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Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 1.14 (Love Truth)

11 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Greek, Greek Translation, Marcus Aurelius, New Testament Background, Thesis

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Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Philosophy, Thesis, truth

The previous post in this series may be found here

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From my brother, Severus

To love the family
To love truth
To love justice.

And through him, I knew Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, Brutus.

From him I learned the mark of a state administered by equal laws, equal standing, equal speech: a government which dearly honors the freedom of those being ruled.

And also from him, to have a constant, balanced value of philosophy; to do-good, be willingly generous, to trust the love of friends; to not conceal what he has against another; to not keep his friends guessing what he wants or does not want, but rather to be clear.

 

Greek Text and notes:

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Are You An Anthropocentrist?

13 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Uncategorized

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animal altruism, animal grief, animal stereotypes, animals compared to humans, anthropocentrism, deep ecology, human superiority, Meaning, nature, non-human awareness, non-human communication, non-human math, non-human spirituality, non-human tool use, perspective, Science, species stereotypes, truth

[Without further coment]:

Ample evidence that we humans are not superior to all other living beings. Instead we might recognize other creatures are “gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”

http://lauragraceweldon.com/2014/11/05/are-you-an-anthropocentrist/

Truth Like a Bastard

08 Friday May 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Literature, Thomas Hardy

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poem, Poetry, Thomas Hardy, truth

LAUSANNE IN GIBBON’S OLD GARDEN: 11-12 P.M. June 27, 1897 (The 110th anniversary of the completion of the “Decline and Fall” at the same hour and place)
Thomas Hardy

A spirit seems to pass,
Formal in pose, but grave and grand withal:
He contemplates a volume stout and tall,
And far lamps fleck him through the thin acacias.
Anon the book is closed,
With “It is finished!”
And at the alley’s end
He turns, and soon on me his glances bend;
And, as from earth, comes speech—small, muted, yet composed.
“How fares the Truth now?—Ill?
—Do pens but slily further her advance?
May one not speed her but in phrase askance?
Do scribes aver the Comic to be Reverend still?
“Still rule those minds on earth
At whom sage Milton’s wormwood words were hurled:
‘Truth like a bastard comes into the world
Never without ill-fame to him who gives her birth’?”

Hauerwas Burke Lecture

10 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Stanley Hauerwas

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Nazi, Stanley Hauerwas, truth

Enlivened by the truth

28 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Preaching

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Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, Preaching, truth, William Greenough Thayer Shedd

The previous post in this series may be found here

Shedd next terms to general “maxims” on preaching. The first maxim is that the preacher must bring his heart and mind into an enlivened condition. If the preacher is not concerned, no one else will. This need is a necessary requirement for all persons engaged in artistic creation. However unlike “poets” the preacher is not permitted “artificial stimulants”. The only proper stimulant is the truth to be proposed:

The theme, or proposition of the sermon should, therefore, be that particular truth by which the sacred orator should excite his intellect, and awaken his powers to an intenser activity. If the preacher is not able to set his mind into a glow and fervor, by his subject, let him not seek other means of excitement, but let him ponder the fact of his apathy, until he is filled with shame and sorrow. Let him remember, that if he is not interested in the truth, if divine truth has no power to quicken and rouse his intellectual faculties, he lacks the first qualification for sermonizing

William Greenough Thayer Shedd. Homiletics and Pastoral Theology.

If it is the truth itself that ensures our unbelief

28 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in John, Uncategorized

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D.A. Carson, D.A.Carson, Depravity, John, John 8:45, Noetic Effects of Sin, Scripture, truth, unbelief, Uncategorized

“Fourth, we must not underestimate the impact of sin on our ability to think through these matters clearly. A substantial element in our original fall was the unbridled lust for self-sufficiency, for independent knowledge. We wanted to be the center of the universe—and that is the heart of all idolatry. John 8:45 reports Jesus addressing his opponents in these shocking words: “Yet because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me!” If it is the truth itself that ensures our unbelief, how deep and tragic and abominable is our lostness. Small wonder, then, that God does not present himself to us in such a way that we may feel we can control him. Those who demand signs of Jesus are firmly rebuked, for he knows that to give in to such demands would be to submit to the agenda of others. He would quickly be domesticated, nothing more than a magical, spiritual genie.”

