21 March 2011
Dear Family and Friends,
21 March: Spring, the Feast of St. Benedict, the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). For me, three great reasons to celebrate today. Because I have some hours off today, I shall take the pups to Pelican Point, about 35 miles upstream on the Missouri. It is a beautiful locale, as the Missouri flows out of the Helena to Great Falls Canyon (often miscalled "Wolf Creek Canyon" here), and breaks onto the high plains with mountain outcroppings characteristic of north central Montana. But one problem: Men can set traps for beaver and other small animals along the banks, and such a trap could seriously wound or kill one of my dogs, so I must be highly vigilant (especially of Moses, who likes to sniff out the border area between river and river bank, because small animals live there). Without a destructive event, an hour to an hour and a half, walking about and photographing at Pelican Point, as the dogs run and swim with delight, should be a good break for me.
At the request of a parishioner who is both Catholic and an evangelical Protestant (she reminds me of Sister Sharon in "Elmer Gantry"), I am reading a book by a well-known evangelical minister in California named Rick Warren. Apparently the book sold millions upon millions of copies a few years back. It is called "The Purpose-Driven Life." It is the first time I have read a book by an evangelical Christian in perhaps thirty-five years or so. In my opinion, it has some real strengths (so I can see why it sold so many copies) but some disturbing weaknesses. I keep wondering: "Does Rick Warren believe this, or is he just trying to write on a popular level for broader appeal?" He seems utterly unaware of decisive parts of the philosophical-theological tradition going back to the philosophers of ancient Greece, to Moses, to the leading Christian philosophical theologians and mystics throughout the ages. His repeated claims, "The Bible says," keeps reminding me of the child's game, "Simon says." Does he know that in many cases he is reading into ancient texts his own beliefs? Or, does he do that for mass appeal? I truly do not know. And how can one write in a chosen field without immersing oneself in the leading works in that field? (Thomas Aquinas is the last word on nothing, as he himself acknowledges, but anyone dabbling in theology and ignoring Thomas (or Plato, for that matter) is either displaying ignorance or willful neglect, perhaps as a physicist would be doing if fully ignorant of Newton and Einstein.)
Just for the record, I am no more at peace with much Catholic literature, that grounds arguments on the claim, "The Church says...." Thomas Aquinas put it well some 800 years ago: An appeal to authority is the weakest argument. Thomas himself will site passages from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and from writings by Greek, Jewish, Christian, Muslim authors over the centuries, but never does so to prove a point, or to disprove someone else. He reasons with the reader, and holds up the reasoning process as a necessary and proper human activity of the mind. That I can understand. A sacred text or another author may point the mind in a certain direction, but one must see it for oneself, test whether or not the particular claim, opinion, insight, "revelation" is true or not. Surely this is the approach that I have learned from so many of the best minds from Parmenides and Plato to Anselm, Aquinas, Voegelin. Or Jesus himself, who was both a master story teller, and a master questioner (as in "Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?"), and never fell back on mere tradition or unquestioned assumptions.
I am wondering if there is any need for presenting to more everyday readers a more rational, open approach to things of the spirit without grounding arguments on sacred texts, church documents, mere belief, but trying to reason with the reader every step of the way. As Rick Warren writes from an evangelical Christian perspective and clearly appeals to some evangelicals, is there a place to draw on insights from many and diverse spiritual traditions--wherever truth can be found--to encourage a far less sectarian, less confined or "religious" approach to reality? In one form or another, this is the question I keep asking myself as I read Warren's book.
A few years back Vic ("Dr. Camp") had some clashes with a group of evangelical Christians insisting on a literal conception of the Genesis creation story, and using that to critique experimental science, as I recall. That problem is part of the same larger issue: How to move towards truth and practical insights with as open a mind as one can form. As I see it, ideologies or dogmas of all types restrict inquiry, and therefore hinder living in what I would call "spiritual freedom," or "intellectual freedom," if one prefers.
As for me, I will never be at home in a rigid, doctrinal system of any form. How can we help human beings in our culture move past blinders into the open light of free inquiry? How does one help others really "live by the Spirit," and not be bound by "the spirit of the age?" How does one speak to men and women who have more kinship with Nietzsche, perhaps, than with any sacred text? (By the way, I still love to read Nietzsche, whose fierce questioning and atheism test one's cherished beliefs.) How does one help people who are weary of "God-talk" live in openness to truth and goodness, which would seem to be the ultimate purpose of the leading spiritual and religious traditions?
Just a few thoughts to share for the present. More shall follow.
