What are we to do tomorrow?

I'm at work on a long post on pedagogy. I teach, and a series of posts on the conclusions to which I've come about that is past due.

But until them, let me say a little about the moral life.

The moral relativist tells us that moral obligation is relative. When I ask, "Relative to what?", not all give the same answer. To some, it is relative to individual choice; to others, to societal norm. But for me now, the answer does not matter. For I wish to ask all relativists how they know what they are to do tomorrow.

I understand well enough when they tell me that present moral obligation is relative to this or that. But we seem able to choose, and to change, our moral views. This I think is a fact of experience, an obvious fact. But if moral obligation is relative and variable, that today it is this (whatever this is) does not imply that tomorrow it ought to be, or will be, the same. Relativist, explain to me why you should not change your moral views overnight. Explain to me why it is necessary to hang on to them for even a second more.

You cannot say that they should not change because they conform to an external, objective standard. You cannot say that they should not change because human nature remains fixed, for a moral scheme that ties moral obligation to human nature runs counter to the fundamental thesis of the relativity of moral obligation. But if you cannot say either, it seems that you can say nothing. You can provide no reason not to abandon your moral views tonight.

The relativity of moral obligation is, I would say, a synchronic fact. It concerns only what occurs at present. At present, moral obligation is merely a reflection of the view the individual or society happens to hold. But that this is so at present gives not even a tiny hint of a reason why it should remain thus. Change or remain the same - that can make no difference to the relativist.

Thus if we cling to our moral views - as we ought and in fact do- we reveal that we are not relativists. If we know what we are to do tomorrow - and we do - we are not relativists.

Intertwined Interests, Pt. II: Good and Evil

I. Evil

The interests of all matter just the same, for this is the Law of Love. Thus I must value your interests as I do mine. I may not, then, act in such a way that your interests are of necessity disregarded. But what sorts of actions are these? How might I act in disregard of your interests?

Two answers are possible. (1) I disregard your interests and have nothing to do with you. This is callousness. (2) I disregard your interests when I force you to act in such a way benefits only me. This is domination.

Here we have before us the two primary sorts of sin: callousness and domination. Of the two, the latter seems the worse. If I am callous, I at least leave you the space to pursue your own interests (whatever they may be). Granted I do not provide you the aid that you might need, but I least I do not seek to do you any positive harm. If I seek to dominate you, however, I do do you positive harm. I force you to act in disregard of your interests and thus, since we all of necessity think our own interests important, force you to act in a way contrary to our interests. (Do not think that Christian love of neighbor requires you to erase your own interests. It does not. It only requires that you not think them elevated over the interest of another. Christians are not required to be selfless. Instead they are required to hold that all selves - and this includes themselves - are of equal worth.)

Here then is evil: it is (conceived negatively) callousness, and it is (conceived positively) domination.

II. Good

Human interests are intertwined. (I'll shift, for sake of linguistic simplicity, to talk of goods.) We are made to love, and when we love perfectly, our good is achieved. But to love you is to seek your good. Thus my good is achieved only when your good is achieved, and your good is achieved only when my good is achieved. Our goods are then intertwined. I cannot achieve mine if you do not achieve yours; you cannot achieve yours if I do not achieve mine. Indeed my primary good is the role I play in the achievement of all goods, both yours and mine; and your primary good is the role you play in the achievement of all goods, both yours and all others.

There is only one good for humanity. The good for one is the good for all, and the good of all is the good of each.

Here then is good: it is the activity of all in the attempt to secure the good of each.

Infanticide and Intertwined Interests

A conversation at Thinking Christian led me to draw a conclusion about intertwined interests. Let me explain.

Th conversation turned (quite naturally it seems to me) to the fate of those who die in infancy and what this might imply about the permissibility of infanticide. The consensus of the Christian voices was that all who die in infancy are heaven-bound. (This is surely wisdom.) The skeptical reply was that, if this is so, should we not say that it is in the interest of an infant to kill it before it reaches the age of accountability and thus before its salvation might be jeopardized.

The reply to this was that it could never be in anyone's interest to commit so gross a sin as to murder an infant.

I'll pick up the thread of the argument here and in a moment draw a quite extraordinary conclusion. We should distinguish, say I, the interests of the one who sins from the interest of the one on whom the sinner acts. No doubt if Mr. Z were to kill an infant, that act is not in Mr. Z's interest. Such a gross violation of God's will must result in a harm to Mr. Z.; even if he is not caught and imprisoned, the harm to his soul will be severe. But that it is not in Mr. Z's best interestto kill the infant does not imply that it is not in the infant's best interest. Their interests need not coincide, it would seem. What would undoubtably do great harm to Mr. Z would, it seems, result in great benefit to the infant.

The only way out of this that I see is to insist that everyone's ultimate interests are the same. But this seems incredible on the face of it. It would seem that my interests are me-centered and your interests are you-centered, and what benefits me need not be what benefits you.

So the world would say. But might this be moral error? Should we say instead that all of our interests are ultimately we-centered? Do we have a hint of this in, say, family life? I don't take my interests to be mine alone. I do well only when my family does well (and they do well only when I do well), so closely are our interests intertwined; for I desire so strongly that they do well (and they desire so strongly that I do well) that, if they do not do well, one of my deepest desires is thrwated and I am thereby harmed.

Is this where humanity as a whole is headed? Is this where it should be now? Do none of us do well when any of us do poorly? Perhaps this is what love of neighbor implies. Strang as it may seem, the atheist Sartre, if a recall correctly, expressed in idea like this. If anyone anywhere, he said, is not free, I too am not free. A beautiful thought, even if I could never quite get my head around it. I always thought it was more a call to action than a literal truth. But perhaps for the Christian it is (near to) the literal truth.

The Atonement: Why I've Stalled

I'm at work on an essay about the Atonement. I realized soon on that any account of the Atonement must take on the issue of Original Sin too, for OS must be (or have introduced) the problem that the Atonement fixes. (I choose language here that's deliberately vague. OS is the "problem". The Atonement "fixes" it. All Christians would, I think, assent to this. What I'm after is an account of the problem and the fix.)

