School Paper: “Faith and Reason” (Fall 2010)

This is a shoddy paper, I’m afraid. I don’t necessarily disagree with anything that I said here. The paper was just sloppily put together. I had taken an interest in presuppositional apologetics, and so this was an opportunity for me to float some of those ideas in the classroom and see what happened. But the topic is just way too large to try and cover in the space of four pages. Pascal was thrown in at the end, because he was technically the thinker I was supposed to be writing about. If memory serves me, this paper got a surprising A-minus.

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Faith and Reason

History of Ideas 3

December 8, 2010

The question of the proper relationship between faith and reason is one that Christendom has grappled with for centuries. Generally speaking, there are two polar extremes between which Christian thinkers have typically sought some kind of middle ground. These positions are rationalism, the view that human reason is the only source and final test for all truth1, and fideism, the view that faith is independent of (and perhaps even antagonistic toward) reason.2 The variously nuanced viewpoints between these two extremes are many, but all of them can be adequately subsumed under two basic views: 1) the view that faith is grounded on reason, and 2) the view that reason is grounded on faith. The latter of these, it will be argued, is the correct view.

The first view is the position of natural theology, that is, any theology that claims to rest its case on reason instead of revelation3. One famous expression of this view comes from the pen of Thomas Aquinas who writes, “reason in man is . . . like God in the world.”4 In other words, for Aquinas, reason assumes a kind of authority for the human being which reflects the absolute authority that God exercises in the world. Charles Hodge likewise concedes reason as the judicium contradictionis, granting to it “the prerogative of deciding whether a thing is possible or impossible”5. He adds that if reason judges a thing impossible, then no authority of any kind can obligate one to receive it as true.

The main problem with this view is that it does not reflect the Bible’s contention that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7, 9:10). The apostle Peter likewise understood knowledge as a supplementary attribute to be added to one’s faith (2 Pet. 1:5), and Paul insisted that all wisdom and knowledge is found in the person of Christ (Col. 2:2-4). Reason should not be viewed as an independent, “neutral” authority. From a biblical perspective, any laws of logic obtain only because Yahweh has determined that they obtain, and thus when Christians attempt to divorce reason from the presuppositions of a Christian worldview, they sever it from the very foundations that make it meaningful at all. Cornelius Van Til rightly argues that a purely rationalistic methodology not only fails to convince the unbeliever of the truth of Christian theism, but actually drives him farther away from it.6

Gordon Clark uniquely illustrates part of the difficulty in a “bare reason” approach to theistic arguments, ironically, by pointing out the fallacious nature of what many might view as one of reason’s great achievements. Clark deems the cosmological argument of Thomas Aquinas as “worse than useless” and adds that “Christians can be pleased at its failure.”7 As his principal critique, Clark points out that essentially the only reason Aquinas offers for the absurdity of an infinite regress of motion is that it would indeed rule out a first mover.8 Thus, according to Clark, Aquinas is guilty of using his conclusion as part of the premise. However, one will not quickly fault Aquinas. As John Frame argues in his defense of presuppositional apologetics, circularity is unavoidable in any worldview.9 Frame further elucidates this idea:

“God is the ultimate standard of meaning, truth, and rationality. For the philosophical rationalist, human reason is the ultimate standard. But how can the rationalist argue that position? He must, in the final analysis, say, ‘Reason is the ultimate standard because reason says so.’ . . . One cannot argue for an ultimate standard by appealing to a different standard. That would be inconsistent.”10

One interesting, dynamic, and extensively debated perspective on the relationship between faith and reason is found in the pensées (or thoughts) of Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century mathematician and philosopher. Peter Kreeft, in his commentary on the Pensées, insists that Christian fideists erroneously look to Pascal as a champion of their view.11 While Pascal is perhaps not a fideist in the truest sense of the word, he is much more fideistic than the Thomistic Kreeft would have him be.

Pascal clearly contends for the subjection of human reason to the “first principles” of faith (No. 282).12 He is also at least hesitant about the efficacy of the law of noncontradiction, arguing that “contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the want of contradiction a sign of truth” (No. 384). In fact, for Pascal, the doctrine of original sin is “against reason” even though he is thoroughly convinced of its truthfulness (No. 445). In what is arguably his most famous statement, Pascal insists that “the heart has its reasons, which reason does not know” (No. 277). In Pascal’s understanding, faith, over and above reason, is the superior means by which to arrive at truth. Make no mistake, though, for Pascal readily admits the frustrations of nagging doubts and elusive certainty. Sage is the advice he offers to those who struggle likewise: “It is good to be tired and weary by the vain search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer” (No. 422).

