Author Archive for cchrisr

Simulated Identities

Published by cchrisr June 12, 2008 in Philosophy. 2 Comments

Baudrillard has become somewhat famous in popular culture through the play on his ideas in the movie The Matrix where an astute viewer can see the image of his face appear as a ghostly haunting throughout the film (he also helped in the writing and production of the film). However, he has been “famous” for some time in contemporary philosophy as one of the pioneers in theorizing about the body and the images. In his book, Impossible Exchange, he proposes a progression of simulation which can be seen in two examples: capital and identity.

The first progression is that from the object to signs. In other words, an object begins with some kind of arbitrary value which is the basis for exchange. Money and capital as we know it did not exist at this level. We can see this in action with historical transactions between two entities: I exchange ten pounds of fertilizer and receive 25 gallons of milk. However, the progression to signs involves a kind of “standardization” in which each objects value is given a relatively static exchange ratio: a gallon of milk will be 4 units of this new sign–be it a dollar or whatever. At this point, the object becomes a commodity that is freely exchangeable in the market; it has become a simulation of the object.

This ability to be exchanged brings about the second progression: fetishism. A fetish is a perversion of the object that further removes it from the “real” object. It becomes a “pure, unrepresentable, unexchangeable object–yet a nondescript one” (Baudrillard, Impossible Exchange, 129). Here, the object is taken to the point of being a desire for the sake of desire. Zizek sees this best in the example of Caffeine free Diet Coke: it lacks everything that makes “Coke” “Coke” but it is the pure semblance of Coke, “an artificial promise of a substance which never [materializes]” (Zizek, The Fragile Absolute, 22). The fetish is not just a simulation of a simulation (what Baudrillard calls a simulacra) but it is also devoid of the “original” object: it is the nothingness itself.

Here we can see the final progression: the spectre (or phantasm). The object now becomes an unrepresented non-being which haunts the “real.” Not only does the object become a simulation, but even its component parts become simulated: Toyota cars are manufactured 60% in the USA.

Perhaps the best example of this progression is in the phenomena called “reality TV.” These shows are no more real than “normal TV”: absurd scenarios with unreal events, simulated events, false personas, etc. Here, the actors are not given a particular role but rather play their own made-up role, an idealized, distorted self-image.

A direct corollary can be seen in that of The Matrix where those in the “real world” are projected back into the “virtual” world of the Matrix as imagined bodies. One’s identity in the “real world” is fragmented and distorted as the Matrix is treated as being more real than real, a hyperreality. As the end of The Matrix trilogy shows: there is no real distinction between the “real” world and that of the Matrix because one’s identity is a composite of fragments from many different “worlds” which reach across all the boundaries.

Where does all of this leave identity? A poster put up in Berlin in 1994 poked fun at loyalties to identities: “Your Christ is a Jew. Your car is Japanese. Your pizza is Italian. Your democracy–Greek. Your coffee–Brazilian. Your holiday–Turkish. Your numbers–Arabic. Your letters–Latin. Only your neighbour is a foreigner” (quoted from Zygmunt Bauman, Identity, 27). As the above progression of simulation is explored, it will become more obvious that “‘belonging’ and ‘identity’ are not cut in rock, that they are not secured by a lifelong guarantee, that they are eminently negotiable and revocable; and that one’s own decisions, the steps one takes, the way one act–and the determination to stick by all that–are crucial factors of both” (Bauman, 11).

Tradition & Heresy

Published by cchrisr May 1, 2008 in Essays and Theology. 10 Comments

(This is the fourth and final part of a series on tradition. Part One, Part Two, Part Three.)

Tradition is best defined as the cyclical interaction between orthodoxy and scriptures. It can be seen most in the way that scriptures have been transformed through the course of time in their interaction with orthodoxy. Brevard Childs has provided an excellent resource for this: his book The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture. This one work is a wonderful collection of texts from as early as the second century with the most influential church fathers to as late as ten years ago; it is one of the best collections covering the way that the book of Isaiah has been reinterpreted throughout Christianity. As the book revolves around the interpretation of Isaiah from the second century to the twenty-first century, it is worth a brief look to show the interaction between orthodoxy and scriptures.

Isaiah as an Example
Childs begins with Justin Martyr’s take on Isaiah. Justin reads in Isaiah the prophecies of the virgin birth and the suffering servant, particularly seeing the death of Christ as being symbolic of the Passover lamb. Yet Justin also has his own radical interpretations, such as applying the attacks in Isaiah 3 and 5 on the eighth-century Jewish leadership to the Jews of his own day [Brevard Childs, Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004): 41].

The first two interpretations carry to this day, but the third was eventually excluded in later (much later) generations. It is already here that there is an influence of scripture on orthodoxy, which gets re-interpreted as the basis for later interpretations.

