SUMMA PHILOSOPHIAE

Summa Philosophiae Has Moved!!!

2006-07-05T20:08:00.000-05:00

We have now joined the Wordpress community. You can find our new and improved Summa Philosophiae over here. Edit your bookmarks accordingly. Thanks to those of you who continually support us.

Intellectual Myopia: THE killer plague

2006-06-30T16:48:00.000-05:00

Many are familiar with the Bubonic plague which devastated and claimed countless lives in the Middle Ages. What we are not as familiar with is a plague of a different sort. It is one that has crippled and destroyed an equal amount of lives, perhaps even more than the Bubonic plague, though in a different sense. It is the plague of Intellectual Myopia. Myopia can be defined as: -my⋅o⋅pi⋅a n 1 : a condition in which the visual images come to a focus in front of the retina of the eye resulting especially in defective vision of distant objects 2 : a lack of foresight or discernment : a narrow view of something - my·o·pic /-'O-pik, -'ä-/ adjective - my·o·pi·cal·ly /-pi-k(&-)lE/ adverb Let us focus on the latter of these two descriptions. Therefore, the symptoms of intellectual myopia consist of: 1) a failure to think critically (understanding the implication of one’s beliefs and to engage in healthy scrutinizing) 2) a lack of desire towards intellectual exposure (More symptoms could be listed, but for now these will do. Feel free to add to the list of symptoms.) Now it seems that nobody is exempt from this plague in some sense. Despite my best efforts there are times when I act on or accept a certain belief that I have not considered in a critical manner. We commonly accept beliefs without clearly thinking through their logical implications. A mind, like a muscle, is something to be trained, worked out and stretched. Whether this is done in a routine fashion or a random fashion, it needs to be done with diligence. One means to this end would be the intentional exposure to new ideas on a regular basis (heaven forbid). Unfortunately, this plague has infiltrated the Church in large measure. Take for instance the literature that abounds in Religious bookstores. George Barna “noted that the religious books of greatest influence in the past several years have not addressed people’s fundamental theological views. ‘Most of the bestsellers have focused on meaning, purpose, security and the end times,’ the researcher pointed out. ‘While there have been theological views expressed in those books, very few popular books have helped people to think clearly and comprehensively about their core theology. Consequently, most born again Christians hold a confusing and inherently contradictory set of religious beliefs that go unchecked by the leaders and teachers of their faith community.’” If it is the case that the religious community is not suffering from Intellectual myopia, then why does it seem that there are so few who have been administered the proper vaccination?

