West Wing Hermeneutics

Healthcare – Wow

Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coördination. Imagine that, instead of paying a contractor to pull a team together and keep them on track, you paid an electrician for every outlet he recommends, a plumber for every faucet, and a carpenter for every cabinet. Would you be surprised if you got a house with a thousand outlets, faucets, and cabinets, at three times the cost you expected, and the whole thing fell apart a couple of years later? Getting the country’s best electrician on the job (he trained at Harvard, somebody tells you) isn’t going to solve this problem. Nor will changing the person who writes him the check.
Atul Gawande, The New Yorker

This entire piece is incredibly well done. I encourage you to read all 8 pages of it. This is also how editorials will continue to make money: by writing this well.

Reflecting Again

t. The challenge of the democratic, developed world is a quieter rebellion: against a bankruptcy not just of the pocketbook, but of meaning. It’s not to take a stand against a dictator, but to take a stand against an unenlightened, nihilistic, hyperconsumerist, soul-suckingly unfulfilling, lethally short-termist ethos that inflicts real and relentless damage on people, society, the natural world, and future generations…

Some say it’s impossible. Me? I believe that in a world of bogus prosperity, what’s impossible is for the status quo to stand. Stop Dumb Growth

I have to say I agree. Value (what makes true wealth, not just dollar signs) is no longer disseminated to the people. The people must now create their own value and wealth. And I can say those in my generation are beginning to do that. Many are returning to the roots of physical creation by building and fashioning. Often, very high end items. Many are taking to their own kitchens rather than eating in restaurants – again. making specialty food. Fewer, but some, are going so far back as to grow their own food. And even more people of my generation are becoming entrepreneurs eschewing any large institution as their employer or chief guardian of value and wealth.

The large question on my mind is what will happen in the bridge of our generation and the one before us. Will half attempt to hold up current institutions and be crushed? Will everyone move out of the way and let them fall? What will rise to replace them? “May you live in exciting times” indeed.

Models of Knowing

Over at Maxistentialism Max writes about the epistemological problem of observations, and our own models of the world. He doesn’t have comments, so I decided to respond here (Hi, Max). How do you know if what you believe about what you observe is actually true? We build up models of the world and map data onto them. Only when enough data (and we are conscious of it) doesn’t match are we free to redraw our model of the world we observe.

I claim that the only escape from this epistemological trap is science

I think he takes it as a blow to his claim that Stephen Hawking doesn’t think this is accomplishable. I don’t think it is either (Max, take a read of Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi, a chemist and philosopher who also doesn’t think it is possible). But what I find really funny is that St. Augustine in the 4th century pretty much came to the same conclusions regarding epistemology (I’d recommend St. Augustine’s Theory of Epistemology by Bubacz – you’re likely to only be able to find that in a good library.)

Sola Scriptura

Caleb gives a good (if somewhat long) reflection on why he doesn’t abide by Sola Scriptura. His reasons are similar to mine, I must admit. To my mind the whole system just fails to be supportive and leaves one in the giant quagmire of denominationalism that Protestants are so fond of.

Caleb goes after it quite technically, first pausing to reflect on what precisely counts as Scripture. The resulting canon we posses (according to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura) is arbitrary. Sola Scriptura does not define the canon (nor do I see a way it could). And some of the books mentioned within Scripture are either lost, or not part of the canon.

His second point is a wonderful syllogism:

• All appeals to Scripture are appeals to interpretations of Scripture.
• Interpretations are by definition external and separate from that which they interpret.
• Sola Scriptura maintains that any claim external to Scripture itself is necessarily uninspired and therefore fallible.
• Therefore, all appeals to Scripture are fallible.

As he writes the major failure of the Protestant Sola Scriptura experiment is the failure to deal with the epistemology. I am no Luther historian, though I would be very interested to see how far he practically took this exercise. I know he himself did not want a radical break from classical Christian teaching. His thesis were given on the basis that his criticisms showed the practices of the day to be un-biblical according to his interpretation. I have read enough of Luther to know that he still exegeted allegorically and still had philosophical/metaphysical influences on his theology and writing. To take Sola Scriptura as far as fundamentalists have is against the spirit of Luther and the Reformation.