Excerpt From: D. A. Carson. “Collected Writings on Scripture.” Crossway Books & Bibles, 2010-07-10. iBooks.

The Crisis of Word and Truth

17 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Carl F Henry, Genesis, John

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Apologetics, Carl F Henry, Derrida, Genealogy of Morals, Genesis, God Revelation and Authority, John, Literature, Logos, Nietzsche, Of Grmmatology, Poetry, Robert Frost, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, truth, Word

The Crisis of Word and Truth

NO FACT OF CONTEMPORARY Western life is more evident than its growing distrust of final truth and its implacable questioning of any sure word.[1]

The first essay in Henry’s six volumes, God Revelation and Authority is “The Crisis of Word and Truth”. He notes the conflict between two worldviews: The God of revelation who speaks versus a meaningless and incoherent “word”. The sound of words has remained and human beings still function and interact, but Word as a primary and stable truth – the Logos of God – that has come under attack.[2]

He wrote this essay without a discussion of deconstruction (my college copy of Spivak’s English version of Of Grammatology is dated 1974, 1976; the first printing of Henry’s essays are dated 1976) or the (for obvious reasons) the Internet. Thus, his discussions of both distance between meaning and words, as well as the ubiquity of media, not only remain true but have actually become more certain.

On one hand we have the Word of God. Christianity posits Spirit and Word as the primary constitutes of existence. First, God is spirit (John 4:24). As the Westminster Shorter Catechism has it:

Q: What is God?

A: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

John 1:1 famously explains “The Word was God.” The knowledge of God comes about because God speaks. Nothing would exist apart from the Speaking God: “God said, Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3). The material world of images comes after the Spirit and Word.[3] The world itself exists, because the Word of God upholds it, continually (John 1:3; Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:3).

On the other hand stands the cacophony of media. Now, Henry does not denigrate or despise the media because it is media. Rather the trouble lies in what it does. It has taken the pre-existing problem of meaning and world (which human beings attempt to escape; Romans 1:18). However, it has “indubitably widened and compounded the crisis of word and truth” (18).

Henry notes the common criticism that the nature of the media is such that it does not respond to matters of significance with significant attention.  He quotes Malcolm Muggeridge, “’the fact that the medium has no message. In the last resort, the media have nothing to say ….’” (18).

The media portray matters for the purpose of gaining attention and thus,

Final truth, changeless good, and the one true and living God are by default largely programed out of the real world. Despite occasional ethical commentary and some special coverage of religious events and moral issues, the media tend more to accommodate than to critique the theological and ethical ambiguities of our time. Their main devotion to what gratifies the viewing and reading audiences plays no small part in eclipsing God and fixed moral principles from contemporary life (18-19).

The barrage of immediate gratification removes the sense of shame and horror that should accompany the sight of such.  Public degradation engenders sports, not shame and sorrow. He again Muggeridge on the matter of “’accustoming us to the gradual deterioration of our values’” (19). While every age has thought itself (at least by some) to be the depths of depravity, it goes without saying that much which would have been unthinkable at the time of the essay would be unremarkable in public media today.[4]

Should I read this morning’s news, I would learn of extraordinary acts of pain and sorrow throughout the world. My view of the matter would be incessant, vivid, personal – and yet, there would be (and is) not easy matter of involvement. Thus, I come to human suffering (and glory) as peeping Tom. I cannot form an appropriate moral response – I cannot really do much. Hucksters will try to take my money. Politicians will use words to gain some immediate attention (and most often do nothing remotely useful).

This process affects human beings spiritually. It is a direct affront to the proclamation of God’s truth. It is an affront to the bare concept of “truth” – which ultimately lies with the primal temptation wherein the Serpent questions, word and meaning and logic:

4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4–5 (ESV)

While individual actors seek to turn truth word to manipulation and sales-pitch for personal gain (I pity the poor soul who takes political rhetoric at face value, much like one how gives a scorpion a ride[5]), the ultimate object is spiritual: it is an attack upon the very concept of revelation by God in Word – which is the heart of Christianity.

