Category: Christianity

Balancing Work, Meaning, and Faith in Modern Life

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It’s easy to get myopically caught up in a demanding job. We mistake business for meaning. Or we distract ourselves with business to avoid the question of meaning. But a meaningful life is our responsibility, and it will always be our responsibility despite any distractions. This is a great lesson from the existential philosophers for our modern world.

But we cannot be defined by our profession or our status because it is all too insignificant. This perspective on the significance of work becomes clear on our deathbeds. Sacrificing so much for our work or perception is a dangerous trap. There has to be something more. A greater meaning. Mere approval from others might be attractive and give us a temporary buzz, but when we’re alone and left with our thoughts, we know that there must be something more.

Of course, Christ is the answer I am alluding to. The priority must be kept in mind. Christ wants us to work, but we must always work in virtue of Christ, and only for Christ’s glory and not our glory. The meaning is centrally Christ and our work is just the steps we take with him. I often fall into the trap of engrossing myself in work. But a singular type of work. The work that gives me status, approval, and comfort. We have to be careful of the idol of work. In modern life, we can worship business, productivity, and achievement. For this to take the place of Christ is absurd. It can be important to branch out into other kinds of work or leisure as an act of faith.

It’s a blessing to be able to create or engage in creative work. Creative work can be understood as something broader than something artistic or using our hands, such as creating a community, creating a small process of efficiency, or creating a better world for somebody. We must use this opportunity to work hard and create work to the best of our ability. In the same way, Mozart must develop his talent, we have a duty to do our best and hone our craft. If we can, we can have a little piece of creating beauty that reflects divine glory. In this vein, we have to use every second of our time on earth to work. Doing less than what we’re capable of or being lazy and slothful is a sin. We must cut out all the fluff of the opiate of media, easy pleasure, and anything taking away from true happiness. We can get distracted by easy pleasures that pale in comparison to the true joy of genuine happiness. In the same way, classical music requires a finer and finer ear to enjoy; even more, the rapture that a performer feels at their finest performance.

It’s important to be alert and sober. It’s not always about substance abuse but anything that can intoxicate us. Our minds can be intoxicated by people, technology, or any other distractions. We need to peel these distractions off of us in order to access the correct view of life. The mission we have in our life is our mission for God. We have to stay lucid and embrace the discomfort. It’s a part of life. To try and escape life as soon as it becomes uncomfortable misses out on something. It takes out the pensive confrontation of the thoughts we avoid and the things that rise out of boredom. We must process things in sobriety. Another aspect of sobriety is purity. We need to get rid of all distractions like taking off dirty clothes. We need to purify our minds and what we consume with our attention in order to be completely sober. This isn’t some sterile life that’s in store for us. It’s about maintaining control and knowing our boundaries. It’s about having the clearest mind in order to have fun.

In developing more mature skills, we become more efficient and economical. We need less effort and it becomes more refined in delivering happiness. The mature happiness that goes beyond novelty. At higher levels of skill, there are new planes of enjoyment that only a few, those who have achieved equivalent mastery, have properly attained and experienced.

Christian Meditation: Exploring the Unique Dimension of Relationship with God

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Meditation has been in the attention of empirical studies and its positive effects have been readily proven. Still, there is more to uncover, especially in relation to more abstract ideas of religiosity, mysticism, and sacred ideas of enlightenment, the divine, and so forth. It is difficult to connect to Christianity without casting Christianity in the box of just another religion. I will try to tease this separation out and argue for what is unique about Christianity and meditation.

Christian meditation can include other readily studied elements of mindfulness, peace, or whatever else is in popular jargon, but the unique dimension is its focus on the relationship with God. Christian meditation seeks to strip away all the distractions of the world and focus on a deeper reality of, as coined by Martin Buber, I and Thou. This is characterized by mutuality, presentness, and ineffability. It is a direct relation to God, who is ever-present in us and the awareness of the relationship is triggered by many sublime resemblances—music, nature, or other forms. We disconnect from this awareness of God so easily, and it becomes difficult to reconnect to this ideal view.

Being present is another widely used term in religion, particularly in Eastern traditions. One adage suggests that obsession over the future leads to anxiety and obsession over the future leads to depression; as such, the proper way to live is to be in the present. Meditation is supposed to help with this. A key takeaway is the ability to control one’s thoughts and control one’s ruminations on thing out of our control. It’s tempting to self-flagellate over our past or go through hypotheticals of the future, but resistance and focus on the present experiences is the healthier way to live our lives. Enough navel-gazing and paralysis through our catastrophizing.

How do we understand this through Christianity? God commands us not to ruminate on our sins; we must learn from it, ask for forgiveness, and move on. God also commands us to trust him for our futures; we can make prudent plans to some degree, but we must not overly commit to our future. This latter point needs explanation. We are not in control of our future and we tend to forget this. We think we have the power or control to direct our steps, yet we have brief glimpses of our helplessness. We do not know what to do with our ultimate helplessness so we naturally try to believe ourselves out of this. To delude ourselves into thinking we have control is the ultimate poison when things do not go our way. This is why faith and reliance on God is liberating.

