Halloween: The Enemy of the Transcendentals

Halloween is a celebration marked with interesting symbols of death, decay, and corruption. Haunted houses in particular display these symbols as a popular form of entertainment during Halloween. In the darkness of a haunted house lie the shadows of ghosts, spirits, zombies, or other grisly creatures. The goal of it, of course, is to playfully scare or in some cases absolutely terrorize! 

There are reasons these things frighten us I suppose. Violence and gore. That is obvious. Ghosts and spirits. Our normal defenses don't really work if they become malcontent :) Darkness. Darkness itself creates an unknown. And the unknown, within the right context, creates fear. Death. Death itself is already a fear-inducing part of human existence, and its emblems like skeletons, skulls, and graveyards invite us into the depth of that unwelcome reality.

I'm not interested in discussing the merits or demerits of horror-based entertainment. But I feel inclined to suggest that the true enemy of Halloween might be more than just an association of homeschool moms. I would suggest that the true enemy of Halloween is what some would call the transcendentals. 

Transcendentals are particular abstract properties of existence. The three most commonly referenced transcendentals are: truth, goodness, and beauty, but there are others as well. Most philosophical discussion of the transcendentals relates to how these quasi meta-properties intersect with existence itself and how the different transcendentals relate to each other. It is an interesting discussion; but not one I want to have here. I would say that humans have the unique internal capacities to long for truth, goodness, and beauty. They are the foci for true human fulfillment. In academia, science, and education these qualities define the essence of what we long to discover. In film, music, and art, they are the heart of what we try to create. It is not a stretch to say that modern values that Halloween highlights are the very opposite of what is true, good, and beautiful! Let's look each of these aspects specifically. 

Truth. We know that light brings to the senses what is real, what is true. The darkness conceals the truth. There is nothing more antithetical to a good haunted house than a 500-watt spot light over the whole house! Darkness (and even a little fog) obscures the reality. It makes the truth less known. The values behind Halloween can't really get off the ground when truth is relentlessly sought after or clearly put on display. Halloween thrives in the obfuscation of truth. 

Goodness. Naturally, evil is the opposite of what is good. It goes without saying the only way Halloween works is if there are creatures, spirits, ghosts that have malicious intentions --that is, evil intentions. They have the potential and desire to harm you. The more depraved, the more shocking, the more cruel, the better. Goodness and virtue are the antithesis of Halloween. They not only don't go together; they work against each other at the expense of the other. There is a word for this in English... an enemy. 

Beauty. Interestingly, as the end of October nears, the more hideous and the more disfigured and more fear-inducing your blow-up zombie in the front yard is, the more Halloween-esk your yard now becomes! It seems quite obvious to say that vile, ugly, and grim images (the opposite of beauty) are what make the modern celebration of Halloween work. Halloween's natural foe and greatest enemy is beauty. 

Thus, Halloween's symbols and values have an enemy inside each of us. The innate human desire to pursue these transcendentals. However, occasionally our pursuit of them wears thin or our perception of them warps. At times, we don't really know what is beautiful and attractive anymore (objectively speaking). And of course, the line between vice and virtue, truth and untruth is intentionally undefined. In this void, stands a very odd holiday asking us to more creatively engage in or display (or even redefine) the entertaining value of all you can imagine as untrue, ugly, and vile. Strange indeed!

The Nature of Beauty (Part 3)

In the first two posts on The Nature of Beauty (Part 1, Part 2) I argued for the possibility that beauty at its core is an objective property of an object.  That is, unless very carefully qualified, statements like 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' do not explain our deepest and most obvious intuitions about art and beauty.  So if beauty is an objective property, why is it so intrinsically connected to our subjective experiences?

There is another model that might be instructive in how to see this relationship more clearly.  In seminary when you walk into a course on biblical interpretation, they will teach you different variations of a model that incorporates both the subjective and objective components of biblical interpretation (e.g. Grasping God's Word by Duvall and Hays).  Naturally, the bible is supposed to speak personally to us in a subjective way.  It is supposed to change our lives and draw us closer to God in a very personal way.  But you will also be taught that before you get to that point, you need to understand the meaning the author originally intended to convey.  In other words, the text itself has its own meaning outside of your experience, which relates to the background and context of the author himself.  It is a meaning we have to discover -sometimes with lengthy research.  There is an objective and subjective component here continuously intersecting together.

So in this case, the same scripture can rightfully be applied in multiple ways and impact people subjectively in very different ways.  But that doesn't mean the objective meaning of the scripture has been pushed out.  In fact, it is the objective meaning itself found in a given scripture that rightfully grounds any variety of appropriate subjective applications.

I want to purpose that a similar model can explain the objective-subjective relationship in art and beauty.  There are foundational objective properties within objects and pieces of art themselves, one of which could be the quality of beauty.  But there is also a second level, where we step into the experience of its beauty subjectively.  Like proper biblical interpretation, the subjective component is always explanatorily grounded in the objective qualities that stand underneath it.  Notice, my subjective experience does not create its beauty (contra subjectivism) in this model.  My subjective experience discovers its beauty.  My subjective experience can either see the true features of the object for what they are (like its beauty), or not see those features for whatever reason.

