John the Scot

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Chapter VIII John the Scot

John the Scot or Johannes Scotus or Johannes Scotus Erigena was an Irishman, a Neoplatonist, a Greek scholar, a Pelagian and a pantheist. He is out of place in the 9th century and would have fit better in the 5th or 15th century.

"He set reason above faith, and cared nothing for the authority of ecclesiastics; yet his arbitrament was invoked to settle their controversies" (Russell, 400).

The Irish seem to have carried some Latin classics, knowledge of Greek and other knowledge throughout the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries when it was disappearing from the Continent.

Irish learning being monastic and not ecclesiastical shaped the Irish thought. There was less effort in administration and high theology than on the Continent.

Being isolated from the Pope both by distance and by not recognizing the pope's growing power, things lingered on in Ireland that disappeared elsewhere. The continuing presence of Pelagianism is borne out in some of John the Scot's ideas.

John went to France on the invitation by Charles the Bald around 843.

He kicked off a firestorm by placing the authority of philosophy on equal terms (or even higher than) with revelation. "He contended that reason and revelation are both sources of truth, and therefore cannot conflict; but if they ever seem to conflict, reason is to be preferred. True religion, he said, is true philosophy; but, conversely, true philosophy is true religion" (Russell, 403).

John the Scot also translated the PseudoDionysius, a work that reconciled Christianity with Neoplatonism. While Pope Nicholas was not pleased that John had undertaken the work without his permission and blessing, he could not fault the translation from Greek to Latin.

John divides nature into four classes:
1) what creates and is not created
2) what creates and is created
3) what is created but does not create
4) what neither creates nor is created

For John the first was God, the second were the Platonic forms, the third was things in space and time. "The fourth, surprisingly, is again God, not as Creator, but as the End and Purpose of all things. Everything that emanates from God strives to return to Him; thus the end of all such things is the same as their beginning." (Russell, 404).

Sin was for John, the loss of the divine pattern.

The total of the Platonic Ideas is the Logos.

When God created things out of nothing, that nothing is understood by John to be himself. (Pantheism)

Creation is an eternal process in John. Created things are not distinct from God in John. "The creature subsists in God, and God manifests Himself in the creature in an ineffable manner" (Russell, 405).

"Sin has its source in freedom: it arose because man turned towards himself instead of towards
God. Evil does not have its ground in God, for in God there is no idea of evil. Evil is not-being
and has no ground, for if it had a ground it would be necessary. Evil is a privation of good." (Russell, 405).

"His independence of mind is shown by these heresies, and is astonishing in the ninth century. His Neoplatonic outlook may perhaps have been common in Ireland, as it was among the Greek Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. It may be that, if we knew more about Irish Christianity from the fifth to the ninth century, we should find him less surprising. On the other hand, it may be that most of what is heretical in him is to be attributed to the influence of the pseudo-Dionysius, who, because of his supposed connection with Saint Paul, was mistakenly believed to be orthodox." (Russell, 406).

Sin was a consequence of a misdirected will, falsely assuming something is good that is not. It is punished, but like Origen, John holds a universal salvation platform.

Sin was problematic for John because of his pantheism. He also had some strange heretical views on women and viewed creation and the Fall as allegory and not literal.

John had a major impact on Medieval thought by translating the Pseudo-Dionysius but his great work, On the Division of Nature was constantly being condemned as heretical. In 1225 Pope Honorius III ordered all copies to be burnt, but many survived.

Notes on Confessions Book VII

Confessions
St. Augustine

Book Seven

Ch. 1

Augustine struggles to move from a materialistic view of the world to get to a perfect God.

Ch. 2

Augustine struggles with how to understand the Incarnation with an adherence to materialism. It can't be done though because it would inevitably limit God to some extent, which is impossible.

Ch. 3

Augustine struggles with the problem of Evil. If God made the angels and an angel can fall to become the devil then is God the author of evil? No, that is self-evidently false.

Ch. 4

Augustine is convinced that God is incorruptible. He comes to this by a sort of ontological argument. Thus, from God's incorruptible nature he defines evil as a corruption of nature.

Ch. 5

Augustine still struggles with the problem of evil but the faith of Jesus Christ at the heart of Catholic Christianity began to take root in his heart.

Ch. 6

Augustine argues against astrology and reduces it from an art to a mere game of chance.

Ch. 7

Pride separated Augustine from God.

Ch. 8

The Lord is compassionate and heals the broken man.

Ch. 9

Augustine studied the Platonists and while he found wisdom in them he didn't find the gospel message, the Truth.

Ch. 10

Augustine came to the Truth about God's being through a mystical experience. Augustine asked a question, what is truth? God answered, "I AM" and Augustine understood that God is Truth and Truth is real.

Ch. 11

All things not God are both real and unreal. They are real insofar as they are created God. They are unreal insofar as they are not God.

Ch. 12

All things, insofar as they exist are good. They cannot be all-evil because then they would not exist. Evil then is a corruption resulting in the privation of a good in something.

Ch. 13

Augustine states it is above our station to critique the things that exist because while we can pray that our surroundings be better the very fact of having surroundings at all should move us to thank God.

Ch. 14

"There is no health in those who find fault with any part of thy creation". That's a strong statement, but one that bears true.

Once Augustine stopped critiquing creation he became contented in it and no longer struggled with these material distractions.

Ch. 15

God exists outside of time.

Ch. 16

"And I asked what wickedness was, and I found that it was no substance, but a perversion of the will bent aside from thee, O God, the supreme substance, toward these lower things, casting away its inmost treasure and becoming bloated with external good"

Ch. 17

Augustine struggled with having mentally arrived at the truth and now bending his will to it.

Ch. 18

It took the mediation of Christ to truly connect Augustine to God. Try as he could, he could not reach God through mental activity.

One must forsake pride, lowering it, so that love may be heightened in order for one to throw one's self upon God and be lifted up.

Ch. 19

Augustine struggled then with Christological heresies. He and Alypius each embraced opposite ends of the nature of Christ that were heretical, focusing too much on either the human nature or the divine nature in Jesus before both finally being converted to the Catholic faith.

Ch. 20

Augustine followed the Platonists in searching for the incorporeal Truth. It led him to note that the invisible things of God were made visible to him by Creation.

The Platonists sort of primed the pump for Augustine to study Scripture.

Ch. 21

Augustine found he now enjoyed the Scriptures, especially the writings of Paul.

In reading Paul he found the truth he read in the Platonists had been elevated with the exaltation of God's Grace.

Augustine seems to have held the Platonists as being on the right track but insufficient because of their lack of Christ.

Notes on Confessions Book V

Confessions
St. Augustine

Book V

Ch. 1

The Lord sees into all hearts, even the hard and closed ones. He will soften and heal those hearts according to His will.

Ch. 2

The wicked flee God's gentleness to collide with His justice.

"Thou art near even to those who go farthest from thee"

"Thou art the Lord, who canst remake what thou didst make and can comfort them"

Ch. 3

Religious men ask, "what is the source of the intelligence by which they investigate?" The prideful discover many true things about creation without learning the Truth of the Creator.

Ch. 4

God isn't pleased by the man who knows a lot but doesn't know Him.

Ch. 5

Augustine attacks Mani for presuming to teach what he does not know. He condemns Mani for impersonating the Holy Spirit falsely.

Ch. 6

An eloquence, when unfettered from truth, is like a gaudy chalice with a drink that doesn't quench the thirst.

Ch. 7

Augustine's interaction with the Manichean Bishop, Faustus, and Faustus' inability to help Augustine understand why Manicheism was preferable to other belief systems served as the final breaking point between Augustine and Manicheism.

Ch. 8

Augustine leaves Carthage and heads for Rome.

Augustine points out that his mother's prayers were not answered in the way she hoped for (he still left Carthage for Rome). God did not let her temporary request undermine His work and end goal for Augustine.

Ch. 9

The fetter of original sin is that we all die in Adam. But we can be forgiven in Christ.

Ch. 10

Sin was all the more uncurable because Augustine would not confess it.

Augustine even rejected the true faith because of his dualistic leanings. That dualism caused him many numerous problems.

Ch. 11
The dualism and belief in a great evil that makes God finite allowed him to twist and to fall prey to twisted theology.

Ch. 12

Rome did not turn out to be the paradise that Augustine had hoped for.

Ch. 13

Augustine goes to Milan and meets Ambrose. He is attracted to Ambrose because of his nature, even if Augustine was unwilling as of yet to hear Ambrose's message.