The Books the Church Suppressed

2006-06-30T11:18:00.000-05:00

The Books the Church Suppressed: Fiction and Truth in The Da Vinci Code. By Dr. Michael Green. Oxford, UK and Grand Rapids, MI: Monarch Books, 2005; 192 pages. No doubt we’ve all seen the film version of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, and (hopefully) most Christians have familiarized themselves with the novel itself. Whether either of these is true or not, we have all, knowingly or unknowingly, encountered some form of the claims contained therein. Dr. Michael Green, prolific writer and currently Canon Missioner of Holy Trinity Church (Raleigh, NC), has ably and accessibly responded to these claims. In the first of fourteen chapters, Green identifies the novel’s main assumptions against Christianity (e.g., that Jesus was not considered divine until 325 AD, when the Council of Nicaea —by vote—pronounced him so). Such views, springing largely from Gnostic texts such as The Gospel of Thomas, clearly contradict the testimony of the four NT Gospels. So, “Why our four Gospels and no others” (p. 17)? Chapter two is concerned with explaining where the idea of a canon of sacred books came from. As Dr. Green observes, it is “important to understand… that nobody decided, ‘Let’s have a new list of authoritative books.’” After establishing that the Jews regarded the OT as an inspired, authoritative canon long before Jesus’ day, Green describes the principle by which additional texts came to be accepted: Jesus’ followers were convinced of his deity (p. 22f). The third chapter is a brief analysis of the reliability of the NT texts, focusing especially on the Gospels. Their genre, authorship, dates, testimony, and manuscript data are considered. Chapters four through seven return to the formation of the NT canon. Green first tackles Jesus’ authoritative view of the OT (p. 41f), and then examines the authority (Hebrew shaliach) and subsequent impact of the Apostles. Chapter five discusses the collection and recognition of specific NT manuscripts. Green demonstrates his thorough familiarity with the history of various fixed collections of texts, and argues that “by and large the NT canon was recognised early in the second century…” Chapter six begins by noting two key tendencies of 2nd century churchmen: A function of inclusion in the canon, and a function of exclusion (p. 71f). Remember, the official list is largely established, but “the edges of the collection are somewhat blurred.” Green traces the gradual recognition by the early church of the 27 books comprising the NT from among the surplus of Gnostic and other books. Chapter seven identifies the main principles used to determine a book’s acceptance (or rejection) into the canon: apostolicity, orthodoxy, and catholicity. Perhaps the most important point thus far is that no individual or council announced the canon, it was, rather, recognized. Switching gears slightly, Green moves in chapter eight to examine the Gnostics. “[They] appeared as a movement within broadly Christian parameters, and [were] a perversion of the Christian faith in the direction of speculative theology. It is really weird stuff” (p. 93). After providing several samples of Gnostic writing, Green summarizes the Gnostic’s beliefs, which segues right to chapter nine. The Nag Hammadi library (the discovery story of which opens the chapter) contains many non-canonical books, the most controversial being the infamous Gospel of Thomas. Green astutely evaluates this and several other Gnostic texts, all of which deny an orthodox Christology. As Green observes, these texts have influenced more than mere novelists; they have affected contemporary scholarship as well (p. 117f). Chapter ten is a more in depth examination of Gnosticism. While laying out their beliefs, Green carefully explains the apostolic response to Gnosticism. Obviously, the movement was not stamped out (it surrounds us today). The sub-apostolic response is reviewed, and the chapter ends with a helpful breakdown of precisely “what’s wrong with Gnosticism” (p. 136). Chapter eleven is incidental to the book; it offers a brief survey of various other books rejected by the Church. The twelfth chapter is entitled, “Why does all this matter?” In response, Green identifies four reasons: for integrity, for society, for the church, and for the individual. In the course of elaborating on each of these, Green perceptively addresses many related attacks on orthodoxy (e.g., claims by Elaine Pagels, Karen King, the Jesus Seminar, et. al.). Included as well is a helpful chart laying modern Gnosticism alongside orthodox Christianity. There can be no doubt that these matter a great deal. In chapter thirteen Green takes on the “sacred feminine” motif of The Da Vinci Code (and its various manifestations in contemporary thought). The final chapter is a terrific recap of an insightful and widely accessible work. The sort of worldview that Brown (and so many others) embraces has been exposed for what it is: empty, and based on errors. Following the final chapter is a useful glossary and a short bibliography, for those interested in further study.

Hick's Ineffability Argument

2006-06-29T12:24:00.000-05:00

I have been inspired by Xavier to post some stuff on John Hick that I haven't thought about in a while. Here is Hick's argument for the ineffability of God on which I spoke to a youth group one time. 1) God’s being transcends the categories of human thought. 2) Any being which transcends the categories of human thought cannot be accurately described. 3) Therefore, any description of God will be inaccurate. Is this a good argument? Premise 2 seems unproblematic and true. Premise 1 has at least 2 problems: a. Self-defeating—one cannot know that God transcends the categories of human thought without knowing something about God that doesn’t transcend the category of human thought……… b. If it is true then it is false. But are there any more problems? a. Hick adopts a Hindu conception of God—that God is beyond any human conception. He is neither personal or impersonal, good nor evil. “Theologically, the Hindu distinction b/t Nirguna Brahman and Saguna Brahman is important and should be adopted into western religious thought” (Hick, “Religious Pluralism and Ultimate Reality,” 513). 1. The problem here, of course, is that no religion is supposed to be more valid than another, but Hick has elevated Hinduism to being closer to the truth!!! 2. If he is elevating this view of Ultimate Reality is he then excluding other different or contradictory views? I hope this spurs some good dialogue. Please share your thoughts, whether positive or negative.

