Are Theists Callous?

In a discussion at Debunking Christianity, a commenter wrote, of "theists" (exactly what was meant by the term was left unclear, so I'll assume it simply meant here those who intellectually believe the proposition that there is a God, and that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent):

They are as heartless as their alleged god, and the deaths of children being burned alive, don't trouble their beliefs in the slightest.

As someone who has been very critical of the project of theodicy, I am not entirely unsympathetic to the commenter's position. Theodicies themselves are very poor responses to actual instances of suffering. Those who are suffering are not likely to be comforted by a vigorous philosophical defense of a particular description of God. It is simply not helpful.

But, are theodicies intended to be responses to particular instances of suffering? Are they offered as the best response to this or that tragedy, in the moment of suffering? Despite my past wholesale attack on the ethics of theodicy, I don't think that they are. While - as someone who, though religious, does not believe in the traditional theistic description of God - I don't think theodicies work, in that they fail to reconcile that description of God with the existence of suffering; I also don't think that they are intended as pastoral responses to specific instances of suffering.

It would truly be callous, or, as the commenter put it, "heartless," for a theist to in fact be truly untroubled by "the deaths of children being burned alive." But, though theists maintain their belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent God, I don't think for a moment that they are, in fact, untroubled by specific instances of suffering. They may be quite troubled by children being burned alive in a church in Kenya, but that incident - tragic as it is - does not actually provide us with new information about the universe.

Any theist is already aware that we live in a universe in which it is possible that children could be burned alive in a church in Kenya. Any theist is already aware that such things in fact happen; they have happened, and will presumably continue to happen. This is not new information. As such, their beliefs must already account for the existence of such instances of extreme suffering. That their beliefs do not change after they become aware of yet another instance of acute suffering does not mean that they are not troubled by such instances of suffering. It simply means that such instances have already, presumably, been accounted for in their belief system. While I do not find their accounts for such instances persuasive, neither do I think that they should jettison their beliefs every time tragedy strikes, if in fact they find that their theodicies have sufficiently accounted for suffering in the world, reconciling it to a particular description of God.

At this point I think it would be instructive to note that there are in fact two very different problems of evil (or suffering, as some theodicies deny that suddering is, in fact, evil, or evidence of evil), though we often conflate them, as I think the commenter at Debunking Christianity may have done:

1. The philosophic problem of evil (or suffering), and

2. The existential problem of evil (or, again, suffering).

The philosophic (or, perhaps, logical) problem of evil is just what you might guess from its title, a philosophic/logical problem. It is to this problem that theodicies respond. This problem may be roughly rendered thusly:

The following propositions are logically inconsistent:

i. There is a God
ii. God is omnipotent
iii. God is omniscient
iv. God is benevolent
v. There is suffering/evil in the world.

That is, suffering is logically incompatible with the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good and loving God.

The existential problem of evil is a very different problem. It is a personal one, and may be rendered thusly:

The actual experience of suffering and evil creates conditions in which a person is less likely to believe in God.

New instances of suffering in the world participate in the existential problem of evil, in that they create conditions within which one's faith is challenged. But they are not necessarily relevant for the philosophic problem of evil, because they are simply not needed for it. Any suffering of any kind, at any point in history, already challenges the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God. If someone has then responded philosophically to past instances of suffering, or even to the abstract possibility of suffering, and reconciled it sufficiently for themselves to the existence of the traditional theistic description of God, new instances of suffering do not pose an additional philosophic problem. But they may create an existential one.

This distinction is instructive because it acknowledges that we are not purely rational beings. Our logical/philosophical responses to suffering are not our only responses. And, even those whose theistic beliefs are philosophically untroubled by particular instances of suffering (such as the church fire in Kenya) are not necessarily either heartless or callous. They may have a profound emotional response to such suffering. Their faith may even strengthen that emotional response, and help them shape a powerful practical response. But that doesn't mean that this new concrete instance of suffering provides them with new information that should make them jettison their previous beliefs on the spot.

Chuang Tzu's Butterfly Dream

[Note: While I usually prefer the Pinyin transliteration of Chinese to the Wade-Giles, here I am following the lead of Martin Palmer and using a modified version of Wade-Giles to transliterate Chinese names.]

I just fell back in love with one of my all-time favorite philosophy stories. Taoism, the ancient Chinese philosophic school, traces its roots back to three figures: Lao Tzu, Lieh Tzu, and Chuang Tzu (Tzu means "Master," so these names are formal titles, meaning essentially Master Lao, Master Lieh, and Master Chuang). Of these three, only one, Chuang Tzu, can be located in history.

Chuang Tzu was certainly born in the early fourth century BCE, sometime around 370, and probably died somewhere between 311 and 286 BCE. He was a hermit who quite often dressed the part. In The Great Transformation, Karen Armstrong writes that he "once visited the king of Wei dressed in a worn, patched gown, his shoes tied together with string." But despite is rough appearance and his refusal to conform to societal expectations, he cultivated a reputation as an exceedingly wise person.

Many of his teachings are preserved in The Book of Chuang Tzu, one of the classics of Taoist philosophy. In fact, he may have written much of the material himself. It was compiled and edited during his lifetime, which is exceptionally rare in the ancient world.

My favorite story in The Book of Chuang Tzu is the story of a dream. However, rather than offering my usually commentary on this story, I'm going to try something else. Here I am simply offering the story itself, as translated by Martin Palmer, along with a challenge. What, if anything, do you get out of this story? What do you think it is saying? Why do you think this story has survived for over 2300 years?

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, flitting around and enjoying myself. I had no idea I was Chuang Tzu. Then suddenly I woke up and was Chuang Tzu again. But I could not tell, had I been Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was now Chuang Tzu?

Some Words From Heraclitus

Some of you may remember my paper on Xenophanes' Critique of Religion. While I am not a huge fan of the ancient Greeks, I have studied them a bit, and have found some of them to be remarkable insightful - especially on the subject of religion. It seems that - despite the vast differences between the ancient world and our own, and the similarly vast differences between the many varied expressions of religion - not too much has changed in the last few thousand years, at least as far as the human search for meaning and the divine is concerned.

Recently my friend Aaron reminded me of Heraclitus. Not, of course, that I had forgotten that Heraclitus existed. But, it had been a long time since I had read anything on Heraclitus, and Aaron gave me the chance to crack open my ancient Greek philosophy texts and do a little reading.

Heraclitus is most famous for the comment that Aaron remembered,

It is not possible to step twice in the same river.

He was a contemporary of Pythagoras (roughly 571 - 497 BCE) and my beloved Xenophanes (roughly 570 - 478 BCE) about whom very little is known. He lived in Ephesus in the late sixth and/or early fifth century BCE, and was called by the ancients the "dark philosopher" as much for the mystery of his life as for any darkness in his thought.

In most college philosophy courses all of the pre-Socratic philosophers are lumped into a single group, and given a single problem: What is the underlying substance of the universe? They are then allowed a sentence or two, before they are swept under the primordial rug by Socrates and all that followed. In this paradigm, just as Thales (early sixth century BCE) is seen as the guy who said that everything is water and Anaximenes (mid sixth century BCE) is seen as the guy who said that everything is air, Heraclitus - along with being the "you can't step in the same river twice" dude - is seen as the guy who said that everything is fire.

If these kinds of metaphysical statements are taken literally, they appear quite absurd, even a little bit stupid. But they are not offered as scientific descriptions of the natural world. Rather, they are metaphors used to come to terms with the metaphysical make-up of the world. So, for Heraclitus to say that everything is fire, he is saying something much more subtle. He is pointing to the ever-changing nature of reality. His concept of fire, as such, is almost mystical, a metaphoric way to speak of some quasi-divine power in the universe, at work in all things, behind all activity and all matter.