Ch. 14

Ambrose's teachings slowly changed Augustine.

Augustine joined the Catholic faith because the philosophers, in all their wisdom, could not offer the cure, they had not the salvation of Christ.

Notes on Confessions Book IV

Confessions
St. Augustine

Book IV

Ch. 1

Augustine confesses his past sins so he can make a sacrificial offer.

He asks what is he without God, "For what am I to myself without thee but a guide to my own downfall?"

Ch. 2

"I knew not how to love thee because I knew not how to conceive of anything beyond corporeal splendors".

Ch. 3.

Augustine argues against astrology because it tries to take the blame rightly placed on individual men and transfer it to the heavens and the celestial bodies.

He condemns astrological predictions coming true, through the voice of an old wise man, as the combination of chance and the workings of the human mind to turn those events caused by chance to fit the prediction.

Ch. 4

"There is no true friendship save between those thou dost bind together and who cleave to thee by that love which is, 'shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given us'"

Augustine turned a friend away from God to his superstitions. Yet, God still followed the two men and saved the man who had fallen away from him before his death.

God is both, at once, the God of vengeance and a Fountain of Mercies

Ch. 5

Dealing with grief is easier with God than without.

Ch. 6

"Every soul is wretched that is fettered in the friendship of mortal things".

Augustine is so overcome with grief at the loss of his friend that he is falling apart. This extra passion and the violence it is causing his soul occurs because he does not know God, who can balance him.

Ch. 7

Grief without God: "All things looked gloomy even the very light itself". He found solace in weeping but when his soul no longer wept it was weighed down.

Grief with God: the weeping provides some relief but in the end one's soul is not weighed down, having been "raised up to thee, O Lord, for thee to lighten and lift it"

"Thus my error was my god"

Ch. 8

Time does strange things in the mind

Ch. 9

The only thing we cannot lose is God. Even if we lose him by rejecting Him we still find Him in the end, when we are punished for that rejection. Where can a man go to hide from God?

Ch. 10

"Wherever the soul of men turns itself, unless toward thee, it is enmeshed in sorrows"

The physical aspect of creation is good for what it was designed to do; but it cannot supersede the eternal. It cannot appoint its beginning or its end.

Ch. 11

"Do not let the tumult of your vanity deafen the ear of your heart"

The things of this earth perish. The things of God do not. Why then should my soul long for the perishable?

Even if we could perceive the whole of time and space in God's creation it would pale in comparison to God, the creator.

Ch. 12

If the physical creation pleases you, thank God for it. If another's soul pleases you, thank God for it. In essence, whatever your bent is (physical or spiritual), thank God for the gifts he gives that please you.

God is to be found wherever truth is.

Do not love the gift from God more than God the giver.

Ch. 13

Augustine's aesthetics formed a springboard for him towards finding God.

Ch. 14

Love and admiration of another without anchoring in God can be a selfish thing. Augustine loved and admired the orator in a way that he wanted to be loved and admired.

Love of another can stem from the other's popularity too. Augustine loved that orator because others loved him.

He then asked an interesting question: If others had not loved the orator then I would not have loved the orator. Yet, the orator's qualities would still be the same only the audience reactions would have changed. If this is the case, should one be loved and admired for the sake of their works, if their works are so susceptible to the tastes of the crowd?

Ch. 15

Evil is not a substance at all.

Like the emotions that stir up violent acts, the errors in our thinking contaminate the life of a rational soul.

All the knowledge and skill in learning is worth nothing if one errs by not understanding that all their knowledge flows from God.

"For our stability, when it is in thee, is stability indeed; but when it is in ourselves, then it is all unstable"

"And we need not fear that we shall find no place to return to because we fall away from it. For, in our absence, our home - which is thy eternity - does not fall away.

Notes on Confessions Book III

Confessions
St. Augustine

Book III

Ch. 1

In loving for the sake of loving, some pleasure is to be found because love was created by God. But love, not rooted in God, is unsatisfying.

Love, when abstracted for its own sake, opens man to the scourging of jealousy, fear, anger and strife.

Augustine polluted the spring of friendship with lust. (The notion here of polluting at the spring of friendship is interesting. It denotes that all the water coming forth from the spring is polluted. Later in the chapter he uses another water analogy, the rivers are flowing but he questions where they wind up).

Ch. 2

What kind of compassion is it that arises from viewing fictitious and unreal sufferings? Without considering God in this compassion we pervert it, turn it into pity and seek to achieve some sort of feeling from the sorrows of others. It is not compassion at all, but selfish.

Augustine sought out the sorrowful plays because the sorrow captured his imagination. Apart from God, being in his own sorrowful place because of it, it was obvious why Augustine sought it out. In seeking out the imagined sorrows of the stage, he didn't have to dig deeper into his own sorrow, which stemmed from his ignoring of God.

Ch. 3

Even in this state God's mercy hovered over Augustine from afar.

The wreckers (a group of intellectuals who mocked others with their eloquence) became wreckers because they were wrecked themselves. It's a "hurt people hurt people" kind of thing.

Ch. 4

Augustine was struck by Cicero's Hortensius. It was through this lost book that a sudden realization came over Augustine. He was struck by the substance and not the style of Cicero. Now, Augustine would seek wisdom for its own sake and not for the glory that studying would bring him.

Ch. 5

After Cicero, Augustine read the Scriptures and was nonplussed. He regarded them as beneath him and stylistically inferior to the Roman writers.

Ch. 6

He tried the Manicheans but the dishes they served him did not satisfy his hunger.

The spirit is before the material: "For thy spiritual works came before these material creations, celestial and shining though they are".

God had mercy on Augustine before he confessed his sins.

Ch. 7

Evil is nothing but a privation of good. Evil has no being.

To judge the patriarchs for their "sins" or "follies" is to judge men whom God called righteous as unrighteous. They apply a human standard to something that is divine. That they judge this way is not surprising because they do not know God; they do not know the divine. "It is as if a man in an armory, not knowing what piece goes on what part of the body, should put a greave on his head and a helmet on his shin and then complain because they did not fit."

Augustine then makes some interesting points on men being upset with the Scriptures because men whom God had called righteous were allowed to do something that they are now no longer permitted to do. "Or as if, on some holiday when afternoon business was forbidden, one were to grumble at not being allowed to go on selling as it had been lawful for him to do in the forenoon." Some of Augustine's arguments could be used to favor a very stratified society and likely has been some of the foundation stones for aristocratic thinking. But, his point in showing it is that God is just in all his actions towards man. He also takes on the idea that this makes justice a relative concept. He answers this by saying that, no, justice is not variable but the times over which she presides are.

Ch. 8

"The fellowship that should be between God and us is violated whenever that nature is polluted by perverted lust".

God is the greatest authority of all and to be obeyed over all.

When men sin against God they also sin against their own souls.

This is arrogance or a false sense of freedom: to love our own good more than God, the common good of all.

Ch. 9

There are also sins committed by men who are making progress towards God. These men are to be censored for their sins but not condemned, because, "they show the hope of bearing fruit, like the green shoot of the growing corn"

Ch. 10

Augustine condemns Manichean teaching as it focuses on the created things rather than who the things were created for and for whom the things were created by.

Ch. 11

Augustine's mother saw by the light of faith that Augustine was dead.

Ch. 12

Augustine admits that deep in his Manichean thought he was unteachable and taken in by the novelty of heresy. She even implored a bishop to talk with him but the bishop refused. When Monica persisted and wept the bishop exclaimed that, a man who is surrounded by so many tears can not perish. Monica took these exclamations as a word from God

An interesting take on the problem of evil and free will

Lewis notes that the devil has set himself up as the prince of this world. He also notes that this is either God's will (which would be strange) or it is not God's will (if it is not then how can anything happen that isn't the will of an all powerful God). He uses an interesting analogy to explain this. Take for instance a Mother who wants her children to keep their rooms tidy. However, to teach the children responsibility she isn't going to force them to tidy their rooms every day after supper. Days later she goes up to the room and finds things strewn all across the room and it in disrepair. It is both the will and not the will of the Mother that finds this set of circumstances existent. So it is with God. God desires us to live in accordance with Him and yet He does not force that upon anyone. The same is true in any type of organization. The boss may want something done but sets it up to be done voluntarily. If only half the people do what the boss wants it is both his will and not his will

Some of Lewis' thoughts on Free Will (and a short story idea)

God decided to create the world in such a way that man had free will. For what reason would God choose to create a world in which free will exists, knowing as He did, it could end up going very badly (as it did indeed)? "Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata - of creatures that worked like machines - would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other" (Lewis, Mere Christianity).

