This was taken from today's edition of the New York Times.
"[We would] never be at the mercy of Providence if only we understood that we ourselves are Providence." - Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A Spring Morning in the Universe
I've been thinking lately about perspective and orientation and how these terms might be used to shape the way I think about the term "God." As mentioned in my last entry, I feel that the term can still be used, but only when one is looking from a certain direction and trying to point out particular features of the world. I've imagined that our understandings of and appeals toward God are like yelling in a particular direction - or maybe even like the act of yelling itself. It's something done with a purpose or intent to raise attention to or about a certain condition.
To act upon this vein and this thread is a small flash in a great sea. The universe takes a gasp, cries its first cry. Perhaps there are thousands, millions of these cries going on throughout the cosmos - a chorus of chirps, buzzings, and hums - a spring morning in the universe. It is a spiral. It is out of control - a whirlwind birthing off eddies and swirls. Anima mundi.
Creativity evolves and thereby God evolves. God is not God at the beginning. In the beginning there only IS. When we howl, when we yell - then God is born because we have taken notice. We have sensed the mystery of the one and the many, the whole and the part, and must name it. But it is not separate.
To act upon this vein and this thread is a small flash in a great sea. The universe takes a gasp, cries its first cry. Perhaps there are thousands, millions of these cries going on throughout the cosmos - a chorus of chirps, buzzings, and hums - a spring morning in the universe. It is a spiral. It is out of control - a whirlwind birthing off eddies and swirls. Anima mundi.
Creativity evolves and thereby God evolves. God is not God at the beginning. In the beginning there only IS. When we howl, when we yell - then God is born because we have taken notice. We have sensed the mystery of the one and the many, the whole and the part, and must name it. But it is not separate.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Can the Term "God" Still Be Used?
Here is another entry stemming from my discussion over lunch with a good friend from seminary. We both were commenting on the use of the term "God" and how we managed successfully or unsuccessfully to handle situations in which the Deity was invoked. We each proffered substitutes such as mystery, the holy, ground of being, etc.
This may sound all a bit silly but it is serious enough to the us as we both find ourselves embedded in religious traditions that are ordered around and based upon the term "God" and the connotations specific to our respective traditions. And, while in theological circles there may be plenty of impetus for the gradual replacement of the term, it is doubtful that "God" is going away any time soon.
I am a Roman Catholic who likes to sometimes attend High Church Episcopal services (I like the smells and bells). In either setting there is no escaping "God" in the theistic sense - not that I would expect otherwise. What I do then is try and interpret liturgy, hymns, and the scripture in light of my own beliefs - a process that I don't think is that far removed from what any other parishioner might do in trying to find portions of the mass or homily that apply to their own life.
When I hear or read of God referred to as a person, I perceive it to mean the whole of creation. When I hear or read of God's power or action, I perceive it to mean creativity and the things which have brought myself and the world the this moment. When I hear of requests or petitions made to God to bring about or cause a certain end or result, I perceive it to be first, an expression of hope and longing and secondly, a reminder that the faith in which these statements are made requires action of myself and of the community to live out and work toward those things we would pray to be accomplished.
And when I hear or read of worship and praise to be given to God, I perceive my own sense of awe, of existence, of humility, and of gratefulness in being. In this way then I can take part fully and honestly in pray, in liturgy, and in worship and devotion.
This may sound all a bit silly but it is serious enough to the us as we both find ourselves embedded in religious traditions that are ordered around and based upon the term "God" and the connotations specific to our respective traditions. And, while in theological circles there may be plenty of impetus for the gradual replacement of the term, it is doubtful that "God" is going away any time soon.
I am a Roman Catholic who likes to sometimes attend High Church Episcopal services (I like the smells and bells). In either setting there is no escaping "God" in the theistic sense - not that I would expect otherwise. What I do then is try and interpret liturgy, hymns, and the scripture in light of my own beliefs - a process that I don't think is that far removed from what any other parishioner might do in trying to find portions of the mass or homily that apply to their own life.
