Again, I'm jumping right in hoping you've read Parts 1-5 of this series.

As I said in the last post, grand theological systems, like political systems, need to specify the nature and capacities of human beings. And one capacity that needs to be specified is volitional scope. I've been arguing that in the post-Cartersian situation (i.e., the demise of body/soul dualism) weak volitional models will become ascendant. In these models, although scope for the will is allowed, the will is also seen as highly situational and contingent.

The biggest soteriological implication falling out from weak volitional models is the marginalizaton of concepts such as moral blame and praise. Moral praise and blame rely on strong volitional models. They presuppose a "free will capacitiy." That is, the moral agent's will, and only their will, is the cause of any action/decision. Thus, the agent's will is the sole target--100% responsible--for praise/blame.

But weak volitional models give us ideas such as Frankfurt, where freedom is not defined as the ability to transcend the causal order but rather as volitional unanimity.

But as we noted in our posts on Frankfurt, our volition comes to us with investments, carings, and loves. These things we do not choose, or, if we do, we find that acquiring or modifying these investments takes time and effort. Ever try to change a habit? Love an enemy? Lose 20 pounds? Be a better person? Then you know how hard it is to change our volitional structure.

What all this implies, from a soteriological standpoint, is that salvation should not rely on notions of choice. Why? Because choice is built atop volitional necessities. Thus, some people just don't careabout God or goodness. And this lack of care is how they find themselves. It is who they are. And those investments are difficult to change. We understand this.

What I'm saying is that salvation should shift from choice to volitional investments. From decisions to issues of caring. And this focus means that salvation is more effortful and slow. In a strong volitional world, "salvation" can happen quickly, on a moment's notice. We, in a moment, "accept Jesus as our Savior." But from Frankfurt's perspective that choice is really the manifestation of prior and deeper volitional investments. So, to get someone to a "moment of choice" a longer journey is a prerequisite, a journey to change what the person fundamentally cares about.

My thought is that salvation in the post-Cartesian world should have as its goal the production of divine volitional unanimity. We want the things that God wants. This is the target of salvation. With this as the target, strong volitional soteriological notions get systematically reworked:

1, Being a slave to sin means that volitional unanimity is disturbed by inner impulses/desires that the agent seeks to reject. Thus, being freed from sin is slowly achieving volitional unanimity, where the impulses/desires of the "flesh" are slowly mastered. This is a Frankfurtian reworking of traditional notions of sanctification. Salvation as divine volitional unanimity.

2. Salvation is often viewed as a purification/cleansing. Traditionally, what makes us "dirty" are "sins." But if blameworthiness erodes in the post-Cartesian situation, this traditional model needs to get modified. Purification, thus, will be less involved in issues of blame (or shifting blame onto Christ on our behalf), but with volitional unanimity. Sören Kierkegaard famously said that "purity of heart is to will one thing." If we take his lead then purity is the achievement of divine volitional unanimity, where we will what God wills. Purity is thus about focusing the will on the investments of God.

3. Finally, to focus our volitional investments is just another way, according to Frankfurt, to say that we love certain things. So, another way to say we have divine volitional unanimity is to simply say that we love the things God loves.

To summarize, my sketch of weak volitional salvation involves the following:

Salvation is...
Divine volitional unanimity

Which implies...
Freedom from sin: We want the things that God do the things we want.
Purity of heart: To will the Will of God ("purity of heart is to will one thing").
Love: Loving God and the things God loves.

Notice that as we converge on divine volitional unanimity all these things happen simultaneously: freedom from sin, purity of heart, and the love of God. It is a very parsimonious model, where freedom/purity/love are all intimately connected. They all tell the same story.

So, if salvation is the attainment of freedom/purity/love (i.e., divine volitional unanimity), how do we get people into this position? As I said, this process will be more effortful and slow than simply "accepting Jesus as my Savior." This effort and time causes us to take up issues of eschatology and theodicy in the coming posts.

Before I turn to theological issues in the post-Cartesian situation, I want to think about volitional models in political theories. I'm calling this post a "warmup" as this political discussion sets up some ideas for later theological discussions.

Grand political systems (as in theological systems) require some vision as to the nature and capacities of human persons. Whether the system is socialistic, democratic, Marxist, or whatever a grand political theory must start with a vision of man. Once "man" is specified, much of the theory follows.

One of the capacities of man that must be specified is his volitional capacity. How radically autonomous or free is man? Using my labels, do weak volitional or strong volitional models describe man? Do we possess characterological inertia? Or can we, volitionally speaking, turn on a dime?

Let's see how the weak versus strong volitional models help make sense of the two political systems dominating the American political scene: Democrats and Republicans.

In strong volitional models, people, due to their radical autonomy, can be morally praised or blamed for the outcomes of their choices. If success in life is simply a matter of making good choices, of sucking it up and "taking responsibility," than there is no one to blame but yourself for your situation in life. In America, where free markets set up meritocracies, strong volitional models cause us to moralize the poor and the rich. That is, if we are radically autonomous, those successful in life have excellent character: they are industrious, "take responsibility," and make healthy choices. They are good. Conversely, if you are failing to move up the American meritocracy, then you have only yourself to blame. You are either lazy or immoral. You are bad. In short, in America at least, strong volitional models lead to the moralization the rich and the poor.

This moralization affects issues such as tax cuts and the welfare state. Taxes, as we all know, are a means to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. However, given the logic of strong volitional models, taxes are immoral. Why should you take money from the good and the virtuous to support the lazy and immoral? Isn't this robbing from the good and giving to the bad? Did not the good earn their money through hard and honest labor? If so, let them keep their money. They earned it.

Weak volitional models see this situation completely differently. If will is contingent, then the fortunes of birth and circumstance will have huge impacts upon our character. Thus, although this is not to rob us of the truth that hard work pays off, our situation in life is impacted by fortune. Will, virtue, and hard work are not the only factors in play. If the person is a contingent agent, will, virtue, and work ethic, those engines of meritocratic ascent, are affected by circumstance. Luck is in play.

If luck is in play, we can't moralize the rich and the poor. The poor are not immoral, they are less fortunate. Unlucky. Conversely, the rich are not always good. But many are lucky. In short, when evaluating the rich and poor we must pause and factor moral luck into the equation. The drug dealer may not be the evil person we think he is. If raised in different circumstances and with different genes (i.e., if you have the genes to be a rocket science luck has helped you; I won't ever be a rocket scientist no matter how hard I work) you don't end up as a drug dealer. Maybe you get Neil Armstrong.

To summarize the weak volitional perspective, here's Spinoza: "And because [we] think ourselves free, those notions have arisen: praise and blame. sin and merit." Thus, if we are less than radically free, then moral luck attenuates strong volitional notions of praise, merit, blame, and, yes, even sin.

If we approach taxes and wealth redistribution from a weak volitional perspective we get the exact opposite view from the strong volitionalist. If weak volitionism holds, taxes are not immoral; they are exceedingly moral. That is, if the rich are rich and the poor are poor due, in some part, to luck, then it makes plenty of sense to redistribute to achieve some fairness. The rich don't get to keep it all because, in a weak volitional world, they didn't earn all they have. They might have earned some or even a large part of what they own, but luck helped as well. And it's unfair to benefit from luck at the expense of others. So, it makes sense, moral sense, to tax.

Here's the interesting thing. Views of person have consequences. Big consequences! An important issue like taxes is seen as either moral or immoral due to the answer to one simple question: What are the volitional capacities of humans? If they are vast, then taxes are immoral. If they are circumscribed, then moral.

Thus, embedded deep within the Republican and Democratic worldviews is a View of Person. And the rest, they say, is history.

My point: What goes for political models goes for theological models as well.

This will be my last post overviewing Frankfurt's ideas in Taking Ourselves Seriously & Getting It Right. After this discussion of moral responsibility from a Frankfurtian perspective, I'm going to draw out a couple of implications for soteriology, ecclesiology, and theodicy. I might even, if you're nice, talk about the theology of politics.

Rather than bore you with a review, I'm going to jump right in and assume you've read all my prior posts in this series.

What does moral responsibility look like from Frankfurt's perspective? Framed in my terminology, what does a weak volitional model of moral responsibility look like?

Often, moral responsibility is linked to strong volitional models. That is, we tend to think that if a choice were determined we can't really blame the actor. She could not have done otherwise. So, if Frankfurt reconfigures freedom, how do notions of moral responsibility get adjusted?

Recall that Frankfurt sets aside the free will versus determinism debate in favor of a psychological account of freedom: Volitional unanimity, freedom as doing what we want to do. Frankfurt continues this approach when he addresses moral responsibility:

"Becoming responsible for one’s character is not essentially a matter of producing that character but of taking responsibility for it. This happens when a person selectively identifies with certain of his own attitudes and dispositions, whether or not it was he that caused himself to have them. In identifying with them, he incorporates those attitudes and dispositions into himself and makes them his own. What counts is our current effort to define and to manage ourselves, and not the story of how we came to be in the situation with which we are now attempting to cope."

Let's unpack this. What does it mean to "take responsibility"?

