A Pertinent Question

There is a story in the Gospels (I forget which) where Jesus heals a man that has been lingering next to a pool of water for some thirty years. The water was supposedly disturbed every once and a while when an angel came and touched it, and the first person to bath themselves in the water after it was disturbed would be healed of their ailments. The man in question was a paralytic, however, and had no one to take him to the pool. So he sat unmoved for around thirty years.

When Jesus found him, his first question He asked him was, "What do you want?" I believe it was John Eldridge who pointed out that this is an astounding question. It seemed that Jesus' first step in healing the man was to get him to reestablish what his desire was, his goal, his end game, for sitting near the pool. It is not unreasonable to assume that, after having sat still without success for around thirty years, that he had eventually forgotten what was the point of it all.

I believe that Jesus' question to the paralytic is highly pertinent to our current culture and society that has been terribly paralyzed by the grip of post-modernism. We would do well to ask people, both liberal and conservative, atheistic and spiritual, secular and religious, what it is exactly that they want. When faced with the tumultuous lot of faddist and trivial institutions, ideologies, parties, minority groups, voting blocks, revolutions, moralities, and philosophies that our current culture and society parades around like next year's fashion, perhaps the best question that we can put forth is, "What's the point?"

I recently read an article in the August edition of Chronicles, a monthly mag that I don't always agree with but I still heartily recommend, and found its author (Thomas Flemming, the mag's editor) implicitly agreeing with Chesterton's What's Wrong With the World, where Mr. Chesterton states in the first chapter that what is wrong is that "nobody knows what is right," i.e., no one has an ideal, an end game, a goal, a purpose that their energies are aiming for. As Mr. Flemming stresses, we would do well to ask "what's the good of" all the scared cows and beloved dogmas of the current trend-setters and socio-political philosophers.

Of course, if this question is posed, people on every side of multiple different fences will fire back with culturally approved buzz words like "growth" or "prosperity" or "equality" or "liberty" or "freedom" or whatnot. These words, however, do not solve the problem; they only push it further and reveal a peculiar ignorance (and subsequent arrogance) of our time, viz., that the things that those words signify are goods in and of themselves. Thus, if we ask someone, "What's the good of growth, etc?" they will probably have no answer, other than that those things are good, which they are not.

That last statement may seem odd (maybe even blasphemous), but it should be an obvious truth. Those things are not goods unto themselves; they are goods only in regards to their ability to secure another good. In other words, they are means, not ends. "Prosperity" and "liberty" are meant to achieve something other than themselves. What exactly is the identity of that "other" thing is up for debate; the point here is that no one even debates it precisely because they view the means as ends and thus can see nothing beyond them. The result is that we have a slew of methods, but no ideal to apply them to; we have more than enough tools, but nothing to build.

Growth, prosperity, etc. must have an ideal that sets their energy and movements within a proper context. Left to themselves, they hopelessly degrade into all manner of evils that have and will continue to plague mankind from one end of history to another. So "growth," left to itself, becomes greed. "Prosperity" becomes decadence and apathy. "Equality" becomes conformity and tyranny. "Liberty" becomes licence. "Freedom" becomes anarchy. Set outside of a clear-cut goal and guidelines, these things run wild, and cause massive damage after creating pleasure for a season.

The next time the gurus of the modern/post-modern dark ages, both inside and outside the Church, come to us whispering sweet nothings, it would be wise of us to check our itching ears at the door and instead ask them what exactly is going on? What's the point? What's the good of it? What's your goal, your aim, your ideal? "What do you want?" said Christ. We would do well to ask the same question. Even if the ideas presented to us (after much tiresome digging) are not at all what we would call ideal, at least then we have something with which to wrestle with and talk about. Until then, this society will continue to go nowhere at all as it has no ideal or goal, only pleasant feelings in the pit of their stomachs over wonderful soundbites and bumper-sticker slogans.

-Jon Vowell

The Trinity: Argument from Beauty

The following musings are the result of reading some of Jonathan Edward's thoughts on the nature of beauty, specifically an essay called "The Beauty of the World" and a piece called "Excellency" (which is a subset of an essay called "The Mind"). After reading these two selection and carefully dissecting them (quite an arduous task), I stumbled upon what seemed to be a small side argument for the existence of the Trinity. I'm not saying that the argument is gospel, but I did find it interesting, and I thought I might share it.