When I hear or read of God referred to as a person, I perceive it to mean the whole of creation. When I hear or read of God's power or action, I perceive it to mean creativity and the things which have brought myself and the world the this moment. When I hear of requests or petitions made to God to bring about or cause a certain end or result, I perceive it to be first, an expression of hope and longing and secondly, a reminder that the faith in which these statements are made requires action of myself and of the community to live out and work toward those things we would pray to be accomplished.
And when I hear or read of worship and praise to be given to God, I perceive my own sense of awe, of existence, of humility, and of gratefulness in being. In this way then I can take part fully and honestly in pray, in liturgy, and in worship and devotion.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
A Short Creedo...for now
Yesterday I had lunch with a friend from seminary and our conversation made realize both how long it has been since I had an blog entry of any sort and that also it would be a good time to try and get down some positive thoughts about my own beliefs. So, here's a short credo statement.
I believe that there is no God, if by that term one means an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being that is both transcendent of and immanent to the world (whether solely through the person of Jesus of Nazareth, or via the panentheism of Process Theology, or both).
I believe there is a creative force at work within the universe which is mysterious but also knowable. I believe this creativity is at work within creation precisely because creativity is an inherent capability and quality of existence. To be is to be creative - to impulsively engage in complexification, to have properties emerge that, once achieved, cannot be reduced to their origin.
I believe that we and the universe we inhabit are as we should be. We are neither an accident nor the result of a plan from before time. We are, to paraphrase Stuart Kauffman, expected. It is this expectancy that points us toward the creativity inherent in us and the world.
Is this pantheism? I admit that at first glance it does appear to be the case, however I would argue that the term pantheism does not adequately describe what I am proposing. It would be far too easy to pigeon-hole it as pantheism and move on. I do not believe either myself or my personal theology to be pantheistic in that there is no theism from which to make reference. Pantheism (just like the terms monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, etc.) is defined by its relation to the root term theism. I do not believe that the theistic attributes can be distributed to all of creation rather than be bundled up into one or multiple creators. I cannot direct toward animals, plants, or other persons, prayers of intervention or supplication as they have nothing to offer to me other than what they are. There are no magical or supernatural powers or realm to be tapped within the things of the universe.
As I do not subscribe to theism then, it is hard for me to say I am a pantheist. There remains though creativity, which is the power and property of all the universe. There remains awe, reverence and humility before the universe, before that which has come to pass and that which has brought me here to this very moment.
I believe that there is no God, if by that term one means an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being that is both transcendent of and immanent to the world (whether solely through the person of Jesus of Nazareth, or via the panentheism of Process Theology, or both).
I believe there is a creative force at work within the universe which is mysterious but also knowable. I believe this creativity is at work within creation precisely because creativity is an inherent capability and quality of existence. To be is to be creative - to impulsively engage in complexification, to have properties emerge that, once achieved, cannot be reduced to their origin.
I believe that we and the universe we inhabit are as we should be. We are neither an accident nor the result of a plan from before time. We are, to paraphrase Stuart Kauffman, expected. It is this expectancy that points us toward the creativity inherent in us and the world.
Is this pantheism? I admit that at first glance it does appear to be the case, however I would argue that the term pantheism does not adequately describe what I am proposing. It would be far too easy to pigeon-hole it as pantheism and move on. I do not believe either myself or my personal theology to be pantheistic in that there is no theism from which to make reference. Pantheism (just like the terms monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, etc.) is defined by its relation to the root term theism. I do not believe that the theistic attributes can be distributed to all of creation rather than be bundled up into one or multiple creators. I cannot direct toward animals, plants, or other persons, prayers of intervention or supplication as they have nothing to offer to me other than what they are. There are no magical or supernatural powers or realm to be tapped within the things of the universe.
As I do not subscribe to theism then, it is hard for me to say I am a pantheist. There remains though creativity, which is the power and property of all the universe. There remains awe, reverence and humility before the universe, before that which has come to pass and that which has brought me here to this very moment.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
To watch or not to watch
Our daughter is almost four months old now and as each day passes it becomes more apparent to me how the values of my wife and I will shape my daughter's. What and how we eat, the language we use, our priorities, our concerns will most likely become hers.