Soon after Justin, Irenaeus added a few interpretations of his own. His chief addition was in interpreting Isaiah 7 and 9 as indicating the divine and human nature of Jesus [Childs, 51]. Irenaeus is also one of the first church fathers to quote at length Christian writings and treat these as canonical literature. By the end of the third century, orthodoxy had equalized about the nature of Christ and began to flesh out its view of the incarnation of Christ. Eusebius in the third century is fixated by this idea and dedicates four chapters of his Demonstratio Evangelica to it [Childs, 83]. Furthermore, Eusebius authored the earliest extant commentary on Isaiah—evidence that Isaiah had successfully crossed over from Jewish to Christian scripture [Origen authored the first, but it is lost].

The interaction has thus far developed in this way after the death and resurrection: the early Christian community sought to read the Jewish scriptures through the lens of the death and resurrection, which lead them to the passages in Isaiah (as well as others) that could be re-read as foretelling Jesus. By appealing to these Jewish scriptures for Christian theology, they had created the first connection between scriptures and orthodoxy: one had to believe in the death of Christ as a symbol of the Passover lamb. By making this first connection, Christianity treated Isaiah now as Christian scriptures; the first cycle. Within just 100 years, this cycle was completed again as orthodoxy included the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, and the human incarnation of God. By 400 CE, Isaiah was so integral to orthodoxy that it had gained acceptance throughout Christianity. This was the case with most of the books accepted into the canon at the second Council of Carthage.

Changes and Alterations
There are also cases where orthodoxy has changed scriptures, either by removing texts from the canon or modifying the actual texts. One such instance is the story of Bel and the Dragon from the Septuagint . Not only was this text attested by fathers of orthodoxy (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen) [Lee McDonald, The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995): 103], but it was also accepted at the Council of Carthage. It was removed during the Reformation first by protestants in their struggle to return to the Jewish scriptures, even though it appears in the original 1611 Authorized Version as well as being listed in the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England.

There is also a second form of orthodoxy interacting with scripture: deliberate alterations. In the Gospel of Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism, there is a point where God speaks from the heavens saying “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” [Luke 3:23, NRSV]. Yet many early variants record God saying “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” Bart Ehrman believes that this variant is the earlier, more original text which was changed in order to prevent an adoptionist reading of the passage [Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2005): 159-160]. It is highly likely that this is the case, but it brings up the question on how orthodoxy and scripture should interact.

Theologians today seem to suggest that it should be a simple relationship indicated by fidelity to the original texts (or what we can gather as such) coupled with studious translation and interpretation to that. On the other hand, history has consistently suggested that orthodoxy and scripture should define and change the other, even at the cost of losing the most original documents. It may be better to see scriptures “not primarily as a chronicle but as a testimony of faith in the One who identified himself to Moses from the burning bush” [Jaroslav Pelikan, Whose Bible is it? (New York: Penguin, 2005): 31].

Tradition is arguably the most important aspect for the longevity of a religion. While it is normally seen as the handing down of beliefs from one generation to the next, it should also be seen as that which is handed down, particularly the interaction between orthodoxy and scriptures. This interaction is a never-ending cycle of alteration and redefining, sometimes subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle). The relation most often seen is scriptures defining orthodoxy. Yet the reciprocal also happens, perhaps more often than some admit; orthodoxy changes scriptures through either interpretation or in modifying the set of accepted scriptures. These two functions play on each repetition of each other throughout multiple generations. Whereas some people see this as problematic, it should be embraced as an integral part of the nature of religious movements as they are concerned ultimately with the nonphysical, be it God, nirvana, rebirth, or the end of ages. Faith is not a matter of fidelity to a group of texts but rather that which inspired those texts.

Tradition & Theology - Part III

Published by cchrisr April 16, 2008 in Theology. 7 Comments

(This is part 3 of a four part series on tradition. Part one can be found here, part two here.)

Tradition is where religious authority is found; it is no wonder then that it is deeply embedded in the concepts of orthodoxy and sacred scriptures. Tradition is the endless cycle of dialogues between scripture and orthodoxy that travel through each generation, never quite the same in each instance. The tradition handed down is the contextual backdrop for the current dialogue. There is never a moment in these dialogues that tradition is not somehow involved, even in the most extreme theologies (e.g., theologies that believes that the scriptures can be completely understood at face value without any context). In other words, even a theology that says it rejects tradition still plays in the game of interaction between scripture and orthodoxy.

Beginning with the Council of Trent and surfacing most recently in the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church has emphasized its belief in tradition as coming from the same authoritative source as scriptures [Robert Murray, “Tradition and Sacred Texts,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 6:1 (Jan 2004): 6. Also, the document “Dei Verbum” which was the backbone for II Vatican]. Protestant denominations have frequently claimed “sola Scriptura” as Martin Luther did during the Reformation, yet many still appeal to a form of tradition (e.g., the Baptist Faith and Message, Westminster Confession, and Thirty-nine Articles). No group of Christians has been able to survive without tradition because it undergirds orthodoxy.

Why is it that some (or many) Christians want orthodoxy without tradition? This can be answered by looking more closely at how orthodoxy views itself.

