Goodbye, Dear Edith

Please read this thoughtful obituary by Udo Middleman for his mother-in-law, Edith Schaeffer, who died on March 30.

Edith Rachel Merritt Seville Schaeffer died on March 30, 2013 in her home in Gryon, Switzerland, where she had moved 13 years ago to be surrounded by memories, her music, her son’s paintings and the detailed care organized daily by her daughter Deborah Middelmann. She was born on November 3, 1914 as the third daughter of Dr. George Hugh and Jessie Maude Seville in Wenchau, China, where her parents ran a school for girls and taught the Bible in Mandarin.

Edith Schaeffer marked her life with the expression of rich ideas, often rebellious against the staid and superficial life she saw among Christians. The oldest sister became a communist in New York of the 30ies, the second eloped. Edith Seville married Francis August Schaeffer in 1935 and in no way was she the typical pastor’s or missionary wife. She turned her active mind to work with her husband, teaching first seminary wives to think and to question, to create and make of life something of integrity, as her husband so wanted her to do. 

To put her husband through 3 years of seminary she tailored men’s suits, made ball room gowns and wedding dresses for private clients. From whole cow skins she made belts sold in New York stores. With very little money she prepared tasteful and varied meals. She painted a fresco on the ceiling of the vestibule in the little church her husband pastored in Grove City, while he attached a steeple to it with the elders’ help. They lectured together and encouraged many to use their minds to understand what they believed and how to respond to the intellectual and cultural ideas around them. Together they travelled and taught in churches and university halls from Finland to Portugal, helping people understand Christianity as the truth of the universe, not a personal faith, and pointing out the cultural and philosophical pitfalls in everyone’s way.

She lived her life as a work of art, an exhibition of true significance and a portrait of a generous, stunning and creative personality. She always sought ways to draw on life’s opportunities to show that human beings are made for the enrichment of everyone’s life, for the encouragement of people. This was a central part of the work she and her husband engaged in from the very start of their life together. She was in all things generous. When books provided royalties she used all of it to give her four children and their families annual reunions for the cousins to know each other.

When she left the work of L’Abri after her husband’s death she started the Francis A Schaeffer Foundation with Udo and Deborah Middelmann to safeguard his papers and the ideas that underline their life, to make them available for a wider audience. She found people interesting anywhere, engaged in conversation and so met the most amazing individuals. She talked, for instance, with the author Andre Aciman, standing in line for tickets to Carnegie Hall in NY and found out that he had had our village doctor, Dr. Gandur, as his pediatrician in Alexandria, Egypt. He was so grateful to be in touch through her with his old doctor.

She enjoyed people in the streets, in airplanes and over the phone, wherever she found them or when they could reach her. She stayed up nights to help someone out of their distress or need. With much imagination she served her meals with stunning decorations made from twigs and moss, field flowers and stones. Duncan from Kenya once remarked: “This is the first place where I see the beauty of the truth of the Bible consistently carried over into all areas of life.”

After the death of her husband in 1984 Edith Schaeffer added a whole new chapter to her life. She continued to write books, lectured widely and returned twice to her place of birth in China. She investigated the making the Baby Grand Piano she had received as a gift at the Steinway factory in New York and presented “Forever Music” in a concert at Alice Tully Hall in New York with the Guarneri Quartet. Through Franz Mohr, the chief piano voicer at Steinway she came to know musicians like Rostropovich, the pianists Horowitz and Rudoph Serkin, the Cellists YoYo Ma and Ya Ya Ling, and also the guitarist Christopher Parkening. She organized concerts and elaborate receptions for musicians and friends in her home in Rochester, MN. When she met B. B. King at the International Jazz Festival in Montreux he gave her his pass to the evening’s concert. Once on vacations on the island of Elba, Sonny Rollins noticed her beauty and rhythm in the audience as she danced during his concert, came off the stage and danced with her.

Today she “slipped into the nearer presence of Jesus”, her Lord, from whom she awaits the promised resurrection to continue her life on earth and to dance once again with a body restored to wholeness.

If you wish to honor Edith Schaeffer’s life you can support her intense commitment to the work of the Francis Schaeffer Foundation, Jermintin 3, CH -1882 Gryon, Switzerland

Udo W. Middelmann
The Francis A Schaeffer Foundation
313 East 92nd Apt 5E
New York, NY 10128

Easter Life and the Facts of History

Easter commemorates and celebrates a historical event unlike any other: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. But what is the significance of the resurrection? Can we know that it really happened?

The four Gospels of the New Testament all report that Jesus predicted his death, burial, and resurrection. He was born to die. All of his wondrous teachings, healings, exorcisms, and transforming relationships with all manner of people—from fishermen to tax collectors to prostitutes to revolutionaries—would be incomplete without his crucifixion and resurrection. Shortly before his death, "Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priest and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life" (Matthew 16:21). Peter resisted this grim fact, but Jesus rebuked him. There was no other way (vs. 22-23). For, as Jesus had taught, he "did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28).

And give his life he did, on an unspeakably cruel Roman cross—impaled for all to see before two common criminals. We call this day Good Friday because it was good for us; but it was dreadful for Jesus. Before I became a follower of Christ, I always associated this day with the Alaskan earthquake on Good Friday, 1964, one of the largest quakes ever in North America. I was there in Anchorage. After the death of Jesus, the earth quaked on the first Good Friday as well, heaving with a significance that far exceeds any geological upsurge in world history. As Jesus' disciple Matthew recounts: "And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split" (Matthew 27:50-51). When the guards at the crucifixion experienced the earthquake and the other extraordinary phenomena, "they were terrified, and exclaimed, 'Surely he was the Son of God!'" (v. 54). Yet another miracle was waiting,       waiting—as the dead Messiah was pried off his bloody cross, embalmed, and laid in a cold, dark tomb, guarded to the hilt by Roman guards.