Lately I've been concerned about television. Where I work I am able to observe a lot of children's television and I am considering how much exposure my daughter should have, if any at all. When I grew up, the options were much more limited. Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, Sesame Street, and 3-2-1 Contact were the main options. Of course there were only three networks to choose from, cable being a thing that our family couldn't afford. Cartoons were mainly reruns of Loony Tunes with fare such as the Smurfs, He-Man, and GI Joe coming along a little later.
Still my parents, being staunch Fundamentalist Baptists, found ways to whittle down even those limited choices. In time I wasn't allowed to watch the Smurfs (the character Gargamel was a warlock) or He-Man (there was only one "master of the universe" - God). Finally, 3-2-1 Contact was given the axe when my mother watched an episode with me that discussed plate tectonics and therefore gave the estimated age of the earth, 4-5 billion years old, which went against the creationist views of our faith (10,000 years old).
I'm not sure what effect all of this censoring had on me as I would allow my daughter read the Harry Potter series and I readily accept the scientific understanding of the evolution of the universe, solar system, and life on earth. Nonetheless, I do think this was a valuable lesson my parents gave me if only in that it provided an example of the duty of parents to be aware of the content of shows their children watch and to control what their children are allowed to view. And it was most likely this decision on their part that led me to read more than I might have if I had not been limited in my viewing choices.
So now here I am a parent in my own right and being faced with the same dilemma - to watch or not to watch. I am taken back by the amount of marketing directed towards children for movies that are, in all probability, far to violent for younger viewers. Case in point- the latest Indiana Jones movie. I like the Indiana Jones movies. And I did view them when I was younger. However, I was probably 10 years old before I saw the first one and then it was done in the company of my parents who made me cover my eyes during the more violent or scary parts. Also, I do not remember there being much marketing of the film towards children. There were no Indiana Jones toys, no Indiana Jones commercials run during times that children would be watching television. With this latest installment though the airwaves of children's channels such as Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel have been saturated with advertisements for the movie or toys, food products, etc. associated with the film.
Last night, my wife and I were watching Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and noting how much violence was contained in the film, again one that was heavily marketed toward children without discrimination to age. I enjoyed the film, but my mind kept wandering to wondering what impact its images might have had younger viewers.
I know that this marketing trend will most likely not cease. The only possibility for change is if those in the positions of power and wealth sense blood in the water for some other target demographic. Yet the choice available to my parents still remains one open to me. The hard part is that it will require a discipline on my part that I am not sure I yet possess. I am inclined to think that maybe it will begin with small steps - limiting the time I spend in front of the idiot's lantern each week, maybe progressing on to further steps such as trying a week without watching television. Who knows?
Lately I've been concerned about television. Where I work I am able to observe a lot of children's television and I am considering how much exposure my daughter should have, if any at all. When I grew up, the options were much more limited. Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, Sesame Street, and 3-2-1 Contact were the main options. Of course there were only three networks to choose from, cable being a thing that our family couldn't afford. Cartoons were mainly reruns of Loony Tunes with fare such as the Smurfs, He-Man, and GI Joe coming along a little later.
Still my parents, being staunch Fundamentalist Baptists, found ways to whittle down even those limited choices. In time I wasn't allowed to watch the Smurfs (the character Gargamel was a warlock) or He-Man (there was only one "master of the universe" - God). Finally, 3-2-1 Contact was given the axe when my mother watched an episode with me that discussed plate tectonics and therefore gave the estimated age of the earth, 4-5 billion years old, which went against the creationist views of our faith (10,000 years old).
I'm not sure what effect all of this censoring had on me as I would allow my daughter read the Harry Potter series and I readily accept the scientific understanding of the evolution of the universe, solar system, and life on earth. Nonetheless, I do think this was a valuable lesson my parents gave me if only in that it provided an example of the duty of parents to be aware of the content of shows their children watch and to control what their children are allowed to view. And it was most likely this decision on their part that led me to read more than I might have if I had not been limited in my viewing choices.