In a very superficial sense, taking responsibility is often simply recognizing one's causal influence in an event:

"Who broke the window?"
"I did."

This is often all that is required.

However, this kind of "taking responsibility" is rarely seen as moral. Moral responsibility has to do with your dispositions and choices as a reflective, deliberating creature. Accidents aside, "taking responsibility" has mainly to do with your inner life and its structure.

In short, moral responsibility is about you. How you exist as a moral creature.

Thus, if you are forced to act in an immoral manner due to an external coercion (e.g., I'm holding a gun to your head), we don't hold you morally responsible for your actions. Your actions don't reflect your own, freely willed, inner nature.

So, setting aside accidents and external coercion, let's look inside ourselves to see what it means to take moral responsibility. According to Frankfurt, we act freely when we will what we want to will. This is freedom as volitional unanimity. So, let's say you act in a premeditated way to perform some immoral or illegal act. In this, you act freely. You want to do this deed. In the language of law, you have mens rea, a "guilty mind" or "criminal intent."

If you have mens rea you are acting, according to Frankfurt, freely. It doesn't really matter if you are determined to do this act. As Frankfurt notes, the story behind your actions is largely irrelevant. For finite creatures like ourselves, the only coherent question we can ask about moral freedom is simply this: Did you WANT to do this? If so, if mens rea is present, then you acted freely. And you are held morally responsible for your actions.

Another way to frame this is to say that, in a weak volitional world, we hold people morally responsible when we desire communal input into their volitional structure. If you WANT to do these bad thing then we hold you responsible. That is, again borrowing from Frankfurt, you identify with these impulses and actions. You own them. Given your volitional configuration, we have quibbles with you. Your self-identification prompts us intervene because if we don't stop you you will not stop yourself.

However, there are times when people claim that they are internally overthrown by impulses. They act harmfully and/or immorality but they don't identify with the act. The are ashamed of it. They claim they resisted acting in this way to their full power. In short, they inform us that they did not have volitional unanimity. They were not free.

Are these people morally responsible? Because we need a notion of freedom to hold people responsible.

The answer is, sometimes yes and sometimes no. These are the sticky cases. They are sticky because we know what an irresistible impulse can do to us. Think of insanity or addictions. We know what it feels like to be internally terrorized by renegade impulses. So, in case law some people are held less accountable on just these grounds. The trouble is, people could be lying to us. Or, someone can make up some unheard of irresistible impulse and argue that this is what overthrew them (e.g., road rage). On such things lawyers debate and ponder. The best we can do is hear the evidence--expert or otherwise--and make reasonable community discernments about how irresistible that irresistible impulse really was. It's a messy, error-prone process, but there is no better way to do it.

To conclude. The point of all this is that robust notions of moral responsibility are fully compatible with weak volitional models or even strict determinism. That is, yes, notions of freedom are integral to notions of moral responsibility. However, that freedom doesn't have to be free will. Volitional unanimity seems to be enough.

Well, that's it for Frankfurt. Next week I'll build some theological structures on top of this foundation (as problematic as it is).

Have a wonderful weekend. Keep your glucose levels up.

I've been writing about how to do theology in the post-Cartesian situation. But what does this mean? A post to illustrate.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is the influential French philosopher who is the often credited as the modern exponent of what is known as Cartesian Dualism. Cartesian Dualism is the idea that mind/soul and matter/body are two distinct "substances" that interact with each other. However, mind/soul cannot be reduced to matter/body. This is the vision behind most theological systems, that we are dual creatures, a mixture of physical and spiritual attributes. We have a soul that interacts with our body but is distinct from our body. We are more than simply a body.

Cartesian Dualism, the view held by most church going folk, supports notions of immortality and free will. That is, it is assumed that our soul is immortal and that it is this attribute of the soul that guarantees that we will live forever (in either Heaven or Hell). Regarding free will, given that the soul is independent of our body, our choices (as products of the soul) cannot be reduced to cause & effect. Thus, we escape determinism and create notions of moral accountability.

So, what is the post-Cartesian situation? The post-Cartesian situation is the world of neuroscience and genetics. In our world it is difficult to believe in the existence of the soul when all known mental processes are directly correlated with brain function. Brain damage, intoxication, sleep deprivation, hunger, Alzheimer's disease and many other factors clearly demonstrate that as our brain goes so we go. And, if this is so, how should theology respond?

I've been arguing that theology needs to work with what I've called weak-volitional models. That is, we need to see our choices (products of will/volititon) as contingent. I don't know if our choices are determined. But I do think they are highly contingent. That is, the circumstances of our lives affect the outcomes of our choices. More specifically, for today's post, the status of our brain can affect the outcomes of our choices.

In a recent study published in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Social Psychology the psychologists Matthew Gailliot, Roy Baumeister, Nathan DeWall, Jon Maner, Ashby Plant, Dianne Tice, Lauren Brewer, and Brandon Schmeichel examined the role of glucose levels in the exercise of self-control. The study was entitled Self-Control Relies on Glucose as a Limited Energy Source: Willpower is More than a Metaphor.

Baumeister has done lots of work on the idea that self-control (ego-strength) is a finite and limited resource. Across many laboratory studies Baumeister has demonstrated ego-depletion. That is, if you are asked to expend mental energy (e.g., acts of self-control, concentration, or attention) you show a reduced capacity for self-control, attention or concentration on subsequent tasks. That is, mental "energy" seems finite. Thus, if you "use up" your mental energy on one task you have less energy available for later tasks.

We all know this don't we? Ask yourself, when are you most susceptible to outbursts of bad tempter (a failure of self-control)? Well, if you are like me it is when you are tired, stressed, or hungry. When my mental energy is low I just don't have much left over to regulate my irritability.

But in the Gailliot et al. study ego-depletion is given a biological mechanism. Glucose.

Restating, you don't have an unlimited supply of willpower. Willpower is not a product of the soul which can tap into an infinite supply of supernatural fuel. No, in the post-Cartesian situation we know that willpower is the product of the brain and that the brain, as an energy consuming organ, has a limited capacity. As the title of the study highlights, willpower is more than just a metaphor. Willpower is, actually, power which can be consumed and used up.

For example, we know these things. The brain consumes 20% of the body's fuel while comprising only 2% of the body's mass. We also know that glucose is a vital fuel for the brain. And we also know that low glucose levels have been implicated in impulse-control problems. Could there be a link between willpower and glucose levels in the brain?

In a series of eight studies, Gailliot et al. demonstrate that low glucose levels are related to impairments in self-control. Further, elevating glucose levels (via a sugary drink) aided participants in self-control compared to control subjects.

Importantly for theologians, two of the self-control tasks directly involved social virtue: Controlling prejudice in an interracial interaction and helping someone in need.

Now think about that. When your glucose levels are low you are more susceptible to acting on prejudice and less helpful to strangers. When your glucose levels are normal you are more able to suppress prejudice and more likely to help strangers. In short, your virtue is directly affected by sugar levels in your brain. Quoting from the final paragraph of the study:

"The present findings suggest that relatively small acts of self-control are sufficient to deplete the available supply of glucose, thereby impairing the control of thought and behavior, at least until the body can retrieve more glucose from its stores or ingest more calories. More generally, the body's variable ability to mobilize glucose may be an important determinant of people's capacity to live up to their ideals, pursue their goals, and realize their virtues."

So, this week in my Sunday School class at church I'm going to make the following recommendation: If you want to be more like Jesus drink a Coke.

But make sure it's not diet. You want the sugar in there.

Just a break from my Theology in a Post-Cartesian World series.

Are you aware of the PostSecret phenomenon?

PostSecret was started by Frank Warren in 2004 when he sent off 3,000 self-addressed stamped postcards asking people to reveal a secret, anonymously, and mail it back to him. Further, the postcard was to be “decorated” in a self-expressive or thematic manner. Warren received hundreds of responses which formed the basis of a community art project.

However, since that time PostSecret has become one of the biggest web sensations. Every Sunday Warren posts some of the secrets that have been mailed to him. Some of the more interesting secrets Warren held back from the website publishing them in three books, PostSecret, My Secret, and The Secret Lives of Men and Women.

To participate in PostSecret you must do the following (from the PostSecret website):

You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to PostSecret. Each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

Create your 4-by-6-inch postcards out of any mailable material. If you want to share two or more secrets, use multiple postcards. Put your complete secret and image on one side of the postcard.

Tips:
Be brief - the fewer words used the better.
Be legible - use big, clear and bold lettering.
Be creative - let the postcard be your canvas.

Mail your secrets, or other correspondence, to:

PostSecret
13345 Copper Ridge Road
Germantown, Maryland
USA 20874-3454

Please consider sharing a follow-up story about how mailing in a secret, or reading someone else's, made a difference in your life.

Since its inception PostSecret has acquired a wide cult following. As a psychologist I’m fascinated by the dynamics of it all. I also think PostSecret poses some spiritual questions.

