This post is a little late, but I was in Germany last month. This last June marked the 40 year anniversary of Robert Kennedy's assassination and the end of his 1968 presidential campaign. I've always been intrigued by Bobby's last campaign because I feel that he found something, morally speaking, during those fateful months in '68. I, and many others, wonder what could have been if Bobby had lived. I was reminded of all this after reading two recent books. The first is The Last Campaign: Robert Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America by Thurston Clarke. The second is A Time it Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties by Time photographer Bill Eppridge, a book largely composed of previously unpublished pictures of RFK's presidential run.

It is true that Bobby inspires mixed feelings and reactions, but I feel that something happened to him in the wake of his brother's assassination. To cope with his pain Bobby turned to the Greeks. One of his favorite quotes in speaking of JFK's death was this poem by Aeschylus:

Even in our sleep,
pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart until,
in our despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

I think Bobby, through his suffering, did find wisdom. Through his wounds he found a capacity to reach out to those who were suffering. This wisdom allowed Bobby to speak to pain as few could. Take, for example, Bobby's speech on April 4, 1968 as he addressed a volatile crowd in Indianapolis, just two hours after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Every major American city had race riots that night. But not in Indianapolis. To this day city leaders of Indianapolis credit Bobby's speech for the lack of violence in their city that night. As one black militant said of Bobby's speech: "We went there for trouble, but after he spoke we couldn't get nowhere." In that speech Bobby again appealed to the Greeks to show how we might use our pain to create a better world:

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world.

What I find amazing about Bobby's '68 campaign is that he was saying things that no candidate could say today. Bobby was hard, morally hard, on Americans. In campaign stop after campaign stop he spoke about poverty, race relations, and the war. He blasted American consumerism. Here, taken from Clarke's book, is one of my favorite passages from RFK's campaign speeches:

"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product, now, is over eight hundred billion dollars a year, but the GNP--if we should judge America by that--counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead...and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage...it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."

Perhaps the most interesting visual and theological feature of Orthodox icons is their use of reverse perspective.

As we look at paintings most of us expect to find the painter using linear perspective, where a vanishing point is placed at or close to the center of the painting. All lines converge on this point at a distant horizon. This use of "perspective" gives the two dimensional picture a sense of three-dimensional depth.

Icons, by contrast, use reverse perspective. In reverse perspective the vanishing point isn't placed "within" the picture. Rather, the vanishing point is placed at the site of the viewer with the lines of perspective expanding out from the viewer as one "enters" the world of the picture. This reversal is hard to describe with words so I made the following slide to try to illustrate the point:



In the pictures above the focal point is the red star. On the left is linear perspective. Here the lines of convergence surround the viewer and converge on a focal point "within" the picture. This creates the effect we are all familiar with when looking at paintings, the sense of looking "through" the picture as if looking out a window. On the right is reverse perspective. The focal point is "outside" the picture, placed on the observer. The lines of the picture move out from the picture to converge upon the viewer.

This use of reverse perspective is one of the reasons that square objects in icons seem oddly distorted. The 3D projection on the 2D surface using reverse perspective creates a different shape than what we are used to with linear perspective. This picture from Wikipedia illustrates the differences of this projection, with the projection of linear perspective on the left and reverse perspective on the right:



What is the visual effect of using reverse perspective? The effect mainly creates a sense that the space of the icon is "opening up." A few slides here to help illustrate this point:

Let's take that most famous icon, Rublev's Hospitality of Abraham, a depiction of the Trinity:



One can see in the icon that the perspective isn't linear:



Note how the white arrows, showing lines of linear perspective attempting to converge on a central vanishing point, go against the grain of the icon. Rather, the lines of the icon are expanding outward with the use of reverse perspective:



This creates a sense of the space "opening up." Note how, if linear perspective were used, the picture closes in, collapsing upon the vanishing point:



But with the use of reverse perspective the world of the icon opens up:



I hope you've enjoyed this little survey of reverse perspective. Now the question can be asked: What is the theological significance of this use of reverse perspective?

Three related answers present themselves. First, recall that icons are "Windows into Heaven." Consequently, the world the icon is trying to depict is considered to be more real than this world. Ontologically larger, we might say. Thus, the use of reverse perspective helps communicate this truth. As we stare into the icon the world we are looking into isn't shrinking or vanishing. Rather, it is expanding and growing. I like to call this The Wardrobe Effect, borrowed from the scene in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where the children move into and through a small space (the Wardrobe) to emerge into this vast expansive space (Narnia). An icon is trying to create, via reverse perspective, this same effect upon us. Heaven is more real and larger than this world.

A second theological feature of reverse perspective is that the focal point sits upon the viewer. This changes the power relations between the icon and the viewer. In linear perspective we look at the icon. The focal point is "inside" the icon. In reverse perspective the icon is looking at you. You are the focal point. This reversal mirrors what was said earlier: The world of the icon is more real than this world. Specifically, with this reversal of focal points, you are the picture and Heaven is the watcher. This world is less real, a mere picture, to the reality of Heaven.

A final related point is how the reverse perspective marginalizes the viewer. In linear perspective you are the center of the cosmos. All horizons move out from you, the visual reference point. But with reverse perspective you are placed on the edge. As the focal point you are the small, distant, speck on the horizon in the view of Heaven. You are not large, but small. Not central, but peripheral. The reverse perspective of the icon is a theological assault upon our ego and pride.

My good friend Mark Love has just started a blog entitled All That to Say...

Mark has been responsible for much of my theological education. He's been a good friend and gadfly when I grow too heretical. Bookmark his blog. His interests are mainly concerned with ecclesiology, practical theology, the post-modern context, cultural studies, and the missional church.

As we saw with stylization and the use of light, icons also approach issues of space and time in a theological manner. As noted before, a failure to appreciate this theological approach cause confusion in the reader of the icon. (Icons are not "painted," they are "written." An iconographer "writes" an icon.)

Given that icons approach subjects theologically there are aspects of icons, as we have been noting, that make them less interested in "realism." The way icons approach time and space is a further example of this.

Specifically, given that icons attempt to depict the Vantage of Heaven traditional notions of physics and temporality are eshewed. Theologically understood, Heaven is outside of or transcends both time and space. Thus, icons routinely depict events from different times in the same space. A good example of this are icons of John the Baptist (see above). Specifically, John is often depicted with two heads. One on his shoulders and the other after his martyrdom. This is a good example of two different times being conflated in a single icon.

A second example of this conflation of time and space aimed at creating a View from Eternity are the Nativity icons. In this icon, a very busy one visually speaking, a variety of events that happened at different times and places are depicted in the same frame: Manger scene, shepherds in the field, and wise men. (Also, if you look closely, there are also extra-biblical events depicted. An interesting one is the Temptation of Joseph. Church tradition tells of Joseph being approached by the devil in the guise of an old shepherd. The devil tempts Joseph by asking him to question if the child of Mary is truly God's and not the offspring of some illicit encounter Mary had with another man. Look for this scene in the icon presented above. You may need to click on it to make it bigger. The scene is in the lower left corner.)