All seemed to be lost. The one who had boldly claimed to be "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), the prophet who had announced that "God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16)—this man now had died. The man who had raised the dead was dead.

On the first day of the week, two women, both named Mary, came to visit the tomb of their master. They had stayed with him as he died; now they visited his tomb in grief. Yet instead of mourning a death, they celebrated a resurrection announced by an angel, who rolled back the stone sealing the tomb and charged them to look at its empty contents. He then told them to tell Jesus' disciples of the resurrection and to go to Galilee where they would see him. As they scurried away, Jesus himself met them, greeted them, and received their surprised worship (Matthew 27:8-9). He directed them, "Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me" (v. 10).

The rest is history, and it changed history forever. The fact that women were the first witnesses to the resurrection puts the lie to the notion that the idea of Jesus' resurrection was concocted at a later point to add drama to his life. Women were not taken to be trustworthy witnesses in courts of law at that time (although Jesus always respected them). If someone had wanted to create a pious fraud, they never would have included the two Marys in their story. Moreover, all four Gospels testify to the factual reality of the resurrection. They were written by eyewitnesses (Matthew and John) or those who consulted eyewitnesses (Luke and Mark); they were people in the know, not writers of myths and legends (see Luke 1:1-4; 1 Peter 1:16).

After the resurrection, the gospel of the risen Jesus was quickly proclaimed in the very area where he was crucified. This upstart Jesus movement would have been easily refuted by someone producing the corpse of Christ, which both the Jewish establishment and the Roman government had a vested interest in doing, since this new movement threatened the religious and political status quo. But we have no historical record of any such thing having occurred. On the contrary, the Jesus movement grew and rapidly spread. Christian Jews changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday, in honor of Jesus' resurrection. Pious Jews would never do such a thing on their own initiative, because it would set them against their own tradition and their countrymen. Nor would they have ceased offering the prescribed sacrifices their Scriptures required had not Jesus proven himself to be the final sacrifice for sin, the lamb of God (see John 1:29 and The Book of Hebrews). The resurrection best accounts for this change in their day of worship, their manner of worship, and the transformation at the core of their lives. Moreover, the two key rituals of the earliest church—communion and the baptism—both presuppose the historicity of the resurrection and both are very difficult to explain without it.

The Apostle Paul, a man revolutionized through an encounter with the risen Christ (Acts 9), taught that "if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (1 Corinthians 15:14). Paul listed many witnesses of the risen Christ, some of whom were still living when he wrote (1 Corinthians 15:3-8), and confidently affirmed that "Christ has indeed been raised from the dead" (v. 20). He also proclaimed that Jesus "through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4).

Easter is the core of Christian faith and life. Without the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no gospel message, no future hope, and no new life in Christ. But with the resurrection at its center, Christianity stands unique and alone in the world. No other religion is based on the historical resurrection of its divine founder. When Jesus announced, "I am the resurrection and the life" (John 10:25), he meant it—and he demonstrated it. Let us, then, leave our dead ways and follow him today and into eternity.

·         Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary and the author of On Jesus and Jesus in an Age of Controversy.

Book Review

Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources

• Khaldoun A. Sweis, Chad Meister, eds.
• Mar 26, 2013
• Series: Denver Journal Volume 16 - 2013

Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources. Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad Meister, eds. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Hardback. 560 pages. ISBN-10: 0310325331; ISBN-13: 978-031032533.

This extensive work is needful and helpful to the mission of extending the knowledge of the one true God to this fallen world; but it is also seriously lacking in several key areas—an odd combination, it seems. No book is perfect, spare Scripture, but a book that attempts to be a major anthology of the history of Western apologetics should have been more carefully thought out. Of course, there were also tough space limits to consider, but, to my mind, these could have been handled more wisely.

Of course, every anthology, encyclopedia, handbook, and dictionary suffers from the constraints of abridgement. Only God, the Omniscient One, knows all things from every angle and from every context. We mortals, especially east of Eden, labor under the limits of partial knowing, ignorance, trivia, and outright errors. For us, everything is an abridgement of sorts. Abridgement, while necessary, is difficult, and often vexing. Thus, one should be chartable in reviewing such works, but the reviewer cannot help but consider the ideal in this daunting task of synopsis.

The church and the world needs to know that apologetics is not an esoteric discipline for eggheads, but vital to the witness of all Christians. This work makes that known through its anthologized materials, general introduction, and its introduction to the eleven individual sections. The authors include both Roman Catholic and Protestant apologists (but leave out contemporary Easter Orthodox apologists such as Father Seraphim Rose). The Apostle Paul’s apologetic in Acts 17 wisely leads off the book. But the apologetics of Jesus himself finds no place. Dallas Willard, James Sire, and J.P. Moreland all make compelling cases that Jesus was a philosopher, thinker, and apologist. John Piper also defends Jesus against the charge of anti-intellectualism in his largely exegetical book, Think (Crossway, 2011). Selections from Matthew 22 would have strengthened the book considerably. Here Jesus engages in three theological-apologetic arguments. Moreover, the Hebrew Bible is not lacking in apologetic material, even at the very beginning of Genesis, which presents a polemic against neighboring pagan cosmologies as Gerhard Hasel and others have noted.

Christian Apologetics is also helpful in that it covers all the main topics in apologetics, including two areas often sadly ignored. The first is interreligious apologetics, which is represented in a fine essay by one of its greatest contemporary proponents and philosophers, Harold Netland. Second is the last section, “Christianity and the World,” which addressed the Christian’s response to culture as part of apologetic engagement. I was particularly happy to see a section from Francis Schaeffer’s prophetic work, A Christian Manifesto (Crossway, 1981) included in the entries. James Beilby writes a competent (if brief) overview of apologetics systems, but neglects to treat the cumulative case method—which commands a pretty broad following today—as an apologetics system in its own right. The book should be praised for providing footnotes (which are far more convenient than endnotes), bibliographies, an extensive index, and questions for further study at the end of each section. Thus, it is strong textbook material. But now to some rather significant errors and omissions.