Orthodoxy distinguishes itself by the quality of its theology: originality, proper (or true) transmission from its inception, unity and universality, and a middle way between heretical extremes [John B. Henderson, The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1998): 85]. In other words, orthodoxy is seen as the original “formula” that existed from the beginning and was accepted by all believers. Heterodoxy was, by extension, a deviation from orthodoxy; Eusebius used this as an argument against heterodoxy[Henderson, 85].

Even when it is clearly not the case that the orthodox position was the primary, original view, it has been re-interpreted as such by its proponents. An example of this can be found during the Reformation when Luther rejected the deuterocanonical books as part of the canon, part of his (and later followers’) argument was that these texts were originally not part of the canon, despite the Council of Carthage in 397 declaring otherwise (this is the same council that affirmed the Synod of Hippo’s canon, which Protestants accept for defining the canon of the NT).

Another argument used by orthodoxy is the harmony and unity of their beliefs in contrast to the heterodox ones. This notion is a powerful argument for the orthodox because it paints all other theologies as not only divergent from the “true” orthodox but also as divergent within themselves. Why should heterodoxy be entertained if it is self-refuting? Related to this quality is that of universality.

The earliest form of the church was the catholic—universal—church. The Nicene Creed of 381 states that there is “one holy catholic and apostolic Church”—the two qualities that come only from orthodox belief.

The final quality of note is that of moderation. Orthodoxy prides itself on keeping away from heretical extremes. We can see examples of this in the most basic doctrines of orthodox Christianity: Christology (both divine and human in one person) and the trinity (three persons in one substance). In order to fuel this line of argument, orthodoxy must create a canon; both church fathers such as Augustine and Reformation leaders such as Luther agreed that the church had the “power to recognize the books of the canon” [Jaroslav Pelikan, Reformation of Church and Dogma (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984): 263].

As beliefs grow from a singular point (e.g., Jesus the crucified and risen messiah), regular texts are perceived in new light as authoritative. One example of this is the acceptance of 2 Peter into the canon in order to “[oppose] those who promote false teaching” [Bart Ehrman, The New Testament (New York: Oxford, 2000): 421] even though its claim to authorship by the apostle Peter was not well received.

Another more well known example is Luther’s exclusion of not only the deuterocanonical books but also James, Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation from the canon! [Lee McDonald, The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995): 226] Just as the nature of orthodoxy is the creation (and maintenance) of a canon, the function of a canon is to define orthodoxy. Tradition, in the sense of this interaction, is the compass (orthodoxy) and map (scriptures) to the territory of belief.

Tradition & Text - Part II

Published by cchrisr April 3, 2008 in Theology. 1 Comment

Author’s Note: This is part 2 of a 4-part series on tradition. Part 1 here.

As much as orthodoxy is defined by scriptures, so are scriptures defined by orthodoxy. It appears that during the time that Christianity separated from Judaism around the middle of the first century, Jewish scriptures were divided into three sets: the Torah, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa. While the first two had been closed sets of scriptures for approximately 2 centuries, the third set was open for discussion.

The earliest estimate for closing this part is believed to be the meeting at Jamnia in 90 CE [James A Sanders, From Sacred Story to Sacred Text (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987): 12-13]. Sanders mentions that the whole issue was not completely settled until the second century, but that the areas of debate were very minimal:

And the fact that some scattered debate continued into the second century about the canonicity of Esther, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and even Proverbs and Ezekiel, should, in that perspective, properly viewed as minimal in the extreme [Sanders, 13].

Other scholars do not see this meeting as being as conclusive; they suggest a later date some time during the second or third century CE. Regardless of when the Jewish canon was settled, it is certain that Christianity does not begin with a definitive canon of scriptures. While the two religions appeal to the same set of texts, their interpretations of these texts as sacred scriptures can differ radically from each other. In both instances, it is orthodoxy that informs the decision-making process.

Early Christian theology focused on Jesus as the central point of faith and belief. Throughout the writings of the church fathers, it is clear that this is the litmus by which they read Jewish scriptures as their own Christian scriptures. It is important to perceive this difference between Jewish and Christian uses of the same text. An average Jew does not read, for example, the book of Jeremiah the same way a Christian does—and vice versa. For this reason, it will be better to think of the two as completely separate instead of one being a subset of the other.

By the Council of Carthage in 397, church fathers had accepted the Greek Septuagint as the text of their Old Testament; and it differed from the Jewish canon of scriptures. There was little dispute in the church prior to the Reformation on this. During the Reformation, protestants began to reject this difference and reduced the set of texts for their Old Testament to match the Jewish canon [Henri Blocher, “Helpful or Harmful?”, European Journal of Theology 13.2: 82].Throughout all of these decisions, it was the concept of orthodoxy that played the greatest role in determining which texts are truly sacred.

Scriptures have been defined primarily for the justification and creation of orthodoxy, but it has also been defined for the exclusion of other beliefs. As Henderson wrote,

André Suarès has argued that ‘Heresy is the lifeblood of religion. It is faith that made heretics.’ But it might be equally true to say that heretics have made faith, or at least the faith [John B. Henderson, The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1998): 2].

