Overview
The first two chapters of THE GRAND DESIGN lay out this view:
A quantum-informed understanding of the world is very different than a common sense understanding of the world. Unlike a common sense understanding of the world, a quantum understanding of the world can answer the big questions surrounding why there is a universe, with the laws it has, which make the seeming miracle of our existence possible. Given this claim, the rationales for belief in God that arise out of a common sense understanding of the world are obviated by a quantum-informed understanding of the world. The "space for God" once reserved by natural theology with its common sense view of reality has been eliminated.
As it pertains to the--supposedly now defunct--God question, that is the first two chapters of THE GRAND DESIGN in pure abstraction. Since the Hawking/Mlodinow approach was to give a brief overview based on their expert understanding, it is best for me to give you the bare abstraction and refer you to the book, if you wish to begin filling in a few details. Since I will in no way contest the science--just the conclusions drawn from it, aka, the Hawking/Mlodinow philosophical perspective--that is sufficient.
The just referenced "Hawking/Mlodinow philosophical perspective" implies that even if we grant to them that their quantum-informed science answers the big questions of the old common sense view of reality, there is a new field of metaphysical speculation opened up by their quantum science. Does anyone really think that we won't go meta on the new science and ask "is that all there is?" with respect to the understanding of the world wrought by the new physics?
Implicitly Hawking and Mlodinow address this question. For it is the need to close off this pretty obvious human tendency to "go meta" that they resort to a new form of that old chestnut, positivism: their "model-dependent realism."
The Grand Move
Model-dependent realism is the grand philosophical move in THE GRAND DESIGN. The argument for it is found in Chapter 3, "What Is Reality?"
Hawking and Mlodinow begin their exposition of model-dependent "reality" by making the point that a pet goldfish looking out from a frame of reference that begins with its transparent, spherical bowl would arrive at a different science--we're assuming that fish can do science--than someone outside the bowl. We might hope that the fish would arrive at a paradigm that allows it to think outside the bowl, but let's not spoil the point of the illustration: we are influenced by our means of observing the world, at least till we (via science) arrive at a better way to "see."
They begin with the illustration for an important reason. They want to establish that there is complete identity between what we think of as "reality" and our observation of it. To wit:
"According to model-dependent realism, it is pointless to ask whether a model is real, only whether it agrees with observation. If there are two models that agree with observation, like the goldfish's picture and ours, then one cannot say that one is more real than another." (46)
This follows from two things. First, the definition of model-dependent realism, and second, the claim that "There is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality." (42)
Here's the definition:
"...model-dependent realism: the idea that a physical theory or world picture is a model (generally of a mathematical nature) and set of rules that connect the elements of the model to observations." (45)
Obviously, if there is no concept of reality apart from a model formed from a person's (or fish's) frame of reference, then reality simply IS what we perceive it to be--presumably it should be added, "in coherent moments where one's frame of reference is not distorted," i.e., we can't be on acid or be looking out from a place where our "fishbowl" has a crack or flaw in the glass.
Here's the crucial point--though it is never explicitly addressed in the book. It is incoherent to say of a false point of view that it is "real." For that reason, the Hawking/Mlodonow position must be that "If there are two models that agree with observation, like the goldfish's picture and ours, then one cannot say that one is more real than another." (46) For if model-dependent observations of the world are sometimes wrong, unbeknown to the person in the thrall of their frame of reference at a given time, then it must be allowed that Hawking and Mlodonow implicitly endorse a view by which--incoherently--they claim of a false point of view that it is real.
In my first post on this book, I expressed my frustration with the central use of model-dependent reality for this very incoherency. To buttress my opinion I cited Thomas Kuhn's comment below:
"Looking at the moon, the convert to Copernicanism [from a Ptolemaic frame of reference] does not say, 'I used to see a planet, but now I see a satellite.' That locution would imply a sense in which the Ptolemaic system had once been correct. Instead a convert to the new astronomy says, '...I was mistaken.'" (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Second Ed. (University of Chicago Press, 1970) 113-4.)
But in THE GRAND DESIGN the authors specifically take on the view that one frame of reference, or "model" of reality, can falsify another by disallowing the very point I had Kuhn make for me:
"So which is real, the Ptolemaic or Copernican system? Although it is not uncommon for people to say that Copernicus proved Ptolemy wrong, that is not true. As in the case of our normal view versus that of the goldfish, one can use either picture as a model of the universe, for our observations of the heavens can be explained by assuming either the earth or the sun to be at rest. Despite its role in philosophical debates over the nature of the universe, the real advantage of the Copernican system is simply that the equations of motion are much simpler..." (41-2)
Is it really that simple--just a choice between alternative realities based on which frame of reference is more convenient or, perhaps, familiar? No. In fact, the example can be clearly falsified, making Kuhn's point of view clearly true, and the Hawking/Mlodonow view clearly false.
Falsifying the Hawking/Mlodinow Grand Move
If one scientific frame of reference simply subsumes another--which is one way of construing the move from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican model of the universe--there is no contradiction between them, and both can be coherently called models of "reality," just as Hawking and Mlodinow wish us to do. But that is not the case, either here or with respect to the move from a Newtonian framework to an Einsteinian one, or from an Einsteinian one to the quantum-based framework in THE GRAND DESIGN. We will look at the falsification of the Ptolemaic model by the Copernican, since it is so simple to show (and it was the case used for purposes of illustration by Hawking/Mlodinow).
Assume just these two commonly known truths of "reality" that current science has confirmed for us: that the speed of light is constant in all frames of reference, and that we live in an amazingly vast cosmos, in which the nearest star to the Sun (Alpha Cantauri AB) is 4.37 light years away. Since a frame of reference in which the Sun goes around the Earth will include the third brightest star in the ski (Alpha Centauri AB) as part of the observational backdrop, Alpha Centauri AB will also have to travel around the Earth. But then every day Alpha Centauri AB will need to travel its distance from our (presumed) geocentric center of reference, doubled to get the diameter of the circuit it must travel, times pi to get the circumference of the curcuit, times 365 to convert light year speed to a distance traveled in a single 24-hour period, by which we arrive at a speed for Alpha Centauri AB as it travels around the Earth of 10,016 light years per day. That's a little over one million percent of the speed of light, which is a constant in all frames of reference at one millionth the extrapolated speed of Alpha Centauri AB. If that is not a blatant falsification of the Ptolemaic model, it's difficult to think of what would be.
But that is not the end of the embarrassing problems for Hawking/Mlodinow, based on their own statements. Recall the claim that "There is no picture- or model-independent concept of reality." (42) But what about their handling of the question of free will in the face of the admission that their deterministic paradigm may well never be able to provide a model of how human volition works:
"How can one tell if a being has free will? ... We cannot even solve the equations for three or more particles interacting with each other. Since [a being our size has]...about a thousand trillion trillion particles...it would be impossible to solve the equations and predict what [a being our size]... would do. We would therefore have to say [by default] that any complex being has free will--not as a fundamental feature, but as an effective theory, an admission of our inability to do the calculations that would enable us to predict its actions." (178)
So no effective model of human volition is possible, but free will is posited by default as "an effective theory." That sounds like "a model-independent concept of reality." Of course, the hedge that the "theory" is not a "fundamental feature" was made. But there it is for all to see: a "fundamental feature" of reality for which there is no model. That directly contradicts the claim that "There is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality." That is, unless a "theory" that can't account for what it is a theory of counts... This is a version of the commonplace objections to old-style positivism that things like love, which we know about, can't be observed in the way positivism requires. But it's nice to have THE GRAND DESIGN provide another example for its ideological opponents.