The introduction nicely explains the nature of apologetics, its importance, and sets up the rest of the book. But I discern an epistemic-theological error that is distressingly pandemic in apologetics books. The claim is made that apologetics (no matter how rationally powerful) can only take the unbeliever “so far.” It can remove obstacles and commend the Christian worldview as rational, but it is the Holy Spirit who must bring people to the point of conversion. This view, while common, presents a false dichotomy that is, ironically, based on anti-intellectualism and poor pneumatology.  The Holy Spirit, according to Jesus, is “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16-17, 15:26, 16:13). Jesus himself, filled perfectly with the Holy Spirit, came to “make the Father known” through his deeds, character, and words, including arguments (as mentioned above). Therefore, there is no reason to exclude the Holy Spirit from working in and through good apologetic arguments. The Apostle Paul, while discussing church discipline and errant theology, said this about the nature and power of arguments:

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

While Paul does not explicitly mention the Holy Spirit in this passage, his statement makes no sense without the assumption that one must fight these spiritual-intellectual battles in the power of the Holy Spirit, the “Spirit of Truth,” in Jesus’ words.Therefore, one should not exclude the Holy Spirit from the work of apologetics itself.The Spirit woos souls (through argument and other means) and the Spirit brings people to conversion; it is a both/and, not an either/or. The one who reaches the point of trust in the truth of the gospel need not then take an irrational or even non-rational leap beyond the evidence or arguments.

There is also a documentation problem. It is not obvious in all cases which essays are unique to this work and which are taken from previous publications. One has to infer this. For example, John Warwick Montgomery’s fine essay on the history of apologetics is not listed in a footnote as having appeared first anywhere else. Other essays obviously are (such as the work of Aquinas and Anselm), and some essays mention in a footnote that they are taken from or adapted from other work. However, it would have been more professional (and convenient) to state which essays premier in this book. That is the scholarly convention and there was no reason to avoid it, to my knowledge.

While most sections are representatively adequate, at least two sections are lacking. The section on science and Christianity is not sufficiently represented. The simple reason is that no spokesperson for the Intelligent Design movement is included. Intelligent Design proponent Michael Behe’s argument for irreducibly complex systems in the cell is a part of the section on the argument for design, but this does not emphasize the conceptual relationship of Christianity and science proper. An essay by William Dembski (one of the most well-credentialed and brilliant Christian philosophers of our day) would have been apropos, given his deep theoretical understanding of design detection, the nature of science, and the importance of high-level apologetics. Of course, he may have been approached to do just that, and had to decline. (I have had to do this myself a few times.) Nevertheless, another stellar philosopher such as Stephen Myers could have written that kind of essay. Or, the editors could have included a piece by the father and long-time leader of the Intelligent Design movement, Phillip Johnson, whose effect on contemporary apologetics is incalculable. But he appears nowhere in the volume. Second, the section on the argument from design, omits the information argument argued magisterially in Dr. Meyer’s work, The Signature in the Cell (2009) as well as in the work of Werner Gitt (In the Beginning was Information.) The information argument is perhaps the strongest and most scientifically-credentialed argument from design in the history of Christian apologetics. Yet it receives no treatment at all. This is deeply lamentable.

Another infelicitous omission is the exclusion of Pascal’s anthropological argument, which is both historically rooted in the famous Pensées and which has been revived by contemporary thinkers such as Thomas Morris, Kenneth Samples, and Robert Velarde. Of course, Pascal’s wager is included (as it always is in these kinds of collections), but it not put in any kind of apologetic context. This is sadly typical of anthologies that present it. Worse yet, it is placed in the section called, “The Existence of God.” But it is not such an argument; rather it claims that belief in God isprudentially rational, given the stakes at hand. The editor’s introduction to this section calls it a “pragmatic argument for belief,” which is not far from the mark, yet the wager does not belong in the section to which it was extradited.

Two chief epistemological arguments are silenced as well: Alvin Plantingas’ “evolutionary argument against naturalism” (summarized in Warranted Christian Belief[Oxford, 2000]) and the argument from rational inference, offered most famously by C.S. Lewis in Miracles, and which has been more recently refined and brought up to date by the yeoman work of Victor Reppert in C.S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea (InterVarsity Press, 2002). The anthology does include a conceptual cousin of these arguments called “the transcendental argument” (made famous by Cornelius Van Til) by way of a debate between the brilliant presuppositionalist Greg Bahnsen and the rather clueless, but militant atheist, Gordon Stein. This is instructive, but it is not apologetic engagement at the highest level. If the editors wanted to present an apologetic debate, they should have chosen a transcript from one of William Lane Craig’s many debates with atheists.

Since this book purports to “an anthology of primary sources” that covers the history of apologetics (and without a methodological agenda), it is exceedingly strange that four of the most significant apologists of the twentieth century are missing: Cornelius Van Til, Gordon H. Clark, Carl F. H. Henry, and Edward John Carnell. While all four forswore natural theology, they excelled in negative apologetics and epistemological arguments against naturalism and theological liberalism. They are historical figures worthy of at least some note in this discipline.

During the past forty years or so, Christian apologists have thoroughly engaged the pantheistic monism (or nondualism) of New Age philosophies. Therefore, some vintage material from the likes of Os Guinness (The Dust of Death [InterVarsity Press, 1973]), James Sire (The Universe Next Door [InterVarsity Press, 1976; and subsequent editions]), Gordon Lewis (Transcendental Meditation [Regal, 1975]) or David Clark and Norman Geisler (Apologetics for the New Age [Baker, 1990]) would have been fitting. While pantheism is typically propounded in America more in the popular press than in the academic setting, it is not without its more thoughtful proponents, such as the prolific, if unconvincing, Zen Buddhist system-builder, Ken Wilber.