When you look at Orthodox icons one of the things that strikes you is how flat they look. Again, this flatness might be mistaken for artistic primitiveness or inexpertness. This assumption would be mistaken. Like all things in icons this perception of flatness has a theological aspect.

Orthodox icons appear flat because iconographers are working with theological assumptions regarding the Divine Light, the Uncreated Light in Heaven. Recall, icons are depictions of persons alive in heaven. It is entirely acceptable to approach icons as "Windows into Heaven." If so, how are we to depict Heaven?

One aspect of this depiction is to take a cue from Revelation 21

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

...I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.

Icons attempt to represent this Uncreated Light through three things, all of which contribute to that sense of flatness.

First, icons tend not to show backgrounds. Instead, icon backgrounds tend to be filled with a diffuse golden light. This lack of a formal background contributes to the sense of a lack of depth, but we can now appreciate its theological aspect: A depiction of a land filled with light.

Second, icons don't show shadows. For two reasons. First, shadows, archetypally, imply darkness and even evil. Second, shadows are cast by the localized light of the sun (the Created Light). In Heaven the Uncreated Light is not localized, it is omnipresent. Thus, there are no shadows in Heaven.

Finally, related to the point about shadows, iconographers use little or no chiaroscuro. Chiaroscuro is the contrast between light and dark in painting. It can be used to make pictures very dramatic. It also makes the picture rich and deep, perspectively speaking. Icons don't use chiaroscuro for the reasons we have just observed. In Heaven, infused with the omnipresent Divine Light, there are no striking light/dark contrasts.

All in all, icons appear "flat" for all these related theological reasons. But with this theological understanding in place we are in a much better situation to appreciate the rich theology of the icon.

Prior to my departure to Germany I led a class at my church on Greek Orthodox iconography. Not being Orthodox, I was pleased to invite and partner with Father LeMasters, the priest of St. Luke's our local Orthodox congregation. Fr. LeMasters visited the class one evening to discuss Orthodox theology generally and the theology of icons specifically. Two weeks later the class had a field trip to St. Luke's where we observed the icons and discussed their role in Orthodox worship. At St. Luke's the congregation's official iconographer also spoke to us.

Surrounding these classes I also gave a couple of presentations about my discoveries concerning Orthodox iconography. Again, I'm not Orthodox so I'll call these posts "notes" to signal that one shouldn't read these posts as authoritative accounts. These are exploratory observations from someone outside the Orthodox tradition.

What I want to do in these notes is point out a few of the visual features of Orthodox iconography noting the theological rationales behind them.

To begin, to understand Orthodox iconography one needs to come to grips with a core notion in Orthodox theology: Theosis.

Theosis refers to the process of divinization, deification, or "making divine" by participating in the Life of God. The idea of theosis is probably best captured by St. Athanasius: “God became human so humans would become gods."

Western Christians may superficially understand theosis, but the Eastern vision of it is a bit stronger and deeper than is typically understood in Western churches, particularly Protestant churches. That is, salvation as Protestants understand it is largely about one's status as Saved or Lost before God. To be Saved is to have one's sins forgiven. This view of salvation tends to be dominated by the soteriological metaphor of penal subsitutionary atonement.

Theosis, by contrast, is a deeper and richer concept. Salvation is less about status than about more and more deeply participating in, and being transformed by, the Life of God. To be saved is to be changed from human to divine.

Once we understand the Orthodox focus on theosis we can begin to appreciate a variety of visual features in Orthodox iconography. Specifically, we see how the icons are attempting to portray theosis.

When we look at an icon we are seeing the depiction of someone who is alive. Yes, the person portrayed in the icon (e.g., Jesus, Mary, a saint) may have "died" but the icon is an attempt to depict a person still very much alive and with us. These persons are well down the path of theosis. For example, during their earthly lifetime saints have moved well into the Life of God. They have been transformed, even while on earth. Now, in heaven, this process has continued. Thus, to depict a saint in an icon is to depict someone both human and divine. More specifically, it is to depict someone who was human now becoming divine. A depiction of the fusion between flesh and spirit.

This theological facet of icons is why Orthodox icons are so stylized. Naive readers of icons might be struck by their lack of realism, wrongly assuming that Orthodox iconographers are unskilled artists. This would be a mistaken assumption. The icons are highly stylized to reflect a spiritual truth: These people are both body and soul, human and divine, flesh and spirit:

“…as it accumulated spiritual qualities, the icon sought to transform the flesh, to deprive it of its course material substance, to dissolve it in light and re-mould it in spiritual plasma. Icons are sacred images that reflect the physical and the spiritual, the human and the Divine, the visible and the invisible.”
--A History of Icon Painting, p. 13

"In calling to mind the saints and their struggles, an icon does not simply represent the saint as he appeared upon the earth. No, the icon depicts his inner spiritual struggle; it portrays how he attained to that state where he is now considered an angel on earth, a heavenly man. This is precisely the manner in which the Mother of God and Jesus Christ are portrayed. Icons should depict that transcendent sanctity which permeated the saints."
--Saint John of San Francisco

A beautiful feature of this aspect of icons is how the body, in all its physicality, is embraced by Orthodox theology. This is in stark contrast to the gnostic strains often found in Western Christianity with its deep ambivalence about the human body.

“Yet this movement away from matter to spirit never leads to the disappearance of the bodily element in the icon, to abstractionism, in which symbols and signs exist without anthropomorphic forms. That would mean going beyond the bounds of Christology. Orthodox icons are based on belief in the Incarnation, which not only does not deny the flesh, but sanctifies it and gives it new, higher meaning. Christianity found a truly royal path between two extremes--the cult of the body and its rejection--in the sanctification and transfiguration of the flesh.”
--A History of Icon Painting (p. 14-15)

This embrace of the physical, not just in the style of icons but also in their mere existence as physical representations, is one of the most attractive features of Orthodox theology and iconography.

Reflecting on my last post and on your comments I'd like to add some additional analysis and clarifications.

When community is deployed generally three things are being discussed and, in my opinion, this conflation of meanings is a part of the problem involving the overly loose deployment of "community" as a theological response. Specifically, the category community is used to address the following areas:

1. Relationality: "Community" means to live in relationality with others.

2. Hermeneutics and doctrine: "Community" means to read scripture and speak about God in a way that is accountable to the church, the community of God (however you understand that).

3. Moral discernment: "Community" means to discern moral issues in a way that is accountable to the church, the community of God (however you understand that).