Here are some random reflections:

Clearly, a lot of the PostSecret phenomenon is voyeuristic and exhibitionistic. But, apparently, lots of people are being powerful affected as both participants and consumers of PostSecret. The participants report powerful cathartic effects from selecting, designing, and mailing in their secret. Many consumers of the website and books also report healing effects. Many of us feel deeply alien, strange, and deviant. Reading through the secrets seems to attenuate those feelings. Readers feel more “normal,” more “at home” in the human species.

So, it seems pretty clear that PostSecret is meeting some deep need in people. A need to somehow reconcile with the skeletons in our closets. But, from a psychospiritual vantage, what are we to think of this?

On the one hand, the anonymous and vicarious nature of PostSecret is worrisome, psychospiritually speaking. Any healing that is experienced is individualistic. It’s not a communal process. Thus, PostSecret seems devoid of spiritual benefit.

But on the other hand, the secrets, if you read them, are very raw. Very raw. Which makes me wonder if the church will ever be a place where true transparency, confession, acceptance, and healing are to be found. Stated bluntly, the church, as she currently exists, cannot handle real, raw, festering secrets. And if this is the case, isn’t PostSecret standing in the gap? Meeting a need?

In short, rather than spiritually critiquing PostSecret’s failings, might we also consider the possibility that PostSecret is critiquing the failings of the church?

After his discussions of freedom and volition, later in Taking Ourselves Seriously & Getting It Right Frankfurt turns to issues of love and normativity (Jargon alert! Normativity = what we "should" or "ought" to do = ethics/morality).

First, Frankfurt emphasizes how foundational our volitional investments, our "carings," are. They ground and define the Self. Volitional unanimity (see prior posts) unifies the Self in the moment. My carings also create a coherent Self across time. Caring connects my goals and desires of yesterday with my goals today and my aspirations for tomorrow. Without these investments the self disintegrates. We are, at root, a bundle of carings:

"Willing freely means that the self is at that time harmoniously integrated. There is, within it, a synchronic coherence. Caring about something implies a diachronic coherence, which integrates the self across time. Like free will, then, caring has an important structural bearing upon the character of our lives. By our caring, we maintain various thematic continuities in our volitions. We engage ourselves in guiding the course of our desires. If we cared about nothing, we would play no active role in designing the successive configurations of our will." (p .19)

But beyond the mere (!) integration of the self, our caring, our investments, ground our practical and normative reasonings in what we deem important. Caring is the bedrock. Things are only important to us insofar as we care about them. Thus, reasons--motives for action--only persuade if we care. If we do not care about X, no reasons will convince us that X is important:

"If it were possible for attributions of inherent importance to be rationally
grounded, they would have to be grounded in something besides other attributions of inherent importance. The truth is, I believe, that it is possible to ground judgments of importance only in judgments concerning what people care about. Nothing is truly important to a person unless it makes a difference that he actually cares about. Importance is never inherent. It is always dependent upon the attitudes and dispositions of the individual. Unless a person knows what he already cares about, therefore, he cannot determine what he has reason to care about." (p. 23)

Soon, the normative question will emerge in these discussions of importance and caring. What should we care about? Regardless, we must realize that even our normative judgments are rooted in our volitional character. We cannot convince people to follow ethical standard X unless they care beforehand:

"The most fundamental question for anyone to raise concerning importance cannot be the normative question of what he should care about. That question can be answered only on the basis of a prior answer to a question that is not normative at all, but straightforwardly factual: namely, the question of what he actually does care about. If he attempts to suspend all of his convictions, and to adopt a stance that is conscientiously neutral and uncommitted, he cannot even begin to inquire methodically into what it would be reasonable for him to care about. No one can pull himself up by his own bootstraps." (p. 24)

The deepest of all our volitional investments, the things we care most deeply about, are those things we love. But, again, love is a volitional constraint. It is not a choice:

"Among the things that we cannot help caring about are the things that we love. Love is not a voluntary matter. It may at times be possible to contrive arrangements that make love more likely or that make it less likely. Still, we cannot bring ourselves to love, or to stop loving, by an act of will alone—that is, merely by choosing to do so. And sometimes we cannot affect it by any means whatsoever." (p. 24,25)

Given that love is our fundamental concern and that love is our deepest volitional commitment, it seems clear that love is the main source of practical and normative reasonings:

"As I understand the nature of love, the lover does not depend for his loving upon reasons of any kind. Love is not a conclusion. It is not an outcome of reasoning, or a consequence of reasons. It creates reasons." (p. 25)

Some observations...

I'm trying to create a psychologically coherent foundation for a post-Cartesian soteriology, ecclesiology, and theodicy. I'm building this foundation on Frankfurt's work concerning freedom, love, and normativity. In the last few posts I have been simply deploying Frankfurt's ideas. The theological implications are still to come. However, during these last few posts on Frankfurt (with one more to come)I have also pointed out some intriguing hints I've seen in Frankfurt for a positive theological project. Today, I encourage you to dwell on these things:

1. Frankfurt's model unites three things theologians are extraordinarily interested in: Freedom, love, and normativity. Frankfurt provides an way to unite these three things in a really interesting way. For example, think of the implications for soteriology. What does it mean to be saved? How are we saved? Frankfurt shows linkages among all three of these things:

Normativity: Being saved is about goodness/holiness.
Freedom/Volitional Unanimity: Being saved is about becoming free from sin.
Love: Being saved is about coming to love as God loves (God is love.)

Think about this list. Frankfurt shows how all three are linked in a coherent psychological model of the person.

2. In Frankfurt's model, love is the bedrock. Clearly, this is a VERY hospitable place to start a theological project.

3. However, Frankfurt's model is weak-volitional (see Part 1). As Frankfurt says, "Love is not a voluntary matter." And this is the piece that will need to be accommodated by theological systems.

In my last post Jeff made a comment that I like to pull out here as I expect that a few other readers will have a similar response. That is, is Frankfurt dodging the issue of free will versus determinism? The reason why I expect some of you will have that reaction is because I also had that reaction. But I've since thought about it and I now like Frankfurt's position. So, before we go on in this series, let me offer a few reflections. First, Jeff's comment is below so you don't have to surf back for it:

I think I understand the point that having volitional integrity and unanimity would produce a satisfying choice from an agent's internal perspective, I thought a critical component to free will vice determinism was an assent to objective, external ideals - "truth" or "rationality" as concepts?

I suppose my point is that while volitional integrity would leave a subjective agent with no frame of reference to believe anything other than her choices were truly free, that wouldn't really mean the agent was free to choose based on an assent to objective values, right? And if that assent is lost, it seems that volitionally integrated choices might only seem be be based on free choice, when it reality they are not.

In other words, it appears that volitional integrity is a "third way" between free will and determinism, but in reality it seems to be dodging the real issue. I see the real issue between determinism and free will not as a subjectively satisfying choice, but as a choice made in light of external truth and reality - that our noetic equipment is somehow connected or has access to a frame of reference beyond merely the stimulation of our brains to something real and external that can drive our choice, legitimately, even in a volutionally disintegrated direction.

Some reflections...

First, yes, Frankfurt is setting aside the specter of determinism and is focusing on the inner life of the agent. That is, Frankfurt's freedom is not metaphysical but psychological. It's the experience of freedom that he's talking about.

If this is true, isn't he dodging the real issue? Yes and no. Frankfurt notes that as finite creatures the only freedom we can possess and comprehend is the feeling of scope, of having, to use Aristotle's criterion, many possible lives before us. This capacity, Frankfurt correctly notes, is due to that ability we have to insert an "internal separation" in our minds. That ability allows us to take in our experiences and reasonings and objectify them. That is, to step back and observe our minds. Further, we can step back and reflect on our reflections, where second-order reflection can take in our first-order reflections. The philosopher Thomas Nagel aptly describes this process of iterative self-objectification in his book The View from Nowhere.

The point is, as we go through this process, vistas of possibilities and potentialities open before us. And, thus, we experience scope, possibility, and potentiality. Multiple lives open up before us. (Real lives. The mind is connecting with a reality beyond its own chemical workings, it is modeling/simulating an objective reality.) This expansive feeling is what we label as freedom or free will.

But these mental processes and our iterative deliberations do take place within a causal system. As finite reasoning creatures we can, via the processes above, apprehend reality (for theists, God would be a part of that reality) and to reason/deliberate upon that reality. However, given that we are finite--causally bounded--those reasons and our ability to deploy them must take place within the system, they come to us and are deployed by us in a causal relation. We are not omnipotent. We cannot get our reasonings "outside the system," so to speak. As Frankfurt says, we are not powerful enough.

In the end, although determinism may be true, the only freedom available to us or comprehensible to us is the one we currently experience. There really is no other conversation to be had.

For example, let's talk about comprehensibility. What would it mean that we had reasonings or desires with no causal antecedents. What would acausal reason, volition, or love look like? I'm with Frankfurt on this, I can't even envision what this would look like. More strongly stated, these acausal models/speculations (which many theologians have truck with) border on being linguistic and conceptual rubbish. We have the freedom we have and that is the freedom theology must work with.

