Calvin's defense of Scripture

Being the good Presbyterian that I am, having a desire to search out my own tradition for answers to life's important questions, I decided to read through Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion in a year. The reading schedule I have makes room for a day of reflection every so often, so I thought that on those days I would write a blog entry about what I've just read.

Actually, what made me decide to do this was a reading from two days ago (1.7.4-5), on the authority of scripture. This passage is a real struggle for me. I find Calvin's thoughts both beautiful and terrifying:

Let this point therefore stand: that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture indeed is self-authenticated; hence it is not right to subject it to proof and reasoning. And the certainty it deserves with us, it attains by the testimony of the Spirit. ... Therefore, illumined by his power, we believer neither by our own nor by anyone else's judgment that Scripture is from God; but above human judgment we affirm with utter certainty (just as if we were gazing upon the majesty of God himself) that is has flowed to us from the very mouth of God by the ministry of men.

...

Whenever, then, the fewness of believers disturbs us, let the converse come to mind, that only those to whom it is given can comprehend the mysteries of God.

Immediately I can hear many of my friends shouting an "amen" to these words, yet in the same instant I can picture many others cringing, or perhaps rolling their eyes.

Calvin's words are worth considering. Personally I would not roll my eyes at them, just as I do not roll my eyes at the claims of Islam or any other religion which claims a sacred text. Do we seriously expect to ascend to heaven with our own minds, to know what God is like through our own finite efforts? If God is there, then surely He has been good enough to somehow communicate to the human race in terms that are clear enough.

On the other hand, it is hard not to cringe, out of a mixture of fear and doubt and frustration. It is not hard to see how Muslims could make the same case for the Koran, or a Mormon for the Book of Mormon. Any religious person could bring forward a profound religious text and defend it as God's own word, and claim that anyone who does not receive it as such has simply not been enlightened by God.

Of course, it would not be fair to say that Calvin doesn't care about reason and proof. He is not saying he would never give rational arguments to confirm the witness of the Holy Spirit that Scripture is God-breathed. But he is subordinating human reason to divine revelation, which on the one hand seems entirely appropriate, given that what is divine is greater than what is human; and yet on the other hand, there is a danger to subordinating reason to revelation.

Simply look at all the different groups of Christians (let alone other religions) and where they come from. At some point Protestants must have so internalized Calvin's principle that they couldn't help but split and split and split. It is easy to justify leaving others behind when you have internal confirmation from the Holy Spirit. The reason others disagree with you is that they have not been enlightened from above.

Rational thought can easily be made into a Tower of Babel by which proud humans assert their self-reliance, but divine revelation can be equally perverted. It can be an impenetrable wall shielding an all too human idea from human criticism. Ironically, it was this very thing that Calvin was trying to destroy--the wall between Catholic dogma and reasonable critique.

I do think it is insightful how Reformed apologists point out that there is nothing higher than God, and therefore it is logically impossible to find any higher standard by which to scrutinize His Word. However, the desire for a rational defense of Scripture's credibility is not necessarily the desire of arrogant man who wishes to put himself above God. It is, at best, the desire for love.

Reason allows us to see beauty where we didn't see it before. A complicated musical piece can be frustrating to people who don't know what they're listening to. Someone with more training can point out all the subtleties that make the piece enjoyable. Reason, at its best, is one person pointing out to another all the patterns that make the world beautiful.

When Scripture is merely asserted as an authority, it is not hard to see why people would think God does not love us. If He truly desires fellowship with us, let Him offer an explanation of Himself. Let Him guide us gently and show us the patterns in His behavior that make Him so truly beautiful.

In historical context, I think I see what Calvin is doing here in the Institutes, moving authority away from Church leadership and locating it in a common document to be read by all. However, I sense a great need to move beyond what he has done, since it leaves so many questions unanswered. Perhaps what I read later in the year will help.

If I were to continue with all my thoughts on this subject, there's no telling how long this would get, so I think I'll have to end here. Calvin's style is very blunt, which makes him fun to read, though I can see why many people take offense at him. Certainly he has made a tremendous historical impact, and for that reason alone it's probably worth taking the time to read his work.