So, if a bird sings a beautiful song in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, is it still beautiful?  Yes, in the same way if the bible lies on a table unread and unexperienced, it still remains a beautiful story of redemption!  However our subjective experience of beauty might be correlated to the quality of beauty itself, the best explanation for how they relate will ground the existence of beauty outside of the individual experiences of it.  And I wonder if the objective-subjective relationship found for example in standard biblical interpretation models could be a helpful model for beginning to think about how this relationship might work in understanding the nature of beauty.

A Curious Slavery

"You are restricted in your own affections" - 2 Corinthians 6:12

When you ask a person on the street what is limiting them, what restricts them? What is freedom? What is slavery?  ...the answer you will receive is about how people or responsibilities or circumstances have limited and restricted them -a lost job, a controlling spouse, overbearing laws, a bullying boss, uncontrollable children, etc. And true freedom is the genuine lack of external limitations like these.  And thus slavery is those very limitations being imposed on us.

But there is a more hidden type of slavery.  It is more widespread, more deeply entrenched, and has deadlier effects.  Buddha once taught that the root of suffering is desire.  Our cravings actually destroy us.  They enslave us.  The bible says something similar here, but with a little different nuance and different implications.  It says, you are restricted in your own affections.  We could also say, you are limited by what you love.

So when I was 9 years old a baseball coach approached me.  I had not met him before.  He said, "I just drafted you to be on our Majors Division Dodgers team next year.  You were one of my first picks.  I've seen you play even when you were in T-ball."  I felt something in that moment.  A sense of worth and value that felt so good.  I was a part of something special.  The Dodgers were 4-time returning champions.  Years later I found my heart longing to receive that same feeling in very curious ways.  But instead of sports (it turned out I wasn't very good at sports anyway) I sought the accolades of others through more mature contexts, as it were.  Being financially savvy, intellectual prowess, adventurous travels, etc.  There was intrinsic value to all of these of course in my mind, but if I was honest, at its pinnacle I wanted to feel that feeling again.  To be weighed and to be valued, appreciated, even admired.  To feel that old feeling again through another "ata-boy."  It pulled me in.  In reality, it tainted every corner of my life.  I was what Ayn Rand calls a second-hander.  The appraisal of others being the subtle guiding hand that pulled my strings.  Now don't misunderstand.  I didn't need a self-esteem book.  Just like all of you, I swam everyday in an ocean of our self-esteem-first culture.  But of course it was empty platitudes, and I knew it.  The believe-in-yourself doctrines were much too shallow to pull me out of this diseased spiral.  I developed efficient patterns of bending the truth to serve this feeling.  I closed in on myself socially, so as to limit potential feelings of humiliation.  Humiliation, after all, is the opposite of being honored and admired.  It was like I was backing into a dark cave for protection, but in the end the cave became my prison.  A prison of my own making.  I was restricted by my own affections.  A curious slavery no doubt.

Aristotle might say the problem is moderation.  Buddha might say the problem is desire itself.  The bible has a different diagnosis.  There is one affection, one desire that is the antidote for this diseased spiral.  Read that carefully again....  A desire that cures a desire.  There is one passion that can heal us from our enslaving passions.  There is one affection that is the remedy for enslaving affections.  And contrary to Aristotle and Buddha the more we feed this desire and the more this affection burns hotter and hotter in our lives, the more freedom we feel.  Jesus said it like this, the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.  This is it.  And notice the superlatives.  There is no moderation with this desire.  With every fiber of your being, make this affection unequivocally supreme.  There is also no theoretical cessation of desire.  This must be an undissolvable passion and affection that becomes the final remedy for our 'restricting' affections.  We are indeed meant to feel something profound, not just on occasion and not just with moderation.  But of course it is not any old feeling or desire.  What you love means everything and especially what you love supremely.  It is the difference between internal disease and inner flourishing, internal corrosion and inner thriving.

All those years ago, something was restricting me.  It wasn't others.  It wasn't circumstances.  It was my own affections that restricted me.  And the real problem with my affections and desires wasn't a lack of moderation or the fact of deep desire itself.  It was what I loved, and what I desired.  I was trapped in my cave.  And when the cold and darkness settled in, I had to choose to risk the danger outside or be locked in my own decaying prison... Locked in by own affections. 

The Order of Melchizedek, A Biblical Theological Treatment

Jesus is a priest, says the writer of Hebrews.  So what does that mean?  What sort of priest?  Well, like Melchizedek, answers Hebrews.  Then of course the next question is: How then is the priesthood of Jesus connected to this obscure man named Melchizedek?