Hick On the Nature of the Real

2006-06-26T22:42:00.000-05:00

A while back I had a post on John Hick's religious pluralism. According to Hick, all the major religions are in ‘contact’ with the same divine reality. The differing religious traditions are simply mankinds historically and culturally conditioned responses to this ultimate Reality. Thus, "…we always perceive the transcendent through the lens of a particular religious culture with its distinctive set of concepts, myths, historical exemplars and devotional or meditational techniques." Taking Immanuel Kant's epistemological distinction between the noumenon and the phenomenon, Hick affirms a distinction between the Real in itself and the Real as it is percieved. The Real is never the direct object of experience. Rather, the Real is the "divine noumenon" that is experienced within the various religious traditions as the range of 'divine phenomena. That is, the Real in itself is never what is perceived. What is perceived is its cultural and historical manifestations. These manifestations can be personal, like Yahweh, Allah, Krishna etc.; or impersonal, like Brahman, Nirvana, etc. But there is a certain ambiguity in Hick's discussion of the Real and how it relates to its various manifestations (its personae and impersonae) that his reader will find quite frustrating, and serves (I think) to undermine his view. How exactly should we understand the nature of the Real and its manifestations? Could Hick be a polytheist, for instance? When George Mavrodes charged him with polytheism, Hick insisted that he was nothing of the sort. Upon reading Hick's Interpretation of Religion Mavrodes had suggested that Hick believed the various manifestations of the Real had real objective existence so that Allah, Jehovah, Brahman, Nirvana, Krishna etc. all somehow existed in some metaphysical realm simultaneously. But Hick contended that this was not precisely what he meant and that he was "at one level a poly-something, though not precisely a poly-theist, and at another level a mono-something, though not precisely a mono-theist." But what does that mean? Mavrodes points out that in Kant's system the noumenon as well as the phenomenon have real existence. That is, for Kant, the “thing in itself” has real objective existence, and so is the thing as it is experienced or perceived. But Hick seems to want to have it both ways. For on the one hand, he wants to employ Kant's epistemological distinction, but then he cannot accept the metaphysics that it implies.

Aquinas on the Essence of Composite Substances

2006-06-25T23:32:00.000-05:00

Just when I think I'm getting a basic grasp on Aquinas I have to stop and rethink what I had once supposed to be true of his views. I finally picked up his Being and Essence where he comments:

Form and matter are found in composite substances, as for example soul and body in man. But it cannot be said that either one of these alone is called the essence. That the matter alone of a thing is not its essence is evident, for through its essence a thing is knowable and fixed in its species and genus. But matter is not a principle of knowledge, and a thing is not placed in a genus or species through it but through that by which a thing is actual.

And he continues:

Neither can the form alone of a composite substance be called its essence, though some want to assert this. It is evident from what has been said that the essence is what is signified through the definition of a thing. Now the definition of natural substances includes not only form but also matter...It is evident, therefore, that essence embraces both matter and form.

I found this illuminating. I had previously labored under the mistaken impression that Aquinas identifed the essence of a composite substance with its form, since the form is that by which a thing is what it is. But this, evidently, is not the case.

William Craig / Bart Ehrman Debate Jesus' Resurrection

2006-06-06T08:53:00.000-05:00

Here is the transcript of the debate. This material will probably remain unpublished, so if you missed the debate this is your only access. Enjoy and be blessed!

Do we communicate effectively?

2006-05-31T19:12:00.000-05:00

(This post is for those of you that watched the video from the previous post.) In his book, Escape from Reason, Francis Schaeffer elucidates a critical problem with the methodology of our communication. He states: “Every generation of Christians has this problem of learning how to speak meaningfully to its own age. It cannot be solved without an understanding of the changing existential situation which it faces. If we are to communicate the Christian faith effectively, therefore, we must know and understand the thought-forms of our own generation.” Initially, his phrase “thought-forms” was an alien term to myself, being removed a few generations from Schaeffer himself. However, upon reading the book and considering his assertion, his idea that the need for effective communication is as relevant today as it was in times past. Philosophers are especially notorious for using their own special lingo. While being careful to not submit the idea that we dumb down our terminology, we must seek to effectively engage and meet people where they are at…terminologically speaking. It is one thing to know something, but it is quite another thing to be able to effectively communicate it cross-culturally and cross-generationally. May we as the bearers of the Truth seek to be effective in our communication efforts!

