Cynthia Nielsen a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Dallas has begun what looks to be an interesting series on G. C. Berkouwer and the Reformer's understanding of human freedom. Keeping my eye on these posts.
Break the box and shed the nard;
Stop not now to count the cost;
Hither bring pearl, opal, sard;
Reck not what the poor have lost;
Upon Christ throw all away;
Know ye, this is Easter Day.
Build His Church and deck His shrine,
Empty though it be on earth;
Ye have kept your choicest wine –
Let it flow for heavenly mirth;
Pluck the harp and breathe the horn:
Know ye not ‘tis Easter morn?
Gather gladness from the skies;
Take a lesson from the ground;
Flowers do ope their heavenward eyes
And Spring-time joy have found;
Earth throws Winter’s robes away,
Decks herself for Easter Day.
Beauty now for ashes wear,
Perfumes for the garb of woe,
Chaplets for disheveled hair,
Dances for sad footsteps slow;
Open wide your hearts that they
Let in joy this Easter Day.
Seek God’s house in happy throng;
Crowded let His table be;
Mingle praises, prayer, and song,
Singing to the Trinity.
Henceforth let your souls always
Make each morn an Easter Day.
Easter, by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89)
Natural Theology
Modern theologians lingering under the shadow of Immanuel Kant remain deeply suspicious of Thomas’ arguments for natural theology seeing it as some sort of "foundationalist rationalism" that makes room for something like neutral common ground between the believer and the skeptic. After Kant’s "Copernican revolution," arguments for God’s existence appealed either to sheer revelation (e.g., Karl Barth) or from the inferred ethical imperative inscribed in our collective rationality (e.g., Theological Liberalism).
Kerr makes the interesting observation that brining Aquinas’ arguments for natural theology into this context creates a sort of anachronistic misuse of the "Angelic Doctor." We are reminded that before any philosophical discussion of generic divine causality begins, Aquinas is always already immersed in the Psalms, the Wisdom books of the Old Testament, and the Church Fathers where the divine presence is evident and the assumption that this world reveals the glory of God is already given. Kerr notes:
"[T]he challenge for Thomas is never to prove God’s existence, as if there is any doubt about that. His main concern is to disprove polytheism (ST 1.11.3, citing Deuteronomy 6:4: 'Behold, Israel, the Lord thy God is one God') and to deal with the perennial temptations, for Christians also, of thinking of God as a special sort of creature (ST 1.3), emphasizing divine immanence at the expense of transcendence, or vice versa (ST 1.8-9). The question was not whether there is a god; it was about which god, and whose god, once it was clear that there is only one.Sort of makes Aquinas sound a bit more Van Tilian than our Reformed Doktorvaters have led us to believe.
Kerr contrasts the Cartesian subjectivist-observing form of knowing with Aquinas’ objective-participant one. He writes:
On the Cartesian view we think of having a mind and being a person very much in terms of the ‘subject’, the ‘I’ as privileged and unified locus of self-consciousness, facing an array of objects out there (including other human beings) which one apprehends initially in the images, impressions, sense data, or other representations of them which we make, or they force on us. …I find this particularly "mind-stretching." I have always taken up thoughts on epistemology with a sort of subjectivist position as default. I wonder if the "interpersonal" and "covenantal" direction that Dr. Meek suggests in her comments here are taken up in part by the fact that the model for knowing that she presents in Longing To Know is so dependant upon the seeing subject or first person perspective. For Meek, the knowing subject remains the sole active participant. With notions of "interpersonality" and "covenant," perhaps she recognizes the need to keep moving in a direction away from "default" Cartesianism.
In contrast [for Aquinas] instead of being objects out there, either opposing us blankly or inertly waiting for us to look at them, so to speak, in our first-person perspective, it is the world that has priority, in the sense that objects elicit and configure the powers of the soul (as Thomas would say): ‘With us, to understand is in a way to be passive’ (ST 1.79.2). …
In short, the difference between the prevailing modern conception of the self and that which we find in Thomas may be put in terms of a contrast between a ‘subjectivist-observing’ perspective and an ‘objective-participant’ one.