There are multiple angles by which many give an answer to this question within the book of Hebrews.  For instance, Melchizedek's priesthood has no beginning and no end (Heb 7:3).  It continues forever.  The priesthood of the Levites has an end.  Also, Hebrews discusses how Jesus' priesthood is superior to the levitical priesthood in that the one who blessed Abraham (Melchizedek) is superior to the one being blessed –the Levitical offspring (Heb 7:6-10).  Furthermore, Melchizedek is not just a priest, he is a regal priest.  He holds two offices.  He is a priest of the most High God and a king, the king of Salem (Heb 7:1-2).  A true priest in the order of Levi cannot be a king.

All these are true and faithful to the text as it is presented.  But more than these, there is also a way to see all of these reasons as connected to one big over-arching reason.  Or, not really an over-arching reason precisely, but rather connected to a bigger story.

Do you remember that dramatic scene in Les Misérables, where Jean Valjean proclaims in public court that he is actually the accused criminal instead of the one everyone assumes?  We are meant to see in this scene a beautiful connection back to the main flow of the entire story.  Namely, we are meant to see the consummation of Jean Valjean's redemption.  A redemption that began years before when a priest was merciful to him.  The same priest who said Valjean's life had been spared for God and how from this point forward he was to make an honest man of himself.  And this courtroom scene is where Jean Valjean shows he has been remarkably redeemed in the exact way the priest declared.  This is kind of what the author of Hebrews is doing.

He is not just giving us abstract theological reasons to connect Jesus to Melchizedek.  He brings us back to a story.  A story that taps us back into the main narrative current of God's big story.  And particularly to that part of the big story where the corruption and poison that entered the world (Gen 3) is beginning to be reformed (Gen 12).  God is subtly setting in motion a process to turn it all back –a project to remake his world.  And the project begins with a promise. “Through you,” God promised Abram “all the families of the earth will be blessed.”  Global blessing is coming, and it is centered on the family of this childless nomad.  The writer of Hebrews is taking us back to this moment –this part of the big story.  He intends for us to see that Jesus and his priesthood complete a narrative stream that stretches back beyond Moses and Israel.  This is not just a priesthood that reinstates the rites and rituals of Moses and the Law.  It is a priesthood that stands over the Mosaic Law, not within it.  It is a priesthood that fulfills all that Melchizedek was intending to bless in Abram.  So what was he intending to bless in Abram?  “But this man [Melchizedek]... received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises,” (Heb 7:6).  He blessed Abram because he recognized that he was the sole owner of some unbelievable promises from God.  As God's priest, Melchizedek affirms and consecrates those promises in a sense, through blessing the man who holds them.

And what does that have to do with Jesus?

The writer of Hebrews wants his readers to see that Jesus' priesthood is superior to any other priesthood.  And it is superior precisely because it is in the order of Melchizedek, not Levi.  And Melchizedek's priesthood is superior, because it is grounded on better promises.  “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises,” (Heb 8:6).  And the ministry he means of course is priestly ministry (c.f. 8:2).  All this to say: a priesthood is only as good as the promises it uses for its interecession.  A friend of mine told me a story about the intricate plans his kids often formulate in order to get out of bed time.  First, they send the young 3 year old out first.  Because they determine he can intercede on behalf of them better.  His sad whimpering demeanor and the fact that he might not know any better will hopefully engender an empathetic change of mind from mom and dad.  But sadly this intercession fails.  It fails because it is not built on solid promises!  The real promise, so to speak, is that unless there is an emergency or a true need, everyone goes to bed at 8pm.  An effective intercessor has to build his plea on solid promises.  So do you see the argument the book of Hebrews is making?

Christ has a superior priesthood because this priesthood intercedes by using better promises.  What promises?  Its the promise to truly and ultimately draw us near to God (7:25).  It is the promise to truly and ultimately make us perfect (7:19).  It's an unconditional promise to put the law on his people's hearts and minds and to forgive our sins (8:8-12).  Melchizedek's priesthood is superior because this priesthood intercedes by means of promises that are categorically superior (8:6).  And as a consequence, the salvation this priesthood administers is categorically superior.  In his words, it is a type of priesthood that saves to the “uttermost.” (7:25).

And this is at the very center of the main narrative current of the bible.  This is what the author wants us to see!  Salvation was promised.  A type of priesthood was inaugurated around it.  Abraham, the owner of those promises, was consecrated by this priesthood.  Millennia later another priest comes on the scene.  He is not a revived old-covenant priest.  He is a part of an older order.  He is part of an order that intercedes based on more preeminent promises.  They were based on those early and more far reaching promises to Abraham.  It was a promise for global blessing.  Jesus is superior primarily because he (as priest) brings to consummate fulfillment the main redemptive story of the bible, says the writer of Hebrews.

It is true there are abstract reasons the priesthood of Melchizedek is superior to other priesthoods.  The ever-enduring duration of the order of Melchizedek as well as the additional component of being a royal priest are significant parts of this order.  But the more foundational reason Jesus' priesthood stands over all other priesthoods is because it performs the one intercession promised from the beginning and the one intercession more extensive and far reaching than any other type.  These other components only stand on the periphery.  The connection to Melchizedek at its core is more about a deep connection with the story of salvation and the consummation of the long-awaited promises.