Marcion, for instance, believed that the God of love Paul describes is so radically different from the Jewish God of creation that anything related to this Jewish God was completely worthless. His idea of orthodoxy led him to reject all forms of Jewish scripture and to suggest a canon consisting of Paul’s letters and a single gospel. While his canon most likely did not reflect what most Christians at this time read, church fathers began to react against Marcion’s canon and formulate a more accepted canon. Scholars agree that Marcion’s forming of a canon was the catalyst for Christianity to define a single canon.

The example of Shepherd of Hermas is more to the point. It was well accepted by the earliest fathers, much as Epistle of Barnabas, but it was rejected and then treated as heretical in the matter of three hundred years. It is clear that Shepherd could have been interpreted as presenting an adoptionist [Robert J. Hauck, “The great fast: Christology in the Shepherd of Hermas,” Anglican Theological Review 75.2 (Spring 1993): 197] Christology; this is probably the primary reason it was excluded from the canon and branded heretical: it did not fall in line explicitly enough with the emerging orthodoxy. It is through the debates in the first 400 years of Christianity that settle the issue of what texts are sacred and what beliefs are proper. It is here, through the question of what beliefs are acceptable that texts become scriptures.

Tradition & Orthodoxy - Part I

Published by cchrisr March 19, 2008 in Theology. 18 Comments

Author’s Note: This is part 1 of a 4-part series on tradition adapted from a paper I recently authored.

What is the process surrounding the development of texts into sacred scriptures, particularly in new religious movements? Additionally, what relation, if any, does this process have with the defining of orthodoxy? This series will examine these two movements as a re-imagining of what is nominally considered tradition, “the process of handing something on to another generation and that which is handed on” [Robert Murray, “Tradition and Sacred Texts,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 6:1 (Jan 2004): 4]

These two ideas—orthodoxy and scriptures—are codependent concepts that require the other for proper existence. Without a defined orthodoxy, it is nearly impossible to define a set of scriptures. Without a set of scriptures, there cannot be a strong definition of orthodoxy. These two movements interact with each other reciprocally: scriptures define orthodoxy while orthodoxy defines and interprets scriptures. In other words, it is a constant dialogue and interaction between theology and text that provides the context for present and future instances. All of orthodoxy and scripture is embedded in the context of the sum of its previous interactions and dialogues. This series will look at each of these, first from a theoretical perspective, followed by a few case examples. Tradition has the association that it has always been as such, but this article will show that this is only because the interactions between scriptures and orthodoxy force them to be reinterpreted as having always been the case.

Rightly Dividing
Christianity did not begin in a vacuum, nor with its theology fully formed at inception. Its orthodoxy was largely a process of refinement that is most visible in the many creeds that still stand today (e.g., the Nicene Creed). What we do know about the earliest groups of Christians is that they were, at times, wildly divergent with some believing Jesus to be purely divine without any kind of bodily form and others believing Jesus to be strictly human adopted by God later on [See Bart Ehrman, The New Testament (New York: Oxford, 2000) chapter 1 as well as Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2005) chapter 6].

Every one of these groups had in mind a particular set of texts as their sacred scriptures which provided the evidence they needed to define what they constructed as orthodoxy—proper belief. There is even enough evidence to suggest that “the proto-heretical, not the proto-orthodox, were in the majority at some points in the early Church” [John B. Henderson, The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1998): 40]. For instance, Arianism at one time was so popular that Jerome remarked that “the world groaned and was amazed that it had become Arian” [Quoted in Henderson, 43-44].

Throughout these events, support was provided by appeal to what was considered sacred scriptures. When Pope Leo I declared the Roman tradition as orthodoxy and focused church authority to the papal office, his support was based on the succession of popes that began with Jesus’ instruction to Peter in the gospels[Henderson, 44], not to the primacy of the Roman See, the influential location of the Roman church, some divine vision, or the popularity of its beliefs in the emerging Christianity.

In the various councils that fought against what became heresies—or more precisely, heterodoxies—creeds were formulated by appeals to scriptures. By the time of these councils, much of Christianity had come to a mostly agreed-upon set of scriptures; only a handful of books were disputed at the fringes [Lee McDonald, The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995): 206 and Appendix 1.D]. Given an early date of acceptance of the NT canon to be Athanasius’s Easter Letter of 367 and a late date to be the Council of Carthage in 397, much of what is now orthodox belief in Christianity was not finalized until this time or later [The doctrine of the trinity was not fully formed until the second Ecumenical Council (at Constantinople) in 381. Most other issues were not settled until at least the mid-fifth century].