The eternal perspective is best understood as a continual present. It takes faith and dependence on God to move forward this way. By staying in the present, we become free from everything else in the world. The daily scurry that is motivated by an uncertain future and the push of regret from a turbulent past—all those elements dissolve in the present. We can enjoy life by enjoying our walk with the Lord.

We also do not know what our past leads up to. As our past grows, it can become increasingly unclear how it all fits together. The trajectory of the past into the future can be so unclear to us. As the saying goes, things can change overnight. In this vein, the monotony of our day-to-day present can be upsetting. But we have to understand again that any second anything can happen and change can be drastic. We have to be faithful in our day-to-day for our master to call us. We must be ready.

The metaphor for me is the walk with Christ. As we live our lives, we are in constant walk with Christ. He never leaves us, and there is nothing outside of the walk; that is, our very steps into the future are our walk with Christ. Meditation allows us to tap into the reality above our day-to-day life: the presence of Christ by our side walking with us.

This is particularly lost in the modern world and meditation becomes that much more important. We get swept up in the distractions of the world and almost forget completely about the reality that is much more real than our day-to-day. The very mode of thinking becomes stuck. We do the most unhuman and unnatural thing for humans: forget the relationship with Christ. We can remember Christ through our inundated lens, but this forgets the relational aspect of fully experiencing the indescribable presence of Christ.  

I often meditate on the past in order to understand the present. I looked at an old photo album today and saw my parents. I meditated on their position as recently arrived immigrants—poor, scared, and working all the time. I felt so ungrateful for my current position and I felt like I had an infinite debt owed to them. This taste of being truly loved is a fraction of what God feels for us and what he’s done for us. The true depths are unfathomable.

Embracing Weakness and Finding Strength in God’s Power

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But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

  • 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

God’s power is often shrouded in mystery because it isn’t obvious to us in our daily lives. We read about it in the Bible, through miracles and various acts, but experiencing it firsthand is rare. This elusive nature makes it challenging for us to fully grasp or understand God’s omnipotence.

Omnipotence is an abstract concept that is difficult for us to comprehend. It is a philosophically complex topic. We might think of strength or power in terms of our everyday lives, but these are imperfect glimpses of true omnipotence. The power to create nature, the universe, and even our own minds and bodies is so far beyond our understanding; its magnitude renders it ineffable and we cannot get our minds around this infinite power.

God’s power is seen directly all throughout the Old Testament. Miracles provide a tangible example of God’s power. They represent God’s ability to interrupt the natural order with His divine will and breaking the very laws we consider immutable. This is why miracles can be hard to believe; they defy the logic and understanding of the human mind. For Christians, recognizing this power should inspire reverence and guide our daily lives. Forgetting God’s power means missing a crucial aspect of who God is which leads to an incomplete worship.

However, in the New Testament, we mostly see them through the miracles of Jesus. There are a few exceptions. Notably, the blinding of Paul, which led to his conversion. Arguably, this is also through Jesus, as he was the one he met on Damascus road and received censure for persecuting Christians. The giving and taking of his vision led to the conversion of Paul.

Thinking about what Paul experiences is revealing. Being blinded is a traumatic experience and undercuts whatever status Paul believed he had in persecuting Christians. God’s power shattered his worldview and it all changed in a moment. God’s power also restored his vision and, symbolically, helped him see the world clearer through his conversion.

We also see God’s power through the ultimate miracle of the resurrection of Christ. It’s the most supernatural event. Conquering death and sin. It destroys all of our anxiety, doubt, and angst. We can confidently move forward under the authority and strength of God; we know he is our ally so long as we have faith. This is the ultimate gift. God’s power is always there and it has the potential to change everything at any moment. Understanding this can bring us out of thinking we have things under our control or that things are hopelessly beyond our control. Faith in God’s power is what motivates and moves us.

When we meditate on God’s power, we become acutely aware of our own weaknesses. However, it is through these weaknesses that God’s power is perfected. We can take solace in knowing that our limitations are part of a greater, infinite power. Any strength we perceive in ourselves pales in comparison to God’s power. When we see others wielding power, we must remember that it is insignificant next to God’s omnipotence. We should not fear but respect human power, always keeping in mind its insignificance compared to the divine. God’s power is always with us.

Draft Essay: A Challenge to the Proper Basicality of Theism

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Alvin Plantinga purports a “reformed epistemology” in his paper Is Belief in God Properly Basic? He says the modern foundationalist’s formulation of the criterion for proper basicality (viz. self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses) fails because it is “self-referentially incoherent.” He then says that one does not need a criterion for proper basicality to rationally or justifiably believe that something is properly basic. This is met with two objections: groundlessness or gratuitousness, and arbitrariness. Plantinga answers these objections by saying that rather than appealing to a criterion, we can use an inductive approach of using a relevant set of examples. He then applies all this to theistic belief. I argue that this approach cannot be applied to theism because one cannot arrive at a rational relevant set of examples. More specifically, Platinga’s principle of “relevance” fails to account for contradictory examples, which consequently makes belief in God arbitrary.