Dear Family and Friends,
21 March: Spring, the Feast of St. Benedict, the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). For me, three great reasons to celebrate today. Because I have some hours off today, I shall take the pups to Pelican Point, about 35 miles upstream on the Missouri. It is a beautiful locale, as the Missouri flows out of the Helena to Great Falls Canyon (often miscalled "Wolf Creek Canyon" here), and breaks onto the high plains with mountain outcroppings characteristic of north central Montana. But one problem: Men can set traps for beaver and other small animals along the banks, and such a trap could seriously wound or kill one of my dogs, so I must be highly vigilant (especially of Moses, who likes to sniff out the border area between river and river bank, because small animals live there). Without a destructive event, an hour to an hour and a half, walking about and photographing at Pelican Point, as the dogs run and swim with delight, should be a good break for me.
At the request of a parishioner who is both Catholic and an evangelical Protestant (she reminds me of Sister Sharon in "Elmer Gantry"), I am reading a book by a well-known evangelical minister in California named Rick Warren. Apparently the book sold millions upon millions of copies a few years back. It is called "The Purpose-Driven Life." It is the first time I have read a book by an evangelical Christian in perhaps thirty-five years or so. In my opinion, it has some real strengths (so I can see why it sold so many copies) but some disturbing weaknesses. I keep wondering: "Does Rick Warren believe this, or is he just trying to write on a popular level for broader appeal?" He seems utterly unaware of decisive parts of the philosophical-theological tradition going back to the philosophers of ancient Greece, to Moses, to the leading Christian philosophical theologians and mystics throughout the ages. His repeated claims, "The Bible says," keeps reminding me of the child's game, "Simon says." Does he know that in many cases he is reading into ancient texts his own beliefs? Or, does he do that for mass appeal? I truly do not know. And how can one write in a chosen field without immersing oneself in the leading works in that field? (Thomas Aquinas is the last word on nothing, as he himself acknowledges, but anyone dabbling in theology and ignoring Thomas (or Plato, for that matter) is either displaying ignorance or willful neglect, perhaps as a physicist would be doing if fully ignorant of Newton and Einstein.)
Just for the record, I am no more at peace with much Catholic literature, that grounds arguments on the claim, "The Church says...." Thomas Aquinas put it well some 800 years ago: An appeal to authority is the weakest argument. Thomas himself will site passages from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and from writings by Greek, Jewish, Christian, Muslim authors over the centuries, but never does so to prove a point, or to disprove someone else. He reasons with the reader, and holds up the reasoning process as a necessary and proper human activity of the mind. That I can understand. A sacred text or another author may point the mind in a certain direction, but one must see it for oneself, test whether or not the particular claim, opinion, insight, "revelation" is true or not. Surely this is the approach that I have learned from so many of the best minds from Parmenides and Plato to Anselm, Aquinas, Voegelin. Or Jesus himself, who was both a master story teller, and a master questioner (as in "Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?"), and never fell back on mere tradition or unquestioned assumptions.
I am wondering if there is any need for presenting to more everyday readers a more rational, open approach to things of the spirit without grounding arguments on sacred texts, church documents, mere belief, but trying to reason with the reader every step of the way. As Rick Warren writes from an evangelical Christian perspective and clearly appeals to some evangelicals, is there a place to draw on insights from many and diverse spiritual traditions--wherever truth can be found--to encourage a far less sectarian, less confined or "religious" approach to reality? In one form or another, this is the question I keep asking myself as I read Warren's book.
A few years back Vic ("Dr. Camp") had some clashes with a group of evangelical Christians insisting on a literal conception of the Genesis creation story, and using that to critique experimental science, as I recall. That problem is part of the same larger issue: How to move towards truth and practical insights with as open a mind as one can form. As I see it, ideologies or dogmas of all types restrict inquiry, and therefore hinder living in what I would call "spiritual freedom," or "intellectual freedom," if one prefers.
As for me, I will never be at home in a rigid, doctrinal system of any form. How can we help human beings in our culture move past blinders into the open light of free inquiry? How does one help others really "live by the Spirit," and not be bound by "the spirit of the age?" How does one speak to men and women who have more kinship with Nietzsche, perhaps, than with any sacred text? (By the way, I still love to read Nietzsche, whose fierce questioning and atheism test one's cherished beliefs.) How does one help people who are weary of "God-talk" live in openness to truth and goodness, which would seem to be the ultimate purpose of the leading spiritual and religious traditions?
Just a few thoughts to share for the present. More shall follow.