The preceding discussion has sought to address some of the issues related to the debate surrounding the proper relationship of faith and reason. A second goal was to argue for the primacy of faith in the Christian’s epistemology, or theory of knowledge. By no means has the aim been to jettison reason entirely from the Christian worldview. Reason does indeed play a valuable, confirmatory role in the Christian’s intellectual life, and it would be a mistake to discard reason as if it were an enemy of faith. This discussion, however, is concerned with the question of ultimate starting points, and while a full treatment of these topics is beyond the scope of this paper, suffice it to say that Christians ought to, with Pascal, reject the modern rationalistic notion13 that the special treatment of God’s revelation is something it must deserve on the basis of reason.

Notes

1. Francis Aveling, “Rationalism,” Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12652a.htm (accessed December 6, 2010).

2. Richard Amesbury, “Fideism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism (accessed December 6, 2010).

3. William Reese, Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion: Eastern and Western Thought, 2d ed. (Amherst: Humanity Books, 1996), s.v. “Natural Theology.”

4. Thomas Aquinas, Philosophical Texts, ed. Thomas Gilby (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 236.

5. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology: Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1940), 51.

6. Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1955), 119.

7. Gordon H. Clark, Religion, Reason, and Revelation, 2d ed. (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1986), 41.

8. Ibid., 36-7.

9. John Frame et al., Five Views on Apologetics, ed. Steven B. Cowan (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 217.

10. Ibid.

11. Peter Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensées Edited, Outlined and Explained (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 235.

12. Quotations and numbers are taken from the Brunschvicg edition.

13. Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 81.

Sprinkled Conscience

“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Heb. 10:22)

I don’t know how I overlooked this text in making my case for the legitimacy of sprinkling as a mode of baptism (“On Modes of Baptism,” section titled “Washed in the Blood”). Actually, I did cite the verse parenthetically at one place, but I didn’t make use of it as effectively as I could have. It would have eliminated a step in the argument.

In the paper, I argued along these lines:

1. Baptism is our appeal to God for a cleansed conscience (1 Pet. 3:21).
2. The blood of Christ cleanses the conscience (Heb. 9:14).
3. The blood of Christ is applied by sprinkling (Heb. 12:22; 1 Pet. 1:2).
4. Therefore, baptism by sprinkling is theologically meaningful.

But Hebrews 10:22 allows for a more concise argument, like this:

1. Baptism is our appeal to God for a cleansed conscience (1 Pet. 3:21).
2. The conscience is cleansed by sprinkling (Heb. 10:22).
3. Therefore, baptism by sprinkling is theologically meaningful.

Although I suppose it doesn’t hurt to show how the blood of Christ is also a facet of the imagery.

Meandering Paul

Discussing the literary structure of the pastoral epistles, Kostenberger and company say this in The Cradle, The Cross, and the Crown:

“R. van Neste summarized the state of scholarship on the Pastorals this way: ‘Until recently, one of the widely accepted tenets of modern scholarship regarding the Pastoral Epistles was that they lacked any significant, careful order or structure.’ This was not confined to liberal critics; even an otherwise conservative commentator such as D. Guthrie wrote, ‘There is a lack of studied order, some subjects being treated more than once in the same letter without apparent premeditation. . . . These letters are, therefore, far removed from literary exercises.’”

It seems like Christians who hold to a high view of Scripture typically bristle at this sort of claim, perhaps because it feels almost irreverent to suggest that some of Paul’s letters lack a careful organization or structure. But there really isn’t anything irreverent about this. There’s nothing wrong with a meandering personal letter, and a lack of structure doesn’t undermine inspiration. What Guthrie says is exactly right. Paul’s letters were not meant to be literary masterpieces.

But look at how the Cradle authors express surprise that “even” conservative commentators have said such things. That’s odd to me. I don’t understand why this particular question should be understood in terms of a liberal/conservative divide. It isn’t like inspiration is at stake here.

The Cradle authors continue:

“Against those who have argued against the literary unity and integrity of the Pastoral Epistles, van Neste demonstrated, in the most careful study of the topic to date, that there is ‘evidence of a high level of cohesion in each of the Pastoral Epistles’ . . . . they demonstrate signs of a coherent structure and of theological competence.”