Real Christians of Genius...

2006-05-31T09:39:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are humored by the Budweiser "Real Men of Genius" commercials, you must check this out. It is pretty funny. Go here to see this delightful video! Oh, and feel free to share your thoughts about this video.

Simplicity and God's Abstract Names

2006-05-16T22:32:00.000-05:00

One of the striking implications of divine simplicity is that we can refer to God with abstract "names". That is, when we predicate something of God, that predication can be made absolutely if it pertains to any of God's essential attribures. Anselm, for example, is not afraid to identify God with the abstract notion of justice itself. So he says in Monologion 16:

It would seem, then, that the supremely good substance is called ‘just’ by its participating in a quality (in this case, justice), rather than through itself. But this is contrary to the already ascertained truth. The supreme nature is what it is—good, great, existing—precisely through itself and nothing else. So then, it is just through justice and it is just through itself. And if so, then what is more necessarily and clearly the case than that the supreme nature is justice itself? . . . And so if you ask what is this supreme nature we are talking about?’, you may answer ‘justice.’ What could be truer?

Anselm frequently makes these sorts of moves in the Monologion. So he says (1) Whatever is just is just through the form Justice (2) God is whatever He is through Himself (3) God is just These three propositions seems to lead to the conclusion (4) So God is Justice. He further states, that “since the supreme nature is strictly said not to possess, but to be justice, when it is said to be just strictly it is intelligibly thought of as ‘being justice’ and not as ‘possessing justice.’” For Anselm then, God is more like justice than He is a just thing. God does not possess justice like creatures do. Rather He exists as justice itself. Anselm wouldn’t be unhappy, then, to abandon all talk of God as being ‘good,’ ‘wise,’ ‘just,’ and the like, and speak of God instead with abstract names like goodness, wisdom, and justice. Aquinas, though with more temperate expression, is likewise willing to affirm that a simple God bears a certian resemblance to abstracta so much so that we can use abstract names when we speak of Him. He says in the Summa Ia 13.2:

Whereas names given to signify simple forms signify a thing not as subsisting, but as that whereby a thing is; as, for instance, whiteness signifies that whereby a thing is white. And as God is simple, and subsisting, we attribute to Him abstract names to signify His simplicity, and concrete names to signify His substance and perfection.

That God can be spoken of with both concrete and abstract “names” suggests that, though He is a concrete being, there is a sense in which He is at least like an abstract entity such as an attribute. Leftow sums this up nicely: “For Thomas, ‘whiteness,’ an abstract name, signifies not something that exists independently, an Aristotelian substance, but an attribute, by having which a substance is white. Thomas insists that because He is simple, we at times must, e.g., call God not just good but goodness, giving Him an abstract ‘name’ appropriate to an attribute. Evidently, Thomas thinks that God’s simplicity renders Him significantly attribute-like.”

Darrell Bock Da Vinci Debate Tonight

2006-05-15T17:47:00.000-05:00

For those of you interested, Darrell Bock, research professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Seminary will be having a debate on the Da Vinci code tonight that will be broadcast live via the web at 7:00pm Eastern Standard Time. Simply click here.

Kings and Simpletons

2006-05-10T00:05:00.000-05:00

"As the kings of the earth and the mighty of the earth are born in exactly the same way, physically, as the simplest man, so the most intellectual person must become a Christian in exactly the same way as the simplest person. This is true for all men everywhere, through all space and time. There are no exceptions. Jesus said a totally exclusive word: 'No man cometh unto the Father, but by me'" (John 14:6). -Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality What are your thoughts about this statement?

Truth & Truth-Makers

2006-05-06T15:05:00.000-05:00

Bill Vallicella has a short but thought provoking post up entitled Veritas Sequitur Esse and the Truthmaker Principle. You should check it out.

Philosophy Action Figures...

2006-05-05T23:19:00.000-05:00

All right all of you philosophers out there. Now there exists philosophy dolls, I am sorry, philosophy action figures that you can give to your children for hours of fun. Or you can play with them yourself. Really, what sounds better than a Bashin Bishop Berkeley or Plunderous Plato. Of course there is my personal favorite...Angry Anselm-made for play than which none greater can be conceived. His motto: "Faith seeking to beat understanding into its enemies!" Seriously check out this website. It is so divine in its beauty that I am beginning to wonder if it is the result of a miraculous intervention on God's behalf! See here!