God could have created a world where man had free will but chose to erase the Original Sin. But, if God had used some sort of magical eraser to erase the Original Sin or hit the reset button, then He would have continued to have to do it to erase the inevitable Second Original Sin, Third Original Sin, Fourth Original Sin, and so on ad infinitum. But, if He had opted for this course than either the world would have never really gotten going or eventually whatever umpteenth number Original Sin would have eventually started off the course at which we found ourselves.

Lewis states that some people claim to be able to imagine a world in which there is Free Will but no possibility of evil. Lewis denies this. Basically he states that in order to have a world with Free Will but with no possibility for the misusage of Free Will God would have to intervene at an infinite rate to produce miracles after miracles in such a way that they would disrupt the natural order of His creation. There would be no laws of physics or any kind of natural law because God would have to constantly intervene whenever someone tried to do something wrong. The way Lewis writes about this gives me a funny idea for a short story involving Cain and Abel.

The Unfortunate Events of Cain and Abel

Say God had decided to intervene with his magic original sin eraser. After about the three thousandth time of erasing the Original Sin God finally gets fed up with Adam and Eve and casts them out of the Garden. But, after awhile he decides to get back up to the whole reset button and magic eraser routine until Cain and Abel are ready to make their sacrifices. God accepts Abel's but rejects Cain's. Cain is so angry at Abel he calls him every name under the sun, but God, in order to spare the evil from polluting the world alters the sound waves so that Abel doesn't hear all the threats that Cain is making. The problem here becomes twofold. First, it further angers Cain. Second, it leaves Abel completely unaware that his brother is furious with him and wants to kill him. He accepts Cain's overtures to go hang out in the rock pit. Whereupon Cain picks up a rock in anger and tries to hit Abel upside the head, but God quickly changes the law of physics so that whatever Cain throws at Abel will end up harmless. The rock flies at Abel who is suddenly popped in the head with a Watermelon, leaving him stunned, but chuckling. He picks up a rock and pummels Cain with it. God however is so tired of this whole magic eraser business and is busy telling the Holy Spirit his frustration that he doesn't notice Abel throwing the rock at Cain and since He only changed the laws of physics to protect Abel from Cain's sin, Abel inadvertently slew Cain. Totally bemused with his first family and his ill-fated attempts to create perfect children with Free Will he decides to hit the reset button and leaves them Free Will and devises a different plan to get them out of the inevitable mess they'll make.

Lewis, however, is a bit more serious minded than I am. He contends that a world where Free Will exists and God changes their mistakes before they become sin would not only create a world where wrong actions are impossible, but where freedom of the will would become impossible. He also makes a fascinating point about being upset with God for creating a world with the possibility of such evil. He argues that we have no right and no real standing when we argue against God on this matter. God is the very source of our reasoning power, so to use our reasoning power to try and argue against him is not only fruitless, it's a little bit like chopping off the branch we're sitting on to spite the tree. The Tree is still going to be standing once we crashed out onto the ground.

365 Day Bible Day 2

Day 2 (still playing catch-up)

Genesis 3-4

The Fall of Man in Genesis 3- Why did God make the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Why did God make the Tree of Life? Genesis 3 offers us the first look of the Problem of Evil in Scriptures. Why was the serpent crafty? Why did he defy God? Why did Eve mis-remember or lie about the tree in the middle of the garden and embellish what God had said? Eve, even in that innocent state at the least erred, if not fibbed. Who is to blame for the fall of man?

Was it God for setting Adam and Eve up to fail? Was it the serpent for seducing Eve? Was it Eve for eating the apple and seducing Adam? Was it Adam to succumbing to Eve and eating the apple? It just occurred to me, though I've probably thought of it before or so I'm not mis-remembering or fibbing, it's probably more accurate to state that it has been pointed out to me before that the problem of free will and the problem of evil are intricately related.

Why did God create the universe in the way He did? We may posit guesses, theories and plausible scenarios, but our answers will only reach probability standards and internally consistency. The fact of the matter is that the world is as it is because God created it as such (allowing a transcendental argument that presupposes that the Christian God did create the world, that I have no personal qualms with accepting on various levels that I'll not go into at the moment). But, as for the creation of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (whether this is a literal or metaphorical creation, a topic for another discussion) demands that God created the world as such to involve Free Will. Thus, sin, though not inevitable, is at least possible in the world that God created. The Problem of Evil comes about because we ask who is the author of evil. In a world that is created by God where evil is at least possible don't we have to accept that God is the ultimate author of evil? I tend to lean towards St. Augustine's way of dealing with the existence of evil as I sort of had a eureka moment when I learned of his theory. Evil is not something that exists independently and is really only the diminishing of the good. Thus, God who cannot be diminished at all can never be evil. Thus, we can rule God out as the author of evil.

But, we needn't get too deep into this as it really doesn't concern Genesis 3 only that it absolves God from any guilt in the scenario. God shows whose to blame as he doles out punishment. The serpent is cursed. The woman has her pain in childbearing greatly increased and Adam and the ground is cursed because of his role in the event.

Even after punishment though God takes care of Adam & Eve making them garments of skin.

Cain and Abel are then born to Adam and Eve in exile from the Garden. Cain offered "some" of his fruits and Abel offered "fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock". The Lord looked on Abel with favor for his offering, but not on Cain. Cain became angry. Then God says something interesting, combining a comforting and a warning - "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it".

That verse, 4:7 strikes some fear in me. I can vividly picture sin crouching at my door seeking to have me. Lord, help me master it.

Cain kills Abel and is cursed by God, but once again God even punishment doesn't totally destroy Cain, marking him so that nobody kills him.

This is where I start to get intrigued and thinking about the whole Adam & Eve and Cain & Abel and why is Cain scared stating, "I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me". If Adam & Eve are the first people and Cain and Abel their first children, and now that Abel is dead, who is Cain afraid of coming across when he is wandering? Who is his wife that he lay with in the next verse? Now I guess is as good of a place as any for me to posit my working and probably incredibly inaccurate thoughts on Creation, Adam & Eve and who the heck Cain is scared of.

First, with regard to the Genesis account of Creation and its literal/metaphorical interpretation. Actually, let's back up a second before I go into this. Firstly, anything and everything in Scriptures is relevant to our daily walk with God. But, if it doesn't deny the salvation through Jesus Christ or anything heretical about the nature of God, I think a debate can be had on certain things - one of which is Creation. Secondly, as long as there is no disagreement on how one is redeemed, which is through Jesus Christ and acceptance of Him as one's Lord and Savior, and on the Triune God of Christianity being the sole God, one can be called a Christian. I am sure that when I get to Heaven I will be surprised who I see and who I don't see. God's redemptive powers are greater than my conception of them. Lastly, I do not think it to be edifying the faithful or a good look to the un-believing for Christians to come to blows, literal or metaphorical about things related to faith. Where there is disagreement, let there be discussion unless discussion leads to heresy or disharmony. If there are in those rare spots places where Christians can disagree on points of theology that are not related to Christ, his redeeming ways or on the Trinity then let us simply do good works to show our faith. But when it comes to Creation, I am not a literalist. I don't think we can take the Biblical account of Genesis 1-2 and turn it into a scientific treatise because that is not what it was intended to be.

As for my take on Creation, I see no reason why a Darwinian account of evolution is incompatible with a Scriptural worldview. I see this because I don't think the Bible is a scientific textbook. Now, Darwinian evolution has the power to describe the process of how the earth came into being, but not the why or the intent of creation. I believe that when God set into motion the events of creation that would eventually lead to this point and to the final point in history, He did so in the full knowledge of the fall of man and that his creation act included the two seminal points in redeeming man - the crucifixion/resurrection of Jesus Christ and the second coming. They were woven into the fabric of creation because he had foreknowledge that man would fall and in the ultimate act of love and sacrifice he chose to create and redeem nonetheless. Why did God create in such a way that included Free Will? Again, this is one of those questions we can only posit theories to that approximate internal consistency because we cannot know the full mind of God.