Now, let's come at this from a different perspective. Our reasoning and choices Frankfurt says (and I'll get to this in my coming posts) are grounded in certain volitional necessities. In my V-Day post I gave this quote from Frankfurt:

"Answers to the normative question are certianly up to us in the sense that they depend upon what we care about. However, what we care about is not always up to us. Our will is not invariably subject to our will. We cannot have, simply for the asking, whatever will we want. There are some things we cannot help caring about. Our caring about them consists of desires and dispositions that are not under our immediate voluntary control. We are committed in ways that we cannot directly affect. Our volitional character does not change just because we want it to change, or because we resolve that it do so. Insofar as answers to the normative question depend upon carings that we cannot alter at will, what we should care about is not up to us at all." p. 24

The point is that caring undergirds all reasoning, all choice. Yet, these investments are not chosen. They are, simply, who we are at the time. We don't choose, ultimately, what we care about or love. Basically, our will looks like this:

Step 1: Our ability to iteratively reflect, reason, and objectify allows for vistas of possibility to open before us.
Step 2: Our volitional investments then make the choice of which possible life we wish to move toward.

And, if we wholehearted embrace #2, we feel that the life we move toward is the life we want. And we experience freedom in this choosing. If we are prevented, internally or externally, from embracing #2 we feel that the path we were put on is not the one we want. We feel the need to back up and try again.

Now, I understand that this raises all kinds of issues about normativity and moral responsibility. I'm going to get to those issues later in this series. For now, at this point in our journey, we're just specifying the nature of the will. And, if theological systems/discourse is to be plausible, it will need to rest on realistic (and not incoherent) notions of the human person.

Let me give an example about these volitional necessities, these carings. My administrative coordinator and I were talking about love and marriage and she said, "Love is a choice." I disagreed and argued thus:

"I understand what you mean and you are correct if you are equating 'love' with 'romantic feelings.' For truly, a marriage must be based on more than infatuation. However, more properly, love is a volitional matter. More specifically, it is a volitional constraint. One you do not choose voluntarily. For example, let's say your feelings for your spouse have cooled and there is conflict in the marriage. Should you persist in the marriage or seek a divorce? As you deliberate on this, possible choices/lives open up before you. In the end, you choose to keep your marriage vows. And you experience freedom in this choice. This is what you want. But why did you choose this way? Only because you care about keeping promises. If you didn't care, and many don't, about keeping promises your choice would go a different way. Yet, you don't choose to care. Because if you tried you would simply hand off the the choice to the next level reflection: Why do you care about caring about keeping your promises? (Which is, btw, a legitimate reflection to entertain.) In the end, it all just bottoms out: Why do I care? I don't know, I just do. That is, choice is an expression of who you are. As God's is an expression of who He is. You find yourself as you are. Love isn't a choice. It's a discovery."

First, note that I'd make a difficult boss. Random comments in the workplace can cause me to go off on long philosophical tangents.

But more importantly, this model of the will helps to fruitfully focus the discussion on the situation at hand: Our will and freedom as it is. For example, if love is not a choice but an expression of who we are, an old, Eastern vision of salvation jumps out at us: Divinization, becoming more like God. Coming to love the things God loves. In sum, yes, I agree that Frankfurt's tabling of the free will vs. determinism debate leaves lots of things unresolved. I'll get to some of these issues later. But I also believe that the vision Frankfurt gives us is both constructive and realistic and, thus, a good model of human freedom to built theological systems upon.

But, I'm no theologian so what do I know?

Frankfurt begins his lectures in Taking Ourselves Seriously & Getting It Right by noting that human cognition is unique for "introducing a sort of division within our minds" (p. 4) that allows us the ability to reflect upon, monitor, endorse, or sanction our inner lives. This ability is both a blessing and a curse. As far as curses go:

"[Our ability for introspection] generates a profound threat to our well-being. The inner division that we introduce impairs our capacity for untroubled spontaneity. This is not merely a matter of spoiling our fun. It exposes us to psychological and spiritual disorders that are nearly impossible to avoid...Facing ourselves, in the way that internal separation enables us to do, frequently leaves us chagrined and distressed by what we see as well as bewildered and insecure concerning who we are. Self-objectification facilitates both an inhibiting ambivalence, and a nagging general dissatisfaction with ourselves." (p. 4-5)

But this very same ability is also the source of our rich inner experiences:

"By the same token, however, our capacity to divide and to objectify ourselves provides the foundational structure for several particularly cherished features of our humanity...it equips us to enjoy a significant freedom in the exercise of our will; and it creates for us the possibility of going beyond simply wanting things, and of coming instead to care about them, to regard them as important to ourselves, and to love them." (p. 5)

Thus, as we monitor our inner lives we find two sorts of things going on. On the one hand, we see thoughts, motives, and desires that we fully endorse and resonate with. I love my children and I wholeheartedly endorse and own this feeling within me. That love is me. I identify with it. I hold on to it as a marker of self-definition.

But on the other hand, we also find things within us that we resist, reject, censor, or even loath. Desires such as these we externalize from the self. We know these things are inside us, but they are not inside the self, the locus of my being and will. Thus, if we act on these desires we feel overthrown, like the self has been cut, lacerated, or wounded. Consequently, we resist, fight against, and punish these aspects of our internal lives:

"Let us suppose that a certain motive has been rejected as unacceptable [to ourselves]. Our attempt to immunize ourselves against it may not work. The resistance we mobilize may be insufficient. The externalized impulse or desire may succeed, by its sheer power, in defeating us and forcing its way. In that case, the outlaw imposes itself upon us without authority, and against our will. This suggests a useful way of understanding what it is for a person's will to be free."(p.14)

It is this dynamic--identifying with or rejecting internal states--upon which Frankfurt bases his notion of human freedom:

"When we are doing exactly what we want to do, we are acting freely. A free act is one that a person performs simply because he wants to perform it. Enjoying freedom of action consists in maintaining this harmonious accord between what we do and what we want to do.

...Just as we act freely when what we do is what we want to do, so we will act freely when what we want is what we want to want--that is, when the will behind what we do is exactly the will by which we want our action to be moved. A person's will is free, on this account, when there is in him a certain volitional unanimity." (p. 15)

However, there are clearly times when we act in ways that go against our will. Those are times when we resist or censor our inner motives or desires. In those moments the experience of freedom vanishes:

"Of course, there are bound to be occasions when the desire that motivates us when we act is a desire by which we do not want to be motivated. Instead of being moved by warm and generous feelings...a person's conduct may be driven by a harsh envy, of which [we] disapprove but [are] unable to prevent from gaining control. On occasions like that, the will is not free." (p. 15)

Thus, Frankfurt's notion of free will is one that involves volitional unanimity, the wholehearted endorsement and identification with what we willing, doing, and desiring. This, according to Frankfurt, is the only kind of freedom possible for finite creatures:

"[S]uppose that we are doing what we want to do, that our motivating first-order desire to perform the action is exactly the desire by which we want our action to be motivated and that there is no conflict in us between this motive and any desire at any higher order. In other words, suppose we are thoroughly wholehearted both in what we are doing and in what we want. Then there is no respect in which we are being violated or defeated or coerced. Neither our desires nor the conduct to which they lead are imposed upon us without our consent or against our will. We are acting just as we want, and our motives are just what we want them to be. Then so far as I can see, we have on that occasion all the freedom for which finite creatures can reasonably hope. Indeed, I believe that we have as much freedom as it is possible for us to even conceive." (p. 16)

How does this notion jibe with the free will vs. determinism debate? Frankfurt's comment is this:

"Notice that this has nothing to do with whether our actions, desires, or our choices are causally determined. The widespread conviction among thoughtful people that there is a radical opposition between free will and determinism is, on this account, a read herring. The possibility that everything is necessitated by antecedent causes does not threaten our freedom. What it threatens is our power. Insofar as we are governed by causal forces, we are not omnipotent. That has no bearing, however, upon whether we can be free." (p. 16)

To summarize, Frankfurt's conception of human freedom, agency, and autonomy focuses upon volitional unanimity, the wholehearted embrace of motives, desires, and actions.

I think this formulation is very helpful for theological projects. That is, this formulation allows us to focus on the volitional integrity of the agent as the issue to be discussed, theologically speaking. This allows us to move past the traditional debates regarding human choice and the moral status of those choices. For example, in conventional conversations concerning free will and determinism the focus is on agent p making choice y and if the agent was omnipotently free in making that choice. If the agent was not, can the agent be held "morally responsible" for choice y?

With Frankfurt's formulation in hand, the conversation shifts to more hospitable terrain. This conversation focuses less on the omnipotent freedom of the agent's "choosing apparatus" and more on the volitional integrity and unanimity of the agent. That is, what does the agent want? And is the agent wholeheartedly embracing those wants? Further, making an agent free,therefore, is less about removing (or worrying about) deterministic constraints and more about achieving volitional unanimity. To get the agent wholeheartedly embracing certain motives and desires.

This vision, it seems to me, gets the theological conversation going in a very fruitful direction.

Have a great weekend! Thanks for reading.

Before moving on with my Post-Cartesian Theology series, a note about a conversation I had about universalism yesterday.

I'm a universalist. By that I mean that if you put a gun to my head and forced me to guess how I think it all (and I mean all) will wrap up in the end (and I mean end) I'd go with universalism.