I'm overwhelmed. I began to think back over the arc of argument that began in May of '05 (when The Philosophical Midwife began). I've expressed various views about the Atonement and Original Sin, but I now think that those views are not self-consistent.

Here's the set of views that I've expressed in the past that now seem inconsistent to me:

1. All forms of Penal Substitution are false. There was no debt owed by humanity to God that was paid by Christ.

2. Original sin is real, and it consists in a defect in human nature.

3. Sin not only corrupted human nature; it corrupted the world in which we live. The world is not as God intended. It is a world of death and destruction, of a slow slide into maximum entropy, of inescapable danger to life and spirit.

4. Insofar as anything like original sin exists, it is mere spiritual immaturity.

5. The world is a classroom, and we are the students. The lesson is love, and evil is the means of instruction.

6. Christ's primary role was that of consummate teacher, and only he could teach the lesson we must learn, the lesson of perfect love. Our redemption will come through the mastery of this lesson.

7. Christ's life and death made possible the correction of our defective nature.

I still endorse 1, for just the reasons I've given before.

I still endorse both 2 and 3, and I think that 2 explains 3. The world is fallen because humanity is fallen; and the world's redemption will come about through humanity's redemption.

I still endorse 7. Indeed 7 is the claim that Christ makes possible our redemption, that Christ is the Atoner. I would add to it that Christ's life and death made possible the redemption of the whole of nature.

I have rejected 6. The Atonement was not at bottom pedagogical in purpose (though Christ was, among much else, a teacher). Rather, I said, we are not ready to learn Christ's lesson. We are defective in nature, defective in a way that makes us unable to act upon the Law of Love, and that defect must be corrected. The primary purpose of the Atonement is thus correction of a defective human nature. Christ came so that we might be made able to love.

Now, here's where the worry begins. I suspect that my rejection of 6 stands in tension with 4 and 5. Being immature is not identical to being defective. Indeed if we were only spiritually immature, we might be just as originally designed; and if we were as originally designed, there would be no need for Christ to fix us. Christ the perfect pedagogue we might need. Christ the healer of a broken human nature we would not.

Here's another way to make the point. If I continued to embrace 4 and 5, it seems that there would have been little need for God to become man; there would be no real need for Christ. If all we need is instruction, and evil is the means to it, then it would seen that a world without Christ would have all we need. But this is absurd. Christianity without a need for Christ is not really Christianity at all. The incarnation was necessary, and any theology with even the barest hint of plausibility must embrace this.

Here's where I am. We are more than simply spiritually immature (though we are perhaps that too). Instead there's a deeper, much deeper, issue. We are broken. We need a healer. Christ is that healer. I must then reject 4 and 5.

This marks a significant shift in my world-view. Perhaps I should say that I brought different parts of my world-view into contact, saw their inconsistency, and made a decision about what should stay and what should go. In later posts, I'll attempt to bring order and articulation to my views.

When Commands Conflict

When presented with a multiplicity of commands as we are in the Decalogue, the possibility always exists that among those commands, we will find possible cases of conflict. Consider, for instance, the commands to keep the Sabbath holy and to honor father and mother. If I were to receive a call that my mother was in the hospital on a Saturday night, should I make the 6 hour drive to see her or should I say home and attend Mass? The answers seems obvious to me; indeed I would insist that it is obvious. But that point to the side, in this example commands conflict; and if we are to decide what to do, we cannot simply rely on these commands but must turn to a more basic command/rule/obligation that will allow us to adjudicate between the two. How will the more basic command accomplish this? It will rank the goods of the two commands; it will tell us which is more important and thus which is to be pursued in this case.

Thus commands can conflict, and I wish us here to consider the seek for the command/rule/obligation that will, as it were, break the tie . (Before I do, let me make a quick aside. I do not mean to say that any command can conflict with any other. Some commands are, no doubt, but special cases of others; and when this is so, no conflict is possible. Others might be strict logical consequences of other, higher-level, commands; and when this is so, again no conflict is possible.)

When commands conflict, we must have a way to decide what we are to do, and thus we must search for basic guides to action. Moreover, there must be a most basic guide; for if there were many that were equally basic, cases would arise where they conflict and action would become arbitrary or impossible.

Christ himself seems to have given us the way to decide. He says:

An expert in the law tested Jesus with this question, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?" Jesus replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:35-40)

This is the Law of Love. It is the one ultimate command, for as Christ says all others follow from it; and since all others follow from it, it can never contradict them. Rather, when lesser commands contradict, we must look to the Law of Love to adjudicate between them. Think back again to the case of conflict I considered above, where I must decide whether to keep the Sabbath holy or honor my mother. The Law of Love seems clearly applicable. My mother would wish to see him, and I would wish to see her. She loves me, and I her; and I would display the worst sort of lovelessness if I were not to see her. Moreover, that I would not keep the Sabbath seems, from the point of view of the Law of Love, of little importance in comparison. God will not suffer if I am not in church; and I will suffer much less if I go to my mother than I would if I did not.

My conclusion is this: the Law of Love, since it is the source of all other commands, must be allowed temper them all. None are absolute expect the Law of Love. All expect the Law of Love hold at best for the most part, and the duties they prescribe are, in part at least, situation bound. Only the Law of Love admits of no exceptions. When any other command contradicts the law of love, there we have an exception to it; and when commands conflict, the Law of Love must decide between them.

Moral absolutism, if taken to concern any command expect the Law of Love (and those commands that follow with strict necessity from it, if any there be) is fundamentally unchristian. Christians must not insist that all the various particular moral rules that are found in Scripture are absolute and without exception. By simple logical necessity, they are not. The only rule on which the Christian must insist is the Law of Love.

Reason and Morality

I argued here that our senses alone are not the source of all knowledge. In a reply to a comment, I extended the argument (in a way that I should have to begin); I now take it to prove that some knowledge cannot be traced back to the senses. Some of what we know we know by reason alone; reason does not always act upon the contents of sense.

Thus a certain possibility opens. Perhaps not just a little can be known by reason alone. Perhaps reason makes much known.