Now, we come to Adam and Eve and some of the differences between Genesis 1 and 2. I think at some point in the distant past, when man was emerging out of East Africa, God chose, much in the way he chose Abraham, a certain man and placed him in the Garden to fulfill the purpose which God had set for man at the onset of creation - "to fill the earth and subdue it, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground" (Genesis 1:28). Through Adam naming the creatures of the garden, God gave him dominion over those in the garden. While I don't take creation as literal, I take the Garden of Eden and Adam as literal, as well as Eve being formed for Adam by God specifically as literal, historical events.

Now comes the question of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life and the serpent. This I vacillate back and forth on. On the one hand, if God set up a guard at the entrance to the Garden so that Adam & Eve couldn't return to the garden it would suggest that both trees are literal. But, on the other hand, the sin/fall of man could very well have been Adam & Eve exercising their free will in a way that resulted in sin and the story could be metaphorical and just Adam & Eve choosing to live their way instead of God's way. I'm not sure - to be honest, I'm not really sure about any of this; it's just my personal thoughts.

Cain & Abel is most definitely now entering a literal phase. I think that once Adam & Eve have been banished from paradise they are aware of other people throughout their little corner of the world. Cain being banished from his home territory would mean coming across other groups of humans who might not be overly receptive to someone wandering into their territory where they hunt and gather. Why do I think that Adam & Eve and their sons knew of other human beings in the vicinity of them? The wife of Cain, without the Biblical mention of Adam & Eve having a daughter makes me think that Cain (and probably Abel) acquired a wife from another band of humans in the general vicinity to where Adam & Eve were living. But, this could all be wrong. Lord, I pray for two things. First, that I don't get to caught up in intellectualizing your Word and thus, not gleaning the eternal truths from it by drowning out your voice. Second, that I don't lead myself or anyone else astray from you in thinking or writing these things.

To finish up today's reading in Genesis I have two things that puzzle me

1) Lamech. What is Lamech saying when he makes his declaration to his two wives?
2) Adam & Eve's third son Seth has a son called Enosh: "At that time men began to call on the name of the Lord". What does that mean? The Lord spoke to Adam & Eve, and to Cain (presumably to Abel). But had the fall caused enough rift that the Lord was pulling back and so the roles reversed to where man was beginning to call on the name of the Lord instead of the other way around?

Matthew 3

John the Baptist was baptizing and preaching in the desert and drawing crowds. He chastised the Pharisees and the Sadducees who seemed to be relying on their heritage as descendants of Abraham for salvation. "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance" (3:8) he warned them, continuing "The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire" (3:10).

Lord, hear my prayer - Help me to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. I repent of my sins and yet I am bearing no fruit. I continue to go to my sins often, even after repenting. I repent again. Help me to bear fruit.

The first words of Jesus in the New Testament come from Matthew 3:15 "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness". While the formation of the Scriptures as it is now may not be chronological in the order that events happened or were even recorded, I find it interesting to English readers of the Scriptures that Jesus' first words are essentially 'let's do it to fulfill all righteousness'. With that John the Baptist baptizes Jesus and God declares from Heaven who Jesus is - "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased". Righteousness pleases God.

Psalm 2

2:11 - "Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling"
2:12b - "Blessed are all who take refuge in him"

Lord, may I serve you and rejoice you and take refuge in you.

Proverbs 1:7-9

1:7 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline."

Lord, let this be yet another beginning of knowledge. Teach me not to despise your discipline. Hear my prayer Lord.

Secular Humanism: Threat & Challenge Revisited

It's been ten years since I've read the book Secular Humanism: Threat and Challenge by Robert E. Webber. It's been thirty-two years since Robert E. Webber has written the book. Some of its tone seems to be as current as ever. Its rhetoric is definitely current. But, in typing the notes I've noticed a few things about my own thoughts on these topics in my current mindset. I've matured; become less naïve and developed a more nuanced view of the world. I'm not sure if that's always the best thing in the world, but it is the brute fact. But, I've become a little bit more open-minded to things as well. I think I'd be less apt to label secular humanism as hypocritical in the margins of my notes today. I might not; I once yelled at an Ayn Rand book and scared some poor Starbucks sipping soccer moms to death.

I reject the dichotomy between science and Christianity that has plagued us since the renaissance. I accept that the Church has at times been a source of blocking progress in numerous fields of knowledge. But, I reject that it blocks progress in the fields of ethics. Ethics is a field in which progress ought not to be made.

I am no longer stand vehemently against the theory of evolution. It seems to be, at the moment, the best paradigm we posses for how man came to be in the physical state he is at the moment. It has nothing to do with his moral state though. Physical evolution cannot produce morality. But, as a Christian I am confident that whether the Genesis account of creation was supposed to be literal or figurative or something in between, it has no bearing on the salvation offered by Jesus Christ. Whether God used words and instant gratification, or a form of evolution, the fact of the matter is that when God created the world He had already set into motion His plans to redeem mankind.

I am still very much against abortion except in rare circumstances. I have no problem with state sanctioned marriages because they have nothing to do with the marriage that is sacred in the Bible. The Bible puts marriage up as a union between a man, a woman and God. Secular marriage should be meaningless to the purely Christian viewpoint. Now, pastors or priests who marry someone in a non-Biblical fashion, they are going to have to answer for that some day. But, that has nothing to do with a state sanctioning.

The secularist optimistic view of man is hopelessly flawed as well. Man is inherently evil. While it is possible for the most evil of person to do something good or for less evil men to suppress their evil for awhile, that evil always lurks in the back and given the right circumstances will manifest itself. If those right circumstances happen to be when a given individual is in a powerful position, the manifestation will bring about powerful consequences. The good that even the most heinous of men possess is the remnant of the Imago Dei shining through the darkness. The difference between the Christians and the non-Christian is that darkness has been overcome by the light in a reunion with Christ. That is it.

The separation of Church and State used to be a hot topic for me. I thought it was awful that God was being blocked from public forums. The fact of the matter is though that a government cannot block God from coming into the public domain. I don't need to worry about that. God will manifest Himself whether a secularist government wants Him to or not. That isn't a battle worth fighting because it is already won. While I feel that I would be less inclined to nod my head along if I were to read this book now as I find myself agreeing on a couple of things he said about politics.

"The Church should not seek to accomplish its task in society through political power or legislative force" (Webber, 109). The Church isn't supposed to be a political vehicle. Divorce your politics from your faith. That doesn't mean accepting recent legislation as being the new ethically right standpoint. Ethics don't evolve because moral absolutes still exist, regardless of what man thinks of them. What it means is that your political agenda shouldn't influence your walk with Christ and it shouldn't move the Church in any particular way. The Church can recognize the brokenness that some secularist laws create the conditions for. But, when your political affiliation or your patriotism begins to move your walk with God or your church's agenda you can be pretty sure that you'll end up down a path that isn't authentically Christian.

God's role in the creation of sin revisited

The post below was written on November 18, 2005. Oh, to be 21 again! Typing that up here makes me realize that I've lost something in the past ten years. I've lost an innocence, a naïve world in which everything was black and white. If I had written that now as a more mature individual, with a little more schooling and personal experience I would hope to be shred to smithereens. But, life was different for me at in 2005. The world still existed as black and white and nuance was only a word I couldn't pronounce. That said, I stand behind the conclusion of my little essay, even if that essay sounds and was pompous. To hold the notion that 'God created sin' is logically indefensible.

Ten years on I can look at that essay and see the flaws in my thinking. Ten years from now I'll probably see the same in this little rereading (hopefully I'll still be using this platform so I don't have to go through the arduous process of bringing the diaspora of my thoughts into another single volume again). But, it does mark a point in my growth where I started to think about things that still pick at my mind today.

First, Original Sin and the Problem of Evil are things that are still very relevant to my thinking today. They interest me on a number of levels. But, at 21 I thought I could tell the rational girl Penny that she was irrational and because of that inherent irrationality she would have to accept my rational argument. In that way, I would win her over back to God. That's obviously not how this works. That's not how any of this works...

Second, because those interests were just at their formative stages back then, I see that ten years on I don't have the answers still perfectly before me. That leads me to believe that either I am not capable of having all the answers or that no one in particular is capable of possessing them. Some of the naïve nature of my research and thinking is gone, which is a good thing. Some of my innocence has been lost through life, which is a bad thing.