The ability to define orthodoxy requires both an accepted set of scriptures and a motivation to do such. During much of Christianity’s first century, there was not a motivation for creating orthodoxy—something that is for longevity of the religion—because the primary focus was the imminent second coming of Christ. What good is it to discuss and flesh out a set of beliefs that will probably not come to fruition before the end of time. This is similar to the reasoning scholarship believes there were few books in the beginning of Christianity. As just mentioned above, the majority of sacred scriptures were agreed upon relatively early compared to the formation of orthodoxy. The greatest driving force behind the consolidation of belief into orthodoxy came almost exclusively from the proto-orthodox predecessors. In other words, the proponents of what would become orthodoxy wanted to promote their beliefs as orthodox and exclude other beliefs, even if those other beliefs were more common. As John Henderson mentions,

Despite the discovery of some Gnostic heresiology in the Nag Hammadi materials, there remains a “curious scarcity of anti-orthodox polemics in the heretical literature. Although it seems that second-century heretical authors were far more prolific than their orthodox counterparts, they appear uninterested in refuting the orthodox position.” [Henderson, 27]

This is a major factor to consider when analyzing the development of orthodoxy. Too often, it is believed that the battle for orthodoxy was a constant fight between both parties, but it seems that orthodoxy was brought by brute force rather than discussion [Henderson, 46].

The creation of orthodoxy depends upon the existence of an accepted set of sacred scriptures, a canon. It is important that the texts are treated as religiously authoritative and not just edifying. This distinction can be seen most clearly in the acceptance of Epistle of Barnabas. It was originally accepted as canonical by fathers such as Eusebius and Clement of Alexandria, as well as being included in the earliest textual witnesses, including Codex Sinaiticus. Yet, later church fathers such as Athanasius and Rufinus removed it from their list of canonical books while still suggesting it as edifying for the church [McDonald, 271]. Through the use of scriptures, orthodoxy defines its core doctrines as well as those beliefs that are incompatible with them—heterodoxy.

Jesus’ Actions

Published by cchrisr January 23, 2008 in General. 37 Comments

The art of interpretation is one of the most interesting things for me to study. The way that ideas are changed and transformed over time confirms the idea that interpretations are not as stable and timeless as some claim them to be. In John Caputo’s latest book, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, he outlines briefly one such transformation which I will elaborate here.

Everyone today knows the acronym WWJD–What Would Jesus Do?, but few know its roots. Today, it is generally used as a stick with which Christians beat others (and each other!). It is used as a tool for promoting one’s own ideology and means something radically different in Colorado Springs than in Seattle. It actually first surfaced as a subtitle to a book written in 1896 and was first used to advocate what became known as the Social Gospel movement (from which we get today’s Sojourner’s movement).

Yet here is the most interesting tidbit: WWJD was self-reflective. In other words, the object of the question was oneself not others. The book’s story centered around a man who had lost everything walking into a well-known church and (rather politely) asking the pastor this question before falling down dead. The rest of the book details the changes the people in the church undergo as they become more active in their world. During the first chapter in which this man asks these questions, nobody knows who he is. In some ways, he resembles the author’s idea of Jesus being a character living in the slums as he helps as many people as possible instead of being a “good Christian” attending church.

So now, what would Jesus do? I can only answer that for myself, not for others. Can you also stand in the accusative (grammatical case, not legal position) and answer this question?

Adventures in Hermeneutics

Published by cchrisr January 10, 2008 in Religion. 9 Comments

When it comes to , too many people believe they’ve got some kind of divine handling on interpreting the Bible. We’ll briefly outline two cases of hermeneutics in order to give evidence that interpreting the Bible is not as simple as some may believe.
Our two cases are the and the US Constitution. Why the Constitution and not something like Homer’s Odyssey? Simple. Homer’s Odyssey has little value in a person’s life. If something is misinterpreted in it, there are no repercussions or consequences. If we are to treat the NT as something important, then it is not logical to compare it to something unimportant. So now, on to the show!

Dates and Names
The US Constitution was adopted on 17 September 1787 and later ratified by conventions in each state. The autograph (original document) is located in the National Archives and on display still today. It is just over 220 years old. We have records of who attended the Constitutional Convention, as well as personal journals from many of these members concerning the Constitution and its creation. In addition, we have the signatures of all of the delegates.

To be generous, we’ll say that the New Testament was written by various authors between 40 and 120. Our first complete copy is , which is believed to have been written in the early fourth century with 330 being the earliest date.

Given these dates, there is a 210 year gap between the latest writing date of the NT and the earliest date of CodSin. We do possess fragments that date earlier. P52 is the earliest known fragment and contains just a few words from John 18. It dates to 150. We have no personal journals of the authors of the NT today. In fact, besides Paul, John, and Peter, no other author is named in the NT. This is expected when dealing with a document that is nearly 2000 years old. Compared to other ancient documents, this is at the high end of transmission fidelity.

The Rub
The US Constitution has always been highly debated. This is why we have a judicial system in which judges try to determine the intent of the Constitution. By 1810–25 years after the Constitution was signed–there were differing views on interpreting the Constitution, even by some of the original delegates! Even today, if one would question Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas about the Constitution, one would find two very different approaches and answers.

The NT has also had a history of being highly debatable, but this has lessened in recent history. Today, all too many people believe that their interpretation of the NT is the only viable interpretation. They ignore (or are completely unaware of) the history of hermeneutics with regards to the NT. So, how is one to interpret the NT and the Bible? That remains to be determined, but asserting that one particular must be the correct one seems to be the one position that denigrates the NT and the history of Christianity.