Remembering the Reformation

Today is the 500-year anniversary of Martin Luther's posting of the 95 Theses.  It is hard to imagine many events more significant in European and church history.  Here is a few of Luther's theses:

11. This abuse of changing the canonical penalty into the penalty of purgatory seems to have arisen when the bishops were asleep.

20. Therefore the Pope, in speaking of the perfect remission of all punishments, does not mean that all penalties in general be forgiven, but only those imposed by himself.

32. On the way to eternal damnation are they and their teachers, who believe they are sure of their salvation through indulgences.

65. Therefore the treasures of the gospel are nets, with which, in times of yore, one fished for the men of mammon.

66. But the treasures of indulgences are nets, with which now-a-days one fishes for the mammon of men.

82. Why does not the pope deliver all souls at the same time out of purgatory for the sake of most holy love and on account of the bitterest distress of those souls -this being the most imperative of all motives- while he saves an infinite number of souls for the sake of that most miserable thing money, to be spent on St. Peter's Minster: -this being the very slightest of motives?

Democracy: General Confusions and Personal Fears

In an article in Christianity, Democracy, and the Shadow of Constantine, Hammerli asks a provocative question. "If individual rights are permitted to overrule the will of the people, can the society still properly be called democratic'?" (42-3).

Hammerli is asking this question in relation to an Italian Court's decision upholding the right to hang a crucifix in a public school. Subsequently, the European Commission on Human Rights disagreed, saying the crucifix violated neutrality regarding religious convictions.  The commission continued by saying, the cornerstone of democracy is based on individual rights that include a government not encouraging, establishing, or promoting particular religious convictions regardless of the majority's traditions and beliefs.  Hammerli finds it very ironic that a position claiming to be democratic must decide against the will of the majority, against the demos, the people.  That is the context of the question he asks above.

The true essence of democracy has been a fascinating question for me for a long time.  It seems to be used by many as a catch-all word for a just and free governmental system, but it seems unclear what the specifics often really mean for people.  I remember the Bush administration using the phrase "establishing democracy and freedom" as they thought about assisting troubled regions of the world.  And it seemed like democracy and freedom were virtually synonymous in those contexts.

But what is democracy?  Is it a government set up to protect a set of objective individual rights and liberties for an equitable society, or is it a government set up to insure the will and rule of the people will stand?  Of course in a perfect world those often come together, and a case could be made that historically they do.  But I remember also being forced to think about this question after reading about the 2006 Palestinian elections. In the election for the

first time the party that received the most votes was Hamas, defined by most Western countries as a terrorist organization.  Was this just an unfortunate result of the democratic process?  Can a people ever collectively choose a course for their country (via election) that is unjust, unequitable, and undermines individual rights?  Would we then be forced to say this is the consequence of "democracy?"

But on the other side can (or should) a government set itself up to protect objective individual rights and liberties even if that stands against the will of the people?

In a post-modern world, there is very little room (if any) for something to be considered as a transcultural objective individual right or individual liberty.  Even though this type of vocabulary is widely used.  Nevertheless, in a Christ-shaped world, values are foundationally non-subjective.  That allows me room to say, while democracy (as the rule of the people) might be the scaffolding most likely to lead to a just, free, and equitable society, it is not the essence of such a society.  In fact, it can be the scaffolding for something entirely the opposite. I agree with Hammerli that we seem to have lost the meaning of democracy, when it is used synonymously with whatever is labelled as a good and just government. But I worry about a day when an appeal to the traditions and values of the majority will surprisingly overule the very things Hammerli values (like the beautiful expression and meaning behind a crucifix).  What should our our public policy be then?  I fear a day true justice, freedom, and equality will be something the demos has very different ideas about.  And I wonder if we're not clear what democracy is, and the parts of it we love, whether we will have the categories to navigate such a world well.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

In the preface to The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis writes:

“Blake wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell... The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable ‘either-or’; that granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain.  This belief I take to be a disastrous error.”

“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road.  A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.  Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good.  Time does not heal it.  The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of disservering power’ –or else not at all.”

Fractional Politics

As the 81-year old Dalai Lama approaches his latter years, China announced again its claims of being able to retain the right to announce which baby will be the new reincarnated Dalai Lama. Chairman Zhu Weiqun of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs committee, which stands as a top advisory body to China's parliament, wrote "The central government has stiffened its resolve to decide on the reincarnation of 'living Buddhas' so as to ensure victory over the anti-separatist struggle."

Let me say that one more time.  The atheistic, communist, government of China says it holds the right to decide who will be reincarnated and when.   Its like a strict orthodox Jew laying out all the parameters for how worship should be offered to Athena.

Of course, this contradiction does not escape them.  China is certainly aware of it.  But noticing the irony doesn't make them hesitate for a moment!  That is because the Dalai Lama's reincarnation "is first and foremost a political matter."  Political expediency is the end game.  Everything else lines up behind that, even if it means laws that assume spiritual realities they already resolutely deny.  It is amazing how fractional and compartmental our convictions and beliefs have become, particularly in the service of political ends.