This is enough to show that Hawking and Mlodinow are very much in need of the philosophical perspective they begin their book by disparaging. Since the grand move by which they want to place philosophical theology out of bounds forever more (model-dependent realism) is so deeply flawed, we can safely call that project as questionable in the least, if not outright failed.
A more interesting line of enquery going forward is whether the questions one can ask when going meta on the new quantum-based physics account of consmology are still meaningful. (Hint: See the C. S. Peirce quote at the head of this blog!)
Note: What a friend has called "the occasion gauntlet," aka, "the holidays," is upon us. I'll get to the next post when I can--but I promise, it will be fun. Since the comments are disabled, email me at Tracy.Witham@gmail.com with any questions. Any credible challenge will be noted and responded to.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
A Lesson to Remedy Overconfidence
After a very busy weekend filled with making plans for promoting my rower next year, including exploring possible speed record attempts that have me really excited, I thought I would comment on a life lesson that the weekend reminded me of.
Of words I've heard that seemed way off base when I first heard them, these--spoken at the end of a conversation with the patent examiner of my first application--stand out: "Next time..." The entire comment does not matter here. It is the two words, "Next time..." that matter most.
Having invested a year developing a product to the point that I had tested it enough to believe in it; having spent a year learning how to write a patent correctly; how to research and specify and make the claims effectively in an arcane and detailed form; having called on favors from friends and family to test and comment on and draw the rower for me; the thought of "Next time..." seemed ludicrous. I was just so pleased to be DONE.
Two realizations had not yet set in for me, which would transform my attitude toward those words. First, once begun, an area of experiment and investigation takes on a life of its own--assuming there is enough success for the idea to remain "live." And second, it is very difficult, having already put in tremendous time and effort in an area, not to continue that effort when a promising way forward presents itself. The psychological momentum is just tremendous. Apparently the patent examiner knew all this--as well as the fact that I was far from having perfected my idea.
There are two applications here, for the analysis of Stephen Hawking's and Leonard Mlodinow's view that Feynman's quantum theory obviates theological speculations about ultimate origins. The first is indirect--a background point. Before making an application for a patent, it is crucial that a careful and thorough job of researching the "prior art" has been carried out. Hawking and Mlodinow cite Augustine's ideas from Book Ten of the Confessions about the interface of time and eternity, but utterly fail to understand, let alone appreciate them. Put simply, Augustine's "prior art," with respect to THE GRAND DESIGN, undercuts the Hawking/Mlodinow point of view. I will not link to prior posts on Augustine's argument here, since I have improvements to it that I want to introduce on this blog in forthcoming posts.
More directly, the authors believe that they have finished the work of knocking the life out of philosophical theology. (The direct quote, you will recall, is "...philosophy is dead." (p. 5.)) Well, "next time" the authors take up the subject--and I take no joy in stating this--they will need to think through the implications of their science with more precision. Which is to say that a resurrection of the supposedly "dead" discipline is needed, if they are to clarify their thinking.
An example will help:
"Though it may sound like philosophy, the weak anthropic principle can be used to make scientific predictions. For example, how old is the universe?" (sic., p. 154.) That's a line that--I would have supposed--would be found in the likes of my favorite cartoon, non sequitur. In fact, the thought process--and I may go into this in more detail in a later post--for the authors is a deductive application of current scientific understanding (of the processes that had to be in place to arrive at a planet like ours that supports intelligent life) to the question of the earth's age. But the process of deduction as a means of "advancing" scientific understanding is Aristotelian!
Don't get me wrong. I intend to take Hawking's and Mlodinow's word in all areas of their scientific expertise. Thus, I intend to accept the deductions by which they extend their understanding of quantum theory as it appliers to the origin of our cosmos. So this won't be the latest version of the Flat Earth Society. What it will be is a sober analysis of whether THE GRAND DESIGN is the end of anything.
And as I prepare my thoughts about that I could not help but recall the words, "Next time..." directed my way when I had made the mistake of thinking I had brought a subject to its terminus.
This will be fun. But I hope not to be mean spirited or flippant: it is precisely because THE GRAND DESIGN tells us important new things about the state of scientific understanding with respect to philosophical theology that it is important and interesting. And if Hawking and Mlodinow made a few mistakes and left a few stones unturned that an amateur theologian can point out and pick up, well, it was nice of them to set me up!
Of words I've heard that seemed way off base when I first heard them, these--spoken at the end of a conversation with the patent examiner of my first application--stand out: "Next time..." The entire comment does not matter here. It is the two words, "Next time..." that matter most.
Having invested a year developing a product to the point that I had tested it enough to believe in it; having spent a year learning how to write a patent correctly; how to research and specify and make the claims effectively in an arcane and detailed form; having called on favors from friends and family to test and comment on and draw the rower for me; the thought of "Next time..." seemed ludicrous. I was just so pleased to be DONE.
Two realizations had not yet set in for me, which would transform my attitude toward those words. First, once begun, an area of experiment and investigation takes on a life of its own--assuming there is enough success for the idea to remain "live." And second, it is very difficult, having already put in tremendous time and effort in an area, not to continue that effort when a promising way forward presents itself. The psychological momentum is just tremendous. Apparently the patent examiner knew all this--as well as the fact that I was far from having perfected my idea.
There are two applications here, for the analysis of Stephen Hawking's and Leonard Mlodinow's view that Feynman's quantum theory obviates theological speculations about ultimate origins. The first is indirect--a background point. Before making an application for a patent, it is crucial that a careful and thorough job of researching the "prior art" has been carried out. Hawking and Mlodinow cite Augustine's ideas from Book Ten of the Confessions about the interface of time and eternity, but utterly fail to understand, let alone appreciate them. Put simply, Augustine's "prior art," with respect to THE GRAND DESIGN, undercuts the Hawking/Mlodinow point of view. I will not link to prior posts on Augustine's argument here, since I have improvements to it that I want to introduce on this blog in forthcoming posts.
More directly, the authors believe that they have finished the work of knocking the life out of philosophical theology. (The direct quote, you will recall, is "...philosophy is dead." (p. 5.)) Well, "next time" the authors take up the subject--and I take no joy in stating this--they will need to think through the implications of their science with more precision. Which is to say that a resurrection of the supposedly "dead" discipline is needed, if they are to clarify their thinking.
An example will help:
"Though it may sound like philosophy, the weak anthropic principle can be used to make scientific predictions. For example, how old is the universe?" (sic., p. 154.) That's a line that--I would have supposed--would be found in the likes of my favorite cartoon, non sequitur. In fact, the thought process--and I may go into this in more detail in a later post--for the authors is a deductive application of current scientific understanding (of the processes that had to be in place to arrive at a planet like ours that supports intelligent life) to the question of the earth's age. But the process of deduction as a means of "advancing" scientific understanding is Aristotelian!
Don't get me wrong. I intend to take Hawking's and Mlodinow's word in all areas of their scientific expertise. Thus, I intend to accept the deductions by which they extend their understanding of quantum theory as it appliers to the origin of our cosmos. So this won't be the latest version of the Flat Earth Society. What it will be is a sober analysis of whether THE GRAND DESIGN is the end of anything.
And as I prepare my thoughts about that I could not help but recall the words, "Next time..." directed my way when I had made the mistake of thinking I had brought a subject to its terminus.