At the moment, I'm slowly working through this book and I thought I would try to post various quotes and thoughts prompted in my reading. Here's the first one.
Kerr finds that Barth’s “critique” of Cartesian certainty is already deeply rooted in Cartesian commitments. He writes:
“Rather than Cartesian reliance on the certainty of self-consciousness, Barth proposes sheer obedience to the authority of divine revelation. … It is because we believe in God that we believe in the existence of the world and of ourselves. Descartes did not go far enough. We can be certain of the ‘presupposition’ that we are real only because God has been revealed to us as our Creator. Neither Cartesian doubt nor Cartesian certainty goes anything like deep enough. But the question is whether by accepting the problem of the existence of the external world in these terms (presupposition, hypothesis, consciousness, the first person viewpoint, certainty and all the rest) – without the slightest protest or even under erasure – Barth has not conceded everything to Descartes already.” P. 26
“To have faith in the reality of the ‘external world’, as Heidegger contends, rests on the picture of the subject who is ‘worldless or unsure of its world’ – who must ‘at bottom, first assure itself of a world.’ One need not be a Heideggerian to think that Barth’s appeal to faith in God’s word as alone answering the demand for certainty about the existence of the external world remains locked into a Cartesian skepticism which needs philosophical treatment.” P. 26
This quote makes me wonder if Kerr would see Van Til running on the same Cartesian fumes as Barth? Is the problem less in the solution and in the supposed problem in the first place?
The idea of certainty and assurance is troubling to many Christians. In our scientificly oriented quest for apodictic certainty (Descartes anyone?), the "assurance of faith" (Heb. 10:22) seems anything but certain. While this is an issue that has perhaps always been raised among Christians (1 Johh 5:13), I think the historical and philosophical trajectories of the last 400 years have only added to the Christian's crisis of certainty. Attempts by Christians to overcome this dilemma tend to break apart along subjective and objective poles. Whether it's the "buring in my heart" of Mormonism or (to offer a more orthodox example) the "inner peace" of popular evangelicalism, a subjective-dominant approach has been taken by many. At the same time, though, many are drawn to "apologetics," systematic theology, and the like and yet fail to recognize that a mirror image quest for comfort and assurance is driving them as well. All you have to do is observe some internet theological "chat-rooms" and observe how some will use (read="cling to") their confession like a child uses a security blanket or little doll. Just watch how vicious a Presbyterian will suddenly become when someone threatens to take away their "dolly."
Now, my concern isn't to pilory excessive pietism or play down the importance of theology. What needs to be remembered is that knowing, trusting, and being assured are a very human "forms of life" (to borrow a phrase from Wittgenstein); in other words they display truths that are very basic to what it means to be a creature created in the image of God.
John Frame notes that the theologian Cornelius Van Til was always quick to point out that God is an "absolute personality." He is both beyond our comprehending (absolute) and yet truly known (personality). Our tendency is to privilege one at the expense of the other, leading to notions of transcendence without immanence (i.e. irrationalism) or immanence without transcendence (i.e. rationalism). But what this tells us about ourselves is that knowledge and assurance can likewise be distorted.
What Dr. Esther Lightcap Meek provides in her book Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People is an attempt to overcome this dualistic impasse by considering how ordinary knowing works. She investigates how it is that we come to know and trust our auto mechanic and asks if knowing and trusting God is really all that different. I think we want to say it's different because the stakes are much higher; but is it really all that different? Meek draws from philosopher Michael Polanyi's work, taking steps similar to that of Leslie Newbigin, to describe human knowing as the profoundly human struggle to rely on clues to focus on a pattern, to which we submit as a token of reality.
Now it appears as though the conversation she began with this book is leading her to another book. In this forthcomming work, it appears as though she is turning her attention to what she calls the interpersonal and covenantal dynamics of human knowing. You can get a sense of where she is going in this recent online article in Comment. I find this especially interesting since "interpersonal" and "covenantal" echo once again an important role given to the imago dei in our reflection of human knowing.