These areas are often conflated and I think we need more care in separating them. Broadly, the category "community" is being used in the same way across the domains. That is, community is the claim for a degree of interdependence and accountability. To reduce human pride and increase human compassion I am to live in relationship with others. To prevent deviant readings of scripture I am to lean on the Voices of the church, both living and dead. And, finally, to prevent deviant moral practices I must summit my moral choices to verdict of an adjudicating community.

To this point I have no quibbles with "community." I think all reasonable people see the deep wisdom here. Mutual accountability is vital. But my concerns in the last post were voiced to suggest that beyond this facile deployment of community there needs to be some deeper reflection.

First, note that my concerns in the last post have to do with domains #2 and #3. In my comments about friendship I hope I was clear that I have no issues with relationality. I do, however, prefer the words friendship, solidarity, and fraternity over community as they keep the issue focused on domain #1 preventing confusion with the other two domains I have issues with: Doctrine and morality.

Regarding domain #2, hermeneutics and doctrine, the issue I raised is how the deployment of "community" can be used to shut down prophets. I used the case of Martin Luther, but I could just have well used Jesus. Both were accused of stepping outside of tradition, the communal voice of Scripture. I, personally, have seen this time and time again: Community is used as a theological club to beat novel readings of Scripture back into the grooves of orthodoxy. I am not suggesting we get rid of the notion of tradition and communal readings of Scripture. I'm only suggesting that the deployment of "community" in doctrinal disputes can be a power play, a theological accusation where the prophetic voice is bullied, theologically, into silence.

Similar concerns are raised for domain #3, moral adjudication. It is true that our moral decision occur in a network of human relations. Morality is intimately involved with communal justifications for one's behavior.

But groups, we know, can go astray. A group's moral code (think if Hitler's Germany) can become deviant. Were a prophet to rise up in critique of the group the prophet's moral sensibilities would be radically "off" from the group. Again, in this case the group could deploy the theological category of "community", noting the "off-ness" of the prophet's moral code, to shut down or eject the prophet. In this case the deployment of community is an evil and not a good.

In conclusion, my concerns about community are primarily about doctrine and morality and the very real possibility of group error. The facile deployment of community is at risk of boiling down to Richard Rorty's infamous statement that truth is simply whatever your community lets you get away with. As I've stated, this notion of communal consensus has three related problems:

1. No way to handle group error.
2. The exclusion of prophets.
3. A power play used against dissenting voices.

To deal with these issues I would suggest that community is never deployed without the dialectic of prophecy. That is, we stop speaking solely of community and speak of community and prophecy. For example, we replace a sentence such as "We read Scripture communally" with this: "We read the Scripture communally and prophetically."

That is, we do theology both within community and against the community.

In my Psychology of Ideology class here in Germany we’ve been looking at the Protestant Reformation. Last week we visited Wittenberg. We had a marvelous time visiting Marin Luther’s house and walking through the town to Schlosskirche (Castle Church) where Luther nailed the 95 Theses.

As most will know, a pivotal moment in the Reformation and in Luther’s life was his trial at the Diet of Worms. Luther had been excommunicated, just weeks after he burned the papal bull warning him that he was walking a thin line. At the Diet of Worms the secular authorities were to hear Luther’s case to decide if they would enforce the bull, to arrest Luther and hand him over to Rome. Once in Rome Luther would have certainly been burned at the stake.

To save his skin all Luther had to do was recant. Famously, he refused. With these words:

"Unless I shall be convinced by the testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear reason...I neither can nor will recant, since it is neither safe nor honorable to act against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

The last bit may be apocryphal, but “Here I stand. I can do no other.” makes for a great line. One of the most famous in world history.

As I pondered Luther I began to circle around some ideas and concerns I’ve been having about contemporary theological thinking. Luther helps me raise some issues I’ve been worried about.

Today it is very fashionable in theological circles to speak of community. “Community” is the answer to practically every theological question we can ask. Further, the centrality of community is supported by ontological claims grounded in notions of the Trinity. Trinity and community are where it’s at.

But as a psychologist I have a lot of trouble with community. Let me be specific. Groups are moral cesspools. Pick up any social psychology textbook and you find the evidence:

In-group favoritism
Out-group denigration
Cliques
Stereotypes
Groupthink
Group conformity
Peer pressure
Social loafing
The Bystander Effect
Free Riders
Racism
Infrahumanization
Obedience to Authority
The Lucifer Effect

On and on it goes.

Now I know that the dark side of social psychology isn’t what is being invoked when “community” is mentioned in theological conversation. Just the opposite is being discussed. But at just this point my worries start. I worry about if the highfalutin language of Trinity and community can cash out at the level of social psychology. I don’t trust human groups. They do a lot of evil things. Especially religiously-motivated groups.

Don’t get me wrong. I think friendship is one of the greatest goods of human existence. But friendship, which I have no problems with, is very different from community.

Now someone might (and should) respond that the evils I’m speaking of are due to homophilia, the love of the similar. Homophilia creates these homogeneous groups that define themselves over against other groups. In contrast, the community of God should be based on heterophilia, the love of difference. This kind of community is difficult to achieve, we have to sacrifice a great deal to live with difference.

But it is precisely at this point where the whole “community project” starts to break down. For loving “the different” has to stop at some point. Eventually the faith-group will draw a line in the sand. We’ll be “in communion” up until this point. It might be a doctrinal issue or a behavioral code. Regardless, even the purest form of Christian Community cited by modern day theologians will be defined by a line discriminating those who are In and those who are Out.

So the issue quickly becomes: Who gets to draw that line? This is where Luther’s case becomes important. Luther was excommunicated for being a dangerous heretic. But isn’t heresy simply going against the consensus? Luther was repeatedly asked before, during, and after the Diet of Worms: How can you trust your individual conscience in the face of centuries of church teaching? Why are you so certain YOU are right and THE CHURCH is wrong? Isn’t Luther’s stance simply one of hubris?

In today’s church individualism is a bad word. It’s the stain of modernity and post-modernity. The taint of the Enlightenment. Rugged individualism is bad, community is good. Yet the force of the individual’s conscience in the face of the community began at the Diet of Worms, an event lauded by the theologians and church historians who are touting the evils of “individualism.” Isn’t that a bit ironic?

Maybe individualism isn’t so bad. And maybe community isn’t as good as we think it is.

I’m being a bit provocative with all this, but I think there is an important issue here that is currently not getting enough airtime in all the talk about community. The issue is this: How can prophets emerge unless we allow for individualism? And if prophets are consistently the moral lights among us then is not individualism—the light of an individual’s conscience before God—the engine of spiritual reform? If so, it is individualism that is driving the Kingdom forward and community, as it so often does, which is holding it back.