But aside from saying that everything is fire, and that you can't step into the same river twice (two related claims, by the way, as they both point to a universe characterized by ceaseless change) he also had some good one-liners that survive to this day. He spoke brutally of both Homer and Hesiod, the twin giants of Greek mythology, saying things like:

Homer deserves to be thrown out of the contests and whipped...

and

The most popular teacher is Hesoid. Of him people think he knew most - he who did not even know day and night...

What is more interesting than these insults, however, is why he offers them. He said that Hesiod "did not even know day and night," but Hesiod, in Heraclitus' view, is by no means alone in that. Anyone who distinguishes between day and night, in Heraclitus' view, does not know them, for "they are one."

What is in opposition is in concert, and from what differs comes the most beautiful harmony.

Like the Taoists, then, he looks for what bridges dichotomies:

Immortals are mortal, mortals immortal, living each other's death, dying each other's life.

He also finds dichotomies where others might see a unity:

Sea is most pure and polluted water: for fishes, it is drinkable and salutary, but for [humans] undrinkable and deleterious.

He also shares in common with the Taoists a desire to redeem the "dark" things, that which has been identified as immoral, or scandalous:

To god all things are beautiful and good and just, but [humans] have supposed some things to be unjust, others just.

Similarly, he heaps scorn on what is revered:

The consecrations of the mysteries, as practiced among [humans], are unholy.

He can be seen as inverting the values of Greek culture and religion, seeing the value in that which has been stigmatized, while calling into question the value of that which has been revered. At the heart of this, perhaps, is a healthy appreciation of divine mystery and human foolishness:

[Humanity] is called childish compared with divinity, just as a [child] compared with a[n adult].

There is a great deal not to like in what remains of Heraclitus' thought. He despised commoners, and strove for (like many Greeks) a kind of excellence characterized by self-exalting fame. His thought not only justifies but even glorifies violence. But in both his inversion of conventional wisdom and in his appreciation for divine mystery - a mystery that transcends the conventional religion of his and any other day - there is much here that edifies.

Response to John W. Loftus' Why I'm An Atheist

As part of our email correspondence, John W. Loftus of Debunking Christianity graciously offered to send me a chapter from his book; the chapter titled Why I'm An Atheist. As a part of our conversation, I've been meaning to in some way respond to that chapter for a little over a week now. But, life keeps interrupting. I've had other projects - including work for my book-in-progress. I've joined the Christian Peace Bloggers blog-ring, and so have been exploring issues related to peace-making and non-violent resistance. And, of course, I've started back to school, working toward an MAR (Masters of Arts in Religion) at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

This weekend I've had to read seminary-related texts until my eyes bled, and by this afternoon I could take it no longer. So I've finally carved out a little bit of time in front of my computer, with the furnace blasting next to me and the washing machine chugging along in the room adjacent my basement office so that I can really concentrate - you know, focus, without any distractions. (Sometime sarcasm drips from my lips!)

Seriously, though the internal and external conditions may not be exactly right, and while I may not be able to give Loftus' work the attention it deserves, it is high time I made good on my promise to read and respond to this chapter from John's book. I've now read it a couple of times, and can honestly say that I am once again impressed with his writing.

I don't always like John's style or method. He can be very abrasive, confrontational. He often operates with the implicit understanding that ideas must wage war against each other, fighting to the death until a single set, the right set, stand alone as the winner. As the son of a lawyer I think I understand that mode of discourse, though it hasn't always been fruitful for me. My approach is, I hope, more cooperative, more conversational. That is, ideas that at first appear to contradict may have enough points in common that they can be seen as intellectual cousins; sharing enough to be able to, in many important cases agree, while deviating enough to offer interesting counterpoints to each other.

But underneath that important difference in approach, John and I share a great deal in common. Especially, at least in lip service, we share an understanding of the need for interpretive charity. I say "in lip service" because I'm sure both he and I deviate from our most charitable values from time to time, being only human. Also, I suspect, we both from time to time intentionally suspend our charity when confronted with what we individually consider to be the ridiculous. For me this happened most recently when I saw that a Creationist museum was being built in my home state. For John this happens most often when he is confronted with the uncritical arrogance of some Christians, who believe that they alone are in possession of some absolute truth, the content of which they have never critically engaged.

One thing that I really like about John W. Loftus is reflected in the chapter of his book that he sent me - his realization that people change their religious views for both rational and non-rational reasons. Separating those twin sets of reasons can often be difficult, as our emotional state and our cultural, social, historical, environmental, biographical, etc. contexts shape the way in which we reason. We are not purely rational animals, though we exhibit rationality. Rather, our reasoning shapes and is shaped by so much that happens in and around us.

In this chapter as well as, I suspect, in the book as a whole, John W. Loftus explores as best as he is able all of the factors that led to his rejection of his former faith - both the conceptual and the more personal. He does his best to place the reader in his shoes, setting the stage for his final affirmation of atheism (and his affirmation of atheism is much more than just a rejection of Christianity).

The chapter begins after his rejection of Christianity. He describes that rejection as a "demolition," and I can certainly relate. The first noble truth of the Buddha has often be rendered in English "Life is suffering." While that translation is a limited and inaccurate one, the sentiment behind it is something that we can all relate to from time to time. Life is marred by suffering, and our suffering - our moments of intense, existential anguish - lead us to a place of demolition. Former views that provide no help or comfort in a trying moment are smashed by suffering, leaving only philosophic and theological rubble. Once cherished beliefs are swept away with the rest of the debris of our former mindset, a mindset that could not handle the explosive crisis of pain and doubt.

In the face of this rubble, John asks

But after the demolition is done, what could I now believe about how we got here on earth and why?

This question shows that John, like so many of us, asks principally metaphysical questions. This is a product of a model of faith as belief, and of a model of religion that is principally concerned with being able to articulate true statements about God and the nature of the universe, and with being able to convince others of the truth of those propositions. I say this not to criticize John, but simply to explain that I understand his current position as a product of both his intellectual honesty, and of his former position. He is fond of saying - and I suspect rightfully so - that he is basically the same person he was before he lost his faith. In my reading of him, John W. Loftus the atheist is a direct product of John W. Loftus the Christian apologist; and that both are in part a product of a particular model of the Christian religion - a model I have serious problems with.

The chapter then describes his search for answers to this fundamentally metaphysical question, moving through various kinds of almost post-Christian theology, including Deism, theological existentialism, and Process Theology. I use the phrase "post-Christian" theology not because I think than any of these theological positions are incompatible with the Christian faith, but because I suspect that John saw each of these modes of thinking about the nature of both God and the universe as almost "post-Christian" ways of looking at such theological and metaphysical questions. For him Christianity was a very tight set of propositions that, once challenged, fell apart. These ideas were, I suspect, ways in which he tried to rebuild the house of his faith on the rubble of his formerly systematic Christianity.

John W. Loftus was for a short time a devotee of John Hick, who he calls "arguably the most important philosopher of religion in the past century." He turned to Hick's Process Theology - a way of thinking that he has since described as a kind of "half-way house" between theism and atheism - to try to help him cling to what was left of his faith. As such, Hick is a very important figure for him. What both impressed and disturbed him about Hick was his willingness to accept criticisms of more traditional forms of Christianity, creating a more flexible kind of theology that adapted itself to a changing view of the world. He quotes from Hick's An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent:

The universe is religiously ambiguous in that it is possible to interpret it, intellectually and experientially, both religiously and naturalistically. The theistic and anti-theistic arguments are inconclusive, for the special evidences to which they appeal are also capable for being understood in terms of the contrary world-view. Further, the opposing sets of evidences cannot be given objectively quantifiable values.