One mistake of commission is the inclusion of John Hick’s soul-making theodicy in the section on the problem of evil. The problem is not that the essay is entirely off-base, but that the anthology seemed to be limited to orthodox apologists, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant. Hick was neither. Thus, the inclusion of his work may confuse some readers. Certainly, an evangelical apologist could have been inducted here. Further, no Calvinist approach to the problem of evil was included. A contemporary evangelical philosopher such as John Feinberg or Winfried Corduan could have provided a fine essay. Less to my liking, but still in the Reformed tradition are the approaches of Gordon Clark (from Religion, Reason and Revelation [Craig Press, 1961]) and John Frame (in Apologetics for the Glory of God [P&R Publishing, 1994]).

One may be tempted to take these critical comments as the curmudgeonly snipes of an old apologist who was not asked to be an editor! Perhaps (some of them) are just; nevertheless, after thirty some years of teaching and writing on the subject, I cannot fail to call attention to them. Notwithstanding, the student of apologetics will find inChristian Apologetics many very important works of some of the best minds in the history of Christianity all hard at work “contending for the faith given once for all to the saints” (Jude 3; see also 1 Peter 3:15). Let us all be inspired by this work and continue the world-changing ministry of making the one true God known to the entire planet before it is too late (Psalm 90:12; Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 5:16; James 4:13-17).

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy
Denver Seminary
March 23, 2013

Book Review

My review of Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources.

The Prophet Speaks, There is Still Time

"And without a strong view of Scripture as a foundation, we will not be ready for the hard days to come. Unless the Bible is without error, not only when it speaks of salvation matters, but also when it speaks of history and the cosmos, we have no foundation for answering questions concerning the existence of the universe and its form and the uniqueness of man. Nor do we have any moral absolutes, or certainty of salvation, and the next generation of Christians will have nothing on which to stand. Our spiritual and physical children will be left with the ground cut out from under them, with no foundation upon which to build their faith or their lives."

Francis A. Schaeffer. The Great Evangelical Disaster (pp. 46-47). Kindle Edition.

Tattered Cover Bookstores in Denver

Bravo, for The Tattered Cover bookstores in the Denver area. They are locally owned, well-kept, well-stocked, and enjoyable for books and cards and other bookish items. Please patronize them and ask them to carry my books.

Book Review: Duke Ellington: A Spiritual Biography

Edward Kennedy Ellington was an endlessly complex and fascinating man as well as musician, composer, and band-leader. He was one of the leading personalities of twentieth century America with regard to music, race, and America's image around the world. A very thorough treatment of this multi-dimensional man is impressive work, "Duke Ellington's America."

But Ellington's religious views and activities are often lost on the biographers. Janna Tull Steed is an ordained minister and Ellington scholar who delves into his spirituality as her book's theme. All those entranced and enthralled by Duke do well to take her work seriously. Rather than offering a theological critique of Duke's works, Rev. Steed sticks mostly to description and interpretation, and does so in good, if brief, style.

The book features enjoyable many black-and-white photographs as well as a number of short essays set in black on grey. These are not obnoxious call-outs (which litter many a book today), but concentrated thoughts on important Ellingtonian themes.

While Ellington self-identified as a Christian, he was quite superstitious and, for all his generosity and prayerfullness, did not live according to a Christian sexual code. Steed does not go into detail, but Christian jazz lovers, such as myself, will find this troubling.

Rev. Steed pays close attention to Ellington's later "sacred concerts," which he considered the most important works of his career. This is quite a statement, considering a man of his talent and reputation. I have yet to warm to these works, but with Ellington, one must give him the benefit of the doubt and consider whether the fault is in the listener or the composer. A deep man demands deep listening; and I am not done with him yet.

Thank God for Duke Ellington, a man who believed in, prayed to, and wrote music for God. Amen.

My Philosophy of Card Writing

Work on my handwriting. Use a fountain pen.

Write friends, family, and also strangers who interest me: musicians, writers, artists. Try to plant a seed of truth.

Find the most interesting art cards available.

Use art stickers on the back as well. I just started doing this.

Pray over cards before sending them--and after.

Include my business cards, if writing to an academic. I just wrote one of that nature tonight.

Ponder by myself in my chair in the basement who I should write.

Use a dictionary, since there is no spell check!

Sometimes include a postcard within the card, if I like the photograph or painting.

To Teachers

Teachers:
Teach as if what you said counted for Eternity. It does.
Teach as if your students were eternal. They are.
Teach as if God were your audience. He is.

Truth

About ten years ago, a prospective student recently wrote to Denver Seminary. He was alarmed by our vision statement, which speaks of defending “absolute truth” in our postmodern world. Being favorable to postmodernism (through reading Brian McClaren’s book, A New Kind of Christian), he was wary of believing in absolute truth. This view would stifle our witness to non-Christians and hinder Christian growth, since those who believe in absolute truth think they have it all figured out.

           

This reveals that postmodernism is seducing the church as well as the world. Christians authors tell us not to emphasize biblical truth as objective and absolute. Instead, we should underscore the life of our community and tell the Christian story. According to McLaren, it is wrongheaded modern view to try to prove other religions wrong. We should rather try to be good and not worry so much about being right. (However, McClaren is concerned throughout the book to prove supposedly “modern” Christian are wrong.)

McLaren’s thinking issues the death sentence for apologetics: God’s call to defend our faith as true, rational, and compelling in the face of intellectual objections (1 Peter 5:15-17; Jude 3). One leading challenge to Christian faith—and to the idea of truth itself—is postmodernism itself.

           

Postmodern philosophies claim that truth is constructed by communities and shaped by language and social structures of power. There really is no truth “out there” above us.  Richard Rorty claims that no “vocabulary” (or worldview) is any closer to reality than any other—although he presents his own view as an improvement over opposing views. Truth is merely what his colleagues let him get away with. Few Christians make such bald claims, but one Christian writer recently published a chapter called, “There is No Such Thing as Objective Truth and It’s a Good Thing, Too.” Other Christian leaders join the chorus and instruct us to leave a strong emphasis on truth and apologetics behind. 