I don’t see how the word “integrity” has any place in this conversation. A lack of definite structure doesn’t undermine the letter’s “integrity” (whatever that actually means). “Theological competence” is also an irrelevant category. A lack of definite structure doesn’t mean that the letter or its author lacks theological competence.

The indefinite structure of the pastoral epistles can be seen even from the outlines that the Cradle authors themselves present. Consider their outline of 1 Timothy, which I hope no one will mind me reproducing an image of here:

Note that the fourth major section is simply titled “Further Charges.” It’s titled in such a general way because the charges in it are so diverse. There isn’t some kind of unifying feature that ties them all together, other than the fact that they’re all “charges,” though there isn’t even really a charge to be found in the first sub-section on latter-day apostasy (4:1-5). Moreover, there was already a “charge” section earlier in the letter, according to this outline (1:3-20). So why didn’t the “Further Charges” just get combined with those earlier ones?

Furthermore, within the “Further Charges” is a sub-section titled “Further Congregational Matters.” But there was already a major section on congregational matters earlier in the letter, according to this outline (2:1-3:16). So why didn’t the “Further Congregational Matters” just get combined with those earlier ones?

The most realistic conclusion to be drawn from all of this is that Paul meanders. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

In Cradle’s outline of 2 Timothy, there’s a section titled “Ministry Metaphors, Paul’s Gospel, and a Trustworthy Saying” (2:1-26). And those aren’t sub-sections within a major section; that’s the title of a major section. It’s pretty clear that a letter lacks definite structure when one of the main sections in the outline has to have three different ideas in its title.

Outlining a book doesn’t always demonstrate a definite structure. Some people seem to think that if they reduce a letter’s contents sequentially into concise phrases, and put numbers and letters beside those phrases, forming an outline, then they’ve somehow demonstrated a concrete structure. But sometimes an outline simply brings out the fact that the letter doesn’t have a clearly discernible structure.

Episkopos and Diakonos

The article on Philippians (written by Gerald Hawthorne) in IVP’s Dictionary of Paul and His Letters says this:

The terms “overseers” and “deacons” (1:1) occur here for the one and only time in Paul’s letters, but without any elaboration on what these people did or about what kind of authority they exercised within the church.

Unless I’m missing something, this is demonstrably false. “Overseer” is rendering the Greek episkopos, which also occurs in 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:7.  “Deacon” is rendering the Greek diakonos, which occurs frequently throughout Paul’s letters. Admittedly, Paul normally uses diakonos in a non-official sense, but he does sometimes use it to refer to the office of deacon (1 Tim. 3:8, 12). So what gives?

Does Hawthorne mean that this is the only time the terms occur in Paul’s ecclesial letters (i.e. his letters written to churches)? That would have been an easy thing to communicate. Does he assume that Paul didn’t write the pastoral epistles? That would be lame. Is Hawthorne working from an English translation that renders episkopos as “overseer” in Philippians 1:1 but as “bishop” elsewhere, and is that what he means? That wouldn’t seem in line with the scholarly standards of the dictionary as a whole. Does he mean that this is the only time in Paul’s letters that the two terms appear side by side? That may be true, but seems like an insignificant thing to note. Does Hawthorne mean that this is the only time the terms appear in the plural? That may be true (at least in the case of episkopos), but again seems like an insignificant thing to note.

The Ultimate Unfortunate Event

Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) made millions off A Series of Unfortunate Events, a story that promotes sympathy toward children who’ve had it rough. Then he publicly donated one of those millions to an organization that makes children victims of the ultimate unfortunate event. An organization that kills children by chopping them into little pieces. Planned Parenthood makes the wickedness of Count Olaf look tame.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/us/lemony-snicket-the-author-and-his-wife-donate-1-million-to-planned-parenthood.html?_r=0

Questions from NT Survey: 9.28.15

How do we harmonize John 5:31 with John 8:14?

Here are the two verses side-by-side:

“If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.” (John 5:31)

“Jesus answered, ‘Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.’” (John 8:14)

These statements initially seem to contradict each other, but in context, I don’t think they do. In 5:31, Jesus is alluding to the standard of the Old Testament law, which requires at least two witnesses for an accusation to be deemed trustworthy (Deut. 17:6). In 8:14, Jesus is specifically responding to an accusation thrown his way by the Jews, who had claimed that Jesus was in fact bearing witness about himself, and therefore his word has no authority. But in both verses, the point that Jesus is driving at is that he doesn’t need to rely on his own testimony about himself, because there’s another witness that testifies about him also.