Contents

Prologue and Abstract

Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: The Layered Gospel Context
Chapter Three: Today’s Warring Intellectual Context
Chapter Four: A Perpetual Warring Intellectual Context
Chapter Five: A Primer—The Bible’s Broadest Theme
Chapter Six: The Voice of Conscience
Chapter Seven: The Voice of God
Chapter Eight: The Message of the Cross as Supreme Answer
Chapter Nine: The View from Enlightened Self-Interest
Chapter Ten: The Challenge from Kantian Autonomy
Chapter Eleven: The View from James’ Radical Question
Chapter Twelve: The View from Sartre’s Bad Faith
Chapter Thirteen: Kierkegaard’s Challenge to Intelligibility—First Part
Chapter Thirteen: Kierkegaard’s Challenge to Intelligibility—Second Part

Epilogue

We can now see how divine sacrifice on our behalf affirms the radical question of life that, ultimately, reality is moral. The message of the cross, by depicting that affirmation, becomes the proper object of human faith. The Gospel According to John calls the message of Jesus’ life and death “the light of men.” (John 1:4) We have identified that light with conscience, and connected the light of conscience to faith that God will vindicate the person who seeks to live in its light.

Of course, these are statements of faith. But we can now also understand that no neutral position is possible with respect to the supreme question, and a person who does not understand that does not understand the first thing about faith, that it begins with affirmation. For the supreme question is posed to the naked human psyche, with not even a conceptual fig leaf in place to divert one’s gaze from the naked fact that one must choose.

A man who farms near a university that is famous for the study of agriculture likes to tell this story. He hosts students from the university on tours of his farm, and on those tours students frequently ask questions such as, “What’s growing in that field?” and, “What’s that over there?”
“Beans,” he says, and “Planter.”

As a person can study agriculture without learning the first thing about it from the perspective of a farmer, so a person can study theology without learning the first thing about it from the perspective of a person of faith. Consider a Christian who goes to church on Sunday and is told of her need for faith in God’s gracious sacrifice for her. Somehow that message strikes a chord in her heart. Somehow that message addresses troubling practical dilemmas that arise in her life. Somehow the sacrament of communion cuts to the very core of her being, and she strives to live in accord with the message.

Her will has engaged the message, and the message has engaged her will. That is the first and most important thing about her faith. Her faith is not supported by any formal rationale, and she knows that. But her faith is vital, because it moves her feelings and motivates her actions. She believes that she is a better person for having faith.

A student of theology may look to wrap these first things of faith in a rationale, and so provide clothes to cover this naked faith. But by doing so, he makes them last things, conclusions, and he thereby treats faith as though it is a mistake, or at best, a stand-in for understanding. The implication is that the truth about God did not need to come into the world.

From the standpoint of faith, however, we should not expect to discover the truth about it by means of science or philosophy, or even theology, any more than we should expect to discover the meaning of an author’s text by placing it in test tubes. For the answer we seek requires a higher order than nature; consequently, anything that we can discover by means of answering lesser questions is necessarily not what seek in asking the supreme question. Christian Scripture tells us that Jesus was God incarnate, the divine Logos of creation given human flesh, who in a supreme irony died for us. That message poses itself to us as creatures, putatively, by divine inspiration. Thus, we must hear it as creatures listening to the voice of God speaking to our core existential question, not as scientists or scholars.

We have considered the spiritual meaning of Jesus’ life on the supposition that he was God incarnate. All that we can know is that the message of the cross answers the deepest question that we face as morally sensitive beings. In other words, all that we can know, apart from faith, is that we are considering the right answer to the right question. To call the answer the truth, however, is a choice, not a conclusion: and a naked choice, one that cannot be clothed in conclusions derived from this world’s wisdom. But there is a much better way to say this:

“Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:15)

Kierkegaard once wrote that it would be good enough for the purposes of faith “If the contemporary generation [with Jesus] had left nothing behind them but these words: ‘We have believed that…God appeared among us in the humble figure of a servant, that he lived and taught in our community, and finally died… …this nota bene on a page of universal history…would be sufficient to afford an occasion [for faith] for a successor, and the most voluminous account can in all eternity do nothing more.”1 I agree, in that faith is a permanent possibility for all human beings; for it is the resolution of a dilemma at the core of human nature, as I hope has been shown. We must be careful not to make faith something less than that.

It must be added to Kierkegaard’s nota bene, however, that divine sacrifice for the sake of humanity is needed. For it is the question of whether to sacrifice one’s self-interest in order to do the right thing for the sake of others, when necessary, that underlies the supreme question, the radical question of life. In biblical language, it is “the message of the cross” that answers that radical question of life by depicting divine sacrifice for the sake of humanity.

For one must believe that God is willing to sacrifice for us in answer to the supreme question for the same reasons that Abraham had to be willing to make his stupifying sacrifice in order to be an exemplar of faith for us. And so the message of the cross becomes the object of faith for a righteous belief, a belief fit for a humanity that acknowledges the calling to a higher way of life.

Jesus is said to have used parables to describe the impact of having faith that one has “found” this higher way. Here is one.

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." (Matthew 13:44)

Returning a last time to the story of Jesus’ trial, it presents an ideal microcosm in which to examine the essential teaching of Christian faith. Jesus prompted Pilate’s famous question—“What is truth?”—by saying, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” The famous question followed, and then Jesus’ silence, a silence made suspect by his statement and compounded by his status and cemented by the general biblical silence about the claim. And yet the suspicion grows out of a preliminary understanding of the passage.

Having examined the context surrounding it in some depth—both scripturally and conceptually—we now understand that Jesus could not have answered the question and remained true to his purpose. For to have done so would have removed the pressure from Pilate of deciding the supreme question, thereby contravening Scripture’s main theme in application to his life, and averting Jesus’ mission as the Word of God made flesh in depicting that theme to us through Scripture.

It all comes together in that scene. Consequently, we have now answered the overarching question that constituted the conceptual peak that we have wanted to climb: We now see why Jesus’ silence in the face of Pilate’s famous question depicts his divinity. He had to silently accept his condemnation and crucifixion in order to enact the supreme sacrifice in answer to the supreme question.

In closing we should note that the text converges on the reader also. It does so in that the reader along with Pilate is left to judge the truth of Jesus’ claim. Astoundingly, the reader, like Pilate, is allowed to enact the supreme irony of the trial by making a judgment about Jesus. Whether or not one chooses faith, the point of view from the literary summit in The Gospel According to John is truly a revelation. For it strips human life of all pretensions, uncovering a choice at the core of our humanity.

“Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’”

EPILOGUE NOTES
1. Soren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, Tr. David F. Swenson (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1936) p. 87.

Comedian George Carlin has died. He was controversial and provocative, but he was also a brilliant social critic and comedian.

Two years ago at a church-related speaking event I got in some hot water when I failed to euphemize some words when giving a psychotheological analysis of profanity. I've written about this theoretical work here and here. Wouldn’t you know that Carlin scooped me. An attendee at that controversial talk of mine sent me the following link to a Carlin tribute. Here's the part that interested me:

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things, bad language and whatever, it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body."