           

Yet without a clear view of the nature of truth and a rational defense of Christianity as true our witness will be paralyzed. We should tell our stories and invite people to join our communities. But Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, New Agers and others in our pluralistic world will tell their stories and beckon souls into their communities, too. What makes us different? As apologist Francis Schaeffer often said, the purpose of Christian community is to serve the God of truth with all our being. Truth should constitute our identity as Christians, individually and corporately. Jesus prayed to the Father, “Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17).

           

The Hebrew and Greek words for “truth” in Scripture have deep meanings, but they all center on the idea of factuality and accuracy. To put it more philosophically (but not unbiblically), a true statement corresponds with reality or fits the facts. Christian faith must fit the great facts of the Christian story or it is false and hopeless. Paul said that if we hope in Christ and his resurrection and Christ is not risen our faith is in pointless and misleading. It must be historical, factual, and reliable (1 Corinthians 15). Our confidence in the gospel is based on objective facts. We believe these them because they are true; our believing them does not make them true. Christians do find their faith to be subjectively compelling. However, these beliefs are existentially gripping only because they lay rightly claim to realities about our selves, our world, and our God.

           

But can we say that Christianity is absolutely true? Many professed Christians get philosophical cold feet at this point. Recent polls show that upwards of sixty percent of “Christians,” like our prospective student, deny the existence of absolute truth.

An absolute has no exemptions or qualifications. Jesus affirmed an absolute truth about himself: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6; see also Matthew 11:27). Paul echoes this when he claims that there is but one mediator between God and humanity, Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:4). Peter preached that salvation is found in Jesus alone (Acts 4:8-12). This absolute truth gives us a trustworthy point of reference, Jesus Christ, who is he same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  It is no arbitrary pronouncement, but a claim based on good evidence from the incomparable life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and found in historically reliable documents (Luke 1:1-4; 2 Peter 1:16).

           

Defending and living in accord with this objective and absolute truth does not imply we have absolutely mastered all the truth or all biblical truth. We bear witness to the absolute truth, but we are not absolute! No church or denomination perfectly captures biblical truth, but that is the goal.  Nor does belief in absolute truth mean we can easily convince doubters of this truth, but we should try. Nevertheless, we must marshal truth-claims and humbly present the arguments and evidence given for the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ—as well as for all the defining doctrines of Christian faith. Otherwise, we fail to be true to the truth that sets the captives free.

           

--Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary and the author of several books, including Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (InterVarsity Press, 2000).

City Bark

I often take Sunny, my Golden Doodle, to City Bark, which is very near where I work at Denver Seminary. The care they give is excellent; everyone loves the dogs; and service is friendly and efficient. I am quite happy to leave Sunny there for half days or full days. Therefore, I highly recommend City Bark for both grooming and canine care.

Avoiding Serfdom

Daniel Hannan, The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter or Warning to America. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. 200 pages, with index, $24.99. Reviewed by Douglas Groothuis.

          Should Christians study and be involved in politics? Some claim that politics is dirty; Christians should be pure; therefore, Christians should not seek to understand or contribute to the world of elections, legislation, and public policy. However, this is deeply unbiblical. Christ is the Lord of the whole of life and has summed his born-again and Spirit-filled people to “disciple the nations” (Matthew 28:18-20). We live in a fallen world. Christian involvement in that world—at every level—means associating with sinners, sinful ideas, and sinful institutions. But God’s mission as God is to draw people into his covenant, make them eternal citizens of his Kingdom, and empower them to reestablish the knowledge of God to the nations such that fallen mortals admit their state before God, appropriate his promises, and put them into action as they rely on the Spirit of Truth moment-by-moment. This cannot exclude the laws of nations—and neighborhoods.

          Since God is Lord, and not the state, every political order is under the judgment of a higher Sovereign. For example, the Psalms says to God and us:

Can a corrupt throne be allied with you—
    a throne that brings on misery by its decrees? (Psalm 94:20)

The Book of Acts reports God’s impeachment of arrogant Herod.

On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people.²² They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.”²³ Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

But the word of God continued to spread and flourish (Acts 12:21-22).

Christians, as salt and light in society, should be deeply concerned about the moral and political direction of their nation (Matthew 5:13-16). Civil law substantially shapes the character and culture of a nation. Although no tyranny can ultimately stop the advancement of God’s Kingdom, it can displease God and abuse people made in God’s image and likeness. Isaiah knew this: “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees” (Isaiah 10:1). Jesus himself was not coved by political pressure, nor did he endorse unjust authority:

At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.”

He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’  In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem! (Luke 13:31-33).

 As Jeremiah said, God’s people should seek the welfare of the city to which they are exiled (Jeremiah 29:7; see also 1 Peter 1). Although we are “exiles” on earth before God restores all things (Revelation 21-22), we are still called to cultivate and develop the creation (Genesis 1:26) in these terms:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).

Part of the Christian’s duty as both a citizen of heaven and of earth is to gain the best possible insights into the history, meaning, and possibilities for one’s own nation. That is, being a wise agent of God means not only knowing the Word, but knowing God’s world. This requires some knowledge of extra-biblical history, political philosophy, and economics. Christians ought not use the Bible as a shortcut to avoid these matters. In this endeavor, an Englishman, Daniel Hannan can help us immensely.

         

While on the floor of the European Parliament in 2009, Hannan eloquently denounced British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s policies. A video of his performance went viral on the Internet, thus acquainting millions of Americans to a principled, articulate, and courageous politically conservative voice from England. Although Hannan does not wax very theological in this short, crisp, clever, and insightful book, his warning to America is deeply rooted in the Judeo Christian tradition. Perhaps the most telling theological comments Hannan makes sums up the genius of this tradition: “it needs to be remembered that Man is fallen” (10). Knowledge of this truth protects civil governments from utopian aspirations and the superstition that human nature can be regenerated by political effort.  