In John 5:31, the additional witness is John the Baptist, as Jesus goes on to say: “There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved” (John 5:32–34). In other words, Jesus points to John the Baptist as a second witness, not because he actually needs to do so, but so that the Old Testament standard will be upheld for the sake of the Jews.

In John 8:14, the additional witness is none other than God the Father, as Jesus goes on to say: “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me” (John 8:15–16). So in effect, the Jews were saying to Jesus, “See, look! You’re bearing witness about yourself right now, and that means your word isn’t true” (John 8:13). To which Jesus responds with words to this effect: “Even if I am bearing witness about myself, my testimony is still true. Why? Again, because there’s another who bears witness about me, namely my Father in heaven.”

Notice that in 8:14, Jesus does not say “Even if I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is true.” That would make 8:14 contradict 5:31. But that’s just the point: Jesus is not alone. He is so united with his Father that there are always at least two bearing witness. And in truth, we know that there are actually three who bear witness.

Why did Jesus occasionally instruct his disciples and others not to tell anyone that he was the Christ (Matt. 16:20), or not to tell anyone about the miracles he did (Matt 8:4)?

Some point out that the title “Christ” would have carried political connotations, such that to announce Jesus as the Christ would give everyone the impression that Jesus would be the earthly king they were expecting. That could be the case, but I’m content with a more general answer: It just wasn’t time to tell everyone yet.

To draw an analogy, an author who’s writing a novel doesn’t want a half-finished manuscript to get leaked to the public. He wants the work to be completed first. Jesus’s hour had not yet come (John 2:4). His work wasn’t yet completed. He didn’t want word to get out until his redemptive work could be seen and understood in its fullness. Of course, this “messianic secret,” as it’s often called, was only a temporary policy. After Jesus was resurrected, his instructions became very different: Go tell everybody (Matt. 28:19).

School Paper: “Symbols in Dante’s Inferno” (Fall 2010)

The general fieriness of this short essay suits its subject matter, Dante’s Inferno. It’s the first time I really opened up and spoke frankly about what I felt were some annoying tendencies of literary scholarship. C. S. Lewis once said, “Some of the allegories thus imposed on my own books have been so ingenious and interesting that I often wish I had thought of them myself.” Reading scholarly interpretations of the Inferno frequently made me wonder if Dante would have said the same thing.

I’m not sure how much my criticisms here are actually worth, but this was a fun paper to write nonetheless. The professor’s grader told me that it was excellent, but apparently the professor didn’t agree. It came back with a C.

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Symbols in Dante’s Inferno:

Examining Common Allegorical Interpretations

History of Ideas 3

November 2, 2010

Dante Alighieri applied to the text of Psalm 114 a fourfold manner of interpretation: literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical.1 From this, George Santayana concludes that one can expect to find in the Commedia similarly layered stages of meaning.2 This conclusion is likely an attempt to justify heavily speculative and complicated allegorical interpretations of Dante’s principal work. While it cannot be denied that the Commedia has its share of unambiguously symbolic and allegorical features, the tendency of many scholars seems to be speculative excess rather than objective moderation.

John Ciardi, in his synopsis of the Inferno‘s eighteenth Canto, attempts to explain how the punishment of those residing in the Malebolge’s first bolgia (the panderers and seducers) is reflective of the lives they lived. He states that “in life these sinners goaded others on to serve their own foul purposes; so in Hell are they driven in their turn.”3 Ciardi also maintains that the oppressive demons of this bolgia represent the sinners’ own wicked natures and even suggests that the horns of the demons may symbolize cuckoldry and adultery.4

One will be hard pressed, however, to find any grounds within the Canto itself on which to base such conjecture. Let it be said that some sinners described in subsequent Cantos do suffer penalties that unequivocally correspond to the sins of which they are guilty, such as the fortune-tellers who have their heads reversed so that that they cannot view what is in front of them. In this particular case, Virgil himself identifies the imagery explicitly within the narrative.5 In such cases, emblematic postulations are not at all inappropriate or unfounded. When the symbolism is less clear, however, as in the earlier case of the panderers and seducers, there is no obligation on the reader’s part to strain parallelisms from the text.