This will be fun. But I hope not to be mean spirited or flippant: it is precisely because THE GRAND DESIGN tells us important new things about the state of scientific understanding with respect to philosophical theology that it is important and interesting. And if Hawking and Mlodinow made a few mistakes and left a few stones unturned that an amateur theologian can point out and pick up, well, it was nice of them to set me up!
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Appraising Hawking's THE GRAND DESIGN--Introduction
With co-author, Leonard Mlodinow, Stephen Hawking begins THE GRAND DESIGN by telling the reader that "...philosophy is dead." ((Bantam, New York: 2010) p. 5.) Having just read the quote a few weeks ago when I had a chance to talk with a friend who teaches ethics through the philosophy department at the local university, I was treated with a little joke: "If philosophy is dead, then nothing is permitted!"
The grand claim, otiose though it certainly is when applied broadly to "philosophy," contains a core point that anyone who cares about the interface of science and theology will want to note. Hawking and Mlodinow employ an approach to quantum physics pioneered by Richard Feynman that obviates the version of the cosmological argument for the existence of God that most persons--who take an interest in the interface of science and theology--will be familiar with. William Lane Craig's simplified version of the cosmological argument summarizes the familiar line of argumentation well:
Everything that has a beginning has a cause. The universe has a beginning. Therefore, the universe has a cause. ("The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe.")
Paul Davies' words, below, provide insight into why someone as bright as Hawking could arrive at such an immoderate appraisal of their own position.
This so-called cosmological argument has in one form or another often been used as evidence for the existence of God. Over the centuries it has been refined and debated by many theologians and philosophers, sometimes with great subtlety. The enigma of the cosmic origin is probably the one area where the atheistic scientist will feel uncomfortable. (THE MIND OF GOD (Touchstone, New York: 1992) p. 39.)
Clearly Hawking and Mlodinow were focused on "the one area" where a philosopher doing natural theology could still make an "atheistic scientist...feel uncomfortable." If they are correct that the cosmological argument is based on a "naive view of reality...not compatible with modern physics," (p. 7) it follows that the "one area" where philosophy (and theology) still had something of note to bring to a conversation with atheistic scientists has been lost--that is, assuming the informed point of view makes the old, naive philosophical point of view obsolete. In that sense, philosophy would be "dead." They are not correct. But at least we have marked the origin of their overweening claim.
What I like and appreciate about THE GRAND DESIGN is that it wastes no time in getting to the point: An informed understanding of the new, quantum-based physics closes off any need to posit a reason for the origin of the cosmos that comes from outside the scientific model itself. That is their claim, and they stay on point from first to last, to their credit.
What I like and appreciate least about the book is that its reliance on "model-dependent realism" as the criterion of meaningfulness--pathetically--falsifies itself every time a more encompassing model is devised. In Thomas Kuhn's words,
In the sciences...if perceptual switches accompany paradigm changes, we may not expect scientists to attest to these changes directly. Looking at the moon, the convert to Copernicanism does not say, "I used to see a planet, but now I see a satellite." That locution would imply a sense in which the Ptolemaic system had once been correct. (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (The University of Chicago Press: 1979) p. 114-5.)
Of course, looking backward, it is not a problem that better new paradigms can falsify and obviate older inferior ones. So long as I am in possession of a never-to-be outstripped point of view, I can without fear of contradiction identify reality itself with my model of it. But this view is inconsistent with what a study of the history of science tells us about science itself. It used to be the black mark against positivism--sometimes called "scientism"--that it was a philosophical stance toward science that placed a philosophical stance toward science out of bounds (i.e., that science marked the boundary of the meaningful). This new scientism is inconsistent with the history of science. It places the supposed boundary of meaningful inquiry at the boundary of today's scientific models. One would hope for better from the likes of Hawking.
Nevertheless, the core point of the book is not affected by this almost incredibly ironic philosophical naivete, which will prove the book's downfall. That point, again, is that an informed understanding of the new, quantum-based physics closes off any need to posit a reason for the origin of the cosmos that comes from outside the scientific model itself.
So it is important to note the philosophical naivete employed in the book, because it exposes the importance of examining the (rash) claims that Hawking and Mlodinow make in dismissing philosophical arguments, to their immediate discredit (and ultimate demise). But an account of the new quantum-based physics' challenge to traditional views of the relationship of natural theology to science is both interesting and important, and I want to voice my appreciation for the clear challenge THE GRAND DESIGN poses.
I hope to do a creditable job of depicting the core argument found in THE GRAND DESIGN in coming posts. Most of us can learn much from the Hawking/Mlodinow narrative--I have, at least. And in saying so I intend to express my trust in their depiction of the new quantum-based physics and how the model of the cosmos it provides affects an analysis of the cosmological argument--that supposed last stand for the philosophical theologian.
Next week we will look at an overview of the Hawking/Mlodinow argument.
[Note: I will not be enabling comments. However, I will pose any substantive question or challenge that I get via email: Tracy.Witham@gmail.com.]
The grand claim, otiose though it certainly is when applied broadly to "philosophy," contains a core point that anyone who cares about the interface of science and theology will want to note. Hawking and Mlodinow employ an approach to quantum physics pioneered by Richard Feynman that obviates the version of the cosmological argument for the existence of God that most persons--who take an interest in the interface of science and theology--will be familiar with. William Lane Craig's simplified version of the cosmological argument summarizes the familiar line of argumentation well:
Everything that has a beginning has a cause. The universe has a beginning. Therefore, the universe has a cause. ("The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe.")
Paul Davies' words, below, provide insight into why someone as bright as Hawking could arrive at such an immoderate appraisal of their own position.
This so-called cosmological argument has in one form or another often been used as evidence for the existence of God. Over the centuries it has been refined and debated by many theologians and philosophers, sometimes with great subtlety. The enigma of the cosmic origin is probably the one area where the atheistic scientist will feel uncomfortable. (THE MIND OF GOD (Touchstone, New York: 1992) p. 39.)
Clearly Hawking and Mlodinow were focused on "the one area" where a philosopher doing natural theology could still make an "atheistic scientist...feel uncomfortable." If they are correct that the cosmological argument is based on a "naive view of reality...not compatible with modern physics," (p. 7) it follows that the "one area" where philosophy (and theology) still had something of note to bring to a conversation with atheistic scientists has been lost--that is, assuming the informed point of view makes the old, naive philosophical point of view obsolete. In that sense, philosophy would be "dead." They are not correct. But at least we have marked the origin of their overweening claim.
What I like and appreciate about THE GRAND DESIGN is that it wastes no time in getting to the point: An informed understanding of the new, quantum-based physics closes off any need to posit a reason for the origin of the cosmos that comes from outside the scientific model itself. That is their claim, and they stay on point from first to last, to their credit.
What I like and appreciate least about the book is that its reliance on "model-dependent realism" as the criterion of meaningfulness--pathetically--falsifies itself every time a more encompassing model is devised. In Thomas Kuhn's words,
In the sciences...if perceptual switches accompany paradigm changes, we may not expect scientists to attest to these changes directly. Looking at the moon, the convert to Copernicanism does not say, "I used to see a planet, but now I see a satellite." That locution would imply a sense in which the Ptolemaic system had once been correct. (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (The University of Chicago Press: 1979) p. 114-5.)