Third, at this point in 2005 I hadn't quite figured the entrenchment of ideas thing yet. I assumed that as I was moldable so was everyone else. I still like to think that the only thing that has crystalized in me is my music taste. Every once and a while a new song will come out, or a band that I liked that existed 10-20 years ago will come out with a new album that will capture my attention, but for the most part I return to certain songs and groups from years ago. I like to think that I am ever learning and ever open to having my mind blown and my thoughts on things blown up with the explosion to begin anew. But I know that ideas are entrenched in others and to disagree with them is a personal affront. That's when the exchange of ideas ends and the personal attacks begin. My essay may have been pedantic in nature ten years ago, but it was not an attack. Though, after I wrote that last sentence I realize that telling somebody they don't always think rationally, especially somebody who prides themselves on their rationality, probably came across an attack.

But, here is the point of my interrupting the 31 year old version of me digitizing the 21 year old version of me at this point - the essay I wrote ten years ago, as naïve as it was, it came to a correct conclusion. It came to the conclusion that to blame God for the evils of this world is logically indefensible. That said, I hope that as a slightly more mature human being, I don't offer a logical argument to someone who is searching through hard stuff as an approach to evangelizing.

Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind

John 9 tells of a miracle that Jesus performed. In 9:1-12 John records Jesus healing a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples, assuming that the man's blindness had been caused by sin asks Jesus who had sinned, the man or the man's parents. Jesus however, states that there was no one at blame for the man's blindness. Rather, the man's blindness was there so that the work of God might be displayed in the man's life. Jesus then heals the man.

This brings up an unique aspect of the Problem of Evil and the fairness of God. How is it fair that nobody's sin had been the cause of this physical evil? If God, is all-Good then the man wouldn't have been born blind. If God, is all powerful then God could have prevented the man from being blind from birth. But the fact of the matter was that the man was born blind and nobody's sin was at blame. If God was going to perform a miracle, fine. But, what of the whole part of the man's life left in blindness? Is that fair of God to use a man's life as an object lesson for eternity?

I thought about this hard for a second and couldn't untangle it in any type of acceptable way so I simply read on. The problem with abstracting philosophical or theological points from a particular part of Scripture is that abstracting doesn't work with God or even man. The blind man's reaction to the healing shoots any philosophical or theological nugget we might have gleaned from the subject. The man, having heard that he was blind from birth "so that the work of God might be displayed in his life" may have felt aggrieved at having been subjected to lifelong blindness. The problem with that is, he wasn't. We can armchair quarterback God and say this wasn't fair to the man, but fairness is something that only comes in the eye of the beholder and in this case, the blind man's eyes were opened and he didn't once question the fairness of the situation.

No, instead he proclaimed Jesus. He calls out the Pharisees who were looking to trap Jesus on a religious technicality (working on the Sabbath) or line him up as a heretic. But, in the face of being possibly ejected from the Synagogue, he states, "If this man were not from God, he could do nothing" to refute the teachers of the Law. Jesus then asks the man if he believed in the Son of Man and the man simply said, tell me who he is so that he can believe in him. He then believed. No questioning the fairness. No questioning where Jesus came from. He simply believed and was healed.

Augustine of Hippo - Sermo LI (C)

In reading another section of this sermon I've come across some interesting notes about the usefulness of Heretics and a little bit on the Problem of Evil. First, onto the Heretics. Augustine writes "Odd thing, though. If we live piously, if we believe Christ, if we don't flop from the nest before we've learned to fly, then the Hecklers'll lead us - albeit unwittingly - to precisely where they don't want to go. That's to say, to the very mysteries they're trying to destroy" (Griffin, 19-20).

Now, Augustine was living in a very Christianized world. Of course Paganism hadn't been completely rooted out, but there were incredible amounts of heretical sects of Christianity around at the time that seemed only to want to argue with others about some of the mysterious natures of what it means to be a Christian. What Augustine is saying is that those heretics, whom he calls hecklers, are unwittingly leading the faithful (so long as they remain faithful) to a deeper understanding of Christ and God the Father. The Hecklers' arguments in effect force the faithful to retreat deeper into the mysteries of God to understand the points that the Hecklers are trying to jab them with. Of course some of these hecklers may be swayed by arguments by the faithful but others may not. These people aren't necessarily looking for answers, but are simply sitting in the seat of mockers - that is to say, they enjoy making others miserable to make themselves feel better. But, what Augustine is saying is that by jabbing at the faithful, God is using this evil to sharpen and draw the faithful closer to Him. (In essence He could also use the faithful to break the chains of bondage on the Hecklers, but sometimes people prefer their prison cells).

Today is a less Christianized world. The Hecklers might be heretical and lapsed Christians, combining the philosophies of the day with elements of the Christian faith or they might simply be avowed and evangelical atheists looking to destroy the mysteries of Christ. But, their purpose (and ours as the faithful) are thwarted and refurbished by God. While they seek to destroy, the faithful (as long as they remain faithful to Christ) will see the hecklers attacks turn into moments of deeper understanding of Christ and God the Father as they retreat into the Word to find the answers to these attacks. The skepticism of the world is not a sound argument against the faith, but serves as a prod to the faithful to understand the deeper mysteries of the faith. As was the case in the time of Augustine, God can use the faithful then as a means of breaking the bondage of the lapsed Christians or atheists and bring them into the fold of the faithful. But, also as was the case in the time of Augustine, the attacks of the hecklers will invariably lead the faithful into a deeper relationship with Christ.

This repurposing of the hecklers (be they atheist, heretic or something in between the two) by God to lead the faithful into a deeper relationship with Him is an interesting case study in the Problem of Evil. The attacks of the Hecklers are by definition, evil, in that they are aimed at separating man from God, which is the only Evil that exists. In essence, Evil is the separation of man and God though evil manifests itself in many ways. But though evil was the origin and the intent the outcome is turned into Good, that is to say, into a coming together of man and God among the faithful. This repurposing of Evil for Good is echoed throughout history and the Scriptures. In this particular sermon Augustine references Judas. Judas sold Jesus out and through the evil that Judas perpetuated the World was offered salvation through Christ.

Augustine resolves the problem of Evil in the case of Judas thusly, "God, therefore liberates the nations with His Suffering Son, and at the same time punishes Judas for his shameful crime" (Griffin, 20). He concedes that there are of course mysteries in this, but that "no one who has the least whiff of faith would get into an argument about them" (Griffin, 20).

So here then is the problem of Evil. If Evil exists then how can an all-Good, all-Powerful God also exist? Evil exists, therefore God cannot exist. Some have taken that evil is illusionary and resolved the problem of Evil. But, Evil is not illusionary as most human beings can easily attest to having been touched by Evil in various ways. The partial resolution of this paradox comes from the very fact that God repurposes Evil for good (proving both His goodness and His power). While this doesn't quite fully explain the existence of Evil it also shows that the paradox isn't quite as causally related, meaning that the existence of Evil doesn't negate the existence of an all-Good, all-Powerful God. It merely shows another mystery that the faithful would be wise to not argue about amongst themselves.

While it would certainly be better if Evil did not exist, the fact is that it does. Being all-powerful God can therefore repurpose the intent of the Evil done by the Evildoer. Being all-good, God therefore repurposes the Evil to achieve the ultimate Good, harmony and union with God.

Notes on Dreadful Freedom

(Originally Written October 22, 2009 in The Journal)

OK Ashley, you've heard my sob stories about loneliness and depression and this new unrequited love. You've heard of the destruction of my body, the breaking of my heart and the crushing of my soul. But now let's witness my glory - my mind. How about some philosophy.

Dreadful Freedom
Marjorie Grene

Chapter 1 - Why existentialism

Existentialists insist on their essential optimism that man makes himself.

Existentialism in a sense is a reaction against the speculative idealism of Hegel.

Existentialism comes from Kierkegaard's phrase "existential dialectic".

In existentialism, existence is prior to essence. This means that the consciousness of one's own soul comes before anything else becomes clear.

Existentialism revolts against system building and focuses on more pressing human concerns.

The relation of cause to effect is measured by the efficacy of an act.

The relation of cause and effect is indistinguishable from means and end.

Sartre and Dewey (pragmatists) criticize philosophies of the past for stabilizing the norms that kept ruling parties in power.

Pragmatism and existentialism are similar in aim at first glance.

Sartre resets values from past to future. The past value is an emphasis on the bourgeois privilege whereas if values are set with the future in mind it leads to revolution.

Pragmatism fails though because fact cannot produce value. Science cannot distinguish between good and evil.

Value for Sartre lies between the way things are and the way things ought to be. The success of man (and failure) lies between the thing as it is and the thing as it should be.

The perception between the way things are and the way they should be is the fundamental insight of existential philosophy.

