Can Men Commit Adultery?

A local friend of mine who lives here mentioned how common it is for men to have “other women” besides their wives, especially when they travel for work, etc.  These other women are typically foreigners with a different background than the locals.  Of course I was shocked on many different levels.  But I was mostly unprepared for the reality that male infidelity could be so common particularly in this part of the world.  Simply because this is within a part of the world where female fidelity is taken with the utmost seriousness.  So what gives?  Why is the same act on one side of the gender line a betrayal and dishonor of the highest order, while on the other side it has so little consequence?  It was a difficult question to wrap my mind around until I read this article...

Kyle Harper writes that much of the ancient world thought with the same type of categories.  In a 2011 JBL article he examines the development and usage of the Greek word “moicheia” meaning adultery.  For the Greeks (and almost all ancient cultures) adultery did not mean simply having extra-marital relations.  Its meaning was fundamentally about the “violation of a respectable woman.”  And in fact, sleeping with another man's wife was actually construed to be “a crime against another man.”  A crime either against the husband of a respectable woman, or if unmarried a crime against her father (or brothers).  When this is the fundamental understanding of adultery in honor-based cultures, it becomes clearer why there are different ways of thinking about it for men and women.  If a husband in ancient Greece were to have extra-marital sex with his female slave for instance, it is not actually considered adultery.  The same was true for prostitution.  In fact, P. Leithart summarizing Harper says that in ancient Greece “prostitution was not merely tolerated but seen to fulfill a social good.  It allowed men to satisfy their sexual desires without violating honorable women, that is, without the danger of rivalry with another man.”

Harper goes on to argue that in the ancient world the Jews (particularly their prophets) were the first to reconstruct an understanding of adultery that ran across gender lines.  Such that by the second-temple era (and on into the New Testament period) the gulf between the sexual ethics of the Jews and their gentile neighbors was notoriously vast.   

It dawned on me that the contrast I noticed here was more nuanced than just a simple double standard.  There were new definitions and different categories being used than I was working with.  Protecting the honor of respectable women was held with the utmost esteem.  And it brings into focus the ethics that come with the shame and violation of such honor.  This explains the rigidity of their standards from this angle.  But at the same time this understanding theoretically leaves open the question of extra-marital affairs by men that don't affect “respectable” women. And at least in the observations of my friend here, they are not just “theoretical.”

De-debunking Trinitarian Analogies (cont)

A few months ago I argued here that the way modern evangelical scholars have debunked Trinitarian analogies actually misses what a real analogy is supposed to do.  And therefore with more limited goals for what actually counts as a decent analogy, what should we say about the historical and modern analogies of the Trinity?  Are they workable?  Would I ever use them?

If you see these potential analogies as illustrating one significant aspect of the Trinity, and not every aspect, then in fact these analogies are quite redeemable and very useful.  For example, most analogies regarding the Trinity are made to illustrate how God's threeness and his oneness can intersect simultaneously.  Again this is only one part of the doctrine.  But one that is difficult to wrap one's minds around which makes an analogy quite fitting.  Lets take the water analogy again.  A single component of water (H2O) exists in three different states (ice, liquid, vapor).  There is one substance and three ways it expresses itself.  I'll say that again, so it is clear what the analogy is doing:  The Trinity is like water in that (and only in that) it is one substance that expresses itself in three different ways.  I know many of you have an innate distrust in these analogies and you are already instinctively thinking of counterexamples.  Counterexamples like: God is a person and knows everything whereas water has no intelligence or personality.  God is not made of Hydrogen and Oxygen.  And further God is simultaneously three, not three at different times depending on temperature and pressure like water.  Yes, these are all true.  But if you read my first post on this, you already know what I'm going to say.  None of that matters as to whether it is decent analogy.  Because those counterexamples again miss the purpose of the analogy or any analogy for that matter.  In order to disprove the analogy, the counterexamples must show a disconnect of the precise aspect that is being compared, not any random disconnect you can show between the two.  Thus, only in the circumstance where either water or the Trinity fail to illustrate one substance being expressed in three ways, will there be room for showing a meaningful disconnect in the analogy.  I have not been convinced there is such a disconnect in this case.  And I'm also convinced that many other Trinitarian analogies are similarly useful when they are nuanced in this way and understood within the proper framework of what an analogy does.