Of course, looking backward, it is not a problem that better new paradigms can falsify and obviate older inferior ones. So long as I am in possession of a never-to-be outstripped point of view, I can without fear of contradiction identify reality itself with my model of it. But this view is inconsistent with what a study of the history of science tells us about science itself. It used to be the black mark against positivism--sometimes called "scientism"--that it was a philosophical stance toward science that placed a philosophical stance toward science out of bounds (i.e., that science marked the boundary of the meaningful). This new scientism is inconsistent with the history of science. It places the supposed boundary of meaningful inquiry at the boundary of today's scientific models. One would hope for better from the likes of Hawking.
Nevertheless, the core point of the book is not affected by this almost incredibly ironic philosophical naivete, which will prove the book's downfall. That point, again, is that an informed understanding of the new, quantum-based physics closes off any need to posit a reason for the origin of the cosmos that comes from outside the scientific model itself.
So it is important to note the philosophical naivete employed in the book, because it exposes the importance of examining the (rash) claims that Hawking and Mlodinow make in dismissing philosophical arguments, to their immediate discredit (and ultimate demise). But an account of the new quantum-based physics' challenge to traditional views of the relationship of natural theology to science is both interesting and important, and I want to voice my appreciation for the clear challenge THE GRAND DESIGN poses.
I hope to do a creditable job of depicting the core argument found in THE GRAND DESIGN in coming posts. Most of us can learn much from the Hawking/Mlodinow narrative--I have, at least. And in saying so I intend to express my trust in their depiction of the new quantum-based physics and how the model of the cosmos it provides affects an analysis of the cosmological argument--that supposed last stand for the philosophical theologian.
Next week we will look at an overview of the Hawking/Mlodinow argument.
[Note: I will not be enabling comments. However, I will pose any substantive question or challenge that I get via email: Tracy.Witham@gmail.com.]
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Note to Readers
I look forward to sharing a few things via this blog, probably starting again next fall. A partial list:
1. I discovered that the argument from Augustine's Confessions, that I shared last fall here, appears to not just avoid but turn the tables on critics of the cosmological argument in the form that harks back to St. Thomas' "Five Ways." I've reformulated the argument to take advantage of that and sent it to a journal for review. If I don't find a journal to publish it, I'll post it here, and if I do, I'll ask permission to do so.
2. I'm learning some things as I attempt to share my love of theology and philosophy with my 16-year-old son. Since this blog started because I wanted to share a piece I wrote with him in mind, it would be fitting to also share what I am learning by way of my ongoing attempts...
3. I'd like to share some of the challenges and thoughts I've had as I re-engage with a local church community.
Finally, I disabled the comments after it became clear that on-line parasites like to use (seemingly) abandoned blog comment areas for their purposes. If you want to contact me about this blog, you can email me at Tracy.Witham@gmail.com. Please put "blog' in the title line.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Being Wrong about Being Right and the Mystery of Being
Clearly St. Thomas was correct to stress the importance of teaching a subject "according to the order of the subject matter." I have soberly quoted that remark from the Prologue to the Summa Theologica before, and before I go on, let me stress that I have tremendous respect for the Saint's work, even where I think he got it wrong. That said, a funny thought occurred to me this morning. Theology may well be the most disputed "subject" of all time! How then can one be sure that one's own point of view is the right one with respect to God? Now, I'm well aware of how St. Thomas ordered his theology--he began with positions on theology as a science and then went directly to his famous "Five Ways" (of proving God's existence), followed by arguments establishing God's simplicity, infinity, goodness, and so on.
Well, it certainly was not for lack of effort, but neither in his time or any time since has St. Thomas' views on theology caused widespread agreement on the subject. That's a cheap shot, in the sense that his views deserve respect--and I do respect them--but it nevertheless needs to be made: What's the use of teaching theology if it never clears up anything--at least beyond the mind of the person who espouses the view? It would be foolish not to ask that question.
That spurred this further thought. Perhaps it is inherent in the subject of "God" that there cannot be agreement, for this reason: God is a mystery. Certainly St. Thomas would have endorsed that: "...[humanity] is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of[its] reason." (ST, I,I,I.) His theology--this most reasoned of theologies--is an ordered dance around a subject that cannot ever, really, be known. Real agreement requires a subject that is known and thereby supplies the substance of what is agreed.
Augustine's argument from the Confessions that we looked at, in a couple of versions in past posts, takes this a step further. What is "always before" has never entered into time (for those of you who are not practiced in such abstractions, if it had, it could not be before each and every moment of time, from everlasting to everlasting, if necessary). And what does not enter time does not enter human understanding--for reasons outlined in the argument in previous posts. Because Augustine sets up his understanding of how God's relationship with creation is to be understood in light of this point of view, he essentially makes mystery the starting point of his understanding of theology.
If you like irony or paradox, that's a fine instance of both. It's the same as what we noted for St. Thomas; just arrived at a bit differently. The genius of Augustine, however, is evident in that he shows that our understanding of this world implies a real mystery beyond it as its source. He thereby arrives at what everyone has always called God by arriving at a mystery beyond our understanding. What we know is grounded in what we cannot know. Now that's REAL paradox!
It brings us right back to our opening thoughts, only with a vengeance: How can we be "right" about our musings on "mystery?" It seems incoherent, and I believe it actually is.
If I had to pick the prototype for biblical revelation, the giving of the Ten Commandments would be my choice. And as soon as that is stated, we are confronted with the prohibitions on the making of false gods and of having any gods before God. Surely it is odd to think of making something we can't understand. I think that's the point. The act of making and the fact of being false are inextricably tied with respect to God. Mystery cannot be represented. Beyond that, the Creator cannot be created. At least, the Creator conceived as the mystery that is "always before," and so cannot enter time as a creature cannot be created. These thoughts are not theology as neology; it's as old as the Bible.
Consequently, all true biblical theology is negative theology. Negative theology is the background to Job, chronologically the first book of the Bible. It tells us what we cannot know about God. Smug conceit about God is not just wrong, it's idolatrous. Moreover, avoiding this heresy of biblical heresies--idolatrous conceit about God--ought to be the starting point for any thinking about God.
There, I've said it. We have a starting point now, and I hope you will believe me when I say it's called Christianity--at least when it's properly understood, which is very far from always being the case... I arrive at that claim with a quote from Paul Tillich, which is tied to my understanding of faith in the way the writer of Deuteronomy intended when he wrote that God's commands are to be tied to our hands:
"The criterion of the truth of faith...is that it implies an element of self-negation. That symbol is most adequate which expresses not only the ultimate but its own lack of ultimacy. Christianity expresses itself in such a symbol...namely, in the Cross of Christ. Jesus could not have been the Christ without sacrificing himself as Jesus to himself as the Christ. Any acceptance of Jesus as the Christ which is not the acceptance of Jesus the crucified is a form of idolatry." (Dynamics of Faith, 97-8.)
I believe that my analogy between my use of Tillich's words here and the writer of Deuteronomy's words is apt, in that the cross is the ultimate, the final, the core, the overriding revelation from a Christian standpoint, and Tillich makes the right case for understanding the cross as the final revelation: we sacrifice our right to create gods in our image when we understand what it means to have faith in God. And if we do not understand that, we do not understand God as both clear thinking and the biblical witness require us to: God is NOT what we would make God out to be. Again, that is idolatry, the core heresy of the biblical witness.