Florensky on Creation

"Objectivity does exist. It is God's creation. To live and feel together with all creation, not with the creation that man has corrupted but with the creation that came out of the hands of its Creator; to see in this creation another, higher nature; through the crust of sin, to feel the pure core of God's creation... But to say this is to posit the requirement of a restored, i.e., a spiritual, person."

"'Nothing,' says St. Methodius, 'is evil by nature. Things become evil by the mode of their use...'"

"The body is something whole, something individual, something special."

"[T]he life of each of these organs--head, chest, and stomach--can be deepened by an appropriate training, and then a person becomes a mystic of the respective organ."

"[C]hurch mysticism is the mysticism of the chest.... If the chest is the center of the body, the heart is the center of the chest. And, since ancient times, the entire attention of church mysticism has been directed at the heart."

"A genuine Christian ascetic is distinguished from mystics of [the head] by restraint of a proud mind. He is distinguished from mystics of [the stomach] by inhibition of [lust]. All that a genuine Christian ascetic lives by arises in him not arbitrarily in one separate organ or another, but in the living center of his being, in the heart, and it arises there under the grace-giving action of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter."

"The genuine Christian ascetic is essentially connected with all of creation and does not despise anything that belongs to creation. But, in his case, in his feeling for creation, there is no lust. He penetrates deeply into the mysteries of heaven and earth and is not deprived of their knowledge, but, in his knowledge of the mysteries, there is no pride."

"Two feelings, two ideas, two presuppositions were necessary for the possibility of the appearance of science: first, a feeling and idea whose content was the lawlike unity of creation (in contrast to the caprice of demons...); second, a feeling and idea which affirmed the genuine reality of creation as such. Only these two feelings and ideas made it possible to pierce the reality of creation with a fearless, direct gaze, to approach this reality with trust, and to love it joyously.
Theologically speaking, it was necessary to introduce two dogmas in man's consciousness: the dogma of the Providence of One God and the dogma of the creation of the world by a Good God, i.e., the dogma of the giving of its own, independent being to creation. The providence of God and the freedom of creation form, in their antinomy, one dogma, the dogma of God's love for creation, a dogma that has its foundation in the idea of God as Love, i.e., the idea of the Triunity of Divinity. This antinomy, in all its decisiveness, is the foundation of modern science."

"Only Christianity has given birth to an unprecedented being-in-love with creation. Only Christianity has wounded the heart with the wound of loving pity for all being."

"'Love of nature...But what about ascetism, the escape from nature?'--we can hear the objection of worldly people. In response, I affirm in advance that worldly literature has never understood the spirit of Christian ascetism.... This leads to a situation in which the substantial differences between Christian asceticism and the ascetism of other religions, especially the Hindu religion, are usually not recognized. ... [T]here is nothing more opposed than they. ... One despises creation, although it is involuntarily attracted by its evil, and attempts to acquire magical powers over it; the other is in love with creation, although it hates the sin eating away at it, and the ascetic does not need magical powers, because grace-endowed creation will remove the yoke of sin's heteronomy and will be able to live as it is in itself, in accordance with its originally given mode of being."

These thoughts, scattered throughout Florensky's chapter on "Creation" in The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, summarize for me the full meaning of science--this "being-in-love with creation." And it is only through a certain disposition--a "mysticism of the heart"--that one can truly enter into this kind of science.

That's my take on the relationship between science and religion.

If I were God...

Reading yet another criticism of Intelligent Design (by a Christian) reminded me of how tricky the evolution "debate" can be.

It has long been argued that it should be possible to tell whether this world has been designed by some sort of intelligence (cf. Paley's argument for the existence of God). It shouldn't be hard to see why this argument is so appealing--if this world was designed by an intelligent being, then there really is a transcendent purpose for this life. That's good news.

The central complaint made against this argument is the same, whether it's in the context of an argument about the existence of God or in a debate between evolution and "intelligent design": there are plenty of things that an intelligent designer clearly would've done differently.

Dr. Ayala makes this exact argument:

"I do think that people of faith may find in the world many reasons that support their belief in God. But I don’t think that intelligent design is one of them. Quite the contrary. Indeed, there are good reasons to reject ID on religious grounds, in addition to scientific grounds. The biological information encased in the genome determines the traits that the developing organism will have, in humans as well as in other organisms. But humans are chock-full of design defects. We have a jaw that is not sufficiently large to accommodate all of our teeth, so that wisdom teeth have to be removed and other teeth straightened by an orthodontist. Our backbone is less than well designed for our bipedal gait, resulting in back pain and other problems in late life. The birth canal is too narrow for the head of the newborn to pass easily through it, so that millions of innocent babies—and their mothers—have died in childbirth throughout human history."