I see the only legitimate way to exegete is according to the way the greater church has done throughout her history. A process dependent on what the Church has taught (tradition), what we can understand about the life and times of the written Scripture (reason), and the life of the members of the Church (experience). Bringing these three together is the great difficulty of being honest to the text, to the Church, and to one another. Nor does there have to be one singular answer for all members – as if all members were one part.

Natural Meaning

The belief that the world has an existence and a meaning in and of itself and apart from God is the great heresy of the modern age.
Father Stephen

It is a topic I repeatedly come back to because I think it is fundamentally important. The things that make up the world have no inherent meaning, as such. The contemporary worldview imparts a meaning onto the makeup of this world, and does on the grounds of science and materialism. Minority voices are decrying the materialism – but philosophy knew way back in the enlightenment that this would be the telos of our age. I am not writing that “science is wrong”, rather that it is not an inherent view of the world. It is an imparted point of view brought to the world to organize it. And any worldview (whether it be our contemporary modern one, or an orthodox Christian view) is apriori. It exists before the evidence is accounted for. Yet people are often smashing together facts and what those facts mean as both the domain of science. Science intrinsically cannot speak to meaning. No where is this more recognized than in the field of philosophy where over the last two hundred years they have gotten no where on the matter of “objectivity” (that everyone must agree that facts mean what they mean). Furthermore the growing post-modern movement argues that such a position is not possible.

So then every worldview is inherently equal in its right to speak, since they are all apriori and brought to the world. The superiority of Christianity, however, is that God in Christ entered the world. The highest principle and ground of being entered into the world to bring and show what it is to live according to this worldview. The contemporary modern view remains solely an apriori organizing principle – not an involved living God who was incarnate.

The Hitchens Brothers

Great interview. Perhaps they ought to settle their family issues before they write more.

Why O’ Why?

This blog post is a shout-out to all the theologians out there. A show of unity between academics and students alike contributed to the survival of the University of Sheffield’s Biblical Studies department when it was threatened with closure. It was a warning shot over the bow, if you like, for any predatory cost-cutters swinging the axe over other theology departments within the UK. Since the vultures are once again circulating over theology departments across the country, now is your opportunity to tell the blogosphere – and any budding theology students out there – why the study of theology is a worthwhile exercise and why it should remain firmly within the Academy.
http://thegeekmuse.blogspot.com/2010/08/101-reasons-to-study-theology-and.html

In my view Theology is the study of life according to a story. To keep theology in the academy is to be reflective on that life lived. To have others ask why, and to ask others why. To remain open and connected to others is incredibly important – otherwise stagnation and further fragmentation occurs. The realization that we all live according to some belief and story (that is inherently unproven and presumed) is massive. To reject Theology on those grounds is to reject all of humanities choice in where they find meaning in their own life. Because no meaning is proven. Anything proven is objective, and objectivity has no relation to an individual – it is the absence of an individual. Theology is the recognition that our presence is required to make meaning out of our life. And all the questions thereafter flow from that origin.

Too True

Theologians are people for whom the Christian faith is especially difficult, incomprehensible, infuriating. As a rule they are not especially talented or spiritually adept individuals. Faith-Theology

Holy Wars

Every now and then I check out trailers for new movies that are coming out. Today, I saw this: Holy Wars.

David, the Naked Pastor reveals a good explanation
of why fundamentalism works for people. Though, it doesn’t work for David or myself any longer. Fundamentalism is a rigid and strong structure which is self-affirming. The self-affirming nature of the system cannot be assailed. Every system, even science and math, is self-affirming (see Polanyi Personal Knowledge). These structures we impose on the world must reify themselves in the wake of new evidence. There does come, however, a breaking point in all systems. It all goes downhill when the adherents of Fundamentalism refuse to allow the evidence and experience that comes to them to override what they believe (Polanyi recounts many stories of scientists where this exact system of belief needed toppling, and they were unable to allow it to happen).

The problem is not with Fundamentalism as such, but the adherents unwillingness to challenge what they believe. It is really interesting to contrast this ideology with what is going on in NYC with the mosque near Ground Zero. I’m a New Yorker born and raised, and I know the people of the city can deal with this issue perfectly fine. It seems to be all the competing interests that are causing problems over this issue.

Ultimately systems of belief (of any field or topic) will be toppled by another that comes after it. The issue of faith and loyalty is not to a specific dogmatic expression – but to the ineffable core which grounds all those expressions, and to the loyalty of your fellow human being.