In summary, beauty (or "excellency") is a type of proportion, regularity, equality, and/or symmetry between individual elements of reality, while ugliness is the opposite of such (disproportion, irregularity, etc.). In other words, beauty is order and structure (which Edwards called "being"), while ugliness is disorder or chaos (which I'm calling "nothing"). In addition, the more an object increases in these qualities, the more pleasure it produces to the subject; conversely, the more it decreases in these qualities, the more pain it produces. Still with me? Good, let's move on then.
The reason pleasure and pain is produced is because the more and object increases in proportion, etc., the closer it gets to absolute order (which Edwards called "Being"), which is the highest and most excellent good; likewise, the more it decreases, the farther it gets from absolute order and the closer it gets to absolute disorder or chaos (which I'm calling "Nothing"), which is the lowest and most debased evil. In short, the imitation of the Good produces pleasure and the imitation of the Bad produces pain. Still got it? Great, let's keep going.
Now here is where the argument begins. Edwards calls this increase of proportion, etc., the "consent of being," i.e., beauty is consensual. This is because proportion, etc., necessarily requires two or more parties: a circle is "symmetrical" only after you divide it into two or more parts and compare the parts to each other. As Edwards put it, an aboslute whole (or a "singular") can only be beautiful/excellent by a "consent of its parts," i.e., because its oneness contains a "plurality." Thus, a "singular" without a plurality necessarily cannot be beautiful because beauty is contingent upon proportion, etc., which is contingent upon consent, which implies plurality. Therefore, beauty necessarily implies plurality. As Edwards put it, a singular "that is absolutely without any plurality cannot be excellency, for there can be no such thing as consent or agreement."
Perhaps you are beginning to see where the argument is going. If we admit that God is the Creator of all things, He is therefore necessarily the source of all things (i.e., all things come from Him). That means that whatever can be found in reality finds its absolute realization in Him. For example (and in regards to the argument), if we find beauty (proportion, etc.) in reality, then that necessarily means that beauty is in God as well (albeit, in an absolute sense, i.e., Beauty, or to use Edwards' term, "Being"). However, if beauty necessarily implies plurality, then that means that in order for God to be the source of beauty, He too must be a plurality; or, to phrase it another way, for God to be the source of beauty, His oneness must necessarily contain a plurality. Question: What do we call it when God's oneness contains a plurality?

A: The Trinity. I rest my case.

Caveat Emptor: This post is about how the nature of beauty could possibly give us reason to believe in the Trinity. This post does not presume to explain how this oneness/plurality dynamic works in detail within the Godhead. Thus, I don't need any of you nit-pickers out there getting hung up on my use of words like "divide," divided," and "parts." I am not making a comment on how the thing works; I'm simply stating what may be a reason to believe that the thing is real.

-Jon Vowell

A Nugget (food for thought)

Related to this post.

Rabid post-modern emergent Christianity and rabid militant atheism have this in common: both are prideful rebellion against God. The former's pride exalts man's experiential subjectivity above God, while the latter's exalts man's fallen and limited intellect. The former interprets God through their individualistic experiences, while the latter interprets through strictly naturalistic scientism. Neither one allows God to interpret Himself by His own revelations (viz., the Bible). Thus, they exalt themselves into God's position, which is the very essence of pride itself.

-Jon Vowell

The Truth About Truth (or, Fighting for Virginity)

To say that modern man has lost any true desire for truth is more of an over-simplification than an understatement. Read any popular magazine, newspaper, or blog article, and you will find this or that party or group clamoring for “the truth” or “the facts” of the matter or issue currently in fashion. Much to the chagrin of post-modern sentimentalist (from religious emergents to political pundits), the average person still wants the truth and nothing but the truth. As Chesterton put it, they want to close their minds on something solid. This, of course, is a characteristic common to all of mankind, though recently we have done our very best to hide it. As much as stuffy academics and snobby coastal elitist speak to the contrary, the truth is that we still believe in truth, a fact easily verifiable at every drive-thru, playground, or family reunion across the globe. Thus, it is a bit over-simplistic to say that modern man has lost a desire for truth, as though to say that they are fundamentally illogical and irrational, when the truth is that all humans are fundamentally (though incompletely) logical and rational. The deeper reality of this issue is not that we do not desire truth per se, but rather that we desire truth to be ultimately unobtrusive to ourselves, to be uncomplicated and tidy. We want the truth, but we also want the truth to be simple; and as Mr. Wilde once said, the truth is never simple.