Below are a number of principles that seem to me rational in nature. They are not gotten out of the contents of sense by an inference either mediate or immediate. Indeed them seem to dictate which sorts of inferences made from the contents of sense are good ones and which are not. Some are stated. Others are merely referenced. (I would guess that none of the principles below is stated adequately. A lesson learned early on in philosophy is just how difficult it is to say something in a way that's not open to decisive, and in hindsight obvious, objections.)

1. Of all the possible explanations of a certain phenomena that present themselves, choose the one that is simplest. (What counts as simplicity in explanation is a matter of controversy, but most will agree to this: if two explanations are similar except that one posits more entities, or more kinds of entities, than the other, then the one that posits fewer is simpler.)

2. The principles of deductive and inductive logic (taken to encompass the injunction not to commit any fallacy).

3. The principles of probability, e.g. Bayes Theorem, a principle much beloved by philosophers

Let me add another to the list, one that might just have relevance to moral theory. (“F” is for “fair”. The principle is a principle of fairness.)

F. Treat similar cases similarly in ways demanded by their similarity; treat dissimilar cases dissimilarly in ways demanded by their dissimilarity.

An example will make the principle clear. Say that I have two figures before me, quadrilaterals let us say. I consider the first and find that, since it has four sides, it can be decomposed into two triangles; and from this I conclude that the sum of its interior angles must be 360º. (I know to begin that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180º.) What then must I say about the other quadrilateral? It is similar to the other in respect of number of sides; thus it too must have interior angles that sum to 360º. The figures are similar in a respect relevant to the total degree measure of their angles; and thus the total degree measure of one must equal the total degree measure of the other.

Why might F have to do with moral theory? Here's my idea. I think that I matter (as you think that you matter). If you were to run roughshod over me, if we were to treat me as a mere thing to be used in any way that suits you, I would object. Indeed I would act to protect myself if necessary. But you and I are similar in a respect that is relevant here. You have needs and desires just as do I and would object if they were systematically disregarded. Thus principle F requires that I think that you matter too and so requires that, when I act, I don't discount how my actions will effect you.

My point is this: I don't think I matter just because I'm me. Being Franklin Mason is not what makes me value myself. Instead I value myself because I am a being with needs and desires, i.e. insofar as I am a being that places value on this or that, I count myself valuable. But sheer consistency then demands that I count you as valuable too, for that which makes my valuable in my own eyes is found in you just as much as in me.

If I'm right about this, then what seems to me the fundamental dictate of morality – that others are to be treated as if they matter just as much as me – seems to follow from a rational principle.

This conclusion has obvious consequences for the debate between moral relativists and moral absolutists. If some moral principle can be given a purely rational derivation, then it cannot be relative. I suspect that when relativists assert that all morality is relative, they have in mind the particular moral principles embraced by different peoples at different times. (Pork is verboten, a woman must walk 5 paces behind her husband, etc.) Such principles do seem relative; they likely have no foundation other than variable, idiosyncratic cultural practice. But I suggest that the relativist turn her attention from these particular principles to something more fundamental. I suggest she consider the principle that all are to be treated as if they matter just the same. This, it seems to me, has a claim to being absolute. (And it is my experiences that relativists come to their relativism out a deep respect for difference. But a deep respect for that seems to me to imply a deep respect for those people who hold those different opinions. And so it seems to me that relativists embrace, even if only tacitly, the very principle that I've articulated.)

Reason and the Senses

I wish us to consider the means whereby we acquire knowledge of the world and which of those means are at work in our knowledge of the transcendent. (“God” will be my short-hand for the transcendent.) Now, one might suppose that the only way to gain knowledge of God is through some sort of causal interaction with God on one end and humanity on the other. On this model, God would be sensed much as would tastes or smells; and we would have to suppose that we have an organ of sense whose natural object is God. If one did suppose this, one might be tempted to reject the possibility of knowledge of God. Why? Science has given us no evidence that we have such a sense-organ, and science seems as well to rule out the possibility of a God-world causal interaction.

I wish us, then, to consider this claim, the claim that the sole possible access to God is through sense. In the end, I will reject it. It provides an overly restrictive account of the myriad ways in which we come to know the world.

The so-called senses – sight, taste and the rest - cannot be the only means whereby we come to know the world. Indeed even if we were to assume that our senses were increased in number and we thereby came to have access to aspects of the physical world hidden to us now, they still would not be, could not be, the only means whereby we come to know the world. Let me explain. The senses place us in causal relation to the world. The world acts, the senses receive; and at the end of this process, the brain takes in the input of the senses and produces a mental representations that bears the distinctive marks of the sensory modality that gives rise to them. (The mental representations of sight have color and shape, for instance.)

But our knowledge of the world is not always receptive in this way. Not all knowledge can be reduced to sensory representations. But what else is there? What is the source of this other sort of knowledge?

Reason must be part of the answer. Consider, for instance, a proposition like one that Reitan considered in his post on Logical Empiricism.

All genuine propositions, that is all propositions that actually manage to mean something or other, are empirical in the sense that their truth makes a difference in the empirical order of things.

This proposition self-refutes. (It itself has no empirical content – its truth makes no difference in the empirical order. Thus if true, it implies that it itself means nothing. Thus it cannot be true, and if it cannot be true, it must be false.) Thus we know that its negation is true. But its negation is a non-empirical proposition, and so some of what we know we come to know in a non-empirical way. How might we describe the way in which we come to know this? It looks like philosophical argumentation to me, and I know of no better name for the ability to do that than “reason”.

A point here about reason. It cannot be labeled as subjective. The little philosophical argument above is, it seems to me, quite objectively cogent. It does not merely report how I feel. It results in a conclusion that tells us a bit about the world outside our heads, and everyone, it seems to me, is obligated by sheer logic to grant the truth of its conclusion. (I grant that the knowledge it gives us is negative and thus not really that informative. But we do know something when its over that we did not know before, and that something is really quite important. We know that some genuine, non-empirical propositions are true.)

A second point about reason. Its deliverances aren't like the those of the senses. It has no distinctive phenomenological character as do each of the sense modalities. There's no color, taste or sound to it. There's no way that it feels. Moreover, there is no organ of reason as there is for sight or the other senses. There are no eyes of reason, or ears or nose. Reason is not a faculty whereby the world acts upon us and we as a result build up internal representations of one or another aspect of that world. Reason is rather of the nature of a mental activity. With this, we show that a certain view of how we come to know the world around us is false. On that view, all cognitive content, all that we know, can we reduced to sensory representations. Reason gives us truths that are not sensory in character.