Hannan’s thesis is that America has moved radically toward European political ideals and, therefore, away from its founding heritage of limited civil government. He does not want America to become a nation of serfs. Hence his title, which calls to mind Friedrich Hayek’s classic work, The Road to Serfdom.  Hannan warns that “The United States is Europeanizing its health care system, its tax rates, its day care, its welfare rules, its approach to global warming, its foreign policy, its federal structure, its unemployment rate” (xvi). As such, we are risking the integrity of our unique identity in the world. “Europeanization is incompatible with the vision of the founders and the spirit of the republic. Americans are embracing all the things their ancestors were so keen to get away from: high taxes, unelected bureaucrats, pettifogging rules” (118).

Hannan, though a loyal citizen of the nation that America opposed in the War of Independence, affirms American exceptionalism. This claim has taken many forms—some more merely nationalistic, others more nuanced and historically-informed. Basically stated, American exceptionalism does not deem America a new chosen nation, nor does it except America from transcendent moral standards.  As Jesus said:

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked (Luke 12:28)

Rather, it argues that the principles of America’s founding (articulated in The Federalist Papers, The Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights) are exceptional in world history. America was deliberately founded by well-educated, deep-thinking and far-thinking, intellectuals who held a Judeo-Christian view of human nature as neither angelic nor demonic, but constrained by finitude and sin. Therefore, the power of the state should be limited and the federal government should be separated into three powers, each with its own jurisdiction: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. To many, this arrangement merely a social construction with no intrinsic and abiding value, as claims progressivism. On the contrary, it captures many essentials truths of the human condition and what it means to live under ordered liberty

Like many British writers, Hannan possesses an urbane wit and an astute sense for history. He convincingly argues that America’s founding ideals were largely borrowed England, the very nation America revolted against in 1776. Many Englishmen did not support the war against the colonies, and it was not fought with great determination. Further, England generally embraced America after the war. The United States and England have been strong military allies through many years, especially in World War II. For these reasons, Hannan feels a keen kinship with America, and desires that it stay true to its founding principles. He believes that America at its best is, in many ways and despite is foibles, a light to world. He does not want to see that light flicker and eventually go out. The darkness would extend beyond our shores and throughout God’s world. America’s greatness should matter to everyone, argues Hannan, since “the promise of the U.S. Constitution didn’t simply serve to make Americans free. It also drove your fathers to carry liberty to other continents” (118).

Hannan has in-depth experience with both British politics and that of the European Union, a multi-national bureaucracy that has little respect for the popular will of the citizens of its constitutive states. It favors a socialist welfare state over personal liberty, prosperity, and opportunity; it mandates “global governance” and supra-nationalism over the sovereignty of individual nations (see Genesis 11 for the original source of this error.) In a particularly profound chapter called, “Don’t Copy Europe,” Hannan cautions that we should not copy Europe’s model of a centralized, command (top-down) economy, given its excessive and debilitating regulations, inability to motivate workers and generate new jobs. Nor should we ape Europeanize health care. As an example, Hannan explains the abysmal record of England’s inefficient and bureaucratically sclerotic socialized system.

We should avoid the European model of welfare as well, since it makes no distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor, undercuts individual responsibility, and engenders resentment between people. Our sense of society should not be inspired by Europe, because “as the state has expanded, society has dwindled” (100). Or, as talk radio host and author Dennis Prager says, “The larger the state, the smaller the citizen.” Social functions traditionally given to families—such as health, education, day care, and the provision for the elderly—are taken over by the state. “So, it is perhaps no surprise that the family itself, in Europe, in is decline” (101).  Hannan argues that Europe’s recent record on immigration and its abandonment of federalism is equally undeserving of our imitation.

Americans should aspire to something far better than serfdom. Daniel Hannan can help teach us how. I hope that Christians listen, learn, and act accordingly, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and in the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit of Truth.

Neil Postman

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another -- slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's _Brave New World_. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in _Brave New World Revisited_, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In _1984_, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In _Brave New World_, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

-- Neil Postman, Foreword to _Amusing Ourselves to Death_ (1985)

Here and Now

Here and Now: The Autobiography of Pat Martino

• Pat Martino, Bill Milkowski
• Feb 12, 2013
• Series: Denver Journal Volume 16 - 2013

Pat Martino with Bill Milkowski, Here and Now: The Autobiography of Pat Martino.Monclair, NJ: Backbeat Books, 2011. 192 pages. ISBN-10: 1617130273; ISBN-13: 978-1617130274. Hardback.

Autobiographies of jazz musicians are often a bit difficult to bring about in a suitable literary form. This is simply because most jazz musicians are gifted in the language of music, but not necessarily in written language. Some, like John Coltrane, are quite laconic (although one can read Coltrane on Coltrane, culled from interviews). Others, like Duke Ellington, were oratorically nimble and mellifluous in speaking (listen to his dazzling spoken introduction to “Afro-Eurasian Eclipse” on the recording of the same name), but a bit idiosyncratic (if not factually errant) in writing. Ellington’s autobiography, Music is My Mistress is wonderfully entertaining, but not the most thorough or literate account of the maestro’s life and music. (For that, see Harvey Cohen, Duke Ellington’s America [University of Chicago Press, 2010].) A fair number of jazz autobiographies are joint productions, as is Here and Now. Pat Martino, arguably—and I will argue it—the greatest living jazz guitarist, teams up with jazz writer Bill Milkowski (author of Jaco, the biography of jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius) to produce a brief but satisfying story of Martino’s life and music. Short interviews with other admiring musicians—such as guitarists Carlos Santana, Pete Townshend, and George Benson—are sprinkled throughout the book and make up Appendix I: Guitar Players Testimony.