Faith Problems, 4

Published by cchrisr December 13, 2007 in Philosophy. 0 Comments

After looking at Kierkegaard’s concept of faith and Nietzsche’s introduction to semiotics, we now turn to the primary philosopher of , Gilles . He’s a bit unknown, even in philosophy circles. In Deleuzian terms, Kierkegaard’s Knight of Faith embodies difference. He is unrepeatable, paradoxical, and contradictory. He is a multiplicity. Here, I want to outline what difference is and why this is an integral part of Kierkegaard’s Knight of Faith. Our primary text is Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition.

Determining Difference
Deleuze writes that “difference is the state in which one can speak of determinations as such” (D&R, 28). It is this as such that is important for Deleuze. Difference is not a constant process but an immediate event. His example is lightning distinguishing itself from the undifferentiated, from the void of indifference. Difference occurs between the undifferentiated like a “struggle against an elusive adversary, in which the distinguished opposes something which cannot distinguish itself from it but continues to espouse that which divorces it” (D&R, 28).

It is common to perceive difference in terms of the of extremes or contraries (e.g., black vs. white), but this only scrapes the surface of difference. When these two extremes are taken to infinity, it becomes clear that they are simply opposite forces of the same quality. In other words, they are repetitions of the indifferent. To think of difference, one must deny the indifferent in order to make the different. Difference must be pushed to its limit, “the ground which is no less its return or its reproduction than its annihilation” (D&R, 45).

Being Different
It was who has made the only ontological proposition: “ is univocal” (D&R, 35). This has always been the only and it is what is echoed in all ontology before and after, from Parmenides to Heidegger. At the limits of infinity, we can see that difference does not presuppose some sort of identity, as Hegel had concluded, but rather that identity, through the opposition of identities, presupposes difference and even distorts it. It is not enough to say that “difference in itself is not ‘already’ ” but also that difference cannot be reduced to contradiction (D&R 51). Difference is the mirror which inverts the surface of identity, Lewis Carroll’s looking glass.

It was Nietzsche who first saw this concept and it is his philosophy of contradictions that really sought out difference. Reading Nietzsche’s concepts such as “beyond good and evil” as a simple rejection of morality is faulty because it still follows the conflict which Nietzsche rejects: “Thus Nietzsche reproaches all those selection procedures based upon opposition or conflict with working to the advantage of the average forms and operation to the benefit of the ‘large number’” (D&R, 54). Through Nietzsche’s , univocal Being is dissolved and “the superior form of everything that is” is uncovered. Eternal return itself “makes the difference” and displays the “univocity of the different” (D&R, 55).

Learning Difference
The activity of learning may be the most profound insight into difference. Being corresponds to the problem or question as though “there was an ‘opening’, a ‘gap’, an ontological ‘fold’ which relates being and the question to one another” (D&R, 64). Being, here, is difference as well as . This non-being should be understood as the negation of being but rather the “being of problem and question” (D&R, 64). Non-being is also difference. In this sense, non-being “should rather be written (non)-being or, better still, ?-being” (D&R, 64). By confusing this (non)-being with negation, contradiction is brought into being and the sight of difference is lost to it.

Nietzsche’s Duplicities

Published by cchrisr November 23, 2007 in Philosophy. 1 Comment

Note: While this may be rather long reading, it servers two purposes: to introduce a particular reading of Nietzsche and to give some background study on Deleuze who is the next subject of my “Faith Problems” series. One cannot read Deleuze without knowing Nietzsche.

How does one read ? Is there a way to remain faithful to Nietzsche’s thought? In what ways is one a “Nietzschean”? Reading Nietzsche requires seeing a philosophy of contradictions, duplicities, and inconsistencies.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche depicts noon as the time “when man stands in the middle of his way between beast and overman.”1 Noon is the period of transition between many things; one is neither one or the other but a multiplicity. This idea of the “Great Noon” runs throughout Nietzsche’s writings and presents a lens through which Nietzsche can be understood. Throughout his writings, Nietzsche presents a of singularity where a person is never exactly one thing but always in the state of . This lens should not be seen as a looking-glass to understand Nietzsche completely; Nietzsche’s philosophy has made it impossible to view from some kind of “objective” point of view.

Just as Nietzsche’s genealogies trace the presuppositions of a concept, we can also trace the presuppositions of his writings and philosophy; and sometimes these are contradictory. One cannot read his critique of without also seeing his defense of truth; it is not “Dionysius versus the Crucified” as a battle of two different things but rather a struggle of two extremes of the same thing within a person. This is how he paints his concept of the —and the Crucified.

Critiquing Truth
One focus of Nietzsche’s thought is that of truthfulness. It is sometimes deeply buried within Nietzsche’s works and often missed on casual readings. Yet he begins the preface to Beyond Good and Evil with the question “Supposing truth is a woman—what then?”2 He also hints at his take on her: “What is certain is that she has not allowed herself to be won”3–truth is to be pursued, but it is a difficult task. This is because truth is a multiplicity—between two extremes of the same concept.