This more phenomenological approach to religion - which accepts that our beliefs are shaped by our experiences, and that our experiences can be described multiple competing explanations - must have troubled someone who has long sought certainty. After exploring Hick's (and others') concept of a religiously ambiguous universe (and exploring both emotionally and rationally) Loftus writes:

Then the question hit me. Why is this universe religiously ambiguous capable of being interpreted in various rational and sometimes even mutually exclusive ways? Why does it all appear absurd when we approach it all with reason? Why must I resort to giving up on reason and punting to the view that I just don't know, or that it cannot be figured out rationally? Why?

The answer he arrived at was this: "[B]lind chancistic events cannot be figured out!"

This epiphany lies at the heart of his atheism, even though it often hides under the cumulative case against a particular understanding of Christianity. In the context of his rejection of Christianity, Loftus asserts that the universe is a mystery not because there is some cosmic Mystery, some mysterious divine nature at the heart of it all, but rather because the universe is the product of a series of random events, chance occurrences. Unguided. Thus the only world-view (to the extent that it can be called one) that he had left to turn to was atheism:

Atheism was a very unsettling conclusion to me, in one sense. It means that I have no hope in a resurrection, that I no longer have the hope that there is someone outside the space-time matrix who can help me in times of need, or give me any guidance. But one the other hand it's finally a conclusion. I now can believe something, and, as I've said, it's better over here. In one sense my intellectual journey is finally over. It's very relieving to reach a conclusion that I can partially defend.

I suspect that the biggest difference between John W. Loftus and me is that I am more comfortable with mystery. I don't mean that to imply that being comfortable with mystery is a virtue, or that needing to finally arrive at some solid conclusion is a vice. Rather, I say that to say that the biggest difference between the two of us is a psychological one, an existential one. It may also be a product of the very different forms of Christianity that we each inhabited. While I had a fundamentalist phase, and while I've read more than a few books that sought to systematically demonstrate that Christianity is a set of true propositions and that all else is false; John lived that version of the faith far more than I did. I was raised in a much more relativistic and pluralistic environments. So, emotionally speaking, that which threatened his faith can't touch mine. God is to me both a mystery and an experiential reality, not a set of true propositions.

That does not, however, mean that I am right, or that my faith is somehow superior to both his former faith and his current convictions. Simply put, I don't know that there is a God; I only know that I experience something that I call by that name. I know that my faith works for me, that my church nurtures me, and that my experience of God sustains me. These, however, do not prove the validity of any propositional truth-claims concerning them. But, unlike John, I'm OK with that.

In the end, for me belief is not the substance of faith; practice is. For me, faith is a way of life, not a set of demonstrable propositions. For John that simply isn't a satisfactory answer.

I suspect that there is still a great deal of room for dialogue between our two positions, especially as, absent claims about God, our world-views have so much in common. I appreciate reading what I have read about his intellectual and spiritual journey, even as I don't share his final conclusion, or the pressing need to even arrive at a final conclusion. And, I wonder what he would be like if he had inhabited a different Christianity from the modern bastardization of Christianity that has been so dominant in evangelical American circles. I bet he also wonders what I might be like if I had grown up an atheist. In either case, we'll never know.

As a personal note, I don't see people like John W. Loftus as "enemies of the faith." I see John as an honest and noble person, who wrestles with the same questions I wrestle with. The God that I experience is a God who accepts John as he is, knowing that John is a product of God, made in the divine image, with a bright, inquisitive mind, and an obsessive need to uncover the truth. In his quest John does each of us the service of keeping us honest, and should be thanked for that. Any faith that cannot withstand rigorous criticism is not true faith at all.

Nothing New Under the Sun

A few weeks ago my church did the most delightful thing. We are renovating the library, and are running out of room to store some of the older books. So, after church, for two weeks in a row, we held a book adoption. Hundreds of books were piled up on tables, with a sign that read "Free to a Good Home." So, in our fellowship time following the service, we ate donuts, drank coffee, and thumbed through a generation's worth of books.

I "adopted" two books, Theology in Reconstruction, by T.F. Torrance, and The Wisdom of Insecurity, by Alan W. Watts. All I know of Torrance is that he was Professor of Christian Dogmatics at the University of Edinburgh, and that this book is a collection of essays dating from 1960 to 1964. The book looked interesting, and the price was right. I haven't touched it yet.

Watts I knew a little more about. He was known as one of the intellectual forces behind the rise of Zen in America; the Beat philosopher. He shows up 7 times in Sean Murphy's wonderful One Bird, One Stone: 108 American Zen Stories, a favorite book of mine. I'd been meaning to read Watts ever since I first read about him, but hadn't seen one of his books before. That my church had one, and was giving it away, made my day.

Before developing an interest in Zen, Watts had been an Anglican priest. He brought a Christian theological background to his study of Buddhism, Chinese philosophy, and Indian philosophy - his two Masters degrees were in Divinity and Theology. In that respect, his interests, it seems, mirror my own. I was not prepared, however, for how closely his work mirrors my own - or vice versa.

Much of my theological work has centered on the "emptiness" of God concepts. That is, I make a sharp distinction between God as God and human ideas about God. Each human idea of God is fraught with problems, limitations, and even inconsistencies. This is because, I argue, our theological concepts are attempts after the fact to describe the divine-human encounter; an encounter with the person of God rather than propositions about God. Perhaps the best summations of this approach can be found in these posts:

Xenophanes' Critique of Religion

How the "Heart Sutra" Speaks to "Attachment" in Religion

and especially my more recent

On Knowing God

In fact, I am currently working on a book which in part expands and explores the religious epistemology offered in On Knowing God; an epistemology that is in turn the foundation for the model of religion offered in that in-progress book.

This approach is not entirely new or original, I know. In fact, one of the earliest Greek philosophers, Xenophanes, said something very much like it, as noted in a post linked above. But I was pretty sure that most of the ideas I've been developing are my own. My spiritual journey has been informed by a fusion of a Christian background and a Buddhist approach, a fact which makes me - I thought - relatively unique among Christian theologians (to the extent that I can be called one). Yes, Marcus Borg and I have a great deal in common, and his work has influenced me greatly, helping keep me connected to my Christian heritage. But, because I am so familiar with Borg's work, I can keep from ripping it off without at least offering due credit.

However, I started reading Alan Watts' The Wisdom of Insecurity this morning, and it has been like reading myself. Since he died six years before I was born, his use of language is very different from mine - he doesn't even attempt to be gender inclusive. But the ideas couched in the language, and perhaps even the experiences that gave rise to the ideas, are very similar. If what I've read so far - about 40 pages or so - is an accurate representation, both our philosophies and psychologies or religion are almost identical.

This has been a little unnerving. I know that, as Ecclesiastes says, there is nothing new under the sun. I know that it is only vanity that expects to be original. But still, now I wonder, given that what I've read of The Wisdom of Insecurity - published in 1951 - is basically the same as the book I've been working on, if I don't have to totally revisit my book idea. At the very least, I suspect, I have to read a great deal more of Watts to more fully understand where our paths intersect, so that I can keep from plagiarizing him on accident.

