The known God

the object of evangelical theology is God in the history of his deeds. In this history he makes himself known. But in it he also is who he is. In it he has and proves, in a unity which precludes the precedence of one over the other, both his existence and his essence. The God of the Gospel, therefore, is neither a thing, an item, an object like others, nor an idea, a principle, a truth, or a sum of truths. ....The sum of the truths about God is to be found in a sequence of events, even in all the events of his being glorious in his work. 

Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: an Introduction,
page 9.

It is wonderful to listen to a live recording of Barth giving this lecture.

The crisis of ethics in modernism

Stanley Hauerwas has a fascinating article  How "Christian Ethics" Came to Be. 
It argues that prior to the Enlightenment Christians did not separate theology, ethics, and personal discipleship. They were all just part of living the Christian life. However, the Enlightenment ripped away the notion that the Bible and the Church provided a foundation or basis for deciding what was moral. What would the foundation be then?

The birth of modernity is coincident with the beginnings of ethics understood as a distinguishable sphere or realm of human life. Faced with the knowledge of the diversity of moral convictions, modern people think of themselves as haunted by the problem of relativism. If our "ethics" are relative to time and place, what if anything prevents our moral opinions form being "conventional"? And if they are conventional, some assume they must also be "arbitrary". But if your morality is conventional, how can we ever expect to secure agreements between people who disagree? Is it out fate to be perpetually at war with one another? "Ethics" becomes that quest to secure a rational basis for morality so we can be confident that our moral convictions are not arbitrary?

Stanley Hauerwas, How "Christian Ethics" Came to Be (1997)
Reprinted in the Hauerwas Reader, p.43-44.

Telescopic philanthropy

It is Charles Dickens 200th birthday and I have enjoyed reading some of the tributes. It makes me want to read some of his books!
Besides his literary genius Dickens is particularly appreciated because of the awareness he created of poverty and social injustice in Victorian England.

One thing I learnt was that Dickens coined the phrase Telescopic philanthropy: how we can be blind to needs close to home because we are so concerned with being "do gooders" in foreign lands. Dickens used the phrase as a chapter title in the novel Bleak House to describe the character Mrs. Jellaby.
I thought this 1992 article from the Independent somewhat interesting. It considered Mrs. Jellaby in light of Catholic teaching about the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Dives).

Do I believe in the soul?

In a scientific age, the question of the existence and definition of "a soul" seems to be one that perplexes and confuses Christians. Earlier I posted a review I wrote of a disappointing book on the subject.

It seems to me that from a Biblical perspective the key concept is that of a whole person. When the Bible talks about "heart, mind and soul" it is not defining the separate parts of a person but rather trying to capture the concept of a whole person. Note that the "heart" it is discussing is not the bodily organ but the desires, intentions, and aspirations of a person. Souls cannot be detached from bodies; it is bodies that will be resurrected and exist eternally.

“We have been fooled, not for the first time, by a view of death, and life beyond, in which the really important thing is the ‘soul’ — something which, to many people’s surprise, hardly features at all in the New Testament.
“We have allowed our view of the saving of souls to loom so large that we have failed to realise that the Bible is much more concerned about bodies."

N.T. Wright, For all the Saints, Remembering the Christian Departed, 2003
[a large extract can be read here].

In the tradition of bad journalism, prior to publication of this book, The Times ran a misleading headline, Durham's new Bishop abolishes Heaven and the soul.


This issue is also explored in great detail in Nancey Murphy's book Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies. Based on hearing a lecture she gave on this subject, I have some sympathy to her views, and especially that she emphasizes the relevance of the concept of emergence, and the limitations of reductionism. However, at times I also find she over-uses technical jargon in a way that is not particularly illuminating or convincing.

A scandal that does not make the news

Imagine if a jumbo jet full of children crashed and all died. It would make headlines. Imagine if 5 jumbos crashed on the same day. Wow! That would get a lot of attention. Imagine the outcry if it turned out that all the crashes could have been preventable by simple maintenance. There would be a huge outcry, formal inquiries, demands for resignations, lawsuits, new government regulations, ....
Imagine if this happened two days in a row.... every day in a week.... every day of the year!

Well it does happen....
Every day of the year about 22,000 children under the age of 5 die, most from preventable diseases.

This is some of what I learnt this week at an excellent evening run by Compassion. I am a big fan of their child sponsorship program. They have started an additional program, the Child Survival Program, which focusses on pregnant mothers and new borns. I realised the value of this given research (discussed in an earlier post) showing how early childhood trauma can shape brain development and have such a significant effect on a child's future.

One really encouraging thing about this depressing topic is that due to concerted action things are getting better. (Pessimists like myself need to hear this). Since 1990 there has been a significant decrease in child mortality, from 12.5 million to 8.1 million in 2009. The 4 million decrease is like saving the lives of all the young children in Australia every year!

There is no crisis in science

If you are interested in the multiverse and other silly ideas some theoretical physicists come up with (and embarrass and frustrate their colleagues) then you may find a recent post on my work blog interesting.

Hauerwas on discipleship

Discipleship is quite simply extended training in being dispossessed. To become followers of Jesus means that we must, like him, be dispossessed of all that we think gives us power over our own lives and the lives of others. Unless we learn to relinquish our presumption that we can ensure the significance of our lives, we are not capable of the peace of God’s kingdom.

Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, 1983