In a final point, this is tied also to the view that God is love. To think that I am right is to think that I have a standpoint against which others can be known to be wrong. From that point of epistemic privilege I can look down on others, who are not right. What better form of justification for treating others badly than to be right about ultimate truth over against which they are wrong?! There is no mystery about why religion and ideals generally are the source of much that is truly worst in human nature. But if I am looking at this question clearly, Christian faith--and I do not speak for or against the many religions I do not understand well enough to appreciate properly--ought to be the cure for that all too human illness.
To say that God is love is to say that I have no basis in the Great Mystery of being to critique you, only to love you as a fellow traveler in this world--this house for our mortality provided by that source of being that is always before us, but never understood, yet always implied in all our understanding.
I truly think Augustine and Tillich are good guides to helping us think as Christians. I think they point us to the correct starting point. But it is a starting point that ought to make us exceedingly humble about our approach to God. For though that starting point gives us more than enough for faith, we are mistaken if we think it gives us enough to judge others as wrong relative to our point of view. In that case we are wrong about being right, and the mystery of being convicts us of our conceit. There is no conceit in the Cross of Christ.
It might well have become obscured that I have been thinking about how to teach Christian faith to young people over the course of these last half dozen posts. In the comment to the last post I indicated that i would not be posting again for a couple of months. My failure to make the point of this post, about the incompatibility of conceit and Christian faith, made it imperative for me to do so. In fact, as I hope is now clear, the starting point in teaching Christian faith should be precisely that.
This may well be my final post, ever, in that once one has made the most important point, it seems rather pointless to continue. And in terms of the purpose of this little blog, it is to get a few people thinking about this crucial topic, which I will state once more: how do we teach Christian faith to young people. There are few topics more important in the minds of my Christian friends, I would think.
Best wishes for Christmas and the holidays!
Well, it certainly was not for lack of effort, but neither in his time or any time since has St. Thomas' views on theology caused widespread agreement on the subject. That's a cheap shot, in the sense that his views deserve respect--and I do respect them--but it nevertheless needs to be made: What's the use of teaching theology if it never clears up anything--at least beyond the mind of the person who espouses the view? It would be foolish not to ask that question.
That spurred this further thought. Perhaps it is inherent in the subject of "God" that there cannot be agreement, for this reason: God is a mystery. Certainly St. Thomas would have endorsed that: "...[humanity] is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of[its] reason." (ST, I,I,I.) His theology--this most reasoned of theologies--is an ordered dance around a subject that cannot ever, really, be known. Real agreement requires a subject that is known and thereby supplies the substance of what is agreed.
Augustine's argument from the Confessions that we looked at, in a couple of versions in past posts, takes this a step further. What is "always before" has never entered into time (for those of you who are not practiced in such abstractions, if it had, it could not be before each and every moment of time, from everlasting to everlasting, if necessary). And what does not enter time does not enter human understanding--for reasons outlined in the argument in previous posts. Because Augustine sets up his understanding of how God's relationship with creation is to be understood in light of this point of view, he essentially makes mystery the starting point of his understanding of theology.
If you like irony or paradox, that's a fine instance of both. It's the same as what we noted for St. Thomas; just arrived at a bit differently. The genius of Augustine, however, is evident in that he shows that our understanding of this world implies a real mystery beyond it as its source. He thereby arrives at what everyone has always called God by arriving at a mystery beyond our understanding. What we know is grounded in what we cannot know. Now that's REAL paradox!
It brings us right back to our opening thoughts, only with a vengeance: How can we be "right" about our musings on "mystery?" It seems incoherent, and I believe it actually is.
If I had to pick the prototype for biblical revelation, the giving of the Ten Commandments would be my choice. And as soon as that is stated, we are confronted with the prohibitions on the making of false gods and of having any gods before God. Surely it is odd to think of making something we can't understand. I think that's the point. The act of making and the fact of being false are inextricably tied with respect to God. Mystery cannot be represented. Beyond that, the Creator cannot be created. At least, the Creator conceived as the mystery that is "always before," and so cannot enter time as a creature cannot be created. These thoughts are not theology as neology; it's as old as the Bible.
Consequently, all true biblical theology is negative theology. Negative theology is the background to Job, chronologically the first book of the Bible. It tells us what we cannot know about God. Smug conceit about God is not just wrong, it's idolatrous. Moreover, avoiding this heresy of biblical heresies--idolatrous conceit about God--ought to be the starting point for any thinking about God.
There, I've said it. We have a starting point now, and I hope you will believe me when I say it's called Christianity--at least when it's properly understood, which is very far from always being the case... I arrive at that claim with a quote from Paul Tillich, which is tied to my understanding of faith in the way the writer of Deuteronomy intended when he wrote that God's commands are to be tied to our hands:
"The criterion of the truth of faith...is that it implies an element of self-negation. That symbol is most adequate which expresses not only the ultimate but its own lack of ultimacy. Christianity expresses itself in such a symbol...namely, in the Cross of Christ. Jesus could not have been the Christ without sacrificing himself as Jesus to himself as the Christ. Any acceptance of Jesus as the Christ which is not the acceptance of Jesus the crucified is a form of idolatry." (Dynamics of Faith, 97-8.)
I believe that my analogy between my use of Tillich's words here and the writer of Deuteronomy's words is apt, in that the cross is the ultimate, the final, the core, the overriding revelation from a Christian standpoint, and Tillich makes the right case for understanding the cross as the final revelation: we sacrifice our right to create gods in our image when we understand what it means to have faith in God. And if we do not understand that, we do not understand God as both clear thinking and the biblical witness require us to: God is NOT what we would make God out to be. Again, that is idolatry, the core heresy of the biblical witness.
In a final point, this is tied also to the view that God is love. To think that I am right is to think that I have a standpoint against which others can be known to be wrong. From that point of epistemic privilege I can look down on others, who are not right. What better form of justification for treating others badly than to be right about ultimate truth over against which they are wrong?! There is no mystery about why religion and ideals generally are the source of much that is truly worst in human nature. But if I am looking at this question clearly, Christian faith--and I do not speak for or against the many religions I do not understand well enough to appreciate properly--ought to be the cure for that all too human illness.
To say that God is love is to say that I have no basis in the Great Mystery of being to critique you, only to love you as a fellow traveler in this world--this house for our mortality provided by that source of being that is always before us, but never understood, yet always implied in all our understanding.
I truly think Augustine and Tillich are good guides to helping us think as Christians. I think they point us to the correct starting point. But it is a starting point that ought to make us exceedingly humble about our approach to God. For though that starting point gives us more than enough for faith, we are mistaken if we think it gives us enough to judge others as wrong relative to our point of view. In that case we are wrong about being right, and the mystery of being convicts us of our conceit. There is no conceit in the Cross of Christ.
It might well have become obscured that I have been thinking about how to teach Christian faith to young people over the course of these last half dozen posts. In the comment to the last post I indicated that i would not be posting again for a couple of months. My failure to make the point of this post, about the incompatibility of conceit and Christian faith, made it imperative for me to do so. In fact, as I hope is now clear, the starting point in teaching Christian faith should be precisely that.
This may well be my final post, ever, in that once one has made the most important point, it seems rather pointless to continue. And in terms of the purpose of this little blog, it is to get a few people thinking about this crucial topic, which I will state once more: how do we teach Christian faith to young people. There are few topics more important in the minds of my Christian friends, I would think.