Last point: it seems to me that, once we open to door to non-sensory means to acquire knowledge, we cannot assume that we've got a good grip on what those means are, either their nature or their number. Might there be moral knowledge, for instance? I suspect so, but if this post shows anything, it shows that we cannot rule such a possibility out from the get-go.

(Now, it is of course a very good question how the brain accomplishes this activity I've called reason. I don't have an answer. Indeed I'm not even convinced that the brain could do any such thing as this. At times, I suspect that a soul must be posited as the seat of reason. But my ignorance about this issue does not in the least undermine my argument. Good questions need not be objections.)

Let me reiterate: there are sources to knowledge of the world that do not require that there be a means of transmission of information from world to mind via any sort of causal interaction. Of course some sources of knowledge do require this, and these are the senses. But there is also an intra-mental source of knowledge whereby by reflection alone we can come to discover truths which before we did not know. Knowledge does not in all cases require interaction with the external world. Thus we cannot say that if we know anything of God, we must do so through a sensory apprehension of him. There are other possibilities.

I understand very well that the waters are deep here. I've said little about what I take reason to be, and I've said about how it relates to sense. Moreover, I've only barely hinted at the possibility of other non-sensory sorts of knowledge. But there is a germ of an idea here that I think the theist wise to seize. (I'll speak in metaphors for a moment. I can do no better at present. I apologize.) God is not wholly outside us. He is within us too, and thus we ought to expect to meet him in reflection upon ourselves. Indeed this is the only way in which we meet him. There is no organ with which to sense God, nor need there be. God is met when the mind detaches from the concreta delivered up by the senses and asks after such things as ultimate origin and ultimate purpose. The God who is in us – the only God there is or could be – is not to be found in sky or earth. There are found only the creations of God. Only when in reflection we turn to questions of the origin of the world and its significance do we find God.

Science and the Hidden God

Recently the Times asked readers to define "faith". Many definitions were pejorative and said little expect that faith is irrational.

Why is faith so often thought irrational? Because, many say, it is belief in the absence of evidence. Of course the critic has in mind the standard she believes science provides. It, she believes, is the paradigm of knowledge, for its conclusions, unlike faith, have a solid evidential foundation.

But is this so? Is there a real difference in kind between the faith and science? Is science rational and faith irrational? Is science grounded in evidence and faith cut loose from it? I will argue that it is not.

The argument is two-part. (i) I argue first that the conclusions of science and of faith (and when I speak of faith I mean here the belief that God exists) are similar in kind. Both are grounded in the evidence the senses provide, but both far outrun that narrow evidential base. (ii) I argue second that the critics of faith unjustifiably narrow the sources of evidence and so put faith at an unfair disadvantage. Part one appears below. Part two will appear in a later post.

Science is no mere collection of reports of observation. Rather science is of its natural general. The theoretical constructs of science do not tell us only what the body of researchers has so far observed. Scientific theory is no mere list. Rather it tell us what happens whenever certain conditions - conditions essentially general in nature - obtain. The best examples of this are provided by physics. The Special Theory of Relativity, for instance, tells us about differential time flow in any two reference frames in motion relative to one another; and of course relative motion actually observed forms a tiny subset of all relative motion.

The theoretical constructs of science thus far outrun their evidential base, and so we cannot expect those constructs to follow deductively from their evidential base. Hence the arguments within science are inductive in nature, and so the conclusions of those arguments are at best probable.

Now let us ask what kinds of inductive argument are at work within science. Why precisely do we accept the theories we do? My answer is this: at bottom, scientific theories must be explanatorily superior. They must explain the contents of our observation reports, and those that do a better job of this than any of their competitors are the ones we embrace. Consider, for instance, the revolution that overturned pre-Einsteinian theories of space and time - the ether theories, let us call them - and gave us the Special and General Theories of Relativity. Now, as a matter of historical fact, Einstein himself recognized that the ether theories could be made to square with all evidence that had come to light. It could be made to square, for instance, with the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. But to do so would require that the ether theories be saddled with a theoretical posit, viz. the existence of a privileged reference frame by which absolute rest and motion might be defined, whose existence could never be revealed in any observation whether actual or possible. This, Einstein thought, counted against the ether theories and for the STR, for it unlike they made no such posit and was thus considerably explanatorily simpler.

My point here is this. The STR did not triumph over its rivals because they could not be brought into consistency with observation. They could. Rather it triumphed over them because of its explanatory superiority. It explained the relevant observation set better than did they.

Now, with this lesson in mind, let us turn to the comparison of faith and science. Many with faith (and I include myself among them, though my faith often wanes) believe as they do in part because they find the content of their faith to explain much that they observe. The universe exists but is contingent (and by this I mean that it might not have existed). What might explain this fact? Presumably something outside the universe, something that unlike the universe is not contingent (for we cannot explain a thing by itself, and we cannot explain contingent existence by contingent existence). Moreover, this something, whatever it is, must possess the power to create a universe such as ours. God is one among the many possible explanatory hypotheses here, and many have argued that it is the best of them all.

Second example. The universe seems to be finely tuned in such a way that it is hospitable to life. If it had been even slightly different in one of a number of ways, life would have been impossible. What might explain this extraordinary fact? It seems two sorts of explanation are possible: either some mechanism produces such a plethora of universes that one such as ours was inevitable, or a power created our universe because it was one in which life could arise. The latter sort brings us very close to God, for a power that acts for some purpose is one that is intelligent. Thus as before one might begin one's argument for God's existence here.