So now here I am a parent in my own right and being faced with the same dilemma - to watch or not to watch. I am taken back by the amount of marketing directed towards children for movies that are, in all probability, far to violent for younger viewers. Case in point- the latest Indiana Jones movie. I like the Indiana Jones movies. And I did view them when I was younger. However, I was probably 10 years old before I saw the first one and then it was done in the company of my parents who made me cover my eyes during the more violent or scary parts. Also, I do not remember there being much marketing of the film towards children. There were no Indiana Jones toys, no Indiana Jones commercials run during times that children would be watching television. With this latest installment though the airwaves of children's channels such as Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel have been saturated with advertisements for the movie or toys, food products, etc. associated with the film.
Last night, my wife and I were watching Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and noting how much violence was contained in the film, again one that was heavily marketed toward children without discrimination to age. I enjoyed the film, but my mind kept wandering to wondering what impact its images might have had younger viewers.
I know that this marketing trend will most likely not cease. The only possibility for change is if those in the positions of power and wealth sense blood in the water for some other target demographic. Yet the choice available to my parents still remains one open to me. The hard part is that it will require a discipline on my part that I am not sure I yet possess. I am inclined to think that maybe it will begin with small steps - limiting the time I spend in front of the idiot's lantern each week, maybe progressing on to further steps such as trying a week without watching television. Who knows?
Friday, May 30, 2008
A Passage from Rilke
Just some words from Ranier Maria Rilke's The Divine Hours: The Book of Poverty and Death, (III, 31) that spoke to me. Perhaps instead of the word "cities" one could substitue another term - consumerism, commercialism, or perhaps some other "ism." You decide...
The cities only care for what is theirs
and uproot all that's in their path.
They crush the creatures like hollow sticks
and burn up nations like kindling.
Their people serve the culture of the day,
losing all balance and moderation,
calling their aimlessness progress,
driving recklessly where they once drove slow,
and with all that metal and glass
making such a racket.
It's as if they were under a spell:
they can no longer be themselves.
Money keeps growing, takes all their strength,
and empties them like a scouring wind,
while they wait for wine and poisonous passions
to spur them to fruitless occupations.
The cities only care for what is theirs
and uproot all that's in their path.
They crush the creatures like hollow sticks
and burn up nations like kindling.
Their people serve the culture of the day,
losing all balance and moderation,
calling their aimlessness progress,
driving recklessly where they once drove slow,
and with all that metal and glass
making such a racket.
It's as if they were under a spell:
they can no longer be themselves.
Money keeps growing, takes all their strength,
and empties them like a scouring wind,
while they wait for wine and poisonous passions
to spur them to fruitless occupations.
Monday, May 26, 2008
On Cognitive Limit and the Ground of the Divine
I was recently reading a work on the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead by Thomas E. Hosinski (Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance). In the conclusion of the fourth chapter, Hosinski comments that Whitehead’s system is "an attempt to give basis for human particulars in the minutiae of the universe." My immediate gut response was to question why this was necessary? I guess I am not persuaded that we must have or find some rule or law in the depths of the cosmos to give legitimacy to what happens or occurs phenomenologically on the human level.
What is the source or basis for the need to find objective grounding for that which exhibits itself in humanity? Certainly there are the issues of being able to make objective claims about the universe, but why cannot the basis be simply in the fact that we exist? Why cannot our humanity, the fact that these things occur in us - product and part of the universe - give us enough "right" to assert claims, realizing that we do so as a particular, unique species and creation of the cosmos?