Besides Martino’s long and distinguished career as a pioneering guitarist with a tremendous knowledge of musical theory is the remarkable story of his catastrophic brain injury and his slow but complete comeback, against the odds. After supporting various organ-saxophone groups in Philadelphia as a mere teenager (beginning his professional career at age sixteen), Martino established himself as a unique and virtuoso voice in jazz guitar, known for his laser-sharp precision, tasteful speed (no narcissistic shedding here), relentless swing, and pure fire. (He soon changed his name from Pat Azzara to Pat Martino.) Then, after various seizures and other mental difficulties, a congenital brain defect (arteriovenous malformation) caused Martino to lose nearly all of his memory, including his ability to play the guitar. When he awoke from his emergency surgery, he could not recognize his own parents. They were strangers, as was much of the world. His parents moved him back in with them and Martino slowly began to regain many—but not all—of his memory and, amazingly enough, relearned to play the guitar. Having listened to nearly all of his recordings before and after his brain injury, as well as having seen Martino perform four times in two days in Chicago in 2012, I can assure the reader that he regained all he lost—and added even more skill, soul, and musical intelligence. An appendix, “Martino Unstrung: A Brain Mystery,” by psychologist-journalist Victor L. Schermer explores in some depth the nature of Martinos’ injury and recovery—as does the fascinating and enjoyable DVD of the same name. Another appendix provides Martino’s voluminous discography.

This narrative is told rather sparsely, although we learn quite a bit about his parents and upbringing. One does not learn too much about his first marriage, for example. He writes more, not surprisingly, of his present wife, who he warmly credits as stabilizing and inspiring his life. However, Martino and Milkowski recount the basic outline of Martino’s life and especially musical development, which for Martino aficionados such as myself, is intrinsically interesting. The title, Here and Now, expresses something of Martino’s worldview.  While not elaborately articulated or described in metaphysical categories, Martino’s music and life centers on being “in the  present” fully, of finding a level of concentration that is pure and revealing. While deeply steeped in musical theory and possessing flawless execution, Martino believes that there is more to playing and music itself than human performance and acoustic expression. It is spiritual and may open one up to higher realities. However, he views this holistically. He surprisingly says,

I’m not a guitar player. I’m not a musician. Because I don’t really seem to find that of any interest in the long run. I’m more interested in what this whole phenomenon of life is really all about (ix).

Martino came of age professionally in the middle to later 1960s and was influenced by Eastern worldviews and the idealism of the early drug culture, which considered hallucinogenic drugs as, in fact, psychedelic. That is, these substances were taken to be potential portals to a spiritual state of some kind. But as Francis Schaeffer  (in The God Who is There [1968]) and Os Guinness (The Dust of Death [InterVarsity, 1973]) perceptively observed, these drug-induced or meditation- induced experiences lacked intellectual content and were not verifiable through reason and evidence. One gets a sense of this in Here and Now. Martino intimates here and there that reality is more than what normal sensory perception can capture, and that some music has a mystical affinity with this reality, but he is rather illusive about its nature or meaning. Although he was raised Catholic and mentions some short-lived involvement in a Catholic charismatic prayer group, his worldview seems eclectic and perhaps pantheistic. He is quoted as saying on the back cover:

I’ve often asked myself, ‘What am I?’…In fact the words I am are enough for me. They’re the words of God. And that to me is the essence of definition. The greatest truth comes right back down to the central part of what a person truly is—life itself. And when you reach such a conclusion, it’s so spiritual that it overcomes as well as transcends any of the crafts, like guitar playing. Maybe that’s what eventually leads us to discover, however long it takes.

This confession is a bit cryptic and elliptical, but the rest of the book intimates a spirituality and worldview more akin to Eastern mysticism than monotheism. God revealed himself to Moses as “I am who I am.” (Exodus 3:14). The language is that of a personal, self-reflective, and communicate being, who far transcends anything that Moses (or any human) can find within themselves. Christ himself harked back to this theophany when he affirmed of himself, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Yet Martino quotes (without attribution) the Gnostic-mystic psychiatrist Carl Jung on the page before the table of contents: “Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.” For Jung, the deepest reality was that of the Self, not of a personal-infinite God outside the self. (See my essay, “The Hidden Dangers of Carl Jung,” Christian Counseling Today; this is available on line:http://theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2006/07/carl-jung-beware.html.) If we look only within, we will find the image and likeness of God, but a flawed and needy image, given the ravages of the fall (Mark 7:21-23; Genesis 3; Romans 3:9-26). As Francis Schaeffer put it, we fallen mortals, rebels against God at our core, need forgiveness and restoration through “the finished work of Christ.”  (See Schaeffer’s exposition of Romans 1-8, The Finished Work of Christ [Crossway, 1998]). This cannot be found within. But if we lift “the empty hands of faith,” in Jesus Christ, we are given a new life with God, and an “infinite reference point” through which to understand ourselves and our world. The knowledge of God is the key to all other knowledge, for “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7; see also 2:5). Further, in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2-3).

The musical ability and near-miraculous comeback of Pat Martino are, whether he fully understands this or not, gifts from a gracious God. Further, when I met him at the legendary Jazz Showcase in Chicago, I discovered that Mr. Martino is a humble, kind, and gracious man. There was no sign of egotism, despite his prodigious and, at times, breathtaking, talents. May he grow in the knowledge of the one true God and find eternal life “here and now,” and forever (see John 1:18; 3:16-18).

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy
Denver Seminary
February 2013

Losing our Letters

Amazing as it may seem to many of us now, human beings wrote letters to each other before the arrival of electronic mail. My mother did. Along with her letters (sometimes typed on a typewriter, sometimes in long hand), she sent me clippings from her local newspaper—another print medium that is in jeopardy—about my old high school friends, how the moose are taking over Anchorage, Alaska, and other items she finds noteworthy. She was a lifelong correspondent, and thus a dinosaur. God bless her for it. But there are a few far younger “dinosaurs” out there, including one of my students who hates email and cherishes letter-writing (“my correspondence,” she affectionately calls it).