Plantinga begins by contextualizing his thesis. He says that those who object to theism and those who affirm theism both do so on the basis of evidence. This evidentialist approach is based upon classical foundationalism, which says some propositions are properly basic, while others are based on evidence tracing back to propositions that are properly basic. Properly basic beliefs are beliefs which are not based on another belief; conversely, beliefs that are not properly basic are accepted on the basis of evidence. Evidentialists think theists violate normative standards of rationality by believing in the existence of God without sufficient evidence. If a belief is irrational – that is, not based on evidence – then it should be rejected. Moreover, evidentialists minimally think that God is not a properly basic belief. Plantinga argues the contrary, namely, he argues that belief God is properly basic.

Plantinga also rejects the modern foundationalist approach[1]. He tells us that the modern foundationalist’s criterion for proper basicality is “self-referentially incoherent.” Their criterion is as such: “For any proposition A and person S, A is properly basic for S if and only if A is incorrigible for S or self-evident to S.” In essence, Plantinga says that the criterion itself fails to meet its own criterion.

In refining his views, Plantinga deals with two objections to the claim that belief in God is properly basic: groundlessness (or gratuitousness), and arbitrariness. First, basic beliefs are not groundless because there is some “circumstance or condition that confers justification.” For instance, for perceptual judgements, there are conditions that justify taking a judgement as basic – for example, in seeing a tree, the condition would include the characteristics of that tree being “appeared to” in a certain fashion. It has a “characteristic sort of experience” which acts as a “grounds” for justification.  Similarly, we may have the same grounds, the same justifying conditions for belief in God – to name a few, “guilt, gratitude, danger, a sense of God’s presense, a sense that he speaks, perception of various parts of the universe.” These do not amount to the belief in God’s existence, but merely belief in propositions such as, “God is speaking to me,” or, “God forgives me,” which ipso facto entail God’s existence.

The next objection Plantinga deals with is arbitrariness. The objection is as follows: because the reformed epistemologist rejects the criteria for proper basicality, she is committed to supposing anything can be properly basic. Plantinga argues that it is possible to eliminate arbitrary and meaningless basic beliefs without a criterion. Consider, again, the basic belief from the perceptual judgement, “I see a tree”.  There must be a way to eliminate, without a criterion, the prima facie basic belief: “I am hallucinating that I am seeing a tree.”

For Plantinga, the proper way to arrive at a criterion for proper basicality, that is not self-referentially incoherent, is by induction; or in other word, it must be “argued to and tested by a relevant set of examples.” For instance, perhaps we have the “grounds” for justifying the preceding events as properly basic: “I remember waking up this morning,” “I remember walking to the park,” and “the park ranger is telling me to watch out for trees.” These examples can give us a framework for properly basicality which we may use to inductively infer the proper basicality of the proposition, “I see a tree,” and dismiss the proposition, “I am hallucinating that I am seeing a tree.” Reformed thinkers, Plantings says, can hold that “certain propositions are not properly basic in certain conditions.” He adds that not “everyone will agree on the examples.” In the case of theistic belief, the “Christian community is responsible to its set of examples.” Granted, the theist would need to discern the “neighbourhood” of conditions which justify and ground belief in God, and demarcate such beliefs from irrational beliefs (like the existence of the Great Pumpkin).

Plantinga suggests that the relevant set of examples to justify a properly basic belief in God is derived from a Calvinistic sensus divinitatis. This is a “sense of divinity” which is akin to perception in that it is a faculty that can sense the divine; specifically, “God has implanted us to see his hand in the world around us.” As such, the “grounds,” or conditions for justifying the proposition “God is hearing my prayers” is the sensus divinitatis. In effect, we can gather similar instances to give us an inductive framework for properly basicality, and we can subsequently apply this framework to eliminate irrational propositions, like “there exists a Great Pumpkin.” Plantinga admits that one may object to the notion of an ingrained sensus divinitatis; yet, this irrelevant because what is in question is how rational the theist is in her belief in God, and she would readily attest to the notion of sensus divinitatis. In other words, the set of relevant examples regarding the “grounds” for justification may differ between the theist and the atheist, but they are both rational in their respective beliefs so long as they have proper “grounds.”

However, the issue is that propositions like “God is hearing my prayers” cannot be distinguished from the proposition “I merely have the feeling that God hears my prayers.” They entail two contradictory propositions: “God exists,” and, minimally, “I do not know if God exists.” Even if one accepts the sensus divinitatis as a “grounds” for justification, one cannot determine which proposition is more salient since all of the relevant sets of examples have the same issue. For whatever example is used – whether it is a sense of forgiveness or a sense of guilt – a contradictory example can be thought of which stipulates that one has the mere feeling of the sensus divinitatis. As such, it is not possible to come up with an inductive framework for proper basicality with satisfactory examples to eliminate irrational propositions, like “there exists a Great Pumpkin,” as not properly basic.