Best wishes for Christmas and the holidays!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Augustine's Lesson for Our Time
It's a familiar story. There are discrepancies between scripture and science; religious authorities claim scripture is true; scientific authorities claim science is true; and people who take the time to see which point of view squares with the best evidence side with science. It's the subtraction story.1
It's a story that has played a big part in my life, derailing my plans for seminary. We think of it as a story that began with the rise of science in Modernity. But in fact, it is not. It played out in the life of perhaps the most important post-canonical Christian thinker, Augustine. And it is chronicled in his most famous work, The Confessions of St. Augustine. How the much-needed lesson from Augustine's life for our time has been overlooked, I could only guess, and I'd rather look to the lesson directly.
If you've read the Confessions you know that Augustine had been a Manichaean. Comparing their writings with "true things which the philosophers have said about this created world," Augustine "could see the reason for what [science] said in calculation, in the order of time, and in the visible evidence..."2 In short, he took the time to see which view sided with the best evidence, and science won: the subtraction story.
An extended quote will be useful:
"What then was the point of this Manes writing on these subjects, which are not necessary for the learning of goodness and piety? ...all he achieved by his numerous statements on these matters was this: he was shown up by people who had an acccurate knowledge of them, and it was thus made perfectly plain how much reliance could be placed on his understanding... He certainly did not wish to be thought little of; for he made it his business to persuade people that the Holy Ghost..was personally and with plenary authority resident in himself. And so when he was caught out making false statements about the heavens and the stars and the movements of the sun and moon, even though these things are not an integral part of religious doctrine, yet it was clear enough that his presumption was sacrilegious: he was talking about things he did not know..."3
This directly prompted Augustine's decision to leave the Manichees. Yet it just as clearly applies to a large portion of the Church today, and it applied to some in the Church in Augustine's day. He continued:
"Now whenever I come across any Christian brother, whoever it may be, who is ignorant of these sciences and has mistaken views on them, I can listen to him patiently enough as he delivers his opinions. ...I cannot see that it does him any harm if he is ignorant about the situation or conditions of material objects [of no practical importance to him]. But it does do him harm if he imagines that this scientific knowledge is an integral part of the structure of the doctrine of piety, and then has the audacity to make overconfident assertions on subjects of which he knows nothing."4
In short, Augustine knew Christians who were doing the same foolish thing which drove him from Manichaeanism. The obvious question arises, why didn't he find it necessary to leave Christianity too? A portion of the quote above says it precisely: "...scientific knowledge [is not] an integral part of the structure of the doctrine of piety," in the case of Christian faith.
On first pass that seems right, and there's a simple way to show why. Believing as a Christian means believing in Christ, as portrayed in and understood through the gospels. But there is no science, modern or ancient, which is "integral" to the gospel narrative. On that "common sense" view, the subtraction story as the narrative of what modern science has made incredible about Christian belief has no traction--it is not integral to faith. Nothing needed can be subtracted by science. That was the gist of my insistence that a "worldview" cannot be Christian. If anything, being Christian means believing that worldviews are all broken.
But that will seem fascile to many. What about what history and philosophy have made incredible? To respond, there needs to be a deep rationale for the inconsistency of trying to subsume the gospel narrative to ANY temporally-mediated point of view.
I believe that giving us that deep insight was precisely what Augustine turned to at the end of the Confessions. He did not just draw the foolishness of trying to turn scripture into science to his reader's attention, he provided the deep rationale for why it is not just foolish, but impossible--for any right-thinking person.
That deep rationale is crucial for everyone whose understanding of Christian faith turns on the assumption that makes the subtraction story possible--which is to say, every Christian I know and all the critics of Christianity that I know of...
What Was God Doing?!
My guess is that second to the famous opening prayer of the Confession that the ancient joke Augustine tells in it is cited most often. "And now I have an answer to the man who says: 'What was God doing before He made heaven and earth?' Someone once, evading the force of this question, is said to have made the jesting reply: 'God was making hells for people who look too deeply into things.'"5 Of course, Augustine--and we along with him--would be the butts of that joke.
But I fear that the crucial point he sets up with it is usually missed:
"...if by 'heaven and earth' we mean 'every [being that is not eternal],' I boldly declare that: 'Before God made heaven and earth, He did not make anything.' For if He did, it could have been nothing else except [something not eternal]. And I wish I knew all those good and useful things which I want to know as clearly as I know this, that before there was any [being that is not eternal] there was no [being that is not eternal]."6 (Bracketed phrases replace "creature.")
Augustine's point is simple, but it's importance for theology and scriptural interpretation cannot be overstated: Since God is eternal, literally nothing that is "tensed" can apply to God. To make the most crucial and obvious connection, the "days" of God's creation cannot be literal days, in which case God would have acted in time and would not be eternal.
How do I know this for sure? Three compelling reasons:
1. Augustine said it: "...You call us to understand the Word who is God...the Word which is spoken eternally and by which all things are spoken eternally. For here it is not the case of first one thing being said and finished, then another thing so that all can be said: no, allo things are said together and eternally. Otherwise there would be already time and change, and not a true eternity..."7
2. Augustine both poked fun at and worried about those who disagree: "Some people, for example, when they read or hear the world which we are discussing ["God created"] think of God as though He were a kind of man or else some great force associated with an enormous mass, and they imagine that by some new and sudden decision He made heaven abnd earth... Such people are...feeble little creatures... ...[who stretch out] beyond the limits of the nest where you are nourishing [them], ...I fear that this poor creature will have a bad fall, and I pray, Lord God, that you will have pity and will not allow the passers-by to tread upon that unfledged nestling..."8 I quoted more than needed to make the point, so that it can sink in that anyone in the grips of the subtraction story will fit the description of Augustine's "poor creature," in that scientific/philosophical/historic accounts of "creation" can only threaten theological accounts when the work of God is conceived of temporally. It is clear that Augustine saw, and provided for a solution for, the present crisis 1,600 years ago. The prescience of his thought can also be seen in statements making it clear that there could be no space or time before God created them.
And 3. Augustine sets up the last three "Books" of the Confessions with the argument that was presented in the previous three posts--an argument demonstrating our dependence on eternity to understand time--and proceeded to an analysis of the first verse of the Bible in the last three chapters.
Some Final Comments
I am not sure that I would like Augustine, if I had been priviledged to meet him. He comes off as arrogant in the same way that Dawkins, for example, does. And the story he tells in the Confessions, if you have read it, is not flattering--and I am not referring to stealing apples from a neighbor. Worst of all to my sensibilities, his prayers are obsequious, whereas I cannot imagine an honest prayer that doesn't include a fair element of Job's "attitude." To my mind faith includes existential honesty, or it is absolutely false--that's my inner Sartre coming out.
That said, perhaps no one loved discovering the truth more that Augustine, and in that he is a wonderful model: We can only be happy "when, with no distractions to interpose themselves, [we] will find ...joy in that only truth by which things are true."8 For Augustine the beatific vision was the consumation of the love of truth. (And his prescience even here is amazing, if we take his solution to where "truth" is found to be, "in God": What was Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature if not an exhaustive search, ending in failure, for how to cash in the meaning of how the human mind "mirrors" nature? And what was Augustine's point, if not that human understanding cannot "cash out" the meaning of "God,"; ergo... "When we see these things...it is you who see in us."10)
The besetting sin of those of us who value truth on par with love is a tendency to be a jerk when dealing with--and Augustine's tendency comes out here--"feeble little creatures." But, in fairness, it appears that we--the Church--have played the part, intellectually. We need Augustine, and that seems plain, to extract ourselves form the subtraction story. More importantly, we need Augustine to correct our thinking about God.