What do we lose when we exchange email—or incessant cell phone chatter—for the writing and receiving of letters? We all know what we gain from email and cell phones—speed, transferability (ugly word, that), volume of data, and more. But what features of a good life do we forfeit in the process? As with all communicative technology, there is a trade-off between gains and losses.

For one thing, we tend to replace reflection with rapidity. Email is fast, very fast—and often, too fast. No intermediary object is required for an email. We type letters on a screen and launch them into cyberspace. With letters, we must inscribe symbols onto a page, a distinct physical object that takes up space and which has a marked history of its own. Writing by hand takes time, and is, therefore, inefficient given contemporary quantitative standards. However, the time and effort is takes to write a letter demands a slower pace and allows for more deliberation on what one is writing. In days of yore, many a letter was written only to be torn up and thrown out because one thought better of it. Or perhaps it was tucked away as memorabilia.

In an email age and texting age we may be losing a literary fixture: the collection of noteworthy people’s correspondence, as The New York Times recently noted in an essay by Rachel Donadio called, “Literary Letters, Lost in Cyberspace” (September 4, 2005). I have read entire books made up of the letters of C.S. Lewis (who was always in good form), Francis Schaeffer (the consummate thinking pastor), and others. It is not unusual to find the letters of literary figures or philosophers, such as Bertrand Russell, bound for posterity or included in biographies. “Men of letters” were almost invariably men (or women) of letters. Letters of note tended to be saved or duplicated. Emails, on the other hand, are so multitudinous and so disposable (click or “oops!”), that often they are not translated into a more permanent form. (Digital storage is less permanent and more fragile than paper, since it often decays, is fragmented, or becomes unreadable due to new software. I take this up in The Soul in Cyberspace.)

Letters carry the literal touch of the person who wrote them. Even a typed letter is signed. It is crowned by the signature: one’s own name in one’s own hand. If a letter is hand-written, the sign of the personal is made more manifest. In writing a letter recently (a rarity, I admit), I realized that I seldom write by hand more than a few sentences at a time, usually on my student’s papers. Besides that, I may make a list (for shopping items or articles due to editors), check boxes for various purposes, or fill out forms. My hand writing is poor; in fact, I do not write cursively, but print. It is slow and cumbersome. I must work at making my inscriptions intelligible, and any aesthetic features are out of reach. Nevertheless, our handwriting—heavenly or ghastly or somewhere in between—is our creation, the inscription of our identity placed on receptive material. We may choose the type of pen, color of ink (or inks), and make idiosyncratic notations. Yes, email gives us a plethora of choices, such as fonts, emoticons (now animated), text size, photograph-pasting, and so on, but these are pre-selected for us by others. They are not created by us specifically for another. The manner of writing itself—apart from its overt intellectual content—may be revealing. A good friend of mine told me that her mother discerned the disheveled state of her soul not by the content of her writing, but by the contours of her handwriting.

Simply because letters are irrepressibly personal, most of us still get a small (but not cheap) thrill from finding a letter in our mail box addressed to us in handwriting (and not machine produced)—a letter that often has a telltale thickness, indicating that it houses several pages, folded and written by human hands. Perhaps we should send and receive fewer emails, yell into the cell less often, and instead give and receive the small but tangible joy a letter can afford. Perhaps (to consider something quite radical for most) we should even work on our penmanship as a way of working on our relationships.

Douglas Groothuis is Professsor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary and the author of On Jesus (Wadsworth, 2003).

Douglas Groothuis, Metro State, 2013

Terms from Introduction to Philosophy

There are several terms or phrases that I have introduced in class that may not have been covered in your reading. Here are a few of them.

1.      Place-holder: Usually a letter to indicate an abstract concept. P means “any proposition.” S means “any subject,” understood to be a person. These are similar to variables in algebra. X and Y may mean anything. Let us use some place holders in an argument:

A.    If X, then Y.

B.    Not-Y.

C.    Therefore: not X (modus tolens).

2.      Proposition: what an indicative sentence affirms. The same proposition, “This is a cat,” can be spoken or written in many languages, and with the same meaning. Deconstructionists do not believe in propositions because they reject objective truth. Everything is reduced to relative language for Deconstructionists.

3.      Propositional attitude: One’s intellectual orientation toward truth claims. About claim P (any proposition) one may:

A.    Believe P to be true

B.    Not know if P is true

C.    Believe that P not true.

D.   Hope P is true.

E.     And more.

4.      Reference range: the extent of a truth claim; what a truth claims covers or contains. These come in several basic types:

A.    Universal affirmative statement: All X is Y: All humans (X) are mortal (Y)

B.    Universal negation statement: No X is Y: No humans (X) are immortal (Y).

C.    Particular affirmative statement: X is Y: Socrates (X) is mortal (Y).

D.   Particular negation statement: X is not-Y: Socrates (X) is not immortal (Y).

5.      The law of identity: A is A. It is that simple. The Student Success Building (A) is the Student Success Building (A). You (A) are you (A)!

6.      Perspectivism: This comes in two types: hard and soft.

A.    Hard perspectivism is the idea that all knowledge is limited to a perspective and that no perspective is closer to the truth than any other perspective. That is, it is perspective all the way down. This is a kind of relativism and is claimed by Deconstructionists.

B.    Soft perspectivism is the idea that the same state of affairs (or circumstance) can be understood from various complementary perspectives. For example, Christians claim that the four Gospels about Jesus’ life (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) give somewhat different perspectives on the life (although they all make many common claims) and teachings of Jesus, but these perspectives do not contradict each other. They are, rather, complementary and contribute to a larger harmonious whole. Or: my experience of John as angry and your experience of John as patient are not contradictory if we are referring to John at different times. The larger perspective is that John is sometimes angry and sometimes patient.

7.      Disjunctive proposition: a statement involving a choice between possibilities. “It is in either chapter three or chapter four.” This is true if it is in one of the two chapters stipulated. It false if it is in neither chapter or in both chapters.