Anyway, here is a passage from The Wisdom of Insecurity that is almost exactly what I've been working on. I read it aloud to Tom, and he thought that I might have written it:

Surely it is old news that salvation comes only through the death of the human form of God. But it was not, perhaps, so easy to see that God's human form is not simply the historic Christ, but also the images, ideas, and beliefs in the Absolute to which man clings in his mind. Here is the full sense of the commandment, "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above... thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them."

To discover the ultimate Reality of life - the Absolute, the eternal God - you must cease to try to grasp it in the forms of idols. These idols are not just crude images, such as the mental picture of God as an old gentleman on a golden throne. They are our beliefs, our cherished preconceptions of the truth which block the unreserved opening of the mind and heart to reality. The legitimate use of images is to express truth, not to possess it.

Of course I would not speak of "man," but rather of "humanity," clinging to ideas about God. And, when quoting from the Ten Commandments I would probably use the JPS instead of the King James. But those differences are products of the more than fifty years that separate our work, rather than a fundamental difference in approach. The rest could just as easily been me.

This notion of concepts of God - when clung to, when understood as propositional truths rather than mythic/poetic metaphors - as idols, is a powerful and timely one. It is also at the heart of my own theology. It is, in my view, the greatest source of religious conflict, and perhaps the largest single cause of the culture wars. It is an attempt to pin God down, to capture an control the Sacred. And, to say the least, it is bad religion.

So, I'm going to read the rest of this book, and try to pick up anything else I can from Alan Watts. I need to see where he is taking us, because I fear it is exactly where I've been trying to go - and he got there half a century at least before me.

"Revisioning Health"

Right after I wrote my insufferably long and preachy post on health - really two posts in one, as I tackled both philosophic models of health and the health care system - the newest issue of Christian Reflection, the journal published by The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University arrived in my mailbox. The subject? Sure enough, it was health.

Better than that, the fist article in it, "Revisioning Healh" by James A. Marcum and Robert B. Kruschwitz, was specifically on philosophic/theological models of health. Their thesis was, very much like mine, related to comparing and contrasting what I called "pathological" and "holistic" models of health. However, their piece, as you might expect, was much better thought through, and is constantly in dialogue with both history and contemporary academic literature. In other words, unlike this blowhard blogger, these guys actually know what they're talking about.

What I called the pathological model of health they call the "biomedical model of medicine," but I suspect that we have the same set of ideas in mind. However, I think that they described this model much more succinctly, and, in doing so also managed to describe elements of this model that I left out. They noted both its exclusively negative nature, and its mechanistic approach. Here is what they have to say about it:

One of the reasons for the current crisis in the quality of our health ... is how contemporary medicine "envisions" health through a biomedical model. Patients get reduced to functioning machines, to complex golems made of their anatomical structures and molecular parts. And the focus of medical care becomes the treatment of disease, the fixing of a malfunctioning or broken body part. In the biomedical model, health is not a state of the whole person to be achieved and enhanced, it is simply a default state.

A little later they say:

The biomedical model of medicine, which lies behind the practices of most contemporary medical professionals, defines health in negative terms. Health is simply the absence of a disease entity (like a cancerous tumor) or the absence of the expression or detectible symptoms of a disease state (like the deep cough of pneumonia). It is, according to the first definition in the twenty-sixth edition of Stedman's Medical Dictionary "the state of an organism when it functions without evidence of disease or abnormality."

After exploring this model for a few more paragraphs they answer the question that may be on some of our minds: What's the problem with this? Why is this approach a bad, or at least flawed approach? After all, by focusing on functional problems in the body, it has, in fact, solved a great many of those problems, and promises to solve many more. Here is the problem, as they see it:

When the typical modern physician defines health as the absence of disease, she will address the disease state of her patient and, given the reductive clinical gaze, she usually will address only the specific diseased part of her patient. Her medical practice will ignore the whole person, especially the socioeconomic or cultural context in which the patient lives. She also will ignore or bracket the positive dimensions of health that are proactive in nature, such as exercising and proper nutrition. She will relegate instruction and care for these to other professional healthcare providers, and she may express no further concern for her patient's welfare.

The current notion of health is too myopic: it addresses only the amelioration of disease and pays no heed to the promotion of well-being or wholeness. In other words, it is basically inhumane because it does not encourage the development of patients' full potential vis-a-vis health.

Marcum and Kruschwitz then outline what they call "several recent attempts to humanize the biomedical model of medicine" which have "led to more expansive notions of health in terms of well-being and wholeness." You can find what they have to say here.

Cultivating Health

Perhaps the greatest concerns in our country today are related concerns: the state of this nation's health, and the health of our health care system. A compelling case, of course, could be made for the consumption of fossil fuels, a non-replenishable fuel source that emits the greenhouse gases that are linked to global warming and deepens our dependence on foreign oil - even oil which generates revenue for terrorists and those who support them. But as great as that concern is - and the threats posed by global warming and terrorism are nothing to sneeze at - our generally poor state of health, and the poor health of our health care system, may be even greater threats to our collective well-being.

Today, at least 44 million Americans have no health insurance coverage, and an additional at least 80 million Americans have inadequate coverage. Another at least 40 million - mostly students - have coverage for only part of the year. This means that over 160 million Americans have either no access or limited access to the kind of care that they need to maintain their health without risking financial ruin.

Additionally, due to basic lifestyle and dietary choices, we are on the brink of a health crisis. While it is true that many, many health indicators are on the rise - in the last hundred years the average life expectancy of an American has risen from 41 years to over 70 years and climbing; over the last fifty years, adjusted for population increase, death from heart disease is down 60% and death from stroke is down 70%; over the last twenty five years infant mortality is down 45%, to just 0.7% of live births; most occurrences of cancer have declined since their peak in the early 1990s, and cancer deaths have been declining by about 1% per year since 1993 - there are also a few disturbing trends. Obesity and diabetes have been steadily increasing, and if these trends are not abated they may create an epidemic.

Over the last two decades, the number of overweight children in the United States has more than doubled. In some areas of the country Type 2 diabetes - caused by lifestyle rather than genetics - has replaced Type 1 diabetes as the most common form in children. Coupled with the rise in obesity among adults, which isn't exactly news, this isn't promising. Not only are we fatter than we've ever been, our children are fatter than they've ever been, which, if not addressed, will lead to increasing problems.

The increase in obesity among both American adults and children, coupled with the attendant increase in other lifestyle related health problems, has put a tremendous strain on the health care system. As of 2003, we are spending roughly $75 billion per year on obesity related heath problems, with over half of that being paid for by the federal government. That is a tremendous, and preventable, expenditure, and it places a drain on the whole system.

Currently roughly 20% of the population account for roughly 80% of the health care costs. However, as more and more Americans grow fatter and fatter, they will join that 20% of the population and increase the drag on the system. So, while advances in medical technology have thus far dramatically increased the average life span and dramatically decreased instances of preventable death by heart disease and stroke, those advances will not be able to keep us artificially health forever. At some point we will have to face the fact that what we eat and how we live matter, and that no pill yet developed can allow us to eat whatever we want and sit on the couch without suffering some serious health consequences.

As a culture we have a generally pathological approach to health. That is, we assume a baseline measure of health, and see any deviation from that as a kind of disease that needs to be addressed, and addressed medically. This model has its advantages. It is often able to describe and improve our condition. I may have a certain baseline health, and then my body may be invaded by a virus or a bacteria, causing a disease. The pathological model of health is able to identify and attack that invading pathogen, and thus fight off the disease that prevents me from being as healthy as I could be. Or, I may be basically healthy, only to fall down and break my wrist. The pathological model is able to identify and treat my acute injury, and help restore function to my wounded limb.