But when I tell people this they quickly assume I've got some feel-good, wishy-washy, don't worry be happy, mojo working. I was reminded of this during a conversation with a friend the other day who basically made this same move on me by suggesting I was going light on sin. But I'm not light on sin. In fact, I'm harder on sin than he is. This is what I said to him:

"Wherever the wrath of God is burning against sin, there hell is."

Hell isn't a location. It's not a destination. Hell's about formation. Transformation.

Then it hit me. The problem is with the label "universalism." The label is confusing people. By focusing on the end product people are missing the process. And it's all about the process, baby! (You have to read that last sentence like Dick Vitale. March Madness, just around the corner!) If you miss the point about process you're missing my whole vibe.

So let me clarify. Everyone gets "saved" only because God will not tolerate sin. His goal, his very Being--both His love and justice--demand that sin and death be defeated. His love and justice compels Him to set His creation free. Otherwise, He is a fiend for creating us all in the first place. So yes, in the end, all will be reconciled. But to focus on that end state, that final step, misses the whole point of what God's up to.

So, I've decided I need a new label other than "universalist." I need a process-oriented label. Not an end-state label. So try this on for size:

I'm a costly sanctificationist.

The idea here comes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship where he distinguishes between cheap grace and costly grace. Cheap grace is forgiveness with no discipleship, no cross. Costly grace is a grace that demands your life, a grace obtained by taking up the cross.

I'm switching terms on Bonhoeffer, going with sanctification over grace. I agree with Bonhoeffer that grace must be about the transformation of the sinner. It must be costly. But, for me, grace is not some curve God applies to your grade at death. No, for me, the grace isn't about "making up for what we cannot do for ourselves," morally speaking. Because, at root, Bonhoeffer's idea is incoherent. If God is going to make up any deficit of mine via his grace why not make up a little more. No, the only way to make the costly vs. cheap idea work is to go all the way. To make us truly, in the language of Jesus, "pay the last penny." Thus, I switch sanctification for grace.

Do I believe in grace? Yes! Grace is in God's doggedness. His refusal, ever, to give up on me or you. It is God's persistence in sanctification that is the manifestation of his grace. He must finish the job He started. He owes it to both Himself and His Creation. Anything less marks Him as a monster.

My friend, the orthodox one, is a cheap sanctificationist. He believes in the traditional hell, yet allows sin to remain in God's world for all eternity. He's the one soft on sin.

Today in my History of Theories of Psychology class I forwarded a new argument for the existence of God. Regular readers will note that this is a revised version of an argument I made here on this blog some time ago. Relevant to my last post (and the series to follow) there is some Frankfurtian stuff on volitional necessities in the argument (#5 and #6 lean on Frankfurt).

In class I called this a fingerprint argument. It doesn’t prove that God exists; it simply looks for a “fingerprint,” a “sign.” For the sake of posterity, here it is:

1. Consciousness adheres to matter.

2. When it does so it preserves structure, leading to increasing complexity of structure.

3. As structure grows more complex, consciousness grows more complex in turn.

4. When consciousness reaches a certain degree of complexity it becomes self-aware/self-reflective.

5. When consciousness becomes self-reflective it will notice that it is bound by certain volitional necessities.

6. The most pervasive and fundamental volitional necessity is love.


Conclusion: Love is built into the fabric of the cosmos. It is a latent potentiality in every speck of matter. This is the fingerprint of God.

Commentary on the points:
1. Self explanatory. You are Exhibit A. So is a dog or mouse.

2. The rudimentary expression of consciousness is pleasure and pain. Pain uniformly signals damage and/or a potential loss of organizational integrity. Pleasure is just the opposite. Thus, consciousness doesn’t adhere to matter in a willy-nilly way. It is intimately involved in preserving organizational complexity. This ability to persevere—to maintain organizational integrity—allows matter to evolve into more complex configurations. Again, you are Exhibit A. Your existence is evidence that both #1 and #2 are true.

3. Again, this is simply a statement of fact. You are both more complex—structurally and consciously—than a dog. And a dog more than a mouse. And so on.

4. Eventually, consciousness can get to the point where it can model/reflect/mirror/represent its own structure. Once this point is reached the two structures—mind and matter—can be leveraged off one other facilitating, in exponential ways, the processes of #1-#3. That is, a self-aware structure can note that it is a structure and can, therefore, become an originator of new structures (i.e., we create physical and mental structures: we build.).

5. When self-reflective consciousness emerges, the agent will become aware that she is volitionally committed to things beyond her own choosing. That is, she will notice that she is volitionally invested and committed it certain ways. These investments (volitional necessities) are what the agent notices she “cares” about. These are discovered rather than chosen.

6. As the agent sorts her experience the most fundamental investments are those she loves. These loves form the foundation of the conscious experience.

I keep reflecting on issues concerning free will, moral agency, and soteriology. In my past posts on this subject I’ve offered critique more than offering something constructive. However, I’ve recently read a book that I think helped move my ideas in a more constructive direction.

First, for new readers, a recap of positions I’ve argued for in past posts. Consider these my Eight Theses, propositions you'll be exposed to if you read this blog regularly:

1. We are living in what I’ve called the post-Cartesian world. That is, with the rise of neuroscience and behavioral genetics, Cartesian dualism is growingly untenable.

2. A casualty in the post-Cartesian world is what I’ve called strong volitionalism. Strong volitionalism generally takes the form of “free will” or notions of “radical autonomy.”

3. Thus, in the post-Cartesian world weak volitional models will begin to predominate. Weak volitional models will have more anemic visions of human will, agency, and autonomy. The will is more contingent.

4. Given the contingent nature of the will, traditional notions of moral agency will need to be revised. Specifically, moral luck becomes an important issue that needs to be dealt with.

5. Moral luck will reconfigure notions of moral praise or blame with notions of moral fortune or misfortune.

6. These post-Cartesian adjustments will need to be accommodated by theological systems both systematically and practically.

7. Systematic theological considerations will need to focus on post-Cartesian views of the cross, salvation, afterlife, eternal reward/punishment, and theodicy.

8. Practical theological considerations will need to focus on post-Cartesian spiritual formation, social justice, missions, and evangelism.

Sprinkled throughout this blog are posts where I have (and many of you have) commented on issues #1-8. Sometimes we have discussed the post-Cartesian situation (e.g., are we really in it?). Sometimes we have debated free will vs. determinism. Sometimes we have wondered about salvation or evangelism in the post-Cartesian situation. Sometimes we have wondered about the implications of determinism for theodicy. And sometimes we’ve wondered about the specter of nihilism in the post-Cartesian world.

What has troubled me in my prior posts and comments on these topics is that I seem to do a lot of complaining. I’ve complained a lot about how theologians should more seriously consider the post-Cartesian situation of theology. However, complaining may be fine but it’s not very helpful. Yet, my own efforts at a constructive response to the post-Cartesian situation have been piecemeal and, thus, to me at least, unsatisfactory.

However, a recent book by Harry Frankfurt entitled Taking Ourselves Seriously & Getting It Right has suggested to me a path by which I could pull some of my ideas together into a more parsimonious package.

There are a few points that intrigue me about Frankfurt’s ideas. First, he is a weak volitionalist. Second, he has carved an interesting pathway through the thorny and tired “free will vs. determinism” debate. He doesn’t solve the debate, but he does allow for interesting conversations to proceed as that debate rumbles on. Third, Frankfurt links the will with love. And finally, Frankfurt links both the will and love with normativity (i.e., our ethical concerns). And it is this linkage between will, love, and morality—clearly a connection of deep interest to both psychologists and theologians—which is the key insight that I’d like to build on.

Basically, Frankfurt sees both love and the will as key facets of normativity. Thus, Frankfurt starts off this book with this:

…love is constituted by desires, intention, commitments, and the like. It is essentially—at least as I construe it—a volitional matter. In my view, then, the ultimate source of practical normative authority lies not in reason but in the will.

Clearly, love, will, and normativity are foundational concerns for theology. Thus, any attempt to link the three in a weak volitional manner must surely pique our interest, particularly in our post-Cartesian situation.

So, in the coming posts I’ll work through Frankfurt’s analysis with an eye on creating a post-Cartesian theology (practically and systematically).

Over the weekend I participated in a cohort meeting for the Partnership for a Missional Church. The ACU-hosted PMC cohort is a group of Churches of Christ (two from Abilene but most from the DFW area) who are partnering with Church Innovations to work through the process of becoming a more missional church.

As Church Innovations defines it (in one diagram they use), a missional church is both nonconformist and engaged with the world. But this push--engagement--and pull--nonconformity--is difficult to implement. It's a complex dance between church and world. A missional church, seeking to interface with and serve the world, is going to find itself in lots of novel predicaments where older patterns of church life will not be effective. New patterns of Kingdom living will need to be established. But what will these new patterns look like?

In then end, this process is going to be scary and unsettling. Becoming a missional church is no linear process. And this insight over the weekend reminded me of a political science book I had just read.