I have attempted to give an adequate account of Plantinga’s views. For the most part, I did not attack Plantinga’s general method; rather, I challenged Plantinga’s application of the sensus divinitatis to his inductive approach. To be charitable, perhaps the sensus divinitatis can somehow distinguish between the two contradictory propositions. But this seems highly ad hoc. Anywhere the sensus divinitatis goes wrong, it can be attributed to human fallibility. This may be a satisfactory explanation for the theist who has a first-hand account of the sensus divinitatis, just as it may be sensible for somebody with clairvoyant powers to maintain that information from their clairvoyant faculty is properly basic – of course, there is a way to verify the accuracy of one’s clairvoyant powers, and no way to verify one’s sensus divinitatis. In any case, somebody without direct access to such faculties would rightly question its warrant as rational grounds for belief.

Source

Plantinga, Alvin. “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?” (1981) Nous 15: 41-52

[1] Modern foundationalism is a subset of classical foundationalism – the other, according to Plantinga, being “ancient and medieval foundationalism.”

Draft Essay: An Analysis of God’s Eternality, Causation and Creation

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This paper begins by exploring Aquinas’ view of God and eternality, and subsequently outlines some worries and attempts at solutions to Aquinas’ view. There are worries of God eternality and personhood, God eternality and our personhood insofar as autonomy, and God’s eternality and his relation to us. There seem to be some unresolved tensions pointing at the act of creation; specifically, with conceptions of causation and maintaining God’s eternality. I propose a more moderate view of creation, which is supplemented with some of Aquinas’ view, as an attempt at addressing these qualms.

Let us begin with an exposition of Aquinas’ view of eternity and God. (ST 1, Q10)[1] Aquinas seems to look at time as a measured (“numbered”) succession of change (“movement”). (ST1,Q10, A1) He adds that this view of time is interdefinable with the concept of “eternity.” Whatever is not in time, and is “outside of movement,” (ST1, Q10, A1) is the eternal, since it has no successive dimension (i.e. its ontology has simultaneity) and it has no dimension of initiation and termination (i.e. “interminable). I useful illustration to elucidate this idea might be a track and field race. Imagine a race where sprinters have to run 100 metres – there is a starting line and a finishing line. Every step the sprinters take, they change locations and move closer to the finish line. Suppose also that there is a referee that stood completely still throughout the whole race. From the point of view of the sprinters, the referee has always been there from the race’s start to the race’s finish, and the referee is completely throughout the race (he does not run with them, or move alongside them). Similarly, the sprinters are how we see time, and the referee is how we view eternity. This idea of eternity is essential to connect with our idea of God.

Aquinas is committed to the idea that God is changeless, and it follows from this that God is also eternal. (ST1, Q10, A2)Immutability, or the attribute of being changeless, entails the two conditions for eternity. First, since there is no change, there is no successive dimension – it must always (without connoting time) be the same. Second, since there is no change, it cannot have a beginning or end because this implies having some property at one moment and not having a property at another moment.  Aquinas also stipulates that this concept of “true” eternity (ST, Q10, A4), or eternity proper, is only instantiated in God. Other things we might think to be eternal are spirits, universals, angels, or demons; however, they have immutability (eternality, or “eternal life”) merely in virtue of God. (ST, Q10, A3) The idea here is that God’s ontology is an antecedent to the ontology of these other immutable things. Aquinas mentions the term “aeviternity” (ST1, Q10, A5), a state of eternity improper for angels and the like. What distinguishes them is, again, their creation from God; in other words, they have “a beginning but no end” (ST1, A10, A5). This is difficult to picture, but imagine that Atlas existed eternally, holding the earth on his shoulders. The earth on his shoulders is not on the ground in virtue of Atlas holding it up; although both exist eternally, the earth needs Atlas to hold it up. Similarly, other immutable things need God to maintain their eternality – the analogy is far from perfect, but the idea is that God is the only thing that has immutability (ipso facto eternality) in the robust sense.

Some have pushed back on this idea that God is eternal by arguing that a personal God cannot be eternal because there is some inconsistency. William Lane Craig remains unconvinced by this pushback. Craig narrows the scope of his argument to the mere conception of God; by this I mean God analyzing God without conflating the issue of how God might relate to humans. Craig looks at the “necessary conditions of personhood” and seeks to establish their consistency with a timeless being. (Craig, 110) Craig alludes to three such conditions: “consciousness,” intentionality,” and “inter-personal relations.” (Craig, 110)

First, let us explore the consciousness challenge. Craig mentions an argument that time is a “concomitant of consciousness.” (Craig, 111) This alludes to Aquinas’ initiate view of time: consciousness generates a “temporal series” (Craig, 111) that is sufficient for time. This view however is not in conflict with Aquinas’ general view of a God with “atemporal consciousness;” (Craig, 111) more specifically, Aquinas thinks that the “potentiality for change could not be eternal” (112) because God must be pure actuality. It is possible to imagine that God has consciousness that consists of various propositions which do not have to be temporal (e.g. “all men are mortal,” “the internal degrees of a triangle add up to 180 degrees,” etc.).