Some may think that little loss. However, the basis of Christian revelation is also the basis of what it is to be human:[6]

To strip words of any necessary or legitimate role as a revelatory resource denies not only the intelligibility of revelation, but also the very rationality of human existence. Nonverbal experience cannot supply today’s generation with fruitful alternatives to the spiritual emptiness of the times; the cavernous silence of a speechless world echoes not a single syllable of hope. To deverbalize an already depersonalized society is all the more to dehumanize it.

How can one engage in either true personal interaction or societal and corporate interaction when words are stripped of stability, and promise of its hold? Robert Frost ends his wonderful poem, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” with marvelous point,

            But I have promises to keep ….

What human interaction can there be without promise? Yes, human beings can live and breathe and die. Yes, by sheer force and violence a political entity can force itself along. But what humanity remains? What truth or beauty, what love or charm remain?

Henry ends with the proposition that it is the duty of the Christian to not succumb to the spirit of this age, but rather proclaim the “divine invasion” of the Logos, the truth of God, the prophetic Word.

Robert Frost reading, “Stopping by the Woods”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfOxdZfo0gs

 


[1] Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry, vol. 1, God, Revelation, and Authority (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 16-17.

[2] Although not discussed in this essay, Nietzsche’s arguments in Genealogy of Morals would certainly have an interesting bearing upon the point.

[3] This does require any Gnostic “fall” into matter. The physical world was created “very good.” The distress of the physical derives from sin (Romans 8:20). The redemption of humanity is not out of the physical world into a purely “spiritual” existence, as if the trouble were physicality. Rather, the redemption is to a resurrection, to a New Heavens and New Earth (1 Cor. 15:42-49; Rev. 21 & 22). Thus, Christianity differs strongly from either a Gnostic spite of the physical or a materialist’s denial of the spiritual.

[4] Some may point to matters of “racism” [I have word in quotations, because as a Christian, I must consider the matter of “races” itself suspect and repellant; there is a single human race; there are various cultural structures which people create, but these have no ground separate grounds of human value and being] as an area of advancement.  However, polite society has in some instances moved around certain discourse markers, the same nonsensical “racial” beliefs still exist. I remember being perplexed as a child that somehow George Washington Carver did not “belong” to me – even though he was a an American (as I was) and Christian (as was I) and a Scientist (which I longed to be), but that his skin color put him into a different and alien category – why is that primary to anything?

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog

[6] As a Christian, I think it obvious that the correlative lies in the fundamental truth of the Christian claim.

This Side of Truth

05 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in Uncategorized

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Dylan Thomas, Helmut Thielicke, Jesus, judgment, Literature, love, Luke 15, Monism, poem, Poetry, Presuppositional apologetics, Prodigal Son, Revelation 21, This Side of Truth, truth, Worldview

This is an example of a how a Christian may read and think through the matter of art. I use a poem by Dylan Thomas, This Side of Truth, because I find Thomas one of the most extraordinary of English speaking poets.

First, the poem. Read it aloud – Thomas loves words, their sound and rhythm – the way in which thoughts trip upon another, and cadence (a near confusion of sound and meter, like a great driver racing along a mountain cliff) which suggests something more dread and dark than can be said otherwise. In Thomas, even blue eye, a six year old, the wind and sea, the sun, moon and stars are dusted with death and judgment.

(for Llewelyn)

This side of the truth,
You may not see, my son,
King of your blue eyes
In the blinding country of youth,
That all is undone,
Under the unminding skies,
Of innocence and guilt
Before you move to make
One gesture of the heart or head,
Is gathered and spilt
Into the winding dark
Like the dust of the dead.

Good and bad, two ways
Of moving about your death
By the grinding sea,
King of your heart in the blind days,
Blow away like breath,
Go crying through you and me
And the souls of all men
Into the innocent
Dark, and the guilty dark, and good
Death, and bad death, and then
In the last element
Fly like the stars’ blood

Like the sun’s tears,
Like the moon’s seed, rubbish
And fire, the flying rant
Of the sky, king of your six years.
And the wicked wish,
Down the beginning of plants
And animals and birds,
Water and Light, the earth and sky,
Is cast before you move,
And all your deeds and words,
Each truth, each lie,
Die in unjudging love.