An example is in order, and it must be a rather frank one so that I may have your attention. There is a slogan I saw recently, plastered across some demonstrator’s sign like typical asinine bumper-sticker philosophies, that said, “Fighting for Peace is like F—king for Virginity.” Of course, the unidentified demonstrator did not edit any of his obscenities, but I have; I want to capture your attention, not drive it away. I find this slogan to be a bit odd, precisely because it seems to make sense on the surface but is utterly absurd reasoning when one actually thinks about it. It looks simple enough: it is a comparison of opposites in a causal relationship; “fighting” cannot lead to “peace” anymore than sex can lead to virginity (though Donne may like to argue that latter point) because both sets contain opposites. So far, this is all smooth sailing, or so we initially think.

Thinking, however, is a dangerous business, and whether it is domesticated or left wild, it can pull down strongholds all the same. For example, when one actually thinks through the slogan for a moment, it seems that those who claim that you cannot fight for peace understand neither peace nor fighting. Fighting, in its proper sense, is not primarily destructive; it is primarily preservative in that it fights against that which is destructive. This is common sense: a man fights for his home or wife and children, not for the burglar that has broken down his door; it is the burglar that he fights against. Of course there are exceptions, but this is the rule: fighting strives to maintain what the fighter views as good, right, and proper. Likewise, peace, in its proper sense, is not the absence of conflict; in truth, it is not an absence at all. It is a presence, a presence of justice and wisdom and virtue, etc.; in short, it is the presence of all things commonly held as good, right, and proper. I am quite sure that a mere glance at any brutal despotism in history will easily yield times that contained what can be called an “absence of conflict,” but it most assuredly had no peace, because that which is good, right, and proper had been suppressed or outright removed (sometimes, ironically, in the name of peace!). European appeasement of Nazi Germany certainly created an “absence of conflict,” but not peace. An “absence of conflict” is more often a sign of passivity than peace.

Thus, if we view “fighting” as the maintenance of that which is good, right, and proper against that which would destroy it, and if we view “peace” as the presence of that which is good, right, and proper, then there is no reason to believe that one cannot “fight for peace.” To say otherwise is like someone saying that St. George cannot slay the dragon in order to save the princess because princess rescuing and dragon slaying are somehow opposite, which is an obviously absurd statement. In fact, take the earlier mentioned slogan, replace the phrase “Fighting for Peace” with “Slaying Dragons for the Princess,” read it again, and you will see how absurd the slogan really is. Of course you can fight for peace; like a princess, it is perhaps the only thing worth fighting for.

That the truth can maintain the intimate bond between “fighting” and “peace” succinctly demonstrates modern man’s problem in regards to the truth: we want it to be not only logical and rational but also manageable and simple. We want it to be plastered across signs and bumper-stickers and metas rather than charted in a book or spiritedly debated over drinks and cigars for days and weeks. From The Daily Show to The O’Reilly Factor, we prefer our discussions in bit-sized chunks, as though we seriously believe that anything substantial could be meted out in five to ten minute intervals. In addition, when we actually do begin to delve into the inky black depths of truth, we are shocked and awed that it is highly complex, even paradoxical (as with “fighting” and “peace”). The truth more often than not frustrates us because it not only wants to have its cake and eat it, but also seems to succeed in that very endeavor.

In short, I said earlier that any disparaging statements about modern man's desire for truth are merely over-simplifications; and they are over-simplifications precisely because the modern world’s notion of what “truth” is is overly simple, some would even say naïve, like a child thinking it can capture The Divine Comedy in a nursery rhyme. If we are to have any truly substantial dialogues about truth that get us anywhere anymore, we must put away our naiveté, tear down our protest signs and bumper-stickers (like modern iconoclasts), and return to the dangerous business of actual thinking (preferably with other people over drinks and cigars) while realizing that the truth is ultimately mysterious in that it is often hidden and always meant to surprise.

-Jon Vowell

I Couldn't Have Said It Better

See. Christians aren't the only ones who are sick of atheism.

God Incomprehensible

"The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. [...] This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved."
-from "The Creed of Saint Athanasius," from The Book of Common Prayer

"There is in God (some say) / a deep but dazzling darkness...." -Henry Vaughan, from The Night

"I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you / which shall be the darkness of God." -T.S. Eliot, from East Corker

It is often taught (and correctly so) that the great tragedy and angst of modern man was the loss of God in the midst of the senseless brutality and chaos that was the 20th century. That, however, is the secular reading of events. A sacred reading is far more peculiar (and interesting).