Next, the intentionality challenge. A person performs “international actions” (Craig, 117) for the sake of bringing about some goals. This seems like a challenge for God because this implies “future-directed intentions” (Craig, 118), which seems incompatible with not only eternality but also omnipotence. Aquinas seems to maintain that God’s intentionality is oriented to his own goodness. Is there a contradiction here? Craig does not think so – he thinks intentionality does not have to be future-directed. (Craig, 118) Craig frames intentionality as an act of the will. (Craig, 119) Therefore, God exercises intentionality by either willing to create (the universe) or willing not to create.

Finally, let us explore the “inter-personal relations” (Craig, 119) challenge. Some say God’s timelessness does not allow him to have relations with other people, thus God is not personal. Here, the objection falls flat immediately because the conception of God necessarily has interpersonal relations. The Trinitarian doctrine states that the godhead consists of a relation between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. An illustration that comes to mind is Cerberus from Greek mythology. Cerberus is a three-headed dog, and each distinct head has a relation with each other. Moreover, the picture of God is often accompanied with angels and demons, so there are further reasons to think that God has relations without thinking of relations with humans.

By and large, there is no trouble with God’s eternality and personhood; however, there may be an issue with God’s eternality and our personhood. This issue is equally pressing because our personhood seems like a basic (i.e. fundamental or primitive) idea to us; if it were mutually exclusive with God’s eternality, it would be reasonable for us to give up the concept of God’s eternality. An essential feature of personhood that should be emphasized is autonomy. On Aquinas’ picture, it is a feature of what makes us essentially human; more specifically, our autonomy guides the way we achieve our teleological goals. We have the freedom to choose how to achieve the ends for Eudaimonia (i.e. fulfillment, happiness, flourishing). If our autonomy is violated by God’s eternality, it questions our personhood.

Brian Leftow thinks Boethius’ model best preserves God’s eternality and our autonomy (or “libertarian freedom”). (Leftow, 309) The general problem with God’s eternality and our autonomy is that God’s knowledge is of eternal truths, and this means God knows every action any human will do. For instance, my choice to either write this sentence or not write this sentence was already known by God’s eternal knowledge; thus, if it were already known, there seems to be some sense in which I was not free to choose it.

The maneuver around this, Leftow presents, is reminiscent of Boethius. (Leftow, 311) The claim is that God is not in time, but above and beyond time. There is no “time” when God know what will happen; in other words, there no “time” when there is a being (God) with knowledge of the next succession (time) of events (my choice). On this view, God is timeless (and eternal) and still has eternal knowledge of all truths. This is a nice reconciliatory view of God’s eternality and our personhood.

Let us now consider God’s eternality and his relation to us. David A. White mentions two forms of the “doctrine of divine immutability.” (White, 70) First, is that God’s change is not “real” change, but mere “relational” change; second, it that God undergoes neither of these changes. (White, 70) This can be frame in the language of extrinsic and intrinsic change: “real” change seems to be intrinsic in character – that is, gaining a (salient) property – yet “relational” change seems to be extrinsic, or gaining (loosely) a property in virtue of something else. For example, an intrinsic change to a bucket of blue paint would be it changing into a bucket of red paint (it gains the property of “redness”); in contrast, an extrinsic change would be putting it next to a bucket of red paint (it gains the property of “being next to a red bucket of paint”). With this picture, it would seem God’s relation to us is a relation change. For instance, prayers are thought to be a relation between us and God, but it is such the case that we pray to God and God gains the property “being prayer to by a person.” Moreover, answering prayers aligns with the previous thought of eternal knowledge: mainly, God ordered the world so that prayers may be answered. By and large, it seems most cases of God’s relation to us seem like the weaker, “relational” type change.

There seems to be another issue with God’s eternality and change – that is, the moment of creation. It seems there is some real change in God at the moment of creation; namely, he takes on the property of “creator.” This issue might be resolved by saying that God always had the property of being a creator and chose to exercise it at the moment of creation. However, this pushes the problem towards temporality. If God is eternal, how could he choose a specific moment to create the world and still maintain his eternality?

There have been some reasonable responses to this issue. Leftow seems to deny that it is a real change but a mere relational change. (White, 76) The idea is that intrinsic changes to properties must have some causal significance, and creation should not be conceived in this way. Unsatisfied with this view of causation, Craig responds by wanting to take a model of divine eternity which “combine states of divine timelessness and temporality into a single world.” (Craig, 114) So prior to creation God exists atemporally, but then exists temporally with his creation of time. (Craig, 115) Craig bites the bullet and says that God is temporal post creation; nevertheless, his view of eternity allows this. Craig’s views of eternity, however, seem unsatisfactory to the traditional view of God.