The Shack in Review

The Shack movie comes out today at the theaters.  Of course most of the theological critiques of this movie are about its fairly loose and controversial portrayals of God.  But granting some artistic license some evangelicals have found a lot of truth in the book and tell viewers to just focus on the main themes of how God is close to us in our suffering.  

David Mathis writes a very thoughful article here about how even the main theme of God in our suffering actually has huge theological distortions for Christian viewers to be aware of, just the same.

The Elusiveness of Unity

In his last State of the Union speech President Obama openly regretted how during his presidency the polarization and division of the country has gotten worse.  The suspicion and rancour between the parties is even deeper than before.

Last week in his inaugural address President Trump spoke about healing the divisions in America: "The bible tells us how good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity."  Then President Trump explains precisely his vision for how this unity will come about: "At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America and through our loyalty to our country we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.  When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice."

The solution to America's division is nationalism.  A total allegiance to the United States of America.  Sadly it went unnoticed that the same bible tells us not just that unity is good and pleasant, but how unity can truly be found... how the dividing wall of hostility can be torn down (Eph 2:14).  And of course this hostility and division is not because of a lack of patriotism.  In fact, nationalism was one of the main ingredients that created the dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles in the first place.  I'm afraid that without war or a common enemy (which is overwhelming felt by all), this vision for healing our divisions will continue to make genuine unity elusive.

Staring is Power

The BBC just released its 2016 Most Striking Photographs of the Year.  Highlighting its artistic value Kelly Grovier summarizes the power inside this photograph:

"'Staring is power,' writes Kelly Grovier 'The ability to command another’s gaze, to transfix their mind and muscles by using nothing more than… one's unblinking eyes, requires discipline and courage of purpose.' This photo of a standoff between a protester and a Chilean policeman in Santiago prompted Grovier to consider the meaning of an unflinching gaze. In her 2010 work The Artist is Present, performance artist Marina Abramović stared into the eyes of visitors. It was a reminder of John Ruskin’s belief that 'All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.'"

Interesting side note: John Ruskin was the art mentor of Lillias Trotter, of whom our daughter Hannah Lillias is named after.  

From Refugee to Refuge, A Christmas Prayer

Lord,
Be merciful to those with little hope,
To those who must flee their homeland.
Look with favor upon those who are surrounded by danger,
Become, for the refugee,
   a refuge.

Your Son after being honored by foreigners,
became hunted by the ruler of his own land.
To Egypt, to Africa,
He, who would become the world's ultimate refuge,
   Had become a child refugee.

Remember them Father,
With merciful eyes,
Look upon them like your Son.

Passion and Pizza Making

The first new Pizza Hut arrived in our town a few months ago.  Being a former employee and a softy for the deep-dish, we found ourselves checking it out a few weeks ago.  Heidi and I had an interesting conversation after we saw this advertisement on the interior wall of the Pizza Hut dining area:

   

"Passion."  "Inspired."  Pizza Hut cooks are passionate about making their pizzas.  Pizza Hut cooks are inspired to make something excellent.  They are not just experts apparently, they feel something deep down when they make their pizzas.  Of course, it is just a silly advertisement that probably only lives in the thoughts of some marketing executive.  That aside, the interesting part for me is why does the advertisement see those words as particularly powerful?  Why "passionate?"  Why "inspired?"  Why not say our cooks have thoroughly memorized all the best recipes for perfect pizza?  Why not our chefs perfectly follow all the spec-chart regulations for great pizza-making?

The answer is simple.   Because that is only half as good as someone who is actually passionate about what they do and what they create.  Someone who is passionate about what they do cares about the product they are making.  The person who has merely memorized spec-charts, does not necessarily care about the product he makes.  Pizza-making only has instrumental value to him.  He is actually passionate about something else (impressing the boss, keeping a pay-check to do more enjoyable activities, etc.).  Pizza-making only helps him, for the time being, accomplish other things that he is truly passionate about.

If the highest display of dedication to pizza-making involves passion, inspiration, and other deeply felt affections, then would it really be that different for measuring one's dedication to anything?  Would someone's dedication to a marriage or to a sports team or to a country be complete if they don't genuinely feel anything for it?  If they just simply do all the activities normally associated with it, and lets even say they do it with an unwavering consistency, does that sufficiently express the highest level of dedication?  Without any genuine feeling, it would seem not.

Knowing this, we were forced to ask: why then do most religious systems say the highest display of dedication to God is not something we feel, but the collection of things we do?  What are the typical reasons we think that Mother Theresa, for example, or the Dalai Lama, or the Ayatollah of Iran might demonstrate some of the highest levels of dedication to God?  I suppose we would say something like their fasting, their self-sacrifice, the hours of meditation, their memorizing large sections of holy books, or how meticulously they follow their moral codes, etc.