Values are created solely by the acts of man. What they take as good or bad, beautiful or ugly in their quest to give meaning to a meaningless world.

Positivistic ethics aims at being descriptive not normative.

As in Kantian ethics, existentialists claim there is no good or evil apart from will and there is no will without freedom.

Existentialism does not derive values from mere facts.

Some existentialists demand a return to faith in the Christian God as a necessary way out of our present moral chaos (Marcel & Kierkegaard).

Atheistic existentialists however claim that the return to the Christian God is removing the freedom of man and basing values once again on facts, though these facts are not sense-data but cosmic in origin.

Chapter 2: Soren Kierkegaard: The self against the system

The aim of Kierkegaard, his one problem was: to find out where the misunderstanding lies between speculation and Christianity.

Kierkegaard believed that the misunderstanding had its roots in the nature of personal existence.

Kierkegaard's work has a slight anti-scientific tone but it is really a revolt against Hegelian speculation.

Camus had a very strong anti-scientific tone.

Kierkegaard worries that by focusing on physiology and explaining the whole man in its scope will cause man to lose sight of the important field of ethics.

Kierkegaard argues that the system in never capable of explaining existence until it is complete and thus becoming timeless. Existence as it is happening is never complete and thus, the system is incapable of explaining existence.

Kierkegaard criticizes the systematizers by claiming that they build a palace to live next door in the barn.

The system builders acquire far flung knowledge and ignore the simple understanding of one's self, which is the only important understand.

The system, in its grandeur is deceiving. It uses wordy logical fallacies to appear logical.

Kierkegaard does not propound an orthodox form of Christianity. He denies any "objective truth of Christianity", instead stating the whole problem for every serious Christian is their own path to faith.

Kierkegaard focuses on the inwardness of the subjective journey of the one real entity (the individual) to the infinite being, known by faith.

Kierkegaard turns from the impersonal and trivial truths (though consistent) to the passionate truth realized only subjectively and meaningful. This truth is meaningful because it is contradictory.

By embracing total subjectivity, Kierkegaard renounced all abstraction and left only contradiction and paradox. Since abstraction is gone one cannot transfer through words one's experience to another. paradox is the only way and this is indirect communication.

Philosophy for Kierkegaard, like Kant is focused on the question, what is man? It deals with human problems, not the essence of cosmic reality.

Kierkegaard relies heavily on Plato, not Neo-Platonism, but the Dialogues themselves.

Kierkegaard states we live, or ought to live, in the awareness that here and now may be our last moment.

Existentialism focuses on the contingency of life.

Existentialism pays close attention to the meaninglessness that continually underlies the significance in human life.

Kingdom Triangle - JP Moreland

(Originally Written August 15, 2009 in the Journal)

Kingdom Triangle
JP Moreland
Zondervan Publishing, 2007

Religion cannot be a hobby.

Moreland pushes for Christians to have a deeper understanding of Christianity so that we can speak of it intelligently.

A secular worldview is thin, lacking the framework to make sense of value. An ethical monotheistic worldview is thick. In ethical monotheistic views the value of human beings is intrinsic. When we hear of "people of the week" in naturalistic settings they are borrowing from a thick worldview to comprehend it. They have to abandon their worldview to understand what they are showing.

Scientific Naturalism:
1. A theory of limited knowledge
2. A creation story based on the atomic theory of matter and evolutionary biology.
3. A physical view of reality, all that exists is physical or depends upon physical existence.

These three work together. A limited theory of knowledge justifies a creation story based on the atomic theory of matter and biology. And, the biology creation story justifies the physical view of reality.

What is real in a naturalist worldview depends on three things.
1. It is knowable in their theory of knowledge.
2. Its origin can be accounted for in evolution
3. It can be described by the language of chemistry and physics

Two forms of scienticism:
Strong - scientific knowledge exhausts what can be known
Weak - other knowledge can be had (i.e. ethics) but scientific knowledge is vastly superior

This is self-defeating as the definition does not meet its own standards

The natural view of reality is reductionism. It reduces things to identify with it and eliminates what it cannot reduce.

Physicalism (the reduction of everything to physical) however fails to account for what the world is as it is now, consider consciousness, secondary qualities, normative properties and the entire evolutionary framework (the Big Bang and natural laws are taken as brute fact).

Naturalism is doubly determined, the state of the universe is fixed by laws and the actions of things are set by their atomic and subatomic parts.

Life loses all meaning in this view of reality.

To explain the meaning of life a naturalist approaches it in three flawed ways:
1. Superficially: life is meaningless
2. Circular: the meaning of life is to find the meaning of life
3. Repugnant: hedonistic, life is meaningful so long as it is enjoyed

Six keys to a rich, objective meaning of life:

1. Free Will to ground responsibility, creativity, praise and blame
-William Provine stated, "Free will as traditionally conceived... simply does not exist. There is no way the evolutionary process as correctly conceived can produce a being that is truly free to make choices." Many times naturalism employs utilitarian justification in ethics that can lead to horrific moral implications.

2. Real intrinsic value that can be known and factored into our lives.
-In order for objective meaning to exist value must have three things true of it: There are things that are intrinsically good, things that must be ends of themselves. Two, human beings must be capable of knowing what is intrinsically valuable and what is not. Three, human beings, their products, actions and relationships must be intrinsically valuable. The naturalist view denies, necessarily, any intrinsic value. But they call morals and ethics either subjective or another simple evolutionary event.

3. The ability to acknowledge the reality of evil, provide an explanation of its origin and offer hope that it is ultimately redeemed and defeated.
-Naturalism fails to explain the reality of evil and is hopeless in offering hope in the midst of it.

4. Human beings must have equally intrinsic value simply as such.

5. There must be teleology and purpose in the cosmos relevant to human life.
-The Aristotelian notion of final cause is obsolete in naturalism. Living without teleology is utterly existentially repugnant. Nothing makes sense without teleology. Language itself implies teleology.

6. There must be a satisfying answer to the question, "Why should I be moral?"

Notes on An Absurd Reasoning & Absurd Freedom (The Myth of Sisyphus)

(Originally Written October 10, 2008 in the Journal)

Notes on Albert Camus' Myth of Sisyphus and other essays

Myth of Sisyphus

An Absurd Reasoning

"Understanding the world for a man is reducing it to human, stamping it with his real" (Camus)

This is pure subjectivism - all thought is anthropomorphic. A thought then, What of Imago Dei? If we, created in the image of God reflect on the world out of this sense aren't we reflecting on the world from a universal standpoint, albeit imperfectly due to our limitations?

Camus is an absolute empiricist. I feel my heart, it exists. I feel the world, I touch it. Therefore, it exists. "There ends all my knowledge, the rest is construction" (Camus). But he states even his own heart is and will remain indefinable to him.

The gap between certainty of existence and defining the content of existence is so wide it cannot be filled.

The irrational (existence's paradoxes and inconsistencies), the human nostalgia (our deepest desire for unity familiarity, and obsession with clarity), and the absurd (the abyss we stare at when we attempt of true knowledge and find none) converge to create in our minds a desert which we ought not attempt to escape by suicide (literal or the act of giving up thought or reason) or attempt to transcend by hope (a process of leaving knowledge to enter into pure construction). This is the point that demands action - suicide or recovery.

Philosophical suicide is the abdication of duty in pursuing knowledge either by giving up or by giving into hope.

The absurd is "the divorce between the mind that desires and the world that disappoints" (Camus).

The absurd is to be both impossible and contradictory.

The absurd is a disproportion between intentions and reality of consequences. "The absurd, which is a metaphysical state of the conscious man does not lead to God. Perhaps the notion will become clearer if I risk this shocking statement: the absurd is sin without God" (Camus).

Absurdity springs from comparison. It is essentially a divorce; it does not lie within the two things being compared but in the actual confrontation of the two things. The absurd is not in man nor in the world, but in the meeting of the two.

The absurd is the fundamental truth - the one thing that cannot be disposed of.

Now, it is the absurd that crushes man - the force that drives man to a broken point. The thing that crushes us we must fight to preserve. The absurd is an unceasing struggle - which implies "a total absence of hope (which has nothing to do with despair), a continual rejection (which must not be confused with renunciation), and a conscious dissatisfaction (which must not be compared to immature unrest)" (Camus).