Perhaps Aquinas can help. Perhaps creation can be seen as an extension of God so that a robust notion of causation is not necessary. With this in mind, the view that creation is a mere relational change seems tenable. Rather than thinking of creation as an artist drawing a picture (a direct causal relation), a more appropriate analogy might be a tree growing a fruit. The tree sets in motion the development of the fruit, but it is still a part of the tree; moreover, the fruit affects the tree in an extrinsic, relational way. Some may push back and say this implies that all the imperfections and evil of the world are also a part of God. However, Aquinas’ conception of evil is viewed as a privation of good, and as long as the imperfections of the world strive for perfection (consistent with Aquinas’ picture), there is no issue.

This is only one small suggestion at dealing with the issue of God’s eternality, change and creation. It is an open question which conceptions of eternality and causation in creation are most tenable, especially keeping in mind specific views of Christian dogma. I want to further suggest that a conception of eternal time for God that is not univocal with human time is hinted at by Aquinas, and this too would resolve the tensions.

Sources

Craig, William Lane. “Divine timelessness and personhood.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 43: 109–124 (1998)

Leftow, Brian. “Timelessness and Foreknowledge.” Philosophical studies 63. 309-325 (1991) White, David A. “ Divine Immutability, Properties and Time.” Sophia 39:2. 70-80 (2000

[1] http://www.newadvent.org/summa/

Draft Essay: Hermann Cohen and Karl Barth on the Holy Spirit

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Hermann Cohen’s view on the Holy Spirit is that it is a “correlation of God and man.” He comes to this conclusion by investigating the “spirit of man” (100) and its relation to holiness.  The “spirit of holiness” (104) is a facet of the “spirit of man” insofar as it is an attribute which the “spirit of God” also possesses. With this is mind, holiness is seen as morality, which is the same morality as the morality of God. It is important to distinguish that the unification is not a connection between God and man; rather, it is unification through a shared spirit of holiness, qua morality, which must be thought of as a correlation. This view staunchly opposes the Christian view of the Holy Spirit. Karl Barth views the Holy Spirit as a distinct “person” that is a part of the triune Godhead. Like Cohen, Barth offers a sophisticated exposition of the Trinitarian doctrine and outlines various nuances with respect to the Holy Spirit. Although Barth’s views on the Holy Spirit is a stark contrast to Cohen’s views on the Holy Spirit, there are many areas of commonality, that, if distilled, have a similar theological approach. Still, this paper will argue in favor of Barth; although not an adjudication, it will suggest some advantages to Barth’s views over Cohen.  

For Cohen, the holy spirit must be understood as a correlation. Cohen’s use of the term “spirit” should not be confused with the term “soul”. The spirit does not refer to a substance that is a part of man; rather, it is an essence or a definitive quality. With this is mind, Cohen says, the spirit “mediates holiness” (100) to bring about the “correlation of God and man.” (100) This is to say that the role of the spirit is as the “connecting link of the correlation” (105); the “spirit of holiness” is “fully as much the spirit of man as the spirit of God.” (102)

Cohen’s use of “holiness” must not be confused with traditional notions of piety or purity. “Holiness” is the “medium that accomplishes the correlation.” (105) Thus, “when the spirit is called holy, […] one means its realization of the correlation [between God and man].” (101) It is important to note that the spirit, as the “connecting link of the correlation,” is always present; however, the spirit is not always a holy spirit. The holy spirit is an ideal relation that is strived towards, and it is “understood as a continuously new creation.” (104) This correlation is created, on the part of man, through the active processes of “self-sanctification” (104).

He describes holiness on the part of man as consisting in “self-sanctification” (111), which, he says, “can have no termination, […] but only infinite striving and becoming.” (111) The holiness of man, the correlation with God, is an “abstraction of eternal moral becoming.” (111) This relates back to Cohen’s metaphysics – becoming strives towards being.  It is a morality with a metaphysical grounding. Again, man’s “moral tasks” are always in a state of becoming, it is “infinitely distant” (108); however, in this action, this striving, man becomes “the carrier and guarantor of the holy spirit.” 

The holy spirit, the correlation between God and man, provides for us the “unequivocal elucidation of the concept of holiness.“ (106) One can only have a sense of morality through the correlation with God; that is, it is the foundation on which morality stands. When the correlation, or the holy spirit, is limited to the scope of morality, “holiness becomes morality” (106). The common ground between God and man is holiness qua morality – “holiness” here being a “task and ideal of action.” (111) “Holiness unifies God and man. There is no other morality but that of man, which even includes the morality of God. And there is no other holiness of God but that of man, which even includes the holiness of God.” (109) There is nothing more to God and man but the correlation, as Cohen writes, “God is determined by the holiness of the spirit, and, according to the correlation, so also is man.” (103) Man is to be “established and founded by the holy spirit” (106). In other words, man as the I and man as the thou; “man in accordance with the uniqueness of God, man himself as unit as individual” (106). On this view, God is an idea of moral perfection. Man’s “knowledge of God” (109) is limited to the holy spirit.

The holy spirit is only present when man “sanctifies” (110) himself, and in doing so, man “accomplishes the sanctification of God.” (110) “[T]he holy spirit […] stamps itself onto the moral spirit, onto moral reason.” (106) Cohen’s God doesn’t give laws; the commandments are internal. Commandments would restrict man’s autonomy, his will, and this violates Kantian understanding of morality. Rather than laws, our moral actions are to emulate God so we can be like him, and this is done through moral practice.