Truth Matters

2006-05-05T13:59:00.000-05:00

"The problem with postmoderns is that they have made peace with a poisonous view of truth, an untrue view of truth. It is one kind of problem to believe an untruth, to take as fact something that in reality is a falsehood, yet still believe that truth exists and can be known.... However, it is another kind of problem to believe that truth itself is merely a matter of personal belief and social custom, so that the truth about Jesus depends on who you take him to be; in this case, no amount of evidence or argument about particular matters of fact will change one's belief." --Doug Groothuis, Truth Decay, 24.

Are Women Reliable?

2006-04-29T01:39:00.000-05:00

When we come to Luke 24 we find an interesting bit of insight into the historical veracity of the empty tomb account. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some other women present told the apostles of the things which they had just seen (i.e. the vacant tomb, the absent body, the two men, etc.). However, the apostles did not accept what they had to say concerning these things. But why not? Well, it seems that it is because the testimony of women was not held in high regard in their culture. Are there any extra-biblical sources that attest to this? Sooner let the words of the Law be burnt than delivered to women. (Talmud, Sotah 19a) The world cannot exist without males and without females-happy is he whose children are males, and woe to him whose children are females. (Talmud, Kiddushin 82b) But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex, nor let servants be admitted to give testimony on account of the ignobility of their soul; since it is probable that they may not speak truth, either out of hope of gain, or fear of punishment. (Josephus, Antiquities 4.8.15) Any evidence which a woman [gives] is not valid (to offer), also they are not valid to offer. This is the equivalent to saying that one who is Rabbinically accounted a robber is qualified to give the same evidence as a woman. (Talmud, Rosh Hashannah 1.8) So Clint, what is the big point? Well, I am glad you asked! If the disciples were trying to create a resurrection account why would they use women as the primary witnesses? After all, women are the primary witnesses in all four gospels as opposed to men in only two gospels. Further, if legend creeps in over time, why was the text not redacted to show that men, a more reliable source, were in fact the first and primary witnesses to the empty tomb? Why even include the women at all? The scholar Gary Habermas found that about 75% of all critical and skeptical scholars accept the fact of the empty tomb (see The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus). However, there are those who refuse to let the evidence convince them. Their reasons? William Wand, former Oxford Church Historian addresses this matter in a concise manner stating that “all the strictly historical evidence we have is in favor of [the empty tomb], and those who reject it ought to recognize that they do so on some other ground than that of scientific history.”

N. T. Wright

2006-04-25T21:50:00.000-05:00

For those of you who enjoy reading this old chaps works, you should check out his newest work Simply Christian. From what I have heard it is going to be the Mere Christianity of this generation.

Jon Kvanvig to Join Baylor Faculty

2006-04-21T12:55:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Matt Mullins' post at Prosblogion it looks like Jonathan Kvanvig will be joining the philosophy department at Baylor University as a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy. I raise my glass.

Stupid Reasoning and Beckwith's Tenure Denial

2006-04-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

MikeGene at Telic Thoughts has posted a response to one example of stupid reasoning regarding Beckwith's tenure denail. Update: scordova at Uncommon Descent has discovered MikeGene's post as well. See here. Update 2: MikeGene is all over it. See here.

I Sometimes Wonder...

2006-04-16T22:36:00.000-05:00

...Are the three major branches of Christianity--Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant--meant to tell us anything about the three divine Persons: the Father, the Son and the Spirit?

