Myself, I Never Took This Advice

[Yep, that's me: Outraging women and feminists everywhere!]

If You Want To Be Happy

CHORUS
If you want to be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
so for my personal point of view
Get an ugly girl to marry you (repeat)

A pretty woman makes her husband look small
And very often causes his downfall
As soon as he marries her then she starts
Doing the things that will break his heart
But if you make an ugly woman your wife
Then you will be happy for the rest of your life
An ugly woman cooks meals on time
She'll always give you peace of mind

CHORUS
If you want to be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
So for my personal point of view
Get an ugly girl to marry you (repeat)

So if your friends say you have no taste
Go ahead and marry anyway
Though her face is ugly her eyes don't match
Take it from me she's a better catch

CHORUS
If you want to be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
So for my personal point of view
Get an ugly girl to marry you (repeat)

Say kid YES
I saw your wife the other day UH HUH
And she's ugly
HA HA BUT SHE SURE CAN COOK

CHORUS
If you want to be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
So for my personal point of view
Get an ugly girl to marry you (repea)

Faith, Reason, Knowledge II

Christ is risen!

The Union of Faith and Reason

One need not spend much time talking about faith and reason before encountering the split between them. From questions about whether or not it's possible to "prove" the existence of God, to whether or not the Genesis account can be taken as a "literal" description of the origins of the earth especially given what science has to say about cosmogony, to questions about the place of faith and religion in public life, we generally operate under an assumption of the dichotomy between the two. These questions have further implications, such as, to speak specifically, the nature of faith itself and the whole question of "believer's baptism."

The relation of faith and knowledge can be seen from two crises: that of an intellectualized faith, or sometimes a pietized intellect, or, more usually, a dichotomized life of intellect versus pietism. That is to say, the intellect subsumes faith under its own rubric leading usually to a variant of secularism, or faith subsumes the intellect leading to fundamentalism, or, more usually, the intellect and faith are compartmentalized, leading to a split life of secularism and pietism. In all cases, the problem is a lack of union between faith and knowledge.

We could perhaps trace the origins of this split between the intellect and faith to Descartes' mind-body dualism. But it's also true that in twelfth and thirteenth century Islam as well as in St. Thomas separate provenances were given to faith and reason; though St. Thomas did affirm an overlap of the two in something like natural theology. Whatever may be the reasons, the end result is that Christian faith gets split between pious living and intellectual doctrine, which leads to neoGnostic split between belief and practice, with belief becoming something like an "optional" addendum. Clearly any conception of a split between faith and reason is ultimately untenable.

For after all Christianity is the salvation of whole persons. The task is not so much to accomplish the union of faith and reason, since if what we believe about Christian salvation is true, this is already a reality that is coming to be in ever greater fulness. Rather, the task is to seek how this union currently obtains and is realized.

At the outset, we should come to some understanding about how we should understand the terms under discussion: faith, reason, and knowledge.

By reason is often meant "intellect," and this intellect is often divorced from mundane living. Reason usually abstracts ideas and concepts and removes them from common experience. But in so doing, reason removes itself from this daily living. This abstraction is not illegitimate. It is a part of what reason does and how it is meant to perform. The problem is in seeing reason as autonomous, as either compartmentalized and removed from faith, or as dominant over faith. As is well known, Kant helpfully showed the limitations of reason (that it cannot speak about the soul, immortality and God), but failed to go beyond his conclusions and illegitimately concluded that faith must be subsumed under reason if it was to be rational and universal.

But if, as I am proposing, reason is to be unified with faith, it must lose its autonomy. It cannot be seen in isolation, nor be unanswerable to a higher authority, whether that authority be faith, God, or what have you. Reason has an authority, clearly; it has a purview of activity. But it cannot be seen as solely authoritative. Its authority is derived. But we will speak more about this later. For now I am seeking the unity of faith and reason so as to resolve the dilemma of dichotomization.

By knowledge is usually meant something deriving from the intellect, some sort of body of organized mental concepts. But if one properly understands Christian teaching, knowledge is not just intellectual, but is also personal. The Church has never spoke of knowledge as only, mostly, or merely those things which can be intellectually, or rationally, apprehended. Rather, in the Church's teaching, knowledge includes all of a person as seen, most strikingly, in the full and deeply intimate relationship betwen man and wife. There is a knowing that one does, not in isolation from reason, but in primarily other ways, ways in which reason plays a subservient role. One cannot reduce one's spousal relationship to a set of theorems. But neither is this somehow not knowing. It is a knowing that transcends reason, and gives, as it were, its own organized body of understandings. This is not to say that reason plays no role in such a knowing, for clearly it does, but that it does not play the dominant role. And it is this conception of knowledge that most clearly gives us the place of union of faith and reason and the means of resolving the split and imbalance between faith and reason. More on that in a moment.

