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A Little Admonition from Barth

Friday, April 10, 2009

Many Churches in this sense imply many Lords, many Spirits, many Gods.  There is no question about it: to the degree to which Christendom exists in Churches which are really different and opposed to each other, to that degree she is denying in practice what she acknowledges in theory, the unity and uniqueness of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost.

Whatever good reasons there may be for the beginning of such schisms, whatever serious obstacles there may be to ending them, whatever interpretations and extenuations may be made of them, nothing alters the fact that every schism is as such a dark riddle, a scandal.

And in regard to this scandal, the whole of Christendom ought at least to be one in this, that we can think of it only as a constant subject of repentance, and not, on any of our parts, a repentance to be expected from others, but one in which we are willing to go meet the others, cost what it may.

Anyone who is prepared to come to terms with schism in the Church, anyone capable of being at ease with it, anyone to whom the sight of the obvious faults and errors in the other side, and hence their responsibility for it, provides a reason for being tranquil about it, may be a good, loyal believer in some sense that belongs to his particular denomination — a good Roman or Calvinist or Orthodox or Baptist– but he must not think that he can possibly be a good Christian.

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Adler on Philosophy after Christianity

Friday, March 20, 2009

Modern gnosticism results from the efforts of thinkers to answer purely theological questions by merely natural means. The theodicy of Spinoza, the knowledge of the Absolute in Hegel, the discussion of the order of the universe in time and space by Whitehead, are examples of philosophy exceeding its domain. Though lacking faith, these philosophers do not seem able to regain the position of natural reason in Greek antiquity. Christianity has somehow been too much for them. When we learn that Hegel’s formative influences were theology and the classics, we can see the root of all his confusions. In a paradoxical sense, then, all modern philosophers are Christian, even when they are skeptical, as Hume, or agnostic, as Kant. Christianity has made problems for them which they cannot solve without faith, but which they will not refrain from discussing in rational terms.

via On Canons.

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Solovyov On Love

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The meaning and worth of love as a feeling is that it really forces us, with all our being, to acknowledge for another the same absolute significance that, because of the power of egoism, we are conscious of only in our own selves. Love is important, not only as one of our feelings but as the transfer of all our interest in life from ourselves to another, as the shifting of the very center of our lives….

- Vladimir Solovyov

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Kafka On Parables

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Many complain that the words of the wise are always merely parables and of no use in daily life, which is the only life we have. When the sage says: “Go over,” he does not mean that we should cross over to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labor were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something too that he cannot designate more precisely, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least. All these parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already. But the cares we have to struggle with every day: that is a different matter.
Concerning this a man once said: Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid yourself of all your daily cares.
Another said: I bet that is also a parable.
The first said: You have won.
The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.
The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost.

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Child and Philosopher

Monday, September 15, 2008

Children complicate life, but so sweetly that they should serve to give the worker fresh courage rather than to lessen his resources.  The little ones take much of you, and what good would they be if they did not now and then tease and tax you?  But they hearten you just as much, and perhaps more;  they can heighten your inspiration by mingling joy with it;  they give you a love-lit reflection of nature and of man and thus defend you against the abstract; they bring you back to the real, about which their questioning eyes are waiting for an exact commentary from you.  Their pure faces preach integrity, that sister of knowledge; and does not their readiness to believe, to hope, to have great dreams, and to expect everything from the fatherhood that guides them — does not this uplift you also, you man of thought, and give you a motive for hope?  You can see an image of God and a sign of our immortal destiny in this image of the future.

– A.G. Sertillanges

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Eliot on Reading

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

There never was a time when the reading public was so large, or so helplessly exposed to the influence of its own time. There never was a time when those who read at all, read so many more books by living authors than books by dead authors. There never was a time so completely parochial, so shut off from the past.

–T.S. Eliot

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Atoms, They Got Their Swerve On

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Some questions after the 1st half of Lucretius’ On The Nature Of Things

Lucretius (via Epicurus) makes the claim that all-that-is is made up of atoms and void.   Can this be proven?  What constitutes a proof?  Lucretius says that all religion is hocus-pocus and that the gods do not interact, nor do they have the power to do so, with Nature, yet he seems to admit gods do exist.  For Lucretius, belief in atoms & void rejects the notion of the immortal soul.  Belief in nothingness after death is ultimate freedom for Lucretius.  For the greatest fear in the heart of Man is eternal punishment, and that fear comes from religion.   How is the mind or heart of man convinced of the make-up of the universe, and whether or not divine beings interact with it?  What will Lucretius do about good and evil except deny it, or declare it customary?  And in either case, how can religion be evil when all-that-is is moving atoms? 