In his book, The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall, political analyst Ian Bremmer plots nations from around the world on a graph charting both their openness to the wider world and their stability in the face of internal or external political shocks. After plotting modern nations Bremmer noticed that they fall along a curve with a J shape:

On the left side of the J we have closed, totalitarian countries--such as Iran and North Korea--who have achieved a modest degree of stability due to their authoritarian controls. On the far right of the J curve we have very open and very stable societies such as America and other liberal democracies around the world.

A couple of observations about the J curve. First, note that right side of the curve is higher than the left side. That is, openness, if it can be attained, produces a much more stable society. In contrast, although authoritarian regimes can through sheer military control gain some stability, their very techniques (e.g., control of media) limit the degree of growth the nation can hope for. Authoritarian countries will always, therefore, underperform.

A second feature of the J curve relates to the first. Note that the slopes of the curve differ on the right and left sides. The slope on the right side is very shallow. This indicates that very open societies, like America, are also very stable. It would take quite a lot disruption to destabilize America. By contrast, the slope on the left side of the J curve is much steeper. This indicates that a totalitarian regime, although currently stable, is also very fragile. If a coup were to occur, or if there were some other internal or external disruption, a totalitarian regime can quickly descend into chaos. Like Iraq did.

But here is the big point of Bremmer's J curve, and this is the same point that will occupy us: The path toward openness and greater stability is not a linear process. You'll notice the curve dips ominously between the right and lift sides.

Bremmer's point for American foreign policy concerns this dip, this J shape. Since the path toward greater stability via increasing openness is no linear trend, the American government must take care when it attempts to undermine totalitarian regimes by encouraging openness. This is due to the fact that, before the gains of openness are observed, a county on the far left side will quickly destabilize, abruptly descending into chaos. Like Iraq did. In short, you can't quickly undermine the totalitarian infrastructure and easily replace it with a more open form of government. There is that dip on the J curve that needs to be carefully anticipated and negotiated.

Bremmer's concern is this: Once a country is destabilized and has fallen from the high left side of the graph into the low pit of instability it has a choice to make. Will it continue on the route toward openness and the long-term gains of greater stability? Or will its courage fail? Will the nation, in the moment of chaos, turn an about-face and quickly run back up the left side of the J curve? Because, as we observed before, the left-hand slope is much steeper. Which means that, in the midst of chaos, reasserting a little more authoritarian control (decreasing openness, moving leftward on the openness axis) will reap you quick, short-term gains in stability. What happens, then, is that the country, instead of moving toward greater openness, simply replaces one authoritarian regime with another. The nation fails to travel successfully through the dip in the J curve and stays stuck on the left side of the graph.

In short, it is very hard and complicated for one country (like America) to move other nations (like Iraq, Iran, or North Korea) from the left side to the right side of J curve.

What, you may be asking, does the J curve have to do with becoming a missional church?

Lots, I think.

I don't think moving from being a traditionally structured church to becoming a missional church is a linear process. I think it is more like the J curve.

Let's revisit the J curve but relabel the axes. Let's label the X-axis Openness/Responsiveness to the Call of God in the World. This axis measures the degree to which the church is open and responsive to God's prompting and guidance in ministry efforts for the sake of the world. If a church is low on this axis that church is not responsive to new works of God. This is not to say the church is bad or ineffective. The programs of this church might be robust and flourishing. But these programs are more about serving the members (church as spiritual mall) than about following God out into the neighborhood and larger world.

Let's label the Y-axis Missional Effectiveness.

Okay, if we make these changes I think the J curve nicely captures the transition from a spiritual mall to a missional church.

First, it should be clear, if you look at the left side of the J curve again, that spiritual mall churches do good things. They are, to a certain degree, ministerially effective. However, because these churches are not open or responsive to the work of God in the world they tend to underperform. They are not reaching their full potential. Why? Well, speaking broadly, the members of these churches are approaching church as consumers. Rather than being responsive to God in the Stranger, a spiritual mall is responsive to the needs of its members. This is not intrinsically a bad thing, but it doesn't create healthy Kingdom habits.

But let's say you want to try to open this church up to the work of God, to seek God in the Stranger. You want them to come to church, not to get their needs met, but to meet the needs of others. You want them to approach Kingdom living missionally. Well, this will involve opening the church up to God's leading and toward a greater engagement with the Stranger on the Stranger's Turf. This way of doing church will involve, to say the least, a drastic shift in ecclesial imagination. What will church be like if this is the new vision?

Whatever that new vision is, the initial experience of the church, as it moves from the left to the right of the J curve, will be one of instability and unease. While the new missional structures are being experimented with the church will feel out of sorts and confused:

Who's in charge?
Is this the right thing to do?
Are we on a slippery slope here?
Are we neglecting our own people in doing this?
Is this safe for my kids?

As this happens the church will dip on the J curve, experiencing less effectiveness as it learns, makes mistakes, and figures what generally is going on. This is the crisis point.

During this period of chaos and instability will the church lose courage? Will it continue on the path of openness and responsiveness to the call of God? The fear is that these churches will lose heart and will, like Bremmer's analysis of totalitarian nations, rush back up the left side of the J curve. They will do this by retreating back into old patterns of behavior, recapturing the solace and comfort of those well-worn ways of doing things. Things get "back to normal."

I should note that the J curve also applies to individuals. To a certain extent, I can ignore God's voice in the world and still do good works. I can teach my class at church and send some money to Compassion International. I can drink Fair Trade coffee. Those are good things, but I'm underperforming. I'm not missional. I'm not seeking to find God in the daily flux of my life. I'm not extending the hospitality of the Kingdom to the stranger.

But to open myself up to that journey my life quickly gets confusing. Should I pick up every homeless person I see? I mean, I have a job to get to. In short, during the initial phases of becoming missional, I don't have structures in place to guide my choices. I'm in uncharted territory. So what will I do? End the experiment and retreat back up the left side of the J curve? Back to that place of safety and stability? Or will I persist, establishing new Kingdom habits for the sake of the world?

In short, I'm guessing becoming a missional church (or person) is not an easy or linear process. It's a J curve. Opening ourselves to the mission of God in the world is going to cause us to rethink lots of things about how we "do church" or what it means to extend the Peace of Christ to those we share table with.

So my question for both myself and my church is this: As we travel rightward on the J curve and reach the moment of crisis, will we retreat?

Or will we follow God into His Work?

Dear Reader,
This series on the Ecclesial Quotient (EcQ) is a playful attempt at recreational theology. That is, I propose to calculate your contribution to the Kingdom of God. Admittedly, this is a silly project but the series is interesting for a few reasons.

First, it allowed me to blog about social influence. So, if you read the series you'll encounter social network theory, weak ties, triadic closure, and the Small World Phenomena. These topics have some bearing upon church living.

Second, although a piece of playful theological musing, we can always be on the lookout for legitimate theological insight. When we shuffle our theological cards in unorthodox ways new combinations often occur. For me, there are a few such moments in this series.

Third, although the EcQ isn't a serious tool, does quantitative modeling have any place in church studies? This series made me wonder. In the end, given recent uses of mathematical models to predict marriage dynamics, I think a quantitative eccelesiology is a viable project.

Enjoy the EcQ!
Richard

The Ecclesial Quotient Series:
The Moral Exemplar Term: Here the EcQ is introduced and its first term specified.
The Social Influence Term: Connectors: Here the second term is specified and you gets lots of stuff about social network theory.
The Social Influence Term: Mavens and Salesmen: The second term is completed and the EcQ is put together.
Quantitative Eccesiology?: The EcQ is plotted in a 3D graph and the prospect of a quantitative eccesiology is playfully but also seriously forwarded.
A Tour of the EcQ: A 3D tour of the EcQ noting its theological implications.

More Quantitative Eccesiology:
The J-Curve and the Missional Church

Thanks to Jared I found out my Mac at home actually had an easy to use Grapher program. So...

I've spend some time fiddling with the program and plotting the EcQ. Jared's picture from the prior post was an unconstrained plot for all values of X and Y. But, since our MET and SIT terms only go from 0.0 to 1.0, only a part of that picture is really in play. These pictures show the relevant part of the function.

First, here's an angle from behind the EcQ (vertical) axis. The SIT score runs out toward the left and the MET score runs out toward the right:

Looking at the graph you can see that the EcQ captures the theology I intended. First, note that if your MET (Moral Exemplar Term) is zero your EcQ stays pegged at zero no matter how high (or low) your SIT (Social Influence Term) gets. Thus, no matter how socially influential you are, if you are a poor moral example your ecclesial contribution is zip.

Second, look at the next picture. Here the SIT axis is now running from your right to left and the MET is running away from you (i.e, increasing). Thus, as your MET increases your EcQ begins to take off. But note that the rise on the right side of the graph pegs out much lower than the rise on the left side.

This lopsidedness is due to the fact that on the right side of the graph your Social Influence Term is low and on the left side it is higher. Thus, although a high MET score results in a net positive EcQ, having a high SIT--you have a lot of social Oomph--yields a greater score.


In this final picture, the MET axis now faces you, increasing from left to right. This angle nicely shows the peak of the High MET/Low SIT person compared to the peak (seen in the far distance) of the High MET and High SIT person.