Of course, this type of dedication might show a true deep heart-felt passion for God.  But can you do all these things and not actually care about God in any ultimate sense?  The answer of course is yes.  In the same way a cook who merely follows the spec-chart rules because he is deeply passionate about something else (like saving for a new dirt-bike).  It is actually quite astounding the type of things we commit ourselves to, in hope that it leads to something else entirely.  And if this is the case about religion, then it would seem most religious systems (and even many religious people) have missed the main ingredient of true dedication:  Cultivating a genuine passion for God himself.

It reminds me again how unique Jesus' statement is that the greatest commandment (as well as the second greatest) is actually a feeling. (Matt 22:37-40).  Every other religious task and commitment only finds its meaning when it is orbiting around genuine love and passion for God, and others.  

Nicholas Wolterstorff's Cheap Shots

Those of you up to speed on Christian Philosophy know that Nicholas Wolterstorff is one of the big hitters.  Over at First Things, Wesley Hill gives a powerful response to a lecture on homosexuality that Wolterstorff gave last month.

Wesley’s article on First Things

The Nature of Beauty (Part 2)

The subjectivity of beauty, as the whole story, appears counter-intuitive from quite a few angles as we have seen.  But there are equally some reasons to think objective beauty might have its own problems as well.  I'll offer a few of those briefly.  However in the end I hope to show these problems are less formidable than they might initially appear.  And that the subjective component to beauty should really be limited to the applicational context of the experience of beauty, not the foundational (or ontological) component of what beauty is.

When it comes to beauty it seems obtuse to think one person's perspective must be right and the other must be wrong.  Imagine two siblings walking out of the movie theatre and the older sister exclaims "That movie was fantastic!" The little brother is unconvinced: "It was okay.  There were a lot cheesy scenes..."  he says.  But who is right?  The subjectivist wants to say why does someone have to be wrong?  The sister sees it as beautiful and the brother doesn't see it that way.  It is beautiful for her.  It is not beautiful for him.  And that's it.  No one is right, no one is wrong.  Along these lines the subjectivist could give even more stronger examples. Say a young man thinks a particular woman is beautiful and another man disagrees, it seems a bit crass to say that one of them must be mistaken (especially if the woman is the man's wife!).

This seems like a hard bullet to bite for the objectivist.  But is it?  Remember when your family brought out your grandmother's old wedding album.  What did they all say when they saw the photo of her in her bridal dress?  "Wow you look so beautiful!"  In that moment, your family is observing how dramatic the physical appearance has changed such that they are stunned by the beauty she once had.  Of course we are careful how we talk about a woman's changing beauty, but notice we can only make sense of situations like these by seeing it within the framework of an objectivist understanding of beauty.

Our intuitions about human beauty are difficult to adjudicate naturally, since we don't talk in certain ways about people's beauty often because it is rude, rather than because it is incorrect per se.  That said, looking at less complicated examples will be much more instructive for us.  So we can ask the question: Is a 7-year old banging on a piano on equal footing with the majestic works of Bach or Mozart?  Is my dog rubbing off mud onto onto a white canvas on equal footing with a famous portrait from Van Gogh or Rembrandt?  The subjectivist is strangely forced to say there is nothing intrinsically different about the beauty of each of these.  The resources of their view do not allow for that sort of distinction.  But the subjectivist does have a possible back door.  There could be an extrinsic (not intrinsic) way of grounding beauty which might salvage their view against these counter-intuitive examples.  How?

Cultural norms could seem to play a quasi-grounding role in settling obvious disagreements about beauty.  Since nothing is intrinsically beautiful in their view, some things can be said to be beautiful by general collective agreement (and to be not beautiful vise versa).  So the reason why a 7 year-old banging on a piano is not beautiful is because we as a culture do not see that as beautiful music (notice it has nothing to do with the quality of the sound itself).  Or the reason why Van Gogh produces masterful art is because the majority of people think so, not because of any sort of intrinsic qualities that are a part of his paintings.  Do you see the move here?  It is subjectivism on a community level, not on an individual level.  The community ultimately decides subjectively what is or is not beautiful.

But this maneuver suffers from quite a few major problems.  First, this position still would not be able to escape some of the problems already mentioned in the first article.  Particularly the third argument about beauty actually changing if perceptions of beauty change.  Again it is a bit confounding to have a view that might force one to say a painting was ugly in 1786, but the same painting somehow became beautiful in 1986, for example.  Second, it seems to give no room for artistic reformers.  A reformer by definition cuts against the grain of cultural traditions and perceptions.  But if cultural perceptions are the very definition of what beauty really is, any artistic reformer will always be producing works of art that are -by definition- not beautiful!  Third, attempts at defining what is a 'community' or 'culture' has proven to be admittedly quite arbitrary according to many anthropologists.  Lastly, art on this understanding seems to become something only meant to ultimately amuse and entertain.  If artistic beauty is being defined as the sort of thing that people just happen to 'like', it seems to rip away some very powerful features regarding the essence and function of what art really is.  Art is supposed to give meaning and power in some of the ideas it presents.  It is often intended to challenge people, to give new perspectives, to stimulate thought and reflection.  All these intrinsic categories are reduced away on this view.  There is no meta-narrative.  And what is left is a field that is strangely just a function of the entertainment industry.