St. Augustine's analogies of the mind, St. Patrick's botanical analogies, even the dreaded egg analogy can be equally redeemed in so far as they helpfully illustrate the one particular aspect of the Trinity that they actually intend to explain.  Some analogies of the Trinity don't focus on the threeness and oneness paradox.  Some analogies are used to explain the interpersonal relationship between the members of the Trinity.  For example, I have used many times the analogy of marriage as an illustration of how the Son is ontologically equal, but functionally subordinate to the Father in their relationship.  I am convinced the bible teaches these same values in the relationship between a wife and her husband.  Whether the bible teaches this and whether the analogy helpfully illustrates this point can be debated.  But to say the analogy would fail because for instance the Father is all-knowing while husbands are deeply limited in their knowledge, or because the analogy leaves out the Holy Spirit, etc. is to again misunderstand what an analogy is doing.  Debunking analogies does not mean showing that there are some random differences between the two things being compared.  In fact, if there weren't any differences, than the only thing you could compare with an analogy is identical things!  The only thing you could say the state of Arizona is like, for example, is wait for it... the state of Arizona –which of course is not an analogy, it is a meaningless tautology.  Debunking an analogy means showing they are different in the precise way something is being compared.  It would mean showing that marriages are not ontologically equal or functionally distinct like the Father and the Son or vice versa.

Not all analogies are created equal.  But their real function does need to be understood before we can starts offering specific and meaningful critiques.  Ultimately, absorbing the doctrine of the trinity requires more than precision with how you talk about various categories of being.  I might even suggest it requires a little wonder and imagination.  And of course the best place for that to begin is through power of a simple analogy.

“Do We Have Free Will?”, A Critical Review

Are we automatons?  Or are we self-determined agents?  In a Psychology Today article, Seth Schwartz outlines some of the arguments on both sides of the free-will debate and then suggests some pragmatic ways forward.  Here it is:  Just pretend like you have free will.

Schwartz wants us to feel the weight of the scientific pull toward determinism.  He spends nearly half his article summarizing the major developments of neuroscience and the difficulties it raises about free will.  For instance, after observing the brain with varieties of image scanning technology, many neuroscientists argue “we can see there is no agent there making choices.”  It is unclear what “an agent making choices” might have looked liked to them.  I'll give the benefit of the doubt that it was more sophisticated than the Arquillian alien at the controls of a human brain in Men in Black.  But it does leave one wondering how an invisible self-determining agent/mind/soul is supposed to be found by using an MRI.  It is like searching through all the microchips and literal hardware parts of a computer system in order to verify there is some particular software “inside.”  You don't find software like that.  Its like dissecting all the chambers and valves of a human heart to see if you can find love inside it.

Schwartz also mentions a series of experiements by other neurophysicists like Ben Libet and also geneticists who all work with the assumption that somehow physical correlations inherently force out explanations that consist of mental phenomena and free agency.  A rather dubious assumption in my estimation.  And notice it is a philosophical assumption, not a psychological or scientific one.  And when you continue to trace the second half of Schwartz's argument you realize the philosophical baggage gets even heavier toward the end of the article.

What is the pull against determinism for Schwartz?  Why would we want to believe there is a free will?  He points out (correctly) that denying free will would undermine our ethical and legal systems.  Why would we punish criminals if they genuinely had no choice to do the crimes they committed?  Spoiling children or failing exams cannot be truly blameworthy in any real sense.  In fact, any system of merit or demerit will be inherently undermined in a world where no one actually has a choice.  For Schwartz (and hopefully for most human beings) this is a bit unsettling.  So where does this leave him?