However, there are limitations to this pathological model. While it is true that the invasion of pathogens or acute injury can be obstacles to health, they are not the only obstacles. And, even when they are obstacles, they are not best fought off only by medical intervention. Our bodies are magnificent organic systems, and medical science in only just scratching the surface in understanding them. And while drugs and other medical technologies help heal injury and fight off invasion, those tasks are also natural tasks, performed by the immune system.

Every time you take a drug there are both intended and unintended consequences. This is the nature of taking powerful chemicals into your body. These chemicals change things. Some changes, of course, are beneficial. Others, however, are not. These unintended medicinal consequences are often called "side effects," though perhaps the best term for them would be "collateral damage." In the fight against disease, sometime health is put at risk.

I am not arguing that we should not take medications. I fact, I am currently taking an asthma medication that may well be saving my life. For the past month my asthma, which I though was under control, has been kicking my ass. By the end of last week I could barely breath. I often wake up in the middle of the night fighting to force air into my lungs. If it weren't for a medication, a drug, a powerful chemical that I take into my system, I may find that I can't breath at all, and slowly die in the middle of the night.

Many, many medications work like this, preventing deaths which just a couple of generations ago could not have been prevented. But these medications do have consequences. My asthma medication, for instance, alters my heart rate. Over time it may even do some slight damage. That it keeps me breathing, of course, more than offsets this possibility, but it is still a possibility, and not a very pleasant one. That is the nature of taking drugs to fight off acute health problems.

And when we use drugs to solve problems that could be solved by other means - by a change in diet or lifestyle, for instance - then we accept unnecessary risk. Instead of cultivating health by helping to build up the immune system naturally, we take chemical short-cuts, not realizing that these short-cuts are expensive both in economic terms and in the terms of over-all health.

An entirely pathological health care model leads to an over-dependence on medical intervention, and as such fails to appreciate the maxim that, all else being equal, the least restrictive or least invasive intervention is best. By contrast, an organic or holistic health model - one that appreciates the interconnected nature of all bodily processes, and the value of building up natural defences and cultivating health, helps us appreciate that what we eat and how we live matters. The goal of such a model is, as stated in the description, cultivating health. It does not see health as a sort of baseline figure that is attacked by disease. Rather, it sees health as something that can be built up or torn down by the choices that we make.

Cultivating health - that is, engaging in behaviors which raise your over-all level of health - can help fight disease and injury in a much less restrictive or invasive way than most medical interventions. Of course, medical interventions are often necessary. While orange juice and other foods rich in vitamin C and anti-oxidants may help build the immune system to fight off basic colds, if you have bronchitis or pneumonia you would be foolish to think that a glass of OJ is a preferred treatment. And, while certain foods and behaviors may help reduce the risk of cancer, there is nothing you can eat or drink that will make much headway against a cancer after it has developed. And, again, while changing your diet may reduce you "bad" cholesterol level, if you have a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol - like, say, my grandmother - you may need to take a pill every day no matter what you eat.

A holistic health model should be held up next to a pathological model, because both models are useful, and both models both describe our experience and help solve concrete problems. And, no matter how healthy we become, no matter how well we cultivate our health, we will, each of us, at some point, get so sick that we need more drastic medical intervention. Basic health care will always be necessary.

And, in our country - despite having some of the best medical care and technology in the world - our health care system is failing. Not only do we, as outlined above, have a crisis of uninsured and underinsured persons that isn't going away any time soon; but we also have escalating costs associated with even the most basic health care. While some of this is due, as mentioned above, to increasing rates of obesity and lifestyle related diseases such as Type 2 diabetes (and I don't mean to sound unsupportive or unsympathetic of persons who struggle with their weight, their diet, and such lifestyle related illnesses - we live in a culture whose eating habits are dictated more by economic interests than by caloric needs or health impact, and that cultural environment shapes all of our habits), a great deal of this is due simply to overhead, to administrative costs.

While there is a basic belief among many in our country that the private sector is far, far more efficient that the government, a quick look at our health care system reveals that often the opposite is true. Administrative costs in an HMO, for instance, dwarf those of any federal program. About 4% of Medicare's expenses, for instance, are due to administrative costs. Many countries with a more socialized health care system have even lower administrative costs than that. Canada, for instance, spends only about 2% or less on administrative costs. If the private sector were, due to the demands of the free market system, far more efficient than the public sector, you would expect then that administrative costs in HMOs to be at 1.5% or less. However, contrary to public expectation, HMO administrative costs soar at over 30%. No government bureaucracy rivals, for sheer volume of obfuscation and raw paper work, that of a "well managed" HMO.

Because of this, I am throwing what little weight I have behind HR 676, a bill that would introduce a single payer health care system. This bill has the support of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, and much of the medical community. I will happily host a discussion on the merits of a single payer health care system (which is not the same as universal health coverage, as universal health coverage, while solving the problem of uninsured persons, does not solve the broader problems associated with our current system) in the comments section of this post.

As a nation we simply have to take control both of our health, and the health of our health care system.

[Note: statistics concerning obesity came from The National Obesity Society. Statisics concerning positive trends in overall health came from The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook. Statistics concerning the number of uninsured and underinsured Americans came from the United Methodist General Board on Global Ministries. Information was also taken from an editorial by the Louisville Courier Journal from Feb. 17, 2006, titled "Health Care: The Single Payer Vision," as well as from articles by Dr. Marcia Angell, and by David U. Himmelstein, MD and Steffie Woolhander, MD. All other statistics came from a presentation by Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care, who can be reached by calling (502) 459-3393.]

Can Enlightenment Be a Christian Concept?

I have written more than once about enlightenment, about the role of religion in enlightening people. But, generally when I and others speak of enlightenment, we have an Eastern and - at least in my case - generally Buddhist understanding of it. Enlightenment is a kind of sudden illumination, a flash of understand, a change in the way one sees the world, and everything in it. It is a transformative moment that stands at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of a long process of transformation.

I have written papers comparing and contrasting what Christians mean by salvation with what Buddhists and others mean by enlightenment; either implying or overtly stating that enlightenment more overtly belongs various non-Christian traditions, while salvation - by which I mean the workings of prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace in our lives - is the distinctly Christian concept that most closely parallels it.

In one such paper I argued that most religions are, at least in part, a human attempt to solve what I call the existential problem:

Many, most, and, perhaps all human beings have a deep-seated existential need to find some kind of “meaning” in life. Many, most, and, perhaps all people also have, related to that existential need, some kind of deep-seated feeling, often inarticulateable, that there is something “wrong.” This feeling, in the context of this quest for meaning, represents a kind of existential problem. An individual’s experience of religion, as well as the choices that an individual makes with regard to religion, may represent their way of “solving” that existential problem.

Each religion, in some way, offers up both a diagnosis of and a prescription for this problem. The diagnosis and prescription, while often offered in general terms, are expressions which are experienced, evaluated, internalized, and either accepted or rejected by the individual. One way, then, to compare and contrast, as well as evaluate the merits of various religious and spiritual expressions and traditions is to look at the way in which they diagnose and attempt to solve the basic individual human existential problem.

After outlining how both Christianity and Buddhism - in their various forms - "diagnose" and propose to "cure" this existential problem, I wrote, as an attempt to find some common ground between these very different approaches of Christian "salvation" and Buddhist "enlightenment":

But, the divide between East and West; the divide between Christianity and Buddhism, is not too great to bridge. That bridge is found in certain similarities between the Christian concept of salvation as a process (which includes Prevenient grace, Justification, and Sanctification) with a particular understanding of the Buddhist concept of enlightenment.