I will stop here, though the entailments of Augustine's starting point for theology are exceedingly great. "See, Lord my God, how much I have written on these few words ["In the beginning God created..."]! Really how much! What strength of ours...would be enough to comment in this way on all your Scriptures!"11 I will stop here not only because I am no Augustine, but because I want to avoid obscuring the crucial starting point which Augustine set up for the Church. People who are not disposed to abstraction can be counted on to ask, "But what does that mean?" after having been given a starting point for subsequent thought. Augustine's point, his gift to us in our need today, is to have given us a solution to our present difficulty from which everything else follows. In short, it is a big gift. The Church would be foolish in the extreme not to take it.
NOTES:
1. Charles Taylor, from whom I borrowed the phrase, actually argues against "subtraction stories" in the sense I use it here. (A Secular Age (The Belknap Press, Cambridge, 2007) 22.) Taylor's project is to explain how ancient ways of experiencing life are replaced with modern, and he focuses on how new ways of understanding and living have changed human experience. In his view, simply put, to focus on the past is to mistakenly think that educated people today--allowing for exceptions--feel the change as loss. Surely Taylor is right to point out that a historical perspective that has moved away from earlier perspectives will not, by the very fact of having moved on, experience the past as "lost," since what is past is not present. (Yes, I take pleasure in reducing subtle points to simple truisms, but in my experience that can usually be done: hence, my "metaponderings.") But for institutions that cling to ancient perspectives--and people whose lives are dominated by them--Taylor's argument does not apply, while his phrase does, and aptly.
2. Confessions [Book 5, Chapter 3], tr. Warner (Mentor, New York, 1963) 93-4.
3. Ibid., 94-5 [Book 5, Chapter 5].
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., 265-6 [Book XI, Chapter 12].
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 262 [Book XI, Chapter 7].
8. Ibid., 308 [Book X!!, Chapter 27].
9. Ibid., 234 [Book X, Chapter 23].
10. Ibid., 345 [Book XIII, Chapter 31].
11. Ibid., 314 [Book XII, Chapter 32].
It's a story that has played a big part in my life, derailing my plans for seminary. We think of it as a story that began with the rise of science in Modernity. But in fact, it is not. It played out in the life of perhaps the most important post-canonical Christian thinker, Augustine. And it is chronicled in his most famous work, The Confessions of St. Augustine. How the much-needed lesson from Augustine's life for our time has been overlooked, I could only guess, and I'd rather look to the lesson directly.
If you've read the Confessions you know that Augustine had been a Manichaean. Comparing their writings with "true things which the philosophers have said about this created world," Augustine "could see the reason for what [science] said in calculation, in the order of time, and in the visible evidence..."2 In short, he took the time to see which view sided with the best evidence, and science won: the subtraction story.
An extended quote will be useful:
"What then was the point of this Manes writing on these subjects, which are not necessary for the learning of goodness and piety? ...all he achieved by his numerous statements on these matters was this: he was shown up by people who had an acccurate knowledge of them, and it was thus made perfectly plain how much reliance could be placed on his understanding... He certainly did not wish to be thought little of; for he made it his business to persuade people that the Holy Ghost..was personally and with plenary authority resident in himself. And so when he was caught out making false statements about the heavens and the stars and the movements of the sun and moon, even though these things are not an integral part of religious doctrine, yet it was clear enough that his presumption was sacrilegious: he was talking about things he did not know..."3
This directly prompted Augustine's decision to leave the Manichees. Yet it just as clearly applies to a large portion of the Church today, and it applied to some in the Church in Augustine's day. He continued:
"Now whenever I come across any Christian brother, whoever it may be, who is ignorant of these sciences and has mistaken views on them, I can listen to him patiently enough as he delivers his opinions. ...I cannot see that it does him any harm if he is ignorant about the situation or conditions of material objects [of no practical importance to him]. But it does do him harm if he imagines that this scientific knowledge is an integral part of the structure of the doctrine of piety, and then has the audacity to make overconfident assertions on subjects of which he knows nothing."4
In short, Augustine knew Christians who were doing the same foolish thing which drove him from Manichaeanism. The obvious question arises, why didn't he find it necessary to leave Christianity too? A portion of the quote above says it precisely: "...scientific knowledge [is not] an integral part of the structure of the doctrine of piety," in the case of Christian faith.
On first pass that seems right, and there's a simple way to show why. Believing as a Christian means believing in Christ, as portrayed in and understood through the gospels. But there is no science, modern or ancient, which is "integral" to the gospel narrative. On that "common sense" view, the subtraction story as the narrative of what modern science has made incredible about Christian belief has no traction--it is not integral to faith. Nothing needed can be subtracted by science. That was the gist of my insistence that a "worldview" cannot be Christian. If anything, being Christian means believing that worldviews are all broken.
But that will seem fascile to many. What about what history and philosophy have made incredible? To respond, there needs to be a deep rationale for the inconsistency of trying to subsume the gospel narrative to ANY temporally-mediated point of view.
I believe that giving us that deep insight was precisely what Augustine turned to at the end of the Confessions. He did not just draw the foolishness of trying to turn scripture into science to his reader's attention, he provided the deep rationale for why it is not just foolish, but impossible--for any right-thinking person.
That deep rationale is crucial for everyone whose understanding of Christian faith turns on the assumption that makes the subtraction story possible--which is to say, every Christian I know and all the critics of Christianity that I know of...
What Was God Doing?!
My guess is that second to the famous opening prayer of the Confession that the ancient joke Augustine tells in it is cited most often. "And now I have an answer to the man who says: 'What was God doing before He made heaven and earth?' Someone once, evading the force of this question, is said to have made the jesting reply: 'God was making hells for people who look too deeply into things.'"5 Of course, Augustine--and we along with him--would be the butts of that joke.
But I fear that the crucial point he sets up with it is usually missed:
"...if by 'heaven and earth' we mean 'every [being that is not eternal],' I boldly declare that: 'Before God made heaven and earth, He did not make anything.' For if He did, it could have been nothing else except [something not eternal]. And I wish I knew all those good and useful things which I want to know as clearly as I know this, that before there was any [being that is not eternal] there was no [being that is not eternal]."6 (Bracketed phrases replace "creature.")
Augustine's point is simple, but it's importance for theology and scriptural interpretation cannot be overstated: Since God is eternal, literally nothing that is "tensed" can apply to God. To make the most crucial and obvious connection, the "days" of God's creation cannot be literal days, in which case God would have acted in time and would not be eternal.
How do I know this for sure? Three compelling reasons:
1. Augustine said it: "...You call us to understand the Word who is God...the Word which is spoken eternally and by which all things are spoken eternally. For here it is not the case of first one thing being said and finished, then another thing so that all can be said: no, allo things are said together and eternally. Otherwise there would be already time and change, and not a true eternity..."7
2. Augustine both poked fun at and worried about those who disagree: "Some people, for example, when they read or hear the world which we are discussing ["God created"] think of God as though He were a kind of man or else some great force associated with an enormous mass, and they imagine that by some new and sudden decision He made heaven abnd earth... Such people are...feeble little creatures... ...[who stretch out] beyond the limits of the nest where you are nourishing [them], ...I fear that this poor creature will have a bad fall, and I pray, Lord God, that you will have pity and will not allow the passers-by to tread upon that unfledged nestling..."8 I quoted more than needed to make the point, so that it can sink in that anyone in the grips of the subtraction story will fit the description of Augustine's "poor creature," in that scientific/philosophical/historic accounts of "creation" can only threaten theological accounts when the work of God is conceived of temporally. It is clear that Augustine saw, and provided for a solution for, the present crisis 1,600 years ago. The prescience of his thought can also be seen in statements making it clear that there could be no space or time before God created them.