Examples might be compounded, but I will stop. (If I were to continue, I would argue that the existence of moral obligation finds its best explanation in God.) My point is not that these arguments are persuasive as stated. Clearly they are not. But they are arguments that have been developed at great length by theologians, and their point, I take it, is that God is the best of an array of explanatory hypotheses. Deny that they're right about this this if you like, but one point you must grant: belief in God, like belief in the theories of science, is grounded in arguments to the best explanation. Faith is not a repository of superstition. It is not a product of an imagination cut loose from the world. Rather it begins with our knowledge of the world around us, and like science seeks to explain that world in the best possible way. Perhaps you will reject its explanations, but do not deny their existence. They are there. Moreover, do not object that the object of faith, viz. God, has never appeared in your or anyone else's observation of the world and thus that belief in that object is irrational. (I sometimes think that when critics of faith object that faith is irrational, they mean just this. They mean quite literally that no one has ever seen God.) If this objection were sound, science too would be irrational. There is much that science posits that has never appeared to us and will never appear to us. If in fact an asteroid impact does indeed account for the mass extinctions at the end of the Craetacous , that impact will never be observed. Rather we can observe at most a tiny subset of its effects, and we infer that it was indeed the cause of those mass extinctions because it best explains them. We will never observe the curvature of space predicted by the General Theory. Indeed we cannot observe it. It is not an object; it is not an event. Thus it cannot present itself to the senses as do these things. But we can know that it curves because that curvature is part of the theory that best explains much that we can observe.

Thus it is with God. We theists believe that God best explains much that we observe. Disagree if you like, but acknowledge that we believe with reason. We don't believe out of weakness of will or out of irrationality. We believe because we wish to know at bottom how the world works, and in this we are of one mind with science.

The Evils of Religion

I grow weary of the charge that religion is a cause of much evil in the world.

Yes, much evil has been done in the name of religion. But what really is the root cause here? Would the human tendency to evil have found another outlet even if religion had not been near to hand?

If the evil would have been done even even if religion was not present to justify it, religion cannot be the root cause. Indeed, if all one does is note the many circumstances in which evil has been done in the name of religion, it is quite possible that religion tends to mitigate the evil people do.

To speak like a logician, if all one does is note how often evil is done in the name of religion, only correlation, not cause and effect, has been discovered; and even if one grants that religion is a cause of evil done, one certainly not identified the root cause. The human propensity evil might lie behind the existence of religion (I would say the perversion of religion) and serve as the final explanation of evil done. In such a case, religion has been exonerated.

It is extraordinarily difficult to tease out root causes, and a casual perusal of history cannot do it. Prove to me that the evil attributed to religious belief would not have occurred without religion and I will accept your conclusion. But until you do this, I will dismiss your accusation out of hand.

Heart and Mind

An idea - an idea about myself and my tendency to unbelief - became clear a moment ago. I find it almost impossible to believe a thing if I do not understand it fully. This is why I began to write about the Atonement. It was no dry, academic exercise. Rather I want to believe but find an inability to understand a barrier to it. I want to believe that, Christ died for my sins. But I don't know what this means; I don't know what precisely I am to believe. Thus I do not fully believe.

I suspect this is a fault. (Indeed it must be a fault if rank-and-file believers believe with good reason, as I suppose they do.) What others pass over with a quick and sure intuitive grasp makes me trip and fall. I immediately begin to analyze, and when analysis fails, belief wavers. Moreover, even if I my analysis of, say, the Atonement were to satisfy me at the moment, it isn't at all unlikely that at a future time it will not. But I don't think it wise to rest faith upon a foundation that might shift.

This is an existential problem, not a theoretical one. But if I know me, I'll continue to pursue the theoretical end, though it have no confidence that it will bear fruit.

The Atonement and Orignal Sin

I've begun now a series of posts about the Atonement. Two are behind me but I fear that many more are in front. The issue has ramified (as so often happens).

I concluded that the issue of the Atonement, if thought through, requires that one both posit Original Sin and describe how it might be overcome. The Atonement fixes or puts right what went wrong with humanity in the Fall and thus makes us able to love God with all of heart and mind and neighbor as self. But what precisely did go wrong and how might it be put right? I find that I have at best a partial answer to this question. Thus do no expect any resolution here. That (if it ever comes) must await another day. All that I have to offer is the very first hint of a solution. Indeed I'll have much more to say about challenges to the form of solution I offer than about the solution itself. My argument is very much a work in progress.

Recall the path whereby I reached this conclusion. I first argued that the Atonement was pedagogical in intent and potential effect; I argued, that is, that Christ, in his death, gave us a perfect example of love, and that this example would lead us to give our love in return. But I realized that this view was shallow and at best a partial truth. Indeed I realized that I was guilty of a kind of inverse Pelagianism. Pelagius argued that from Adam we did not receive a nature warped and thus inclined to sin. On the contrary, he argued that Adam was a bad example and nothing more, and that we are as perfect in nature when we come into the world as was Adam when God first breathed life into him. In my first post on the Atonement, I adopted the view of Pelagius. I assumed that we are quite ready, as we are now, to evince a perfect love if only we are shown what that is. Like Pelagius, I thought that there was no corruption of nature but only an example to follow. For Pelagius, Adam was but a bad example. For me, Christ was but a perfect example. The error is at bottom one and the same.

If we resist Pelagianism here, we must explain how the Atonement made possible a cure for the disease of soul that we inherit from Adam; and to do this, we must explain just what that disease is, for if we do not understand the disease, we cannot understand the cure. Thus we must undertake the task of Theodicy. (Theodicy, recall, is the attempt to explain why an all-good and all-powerful God might have had reason to allow evil to exist.) The issue of the Atonement ramifies once again. (Indeed I fear that it might so fully ramify that I will find that I can give an account of the Atonement only if I also simultaneously give an account of all the fundamental dogmas of Christianity - the Trinity, the Incarnation and all the rest. But if it must be, let it be.) Why must we undertake Theodicy? I believe (as do many Christians) that though God allowed evil to enter the world, he did not create it himself. Rather it is the creation of humanity (and perhaps of other rational, contingent beings as well). This evil, moreover, came about when we severed the relation that before we'd had with God and so made ourselves into sinful creations who, cut off from God, became quite capable of evil both minor and great. This is the origin of the disease of soul that afflicts us all. This is how it came to be.

But this is at most the barest hint of that in which original sin consists. I've said just a bit about its cause and its effect. (Cause: that free act whereby we severed the relation that before had bound us to God. Effect: Evil.) But I've not yet said what original sin is. It is a disease, a disorder of soul that inclines us to sin. But what is this disease, this disorder? What did we do to ourselves when we Fell?