Schwartz references the research of psychologist Roy Baumeister who found that people who deny that we make free choices “are led to behave in socially irresponsible ways like cheating or refusing to help others.”  He continues by asking, “if Baumeister is correct, then does it really matter whether we actually have free will?  Or does it matter only whether we believe that we do?”  The answer to that question is whether social responsibility is more important than discovering and living by what is true and real.  The answer to which interestingly requires philosophical, not psychological reasons.  In the end, Schwartz finds himself saying all the determinants of behavior are not sufficiently explained by science yet.  Nor does it look like they will be very soon.  And since science has not yet given the final verdict, how should we go forward?  His answer: Be socially responsible.  And that means pretending that you really do have free will.  Whether or not this raw pragmatism is philosophically defensible, this is a very strange conclusion for an article that is purportedly about psychology. Schwartz does admit that psychology might tell us more what belief in free will does, than whether it exists.  But that is a very different discussion than the one the title of his article purports to discuss.  I probably should have assumed a psychologist asking a fundamentally philosophical question is only going to be able to gloss out a very thin and piecemeal philosophical answer.  Hopefully the readers of Psychology Today don't feel slighted by getting an amateur defense for philosophical pragmatism when they thought they were getting good science.

Some More Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton, 1874-1936

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”

“The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens.  It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head.  And it is his head that splits.”

“But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. . . . As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. . . . The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.”

The Science of Applause

The patterns of an audience's applause is a strange thing if you start to think about it.  Have you noticed it usually just takes one inspired person to start an applause in a big group?  Some join the applause to equally express their agreement.  Some join in to make sure there isn't that really awkward "one-person clap" which makes you wish no one clapped at all.  Many others join in unconsciously just because everyone else is clapping.

But there are some applauses that begin not really because of inspired audience members, but literally because there is a part of the performance where the music stops or the passionate speaker pauses and an applause is actually expected.  Have you noticed this?  It is very interesting.  They will literally draw an applause out of an audience.  This isn't necessarily manipulating.  For example, in a school play an audience may genuinely want to give an applause throughout the performance, but for disruption purposes they are instead guided to specific points where applauses are then expected.  But for many other performances or speeches there are not such noble reasons.  In fact, if you pay attention you will notice it is often quite an artificial contrivance.  Think of some fiery political speeches or some impassioned preachers for example.  Many of these people know how to artificially draw out an applause at the right moments to solidify their wooing of an audience.  Or think of bands at a concert and the way they might end their songs quite dramatically with the expectation of applause.  Can the audience do anything but applaud?  In these situations many audiences often will clap out of necessity or habit, or not wanting to make the speaker or performer feel bad.  All this is quite intriguing to me.

In many contemporary worship services it is not infrequent to hear an applause at the end of a worship song.  I wonder sometimes, what is the congregation truly applauding in church?  There is not one answer.  Every church is different of course.  Many are carried away in worship and adoration of God.  And the applause is actually a collective expression of their sense of the magnificence of God.  But I would also say, for many churches there are not such noble reasons.  Some impassioned church bands will do the same thing many other bands do on the secular stage; and they artificially draw out an applause from the congregation for their performance, like was mentioned above.  Some are not as brazen, but congregations are still confused and find themselves clapping for reasons they probably would have difficulty explaining.  To what or to whom they are clapping is quite ambiguous.

Some congregations, no doubt, just want to be respectful to the church band for its hard work and performance in the worship.  But there again lies something of the true underlying values of many church members and its leaders.  Church is an experience, where the congregation is on the receiving/viewing end and the band and the pastor are the performers.  And the one thing a respectful audience always does toward performers is give them a respectful applause.  I wonder how much of our fellowships and the members thereof actually view church through this lens.  A lens of performance.  In fact, there are many churches who do not call the members gathered for worship the congregation, etc. but actually call them the "audience."  Audiences receive performances.  Audiences don't participate in performance.  Audiences are always meant to be doing something significantly different than those on stage.  Is that really how we are supposed to think about church?  Is the Pastor or the worship leader doing something fundamentally different than everybody else?  Are those in the pew experiencing the worship or producing the worship?  It's very telling what's actually happening often by just the language that is used.  I wonder what would change if in people's minds God was actually the audience (not themselves) and every church member is on display for Him on Sundays.  Or even better, if everyone is the audience of just one performer: God.  I wonder what would change in how music is lead or how sermons are preached.  I also wonder the ways it would challenge congregations to rethink the objects of its applause.