But if beauty is an objective property, according to what standards or according to who's standards can we come to know whether something is actually beautiful?  It seems like it might be inevitably biased.  Who gets to decide what is beautiful?  And even if it is not biased, it would seem even the search for some objective standard would be a bit unwieldy.  What sort of standard could explain all the things we think are beautiful?

It is a good question, but notice this is an epistemological question.  It is a separate question entirely than the question of what beauty ultimately is.  Whether someone can tell you the aesthetic reasons why a piece of music is beautiful or not, has no bearing on whether its beauty is an objective reality.  Just because I can't define love doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  Likewise, whether a satisfactory definition of beauty can be given or not, doesn't directly address the question of the existence of objective beauty.  Nevertheless, I will try to give a possible direction that could start to answer this question.

Beauty is a sort of meta-property.  Its a property of a property.  That said, it comes at a certain level of abstraction (in the epistemological sense) that makes an intuitive definition difficult.  My first attempt at a definition might say:  Something is beautiful in so far as it reflects the order, proportionality, harmony, and/or grandeur of what is good, true, and real.  There is a lot that might be said here to try and clarify or defend, but I think I'll just let you chew on it for a while.  Is the definition too narrow?  Is it too vague?  I'd be intrigued to hear your thoughts, especially from some of you artists and musicians!

So if subjectivity is not at the center of how we think about beauty, what role does it play?  I'll try to unpack that in a final post.

Parent of the Year

Apparently there are rules that immediately disqualify you from becoming Parent of the Year.  I know this now.  A little too late.  If you are in the running, hope knowing these will help your chances.

(1) You might get disqualified if you've ever justified not brushing your kids teeth before bed, because "they're going to lose those teeth anyway."

(2) You might get disqualified if you're jealous that your wife has taught them to eat healthier food then you.

(3) You might get disqualified if you think one of the best chew toys for your baby is the chord of an electric phone charger.  There was a double disqualification on this one actually, they say electrocution AND strangling hazard.

(4) You might get disqualified if (because the elevator takes too long at the mall) you try to use a double-stroller on the escalator.

(5) You might get disqualified if you express how proud you are of your 1 1/2 year old being able to stuff 3 full cookies in his mouth.

(6) You might get disqualified if pee in their diaper isn't 'enough' to take the time to change it.

(7) You might get disqualified if you take pictures of your child's colored-in 'Hitler mustache' and post it on the internet.

Disclaimer: One out of the two parents in our family holds no guilt in the previously mentioned disqualifications.  The guilty party shall remain anonymous.  You'll be forced to guess with great difficulty I'm sure.

The Nature of Beauty (Part 1)

One of my favorite questions to ask a musician or artist is: "Is the beauty you try to create in your art objective or subjective?"  In other words, "Is the beauty you're trying to create simply in the eye of the beholder?"  The answer to this question carries with it some assumptions that I'm unsure whether people have thought much about.  I do believe there is a subjective experience of beauty, but I'd like to make a brief case for the position that beauty at its core is an actual property of objects or events.  That is, it is an objective reality.  But first, what does it even mean for beauty to be objective?

It means that beauty is something that exists in the object, not in our perception of the object.  It means beauty can be there whether any one sees it or not.  It means that people can perceive beauty correctly or incorrectly (now this is where toes get stepped on, but be patient).  It means there are some aesthetic standards fitting to the object, to the event, or to the art that make something beautiful or not.  So what reasons would compel us to think about beauty like this?  Here are a few:

Beauty seems to be something that an observer discovers, not something an observer creates.  The difference between discovering and creating is simply this:  I discover something that is already there.  But when I create something, it wasn't there before I created it.  When I look at a waterfall or a sunset, when I listen to a moving poem or song, it seems like we want to say I'm experiencing for the first time the beauty that was already there.  For example, I could have listened to a piece of music twenty times and felt nothing, maybe even disliked it.  But on the 21st time perhaps I sensed something wonderful about it (notice the language: 'about it') that I came to discover.  So when was the music beautiful?  This is an argument from intuition, but it would seem strange to say the music became beautiful at the 21st listening of it.  It seems much more natural to say I discovered its beauty on the 21st time I listened to it.  If that's true, beauty at its core is a property of an object not of a 'beholder.'

There are things to learn about creating beautiful art.  This seems obvious, but this is a powerful argument for objective beauty.  We have entire universities, schools, and departments dedicated to the training of young artists and musicians,  People hire tutors and instructors, we have libraries of books and research all for this expressed purpose.  The fact is however, training in the arts so that people refine their ability and sense for how to create beautiful art is a contradiction in a world where 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder.'  You cannot improve your art if there is no objective standard of what constitutes improvement. In fact, in this world artistic refinement and improvement does not actually exist.  This seems quite counter-intuitive.  If there is something to actually learn about creating beautiful art, than there is something non-subjective about beauty.

