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1 > [H]ere are some areas where I would find your (and Catharine's)
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2 > views especially interesting:
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3
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4 > * Does Shortt believe that Jesus actually, physically, came back to
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5 > life? He hints that he does, but then backs off a bit. This is
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6 > important in the discussion, because without that particular element
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7 > of the Christ event, I think you wind up (pun intended) with a deist
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8 > construction: "God" is simply the word for the fact that there is
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9 > something rather than nothing. I think I am recalling my father's
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10 > conversations correctly when I remember that he observed that the
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11 > "truth" of Christianity absolutely depends upon the truth of the
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12 > physical resurrection. Without that event -- something that is by
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13 > its terms contrary to the scientifically testable principles of the
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14 > universe in which we live -- what is the particular reason to
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15 > "believe" that Christianity (as distinct from other religious or
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16 > naturalist tradition) holds any particular explanatory power?
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17
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18 Interpreting your question about Shortt as a question about me, I'll
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19 try to give _my_ answer.
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20
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21 Your quote of your father's position is certainly widely held. I was
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22 surprised years ago to find the following verse by ... I'll show the
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23 verse first so you can try to guess its author:
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24
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25 Make no mistake: if he rose at all
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26 it was as His body;
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27 if the cell’s dissolution did not reverse,
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28 the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
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29 the Church will fall.
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30
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31 But I think there's a useful, and reasonably well-frequented, stop on
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32 the way from a focus on the resurrection of the body (His, and ours)
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33 and all the debates that follow about predestination, election,
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34 justification and salvation, to say nothing of limbo, purgatory and
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35 hell, to a full-on deism.
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36
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37 Many Quakers say that it's the _life_ of Jesus that they put at the
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38 heart of Christianity, and are happy to ignore Christ's resurrection
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39 and the calculus of sin and redemption. If they have anything to say
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40 about the _theology_ of the crucifixion, its likely to be along the
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41 lines of what mainstream theology calls, I believe, an _exemplar_
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42 understanding of the crucifixion. I've lost track of the place I
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43 first encountered this, but in the form I got it, its central thesis
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44 is that in his perfect non-violent acceptance of an unjust persecution
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45 and death, he defeated the violence of its perpetrators. The language
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46 used, if I recall correctly, uses a metaphor based on electricity: by
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47 his acceptance he earthed (grounded) their violence and thus
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48 dissipated it, rendered it ineffective. The ultimate example of
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49 turning the other cheek, an unanswerable alternative to the escalating
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50 effect of meeting violence with violence: "the revolutionary
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51 foolishness of the ‘lamb’ who is defeating violence with love".
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52
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53 Whether such a position is "Christian" or not I leave to the
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54 professional theologians. I've certainly seen arguments that it
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55 wasn't until Anselm in the 11th century that we get the
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56 substitutionary sacrifice story (and indeed that it was for
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57 propounding the exemplar view that Abelard got in trouble). I'm
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58 pretty sure that some of the Dominican friars we know are in this
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59 camp.
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60
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61 What I _don't_ know is how to connect this perspective on Jesus as
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62 Teacher with God as the ground of being...
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63
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64 On a related note, I've never felt that Christianity has any absolute
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65 claim to priority, and accept that my self-identification as Christian
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66 is mostly owed to the fact that it at least _was_ the default
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67 religious context of the culture I grew up in. Some Quakers are keen
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68 to adopt what is locally described as Universalism, which gives equal
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69 status to 'all' the 'great' religions as potential sources of
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70 inspiration. I'm afraid I'm somewhat cynical about this, in that such
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71 people often also are likely to talk about their "spiritual journey",
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72 which too often seems to mean that they aren't commited to much of
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73 anything in particular, or at least not for very long.
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74
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135
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75 Nonetheless the moral relativism issue is, as I think we've discussed
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76 before, a very real vulnerability for any movement _at all_ away from
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77 saying "mine is the one true faith and the rest are all just
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78 _wrong_". For my money MacIntyre comes closer than anyone else to
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79 solving that problem (ref. _Whose Justice, Which Rationality_), but
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80 it's a tricky argument he makes, and even he, I gather, at least
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81 implicitly admitted as much by moving in to Merton's old monastery
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82 towards the end of his life.
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83
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84 > Shortt does, it seems to me, also sometimes "put the rabbit into the
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85 > hat." For example, he asserts that there are "moral truths."
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86 > Really? According to what or whom? I happen to agree with his
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87 > (essentially Thomistic) views on what is "good," but how does that
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88 > make it "true?" I think the jury is very much out on the question
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89 > of whether humans "tend to the good," and I think it is equally
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90 > plausible to think that the "moral truths" for humans are the result
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91 > of how our brains have evolved, and no more evidence of a particular
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92 > creator than the choice of wolves and dolphins to cooperate when
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93 > hunting.
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94
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95 I tend to agree that Aquinas's story here is just assumed as obvious,
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96 rather than argued. I take that story to be roughly that the created
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97 world is by definition good, because it is God's creation, and that
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98 all there is in the world tends towards its own proper way of being.