There is nothing more to man than being called to holiness qua morality, which is also the essence of God. There is a co-dependence, or “reciprocal effect” (103):  ”to every man the commandment of holiness is issued, thus God desires to be hallowed through every man.” (103) God depends on man because “God accomplishes his holiness in man,” (103) and man depends on God to “men fulfill their striving for holiness in the acceptance of the archetypal holiness of God.” (103) Put more lucidly: “God depends on the correlation with man. And man is dependent on the correlation with God. The high point of this correlation is reached in the concept of the holy spirit.” (105) This reciprocity can be thought of as an “abstract” “unification” (105); however, God and man are still ontologically unique and distinct. Cohen adds, “The correlation does not remain limited to God and man, but inasmuch as it becomes more profoundly defined as reciprocal effect, it extends over the concepts of holiness as well as of the spirit.” (112)

It is “not so much related to God as to man, so that it is not thought of as a specific characteristic of God.” (101) The holy spirit is mentioned “only three times” (101) in the Old Testament (Isaiah 63:9-10, Isaiah 63:11, and Psalm 51). Notably, God puts his holy spirit in “the people” because they “represent man better than even Moses […]” (101). In Psalms, the holy spirit has a role in man’s sinfulness; it reveals “forgiveness as a specific attribute of God,” (102) and the holy spirit “leads us upon this road.” (102)

There is an issue of the “materialization and personification of the Logos as a holy spirit mediating between God and man.” The issue is that when it is “imagined as a material connection of powers, which afterwards becomes person, the connection assumes the form of a community.” (100) This would result in holiness being “made into a special task of a particular agency of this community.” (This becomes a problem later, as we see that holiness is reserved for God and man, and their special correlation.)

Cohen’s views are meant to reflect Judaism. “Judaism is still reproached by Christianity […] for not allowing any connection between God and man.” (105) Jews have unification rather than connection. There’s a “limitation of the holy spirit to morality.” (106)

Barth’s views reflect, indeed, stem from Christianity. The nuances that separate Christian denominations are not significant for the purpose of this essay; still, it should be mentioned that Barth’s theology is Calvinistic.

The Trinitarian doctrine defines God as a one ousia, or essence, and three hypostasis, or distinctness within the essence. The ousia refers to the “persons” – the Father, Son, and Spirit – having the same “sense of identity of substance.” (351) It is important to note that each “person” of the Godhead is distinguish by their “freedom, ontic and noetic autonomy.” (307) Barth says, “if there is to be a valid belief in revelation, then in no sense can Christ and the Spirit be subordinate [to the Father].” (353) The three persons of the trinity are equally God, but this does not mean that there are three gods (tritheism). The trinity means that “He is not just in one mode but […] in the mode of the Father, in the mode of the Son, and in the mode of the Holy Ghost.” (359) Barth sums up the meaning of the Trinitarian doctrine by saying “God is the One who reveals Himself.” In other words, the Spirit is the “revealer,” the Son is the “revelation,” and the Father is “being revealed.” (359) Still, one must leave aspects of the trinity in the “mysterium trinitatis.” (368)

To Barth, the Holy Spirit is not an agent per se. He describes the Holy Spirit as the “togetherness or communion of the Father and the Son.” (469) What makes the Holy Spirit distinct is paradoxically the “common factor in the mode of being of God the Father and that of God the Son.” (469) This is to say that what unites the Father and the Son is itself a distinct thing, which is the Holy Spirit. Thus, Barth says, “the Holy Spirit could not possibly be regarded as the third ‘person’.” (469) Barth is wary of attributing a robust sense of agency to the Holy Spirit; rather, the Spirit is another mode of the Godhead.

The role of the Holy Spirit is particularly important with regards to the revelation. The Holy Spirit “is the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Son of God crucified in the flesh for us, or (which says the same thing), the Spirit is the Word of the Father spoken to us.” (28) Jesus is the revelation, “the Word,” of the Father, “in His passage through death to life.” (451) Furthermore, the revelation is to not only “come to man,” but through the Holy Spirit, but to also “be in him,” which consequently achieves revelation in the man as well. (453)  The Holy Spirit “guarantees man what he cannot guarantee himself, his personal participation in revelation.” (453) Moreover, “The status of being a child of God is simultaneous with receiving the Holy Spirit.” (457)

To understand the Holy Spirit’s relation to us, it is important to first elucidate Barth’s theological approach. Barth has a special brand of theological humility where we, the creature, are entirely dependent on God and we cannot do anything without him; indeed, we need “the Creator to be able to live.” (450) We need a “relation to Him” but we are not in a position to create this relation. (450) Through the Holy Spirit, “God creates it [the relation] by His own presence in the creature and therefore as a relation of Himself to Himself.” (450) God becomes present to man “not just externally, not just from above, but also from within, from below, subjectively.” (451) 

There is a great chasm that separates us from God. This chasm is to be understood as not only sin, but as our limitations in knowing God. Barth writes, “There can be no question of rationalising because rationalising is neither theologically nor philosophically possible here. That is to say, as philosophers we cannot give a full interpretation of the object with an apparatus of concepts already elucidated – for we have come up against the fact that from the standpoint of the object the decisive act of interpretation is an elucidation of the conceptual apparatus which is so radically ill-suited to this object.” (368) This epistemology outlines our limitations in comprehending God.