Overall, then, I'm theologically satisfied with the shape of the EcQ function.


P.S. Thanks for indulging me about the EcQ. I'm now finished with it. Have a great weekend!

A new era has dawned in theology. Quantitative Eccesiology!

Thanks to Jared Benge, the brilliant former student of mine, church studies just won't be the same.

Pictured here, Jared plotted the EcQ, mapping the set of scores defined by the function. That is, plug in your respective scores (the MET, and the SIT comprised of the Connector, Maven, and Salesmen Terms) and you'll find yourself plotted somewhere on the green surface. It is a map of the eccesial contribution of all possible people.

Now all Jared and I need to do is write a book, Quantitative Eccesiology, where we set forth equations capturing all sorts of eccesial dynamics and plot them in multidimensional spaces.

Sound crazy? Not so fast. John Gottman, the recognized world authority on marriage and marital therapy, has published a book full of graphs just like the one Jared plotted here. Check out Gottman's book The Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models. In The Mathematics of Marriage, Gottman plots all sorts of variables concerning the husband and wife using nonlinear mathematics to model and predict the dynamics of the marriage. The EcQ is baby stuff compared to Gottman's work. But the point is this: What Gottman has done with marriage should be applicable to eccesiology. It should be possible to identify variables in eccesial communities and model their dynamics: The ups and downs, the growth and collapse, the ebb and flow.

I was wanting to visualize the EcQ function but don’t have the software skills to plot it out for all values of MET and SIT. If any kind heart out there would mind plotting it and sending me a picture of the graph to post here I would really appreciate it.

Basically, the function is:

Z = X ((X + Y) / 2)

Where both X and Y are real values from 0.0 to 1.0.

I’d like to see the 3D plot of Z for all values of X and Y.

Anyone interested in wasting their time on this? My e-mail is beckr@acu.edu

Continuing on with my EcQ.

In the last post on the EcQ I started to build the Social Influence Term (SIT) for the EcQ. The SIT is based on Malcolm Gladwell's social influence model from the The Tipping Point based on three kinds of people: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. So, our SIT will be based on three scores for each of these social influence functions. Last post we talked about Connectors. Today we add the Mavens and Salesmen.

Mavens
According to Gladwell, a Maven is a person who accumulates knowledge and who possesses information. Mavens can be found in all kinds of areas. Who do you call to get information on the latest computer software? Cars? Music? Good movies? Good books? The people you call to get information in these areas are the Mavens in your life.

Mavens are important in that influence is more than just about connections (noted in our last post). We also need good information. We need to make judgments and we want to influence how other people make judgments. But we also want these judgments to be good judgments. And that requires good information.

Who are the Mavens for a church? Well, I'm going to define a Maven as a theological (systematic and practical) and biblical resource.

I don't know if you've noticed but there is a lot of crappy theology and teaching in the church. Thus, even if you have Connectors in a church, if the church is producing dysfunctional or sloppy teaching than the influence of the church will be either limited (rebuffed by members or outsiders) or unhelpful. Thus, it seems that the church needs more than just Connectors. It needs Mavens as well. Mavens should help a church "speak sense" both internally and externally. Mavens will also speak up and challenge silliness in the church before it gets out of hand. With Mavens, the church stays "on message," a message that is both reasonable and relevant.

How do we calculate a Maven Score? Again, here is where this EcQ exercise serves up some fun theological puzzles.

As a first pass, I'd say a Maven must possess both good biblical and theological knowledge. Biblical knowledge without good theology leads toward fundamentalism and dogmatism. And theology without the bible leads to heterodoxy.

(However, if you would like to formally enforce orthodoxy in your Mavens feel free to add a third term. Call it the Creedal Coefficient, where you rate the Creedal orthodoxy (e.g., assent to Nicene Creed or the creed of your denomination) of the Maven.)

Given that I'm weighting bible knowledge and theology equally the Maven Score would be:

(Biblical Knowledge Score)(Theology Score)

If you add the orthodoxy term you would have:

(Biblical Knowledge Score)(Theology Score)(Creedal Coefficient)

Each Score/Coefficient goes from 0.0 to 1.0 where 0.0 is biblical/theological/creedal idiocy (again, idiocy as in its original meaning: "one lacking in knowledge or skill") and 1.0 is some benchmark of your choosing. For example, the average theological/biblical competency produced by a seminary of your choice.

Salesmen
According to Gladwell, Salesmen are a select group of people with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing.

Salesmen inside the church I'll call recruiters. Recruiters are the people in your church who get excited about a new ministry or work and recruit others to the task. This might seem superficial, but a good recruiter will be someone who is sensitive to what God is doing and being responsive to that leading. Thus, a good recruiter is not just about passion but about discernment as well.

Salesmen outside the church I'll call evangelists. I think their function is obvious.

So, our Salesmen Score is:

(Recruiter Term + Evangelist Term) / 2

Where both terms are again rated from 0.0 to 1.0 indicating how your church community rates your performance as either a Recruiter or Evangelist.

The Calculation of the Social Influence Term
Okay, with last post and this post in hand we can now create our Social Influence Term based on the Connector, Maven, and Salesmen Scores:

SIT = (Connector Score + Maven Score + Salesmen Score) / 3

The EcQ (as of this post)
Okay, we now have two terms for our Ecclesial Quotient, our cutting edge index quantifying your contribution to the local church. As of this post the EcQ has two terms:

The Moral Exemplar Term (MET) = The degree to which you manifest the Fruits of the Spirit (ranges from 0.0 to 1.0)

The Social Influence Term (SIT) = The degree to which you influence the church or community by being either a Connector, Maven, or Salesmen (ranges from 0.0 to 1.0)

Okay, given these terms, how should we relate them to each other? Well, I'm not so hot at math so I don't have on hand cool functions for this. So, my attempt at this is going to be rather basic. Here's one way of doing it:

EcQ = MET ((MET + SIT) / 2)

Can you see the theology I'm attempting in this equation? I don't just want to average the MET and SIT. I think the MET is more important. Particularly if the MET is 0.0. That is, I don't want this score to inflate only due to the SIT. So, I'm averaging the MET and the SIT but then multiplying that score by the MET. This uses the MET as an overall weight. Thus, if the MET is zero or close to zero this multiplication knocks the whole EcQ down to zero.

For example, let's say your SIT is .85. This means that you have a good degree of social influence in your church because you possess Connector, Maven, or Salesmen talents. But let's say your MET score is low (e.g., your basically a jerk), MET = .12. Calculating:

EcQ = .12 ((.12 + .85) / 2) = .05

This seems right to me. Although your averaged MET and SIT scores equal .48, which seems respectable, this number is mainly due to your talents as a social influencer. So, we correct for this, by weighting that score with your MET, and the number gets knocked down to .05. Thus, although you possess some social talent, because you're such a jerk, your overall contribution to the church is basically nil.

But let's say your MET is equal to your SIT score of .85. Calculating:

EcQ = .85 ((.85 + .85) / 2) = .72

And this seems about right. Your EcQ is high indicating that you are both a good person and have social influence.

Finally, let's say your MET is high (,85) but your social influence is low (.12). Calculating:

EcQ = .85 ((.85 + .12) / 2) = .41

And again this seems right. Your low SIT score doesn't knock your score to zero as a low MET would. That is, being a good person, regardless of your social influence, is a positive contribution to the church. But the witness of your MET score doesn't have the same social Oomph when compared to someone with a higher SIT score.

So, there it is. What do you think of the EcQ so far? Should it be modified or add terms? I'm not sure where to go next with it so it might be finished.

Recreational Theology
Well, I kept thinking about the EcQ all weekend.

You know, this EcQ strikes be as being a kind of recreational theology. In mathematics there is a long history of "recreational mathematics." These are puzzles and problems that both professional and amateur mathematicians work on for the sheer fun of it. Oftentimes, these recreational musings have led to legitimate scholarly breakthroughs. I'm thinking of my EcQ in this tradition. Silly theological musings for the fun of it, but on the lookout for something more serious should it pop up.

The Tipping Point and a Social Influence Term for the EcQ
After the Moral Exemplar Term I wanted to infuse the EcQ with some social dynamism, give the index some social kick. Why? Well, much of the church appears to be about influence.

What this means is that we should not just try to capture how good a person you are, but also how influential or impactful you are. This seems important to capture in that the church is trying to impact/influence people both inside and outside the church. And, for better or worse, this influence/impact of the church has to be delivered by its members. So the question is, how do you function/contribute to this process?

Well, to build this influence term on some theoretical structure I'm going to pull some ideas from Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling book The Tipping Point.

The Tipping Point is often defined as the moment when the unique becomes common. As we watch society we can see various trends, ideas, or behaviors percolate through populations. What first started as a local phenomena reaches a point where it goes "global." The transition between unique-to-common and local-to-global is called "the tipping point."

Gladwell's book is a meditation and analysis of this phenomena, providing lots of interesting examples in American society and culture. At root he notes that the tipping point is fundamentally about people and social influence. More specifically, Gladwell identifies three kinds of people who he suspects to be behind the tipping point. He calls these "personality types" the Connector, the Maven, and the Salesman.