Ciardi makes similar assertions in regard to the sinners who suffer in the fifth bolgia, namely, the grafters. He maintains that the boiling pitch which engulfs the grafters represents the “sticky fingers” with which they acquired illicit lucre in life.6 The pitch also hides the grafters from sight, which according to Ciardi, corresponds to their clandestine antemortem deeds.7

Though Ciardi seems well confident that his symbolic interpretation is accurate, it is by no means the consensus view. Vincent Hopper suggests that the boiling pitch of the fifth bolgia is symbolic of the Blacks of Florence8, a political faction to which Dante was opposed.9 Frederick Farrar, while in agreement with Ciardi’s “sticky fingers” symbolism, further adds that the boiling of the pitch corresponds to the bubbling sensation of gain and loss that the avaricious soul experiences in life.10 Indeed, one wonders if there are any limits at all to the possible symbolic construals offered by many scholars. Surely some discrimination is necessary. In all reality, none of the aforementioned interpretations are better than the others, as all of them are offered without any defense from the text itself. This lack of consensus exemplifies the subjective and conjectural nature of what commonly passes for scholarship.

One final and classic example of the notoriously far-reaching allegorical interpretations of many Dantean scholars is typically found in commentaries on the Commedia‘s first Canto wherein Dante encounters three vicious beasts: a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. Commentators are all over the map as to the allegorical significance of these creatures, but one common interpretation is political. Santayana claims that the lion in particular represents the King of France.11 Edmund Gardner, however, argues that this “comparatively modern interpretation which would see in the beasts the three great Guelf powers [the lion being the royal house of France] . . . is now generally discarded.”12 This further illustrates the teeming deluge of symbolism in which scholars frequently drown when allegorical speculation is indulged in ways that the original author likely never intended.

Allan Gilbert keenly notes this overly allegorical tendency in his introduction to the Inferno where he describes what he calls “scholars’ allegory.”13 According to Gilbert, scholars have always found themselves in a predicament when it comes to writing about poetry. There is not very much to say about the literal sense of a poem such as the Commedia, and it thus becomes necessary to consult the limitless provision of allegory. Gilbert writes, “The manufacture of allegory offers to the ingenious but prosaic mind an opportunity to speak at length with the appearance of wisdom . . .”14

Gardner sympathizes with Gilbert as is clear from his own admission that allegorical interpretations of the Commedia have frequently been carried to excess.15 Gardner also warns, however, of the opposite extreme, namely, divorcing all allegorical material from Dante in order to focus on the beauty of his poetry alone. As mentioned above, it simply cannot be denied that there is legitimate room for allegorical analysis in a discussion of Dante’s Commedia. However, the question of the proper balance between the beauty of poetry and its underlying allegory is not an easy one to answer.

Perhaps the one most qualified to answer the question of the relationship between allegorical meaning and poetic beauty, particularly in the Commedia, would be the Florentine poet himself. In his Convivio, Dante makes it clear16 that very few will understand the hidden meaning of his principal work. However, he earnestly motivates his readers by encouraging them to appreciate the beauty of the work rather than its goodness (i.e. its meaning). Dante confidently maintains that his poem is beautiful in its composition, order, and rhythm, which concerns grammarians, rhetoricians, and musicians respectively. In other words, all allegorical considerations aside, the beauty of the poem itself is enough to garner the appreciation of academicians in a number of fields. The true and total meaning of the Commedia may never be known, but as Dante rightly states, the poem’s beauty of composition “can be perceived . . . by anyone who looks closely.”17

Notes

1. From Dante’s epistle to Lord Can Grande della Scala, http://www.danteonline.it/english/opere.asp?idope=7&idlang=OR (accessed October 23, 2010).

2. George Santayana, Three Philosophical Poets (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1910), 98.

3. John Ciardi, synopsis of Canto XVIII in “Inferno” in Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, trans. John Ciardi (New York: New American Library, 2003), 141.

4. Ibid.

5. Dante, Inferno, XX.38-9.

6. John Ciardi, synopsis of Canto XXI in “Inferno” in Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, trans. John Ciardi (New York: New American Library, 2003), 165.

7. Ibid.

8. Vincent F. Hopper, A Simplified Approach To Dante: Detailed Analyses and Summaries (Great Neck: Barron’s Educational Series, 1964), 38.

9. Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts, “Guelphs and Ghibellines – Who were they?”, http://www.dantealighieri.net/cambridge/guelphs.html (accessed October 23, 2010).

10. Frederick W. Farrar, Great Books (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Company, 1898), 160.

11. Santayana, 98.

12. Edmund G. Gardner, Dante (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1923), 115.

13. Allan Gilbert, introduction to Dante, Inferno, trans. Allan Gilbert (Durham: Duke University Press, 1969), xl.

14. Ibid.

15. Gardner, 108.

16. Dante, Convivio, II.11.

17. Ibid.