So Camus' way is thus:

1. Break from the monotony of life to discover life is meaningless.
2. This shock demands action, either suicide or recovery
3. The recovery is acceptance of the absurd as ceaseless struggle
4. Ceaseless struggle brings to the mind three realizations
  - There is no hope
  - There is continual rejection
  - We must be dissatisfied

The existentialists (Chestov, Kierkegaard and Jaspers) came to the truth of the absurd and offered their reaction to it as escape. They did so out of forced hope - creating religion.

The absurd man, the existentialist, recognizes the absurd and the limited value of reason - but, rather than abandoning reason for religion, he in his awareness, simply knows there is no longer a place for hope.

The absurd man seeks to live with his ailments, while the man who has seen the absurd and turned to religion has become frantic and frenzied, seeking to be cured.

Kierkegaard views despair not as a fact, but as a state of existence - the state of sin. Now, Kierkegaard in his final dealings with the absurd sacrificed the intellect (reason) to the belief in God for he sacrificed his pride (sin) to God. Camus recognizes the limitations of reason, but states that if this is pride he sees no sufficient cause to sacrifice it.

The absurd man, the absurd mind seeks what is true at all costs. It seeks what is true, not what is desirable. If Kierkegaard warns that there is nothing but despair then the absurd man takes truth and despair.

Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl) - the making of structures of consciousness and the phenomena which appears in acts of consciousness - objects of systematic reflection and analysis. Husserl used this to provide a firm basis for all human knowledge.

Phenomenology seeks to describe actual experience - not explain the world.

Phenomenology claims truths but that there is no Truth.

Husserl's method was "the intention":
1. Negate classical reasoning (thinking as a unifying/familiarizing procedure). Thinking is actually a relearning how to see again and to direct consciousness.
2. Directing consciousness illuminates every little truth.
3. It isolates events from one another to represent an incoherent-ness in experience; thus, every isolated object of consciousness is its own "magical appearance".

The absurd spirit wishes to enumerate experience, not transcend it.

Husserl's methodology would be acceptable to the absurd man if it simply stopped at the enumeration of experience, but Husserl jumps from the psychological truth of his theory to the metaphysical. Thus, he reintroduces a rationalism akin to Plato. Unlike Kierkegaard who returns to God - Husserl returns to a form of truth as polytheism - flattening all hierarchy and making all truth equal little gods.

The difference between Husserl's abstract god and the dazzling God of Kierkegaard is minimal and only one on how to arrive at the conclusion. Kierkegaard, like other religious philosophers deified the absurd and called it God. The abstract philosophers like Husserl rationalized the absurd to the point of creating standard reasons. They began at the nausea of recognizing the absurd but go to one extreme (rationalizing/abstract) or irrationalizing (deifying/religious escapism).

Nausea is looking into the face of the absurd. There are then three paths to follow. Religion is the path of deifying the absurd. It is an escape or a reconciliation to avoid the divorce. The abstract is the pat of rationalizing the absurd. It is an escape or a reconciliation to avoid the divorce. The absurd man does neither. He takes the divorce. This is the path of acceptance.

The absurd man knows that existence is unreasonable - neither too rational nor too irrational. He accepts the limits of reason and does not give it limitless power as Husserl or abandon it as sin (pride) like Kierkegaard.

Absurd Freedom

What is known (that what is certain) cannot be denied or rejected. One can negate all, but one's desire for unity. One can refute all the world but chaos.

One can only understand a thing in human terms (thus cannot transcend). "What I touch, what resists me - that is what I understand" (Camus).

The break - the divorce of mind (reason) and the world is caused by awareness of it.

The absurd man lives in the certainty of this divorce and does nothing except on the basis of certain knowledge. The only certainty is the absurd and thus he cannot escape it in good conscious through religion. He hears that this is the sin of pride but he does not know what sin is.

Life is better lived because it does not have a meaning.

Hope in transcendence (religion) is to escape the reality of the absurd - to abolish the intellect is to elude, not solve the problem.

The absurd man lives in constant revolt against the world and against his desire for unity (escape/hope). It is in this revolt that gives life its value.

Camus really loves the pride of man. He focuses all of his energy on praising the absurd man and abhors any type of degradation.

To the absurd man the notion of the metaphysical freedom or determinism is not important - the absurd man is only certain of his own freedom.

Camus denies the paradox of God and freedom has been solved or laid to waste, it remains. Either god is all-powerful and the author of all evil or we are free and God is not all-powerful. But, none of this is important because we only experience our own freedom and the eradication of hope and future makes us more free.

The absurd tells me this: there is no future. Freedom in the classical sense is based on hope, hope based on future. Our hope in the future actually makes us slaves to the conventions of thinking.

The Ideal of the absurd man: to live with a constantly conscious soul in a ceaseless procession of presents (no pasts/no future)/

Three consequences of absurd reasoning:
1. Revolt
2. Freedom
3. The ideal (passion)

Brief Notes on City of God - Book 1

(Originally Written June 4, 2008 in the Journal)

Notes on City of God by Augustine

Introduction

"The great lesson of the City of God is that out of all things come good" (Augustine, ix)

Book I

Great effort is needed to convince the proud of the power of humility.

The city of this world seeks to dominate but is dominated by its lust for domination.

"God's providence constantly uses war to correct and chasten the corrupt morals of mankind, as it also uses such afflictions to train men in a righteous and laudable way of life, removing to a better state those whose life is approved, or else keeping them in this world for further service" (Augustine, 6).

It is foolish to trust in gods who can be conquered and yet saved by man's hands. A god ought to be unconquerable and capable of saving man, not the other way around.

The god of Rome would have perished long ago if the Romans had not so painstakingly preserved them.

It is foolishness for men to blame the collapse of Rome on Christ when they invoked his name to save their very lives! The fall of Rome was brought about by their corrupt morals.

In the sack of Rome, the savagery of war was tempered by something new: Christianity. Pagan and Christian alike were spared in the temples of Christ. How then can Christ be blamed for the fall of Rome?

The mercy of the Lord extends to both the good and the bad. This is so the wicked can repent and come to the Lord, for God waits for all men to come. Some choose to harden their hearts, but that is their own task for destruction.

The mercy God extends will someday in the future only extend to those who accept Him.

God has willed that temporal goods and temporal evils will befall good and bad alike.

"The good man is not exalted by this world's goods; nor is he overwhelmed by this world's ills" (Augustine, 13-14).

Not all evil doing is punished in this world. Some punishment is stored up for the final judgment.

God punishes some sin in this world so that the belief in providence never ceases.

God rewards some good deeds here so that we do not believe God has no concern for temporal blessings, but other good deeds have blessings that are bestowed after this temporal life is done.

Though the suffering of the good and evil are alike, the sufferers are different. The wicked curse God under affliction; the good offer prayers to Him.

"Stir a cesspit, and a foul stench arises; stir a perfume, and a delightful fragrance ascends. But the movement is identical" (Augustine, 14).

The suffering of Christians have caused their moral improvement because they viewed them with eyes of faith.

Christians suffer justly when they do not admonish sins, for not to admonish sin is a sin itself.

The good and bad suffer because though they do not live equal lives, they both love this temporal world too much.

The worldly advantages of life are not discreditable in themselves. What is discreditable is when the Christian is unduly attached to those advantages.

The Christian loses nothing in the deprivation of temporal goods. A man can be poor in life, yet rich in spirit. A Christian ought to be content with that they have and bless the Lord for it.

Those Christians who grieve the loss of their temporal goods, though they do not love them as much as they love Christ, can learn how much sin they have committed in losing those temporal things. These Christians refused to be taught by words and so God taught them by experience.

Christ condemns the desire for riches, not the opportunity riches afford.

Those who suffer torture who have no wealth on account of wealth confess Christ. If the torturer is not swayed the tortured will still be justly rewarded in heaven.

The only thing that makes death an evil is what comes after death. We ought not worry about death because all die; we should instead focus on our destination after death.

We need not worry over the body of a man who has died. Those who can kill the body have no power over the soul. The saints who have fallen but not been given a proper burial will still be resurrected.

Suicide is never justifiable.

Purity is a virtue of the mind, not the body.

Courage endures evil, but does not condone it.

We cannot commit suicide for the Bible says we cannot kill (which implies a human being) and to kill one's self is to kill a human being.

Not all homicide is murder. God orders killing, but when He does so the man does not do the killing. He is just an instrument of God. He is like the sword that God is wielding.

Though gods may be false, worship of those gods can be sincere.

The judgment of God is inscrutable and His ways are mysterious. Sometimes we cannot comprehend why we suffer, but we can take consolation in the fact that Divine Providence is at work.