I am tempted by Thomas' view. (The seeds of his view had been sown long before. It is present in Augustine and before him in Plato.) It is at least an answer that is intelligible, and it does explain much of the evil that we do (as any view of original sin must). Thus Thomas in Nature and Grace:

It is the disordered disposition which has resulted from the dissolution of the harmony which was once the essence of original justice, just as bodily sickness is the disordered disposition of a body which has lost the equilibrium which is the essence of health. (Q 82, Art 1)

The whole order of original justice consisted in the subjection of man’s will to God. Man was subject to God first and foremost through his will, which directs all other parts of his soul to their end, as we said in Q 9, Art 1. Disorder in any other part of his soul is therefore the consequence of his will turned away from God. Privation of original justice, by which the will of man was subject to God, is therefore the formal element in original sin. Every other disorder of the powers of the soul is related to original sin as the material which it affects. Now the disorder of these other powers consists especially in this, that they are wrongly directed to changeable good. Such disorder may be called by the common name of “desire.” Materially, then, original sin is desire. Formally, it is the lack of original justice. In man, the power of desire is naturally ruled by reason. Desire is therefore natural to man in so far as it is subject to reason. But desire which exceeds the bounds of reason exists in him as something contrary to nature. Such is the desire of original sin. (Q 82, Art 3)

Intellect and reason have the primacy where good in concerned. But, conversely, the lower part of the soul comes first where evil is concerned. For it darkens reason and drags it down, as we said in Q 80, Art 1. Original sin is therefore said to be desire rather than ignorance, although ignorance is one of its material defects. (Q 82, Art 3)

Since man has lost the control of original justice which once kept all the powers of his soul in order, each power tends to follow its own natural movement. (Art 4)

The gist of the view is clear. When we turned from God, the will ceased to exert the control natural to it; and without that control, our other faculties began to pursue their natural ends without the balance, without the restraint, that the will is supposed to provide.

But about this I have more questions that answers. I list them as they occur to me. Order means nothing.

1. Why did the will cease to exercise control? What is that connection of the will to God that seemed to render it so vulnerable? Why wasn't, say, sexual desire effected in the same way?
2. What has the defect of will to do with love? I have said that original sin made us unable to love as we should? But what has our inability to control our various faculties do to with that? The connection is not clear.
3. How precisely did Christ's life or his death on the cross fix this defect of will?
4. Given that Christ's life and death might somehow fix the will, why was it necessary for this? (Recall that, at the very start of my discussion of the Atonement, I supposed that the Atonement was not only sufficient to achieve its desired effect but was necessary for that effect as well.
5. Given that the Atonement made possible the restoration of the proper function of the will, should we not expect that Christians, who have availed themselves must fully of the action of the Atonement, would be morally superior in act to non-Christians? But the supposition that they are is dubious at best. (Indeed this stands as a challenge to all accounts of the Atonement that suppose its primary effect to be the correction of a defect in our nature. If this were so, wouldn't Christians be better people than in fact they are?)

I must leave the issue here. I see no deeper into the issue at present.

In What Can We Trust?

We here in the U. S. seem to place great trust in progress. We believe that we are better off today than we were a generation before, and we work for a like progress in the future.

But the only “we” that matters when such judgments are made are the current residents of the U.S. But if we wish to speak of the condition of humanity, that “we” should include not just those here but all everywhere. I wonder what our judgment must be about the “progress” the world has made if we so widen our judgment.

Moreover, if we wish to speak of the condition of humanity, we must speak of it not only now, but in the future as well; and I have precisely zero confidence that even here, even in the “enlightened” West, we won’t slip back into barbarism. Many Jews refused to leave Europe even after Hitler’s Germany had by its actions made its intentions clear. They believed that “it” could not happen here. They were wrong. Darkness descends where once there was light. Perhaps for us too the light has begun to fade. The Earth warms because of the pollution we spew. Can you be confident that this won’t so stress economies that the whole world will be thrown into chaos? Islamist extremists seeks to destroy the West. What if New York or LA were to disappear in a mushroom clould? What would be our response? What would be the response to the response?

Even where there is progress, it is fragile. It might be lost. Who can judge the probabilities here? Where in the mundane can you place any trust?

The Atonement: Second Thoughts

I had what I thought was my say about the Atonement. The view I proposed was a variant of the so-called "Moral Influence View". It (or a variant of it) was articulated by Abelard and Schleiemacher among others. But as I reflected what upon what I had said, I came to doubt that it was complete.

My contention was that Christ wished to display, in the most perfect of all possible ways, his perfect love for us and thereby elicit from us a more perfect love in return. But notice an assumption that I made. I assumed that we are quite able to return His love if only we become convinced that it has been shown for us. But is this true? Are we able in our present state to return it? (Indeed, in our present state, are we able so much as to admit that it has been shown for us?)

I would say no. I am fully convinced of the doctrine of original sin (if this is understood to mean that we come into the world with an inescapable propensity to sin). But sin say I is any act which tends to separate us from the love of God. Thus it would seem that we come into this world with a stubborn inability to unite ourselves to God's love, and a mere example of God's love - for us, a mere story that relates God's love to us - could not possibly overcome this. Our sinfulness is not, say, like a student's ignorance of geometry when she begins the class. There is (let us say) no essential inability in the student that would render her unable to learn, and thus her ignorance can be overcome by example, guided work and the like. There is, in other words, no impediment to instruction in place, and all should go well.

But in the case of sin, there is an impediment in place. We come into the world defective, and this defect is a bottom an inability to unite ourselves to the love of God. Thus a mere example of that love - even that example which exceeds all others in its perfection - cannot be expected to turn the tide. If Christ was a bottom only a teacher of love, then he would fail, for his students are not able to learn the lesson he would teach them.

Thus Christ cannot have been only a teacher, else his life and death would have been a waste. He cannot have come only to give an example of God's perfect love. He must have done more. He must, in particular, have made possible the cure for that inborn defect that made us (before the cure) unable to love God. Now, I do not doubt that Christ is our instructor. But he is much more too, and the more that he is must logically precede Christ the teacher. Christ must be healer before he is teacher.

