Church Fathers Test

This is kind of cool, and (with qualification) pretty true:

You’re St. Justin Martyr! You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

God and Abstract Objects

So I have actually been thinking a lot about this lately, and even had a conversation last week about the existence of universals over lunch. Turns out what I'm used to calling "universals" are referred to as "Abstract Objects" in contemporary analytic Phil of Rel literature, which means that the symposium on "God and Abstract Objects" in the most recent issue of Philosophia Christi has a bunch of interesting information for me as someone who is trying to think through these things.

For those of you who also get this journal and are wondering why I am just now reading it, I have several reasons: Firstly, I'm in Germany, which means it came on the 17th of February. I know exactly when it came, because I was in the middle of participating in the Templeton Analytic Theology Masterclass, and I know it came that Friday because I had it that Saturday morning in the subway. That's my second reason: I was in the middle of said Masterclass, and while I read the article on natural theology in the subway, I had a bunch of other things going on (and still do!). Thirdly, I basically have a backlog of journals that I subscribe to where I haven't found time to read all the articles that even interest me, much less ones where I'm not clear on the topic or journals that I want to read a given article to which I don't subscribe. So they might be excuses, but I think they are acceptable ones.

So again, simply because something has "caught my eye", I'm reading into literature that has nothing to do with my current research project (though it is tangentially connected to part of another project I have on the back burner right now). I think there is some potential here, though, for me to do some future work, and here is why:

I really do not like the nominalist position. Not only does it fall prey in many forms to the argument from indispensability, nominalism brings with it a whole host of problems: As Paul Gould points out, Richard Weaver blamed it for the result of modern decadence; Hans Boersma has done a good job of showing how it contributed to a disassociation of the sacred with the "secular", something that I think ties into Milbank's criticism of social theory (let's play connect the dots!).

Besides this, I'm simply inclined to accept the existence of abstract objects in many cases. The argument brought forward against "Platonism" (let's not confuse "Platonists" about abstract objects with real Platonists or Neoplatonists, like Jens Halfwassen!) and Christianity seems to stick ok, and I think it is adequate to search for an alternative. I don't like Absolute Creation tout court, though, because I think the bootstrapping objection will get traction if every abstract object is a concept in the divine mind. I am not pleased either with the implications that come from Yandell's idea of propositions as independent abstract objects, because I don't share his presuppositions about the necessary necessity of God (or, for that matter, his definition of God). Davis' limited conceptualism seems to work, but I don't know if it is the best solution, and anyway, we need an explanation for the things that aren't concepts. Davis admits this much, so I think at the very least his theory of limited conceptualism could be a part of a larger working theory.

I'm in the process of piecing together how I would, at least intuitively, classify different sorts of abstract objects in the hope that at the end I have a decent account of how God relates to them. I have some ideas, but I don't know all of the implications, and I think I am (interestingly!) going to have to draw on Tillich and Meister Eckhart in order to make some of this work. This is certainly going to be a longer project; with luck maybe I can get this funded and really spend some time thinking about it. If not, it may be quite some time before I can get everything working, and it will be a piecemeal thing until I get it all organized.

So, gentle readers, where do you fall on this debate? Does the question even occur to you (if not, or if what I am talking about is not clear, write something in the comments!)? How do you think about abstract objects?

Prolepsis

What is prolepsis? Merriam-Webster gives us one definition: the representation or assumption of a future act or development as if presently existing or accomplished. It is a term which comes from rhetoric, but has gained theological significance in the work of folks such as Wolfhart Pannenberg and Jürgen Moltmann. Frankly, while I am familiar with the use of the term in both theologians work (as well as others), my familiarity with Pannenberg is a whole order of magnitude higher, so I'm gonna talk about this sort of stuff mostly by dialoguing with Pannenberg. 


Prolepsis is a way of talking about God, and the Kingdom of God, as really present with us. The Kingdom is an eschatological event, but it is present now to the believer and was present both in the person and message of Christ, as well as God's self-revelation throughout history. If Jesus only initiated the Kingdom, then it is still developing, and we have to hope it's gonna turn out right. If the Kingdom is developing, we also have to answer why it is that God is unchanging, but His Kingdom isn't all the way here yet. It gives us a way to talk about the Kingdom as "already, but not yet" and still make some sort of sense.