Presentism and Truthmakers

2006-04-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

According to Presentism, whatever exists, exists now, in the present. The past has flowed away and the future is yet to come. Only the present exits. But what of things like abstract objects? This view appears to rule out in one swift stroke, any view of abstract entities, for such things do not exists at times, present, past, or future. Many presentists would want qualify a bit. According to this qualified view, for any x, x exists if and only if x obtains in the present, and x is non-abstract. This way room is made for the existence of atemporal objects—objects like properties or numbers which exist but do not exist in the present since they do not exist at any time. But as attractive Presentism is, it faces a serious objection: How exactly are truths about the past grounded? This question of the grounding past truths is a consequence of the truthmaker thesis: TM: Every truth has a truthmaker—that in virtue of which a proposition or sentence is true. Traditionally, facts or states of affairs are taken to be the sort of things that qualify as truthmakers, so that for any true proposition P, there exists a corresponding fact or state of affairs S such that P if and only if S. But perhaps this definition is too strong. There are some truths, e.g. analytic ones, which seem to require no truthmakers. For example the proposition 1) All bachelors in are unmarried, is just true by definition. Similarly, contingent negative existential propositions like 2) Cerberus does not exist, are also thought to not require truthmakers since they do not posit the existence of anything and, so, do not require the existence of anything in order to be true. But save for the likes of 1) or 2), truthmakers are apparently needed for all other propositions. If it is true that I am now writing this post, then necessarily, it is the case that I am now writing this post. But what about the post I wrote last Saturday? What is it that grounds a proposition like: 3) Xavier wrote a post last Saturday. Given Presentism, apparently, nothing in the past could, since past events do not exist. Further, nothing in the present does either, for my typing last Saturday’s post occurred last Saturday. How then does Presentism account for the truth of something like 3)?

New Contributor

2006-04-11T22:34:00.000-05:00

I'd like to hoist a pint in welcoming our newest contributor, Matt Woodard. Matt is currently completing his Master's in Theology, while (rightly) promoting disinterest in anything Duke related. His specializations and interests include Scriptural background studies, textual issues, historical Jesus, NT exegesis, theology and so forth. We're excited to have Matt as part of our team, and I trust you will not be disappointed by anything he writes.

Exposing a Presupposition

2006-04-08T17:46:00.000-05:00

While engaged in a discussion of middle-knowledge with a dear friend recently, I noticed a presupposition. The objection was something in the neighborhood of this: "Middle-knowledge sounds nice philosophically, and has great theological potential if true, but, there's something I can't picture: When Paul was writing on election and predestination in Romans (for example), was he thinking 'middle-knowledge is how God effected this'? I think it was not." Here's the objector's presupposition: Scriptural authors completely understood, philosophically, how the truth of what the Holy Spirit told them works. This is, I think, something Christian's should not feel compelled to hold. I totally affirm that Paul, for example, understood that God predestines us-- but I don't affirm that he necessarily understood just how that works. Similarly, I doubt any of the authors of Scripture could philosophically explain the Trinity, though at least most of them would explicitly affirm it. Now, I've written this in a hurry, so my explanation has not been polished, but the point is clear, I think. Any thoughts?

Augustine and The Spirit as "Love"