Now, some brief considerations:

Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, launches into his presentation of the problem of life and its solution with the words,

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Romans 1:18-25

Paul, among other points, argues that human beings lie under judgment (“the wrath of God”) and thus seek to still their conscience by suppressing that truth. Having been built to worship, human beings turn that worship rightly owed to God to that which God creates. In such an explanation, even the most over materialist “worships” the creature by giving hydrogen atoms the capacity to create — if left alone long enough.

Thomas in this poem seeks nothing more than to suppress the thought of judgment. Now one could argue that Thomas is merely seeking to suppress a culturally manufactured dread (Thomas grew up in an at least nominally “Christian” world). But to do this, Thomas must first presume the God he rejects.

He begins with “truth” and ends the poem with “love”. Now, “truth” cannot had yet — “This side of truth”, since truth is future. Love at the end does not judge (“unjudging love”). Such ideas fall apart when he attempts to tie them to “good” and “bad” — indeed, the poem in the middle is an argument that both hands are mere illusion. The things which appear to be good and bad will be “undone”. That the skies are “unminding”.

There is the silly level of tension — plainly the argument of the poem, that all will resolve into a unjudging “truth” undermines the concept of truth itself. Truth is not necessarily not “false”. And yes, there is the claim that there is a higher register where such things resolve.

No one actually believes this.

Even in Hindu India, the people rightly are in arms about a crisis of rape. Yet, if there were no truth, no judgment, then shouldn’t they celebrate the evil? Shouldn’t we ignore maniacs who murder children or barbarians who enslave the weak of sex slaves?

Thomas presuppose a moral universe — love, truth, good, evil, love, hate before he can seek away around judgment. Thomas does not want to reject meaning, only his own judgment.

Thomas write the poem in a tone that plainly evinces love — and yet he seeks to reject the existence of love by rejecting the fact of truth. As a Christian I must admit to the horror of evil, but I hold that in tension with the fact of judgment and reward.

3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Revelation 21:3-8.

Were Thomas’s son to be murdered, Thomas’s poem would acquit the villain – yet Thomas would know the murder to be evil.

What then lies behind the poem? Death. The fear of death. Thomas touches upon the inability to stand before the Judge. Thomas prays for the nonsense of an “unjudging love” when what he needs is a Merciful Love. There are two ways to avoid judgment — lawlessness, anarchy and evil unchecked, or (2) mercy. Thomas does not want the first, but needs his own sin to pass unjudged. What Thomas truly needs is mercy.

I cannot promise a blue eyes six year old boy that the world has no meaning and that love will ignore evil. I can promise him that the Father gave his Son so that my son could be redeemed from wrath and made a son:

11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons.12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”‘ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

Luke 15:11-24. I love Thomas’s poetry. My heart breaks for his son as I think of my own. But the promise of mercy from the Father in the Son overwhelms all:

But Jesus wants to show us that this is not the case and that we shall be given a complete liberation. “You are right,” he says, “you are lost, if you look only to yourselves. Who is there who has not lied, murdered, committed adultery? Who does not have this possibility lurking in his heart? You are right when you give yourself up as lost. But look, now something has happened that has nothing to do with your attitudes at all, something that is simply given to you. Now the kingdom of God is among you, now the father’s house is wide open. And I-I am the door, I am the way, I am the life, I am the hand of the Father. He who sees me sees the Father. And what do you see when you see me? You see one who came to you down in the depths where you could never rise to the heights. You see that God ‘so’ loved the world that he delivered me, his Son, to these depths, that it cost him something to help you, that it cost the very agony of God, that God had to do something contrary to his own being to deal with your sin, to recognize the chasm between you and himself and yet bridge it over. All this you see when you look at me!”

From The Waiting Father: Sermons on the Parables of Jesus, by Helmut Thielicke, translated by John W. Doberstein (Harper & Row, ©1957)

God’s Revelation Communicates Truth

18 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in Herman Bavinck, Quotations

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Faith, Herman Bavinck, Quotations, Revelation, truth, words

If this is so, if Christianity is indeed a religion of redemption, then the revelation from which it has sprung also includes the communication of truth, the discovery and liberation from falsehood. Then word and fact, prophecy and miracle, illumination and regeneration also combine to support that truth. Also, subjectively, cognition and trust (fiducia) are always united in that faith. Objective religion, then, is not the product of subjective religion but given in divine revelation that we should walk in it.

Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol 1
p. 559

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