Archive for category Beliefs
Partially Examined Assumptions from PEL #46: Plato on Ethics & Religion
Dear Partially Examined Life podcasters,
Like Skepoet, I was very impressed by your recent episode on Plato’s “Euthyphro.” And yes, Seth, I deeply appreciated your perspective on Judaism. In particular, it helped me realize that modern Christianity in practice actually functions the way you describe Judaism (with decisions made by a small group of authorities revered for their understanding of the text), even if in theory it we claim our theology is a matter of rigorous logical deductions available to all.
That said, my overall reaction was much like the one Socrates had:
But I see plainly that you are not disposed to instruct me-dearly not: elsewhy, when we reached the point, did you turn, aside? Had you only answered me I should have truly learned of you by this time the-nature of piety.
I freely admit I am a philosophical dilettante and undoubtedly biased my religious upbringing. That is why (like Socrates to Euthyphro :-) I come to you who seem so certain to in hopes of illuminating my ignorance. Yet just when you seem on the verge of actually addressing the problem I care about, you veer away. Perhaps you can help me understand why…
Partially Examined Questions
Dear Mark, Seth, and Wes,
Thanks for the shout out on the The Partially Examined Life blog. First of all, I want to apologize for my snarky and apparently misleading comments on your Facebook page; let me know when I’ve expended $10 worth of annoyance and I’ll make another donation. :-)
Now that I’ve got your attention, though, let me try to articulate my concerns more coherently, to hopefully inspire a more substantive critique. It is pretty verbose, though, so I’ve posted a reply on my own blog, below. You can reply either there or on your own post, whichever is more convenient.
TASPOR: Towards a Scientific Perspective on Religion
One of the most common complaints about religion is that it is “anti-scientific”, or conversely that science has removed the need for religion. To be sure, there is a grain of truth in this critique — especially given the anti-intellectual tendencies of American Fundamentalism, which is what the new wave of militant atheists appear to be reacting against.What amuses (and saddens) me is how few of these critics — despite their vocal praise and defense of science — seem to have a deep understanding of the scientific process, much less a willingness to apply these lauded techniques to create a systematic and comprehensive picture of religion.To that end, I offer the following summary as a starting point for a scientific analysis of religion. It is only a rough first draft; still, one of the goals to the scientific method is supplanting crude theories with more sophisticated ones, that ultimately do a better job of explaining existing data and predicting future results. Hopefully some of my correspondents will rise to the challenge. Read the rest of this entry »
TAST: Toward a Systemic Theology
In this “TAST” series of blog posts, I want to go beyond critiquing traditional systematic theology and start laying a groundwork for an alternative approach, which I’m labeling “systemic theology.”
Devotional Theology, Further On
As we’ve finished up Doctrine 101, I’ve been thinking even more about what a Devotional Theology could/should look like. At the risk of stretching the alliteration, here’s another round of “C”s. Anything major I’m still missing?
- Charity
- Childlikeness
- Compassion
- Community
- Church
- Counselor
- Condemnation
- Courage
- Comfort
- Curse
Technorati Tags: bible, christianity, goodness, character, righteousness, theology
The Four “Self” Principles
Yet another take on the essentials of the Christian Faith, inspired by Dr. Charlie Self:
Four Uncompromisable Absolutes
- The Lordship of Jesus
- The Worship of the Trinity
- The Proclamation of the Gospel
- The Authority of Scripture
For the backstory…
Towards a Devotional Theology
Posted by Dr. Ernie in Beliefs, Leadership on September 11, 2007
[See also: Devotional Theology, Further On]
Two weeks ago we were privileged to have dinner with Barney Coombs, our pastor’s pastor through Salt and Light. He made the beautiful observation that “Theology should always result in Doxology” — that is, worship and praise to God. I suspect that (the lack of) this is the root of my frustration with our current studies (and systematic theology in general): it forces us think “about God” instead of inspiring us to think “of God.”