It sounds as if we're not debating science at all, but rather theodicy--how can God exist if there are bad things in the world?

Believers in God almost all do the same thing in this debate: they find some way to make bad things not God's fault. Ironically, that goes for both believers in intelligent design (or creationism) and opponents of intelligent design. While creationists say God designed the world good and humans introduced evil, theistic evolutionists say God allowed evil by way of a "hands-off" policy. (Perhaps "deistic evolution" is more accurate.)

I think what's really going on here is a tricky balance between two important desires. One desire is to find beauty in the world. It is natural that studying the world should leave the impression that it is designed, because there is so much out there to inspire awe and wonder in the human heart.

But the other desire in this balance is to rid the world of suffering and death. Just as it is natural to think the world is designed because it is beautiful, so it is equally natural to think the world is not designed (or unintelligently designed) because there is so much suffering and death. As much as this world can be awe-inspiring, it can be equally heart-breaking.

Many people tend to cling to both desires equally, and yet on the question of whether the world was designed, they seem forced to choose yes or no. In either case, something has to be rationalized away. Those who insist that the world was designed find a way to rationalize the existence of suffering and death (this is theodicy).

Those who believe the world was not designed have their own rationalizing to do. On the question of why the world is beautiful, usually the answer is that it comes down to arbitrary human preferences ingrained in us as a result of millions of years of evolution. I find this at least as weak as any explanation for why a loving God would allow evil.

I guess I find it hard not to simply keep these two desires--one for enjoyment and the other for justice--in tension. Resolving this tension never satisfies me. Scripture never really resolves this tension, either. Just read Ecclesiastes and the prophets side by side. Maybe it is sheer vanity that we persist in this debate. Given the way we seem to talk past one another, that can't be far from true.

The Meaning of One and Three

It occurs to me that the doctrine of the Trinity is a stumbling block because it messes with our mathematical system of accounting for things in the world. But God is not a creature to be counted as such, so why do we expect that our conventions still apply?

If God is both One and Three, it is only because He cannot be accounted for by standard mathematics. In mathematics, One is not Three, and that's that. However, if One and Three are words that can have different meanings other than their mathematical meanings, then the doctrine of the Trinity is still possible.

This is one reason why I'm not such a mathematical Platonist these days. When it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, I find myself constrained by reason to reject such a doctrine if, in fact, the system of mathematics I use every day is reality.

Yet the doctrine of the Trinity sums up a manifest experience of God, witnessed not only in scripture but in life. God was in Jesus, and Jesus was in God, and Jesus was God. No one has ever seen God or ever will, but if you've seen Jesus, you've seen God. This paradox is not a matter of abstract philosophical principles but of experience.

If I think of mathematics as a tool for describing reality, or even better, a system that helps me manage reality, then there really is nothing wrong with this paradoxical doctrine. God being both Three and One doesn't contradict real experience; in fact, it corresponds most exquisitely with real experience. But clearly God cannot be described (or managed) by the intellectual tools of (traditional) mathematics.

Butter is Better

My girlfriend sent me this amazing link.



The.
Entire.
Sculpture.
Is.
Made.
Out.
Of.
Butter.

Sweet.

Winners and Losers

I watched two big bowl games this week, one by actually traveling to Phoenix to see the Fiesta Bowl and one by going to my aunt's house to watch the National Championship on HDTV.

I was cheering for TCU in the Fiesta Bowl, of course, because of my extensive family ties to the university. My aunt is a professor there, my brother an alum, and, well, we live in the Fort Worth metro area, so it seems fitting we should cheer for the Fort Worth team.

I guess it was just an off day for them. Boise State played a good game, don't get me wrong. They didn't make mistakes like TCU did. If TCU hadn't made those mistakes, though... I got the feeling it could have been different.

Maybe TCU was just disappointed not to be playing an SEC team. TCU vs. Florida would've been a fun game to watch. Whatever it was, you can't lose focus if you want to win a bowl game against another top ten team. It could have been different, but TCU lost.