Farewell George. And thanks.

Contents

Prologue and Abstract

Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: The Layered Gospel Context
Chapter Three: Today’s Warring Intellectual Context
Chapter Four: A Perpetual Warring Intellectual Context
Chapter Five: A Primer—The Bible’s Broadest Theme
Chapter Six: The Voice of Conscience
Chapter Seven: The Voice of God
Chapter Eight: The Message of the Cross as Supreme Answer
Chapter Nine: The View from Enlightened Self-Interest
Chapter Ten: The Challenge from Kantian Autonomy
Chapter Eleven: The View from James’ Radical Question
Chapter Twelve: The View from Sartre’s Bad Faith
Chapter Thirteen: Kierkegaard’s Challenge to Intelligibility—First Part

Chapter Thirteen: Kierkegaard’s Challenge to Intelligibility—Second Part

Epilogue

[We pick up with the question of why Scripture conflates righteousness with perspicuity in the Abrahamic Covenant--as described in the First Part of this chapter. The hope is that by cominng to terms with that question we will get conceptual leverage to use in making sense of Abraham's stupifying willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, at God's command. By gaining that "leverage" we would undercut Kierkegaard's challenge to faith's intelligibility, a challenge that would undercut Into the World. This post shows the contrary, that our culminating biblical perspective undercuts Kierkegaard's challenge.]

If we are to understand this enigma, we need a conceptual context to support the narrative one. Let’s begin by first explicitly removing any connection between being virtuous and having true beliefs. Consider a person who is not convinced that striving for moral ideals of any kind—such as honesty, courage, charity, temperance, loyalty, and so forth—is worthwhile for its own sake. In her opinion a moral ideal is worth pursuing precisely to the extent that doing so produces results that she wants, and she determines what she wants by what she perceives or defines her self-interest to be in any given circumstance. Whether she is wise or shortsighted, knowledgeable or naïve, successful or unsuccessful in procuring what she wants does not factor in here. What matters is that, for her, every choice can be viewed as a transaction from which she wants to get the best possible deal for herself. That, in Sartre’s scheme, constitutes her “life project.”

Clearly a person who strives for traditional moral ideals can object that this person’s selfish means of deciding what is best leaves out considerations that many—perhaps most—persons think should be considered; but the objection will have no weight from her point of view, since the additional considerations that she leaves out are those taken from a perspective in which she does not believe. In fact, from her point of view, to pursue a moral ideal in which she does not believe would literally be unreasonable: For in that she does not “believe in” moral ideals in the sense of believing that they are worth pursuing per se, she can have no reason to strive to attain them, per se.

Furthermore, it is clearly the idea that there is something worth sacrificing for—something beyond her self-interest, as she understands it—that she rejects. And that is the key to the answer we seek. Since a moral person will judge another person to be righteous or not precisely by whether their actions are motivated by moral ends, we can see that beliefs about whether pursuing moral ideals are worthwhile are, in fact, instances of beliefs which can be described, crucially, as righteous or not. That is, they can be judged righteous or not from a point of view which questions whether it is worthwhile to pursue moral ideals, per se. “Righteousness,” in fact, depends on belief in this sense: Again, there can be no point in pursuing righteousness on the supposition that one does not believe that it is worthwhile to do so.

(To forestall criticism of this claim consider, first, that righteousness that is not productive of good in someone's eyes is pointless; second, that righteousness that is productive of little will have little effect in the metaprudential calculations of even a reasonable person of good will; and third, that it will have no point in the estimation of our amoral calculator.)

If we go on to apply this claim to the wider view that we have been considering, we see that the amoral calculator described represents the antithesis of the message of the cross: For she responds precisely to the kind of rationale that the Serpent used to tempt Eve and Adam in the Genesis story of the fall, as discussed earlier. But to form the connection to the story of Abraham and Isaac, we need to confirm that belief in God can be tantamount to righteousness, construed as belief that moral ideals are worth striving for, even when personal sacrifice is involved.

Recall that that we found the doctrine of enlightened self-interest to be false for several reasons, the core reason being that if we use self-interest to justify making our moral commitments, we can also use it to justify breaking them. (And of course the reverse is also true for the proponent of self-interest: The core problem with stipulating that moral ideals determine the extent of one’s commitment to self-interest is that if we use moral ideals to justify making our commitments to self-interest, we can also use them to justify breaking them. Logicians call this mutual exclusivity of propositions "bivalence," and bivalence is the criterion of true dilemmas.) Therefore, to set up a reasonable response to whether or not making moral commitments is worthwhile, it is necessary to decide whether or not one believes that it is worth making sacrifices for the sake of moral ideals when they conflict with self-interest, as defined by each individual’s foundational hopes and desires.

But we have an added challenge to consider in relation to our theory. For since the supreme question sets self-interest against moral ideals in deciding which is to form one’s primary life commitment, a further challenge looms. We must know to whom the “worth” of one’s actions is to accrue, if not to self. (Abraham was concerned with his life being a vessel capable of holding God’s great blessing. To be true to the story, faith must include the idea that a person who acts on moral faith will be vindicated by God. Thus, the willing self-sacrifice implied here is not the final word. In fact the path of self-sacrifice is chosen with the view in mind that God will later vindicate the person who does what is right.)3

Fortunately, that question is easy to answer: moral ideals (almost always) can be seen to benefit human society on some level. Thus, a person is honest in dealing with others. Likewise, a person is loyal in dealing with others; a person is fair, primarily, in dealing with others, and so forth. It is reasonable to assume, then, that it is to these “others” of human society that the benefits of pursuing moral ideals will accrue, when they conflict with self-interest.

By extension it seems to have been correct to see the supreme question as involving a social context, with friendship with God constituting the social context that Adam and Eve sacrificed to self-interest in the fall.

However, we have also seen that it is unreasonable to expect human society to achieve perfection in the sense that everyone in society can always be expected to benefit from pursuing its moral ideals. Additionally, there is the problem of having commitments to moral desiderata being contingent on the acts of free persons who can break their commitments. And for our moral skeptic, as we have seen, there is no reason to choose the horn of the supreme question that expresses faith, making moral faith literally unreasonable. Thus, “belief” in moral ideals—if that means conviction that acting in accord with them will lead to what is best for a person—is naïve from the perspective of self-interest. It is the moral skeptic who is well informed.

What the skeptic needs is an object of faith that makes it credible for her to believe it is worth pursuing moral ideals—that the willingness to sacrifice for others now will be rewarded in the long run. The supreme question posits just that option as an object of faith. The message of the cross depicts that, despite appearances to the contrary, God will vindicate the person whose faith is such that it can be "reckoned as righteousness." In fact, the irony of the message of the cross stems precisely from the need to overcome the appearance that pursuing righteousness is not worthwhile from the perspective of self-interest. The message of the cross turns the table on the moral skeptic. But it does so only for those who take the voice of conscience as prophetic of a deeper reality, a reality beyond amoral calculation.