My dream is to “remix” the many powerful (and valid!) insights of traditional systematic theology into something that is explicitly designed to draw us into worship, and submission to God’s glory. As a side effect, it should also draw us together in mutual humility, rather than being a source of division and judgement — though it still needs to be strong enough for healthy discipline.
That’s a tall order, and I don’t even pretend to have all the answers. But, here’s my starting point. These passages (including their context) represent the essential facets of Christianity I would love to meditate on and wrestle with in the fellowship of my peers in our joint quest to understand (and serve!) God better. The topics are:
- Creation
- Covenant
- Character
- Christ
- Commandment
- Crucifixion
- Commission
- Call
- Conversion
- Confession
More details below. Hopefully this strikes a better balance between “true” and “right” than my previous list. As before (hi Bob! :-), comments and improvements welcome; bonus points if they start with the letter “C”!
Technorati Tags: abram, bible, christianity, death, god, purpose, resurrection, theology, trinity
Seven Verses Worth Dying For
[Update: kudos to my friend Patrick for taking the idea and running with it!]As we get close to finishing up our Doctrine 101 course, I find myself curiously ambivalent. On the hand, I deeply enjoy wrestling with these timeless theological truths. On the other hand, I can’t shake the feeling that R.C. Sproul et al are still fighting the last war. That is, some of the issues that were life-and-death millennia ago are now gnats, and while we strain them out camels are overrunning our camp.So I asked myself: what is the minimal set of essential truths central to my understanding of who God is; things so foundational to my thinking that I literally can’t imagine life without them. Or, more bluntly, what are the issues I (in my presumption) think we ought to be spending our time studying.Here’s my list. What’s yours? The catch is that you can only pick seven, so if you add one you have to drop another.
Technorati Tags: christianity, god, theology, truth
DiaBlogue Finale 2: The Halting Problem
Today’s title refers both the classic problem that recurs computer science, statistics, epistemology, and philosophy — as well as to our difficulty in ending this DiaBlogue! Specifically, Alan and I exchanged several comments after my “last” post that imply there are still some loose threads we ought to tie up. While I don’t want to continue beating a dead horse, I do feel he raised a few questions that merit a response, and I’d rather do so here than in a comment.
Read the rest of this entry »
DiaBlogue Aside: Open Questions on Desire Utilitarianism
Though our DiaBlogue is all but over, Alan was kind enough to point me to this Q&A by Alonzo Fyfe, which addresses some of the concerns I had raised earlier. Since I never followed through on my promise (threat? :-) to critique Desire Utilitarianism (DU), I figured I ought to at least summarize my concerns here.
Importantly, this is not an attempt to “prove” that DU is “false.” Far from it; I actually think DU contains many powerful and valid insights. However, I believe the current formulation promulgated by Alonzo Fyfe is incomplete, and in need of substantial improvement. I’ve provided one possible route of improvement myself, but it would be interesting to see if there are others.
[Note: I have written this in the second person as an "open letter" for stylistic reasons; I'm not particularly interested in starting an actual debate with Mr. Fyfe at this time, though I'm not opposed in principle to having such a discussion later.]
DiaBlogue Finale: Return to Love (redux)
This post is the apparent end of my long-running DiaBlogue with Alan. It is a follow-up to my own initial reaction to our decision to call things off, as well as Alan’s own reaction and closing thoughts, and may well be our final word on this topic.
Technorati Tags: anger, christianity, forgiveness, hatred, love, truth
DiaBlogue: A Time To Grieve
In yesterday’s Chatalogue, Alan and I pretty much decided to call it quits. However, we first agreed to each write one last post on our concluding thoughts, including our reflections on how things went and lessons learned.
This is not that post. Rather, it is simply a chance to grieve the loss of a deep intellectual partnership that spanned eighteen months.