This, I believe, is part of the issue - recognizing our limit as humanity. Does this go back to the issue of epistemic distance and limit and the recognition of the other? Is this not a liberalizing tendency that perhaps points to the heart of a new interpretation of the gospel? I have no problem with objective claims as long as there is a distinction made in the type of objectivity that can be found. That is there are local, speciated objective interpretation and valuations and there are universal, meta objective interpretations and valuations. Objective claims then can be made about the world but only as local speciated objective claims. That is, we can only speak objectively when we, at the same time, realize the limit of this objectivity. Trying to find an ultimate basis within the universe for human values, etc. seems to say that these human particularities have no value nor worth unless they possess such deep rooted beginnings or sources such as in the "minutiae of the universe," or at the lowest levels. This, of course, is contrary to the idea of emergence and emergent properties.
As with all thoughts and ideas, I wonder how do I relate this back to the way of the Christ? I believe that it is at this limit, this cognitive and epistemic distance and limit , the area where we realize our inability to be all things - the limit of self, of understanding outside of self, where the possibility for a re-interpretation of what Christ is may be possible.
It is in our sounding out the depths and limits of our selves that we see return to us our acknowledgement of our finitude. And in the image that forms from this we can recognize the significance of “both/and.” It is this, what is seemingly a paradox, what can only be described as mystery, that is the ground from which the divine comes towards us. In recognizing our limit we also gain sight to that which we are. Our limits show us our interdependence, our createdness, and our possibility for further creative venture within and without our selves. “Through creativity, with creativity, and in creativity, unified by Spirit…” to paraphrase the doxology of the memorial acclamation. We find God coming not from us, but at the same time in us, from this limit of knowing that provides self knowledge.
We are reliant upon this; even if we do not at all times consciously recognize this fact. And it is when we build up our lives and systems upon the lie and error that knowledge, and therefore control, can be or is complete and within ourselves that we see the welling up of the demonic. The demonic in life is the illusion of control and omniscience manifesting itself in our actions and outlooks.
What is the source or basis for the need to find objective grounding for that which exhibits itself in humanity? Certainly there are the issues of being able to make objective claims about the universe, but why cannot the basis be simply in the fact that we exist? Why cannot our humanity, the fact that these things occur in us - product and part of the universe - give us enough "right" to assert claims, realizing that we do so as a particular, unique species and creation of the cosmos?
This, I believe, is part of the issue - recognizing our limit as humanity. Does this go back to the issue of epistemic distance and limit and the recognition of the other? Is this not a liberalizing tendency that perhaps points to the heart of a new interpretation of the gospel? I have no problem with objective claims as long as there is a distinction made in the type of objectivity that can be found. That is there are local, speciated objective interpretation and valuations and there are universal, meta objective interpretations and valuations. Objective claims then can be made about the world but only as local speciated objective claims. That is, we can only speak objectively when we, at the same time, realize the limit of this objectivity. Trying to find an ultimate basis within the universe for human values, etc. seems to say that these human particularities have no value nor worth unless they possess such deep rooted beginnings or sources such as in the "minutiae of the universe," or at the lowest levels. This, of course, is contrary to the idea of emergence and emergent properties.
As with all thoughts and ideas, I wonder how do I relate this back to the way of the Christ? I believe that it is at this limit, this cognitive and epistemic distance and limit , the area where we realize our inability to be all things - the limit of self, of understanding outside of self, where the possibility for a re-interpretation of what Christ is may be possible.
It is in our sounding out the depths and limits of our selves that we see return to us our acknowledgement of our finitude. And in the image that forms from this we can recognize the significance of “both/and.” It is this, what is seemingly a paradox, what can only be described as mystery, that is the ground from which the divine comes towards us. In recognizing our limit we also gain sight to that which we are. Our limits show us our interdependence, our createdness, and our possibility for further creative venture within and without our selves. “Through creativity, with creativity, and in creativity, unified by Spirit…” to paraphrase the doxology of the memorial acclamation. We find God coming not from us, but at the same time in us, from this limit of knowing that provides self knowledge.
We are reliant upon this; even if we do not at all times consciously recognize this fact. And it is when we build up our lives and systems upon the lie and error that knowledge, and therefore control, can be or is complete and within ourselves that we see the welling up of the demonic. The demonic in life is the illusion of control and omniscience manifesting itself in our actions and outlooks.
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