By means of this conceptual context, we see the gospel accounts of Jesus announcing “the kingdom of God is at hand” at the commencement of his ministry in new light. That was exactly what was needed to set up the supreme question. For in so doing he provided the needed context from which the needed rationale can be supplied: it is the kingdom of God that supplies the social context in which faith in “righteousness” makes sense. But crucially for the question at hand—how can a proponent of self-interest’s cogent doubt be effectively addressed?—we have our answer. One gains membership in the kingdom of God by faith in the message of the cross, and that membership trumps all other appeals to self-interest for a person of faith. This consideration brings us full circle with the story of Jesus’ trial. For it was as king of the Kingdom of God, that Jesus was brought before Pilate, which explained his statement that “my kingdom is not of this world” in our primary text.

Returning to the story of Abraham and Isaac with this larger conceptual context in hand, we are ready to meet Kierkegaard’s challenge. For we now have a perspective from which beliefs are meaningfully described as “righteous,” and that perspective fits the larger biblical context. All we need is the supposition that Abraham grasped the need to have faith that God could be trusted to vindicate moral choices, despite appearances that often indicate the contrary. Then he would have known that to demonstrate a belief that making sacrifices for “righteousness” sake is his primary commitment that faith in God is essential.

(Ironically, it is the very cogency of an amoral calculator's moral skepticism that makes an appeal to transcendent faith necessary. Making for a double-irony, it can be added that it is precisely because the transcendent Word speaks its message to the motivational core of humanity that it can be understood. And making for a triple irony, since the presumably transcendent source of moral faith cannot be understood apart from its contact with humanity's motivational core, faith's credibility is unimpeachable precisely because it is conceptually out of reach. This makes faith the opposite of temptation: temptation = what I want to do for manifest reasons but that I know violates moral principles; faith = what I want to do for moral reasons that are not manifest (that are not "in the world," so to speak) and so require faith. On a higher level, faith is engaged by love. Having passionately experienced both forms in temporal juxtaposition--faith as adherence to moral precept and as motivated by love--I think, helps explain the Apostle Paul's extraordinary pleadings with the Galatian's in the New Testament's earliest writing. But connecting the current theme to the higher motivations Paul identifies as "the fruits of the Spirit" is outside the scope of this little book.)

With apologies to Kierkegaard, we are now in a position to address rebut his challenge: To serve as an exemplar of faith, Abraham needed to sacrifice the “best” that he had to God in faith that God could be trusted to vindicate his trust. For since it is clear that Isaac was Abraham’s “best,” the rest follows: Abraham had to be willing to sacrifice Isaac in order to serve as an exemplar of faith. For anything less than Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac would have demonstrated an unwillingness to represent a commitment to righteous faith, as we now understand it, as the primary commitment in his life.

The logic of the supreme question is uncompromising; righteous faith can only be demonstrated by a willingness to sacrifice to do what is right. No willingness to sacrifice means one has no faith. And faith that it is worth to pursuing our moral ideals even in the face of all appearances to the contrary is tied to a willingness to sacrifice all for the sake of faith. Thus, no willingness to sacrifice all for God means one has no faith in God in the needed sense: that God is the Supreme—the ultimate—Being, and hence the supreme and ultimate good, who can be trusted to vindicate faith: “the best,” to use Kierkegaard’s phrase--but the Supreme Best, the transcendent best, the best that trumps all possible mundane bests. Of course, for anyone to call another human being "mundane" at best is coldly calculating in an area where to lack human warmth is inhumane; for Abraham to be put in that position is almost unspeakably so. And yet, to make an unambiguous exemplar of the primacy of his faith commitment, Abraham needed to be willing to sacrifice the most dear of his attachments that could compete with his commitment to "righteous" faith, as we now understand it.

The message of the cross clearly depicts divine reciprocity on this core requirement by which Abraham is credited as the father of faith. The divine reciprocity confirms beyond a reasonable doubt that the theory of the supreme question is correct, for it underscores the message, giving it the ultimate endorsement and commitment. In the story of Abraham and Isaac, God supplied a ram as a substitute for Abraham’s most cherished attachment to this world—his only son. In the message of the cross God supplied his only Son as a substitute for our most cherished attachments to this world—whatever those attachments might be. In both stories God supplies the sacrifice. In both stories the one who believes is “reckoned righteous” by God as a result of belief.

Clearly we are to understand that we too would need to be like Abraham, if it were not for God’s grace. Surely we too are to understand that it is not just the provision of the sacrifice for us, but the provision of the sacrifice for us “while we were yet sinners,” that is, while we are unable to sacrifice in the manner that the unyielding logic of the supreme question demands. Thus, according to the full message of the cross—the gospel message, the good news—grace extends mercy to us in this unspeakably difficult bind. What is required is an acknowledgement of the truth of the designation “sinner,” that we cannot do as Abraham did, and as God did in the context of the message of the cross, because our inability to sacrifice those things most dear to us make us morally corruptible at the core of our being. On the surface that is a superlatively ugly message. But it has a beautiful side: Christian faith allows one to confront the truth of our corruptibility by resting in God's grace.

Given this view—the view of Christian theology where mercy extends grace to humanity—Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac would then only be required so that he could serve as the exemplar of faith. And that, of course, is what Abraham is, contra Kierkegaard. Abraham’s example does make sense. He, as the “Father of faith,” is a fitting exemplar. And yet the story still stupefies us in another respect, making Kierkegaard’s following comment about Abraham especially apt: “…in a way all that I can learn from Abraham is to be amazed.”4 To fail to be amazed would be to fail to see that faith and grace must go together: for faith requires too much of us.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN NOTES

1. Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, Tr. Alastair Hannay (Penguin Books, New York, 1985) pp. 58-59.
2. Ibid, pp. 108, 144. Kierkegaard believed that there is an absolute duty that each person owes to God, a duty that paradoxically trumps even moral obligations, which we usually take to be both universally binding and derived from God (whether directly or ultimately). He interpreted the story of Abraham and Isaac as requiring that paradoxical duty in order to “explain” Abraham’s terrifying willingness to sacrifice his son at God’s direction. Two responses need to be made. First, a paradox really explains nothing. And second, it is therefore correct to state that Kierkegaard believed that faith is—in the final analysis—unintelligible.
3. Scripture indicates that the reward of moral faith—expressed by a willingness to sacrifice to do what is right, and given ultimate expression by the message of the cross—is fellowship with God. I base this opinion on the fact that through self-seeking sin humanity’s relationship with God was lost. (Genesis 3:22-24) It is fitting, then, that through self-sacrificial righteousness one finds the way back to a relationship with God. The opposite of a temptation would be an obligation: something one does not really want to do, but which is required morally. The message of the cross, in that light, makes the antithesis to temptation—moral obligation—the way back to God. This need not, and does not, require that a person believes that in the end they are acting against self-interest by doing what is clearly self-sacrificial in the short run. This explains the ambiguity in the text, which is left in it to make it more readable.
4. Fear and Trembling, p. 66.