Things do not get more beautiful the more people like them.  For example, say we uncovered a new painting from Rembrandt last year.  Would we ever say things like: This painting had no beauty for 400 years, but now this year it has become beautiful? (because now the 'beholders' can see it).  We just don't talk like that, because our language betrays that we don't really think beauty works like that.  What we would say is:  The beauty of this painting lay hidden for centuries.  And now the beauty that was hidden in the painting has been uncovered.  Beauty is a property of objects, not of the people that perceive it.

Different levels of expertise are possible in art.  Do we not say that this person is an expert composer or she is a top film writer, etc?  According to what standards could someone know more than another about what is beautiful in the various arts?  Only if there are objective features to beauty, could someone then be more gifted than others in perceiving and producing beautiful things.

Disagreements about beauty are not meaningless.  It is one thing to say people need to be more open-minded in how they evaluate poetry, music, films, or other art.  It is another thing to say those evaluations are meaningless.  A world without objective beauty must see any disagreement about beautiful art as saying nothing more than: "I like this, You don't like this."  If you move beyond this, to give actual reasons why the person should like it, or should not like it, you're trying to use objective features of the art to evaluate its aesthetic value.  But there are no objective features that have aesthetic value in this world!  They must be committed to the position that beauty cannot be measured by anything objective.  But any artist knows that these evaluations whether given or received are not meaningless even if these evaluations could be mistaken.

God is beautiful whether anyone perceives Him that way or not (Psalm 27:4, 96:6). It is a theological fact that God was beautiful and majestic before creation ever existed.  That is, before there was anyone to perceive him.  And he has remained such even in the midst of a creation that largely doesn't see him as beautiful and supremely desirable.  God's aesthetic features don't change in value based on the perceivers (beholders) that might view him differently.

Why does this all matter?  Philosophers have a tough time knowing how to characterize the sort of thing beauty is.  Think of all the things we call beautiful: Stories, paintings, music, waterfalls, a women's hair, the design of a home, self-sacrifice, a gentle disposition (1 Peter 3:3-4), etc.  How can all these things have the same property?  If they do, what kind of property would it be?  The trend toward entirely reducing the reality of beauty to a subjective experience is partly motivated by the fact that naturalism doesn't have the ontological resources to account for objective beauty.  In fact, the existence of objective beauty is a reason itself to find naturalism's account of what exists unsatisfactory.

Roots of Democracy

"I am a [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man.

I think most people are [proponents of democracy] for the opposite reason.  A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government.

The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true... I find that they're not true without looking further than myself.  I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost.  Much less a nation...

The real reason for democracy is just the reverse.  Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows.  Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves.  I do not contradict him.  But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters."

—C.S. Lewis, "Equality in Present Concerns 

How Classical Philosophy Utterly Failed

The classical world utterly failed in their attempt to bring people to moral goodness says the late Dr. Dallas Willard.*  Early thinkers like Plato and Aristotle (along with the Stoics and Epicureans later) did not ultimately understand the root of moral reality.  This is what he means:

"One of the most wonderful books in the world besides the bible is Plato's Republic.... And Plato's Republic looks like it is about 'the republic,' but its actually about the human soul.  It's a study of the human soul and how the soul works and in particular it is devoted to the question: "How can we train and develop people so that their soul actually works as it should?  Some of you may have read it and you know that Plato's view was that the good person is one with a balanced soul.  In particular it is a soul where the reason is doing its job, the appetites are doing its job, and the emotions are doing their job.  And the idea is that the emotions are supposed to align with reason to govern the appetites.  Well its certainly a fascinating theory and a wonderful story.  And his view is that the way you get this is you develop an educational system in which people who are able to reason well rise to the top.  And they then are able to get the emotions in order and so that will handle the appetites.  And then the state would also reflect that same order.

"And then Aristotle basically has the same theory, except his view is that you don't get this by education, you get it by legislation.  And what you do is you organize the government in such a way that you establish institutions that shape souls that are good.  And then people do the things they are supposed to, and so on.  But of course it didn't work.

"If you look at the history of Greece and the history of Athens and you'll see the miserable thing it fell into. The Greeks couldn't stop killing one another.  And actually Greek history as an independent deal up until very recently ended when they had to invite the Romans in to keep them from killing one another.  The world in which the people before Christ existed and the world in which the people at Christ's time existed (the Epicureans included) was one where people were just striving to somehow get a hold of moral reality.  And they never could do it."


* Willard begins this discussion at 1:01:40 of the video.  He continues afterward to make some interesting observations about how ancient Christianity and how our contemporary culture much later deals with these very same questions.  

Jerusalem the Movie

If you get an opportunity, check out the beautiful footage of the land of Israel captured by National Geographic in a short film called Jerusalem:

*Disclaimer: As it is a National Geographic feature you might have to excuse the incredibly shallow assessment of the difficulties, conflicts, and differences over Jerusalem.