Why church isn’t the same as faith
This isn’t a news flash, but I enjoy seeing issues we discuss in class echoed in the media. Andrew Sullivan posts this quote from Paul Zahl who’s discussing the work of Emil Brunner (d. 1966). A reflection by Brunner’s former student bring this distinguished scholar to life. Here’s a little bit of the quote:
There is a collective dimension to this: all the early Christians experienced the same thing. Like alien abductees, the first Christians had a shattering experience in common. This brought them together. But this experience was not an institution.” – Paul Zahl,
Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life.
Watch Zahl speak about this book:
Anne Rice’s return
I’ve re-checked out from the library Anne rice’s Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession
for probably the third time. This time I’m actually reading the book. I am not a fan of vampires so I “missed out” on the past few decades of Anne Rice hoopla. And, of course, now we’ve got that new “teeny-bopper” vampire trilogy (or more). Here Rice recounts her return to Catholicism.
The first two chapters are precious, in the best sense of the word. It recalls a kind of religious devotion and sensibility that is not at all a part of my religious vocabulary. Yet I can appreciate the palpable reality of her childhood faith. What’s interesting to me is that this period of her life was what she called “preliterate”. While I don’t remember not being able to read, Rice has memories of a rich inner and outer life unadulterated by the text.
Stoicism and emotions
Stoicism is experiencing a resurgence. I’m not sure why, but it is. This interview with Margaret Graver present a look at some misconceptions of stoicism. Here’s a quote from A.A. Long (Classics, UC Berkeley) about Graver’s book, Stoicism and Emotion
A.A. Long wrote, “Margaret Graver’s book [‘Stoicism and Emotion’] expertly demolishes the widespread belief that ancient Stoicism was a philosophy that advocated repression of every feeling we call an emotion. With admirable clarity she gives an in-depth analysis of how the Stoics assessed emotional health and pathology, and of why, while taking such emotions as anger and fear to be always irrational and culpable, they held that human perfection requires joy and love.” How would you introduce the actual Stoic view of emotions, versus the “widespread belief” about them, to undergraduate students?
Example of a mystical experience
Watch just the first few minutes of this clip until the credits (the whole clip is over 20 minutes). Sounds like a Jamesean mystical experience to me.
Deism is back
Deism is back. This is a very interesting development. There are political ramifications, I suppose. We know that some have pushed the idea that the America’s “founding fathers” were Christians. And by “Christians” they usually mean people who hold the same beliefs as contemporary American evangelicals. The topic of evangelicalism in America is way beyond the scope of our course this semester. But what is interesting is that as “everybody” knows, most of the founders were in no way “evangelical” in today’s sense of the word. This isn’t to say that there was nothing like evangelicalism in the colonies at that time. There was. We’re just focusing on the founders. Read more
The moody deity
Salon.com has an interview with Robert Wright, author of The Evolution of God. This quote reminded me of James’ discussion of medical materialism. Here the point isn’t so much what is going on medically (!) with God, as taking a look at some non-spiritual, i.e., material, causes or explanations for why God’s moods change so much.
At the very beginning of your book, you describe yourself as a materialist. This raises an interesting question: Can a materialist really explain the history of religion?
I tend to explain things in terms of material causes. So when I see God changing moods, as he does a lot in the Bible and the Quran, I ask, what was going on politically or economically that might explain why the people who wrote this scripture were inclined to depict God as being in a bad mood or a good mood? Sometimes God is advocating horrific things, like annihilating nearby peoples, or sometimes he’s very compassionate and loving. So I wanted to figure out why the mood fluctuates. I do think the answers lie in the facts on the ground. And that’s what I mean by being a materialist.
What can I say?
Philosopher Simon Blackburn reviews Karen Armstrong’s book The Case for God.
A key question he examines is whether or not we can talk about God or remain silent. Shades of James on mystical experiences, right? There’s even a little Prof. Pam there. And you thought I was the only one “talking” about the aphophatic tradition. Actually, Blackburn gets the tradition wrong, doesn’t he? Blackburn writes:
So what should the religious adept actually say by way of expressing his or her faith? Nothing. This is the “apophatic” tradition, in which nothing about God can be put into words. Armstrong firmly recommends silence, having written at least 15 books on the topic. Words such as “God” have to be seen as symbols, not names, but any word falls short of describing what it symbolises, and will always be inadequate, contradictory, metaphorical or allegorical. The mystery at the heart of religious practice is ineffable, unapproachable by reason and by language. Silence is its truest expression.
Sports and Ineffability
We began James’ discussion of Mysticism yesterday. A student emailed me this comment:
Do you think Willie Mays is an official Gator now that he an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from SFSU? I thought you would have been all over that when you were talking Dwight Clark’s, “the catch,” in class today. Willie Mays has his own version of “the catch,” check it out.
Yes, I knew Mays was an official Gator. But what I hadn’t thought about was the prospect of ineffability from an athlete’s perspective. Read more
William James and Pragmatism
I encourage you to tune in to Philosophy Talk, a radio show hosted by two really cool Stanford Philosophy professors, John Perry and Ken Taylor. Here’s info about an episode with Prof. John McDermott on Pragmatism.
The universality of the unseen order?
James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture III – The Reality of the Unseen
This Lecture is incredibly rich! And I mean that in the good sense of the word. The letters and comments that James quotes vividly describe various kinds of religious (or quasi-religious) experiences. Part of James’ point is that humans do behave in ways which indicate that people believe in the reality of the unseen. In other words, this is a genuine phenomenon James discusses. What’s brilliant about the Lecture, from my point of view, is the way James weaves actual philosophical views (Kant and Plato, for instance) in the mix. One of the significant things James does through this Lecture is to broaden the scope of discourse on this topic. The philosophical “problem” of the reality of the unseen is not only a problem with religious believers, as Freud would suggest. Rather, there seems to be a common tendency to posit some reality to the unseen. One of the conclusions we arrive at from James’ work is that science would have to be “guilty” of this belief in the unseen just as much as the religious person is.
If we accept this premise, namely, that whether true or not, the general run of humanity acknowledges an “unseen order” to the cosmos, then the criticism of religious belief merely on the grounds of belief in the unseen order loses its punch. Although James we know that by the end of Varieties James has had his thumb on the scales, he generally has a more open and inquisitive outlook with respect to examining religious experience. I’m not sure what Phillips has said about James. I would imagine that in some respects DZ would praise James’ contemplative impulses.