Read the rest of this entry »
Diablogue[Chat]: End Game
Today’s chat (one day early) was a bit more fractured than our first, but at least not as lopsided as the second. It does represent a kind of progress, in that we at least attempted to tackle the second goalpost. Though, the end result may have been more despair than enlightenment, as Alan expressed a desire call it quits. Which may be a wise decision, if sad. Not just because of all the unanswered questions, but the loss of the fairly intense personal connection we developed.
At any rate, we agreed to each write up our Closing Thoughts before calling it quits. Stay tuned for the final (?) chapter.
Full transcript below, as usual. Edited for typos, interruptions, and links.
Technorati Tags: bible, christianity, doctrine, ethics, truth
DiaBlogue[Chat]: Agree Locally, Disagree Globally
Today’s chat started with my response to Alan’s civilized inference, where I claimed:
- Successful moral systems must embody some number of valid truths about human nature.
- The ontological claims of those moral systems may or may not be counterfactual.
- Medieval Western Christianity (MWC) — while far from perfect — has proven to be the most fertile ground for succesful moral innovation of any system yet attempted.
- Many of the ontological and ethical presuppositions of MWC (though far from all) are still a vital part of Contemporary Western Civilization (CWC).
- Any system that presumes to improve on MWC needs to adequately account for those axioms that are in use by CWC, and ideally provide better explanatory and predictive power.
Alan had some quibbles with my terminology, but seemed willing to agree (given suitable caveats). I then gave an example of (4) in terms of the Global Network of Desires I defined earlier.
- That G/NOD is a singular, well-defined entity covering all of humanity.
- That the moral rules governing G/NOD are *discovered* more than they are *invented*.
- That those rules are in principle discoverable by human beings in the right circumstances
- That there is such a thing as virtuous character, which is always better than vicious character.
- That it is always rational to do that which is virtuous.
I then claimed that the “moral consensus” around these five assumptions were largely responsible for the success of Western Christendom, and that they followed naturally from my Deistic Hypothesis — but had to be assumed ad hoc by Alonzo Fyfe’s Desire Utilitarianism in order to achieve comparable explanatory power.
We didn’t make much progress beyond that, but hopefully we can pick up from there next week. Full transcript below…
Technorati Tags: christianity, ethics, history, truth
DiaBlogue: For the Love of G/NOD
Hi Alan,
Great chat yesterday; I look forward to continuing our conversation next Thursday. In preparation, I wanted to provide a more precise definition of my understanding of Desire Utilitarianism. Hopefully this formulation will either provide a common starting point, or at least help you identify any significant differences in our understanding.
Love,
Ernie
DiaBlogue[Chat]: True Good
Alan and I had our first Chatlogue today (the successor to our troubled DiaBlogue). The key theme, IMHO, was trying to define the nature of “the good”, especially as it relates to “truth,” in the context of Alonzo Fyfe’s Desire Utilitarianism. While we didn’t resolve much, we did make progress, and look forward to continuing the conversation next week.
DiaBlogue to Chatalogue
Given our recent troubles, Alan and I decided to experiment with a different format: Instant Messaging (aka Chat). Hopefully the greater interactivity of our “chatalogue” will help keep us on track.
I am blogging our initial chat, below, purely to help me refine my “transcript reformatter” script, to provide an appropriate online record. I may delete it later, since it contains no useful information…
DiaBlogue: My Bad
DiaBlogue: Ashes to Ashes
Happy Ash Wednesday! [Yes, I realize that's a problematic statement on many levels :-]. Though our church is otherwise very informal and contemporary, Lent is always as a major time of fasting, reflection, repentance, and prayer. In particular, as I’ve been reflecting on our DiaBlogue during the three-week “fast” since my last post, I’ve been thinking I need to “repent” of my current approach. And after reading your latest reply, I’m sure of it. :-)
[Read more] for a proposed new direction I hope we can meditate on for the next 40 days or so…
DiaBlogue: SPOM, spom, Spom, SPoM
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