De-debunking Trinitarian Analogies

It is said St. Patrick once explained the Trinity to the pagan inhabitants of Ireland by using a three-leaf clover.  Augustine preferred the psychological analogies of the mind, the emotions, the will, etc. as three expressions of one being.  Other analogies such as a single component of water (H2O) existing in three different states (ice, liquid, vapor), or a man who exists with three distinct roles (husband, father, friend, etc.) have become popular.  But actually Trinitarian analogies have now fallen out of favor.

In his systematic theology, Wayne Grudem typifies the theological posture of standard evangelical scholarship toward these type of Trinitiarian analogies.  First, he debunks the adequacy of the more common analogies comparing them to ancient and modern heresies, and then summarizes: "It is best to conclude that no analogy adequately teaches about the Trinity and all are misleading in significant ways."  So how does he debunk them?

Take the water analogy for example.  Grudem outlines its inadequacy by showing that there are parts of the analogy that don't translate to the Trinity.  For example "...no quantity of water is ever [in these states] at the same time," or "the element of intelligent personality is lacking."  But this is just a misunderstanding of what an analogy does.  Grudem confuses an analogy for an allegory.  An allegory has lots of elements and parts that are meant to be translated and interpreted as a symbol for something else.  Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory because many of the parts of the story are meant to be interpreted as a symbol of our spiritual journey.  An analogy is similar, but differs in one important respect.  There only needs to be one element that is translatable for an analogy to be well formed.  For example, God is our rock, the bible says.  This is an analogy.  How is God like a rock?  God is firm and immovable and trustworthy for building our life upon.  But is God made of granite?  Do rocks have intelligent personality?  No.  But I hope you can see that this doesn't mean the analogy is inadequate or misleading!  That is because the true function of an analogy is more limited than what Grudem and so many others assume in this context.  I am sure you can think of hundreds of biblical analogies along these lines.  God is a shield.  Jesus is a lamb.  Paul is a drink offering.  All these analogies have non-translatable features.  God is not made of metal.  Jesus does not produce wool from his body.  Paul is not inanimate liquid.  But none of those possible features mean the analogy is misleading or inadequate.  No analogies, including Trinitarian ones, need to be translatable in every or even in most parts for it to be an accurate or decent analogy.  It only needs at least one part.

Grudem knows this.  But I'm not sure he has worked through the implications of this for Trinitarian analogies.  He even knows that there are biblical words that are meant to be an analogy of the members of the Trinity.  The bible says God is a Father.  It also says Jesus is the Son, and the Word of God.  He says they are "close to an analogy" of the Trinity.  It is true they are not analogies of the doctrine of the Trinity per se, but they undoubtedly are analogies of the members of the Trinity and the inter-Trinitarian relationships.  And they are faithful biblical analogies not because for instance everything that characterizes a son in a typical family is like Jesus.  They are faithful analogies because one (or maybe two) characteristics of sonship match perfectly to Jesus.  If we only demand this more limited role for analogies whenever we (or the bible!) use them, why then do we demand some entirely different standard from Trinitarian analogies?

Skin-n-Bone Trinitarianism

Peter Leithart in highlighting parts of the historical work of Philip Dixon (Nice and Hot Disputes), observes that beginning with the English Enlightenment critical writers began launching “moralistic and rationalistic attacks on the doctrine [of the Trinity].  It didn't make sense, and, besides, it made no difference.  A doctrine so rationally absurd couldn't be the cornerstone of religion; a doctrine so practically insignificant wasn't worth believing.”

“Dixon argues that the more fateful dynamic came not from outside the church but from within, not from detractors of Trinitarian theology, but from defenders.  In responding to attacks, orthodox Christians turned the Trinity into a polemical doctrine, and the rich speculations that characterized the earlier part of the seventeenth century dried up.  The Trinity becomes a sheer, irrational datum of revelation, to be believed and defended but not a source of intellectual and spiritual delight...”