For the Christian, two facts must be realized above all else in regards to that cruel, cruel century: (1) many things came out of it: atheists, agnostics, absurdists, existentialists, nihilists, etc.; and (2) God yet remained in spite of it all. Even after all of those other ideologues went in and out of fashion, each stating in their own way the apparent obviousness of a God-less, senseless, purposeless, absurd universe, God Himself stubborning refused to bow out like a good little boy when He was supposed to. Perhaps it can be argued that we would be much happier if, in the face of 20th century atrocity and mayhem, God had just died like Nietzsche predicted before he himself descended into madness. At least then we would not be left to face the awful burden of trying to reconcile the facts of His character with the facts of our modern lives.

He did not die, however. He is still here, in churches, in classrooms, in debates, in papers, in blogs, in the subconscious, in mouths, and on lips. We are caught in the horrible conundrum of having both the 20th century (with all its inhumanity) and God (with all His holiness) standing side by side, daring us to explain them away, and our reason will fail us yet again in the attempt.

However, God's refusal to go away when history seemingly deemed that He should, His lingering presence in spite of it all, is the salvation of modern society. The God that our parents so easily boxed in, explaining and/or explaining away, has left those boxes in shattered fragments on the ground. Suddenly, the saviors of the modern world (i.e., our meager and limited human reason and science) could no longer serve or save us, as the terrible Almighty is no longer so easily tamed. Whether we believed in Him or not, we thought we had Him wrapped around our finger, safely categorized and defined, and put away in our upper desk drawer. Now, perhaps, with fear and trembling, the realization is dawning on us in the form of a question: if God is still there, even after all that has happened, what are we to do? How can we explain it? The holy places have indeed become dark places, and we are lost in their shadow.

It is this darkness, this necessary element of mystery, that could very well be the salvation of our current generation. It is possible that the Emergents (for all of their heresy) are actually right, though not quite like they planned. Uncertainty, mystery, can possibly bring back our sense of worship, our capacity for pleasure and pain. Not uncertainty per se, but rather the radically orthodox ascertain that (aside from what He reveals to us) the ways of God are actually mysterious, with the end game hidden deep within the shadow of the Almighty. Christianity has traditionally always been comfortable with the incomprehensible; perhaps it's time we passed that comfort around.

The reasserting by the Church of the mystery of God may be the very spark of the sun that sends a piercing stab of light into the prison-like dark ages that is modernity. We have often been caught with our pants down as we frantically try to explain (as our parents did) the absolute uttermost of the divine mind. As necessary as I find apologetics, perhaps they have deadened us to the fact that God (as He is now revealed to us) is not completely knowable. In light of this, perhaps what this world needs more of is not lengthy and desperate explanations about things that we don't know, but rather the reassertion of some facts that we do know; namely, that we are indeed in the hand of the living God, whose "thoughts are unsearchable" and whose "ways are past finding out" (Rom. 11:33).

Come, brothers and sisters, and let the awesome mystery of God silence the skepticism of fools. Let the horror of His great darkness confound the disillusioned self-confidence of the post-modern wise-man, and let the "foolishness of preaching" once again save many (I Cor. 1:21). God has never let his people get away with easy belief. He will seemingly stack the deck against Himself, all the while eyeing us intently, refusing to explain Himself, and constantly asking, "Do you trust me?" What this world needs is the reassertion of faith; not blind ignorance, but rather the trust in the mysterious God who is still there and is still not silent.

-Jon Vowell

Thoughts in the Night (or, Perhaps)

To be human is to exist in the tension between despising the world as it is and knowing that you can do nothing about it. Perhaps that is why suicide is so damnable: it is a rejection of your humanity, of that glorious struggle against that which cannot be beaten, i.e., the world as it is.
Cooperation as redemption is a lie because cooperation is not possible. History is littered with examples of where humanity, in a glorious attempt to coalesce and rise out of the ashes, is immediately consumed by some former or new ill unperceived and yet somehow of our own making. Perhaps history is no more than collective humanity's record of when and where it slits its own throat.
Perhaps the image of the ghost is apropos for humanity: unreality trapped in ceaseless deathlessness. Like all ghosts, we are bound by some damnable link to the region of our demise where we walk as disembodied shades in the night; and no matter how many times we band together in humanistic coalitions, we remain in the land of the dead.
Yet the image of the phoenix is apropos as well, for it is a startling quintessence of human nature: hope that never dies, the indomitable spirit. Beneath (and perhaps in the midst of) our troubled layers, there still burns a last vestige of desire, a yet unyielding ember that dreams of restoration, eucatastrophe, redemption, victory. When the breath of God blows on that dying coal, what a fire it kindles!
It is indeed victory that God promises those who follow Him; not meaningless words and phrases, but victory, final and sweet. Victory over the world, victory over death, victory over guilt, victory over the monsters, victory over all the things that have haunted mankind out of the depths of our dark antiquity. That is perhaps the greatest goodness that the gospel produces.