Given that the church is interested in the unique/common and local/global shift (i.e., the church wants her message or ministerial efforts to "expand"), it seems that Gladwell's Tipping Point analysis might be helpful. So, we are going to build our EcQ Influence Term around his idea of the Connector, Maven, and Salesman. Today I'm going to focus on the Connector.

Connectors at Church
Defining the Connector is fairly easy. A Connector is someone who appears to know just about everyone. We all live in a nexus of social associations, some strong (e.g., friends) and some weak (e.g., acquaintances). Well, for Connectors this nexus is simply larger than average, their collection of friends and acquaintances is greater than yours or mine.

We all know people who are Connectors. Perhaps you are a Connector. On a personal note, I'm married to one. And Jana, my wife, gives us a sense of just how important Connectors are to the mission of the church. For example, my wife and her friends had started a cooking club. It was a mixture of diverse women from all over the city and different churches. Some had been living in Abilene a long time and were well connected and others were new to town and were looking for social relationship through the club. On the first meeting of the club the women thought it would be nice, as they introduced themselves to each other, if they could tell about how they came to be in the club. Well, as they went around the room a familiar pattern emerged: Everyone there had some connection to Jana. Sometimes it was direct connection (e.g., "Jana asked me to join the club") and sometimes it was an indirect connection (e.g., "Jana invited me and I invited Sue."). But all the connections traced back to Jana. This is the behind-the-scences magic of connectors: They bring diverse groups of people together.

This talent, it seems to me, is valuable to the church. If lots of church life is about trying to bring diverse groups of people together than Connectors would be critical to this endeavor.

Interlude: Triadic Closure, Weak Ties, Bridges, and the Small World Phenomenon
I'd like to tell you, in some detail, the "Why?" of the Connector's magic. This little excursion will take us into social network theory and its literature. If you want to skip a technical discussion feel free to go on to the next section.

In his famous 1973 article entitled The Strength of Weak Ties, the sociologist Mark Granovetter gave us a social network theory that allows us to understand the power of Connectors.

First, let's start by distinguishing between strong (e.g., friend) and weak (e.g., acquaintance) ties. Technically, the Connector is someone who specializes in the weak tie. They simply know lots of different kinds of people. They are not friends with all these people. There are limits to their time. But they have a lot of acquaintances and potential friends. That is, the Connector may not have more strong ties than you and I, but they do have lots more weak ties than we do.

Let us now imagine a group of three people who can be weakly or strongly associated with each other. If all three people are strongly associated with each other we have a group of three good friends. If we imagine these people as all weakly associated we have three people who know each other as passing acquaintances. Or we can imagine different combinations, where A is strongly tied to B and B is weakly tied to C, etc.

One of Granovetter's insights about the social dynamics between these three people (A, B, and C) is a notion called triadic closure. Imagine A, B, and C as points on a triangle. Now imagine that A is strongly associated with B and strongly associated with C, but B and C have no association. If you drew links for the strong ties, the ABC diagram would look like a "V" with A at the bottom and B and C at the two top points. You see the gap across the top of the "V", the lack of a tie between B and C. Well, Granovetter noted that this "V" shape will not last for long. Eventually, if B and C share strong ties with A, that mutual association with A will create at least a weak tie (and perhaps, eventually, a strong tie) between them. Thus, a line is drawn across the top of the "V", connecting B and C and closing the triangle. This is called triadic closure.

All this sounds so technical so let me illustrate how mundane and commonsensical it all is. Alice is good friends with Beth and Candy. But Beth and Candy don't know each other. But as time goes on they learn of each other. Alice talks about Candy to Beth and Beth to Candy. Eventually, Alice wants to go to a movie or out to lunch. So she invites her two good friends, Beth and Candy. Thus, over time, because of the mutual strong association with Alice, Beth and Candy will, at the very least, become acquaintances (i.e., share a weak tie). The triangle closes.

Note that this triadic closure only occurs if these are strong ties. If three people are bound by weak ties no closure will necessarily occur. That is, I can't be expected to bring two of my acquaintances together, but I can be expected to make two of my good friends share at least some time together.

If triadic closure holds, and there is good reason to believe it does, the "V" shape we have discussed is a forbidden triad. That is, given triadic closure, the "V" will close. Thus, the "V" configuration cannot be a standing and realistic feature in any map of social networks. All those "V" shapes eventually close off. The shape is "forbidden."

So what? Well, with the forbidden triad and triadic closure in hand we can now see the power of Connectors. To see this for yourself it might be helpful for you do draw a network on a piece of paper. Write the letters A, B, C and D on one side of a piece of paper and the letters E, F, G, and H on the other side of the paper. These letters represent people. Now connect the letters A-D with lines. Use a regular line to represent a strong tie and a dotted line for a weak tie. Since this is a group of friends everyone must have at least one strong tie with someone else in the group. Given this specification, draw your lines. When you are done, look for any forbidden triads. When you find them, close the gap with a weak tie (i.e., a dotted line). Done? Okay, now move to the group E-H and do the same. When you are done you'll have before you a model network of two groups of friends.

Okay, now pick a letter A-D and draw a strong tie between that letter and a letter from E-G. Once you draw that strong tie you'll see you just created a forbidden triad. Thus, you must close it off. This means that instead of one link joining these groups (the strong tie you just drew) there will quickly emerge a second tie joining the two groups (the weak tie you must draw to create triadic closure). In short, a strong tie will quickly create multiple links between groups.

Now erase those two linking ties and start over. Draw a weak tie between a letter A-D and a letter E-G. You will notice that a weak tie joining the groups will not create triadic closure. Only one tie will link the groups.

Why is this important? Well, let's say someone in the A-D cluster wants to pass a message to someone in the E-G cluster. If the two groups share a strong tie there will be at least two routes for get the message over: The strong tie and the weak tie that was created via triadic closure. But if there is only a weak tie connecting the two clusters there is only one pathway: The solo weak tie.

When there is only one route to transmit information through a network we call that route a bridge. Note, then, what we have just demonstrated: Only weak ties can serve as bridges.

With all this before us, we can now recap our argument about the special power of the Connector:

1. As stated previously, the magic of Connectors is that they bring diverse people together.

2. How do they accomplish this magic? Well, as we have noted Connectors specialize in the weak tie.

3. Great, but why are weak ties important? Because certain weak ties are rare and special. All bridges, the only link between two disparate social clusters, must be weak ties.

4. Conclusion: Connectors, those collectors of weak ties, will be the people possessing most of the bridges. Thus, Connectors are the ONLY route to bring diverse groups together. Connectors are social glue, they hold dislocated clusters of people together.

This dynamic--weak ties are bridges--is also behind what is known as the Small World Phenomenon or Six Degrees of Separation. This idea was first explored by the psychologist Stanley Milgram. Milgram asked a group of students to try to mail a letter to a target person, a stranger, in a different state. Since the students did not know this person they were asked to forward the letter to someone of their acquaintances who might have a better chance of knowing the target. If this person didn't know the target they were to follow suit, forwarding the letter to someone of their acquaintance that might know the target. As so forth. The idea is to keep forwarding the letter through a social network, trying to get it closer and closer to the target until someone actually KNOWS the target and delivers the letter.

Well, many of the letters in Milgram's study did make it to the target. Later, when Milgram calculated the results, he found that the letters were forwarded about an average of six times, the now famous six degrees of separation.

The study suggested that our social worlds might be very small in the sense that we can find network paths linking just about everyone in the world in just a few steps. But here is the important part. Most of these links are of necessity bridges (i.e., weak ties). Thus, we see another function of Connectors: They make the world smaller.

The Value of Connectors
Connectors, we have seen, make the world smaller. By specializing in the weak tie, they bring diverse groups together. Connectors are social glue. And this is important to the church for a couple reasons.

First, Connectors play a valuable role INSIDE the church. Church is often about hospitality, connection, cohesion, and coordination. And most of this social work passes through the Connectors in the church. They hold the diverse groups of the church together.

Second, Connectors play a valuable role OUTSIDE the church. The church seeks to communicate with and influence its host city. To do this effectively the church will need connections. And Connectors are vital to making this happen.

The Social Influence Term: Connector
In sum, to give the EcQ some social Oomph I'm going to create a Social Influence Term. A part of that term will be your Connector Score. Your Connector Score will be calculated by comparing the number of your weak and strong ties with the population distribution (e.g., a score of .50 places you in the 50%ile, a score of .73 places you in the 73%ile). Thus, the higher your score (ranging from 0.0 to 1.0) the more weak and strong ties you possess relative to the population.

If you would like to know how one might estimate such a thing check out The Tipping Point where Gladwell has a nifty little way to estimate how much of a Connector you are.

Okay, then. Recapping, our EcQ will have two terms, a Moral Exemplar Term (see prior post) and a Social Influence Term. The Social Influence Term has yet to be specified but we know that a part of it will be your Connector Score.

(If you are interested in topics of this post start with The Tipping Point. From there, other good books on social networks, network theory, and the Small World are Linked and Six Degrees.)