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99 'Bad' things happen in the natural world because different kinds of
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100 beings' proper way of being conflict (consider the lion and the
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101 antelope, or even clouds and plants). (This is all Aristotle so far,
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102 I believe). It follows for Aquinas that (human) evil is always a
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103 falling short, the result of either defect or mistaken understanding
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104 of what one's own proper way of being is. On this account because God
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105 _is_ supreme unqualified Good, union with God is (again, by
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106 definition, tautologously) humankind's ultimate proper way of being,
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107 achieved only in this life by saints, but available to all after
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108 death.
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109
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110 Insofar as that story is not self-evidently true to most contemporary
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111 folk, including me, where we look for certainty about the good, the
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112 moral, I guess I have two qualitatively different approaches to that.
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113 One is intensely practical/personal, derived from what I see in the
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114 lives of people I know. The relevant Quaker saying, always used as an
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115 introduction to our version of a eulogy, is: "The grace of God as
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116 shown forth in the life of [the deceased]". I'll pick this up in more
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117 detail lower down.
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118
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119 The other is MacIntyre's appeal, referred to above, to a hypothetical
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120 eventual convergence of persons of good will, wide experience and
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121 great familiarity between them with all available strands of
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122 philosophy and theology, resulting from an extended exercise in
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123 classical dialectic. Like I said, tricky...
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124
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125 > I have the same concern about some of his other distinctions,
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126 > e.g. between "notes" and "music." I do not find it at all hard to
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127 > believe that visual and auditory responses to particular harmonies
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128 > are entirely the product of natural selection.
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133
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129
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135
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130 [Bother -- I meant to bring the book with me, not having gotten all
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131 the way through it myself, but failed to do so, and haven't gotten to
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132 whatever he has to say about notes vs. music. As a fiddle player, I
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133 do occasionally perplex myself by trying to explain the difference
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134 between a tune and a melody (all country dance music consists of
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135 tunes, but only a relatively small number of them are melodies:
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136 _Scotland the Brave_, for one, I guess, _Kind Robin_ another (although
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137 maybe that's only in Barbara Bousma's collection in a waltz medley, so
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138 doesn't really count) -- a related question, but not quite the _same_
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139 one.]
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140
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141 > * I don't doubt that Shortt is correct when he says, near the
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142 > beginning, that the reader cannot be persuaded into belief. (I also
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143 > love the reference to Kierkegaard, though he does not mention the
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144 > Great Gray Goose.) But you can see the quandary in which that
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145 > leaves someone like me: if one can only understand Christianity by
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146 > "living it," how can one decide whether to choose to live that
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147 > life? I have often said to both of you, I think, that it would be
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148 > wonderful [to] have faith -- I'm one of the people Hawking identified as
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149 > being "afraid of the dark" but couldn't turn that fear into belief.
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150 > But while I have often found elements of religious belief and
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151 > practice to be interesting and even comforting (in the sense of
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152 > being part of a community), I have never been able to overcome my
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153 > view that, at its heart, Christianity is based upon belief in a
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154 > particular event that, in my firmly held view, simply did not occur.
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155
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156 Hmm. I'm not sure I agree with him there, if only because I like to
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157 think that I arrived where I am by a not wholly irrational path,
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158 albeit a pretty convoluted one.
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159
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160 I'm not sure I can express this clearly, to say nothing of
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161 compellingly, in less than a monograph, but I'll see what I can do.
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162 It's all about grace. [Note 1: What follows is something which I
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163 think Catharine and I have found we pretty much agree on, despite
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164 arriving at it via quite different routes.] [Note 2: However for me,
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165 but I think _not_ for Catharine, nothing in what follows should be
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166 taken to imply that what I'm talking about could not have arisen
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167 "entirely [as] the product of natural selection" and/or its
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168 sociological analogues.] [Note 3: No, not social Darwinism...]
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169
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170 Both observation and introspection suggest a real qualitative
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171 distinction between us humans and most if not all other species,
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172 alongside, possible in part dependent on, but not the same as our
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173 distinct status as language users. Aristotle and Aquinas (and of
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174 course many others) label this as a distinction between our animal
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175 nature and our rational nature, where the latter is equated with,
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176 shall we say, 'ensoulment'. Ensoulment is where, for Aquinas, grace
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177 comes in. Rather in the same (unsatisfactory to you, as you've
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178 already stated) way that with respect to the "something rather than
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179 nothing" question 'God' seems to be just a name for the answer, so
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180 'grace' is at minimum a name for (the Heideggerian version of) the
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181 'how ought I to live me life' question, that is, 'how is it that we
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182 are the kind of being whose being is an issue for itself'.
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183
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184 > I have notes on virtually every page, and I look forward to future
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185 > discussion (perhaps over some excellent Port which I seem to have
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186 > around).
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187
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188 > With thanks and love,Tom
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189
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190 ht
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191
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192 [The verse is the first stanza of _Seven Stanzas at Easter_ by John
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193 Updike, who was, apparently, raised a Lutheran]
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