God always works suffering to result in our justification or our correction.

The saints ought not to regret this temporal life for it is their schooling for eternity.

Those who rebel against the Christian era do so that they may indulge themselves in extravagant sin.

The Church has members hidden amongst the world as the Church has ungodly hidden in its midst. But, God knows these men.

The city of God and the city of man stand interwoven and intermixed, awaiting separation on the Judgment Day.

Notes on Tolstoy, What is Art? Ch. 16 (B)

(Originally Written March 7, 2008 in the Journal)

What is Art?
Leo Tolstoy
Chapter 16

History has shown that only religion has aided in the progress of humanity.

"The great evil is not that men do not know God, but they have set up instead of God, that which is not God" (Maude, 235). So it is with art today.

"Christian perception gave another, a new direction to all human feelings, and therefore completely altered both the content and significance of art" (Maude, 237).

"The essence of the Christian perception consists in the recognition by every man of his sonship to God and of the consequent union of men with God and with one another" (Maude, 238).

True art has the characteristic of uniting all men, not just a few. Non-Christian art may unite a few people, but in uniting those few they divide them from the many. Patriotic art is a prime example of this. Church art is another example. Good Christian art must transmit a feeling to all men regardless of their demographics.

Only two feelings unite all men:

1. Feeling stemming from the universal sonship of God and universal brotherhood.
2. Feelings of common life accessible to all men.

Only two objects for art can be considered good:

1. That which flows from love of God and the relationship of God to man and man to man.
2. That which flows from the most basic feelings felt by every human being.

The first is religious art; the second is universal art.

Religious art is manifested best in words, but can also be manifested in sculpture and painting. Universal art is best manifested in music, but can be manifested in dance, architecture, words, painting and sculpture as well.

The overburdening of the viewer with details of the producer blocks the transmission of feelings. The simpler, the better. In true art, feelings are expressed without superfluous extras.

The more detailed a story becomes, the more provincial it becomes and thus, the less universal it is.

In music, the melody is accessible to every one, but when extremely complex harmonies are added, the melody is lost and the piece loses universality.

Whether I like a thing or not, if it fails to be religious or universal art, I must consider it bad art. Only by judging first if a work transmits feelings or not and then deciding whether the thing unites or divides people can we decide if the work is real or counterfeit and if it is real, we can then decide if it is good or bad.

Art is spiritual food.

Notes on Tolstoy, What is Art? Ch. 6

Originally Written Feb. 29, 2008 in the Journal

What is Art?
Chapter 6

The estimation of the value of art depends on the man's perception of the meaning of life. It depends on what they find good and what they find evil. What is good and evil is determined by religion.

There have been men that understood the meaning of life more lucidly and more generally than others. Their expression of the meaning of life, together with superstitions, traditions and ceremonies that surround the memory of these men is what is called religion.

"Religions are the highest exponents of the highest comprehension of life" (Maude, 127). It is for this reason that religions have and always will serve as the basis for the valuation of all human sentiments.

If art coincides with the laws, feelings and tradition of the prevailing religion then it is good art. If not, then it is bad art.

In the beginning of Christianity followers of Christ followed a true version. Subsequently a Church-Christianity arose which paganized and perverted the true religion. The art that arose from Church-Christianity, veneration of saints, paintings of the blessed Virgin and the like were perversions of Christ's teachings but high art nonetheless as it corresponded to the prevailing religion.

When the upper classes saw the contradiction between Church-Christianity and the teachings of Christ they stopped believing the dogma of the Church, but encouraged the lower classes to still follow it blindly as suited their needs. But having wealth and leisure they produced art that was inconsistent with Church-Christianity.

Men like Hus, Luther, Calvin and Wycliffe stripped Christianity of non-Christ teachings.

Those that doubted in the Middle Ages had to seek out an entirely new religion because there was no way to revamp the old mythology. They needed to rid themselves of the perversions of Church-Christianity and follow true Christianity.

But, the upper classes could not or would not do this because it would mean universal brotherhood, and they could not stand for this. These men had no religion. They believed in nothing. But, as they were in possession of the wealth and power, the controlled leisure and thus, art. Under their rule art was borne, not of men's religious feeling, but of the beauty or in other words, the pleasure they received of it.

These men had detected the falsehood of the Church but were unwilling to accept the true Christianity. They returned to the pleasure seeking, to paganism. Then the Renaissance happened: a denial of every religion and the denial of the necessity of religion.

"As soon as doubt arose with the regard to the infallibility of the Pope (and this doubt was then in the minds of all educated people), doubt inevitably followed as to the truth of tradition. But doubt as to the truth of tradition is fatal not only to popery and Catholicism but also to the whole Church creed with all its dogmas; the divinity of Christ, the resurrection, and the Trinity; and it destroys the authority of the Scriptures, since they were considered to be inspired only because the tradition of the Church so decided" (Maude, 134).

These people had no religion and no means of which to decide what was good or bad art except by their own pleasure receptors. Thus, the failing of their aesthetic theories.

Notes on Tolstoy, What is Art? Chapter 2

(Originally Written Feb. 28, 2008 in the Journal)

What is Art?

Chapter 2

Tolstoy is angered about the money that the government gives to the arts by taking money from the poor who never get to experience what their money goes to.

We must decide if art is so good and so important as to redeem the evil that art causes.

Art lies between the practically useful and all unsuccessful attempts at art.

The common answer to what is art? Is that which creates beauty. The problem with this answer is that it assumes the concept of beauty is fully known. But, it is obscure and cloudy.

In Russian, the word Krasotá (beauty) means only that which pleases the sight.

Could beauty be defined as "that which pleases the senses" so long as we include an ethical, moral and religious sense to the other five senses?

The concept of good (in Russian) entails the concept of beauty, but the concept of beauty (in Russian) does not entail the concept of good. In every other European language beauty and good are conceptually synonymous. But, these other languages now have no suitable word to express beauty of form.

Early thoughts on the Problem of Evil

(Originally written February 27, 2008 in Book 22)

Evil then exists in a vacuum. This vacuum is created by the self-deprivation of God's ultimate goodness. Evil is the cause of sin. Sin therefore exists in a vacuum.

As a result of sin, Adam & Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden (which was Heaven on Earth). Earth is corrupted now along with all of its inhabitants, even the beings and created things without free will. Earth is a vacuum, void of God's goodness. Thus, evil and sin exist in the world. 

God removed his ultimate goodness in the world by removing himself from Earth and breaking a "physical" communion and vindicating ultimate righteousness and ultimate holiness. However, all of creation, that is not a free-will being is still a testament to God's creative power. They work on instinct and still taste in His ultimate goodness, yet they are in this vacuum of the world and are subsequently subject to imperfections seen as mutations or adaptations. In this world, the only free will beings are humans. They still revel in the remnants of God's ultimate goodness because they are made in the image of God. 

Imagine it this way. God is the sun and man is the moon. The sun gives a perfect light to the world. It illuminates the world, heats it, and sustains life. God illuminates the world and sustains all life in it. Hypothetically imagine that, the sun were much closer to the Earth, so close that it lit up the entirety of the world all at once, without burning it up. This is how God was before the Fall. He dwelled on Earth and walked on the Garden. As a result of man's rebellion God removed himself (theoretically the sun returned to its original place). However the sun still illuminates part of the earth part of the time and sustains it continually. So too does God illuminate some creation some of the time, but sustain it all of the time. Since the world is now devoid of God's ultimate goodness it has been corrupted and at times, God's creation, namely man, cannot see his illumination or feel his sustaining power. The sun too is blocked by imperfection in the world (clouds) clouds can partially block or fully block the light of the Sun, but cannot stop it from sustaining the world. So too can the state of fallen creation partially or fully block the illumination of God, but cannot prevent God's ability to sustain life.

Man, being created in the image of God, has some of God's attributes and subsequently some of his abilities, but not all. God is to man as the Sun is to the moon. God is completely perfect whereas man was (prior to the Fall) perfect, yet a fragmented perfection. Man reflects the perfect image of God. God (and the Sun) are unaffected by the imperfections like Evil and sin (for the Sun oncoming asteroids or comets). They cannot hurt him. Sin and Evil have smashed into humanity like the asteroids and comets into the moon causing both man and the moon to be scarred and crater filled. These distortions have caused man's reflection of God (or the moon's reflection of the Sun) to be even less complete than a reflection already.