I Told You So

Back in 2007, in the hey day of "The Counter Hour Movement" and other such collegic oddities, I wrote a blog entry titled “The Direction of a Certain Liberal Arts College,” or something like that. In it I said basically everything that a friend of mine said (although she said it with much more detail and passion than I). In this long lost entry, I made a prediction of sorts that went something like this: due to the current misguided and destructive administrative agenda foisted upon the college, within ten years Crichton College will be no more.

I made that prediction at the end of ’07. Crichton officially folded at the beginning of ’09. I suppose a little over a year is “within” ten years.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I seem to recall that Crichton didn’t have financial problems. Yes, we were a small college. Yes, we sometimes felt like we were running on a shoestring budget at times; but ultimately the college soldiered on with fresh tuition and interested donors. Why? My fervent claim is because we knew who we were and what we were about, and that identity gave us strength.

What exactly were we? Well, we were not an urban missions hub. We were not an open door, pandering, lackluster academic institution. We were not a ‘jonnie-come-lately” to bigger, badder Christian universities. We were not a collection of “recovering racists.” We were a Christian Liberal Arts college, dedicated to academic excellence and strong spiritual development. We were dedicated to the bizarre and absurd proposition that our students could change the world, not through racial reconciliation, not through education to all regardless of their academic credentials (e.g., can they even write?), not through urban development, not through “reaching upward,” but through critical thinking and spiritual growth. That, of course, is the hidden truth behind Crichton’s old motto (does anybody even remember it?): “Think Critically, Grow Spiritual, Change the World.”

This sense of academic excellence and strong spiritual development, this love of learning and love of God, was the sole tie that bound us together. We didn't need racial reconciliation awareness, we didn't need “red revolutions,” we didn't need open dialogue. All we needed was that beautiful scholasticism, the dance of faith and reason. We were united as thinkers and saints; we became divided as whites and blacks, “snobs” and “victims,” “Pharisees” and everyone else, and a house divided against itself never stands. Perhaps, just perhaps, if Crichon had not lost that initial vision and purpose, if it had not lost its mind, then perhaps the board of directors (when deciding the fate of Crichton's Liberal Arts program) would have found something worth saving. Apparently, they didn't, and that to our shame.

Farewell, dear Crichton. We knew thee well and loved thee more, though many loved you less.

Behold the Modern Man

Spoken by Malcolm Muggeridge from the book "Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith":

It has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself. Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, his own vulnerability out of his own strength; himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his enemies; until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over a weary, battered old brontosaurus and becomes extinct.

Read it and Weep

All I can say is that it's about time someone said it.

Though I am a Conservative (more precisely, a Federalist Republican Conservative), I have avoided like the plague discussions about President Bush amongst my peers and even my friends precisely because nobody engages in a serious and honest discussion about him. Everyone either melts into a stinking pile of irrational and virile hatred, or they try and be both clever and popular by taking seemingly innocuous pot-shots at the man with either irrelevancies (like his supposed speech impediment) or media-perpetuated myths (like "cowboy diplomacy" or "spying on Americans"). Throughout the fashionable days of Bush-bashing, I found myself forced to sit back and keep my mouth shut.

However, now that Bush is on his way out, and everyone is going gaga over the newly Anointed One (I swear, the guy's more popular than Jesus right now), I will fling my cards on the table, if for no other reason than to hear myself state what I have believed for eight years:

I do not agree with everything that Bush did (illegal immigration policies, some expansion of government, and lack of communication with the American people to name a few), but I honestly believe that come some ten to twenty years down the road (maybe even sooner), we will look back on the Bush presidency and realize that it wasn't even 1/100th as bad as we were lead to believe. We will look back with shame at calling his presidency "the worst in American history," and will return that particular infamy back to where it belongs: with Jimmy Carter. We will look back with regret at how unfairly and cruelly we treated a man who protected this nation for eight years and struck fear into the hearts of our enemies. We will look back in anger at not only the deceptive media who lead us along in Bush-bashing like lambs to the slaughter, but also at ourselves for being so easily strung along. That is what I believe. The man was not perfect (who is?), but I vehemently deny that he was the devil incarnate, an idiot, or any of the other disgraceful epitaphs that have been shameful dumped upon him by an atrocious media, pinheaded west/east coast elites, and a foolish American public. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.