By faith is usually meant belief, which entails some body of intellectual concepts. But this is not the way that the faith was talked about from the beginning. For Christians faith was (and is) always a way of life, not merely intellect. The Church has never limited Faith to the intellect, but has always characterized the faith as a way of life, encompassing all of a man and his life. But this does not mean, of course, that faith is split off from reason, for there are, indeed, certain intellectual understandings that Christians are required to have. But it has always been the Church's practice to invite converts into a way of life prior to their having an intellectual understanding of the faith. One participates in the life and practices of the Church, then one goes on to understanding. There is no split, nor need it necessarily be the case that we conclude that faith is more authoritative than reason. For after all the Church is not submitting that understanding is nonessential, but that in a temporal process, participation comes first.

So how, in the end, does one unify faith and intellect? I think it clearly the case that this can only be done in the heart. By heart, of course, I do not mean some sort of little container of emotion. The Christian understanding of the heart is that it is the seat of the whole person, the point at which the entire human person (intellect, faith, action, will, emotions, body) is unified. We moderns have given to the brain something of a mystical being: it somehow is the center of bodily activity and of the mind. But the Christian teaching is that the seat of the human is the heart. The heart is more central physically than the brain, and it contains within it, not only all the necessary physical processes of circulation but also those of willing, emotions, faith and intellect. I am not suggesting that somehow we do not think or emote with our brains (and minds), but rather that all these processes pass through the heart, as does the physical blood which permeates every cell of our body.

The heart, then, is the place and power of the unification of faith and reason. The heart is that authority, if you will, to which faith and reason answer, if a human is to be centered and whole. But the heart is not an end or an authority unto itself. It, too, has an authority to which it answers, the Person of Christ, whom it both believes and knows to be the Truth, the Person from whom we derive our ability to reason and the motivation to believe.

Consequently, it comes to be seen that reason cannot provide knowledge, or rather the only knowledge that reason can provide is partial and limited. Kant was right in his analysis, but wrong in his conclusion. For as I hope is already partly evident, faith itself can provide knowledge, if that knowledge is a complement to and different in quality from that of reason.

Bright Monday: Reflections on the End of Holy Week

Christ is risen!

The Healy's began their part of the intensive Orthodox Holy Week services with Good Friday Matins, which was celebrated Thursday evening. The Twelve Gospels are read and hymns sung for what was a liturgy lasting more than two and a half hours. During this service--in which the entire nave is dark, save for candlelight--a procession is made with the crucifix (a large cross on which the icon body of Christ is nailed) through the congregation. We slowly sing, "Today He Who hung the earth upon the waters is hung on the tree./The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns./He Who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery./He Who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped on the face./The Bridegroom of the Church is affixed to the Cross with nails./The Son of the Virgin is pierced by a spear." I wept. Nothing spectacular, but the tears just kept coming, despite my efforts to maintain some decorum. When we venerated the crucifix at the end, the tears came again. Anna asked me, "Are you alright?" I said, "Yes," but was still on the verge of more tears on the ride home.

On Friday, we went to Good Friday Vespers at 3pm, then to Great and Holy Saturday Matins later that evening. Vespers were much less emotional, but still powerful. During the service, the burial shroud and a large icon of the burial are placed on a bier (decorated with red and white carnations and red roses), which we later venerated. Nelson asked me after service if I would be one of the men to carry the bier that evening during the Great and Holy Saturday Matins. I agreed, but inwardly I could only reflect on how unworthy I was to function as a "pall bearer" for Christ. Matins came, and I carried the bier. I was very near tears most of the time, but maintained an appropriate humility (I think). When we all went home after the service, it had been a long day. Sofie had done well, and Anna remained in good spirits. We slept the sleep of the exhausted.

On Great and Holy Saturday, we went to the Vesperal Divine Liturgy in the Morning. This was yet another moving service. One humurous point was when some of the parish young women went through the congregation and tossed out bay leaves over the worshippers. Sofie was slightly distressed by the loud rustling noise of all the leaves, but she never cried, and we held her and reassured her everything was okay. (Then spent the rest of the time trying to keep her from eating the leaves!)