Nietzsche consistently affirms truth and knowledge. He thinks that he has found a radically new view of truth: “Perhaps nobody yet has been truthful enough about what ‘truthfulness is.’”4 So, what has he found that no other philosopher has found before? One extreme of truth that he sees is the idea of a transcendent, objective, universal truth—the “truth” of science. All philosophers have treated their discoveries as this great “truth”: “They all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the self-development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic.”5 For Nietzsche, it is clear that none have truly plumbed the depths of knowledge and found any kind of truth fit to be called transcendent. These philosophers have instead “[stood] truth on her head and [denied] perspective, the basic condition of all life.”6 Ironically, however, Nietzsche claims his own critique of this inversion to be “objective”!7 This is because of the opposite extreme, perspectivism: “Supposing that this also is only interpretation—and you will be eager enough to make this objection—well, so much the better.”8 This is an instantiation of truth as an individual’s truthfulness, which Nietzsche ultimately affirms as the highest virtue.9

This analysis of truth now exposes “everything that has hitherto been called ‘truth’…as the most harmful, insidious, and subterranean form of lie.”10 Here, Nietzsche begins to unearth the myth—the stories—behind all things held as “true.” Truth cannot be anything objective because that concept involves a contradictio in adjecto—these “immediate certainties” are subject to an unquestioned I that performs the thinking. Nietzsche’s response to such a thought is “it is improbable that you are not mistaken; but why insist on the truth?”11 All truth is in reality an of truth, which Nietzsche implies in his fragment “On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense”:

What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.12

We can see here Nietzsche’s one extreme of in its full splendor. As metaphor, truth is unable to be transcendent because it is bound by human language and experience.

Affirming Reality
The birth of the overman is intrinsically tied to the death of God. The duplicity of life and death is, for Nietzsche, tied together at their roots. The first time Nietzsche writes about the death of God, the news is delivered by a madman to the marketplace; yet the more shocking part is that God was murdered by men.13 Ironically, however, the madman never answers his questions as to how or why men killed God. The answers to these questions are the ugly truths which only truthful men can bring.

The death of God is something that must be overcome not synthesized into a Hegelian dialectic. It is not a singular point of objective, transcendent truth; it is a multiplicity. God dies many kinds of deaths, as is fitting for all gods.14 First and foremost, “God died of his pity for man.”15 Later in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra expands upon this while talking to the retired pope: pity strangled God because God could not bear the sight of man hanging on the cross.16 This may answer how God has died, but it does not yet face the ugly truth of why God has died. For this, Nietzsche turns to morality: “I have already in the fourth act killed all the Gods—for the sake of morality!”17

It is not enough to see the death of God as an act against Christianity for it must also be seen as the capstone in the revaluation of all values. The death of God is so the overman can live; it is the symbol of truthfulness, of morality, and of redemption. Nietzsche’s of values is a new creation that stands in contrast to the old values: “We free spirits are nothing less than a ‘revaluation of all values,’ an incarnate declaration of war and triumph over all the ancient conceptions of ‘true’ and ‘untrue.’”18

Nietzsche’s new values are found in what he calls the , the artistic and anti-Christian manner of valuing life.19 It is in Greek tragedy that Nietzsche finds the supreme affirmation and valuation of life which has been perverted and inverted in Socratic and Christian thought. Within tragedy, Nietzsche sees the duplicity of the Apollonian and Dionysian forms of art. Here, the truth of reality is portrayed as “the Dionysian chorus which ever anew discharges itself in an Apollonian world of images.”20 Greek tragedy transforms the man into a satyr and is able to experience the wisdom of nature.21 Nietzsche’s new values are in reality the oldest values of the earth.

It is Nietzsche who, by perceiving the truth with all of its beauty and ugliness, rediscovers this and fights to bring truth back into philosophy and morality. Where is it that Nietzsche finds this lost truth? Within himself: “Revaluation of all values: that is my formula for an act of supreme self-examination on the part of humanity, become flesh and genius in me.”22

Duplicity of Singularity
Through his self-examination, Nietzsche finds not a being or any agent of action but a flux of becoming. It is not a self that is unified through time—a transcendent self—but a self that is always between multiplicities. He sees himself in multiple ways as different selves that are the same: “I am a Doppelgänger, I have a ’second’ face in addition to the first. And perhaps also a third.”23 This is the multiplicity of becoming that any conception of “being” in the former sense loses meaning because “whatever has being does not become; whatever becomes does not have being.”24 Nietzsche is the first philosopher to fully reject the task of ontology and transvalue all ontological philosophy into the philosophy of becoming and multiplicity.

By now, the answer should be obvious as to how one should read Nietzsche. His writings are full of multiplicities and contradictions. He cannot be read as a coherent singularity that revolves around one focus; it is always many, five or six, three or two, but never one. In between these points, however, Nietzsche’s sense becomes apparent and felt. Nietzsche’s contradictions form the basis of his thought; they cannot be explained away in the service of a systematic Nietzschean thought. His immorality is a method of returning to morality. His affirmations are negations and his negations are affirmations. Nietzsche’s singularity is in his duplicity.