In my class here in Germany—The Psychology of Ideology—the topic of ideological conflict and violence has been a recurring theme. One way to examine these ideological conflicts is through theologian Miroslav Volf’s discussion of “exclusion,” the state of sin where humans exclude rather than embrace the Other. These forms of exclusion can be violent or passive, hot or cold. During our recent trip to Berlin our reflections on exclusion were largely dominated, not surprisingly, by the Holocaust and the Berlin Wall. But our cultural, historical and psychological learning experiences have also led us to another intriguing example of exclusion (at least of a perceived sort). Interestingly, we discovered this in the pedestrian traffic lights.






i.
Obviously, the Holocaust presented us with an opportunity to examine the most horrific forms of genocidal exclusion. I’ve written about our experiences at Buchenwald but in Berlin our Holocaust reflections centered on The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

The Memorial was built between 2003 and 2005 and designed by the architect Peter Eisenman. Above ground the Memorial is dominated by a maze-like grid of 2,711 concrete stele which can be entered or exited at any point. Exploring the Memorial I did not find anything telling about about the symbolism of the stele but the effect upon me was like walking through a huge and highly stylized cemetery where the tombstones cluster around you, dominating your with their size, weight and grayness. As you enter the Memorial your head is above the stele but as you walk further in they begin to rise above you. As I experienced it (as a cemetery growing around me and above me, closing me in), the sheer massive weight of death engulfs you.

Beneath the Memorial, underground, is the Memorial Information Center. In the Information Center the exhibition strives to personalize the stories of the many millions who lost their lives in the Holocaust and whose names have been lost and will be, perhaps, never recovered. Powerfully, in the Room of Names the known names and biographies of Jews killed in the Holocaust are read aloud from the database of names from the Israeli memorial site Yad Vashem. Currently, the database contains more than three million names. In the Room of Names it takes six years, seven months, and 27 days to read the names aloud.

ii.
One of the joys of Berlin is finding the two rows of red bricks that zigzag through the city. These bricks mark the former location of the Berlin Wall. Today one can easily hop across the line, but before 1989, a short nineteen years ago, this line was a Dead Man’s Zone manned by concrete, barbed wire, armed sentries, and watchtowers.

Contrasting the Berlin Wall with the Holocaust we find a cooler form of exclusion but a form of exclusion nonetheless. In the early morning of August 13, 1961 Operation Rose went into effect, a complete enclosing of West Berlin. Berliners woke up that Sunday morning—Barbed Wire Sunday—to the new object that would become their ever-present companion for the new few decades: The Wall.

The wall was a violent act of exclusion although no one was lined up and shot. Suddenly, overnight, families and friends were separated, a wall between them. As Barbed Wire Sunday wore on events got desperate on Bernauer Strasse where the apartment buildings were on the East side but the street below was on the West. Many quickly scrambled out the lower windows. But as the Stasi (the GDR secret police, recently depicted in the movie The Lives of Others) cleared the lower floors many began jumping from the higher windows. Some fell to their death. Killed jumping for freedom.

iii.
I had expected my class to focus on both the Holocaust and the Wall as forms of exclusion and violence. One hot, the other cold. One concerned with extermination, the other with isolation. But during our time in Berlin and our stay in Leipzig we have discovered another interesting case study of exclusion, one Volf calls “assimilation.”

As I said, we discovered this third case study in the Berlin pedestrian traffic lights.

As you walk around Berlin (or tour cities formerly on the West or East) you are quickly hit with the non-uniform nature of the pedestrian traffic lights telling you when to cross or not cross a city street. We quickly realized that when we were are on the East side of the Wall in Berlin the pedestrian lights looked like those back in Leipzig, which was a part of East Germany. On the West side of the Wall the lights are different. In short, Berlin is a chorus of pedestrian traffic lights as West and East Germany had formerly used different signals. With the Wall now gone the pedestrian traffic lights now appear to the traveler to be a mixed and matched collection.

Being based in Leipzig we, as a bias, liked the East German pedestrian traffic lights. So we were thrilled to find whole gift shops devoted to these pedestrian traffic light images known as the Ampelmännchen. But we began to wonder, why are there whole gift shops devoted to Ampelmännchen chic? Who thinks a crossing light is cool?

The answer we learned is that the Ampelmännchen has become of a symbol of what is known in Germany as Ostalgie, a nostalgia for the old GDR East Germany.

In 1990, after the fall of the Wall, there was a post-unification movement to standardize the traffic lighting across Germany. The Western lights were to replace the Eastern Ampelmännchen. A protest movement began to save the Ampelmännchen. This movement was successful and the Ampelmännchen have remained in the former East Germany. Further, some Western Germany cities have adopted the Ampelmännchen as a sign of respect and solidarity with the East. Because of this movement the Ampelmännchen have become a symbol of East Germany pride and Ostalgie. Thus the Ampelmännchen chic.

In short, the Ampelmännchen are symbols that despite the fall of the Wall Germany still faces some challenges in their unification efforts. Easterners and Westerners, colloquially Ossis and Wessis, still have stereotypes about each other. Relevant to our discussions, some Easterners have felt that their cultural experiences and identity have been ignored and wiped away during unification. The Ampelmännchen and Ostalgie are manifestations of a refusal to be quickly and easily assimilated into the “dominant” culture. After the fall of the physical Wall these lingering unification challenges are now known in Germany as Mauer im Kopf: "The wall in the head.” In Berlin, as we danced over the bricks marking the former Wall, the traffic lights signaled to us that the psychological and sociological impact of the Wall was still very much with us.

iv.
So my class has ended up with three case studies of exclusion, going from horrifically violent to sociological subtle: The Holocaust, the Wall, and the Ampelmännchen.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Ampelmännchen as it allows us to pose questions of respect and paternalism. As my students reflect on the Holocaust and the Wall those events are almost too immense to get one’s head around, intellectually and emotionally. Thus, it is hard to point to the workaday pragmatic outcomes for daily application and living. What can one take away from the Holocaust or the Wall that can make a tangible difference to daily living? The events are so epic. As are the lessons we take from them. By comparison my life is very modest and humdrum.

But Ampelmännchen we can get our heads around. The issues here involve simple respect for difference, different histories and sensibilities. It also highlights subtle forms of power differentials and powerplays. The attempt to remove the Ampelmännchen was not an intentional act of violence. It wasn’t meant to be disrespectful. Standardizing traffic signage is a reasonable thing to do. The moral issue was the simple assumption that the Western signs were the ones that would trump the Eastern signs. And in that assumption a moral lesson is learned, one very applicable to all of us: How often do we assume our way is the best for all? How often do we assume that the “reasonable” thing to do is to conform to our standards?