Is Lucretius seeking a doctrine, an account of the world, in which he can be rid of the fear of death and eternal punishment?  Is that the same effort of religion?  Is Lucretius promoting of a new faith?

He claims his doctrine is based wholly on his senses.  By our senses alone, can we make serious claims of what came before the presently sensed world or after it?  Or is that conjecture alone?  Do we have any alternatives to conjecture?

If all-that-is is really just atoms and void, then all beings, whatever motion they have, have come together by chance + motion in something called the swerve.  In Lucretius account (or logos), all the atoms of the universe are raining, or falling.   The universe is infinite so they fall forever; this provides motion.  The unexplained “switch” or “bang” provides chance and change, some of these atoms swerve while falling, triggering the “creation” of the universe by bumping into each other, and combining in ways according to their physical make-up.  Using the analogy of the alphabet, if atoms were letters, some letters would link up with other letters to make real words that could hold their forms.  Other letters would link up but quickly fall apart, and by great amounts of time, those that held their forms built upon each other to create order and even sustain that order.  So somehow what was completely chance became orderly, with a smaller amount of chance remaining, due to “free” atoms still bouncing around in an unorderly fashion.

Ultimately Lucretius doesn’t give us the why or even really the what of anything.  Why swerve?  Why order out of chance?  Why does it hold and not fall apart?  Nature is said to give order to things.  Where does Nature come from?

Having read only half the work so far, answers may be coming.  Lucretius makes a “scientific” account of the world, but, as was the task of the ancients, he has to give an account of the whole cosmos.  In other words, if all are atoms and void, he must also say what Love is, what Death is, whether or not there is Good and Evil (is murder universally evil?), how a man should live regarding ethics, philosophy, justice… all things (again the whole cosmos).  Modern efforts are divided in the name of efficiency, i.e. science and philosophy are different departments and don’t have the unity, or required consistency with one another, as was attempted in the past.  Is this a freeing thing?  Is the disunity of knowledge acceptable?  Scientists go about making hypotheses and conclusions based on the method, do their results need to fit into an account of the whole cosmos?  

Does epistemology undercut natural science?  Since there is no such thing natural science without a scientist, that is a real human being, do we need to be able to understand the human being’s nature of knowing beforehand?  If the mind can perceive and sense immaterial things, does that totter the entire structure of material science?  Which department owns that (hint: philosophy)?

Can any materialist (scientific creation stories), compel a man to be unafraid of death?  Are we trapped in a desire to live because are atoms move that way?  Can we then tell ourselves not to be afraid, knowing that our atoms are (darwinianly) “afraid” in their own make-up?

To be continued…

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Devotion Before Study

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

An apt quote before school begins…

… study must first of all leave room for worship, prayer, direct meditation on the things of God.  Study is itself a divine office, an indirect divine office;  it seeks out and honors the traces of the Creator, or His images, according as it investigates nature or humanity; but it must make way at the right moment for direct intercourse with Him.  If we forget to do this, not only do we neglect a great duty, but the image of God in creation comes between us and Him, and His traces only serve to lead us far from Him to whom they bear witness.

    Study carried to such a point that we give up prayer and recollection, that we cease to read Holy Scripture, and the words of the saints and of great souls–study carried to the point of forgetting ourselves entirely, and of concentrating on the objects of study so that we neglect the Divine Dweller within us, is an abuse and a fool’s game.  To suppose that it will further our progress and enrich our production is to say that the stream will flow better if its spring is dried up.

   The order of the mind must correspond to the order of things.  In the world of reality, everything rises toward the divine, everything depends on it, because everything springs from it.  In the effigy of the real within us, we can note the same dependence, unless we have turned topsy-turvy the true relations of things.

– A. G. Sertillanges

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School Is Starting

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

On Thursday!  I need to read the first 2 books of Aristotle’s Physics and the beginning of Euclid’s Elements.  I’ve already begun reading the introduction (not assigned, because it’s not a Great Introductions program) to the Physics.  Lots of fascinating stuff.  For instance, Heidegger is quoted as saying that the Physics, not the MetaPhysics, is the most foundational work to Western Philosophy.  This makes some sense, because he begins with particulars of “what we see happening”, and works backwards to find a universal, bearing on what it means to exist at all.  He rides the middle way between others who started with universals, saying all things are in flux and always changing (Heraclitus) versus all things are one, thus never changing (Parmenides).  That middle way is what I hope to understand moreso in the near future.

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Tradition

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes — our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.

–G.K. Chesterton

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