It was a great finish for Boise State, for sure, completing a 14-0 season. And you have to respect that team, whose 2007 Fiesta Bowl victory against Oklahoma was legendary.

Still, it could've meant so much to TCU to win that game, and probably finish with a #2 national ranking (if there's any justice in the world, it'll be Boise State at #2). Not bad for a team that nobody's ever heard of.

Texas lost to Alabama, and of course we all know how Colt McCoy got injured in the first quarter, which knocked him out of the game. Did that affect the entire course of the game?

I don't know, but I thought it was remarkable to hear McCoy talk after the game. He said he never questions what happens, but trusts God to be in control of everything. Still, he would've given anything to be out there on that field. Wouldn't it have been a great story, McCoy leading the underdog team to victory?

But it's still a great story for Alabama to win, after all. The Heisman curse has been broken. In fact, since the underdog team won the past four years in a row, it's hard to even know what "underdog" means anymore. If it means "team you don't expect to win," then statistically the #1 team might have been the underdog (based on the previous four national championships).

I guess what I was thinking about in all of this is how these games bring together hundreds of different individual stories, divide them into two big teams, give one team the glory, and take it away from the other.

Even completely opposite teams can both make great stories out of victories, each in their own way. The team that no one has ever heard of can come out of nowhere to win a championship. That's a great story. Or the team that has a long tradition of excellence can win yet another championship. That's a great story, too. People love both.

Mostly I suppose people like it when their team wins. It's a pretty arbitrary system, but maybe that's what's so fun about it. There's nothing fans can really do to determine the outcome of a football season, so when it goes their way, it feels like the gods smiling on them.

Sure, we watch sports because they're fun to watch, but I think there has to be a little more to it than that. I think we all want to feel a little bit of the gods smiling on us. Maybe it's deeply engrained in us from an era when we were all warring tribes. (I've heard that football is just war without the killing.)

I wonder what that means for actual religion. It's not good enough for God to smile on all of us. That's boring. Or at least it sure isn't football. We all need our moments to feel we're special, as in distinguished, as in better.

Is this just a heathen desire that we ought to nullify? If it is, God forgive us--I don't see this desire going away any time soon. But if it isn't, I wonder...how does one find this desire fulfilled in the Kingdom of God?

Maybe I'll just leave it at a question for now.

Unreasonable Effectiveness

I've recently become a fan of Peter Leithart, thanks to the recommendation of my brother. I was perusing some old posts and came across this one on the comprehensibility of the universe. Of course I am always flattered to hear about "the unreasonable effectiveness" of mathematics.

It is a beautiful mystery, that mathematics, which is pure thought, can lead to advances in understanding the natural world. (This is dear to my heart, given that I study that's actually applicable to science and engineering.)

But on the other hand, I've heard it argued, with some merit, that there is no reason to think that we humans genuinely understand the world around us. The universe is "rational" only insofar as we force it to be, i.e. we subjectively interpret it as rational.

For instance, Newton came up with a beautiful model in his mind, and then applied it to the universe around him. The power of his model is that it really is so predictive and helps us to manipulate the world around us so effectively. Is it "correct"? Does it really enable us "to discern the inner structure and beauty of the physical universe?"

Obviously not, because Einstein supersedes Newton. But now that we have Einstein, do we now truly understand the universe? Well, why would it be any more so with Einstein than it was with Newton? Again, the power of Einstein is that his mental construct provides us with such excellent predictions of real-world phenomena.

I don't think that one can argue that of necessity humans developed intelligence that allows us such power over our surroundings. However, I do think it can be argued that power is all we're getting from our ability to do science. There is no guarantee that what we obtain in our theorizing is some direct understanding of the universe, as if we've truly unlocked its secrets.

Leithart ought to appreciate this, as there surely will always be some mystery in the universe.

I see mathematics as a creative act. It is almost as if, instead of discovering a system that already runs the world, we are actually building a system by which the world ought to be run. People might be surprised how often mathematicians say something like, "Morally speaking, this is the answer we're looking for." The idea is to look for what should be true, and then see if the universe obeys.

We are learning to have dominion over the world. Yet it cannot be an arbitrary or cruel dominion, because only by truly loving the material world can we master it. Any old scientific model will not do. It can only be one that truly captures the heart of reality.