2006-04-08T00:08:00.000-05:00

I recently quoted Augustine in De Trinitate VIII at length where he sees in the very act of love, a trace of the Trinity itself. Augustine ponders on the Jesus’ words in Matt. 22:40. There, Christ tells us that the whole of the Law and the prophets can be summed up by loving God and loving your neighbor. Yet we are often instructed in Scripture to love God in one instance and to love our neighbor in another, but not both simultaneously. What then? Are the biblical writers contradicting what Christ has said? Not so, Augustine remarks. For God Himself is love (I John 4:7-8), and the man who loves his neighbor loves love itself (much as the man who loves good things loves the good itself), and thus the one who loves love actually loves God. In Augustine’s words: because God is love, the man who loves love certainly loves God; and the man who loves his brother must love love. So then this loving act of the mind itself is Trinitarian for there you have three equally necessary things in the act of loving—the one who is the lover, the one being loved, and the love itself. For the mind to love, it must love something, and for it to love something, it must love love. “There you are with three, the lover, what is being loved, and love.” Now Augustine does not immediately attempt to identify which member of the Godhead is the Lover, the Beloved, or the Loving. However, he will later return to this and give some hints of his insights. It seems clear that Augustine, while emphasizing the unity and equality of all three members of the Godhead, wants to carry on the tradition he inherited from the East of the Father being Fons Divinitas—or the “fountainhead of deity.” So then, the Father is the Lover. The Son is the Beloved as the Scriptures often presents Him, e.g. Eph. 1:6: which he freely bestowed upon us in the beloved one. The Spirit then is the Love, or the gift of mutual love that ties the both together. And the mutual love between the Father and the Son is actually a love of Love itself, and this Love is the Holy Spirit. (Parenthetically centuries later, Richard of St. Victor will elaborate even more holding that for mutual love to be perfect, there must be love shared with a third person. So then perfect love is not in the I-thou relationship but instead when there is a “co-beloved” as the Holy Spirit is to the Father and the Son. So the Trinity is a communion of love: The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, but for either to love the other, each must love Love Itself, which is the Holy Spirit). Now Augustine’s analogy is just that. An analogy. And he himself after stating it, promptly sets it aside to find something better. But this analogy doesn’t sit well with many contemporary theologians. According to some of my professors, the doctrine of the Trinity is in dire straights in the West. The Holy Spirit, it is said, has been so depersonalized that He is hardly ever considered in Christian scholarship, and has nearly vanished into irrelevance in the religious life of believers. But what has brought this about? Why is the Holy Spirit so often depersonalized? Was it one of the ill effects of the Enlightenment? The net result of the “every man for himself” approach to Scripture interpretation practiced by Protestants? The work of the Enemy? Bad hermeneutics? The tendency among evangelicals to emphasize the work and person of Christ to the neglect of the other divine Persons? “Nay,” I was told. It was none of these things. Rather, the problem of depersonalizing the Spirit that is so prevalent in the West actually finds its root cause in that dreaded analogy of Love that Augustine propounded in De Trinitate VIII. And for a long time I parroted this notion. After all, in the analogy, the Father is personalized as a Lover. The Son, moreover, is personalized, being called “the Beloved One.” But the Spirit is referred to as the impersonal Love that is shared with the Father and the Son. This notion of the Spirit as an impersonal seems to be reflected in Western art where the Father and Son are often depicted in the form of persons, while the Spirit is depicted using impersonal objects like doves, and even inanimate entities like fire. What choice then, did Christians in the West have, but to think of the Holy Spirit as non-personal. I sometimes wonder whether these theologians are secretly suspicious of the biblical writers themselves, what with all those neuter names given to the Holy Spirit like רוּחַ and πνεύματος, “breath” or “wind” (well at least it’s neuter in Greek since Hebrew has only masculine and feminine). While the Father and Son are expressly objectified for us (the Father in His miraculous works, the Son in His incarnation), the Spirit is often elusive, frequently seen as an agent of power—the means by which the Father accomplishes great acts, or the saints endure suffering; He is experienced subjectively. Even more, we are regularly reminded in the Gospels that the Son came to do naught but to glorify the Father. We are also told that the Spirit comes to do naught but to glorify the Son. But nowhere are we told that the Father or the Son comes to glorify the Spirit. And why is it that the Spirit is so often imaged as non-personal objects? In the baptismal scene of Luke 3:21-22, the Son comes to the water as a man. The Father speaks with a voice from heaven, “You are my beloved Son…” But the Spirit comes as a mere dove. And again, when in Acts 2:1-4 the Spirit came upon the believers gathered at Pentecost, he did not come with a human-like voice from heaven as the Father does, nor was He incarnate as a man like the Son. Instead, He came as a wind and as tongues of fire. So do contemporary theologians fault the writers of Scripture for de-personalizing the Spirit too? It seems to me that there is a certain hiddeness to the Person of the Spirit and perhaps it is intended to be just so in the economic Trinity. It is this hiddeness, I think, that Augustine is trying to capture by giving the Spirit the name “Love” (he also uses “Gift”).

Ongoing at Culture Watch

2006-04-07T17:38:00.000-05:00

There is a terrific exchange taking place at Doug Groothuis's blog, Culture Watch, in the comments of "Reporting on an Evening with Atheists." Up to 72 comments already, it is a lengthy but worthwhile read-- especially if you're interested in apologetics/phil of religion. Enjoy! UPDATE-- The discussion continues, though it is (as one may expect) fizzling out. It seems as though Luke (atheist) is running out of back-peddling room; Tim has quite capably defended his position. Still worth a read, the thread is far more interesting (in my opinion) early on.