The culmination of it all, however, was the Paschal Matins followed by the Paschal Divine Liturgy. Anna was somewhat incredulous about worshipping the Lord's Resurrection in the middle of the night. And truth be told, a four-hour long service, during the time she and I (and, I hasten to add, Sofie) are normally asleep, does cause one to ask certain questions. But the service was powerful. From the pitch-darkness prior to lighting the Paschal Candle and the resulting growing light as more and more of us lighted our tapers from its light passed on to us from others, to the procession around the temple as we went to the Tomb of our Lord, to the knocking on the temple doors, to St. John Chrysostom's Paschal Homily, to the joyous repetitions of the Paschal greeting, to the serving of the Great and Holy Mysteries and the blessing of the paschal baskets, to the feasting afterwards--it was one of the most joyous celebrations of the Lord's Resurrection I've ever been to. It was Sofie's first Easter. The first Easter that our family celebrated in an Orthodox Church. When Anna, Sofie and I fell asleep--exhausted and refreshed all at once--sometime between 4:30am and 5:00am, I could truthfully say, "That's how you do Easter!" Through the day yesterday, as we shared Easter greetings with our family, it was great to hear Anna tell her family about the services in tones of joy and admiraton. God is working. May His Name always be praised.

What a blessed, blessed group of days.

A Great Way to Explore Holy Week: Through Iconography

If you want to get a better grasp of the Orthodox experience of Holy Week, you can do so through the Church's iconography.

The Fatherhood Chronicles XXXIV

We interrupt this blogging silence to bring you our little Easter girl (her seven month pics).

(Come on. You didn't expect me to sit on these till after Pascha, did you?)

Faith, Reason, Knowledge I

Introduction

This past winter (yes, it's officially spring, though one barely can tell here in Chicago) I reflected on what it meant for a Christian to think faithfully, that is to say, what foundations lay under a Christian's mind in the various tasks of thinking. I would like to turn my attention now to a related question: can faith, specifically Christian faith, provide knowledge?

The question actually arose out of a conversation I had yesterday with my professor during our meeting for my directed reading on ancient scepticism. We were examining Sextus' account of the five modes (which had been preceded by the ten modes, and followed by the two modes and the eight modes . . .). These are typically called the "Agrippan modes" and three of them have been called "the Agrippan trilemma." Essentially these are criticisms for the justification of a belief as true. The trilemma is this: one's belief is a) justified by something else, which itself needs justified by something else, and so on in infinite regress, or b) justified by something else, but that other thing receives its justification by the belief in question, which is circular reasoning, or c) justified by simple assertion of its truth, but this is no justification.

My reply, which I should note came from some significant ignorance of current epistemological debates, was something along the lines of: "Well, one is left either with fideism or foundationalism." Foundationalism was out, due to the Agrippan trilemma, and, frankly, I misunderstood fideistic accounts of knowledge. My professor was examining my statement, correcting it and so forth, when I made this apparently self-evident--to him--statement, "Well, that assumes that faith does not produce knowledge."

He knows I'm a professed Christian of Eastern Orthodox predilections so he made an obviously careful (and gracious) response. (In other words, he didn't burst out into a bit of a chuckle and a "Well, duh!") But as I reflected on it later it became clear to me that he and I were using faith in slightly, but perhaps with significant consequences, different ways. And that led me to this project.

Preliminary Questions

The standard philosophical tradition on faith, reason and knowledge derives from the Platonic accounts of knowledge (as in the Theaetetus) as "justified true belief" (though even in the Theaetetus this definition is not without its problems). That is to say, belief (pistis, which in Christian terminology is faith) must be justified (if you prefer, warranted) by reason if it is to produce knowledge. Or, to say it another way, only reason's actions can produce knowledge.

So the spheres of faith/belief and reason have been kept separate and their contents and sources separate as well. Belief's/faith's content (or product) is opinion derived from (largely unexamined) human experience or, in Christian terms, is dogma derived from divine revelation. Reason's content (or product) is knowledge derived from dialectic and contemplation (theoria). Each are, in their own way, somewhat self-referential (which is why the sceptics attacks on reason are so challenging). So both rationalists and fideists welcome the attacks of scepticism on the other, though perhaps the fideists gain more from the sceptical attack than do the rationalists.

This distinction between faith and reason has always been set in terms of opposition, or at least the two spheres (as in Aquinas) have only minimal overlap (in natural theology, say). Reason's actions cannot found Christian dogma, and Faith's actions cannot found knowledge.

But I deny that it is Christian at all to set these two things, faith and reason, in opposition. Both activities are necessary for human thought and its content. Nor am I alone in this. Kant had his Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone, but Nicholas Wolterstorff has his Reason within the Bounds of Religion. With the work of Alvin Plantinga, Kelly Clarke, et. al., this sort of assertion is perhaps unremarkable.

Still, this does not answer other concerns. How does one (and should one) prioritize the claims of faith or reason when these appear to be in opposition? In what way is faith and reason unified in the person? Are dogma (the presumed product of faith) and knowledge (the presumed product of reason) essentially different things, or is dogma itself some form of knowledge, or are both together aspects of something else (wisdom?)?

These are the sorts of things on which I want to reflect for the spring. I doubt I'll come to definitive conclusions, but hopefully I can better articulate the questions.