So the question before us is this: How did the life and death of Christ heal humanity? How did it so effect a defective human nature that it became able to return the perfect love that was shown when Christ allowed himself to be nailed to the cross? I have no answer at present.

So, then, I come to suspect that one must hold a pluripotency view of the Atonement. It did not do one thing. It did many things. (Perhaps this is just what we should expect. In all things, God brings about a complexity of effect through a simplicity of cause.)

Moral Relativism and Human Freedom

All moral theory is of two types. On the first, at least one thing is good simpliciter, good in its own right, good not merely in relation to this or that but good in itself. On the second, anything that is good is good for or good to something outside itself.

A wasp stings a caterpillar. The caterpillar is paralyzed. The wasp then lays an egg in the caterpillar, an egg that will later hatch and consume the caterpillar. Here we have something good and something evil. For the caterpillar, to be consumed by the wasp is an evil. For the wasp, to make possible the continuation of its kind is a good. But these of course are a good and an evil of a relative sort. The good is a good for and the evil an evil for. Neither is a good or an evil in its own right. Each is, if you like, what it is only from a certain, partial point of view. Change that point of view, and the quality of the event too must change.

When I think of such events as this, I am tempted to place them beyond good and evil. Yes, in a way we have a good, and in a way we have an evil. But when one simply observes such an event - when, that is, one does not take the point of view of either caterpillar or wasp but simply watches and contemplates - it seems that the event simply is. The caterpillar dies. The wasp grows. This is simply the way the world is, and nothing in it is good simpliciter or evil simpliciter. I attempt to inculcate this attitude in my children, and it is, I think, the attitude of the scientist. The wasp is in no sense evil or corrupt for what it does. Nature is in no sense evil or corrupt because such things happen in it. It just is. The event is beyond good and evil and its occurrence implies no imperfection in the world.

On the second sort of moral theory defined above ("moral relativism" I called it), all events are like the one described. If one raises oneself outside an event (even if this is only possible in imagination), one recognizes that the most one can say about it is that it simply is. It might well involve great harm to some being, and thus if one adopts its point of view, one will say that it is evil. It might involve benefit to some being, and thus from its point of view, it is good. But this is the only sort of good and evil within it. The sole good that it possesses is a good for. The sole evil that it possesses is an evil for. But in itself - or equivalently, from the point of view of a being not part of the event and in no way effected by it - it is neither good nor evil. It is rather beyond them.

On relativism, all moral judgments are judgments from a certain point of view. In particular, it is the view that "x is good" means "x is good for or to y" and that "x is evil" means "x is evil for or to y". Relativism attaches no sense to the predicate "x is good". It thinks such a predicate incomplete.

Moral relativism seems precisely the right sort of view to hold if one limits one's attention to non-human forms of life. If one adopts their point of view, one finds much that is good or evil to them. But this means no more than that much is helpful and harmful to them. But if one lifts oneself outside their point of view and, as it were, takes in the whole of nature (humans perhaps excluded - more on this in a moment) in a glimpse, that good and evil are revealed to be partial; and from that point of view outside, nature as a whole - nature in which we consider not merely this or that creature but all in their myriad of relations - has none of the good or evil we found in the individuals within it. It is beyond all that.

Moreover, this sort of moral relativism seems equally applicable to us human beings if we are not free. If not free, we act under compulsion, compulsion to pursue that which seems good for us and avoid that which seems evil to us. If not free, then, we are precisely similar to all other forms of life. We have our perceived goods and we pursue them of necessity; we have our perceived evils, and we flee them of necessity. But the only goods are of the perceived, that is of the relative, sort. To a being able to take in the whole of nature at a glance, we are just like all other creatures within it. Our goods are not good simpliciter. Our evils are not evil simpliciter. They are simply what we of necessity pursue or flee in the attempt to flourish.

But what if we are free? What if there is no iron necessity to our pursuit of that which appears good to us? If we are free, there comes the possibility that we are responsible for our acts in a way that no creature that acts under compulsion can be. If we are free, there comes the possibility that we will act not only on the shabby little desire to benefit only ourselves. Free creatures can reject what is good for themselves and act on a greater or a higher good. Free creatures can lift themselves up out of the point of view of the individual and consider what is good for the whole; and maybe, just maybe, then can act on what is best not for the individual but for the whole. Thus the relative good gives way to the absolute good. The relative is partial and considers only what is good for this or that individual. The absolute considers the good for all, and freedom makes action in accordance with a conception of the absolute good possible.

The Atonement

As I sat in church today, I began to think again about the Atonement. I have argued that a certain view of the Atonement - a view that goes by the name "Substitutionary Atonement" - is fatally flawed. But since I came to that conclusion, I have been uncertain how one might do better. I now have a suggestion.

But before I lay it out, let me first say what I believe are the criteria that any plausible account of the Atonement must meet. (1) First, something of great importance to humanity was achieved by Christ's death, and any plausible account of the Atonement must say just what this is. Here of course one will likely say that Christ's death made possible (or inevitable as we universalists would say) humanity's salvation. This is no doubt so, but of course a word is not itself the explanation we seek. If we say that Christ's death made possible our salvation, we must then explain just what we mean by "salvation". (2) Second, any account of the Atonement must explain the necessity of Christ's death. What Christ achieved, He achieved (at least in part) through His death; and what was achieved by His death could not have been achieved in any other way. (3) Third, any account of the Atonement must explain how Christ's death achieved its effect.

So then we need these three things: an account of the what, an account of the necessity of the what, and an account of the how.

Here's my idea. (I'm certain that it's not new. It - or a variant of it - comes to us from Schliermarcher.) I begin with a number of propositions that seem to me axiomatic to the Christian world-view. Sin brought about a rupture, a breach that separates God from man. The purpose of the Incarnation was to heal that breach. The breach consists is a lack of love, both for God and for neighbor; and thus the purpose of the Incarnation was to perfect love.