The reason this is important is that it illustrates the basic source of Volf’s exclusion: Making yourself the measure of all. The Ampelmännchen is a benign illustration of this, but the tendency can intensify when groups begin to see themselves not just as a standard but as superior in relation to other inferior groups. Pushed to its horrific conclusion we find the Holocaust.

I am not trying to say that the seeds of a future Holocaust in Germany are to be viewed in the Berlin traffic lights. But I am claiming that the dynamics of human violence are not qualitatively different, only quantitatively so. The seeds of the Holocaust are all around us. In America as well as in Germany. The moral nexus turns on how we treat the Other. And when I begin to assume that the Other must be like Me all sorts of evil emerge. For what if the Other refuses? What will I do to them then? Legislate them into obedience? Wall them out? Or kill them?


[Pictures of crossing lights, Berlin Wall, and Holocaust Memorial taken by Jana Beck, June 2008]

With the last two Into the World posts now scheduled to publish next Sunday and Wednesday, I would like to take this opportunity to make use of the one big advantage that comes with being an amateur: money is no object.

So, would you like a copy of Into the World sent to you as an e-mail attachment? If so, just let me know at RowAhead@charter.net. I might take a few weeks to make a few changes to the little book.

With gratitude to all my readers, and especially to Richard for loaning his "platform" to me!

Tracy

Contents

Prologue and Abstract

Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: The Layered Gospel Context
Chapter Three: Today’s Warring Intellectual Context
Chapter Four: A Perpetual Warring Intellectual Context
Chapter Five: A Primer—The Bible’s Broadest Theme
Chapter Six: The Voice of Conscience
Chapter Seven: The Voice of God
Chapter Eight: The Message of the Cross as Supreme Answer
Chapter Nine: The View from Enlightened Self-Interest
Chapter Ten: The Challenge from Kantian Autonomy
Chapter Eleven: The View from James’ Radical Question
Chapter Twelve: The View from Sartre’s Bad Faith

Chapter Thirteen: Kierkegaard’s Challenge to Intelligibility—First Part

Chapter Thirteen: Kierkegaard’s Challenge to Intelligibility—Second Part
Epilogue

There is a story in Genesis as disturbing, and confounding, as anything ever written. It tells of Abraham, “the father of faith,” taking his son, Isaac, to a mountain in Moriah to sacrifice him. And Abraham did this at God’s direction—though at the last possible moment the story tells us that God sent an angel to stop Abraham, and provided in Isaac's stead a ram with its horns stuck in a thicket. (Genesis 22:1-19) Below see Soren Kierkegaard’s attitude toward the narrative.

"[Foolish people] want to understand the story. [For their sake a speaker might make] it a commonplace: ‘His greatness was that he so loved God that he was willing to offer him the best he had.’ … [The speaker thereby] interchange[s] the words “Isaac” and “best.” Everything goes excellently. Should someone in the audience be suffering from insomnia, however, there is likely to be the most appalling, most profound, tragic-comic misunderstanding. He goes home; he wants to do just like Abraham; for [his] son is certainly the best thing he has. Should that speaker hear word of this, he might go to the man…and shout: ‘Loathsome man, dregs of society, what has so possessed you that you wanted to murder your own son?’”1

Kierkegaard interprets the story as a reductio ad absurdum because of the paradox that the story seems to foist upon religious persons: that they must admire Abraham for his faith while abhoring the terrible deed that demonstrated his faith.2 Since it seems that “the Father of faith” presents us with an unintelligible example, it is reasonable to suspect that it is because faith itself is unintelligible.

I will play a Kierkegaardian fool, and try to explain the paradox. I begin by putting the story into context (Genesis, Chapters 12-22). It begins with the Lord God visiting Abram in the land of Ur. There God tells Abram to leave his country, and that…

"I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2-3)

Following this promise Abram went to Canaan, where God promised the land to him. To escape famine in the Promised Land, however, he went to Egypt. There Pharaoh eventually paid him a king’s ransom to leave with his wife, Sarai. (This is a story with many puzzles. Pharaoh had taken Sarai from Abram, not knowing that she was Abram’s wife because Abram did not tell him for fear of displeasing the Pharaoh. Then God had brought plagues upon Egypt till Pharaoh returned her.) Abram next went back to Canaan, and there routed several kings who had banded together to pillage his neighboring lands. In the course these odysseys, however, many years passed, and Abram and Sarai had become too old for procreation. It was then—when Abram viewed his life as too small a vessel to contain a great blessing—that the Lord visited Abram in a vision and had this conversation with him:

“Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And [Abram] believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:1-6)

Note the strange last sentence: Abram “…believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Perhaps the oddity itself, if understood, will provide a means to understand the story of Abraham and Isaac (God changed Abram’s name to Abraham—meaning “seed”—after promising him that his descendants would be as the stars of the sky). The sentence's oddity stems from this. Beliefs are true or false, and we might “reckon a person to be knowledgeable” for having true beliefs in a subject about which truths are not generally known. Righteousness, however, is not typically identified with having true beliefs. For instance, a child who gets 100% on a difficult test in school is not thereby “reckoned to be” especially virtuous. For we do not conflate righteousness with perspicuity. Why then the seeming conflation in the Abrahamic covenant?

[We take up this question in the following post, part two of this chapter.]

NOTES
1. Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, Tr. Alastair Hannay (Penguin Books, New York, 1985) pp. 58, 59.
2. Ibid, pp. 108, 144. Kierkegaard believed that there is an absolute duty that each person owes to God, a duty that paradoxically trumps even moral obligations, which we usually take to be both universally binding and derived from God (whether directly or ultimately). He interpreted the story of Abraham and Isaac as requiring that paradoxical duty in order to “explain” Abraham’s terrifying willingness to sacrifice his son at God’s direction. Two responses need to be made. First, a paradox really explains nothing. And second, it is therefore correct to state that Kierkegaard believed that faith is—in the final analysis—unintelligible.
3. I believe that Scripture indicates that the reward of moral faith—expressed by a willingness to sacrifice to do what is right, and given ultimate expression by the message of the cross—is fellowship with God. I base this opinion of the fact that through self-seeking sin humanity’s relationship with God was lost. (Genesis 3:22-24) It is fitting, then, that through self-sacrificial righteousness one finds the way back to a relationship with God. The opposite of a temptation would be an obligation: something one does not really want to do, but which is required morally. The message of the cross, in that light, makes the antithesis to temptation—moral obligation—the way back to God. This need not, and does not, require that a person believes that in the end they are acting against self-interest by doing what is clearly self-sacrificial in the short run. This explains the ambiguity in the text, which is left in it to make it more readable.
4. Fear and Trembling, p. 66.