Nietzsche is not to be followed at all: “I want no ‘believers’; I think I am too malicious to believe in myself; I never speak to masses.— I have a terrible fear that one day I will be pronounced holy: you will guess why I publish this book before; it shall prevent people from doing mischief with me.”25 To truly follow Nietzsche means that one must reject him and lose him.26 Only then can one affirm his philosophy. To accept Nietzsche without rejecting him, without overcoming him, is to misread Nietzsche.

—-

1F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (TSZ) I, “On the Gift-Giving Virtue,” 3 in W. Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche.
2F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (BGE), Preface in W. Kaufmann, Basic Writings of Nietzsche.
3BGE Preface.
4BGE 177.
5BGE 5.
6BGE Preface.
7F. Nietzsche, The Antichrist (AC), 20 in W. Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche.
8BGE 22.
9F. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (EH), “Why I Am a Destiny,” 3 in in W. Kaufmann, Basic Writings of Nietzsche.
10EH, “Why I am a Destiny,” 8.
11BGE 16.
12F. Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lies in an Extramoral Sense” (TL) in W. Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche.
13F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science (GS), 125.
14TSZ IV “Retired.”
15TSZ II “On the Pitying.”
16TSZ IV “Retired.”
17GS 153.
18AC 13.
19F. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (BT), Attempt at Self-Criticism (ASC) 5.
20BT 8.
21BT 9.
22EH, “Why I am a Destiny,” 1.
23EH “Why I am so Wise,” 3.
24TI “’Reason’ in Philosophy,” 1.
25EH, “Why I am a Destiny,” 1.
26TSZ I “On the Gift-Giving Virtue,” 3.

Valuation

Published by cchrisr October 31, 2007 in Philosophy. 5 Comments

The problem with values is that they are dependent upon specific beliefs. For instance, the concept of valuating concepts depends upon the belief that concepts can be evaluated and “judged” according to some set of principles. There is also the dependency of those particular principles. Theoretically, if the required beliefs are removed, the values based on them should fall, much like the removal of a foundation.

This is one of the premises behind ’s sustained attack on . According to John Wilcox’s seminal work on metaethical analysis of Nietzsche, Truth and Value in Nietzsche, this attack centers around five beliefs: the existence of God, the existence of another world, , a moral order to the world, and a purely moral motivation. While each of these would be worth exploration, for now we will focus on one in two parts: and the .

Freedom
Nietzsche is dead-set against any kind of real “freedom” in actions. In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche writes that the new doctrine of the “immoralists” is that “no one gives man his qualities–neither God, nor society, nor his parents and ancestors, nor he himself” (VI, 8). The last part is important here: one does not even give oneself one’s qualities. In other words, one is unable to determine who/what/how one is. In Human, All-Too-Human, Nietzsche iterates the same concept of Laplace: “In looking at a waterfall we imagine that there is freedom of will and fancy in the countless turnings, twistings, and breakings of the waves; but everything is compulsory, every movement can be mathematically calculated. So it is also with human actions…” (106). There is no freedom in Nietzsche primarily because the will is not a faculty of one’s actions. In other words, one does not will. Instead, one’s will compels one to action; there is no real because it had been decided before a choice was even possible.

Der Wille
Nietzsche conceives of the will differently than most Westerners have in the past two hundred years. As I mentioned just above, the will is not an agent of action for Nietzsche. The ability to choose one’s fancy (e.g. caesar vs ranch dressing) is not really a matter of the will.

This misunderstanding began back before Plato and Socrates as thinkers began to associate the will as the cause of an action. This transformed into the idea that the consciousness was the actual cause. Finally, in Descartes, we have the ultimate error: the ego (the self) as the cause of an action. Nietzsche writes in Twilight, “Men were considered ‘free’ so that they might be judged and punished–so that they might become guilty: consequently, every act had to be considered as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within the consciousness (and thus the most fundamental counterfeit in psychologicis was made the principle of psychology itself).” In other words, for the values of “good and evil” in the bad conscience of Christianity to work, it required man to be responsible for his actions, which further required the will as an agent of the self.

Values
In order to understand what Nietzsche means by his title Beyond Good and Evil as well as his designation as an “immoralist,” one must understand how Nietzsche conceives of the will and freedom. Nietzsche is not advocating a view “beyond morals” at all, but rather a view in which guilt is redeemed as a result of the will. Nietzsche’s concept of can be seen in both Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Antichrist: “To redeem what is past in man and to re-create all ‘it was’ until the will says, ‘Thus I willed it! Thus I shall will it!’” Redemption in this perspective of Nietzsche I am presenting (there are other ones that may all be contradictory) is the value of affirmation. The final stage of man is not the lion who roars “No!” to laws but rather the child who innocently speaks “Yes!” to new values. This is why Nietzsche respects the Jewish priests and Paul even though they become the epitome of ressentiment: they created .

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