And 3. Augustine sets up the last three "Books" of the Confessions with the argument that was presented in the previous three posts--an argument demonstrating our dependence on eternity to understand time--and proceeded to an analysis of the first verse of the Bible in the last three chapters.
Some Final Comments
I am not sure that I would like Augustine, if I had been priviledged to meet him. He comes off as arrogant in the same way that Dawkins, for example, does. And the story he tells in the Confessions, if you have read it, is not flattering--and I am not referring to stealing apples from a neighbor. Worst of all to my sensibilities, his prayers are obsequious, whereas I cannot imagine an honest prayer that doesn't include a fair element of Job's "attitude." To my mind faith includes existential honesty, or it is absolutely false--that's my inner Sartre coming out.
That said, perhaps no one loved discovering the truth more that Augustine, and in that he is a wonderful model: We can only be happy "when, with no distractions to interpose themselves, [we] will find ...joy in that only truth by which things are true."8 For Augustine the beatific vision was the consumation of the love of truth. (And his prescience even here is amazing, if we take his solution to where "truth" is found to be, "in God": What was Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature if not an exhaustive search, ending in failure, for how to cash in the meaning of how the human mind "mirrors" nature? And what was Augustine's point, if not that human understanding cannot "cash out" the meaning of "God,"; ergo... "When we see these things...it is you who see in us."10)
The besetting sin of those of us who value truth on par with love is a tendency to be a jerk when dealing with--and Augustine's tendency comes out here--"feeble little creatures." But, in fairness, it appears that we--the Church--have played the part, intellectually. We need Augustine, and that seems plain, to extract ourselves form the subtraction story. More importantly, we need Augustine to correct our thinking about God.
I will stop here, though the entailments of Augustine's starting point for theology are exceedingly great. "See, Lord my God, how much I have written on these few words ["In the beginning God created..."]! Really how much! What strength of ours...would be enough to comment in this way on all your Scriptures!"11 I will stop here not only because I am no Augustine, but because I want to avoid obscuring the crucial starting point which Augustine set up for the Church. People who are not disposed to abstraction can be counted on to ask, "But what does that mean?" after having been given a starting point for subsequent thought. Augustine's point, his gift to us in our need today, is to have given us a solution to our present difficulty from which everything else follows. In short, it is a big gift. The Church would be foolish in the extreme not to take it.
NOTES:
1. Charles Taylor, from whom I borrowed the phrase, actually argues against "subtraction stories" in the sense I use it here. (A Secular Age (The Belknap Press, Cambridge, 2007) 22.) Taylor's project is to explain how ancient ways of experiencing life are replaced with modern, and he focuses on how new ways of understanding and living have changed human experience. In his view, simply put, to focus on the past is to mistakenly think that educated people today--allowing for exceptions--feel the change as loss. Surely Taylor is right to point out that a historical perspective that has moved away from earlier perspectives will not, by the very fact of having moved on, experience the past as "lost," since what is past is not present. (Yes, I take pleasure in reducing subtle points to simple truisms, but in my experience that can usually be done: hence, my "metaponderings.") But for institutions that cling to ancient perspectives--and people whose lives are dominated by them--Taylor's argument does not apply, while his phrase does, and aptly.
2. Confessions [Book 5, Chapter 3], tr. Warner (Mentor, New York, 1963) 93-4.
3. Ibid., 94-5 [Book 5, Chapter 5].
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., 265-6 [Book XI, Chapter 12].
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 262 [Book XI, Chapter 7].
8. Ibid., 308 [Book X!!, Chapter 27].
9. Ibid., 234 [Book X, Chapter 23].
10. Ibid., 345 [Book XIII, Chapter 31].
11. Ibid., 314 [Book XII, Chapter 32].
Friday, November 20, 2009
3rd Objection before Augustine's Lesson for Our Time
If there is an objection one can expect from philosophical naturalists to an argument for the existence1 of God, it would be very foolish to put that argument where those philosophically opposed to theism are going to read it--unless the reply to the objection makes the argument look stronger. That's the case with the argument from science for the existence of God that I posted in the comments on the Templeton Big Question site. But I am sorry to say that the site seems to no longer allow give and take among mere commenters. I don't blame them. The focus should be on the expert opinions. Nevertheless, it seems that I won't get to trot out this reply there, because, it seems the objection will not be forthcoming there. So I make the objection myself, so that I can trot out the reply here.
But first the rationale for focusing on Augustine's argument: It sets up a crucial lesson to be taken from his life, 1,600 years ago, for the life of the Church today. But that's for the next post. Here's the objection I so fervently want to reply to! (I'm calling it "Objection 3," since I already noted two others.)
Objection 3: No one needs to look outside what science tells us to find "being that has always been as the source of being for what is here now": it's called matter and energy, which are convertible.
Reply to Objection 3: "Matter" and "energy" are abstractions. That is, they are placeholders for a variety of forms and states. Hats and dogs and stars and cars and photons and singularities at the origin of a cosmos are all instances of matter and energy instantiated, together, in one form or another. Furthermore, the best current understanding is that these varying forms do not range over an absolute universe of possibilities. The fundamentals of the universe were forged in a singularity of near-superlative improbability. In Augustine's delightfully simple words: "See, there are the heaven and the earth. They cry aloud that they were created; for they change and vary. Whereas anything which...[has always been] cannot have anything in it that was not there before."2 But what is "always there before" does not enter into time, as it has no tense. Eternity is assumed in temporality, and a consideration of matter and energy simply drives the point home.
NOTES:
1. Peirce was clearly technically correct in holding that we should speak of God's "reality," rather than "existence"; it's just easier to fold to custom.
2. Confessions, Tr. Warner, Bk. 11, Ch. 4.
But first the rationale for focusing on Augustine's argument: It sets up a crucial lesson to be taken from his life, 1,600 years ago, for the life of the Church today. But that's for the next post. Here's the objection I so fervently want to reply to! (I'm calling it "Objection 3," since I already noted two others.)
Objection 3: No one needs to look outside what science tells us to find "being that has always been as the source of being for what is here now": it's called matter and energy, which are convertible.
Reply to Objection 3: "Matter" and "energy" are abstractions. That is, they are placeholders for a variety of forms and states. Hats and dogs and stars and cars and photons and singularities at the origin of a cosmos are all instances of matter and energy instantiated, together, in one form or another. Furthermore, the best current understanding is that these varying forms do not range over an absolute universe of possibilities. The fundamentals of the universe were forged in a singularity of near-superlative improbability. In Augustine's delightfully simple words: "See, there are the heaven and the earth. They cry aloud that they were created; for they change and vary. Whereas anything which...[has always been] cannot have anything in it that was not there before."2 But what is "always there before" does not enter into time, as it has no tense. Eternity is assumed in temporality, and a consideration of matter and energy simply drives the point home.
NOTES:
1. Peirce was clearly technically correct in holding that we should speak of God's "reality," rather than "existence"; it's just easier to fold to custom.
2. Confessions, Tr. Warner, Bk. 11, Ch. 4.
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