Just as Prevenient grace is said by the Methodists to “[awaken] in us an earnest longing for deliverance,” enlightenment is seen by Buddhists as a kind of awakening. The Buddha, after all, can mean “awakened one.” The concept of awakening, whether it is Christian or Buddhist, carries with it a notion that a big part of our problem is that we are asleep. We are dreaming. We are drifting through life without a conscious thought, without an awareness of our profound existential problem. We must be shaken from our slumber. Whether this is accomplished by the grace of God or an individual act of volition, we must awake. We must become awakened. Once we are awakened, we can become aware of our existential problem, which is fueled by our ignorance of its nature, and we can set out on the path to solving it.

Both salvation and enlightenment are processes. Sure there is, in each, a moment in which something happens. But that moment is not the only moment. And, whatever happens plays itself out in time. In time, and through time, our nature is transformed. In time and through time the conditions which gave rise to our existential problem are eliminated. This is gradual. It does not happen all at once.

and later:

Salvation and enlightenment do not, of course, describe the same thing. Salvation depends on an act of God, and concerns a soul, or a permanent self. Enlightenment does not depend on anything external, and occurs when one has a direct experience of the truth that there is no permanent self. But, both are ways in which people attempt to address their existential problem. Both are means by which the elimination of the conditions which give rise to suffering are supposed to be achieved. Both describe spiritual processes which aim to make life happier and more meaningful.

Looking back at what I've written in the past on both salvation and enlightenment, I can stand by everything that I've said. However, one assumption that lies beneath all of these words troubles me. The assumption is that "enlightenment," in some important way, stands outside the Christian tradition, or at least the language that we Christians traditionally use to describe our tradition.

This may be true in the realm of Christian theology, but a careful study of the teachings of Jesus reveals that enlightenment language was central to the mission of the one we call the Christ, the centerpiece of the Christian religion, the one who, in some important way, reveals to us the nature and concerns of God.

I'm currently working my way through Marcus Borg's newest book, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary. It is his most powerful work yet, and it constantly challenges my assumptions. In his section on the Wisdom teachings of Jesus Borg makes a familiar argument, that Jesus teaches a "narrow way" in contrast to the more conventional "broad way." Of the broad way Borg, in part in a challenge to preachers who are obsessed with conventional models of sin, writes:

Strikingly, it [the broad way that Jesus opposed - CB] was not the way of obvious wickedness - not the way of murder, stealing, extortion, brutality, abuse, corruption, and so forth. Though Jesus certainly didn't approve of these, they did not constitute the broad way. Indeed, the broad way was not even what people commonly think of as "sinful," as specific acts of disobedience to God (such as drunkenness, adultery, and so forth). The teaching of Jesus in this respect (as well as in many others) differs markedly from preaching that emphasizes the "hot sins," as some of today's evangelists do.

Rather, the broad way is the way most people live most of the time. It is not that most people are "wicked," but that most live lives structured by the conventions of their culture, by the taken-for-granted notions of what life is about and how to live, by what "everybody knows."

The "broad way," then, is the conventional way, the rote, thoughtless, mindless way. The uncritical way. The way that most of us sleepwalk through our lives. The way that can be disturbed, disrupted, broken up, by enlightenment.

Indeed, Borg sees enlightenment as not just the gift of Eastern philosophy to the world, but as central to the teachings of Jesus, if early Christian beliefs and teachings are any reflection of them.

Jesus clearly taught about blindness and sight; the blindness of conventional thought and the sight that God gives to the spiritually blind, allowing them to see everything in a new way. Of this Borg writes:

Blindness is a frequent metaphor in the teachings of Jesus. There are sighted people who are blind: "You have eyes but fail to see" (Mark 8.18; see also 4.12). Several sayings refer to this condition. As an itinerant oral teacher, he spoke most (and probably all) of these many times. Blind though sighted was a major theme of his message.

He spoke of the blind leading the blind, and the futility of doing so: "Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?" (Like 6.39; Matt. 15.14). The saying obviously refers to sighted people. There is a smaller group (those who guide) and a larger group (those they seek to guide). Those who guide are presumably teachers or leaders; it is difficult to imagine a different referent. They could be local teachers, leaders of other movements, or official leaders such as the temple authorities and their scribes/ teachers. They are called "blind." But blindness applies not only to them, but also to the ones they seek to guide. It is a widespread condition.

Jesus, and his teachings, are seen as a cure to this blindness, a way to illuminate our habitual and conventional darkness. They give new sight to the blind. Is this not what we generally mean by enlightenment?

While in the earliest days of Christianity Easter was the central religious holiday of the young faith - the most significant holy day - in our culture Christmas has supplanted it. And, while there are more cultural than religious reasons for this, Christmas is still a significant religious holiday. And, what is the central metaphor of Christmas: The illumination of our darkness with the coming of the Christ, the Light of the World. Images of light and darkness fill Christmas. They also fill the teachings of Jesus, and some of the earliest Christian teachings concerning Jesus.

While most scholars agree that the Gospel of John does not reflect the historical Jesus, it does reflect early Christian beliefs concerning Jesus. And, Borg writes, "enlightenment is central to John's gospel," saying:

John announces it [the centrality of enlightenment - CB] in the magnificent and thematic prologue to his gospel: Jesus is "the true light, which enlightens everyone," who "was coming into the world" (1.9). Our condition is blindness being "in the dark," unable to find a way. The solution is to regain our sight, to see again, to have our eyes opened, to come into the light, to be enlightened.

The subversiveness of this metaphor - and thus the power of enlightenment language in the Christian tradition - is lost in a society in which Christianity is often the conventional way of thinking, the rote, mindless path. This is perhaps one of the many reasons that we Christians cede all enlightenment language to other religious traditions.

But when Christianity reflects conventional wisdom, it stops being Christian if by "Christian" we mean the way of the Christ. Metaphors of enlightenment, metaphors of "waking up" from our deep slumber or of gaining sight, learning a new way to see, or of having our collective yet deeply personal darkness illuminated by the unconventional wisdom of God; these metaphors are central to our Christian faith, and essential to regaining the power of our spiritual tradition.

Enlightenment - both in the sense of awakening to a deep wisdom and in the sense of having our darkness illuminated so that we can finally truly see - is Christian. It is not just Christian, but it is a vital part of our Christian heritage, and should be a part of our Christian practice. We, as Christians, should not be afraid to talk about enlightenment. And, we, as Christians, should seek to become enlightened.

The Tao of Relationships

[note: This is one of the two papers mentioned here. At some point in the future I may post excerpts from the other one, or perhaps an edited version that isn't quite so long. Even I have my limits!]

While Western philosophy historically tends to be primarily theoretical, aiming to uncover the fundamental nature of things, Chinese philosophy is historically very practical. Rather than being concerned with a never-ending quest to discover the underlying substance of the universe, it simply seeks out how one should live. If Western philosophy is characterized by a search for Reality, then Chinese philosophy is characterized by an attempt to regain Harmony. If the determining factor of the validity of a Western philosophic system is its consistent adherence to Logic, then the validity of a Chinese philosophy is found in the way in which it impacts the lives of those who adhere to it.

Chinese philosophy, at its core, is concerned with the well-being of the individual, and the recovery of harmony in relationships. These relationships concern the dynamic interaction of people with other people; but they also concern the dynamic interaction between Heaven and Earth, as well as the interaction of humans with Heaven and with Earth. In all of these, both for the benefit of the organic whole as well as for the well-being of the individual, harmony must be regained and maintained.