Let us then view the Atonement through the lens of this idea. It was a bottom an expression of love, and in that love God makes possible the perfection of our love. How was his done? As Christ told us, there is no greater love than a love that will sacrifice all for another. This fact is known by all. Thus if Christ were to "give His all" for us, and if we knew that He and the Father were one, we could know that God's love for us is unsurpassable. But if we knew this - if we knew that the author of our being loves us with an unsurpassable love - we would inevitably begin to return that love. But to the degree that that love is returned, the breach between God and man is healed.

Here then is our What and our How. The Atonement achieves a perfection of love, and it does so by the natural human propensity (no doubt implanted in us by God) to return love that is given to us. But what of the necessity of the What? How might we prove that God could achieve the perfection in no other way than the sacrifice of Christ? I do no see my way clearly here, but I suspect that we must draw upon our capacity for free will. A perfect love is a love freely given; it is a love that is not forced. But how might one lead another to love if one cannot force that love? One can do no better than reveals one's true nature and hope that this touches the other deeply. But what is God's true nature? It is love. Thus God had no choice but to make known his perfect love for us. How best to teach this lesson? How bestfor God to make known His love? By the most perfect expression of that love, and this I contend comes in self-sacrifice. In any other act, one might suspect that the motives are ultimately selfish. But in self-sacrifice - a sacrifice that ends in death on the cross - there can be no such suspicion. The very nature of deliberate sacrifice of a life rules out the motive to serve only the self.

This is my view of the Atonement. It was not a price paid. It was a love displayed. It does not ransom us. It calls forth from us the perfection of love for which we were made.

History in Front and Behind

I think that I've put my finger on a pervasive assumption here in the U.S. It is that things cannot get as bad as they were in the past.

The camps are closed, we think - at least closed within our borders. (Did you think that there never were any? Research "Andersonville".) There will be no more starvation, we think, no more economic collapse and the terrible want that follows in its wake. There will be no more epidemics that kill millions. There will be no war within our borders. There will no more great and terrible events of the sorts we read about in books of history. We are past all that, we assume.

It is one of my deep convictions - one on which I often dwell - that this simply is not so. (Is this historical blindness something we share with other peoples at other times and places? Perhaps those who know more than me will tell us.) We have no reason to suppose that we live in a privileged era, an era in which there is no history in front but only behind. Calamity is as likely to strike us as it was the Germans or the Russians, the Jews or the Gypsies. Pray to God that you and those about you never have to endure such events. But remain strong in your faith, for you just might.

Religion for the Extreme

Religion must be good not only for the times of prosperity and of joy. It must be good too for times of want and of pain. Religion must be good for the camps.

The camps? Those places where humans have suffered the most, where they have done their worst. If your religion cannot aid you there, throw it out, even if when life is good it seems a help to you.

Is your religion one of health and of prosperity? Does it tell you that those who are favored by God will inevitably prosper? (Such religion is common in the United States.) Throw it out. Many who were no worse than you - indeed many who were better than you - found themselves in the camps. They suffered there. They died there. You might yet find yourself there. If so, your religion will be of no use to you.

Is your religion one of domination and of power? Does it tell you that you are among the favored of God and that it is your right to rule? (The Islam that dominates the news seems to be such.) Throw it out. The mighty have often been brought low. The mighty have often been made to suffer. How will your religion of power and of right benefit you when you fall?

Is your religion one of an inchoate spiritually that has little depth and requires little or nothing of you? (I have friends who profess such a religion. They call themselves spiritual but have little else to say about the matter.) If it is, it would be of no help to you were you confront genuine human evil - the sort of evil that wishes you to suffer and then die, the sort of evil that wishes you to watch your people suffer and die. Throw it out.

Find a religion that can console at the extreme of human endurance. Find a religion that can allow you to raise your head from a wooden plank when you are starved and exhausted. The first (and perhaps the only) test for a religion must lie here. What can it do for the poorest? What can it do for those who suffer? What can it do for those at the moment of death - a premature death, a death in prison, a death from disease, and death after all you love have died. Religion must be religion for the extreme, religion for the worst. If it is not, it is worth nothing.

Time and Loss

I now understand why grandparents so delight in their grandchildren.

They deeply regret the loss of the childhood of their children. I have begun to feel this. My children are now 9, 9 and 7. They are not little any more, and at times I'm deeply sad - sad in a way that I know cannot ever be remedied - that those days are irretrievably gone. There are things now past that can never be had again. Not even God can give us them again, for of absolute necessity the past is past and will remain forever past. A strange thought, this - a lack, an absence, that not even God can make better.

The flow of time involves loss. Perhaps it brings new goods, but it leaves behind very great goods that one can never retrieve.

Pray To Do

Do not pray for the ability to do.

Do not pray for the desire to do.

Pray that you will do, for ultimately it matters not that one was able or that one desired but rather that one did.

The Aporia of Sin

Those who know my views will recall that I believe sin to result from spiritual immaturity. The world is a classroom, and pain its primary mode of instruction.

But for a moment I began to doubt that this is so. Let me explain.

There are men and women who seem to sin in full knowledge of what they do; and among such, there are many who are quite wicked. They murder. They rape. They steal. They enslave. How can we attribute this to mere immaturity? To do so seems to miss the very sinfulness of sin. Sin is terrible, but it is sometimes chosen though it is known to be terrible. How can the claim that sin results from spiritual immaturity capture this fact? It seems to me that it cannot.

But if sin is not a result of spiritual immaturity, what then is it? The one response that seems possible is this: sin is deliberate rebellion against a God who is known to be God. This does seem to capture the sinfulness of sin. It does not reduce it to mere ignorance. It makes it out to be what it is - odious and destructive.

But sin-as-rebellion in turn seems an impossible view. For how can we possibly explain rebellion against God when it is known that it is God against whom one rebels? If one knows that one rebels against God, one must know that one will lose. One must know that one will suffer. One must know that there is nothing that to be gained and everything to be lost. Thus to suppose that sin is rebellion against a God who is known to be God seems a psychological impossibility. We would never chose to do that which could not benefit us in any way.

Here then is our aporia: embrace sin-as-spiritual-immaturity and miss the very sinfulness of sin, or embrace sin-as-rebellion and make the genesis of sin absolutely inexplicable.

At present, I do not see my way out of this bind.