There's a lot that runs out from this idea, and I personally think that we can't have a lot of the things we might want to talk about as Christians without the idea of prolepsis; additionally I think that the idea of prolepsis restricts some of our options in our theology. I'm exploring this here on the blog and in an article in development, and I hope that anyone who has got some ideas will be chiming in.

1 Philosopher, free to good home...

Regarding philosophical tradition, I was essentially so steeped in the "analytic" method, that I didn't really even know that there was anything else out there for a while. I remember a conversation at AAR/SBL about being an analytic practitioner that I had: I was introduced as someone who "had gone to Munich to do Analytic Theology." I responded to this saying, "No, I went to Munich, and I do Analytic Theology, but the two were not connected..." And I wasn't even able to finish my explanation; that phrase alone was taken as proof that I was "an Analytic guy".

Now, as far as methodology is concerned, this is largely true. I find a certain amount of clarity important, and the Analytic tradition is full of that; I certainly do both my philosophy and my theology in an "Analytic" manner. I do also, as do many many other "Analytic" philosophers, reject the logical positivism and primacy of language that characterized the early Analytic Movement (Think Russell, Frege, and Wittgenstein; though I find some value in the writings of both Russell and Wittgenstein). This evidently doesn't disqualify me from being an Analytic practitioner, but the move I'm about to make will, in the minds of some, do precisely that.

The "Analytic" movement of the early 20th century was, as I understand it, primarily a reaction to British Idealism, itself a Hegelian interpretation. That has nothing to do with method, but rather with philosophical commitments. Thus, if I reject the commitments of the 20th century movement but remain an "Analytic Philosopher" or "Analytic Theologian" by virtue of the method, then I see no reason not to turn to concepts contained within German Idealism, at least insofar as they seem to serve as explanatory tools.

The idea of personhood that I have been reading about lately in Hegel and Fichte, as well as the dialogical personhood of Buber, doesn't seem to me to be something that should be rejected out of hand as "too Continental" for use in "Analytic" projects, as THAT sort of divide was defining "Analytic Philosophy" in terms of the commitments of the early 20th century movement. This, in turn, allows me to continue to use theological insights gleaned from "Continental" philosophy, insofar as I can explicate and make sense of them in a manner clear to others.

In short, I have found two interesting concepts (one of which, as noted above, is "personhood") within the "Continental" tradition which I believe might have explanatory power within the "Analytic" tradition, when properly developed.

But I don't know if this will result in an unwillingness to hear the ideas (imagine: That's too "Continental"!) or even an unwillingness to accept that methodologically I am working in a certain manner (imagine: "You're a "Continental Philosopher"! [as if it were an insult, which in some departments it might well be]).

Can I have a new designation please?

Freedom...?

One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the nature of freedom. I am a compatibilist, which means that I neither want to deny freedom of a sort to human actions nor deny the nature of things such that God is in absolute control. I don’t think, however, that I want to define freedom in the standard compatibilist manner: a freedom from being compelled to do something.

Friedrich Hermanni notes that an idea of compatibilistic freedom could be one free from external compulsion, free from internal compulsion, and free from hidden compulsion – the compulsion from an external power, the compulsion from a habitual tendency toward or against, and the subconscious compulsion such as when one is hypnotized or brainwashed (Cf. Hermanni, Metaphysik, Mohr Siebeck 2011). He also notes that a sinner who can’t choose otherwise is at the mercy of this inner compulsion, in the same manner that a pilot is at the mercy of a terrorist with a gun to the pilot’s head. I’m not satisfied with the conclusion that he comes to, however.

I suspect that throughout Christian history, we have had various concepts of freedom in attempts to make Divine control, theological fatalism, or simply the fact that God instantiated the given set of circumstances, compatible with some concept of freedom, and one which is robust enough to guarantee moral responsibility for one’s actions. I know of some work being done on an analytical explication of Anselm’s concept of freedom, and I am rather curious not only how theological concepts of freedom prior to the Enlightenment differ from one another, but also how they interact with theological fatalism.

I’m not a causal determinist, but I’m attracted to the idea of theological fatalism – I think I might be able to find a way that there is a compatibilist notion of freedom which is combinable with fatalism, rather than determinism, but I’ve got a bit of reading to do on that (well, actually, I think this is going to become a research proposal for a postdoc…). After all, Luther managed a theory of man’s moral responsibility and to be a theological fatalist at the same time.

Anyone who can suggest some literature, please feel free to do so – I’m already compiling a list, but suggestions are most welcome.