Chinese philosophy is preoccupied with the quest for harmonizing relationships. In part this is because the Chinese culture has long understood that while we may experience life as individuals, no individual exists in isolation. No one is truly self-sufficient, and so any quest for happiness in life that does not primarily concern itself with bringing harmony to relationships is doomed to failure. Simply put, one cannot be fully content if one’s life is characterized by relational discord, either with other people or even with the natural environment.

The Taoist/Laoist school of Chinese philosophy is then, like all ancient schools of Chinese philosophy, concerned with harmonizing relationships. And while the main Taoist text, the Tao Te Ching may be interpreted in many ways, an interpretation of it which does not address the way in which it may be used to help bring harmony to relationships is, no matter how scholarly, incomplete. It is true that to read the Tao Te Ching as exclusively, or even primarily, a handbook for the relationally challenged does not do justice to the text. It is, after all, a very complex book with many levels of meaning. But, the fact remains that principles taken from the Tao Te Ching, when applied to relationships, even and especially in the modern West, can revolutionize the way that we interact with often infuriating loved ones.

Relationships, and, particularly committed, romantic relationships, can be both the source of a great deal of happiness as well as the biggest obstacle to true happiness. While it is often maintained that love and hate are opposites, it can truly be stated that in romance they exist side by side. Anyone who has been in love can testify that our experience of love is a complex bundle of emotions, often flying from ecstasy to infuriation in 5.2 seconds or less. Those for whom we care most deeply are, by virtue of the powerful emotional bond of love, the only people that can truly drive us insane.

This truth is not primarily a theoretical truth; it is practical, and experiential. But, the theoretical groundwork for it is laid in the Tao Te Ching (chapter 36 of Michael Lafargue’s translation), in the notion that the dynamic interaction of Yin and Yang (“the Two”) gave rise to the natural world (“the thousands of things”). This notion, along with many other Taoist notions, implies that nothing exists singularly; it is accompanied by an opposite. Strength and weakness arise together; if we do not know one we do not know the other. Knowledge and ignorance arise together; if we have no knowledge of one, we have no knowledge of the other. The same is true of all opposites – they arise in pairs. Good and bad, male and female, full and empty, hard and soft, movement and stillness; all of these are pairs of opposites who only appear together. If there is no knowledge of one, there is no knowledge of the other. The same is true of love and hate. It is hate that teaches us love, and love that teaches us hate. And, if we spend enough time with one we love, we will learn to hate them. If we spend enough time trying to understand one we hate, we will learn to love them.

And so the biggest obstacle to harmony in relationships might be our attempt to define love and hate as mutually exclusive opposites, instead of realizing the truth that they arise together out of the power of an emotional, relational bond. Rather, then, than seeing the moments that hate is manifest in loving relationships as static moments (and so defining the relationship as characterized by hate rather than love), we should appreciate the powerful, dynamic interaction of love and hate in our relationships as an integral part of the relationship. Hate can serve as evidence of love.

This is all well and good in theory, but, by being a theory it fails, so far, to be an embodiment of ancient Chinese philosophy. Chinese philosophy is pragmatic; any theory which cannot be acted on, or any theory that is harmful to act on, is a bad theory. Again, the value of a philosophy is not found in the beauty or logic of the theory, but rather in its practice. So, while it may be “true” to state that hate and love arise together as a pair of opposites, in what way does this knowledge affect our ability to relate to loved ones, and how can this knowledge be constructively applied to our relationships? I believe that other parts of the Tao Te Ching, while again not primarily concerned with interpersonal relationships, can shed some light on this. And so, at the risk of systematizing a book that is decidedly not systematic, I propose that there are a series of Taoist values that can help bring harmony to love/hate relationships.

The first such value concerns the individual. Simply put, the Tao Te Ching says, “Be yourself!” Act out of your own nature instead of trying to adapt yourself to externally imposed expectations. Chapter 11 of Lafargue’s translation sets up a kind of gradation of values; first Tao (Being itself), the Te (Being individualized in a person), and, from there, Goodness, Morality, and Etiquette. This implies that rather than conforming to society’s expectations (even though those expectations include Goodness, Morality and Etiquette); first and foremost one ought to simply Be. Do not allow who you are to be determined by something external to yourself. Do not allow yourself to be molded by “improvement plans.” If you are truly you, there is nothing wrong with you.

Knowledge of this brings security to relationships. Often the biggest source of conflict in a relationship can be one person in the relationship truly lacking their own identity. They seek to find their identity in the context of the relationship, by conforming to the expectation of another. The more they conform the more they realize that they are not really being themselves, and so they begin to resent the relationship, and their partner. Someone who is secure in their own identity does not need a relationship to define them. So, they will be able to approach the relationship as a whole, healthy person, and appreciate their partner as a whole, healthy person, without placing on them the burden of expectations, and without trying to conform them to their own plans.

This is the second Taoist value that applies to relationships. Just as you should be yourself, you should allow your partner to be themselves. Taoism is always suspicious of moral “improvement” projects. Your partner is not broken, and so they do not need to be fixed. Your partner is not deficient, and so does not need to be improved. Chapter 62 of Lafargue’s translation of the Tao Te Ching says that “The world is a spirit-thing, it can’t be ‘worked’ on,” a fact that, while probably intended to apply to the relationship between rulers and their subjects, easily transfers over to interpersonal relationships. That chapter goes on to say that “One who works ruins/ one who grasps loses.” In the context of a relationship, any attempt to “work on” your partner will not help the relationship. Any attempt to “improve” them will not improve the relationship. It will only undermine trust and communication, two keys to healthy relationships.

Of course, even in a committed, loving relationship between two people who are very much themselves, conflict is inevitable. The key to a healthy relationship, then, is not to try to eliminate conflict altogether (which is impossible), but rather to make sure that the conflict is not too destructive. In other words, in a relationship, don’t be afraid to fight (you’ll fight anyway); rather, when you fight, fight fairly. Chapter 8 of Lafargue’s translation says that “Sincere words are not elegant/ elegant words are not sincere./ Excellence is not winning arguments/ winning arguments is not excellent.” So often, because people are not secure in themselves, when they fight in their relationships, rather than fighting fairly and naturally they fight to manipulate and win. But manipulation (by the use of “elegant words”) only undermines trust, and it does no good to “win” a fight if, by doing so, you lose a relationship.

Just as conflict is inevitable in a relationship, so are problems. The most difficult task in life may be to live with another person, or to be constantly around another person. No matter how much you love that person, you will not always see eye to eye. You may do something to hurt them, or they may do something to hurt you (or, most likely, a combination of the two will occur), but, no matter what, things will not always go smoothly. So, finally, the Tao Te Ching teaches the universal truth that small problems are relatively easy to solve, but big problems are big trouble (Chapters 71 and 72 of Lafargue’s translation). The best “solutions” are the least drastic. To this end, communication is the key to problem solving. If something happens that bothers you, communicate your feelings to the other person. Do not blame them, or try to change them, but rather, simply and honestly present them with the “problem.” Then, through open and honest dialogue in which neither side tries to manipulate the other side, and neither person aims to win, you can, together, work out a simple solution.

Love and hate, like all opposites, according to the Tao Te Ching, arrive in pairs. Those you love, you hate. The key to a healthy relationship is to understand this. Understanding this, you can be free to be yourself, allow your partner to be themselves, fight fairly, and solve problems while they are still solvable. And, knowing this, you can resist the temptation to view the relationship as static. If you see your relationship as static, you will become dismayed when it, at times, tends toward hate. But, if you appreciate the dynamic interplay of love and hate you will no longer need to hold on to your expectations for the other person, and actually experience a healthy relationship.

On Knowing God

[note: While these ideas have been bouncing around in my head for more than a year and a half, the genesis of this post is a conversation at Habakkuk's Watchpost. Much of the material here is copied and pasted from my comments there. After I left those original comments at Habakkuk's Watchpost, the topic came up again at Guy Sonntag's blog As Light Excels Darkness, in a conversation about Anselm's ontological argument.]

I have written before about the ultimate impossibility of knowing anything about God. God is a mystery to us, beyond the bounds of our knowledge. Yet, as has been pointed out to me by many Christians and other theists - as well as non-theists (perhaps a better term than atheist), at the heart of my religion is the notion that God has been made known to us. If we are to take the Christian doctrine of Incarnation seriously, God is not just mysterious, but also revealed through the person of Jesus.

There is a great distance between those two claims:

1. God is mysterious, and as such the nature of God cannot be known, and

2. God has been made known to us through God's self-revelation, and especially in Jesus.

Our faith, then, teaches apparently contradictory things: the impossibility of knowing God, and the experiential and incarnational reality of knowing God.

Perhaps we can make sense of this by distinguishing between two kinds of knowledge, or two ways of "knowing God": personal, and propositional.

Propositional knowledge is, as you might guess, the set of knowable, true propositions concerning an object. When we speak of the mysterious, unknowable nature of God, I suspect what we really mean that we do not have access to this set of propositions concerning God.

And, perhaps, it doesn't even make sense to speak of such propositions concerning God, since propositional knowledge concerns an object, and it makes no sense to speak of God in any literal sense as an object.

So, it makes perfect sense to say that we can have no propositional knowledge concerning God. It makes perfect sense to say that we cannot make any true statements about the nature of God, since a true statement would be a part of the content of propositional knowledge.

But, does this threaten the kind of knowledge - to the extent that we can call it knowledge - concerning God that is the subject of God's self disclosure, both through revelation and incarnation? If we posit a totally different category of knowledge, then no, I think that it does not.

Personal knowledge is knowledge of, rather than about, a person. To say, for instance, that I know my wife is to say something categorically different than to say that I can articulate true statements about my wife - even if you aren't reading the King James Bible. It is to say that I have intimate, relational knowledge of the person of my wife. Such knowledge may never be summed up by any proposition.

I submit that, to the extent that we can say that we know God, we mean something much more like this. We do not mean that we can articulate certain truths concerning God, but rather that we have had some kind of encounter with the person of God.

Is this not the heart of the incarnation, that somehow God became present to us? Not that in Jesus we gain access to true statements about God, but rather that, in the person of Jesus, in some mysterious way we glimpse the person of God. Not that Jesus literally is God, but that God becomes present to us in the person of Jesus, revealing part of the nature, will, and concerns of God.

And, what if we expand the concept of incarnation beyond the person of the historical Jesus, the founding figure of our faith? What if we say that, in some very real way, we experience the person of God all around us? We are still speaking of God's self disclosure, but once again we are not speaking of any propositional content. Again, to know God, either through revelation or incarnation (a kind of supreme revelation) is to gain relation access to the person of God, rather than to obtain some sort of propositional knowledge concerning God.

As such, God, in the Christian tradition, is the knowable mystery. We know God, even as we know nothing concerning God. God's nature remains beyond the bounds of our knowledge, but God's person is made known to us.

Question(s) for discussion: If you buy this distinction between kinds of knowledge, and if you think that they apply to our understanding of and relationship with God (that is, if you think that we can know God personally, but not propositionally), then how does this inform our theological projects? What can we say, and what can't we say? And, what sorts of questions can and should we ask?

Another Heschel Quote

In September I posted on a Heschel quote about the decline of religion. While Troy was the only person to respond, so I can't say that this is back by popular demand or because it was such a rousing success, here is another thought-provoking quote by rabbi/philosopher/activist/mystic Abraham Joshua Heschel, again from his God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. Perhaps I'm posting it because I really like these three paragraphs, perhaps I'm posting it because I need more typing practice, perhaps I'm posting it because I think that it will generate good conversation, or perhaps I'm posting it because, while I feel the need to write something profound while I'm off work nursing my wounded wing, I simply can't come up with anything. Whatever the reason, here's what Heschel has to say about the relationship between religion and language:

It is impossible to define "goodness," or "fact," not because they stand for something irrational or meaningless, but because they stand for ideas that surpass the limitations of any definition; they are super-rational rather than subrational. We cannot define "the holy" or utter in words what we mean by "blessed be He." What the "holy" refers to, what we mean by "blessed be He," lies beyond the reach of words...

If our basic concepts are impregnable to analysis, then we must not be surprised that the ultimate answers are not attainable by reason alone. If it is impossible to define "goodness," "value," or "fact," how should we ever succeed in defining what we mean by God? Every religious act and judgment involves the acceptance of the ineffable, the acknowledgment of the inconceivable. When the basic issues of religion, such as God, revelation, prayer, holiness, commandments, are dissolved into pedestrian categories and deprived of sublime relevance, they come close to being meaningless.

The categories of religious thinking, as said above, are unique and represent a way of thinking on a level that is deeper than the level of concepts, utterances, symbols. It is immediate, ineffable, metasymbloic. Teachers of religion have always attempted to raise their insights to the level of utterance, dogma, creed. Yet such utterances must be taken as indications, as attempts to convey what cannot be adequately expressed, if they are not to stand in the way of authentic faith.

A Story for Your Job Interview

I, a fiscally impractical person, am blessed to have a wife with a decent job and a knack for balancing budgets. I left professional ministry last October, and have not had a job outside the house since. I write obsessively (roughly 2 to 3 hours per day), but make little to no money at it. I preach at a few churches from time to time, but rarely ask for a fee. As far as I am concerned, at some deep subconscious level, money is something to be spent, but not necessarily made. That unstated ('til now) position makes me, despite my great skills as a father to our son, not exactly the world's easiest husband to deal with.

My wife was going over the budget for the next two months with me, and it became clear that we simply need more income. If only I could make a little bit of money things would go much smoother. Her career is doing as well as it can do - she is an expert in her field, and is in fact speaking this week at the Kentucky Autism Conference. But, while she has been supporting my sorry ass for quite some time, she isn't exactly in a lucrative profession.

So, I'm simply going to have to get a job. I've said that before, but this time I mean it. I'd love to stay home with Adam just a little while longer. He's starting preschool in the Fall. But we have to make it to Fall. So, this week I'm lining up job interviews.

But I'm still suspicious of any activity that actually makes money. While looking through the classifieds, thinking about the distance between who I naturally am and who I'll have to be to survive in the working world, I remembered one of my favorite stories from the life of Thales, who, after Xenophanes, is my favorite pre-Socratic philosopher. I wonder what would happen if I told this story, found in Aristotle's Politics, in a job interview:

When they reproached him [Thales] because his poverty, as though philosophy were no use, it is said that, having observed through his study of the heavenly bodies that there would be a large olive-crop, he raised a little capital while it was still winter, and paid deposits on all the olive presses in Miletus and Chios, hiring them cheaply because no one bid against him. When the appropriate time came there was a sudden rush of requests for the presses; he then hired them out on his own terms and so made a large profit, thus demonstrating that it is easy for philosophers to be rich, if they wish, but that it is not in this that they are interested.