The Holy Spirit is the bridges the chasm between us and God. Everything must be done by God: “No other intercedes with Him on our behalf except Himself. No other intercedes with us on His behalf except again himself. No one else speaks from us when He speaks through us except himself.”  (465) We are in no position to bridge this chasm, so by grace God does this for us. “The deity of the Holy Spirit is thus demanded.” (465) With the Holy Spirit in us, he does not “merely come to man.” But he also “encounters Himself from man.” (451) In this revelation, “God and man, Creator and creature, the Holy One and sinners” are united “so they become Father and child, in the same way He is in Himself the communion, the love, which unites the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father.” (486)

Barth argues that the Holy Spirit plays three roles: creator, atoner, and redeemer. This is, of course, a synthetic distinction and merely serves as a heuristic tool. It must also be noted that all three members play a role in the human life; after all, they are three-in-one. Keeping in mind Barth’s theological humility, he does not claim to build a robust theological system.

First, as a creator, the Holy Spirit is “the only reason that humans actually exist in the image of God.” (1) This is not limited to our physical bodies, but this ineffable quality – that is the “free work of the Creator in his creation” – “only comprehensible as grace.” (1) Without the Spirit, we cannot hear God speak to us. “We exist as spiritual creatures, or created spirits, because the Holy Spirit continually creates spirit within us. This becomes the access point for God to commutate divine truth to us.”  (18)

By creating a spirit to communicate divine truth to us, the Holy Spirit elucidates our morality. The ethics of Barth is based on a sole reliance on God. The thoughts of humans “are bound by our confinement to the space-time continuum,” so “thoughts we create in and of ourselves cannot ever be said to be God or to accurately represent God.” (8)  According to Barth, “theological ethics cannot be done in such a manner that we think we are able to know what God’s command is, either by referring to the alleged truth contained within creation, or even by referring to this or that verse of scripture.” (15) The attempt itself at cognizing the commands of God through our reasoning distorts what God actually expects of us. God must actively work within us to impart his knowledge through the Holy Spirit; thus, without the Holy Spirit, we cannot understand the Bible nor what God demands of us. We can only know God’s demands through revelation, and this is a process that is done entirely by the Holy Spirit’s “being and work” within us. (1) Only in the Holy Spirit can we hear “God’s words […] not lost in the darkness of [our] human ignorance.” There is no way to do this without the Holy Spirit.

This is divine command theory at its purest form. We cannot comprehend morality because morality is the Word of God which “we are not able to hear.” (16)  Barth writes: “Ethics, however, must not decide on these things, in and of itself, because the concern of the Word of God ultimately belongs to God alone. Any ethics that thinks it can know and establish the commands of god the Creator sets itself on the throne of God.” (15)  It is clearly has no room for any Kantian deontological system; in fact, any attempt would be idolatry. Succinctly put, “God alone is the law; only in God’s own concrete acts of commanding and prohibiting does He pronounce freedom and guilt. (31) Barth adds, “what a careless ethic unequivocally wants to name sin, can always be justice from God’s prospective and vice versa.” (31)

This is another illustration of Barth’s theological humility. We are entirely dependent on God for moral guidance at every step, and any attempt to grasp at the morality for ourselves would be self-defeating. “We can neither awaken nor educate ourselves to this hearing; we can neither achieve nor maintain it for ourselves. We have, in what we hear, no security, no self-made guarantee of truth, other than that which has been given to us to hear itself. We only really hear in the act of hearing, in the divine certainty within our human uncertainty, which corresponds to the fact that this hearing is the miracle of God.” Indeed, every moral ideology “tastes like human vanity and not divine truth.” (17)  Above all, Barth writes, “Theological ethics, like all of theology, has to serve the Word of God.” (15)

The Holy Spirit, as an atoner, is involved in the forgiveness of sins. The Holy Spirit as an atoner “Atoner” is originally the German “Versohner,” which can be more closely translated as “Reconciler,” but Barth uses it to emphasize the spirit’s role in salvation. (2) The “holiness” of the Holy Spirit does not refer to it being radically different from our spirits; rather, it “refers to the Spirit’s opposition toward the serious and radical perversion and sin of the created spirits.” (19) Our sin is “hostility towards God” and “even towards grace.” (20) The Holy Spirit is “the One engaged in this struggle and victory of grace over the hostility to grace in humans.” (20) The Holy Spirit is what defines a Christian. Paradoxically, only when we are saved – that is, receive the Holy Spirit – can we know, through the Holy Spirit, that we were in doomed. He gives the following parable in illustration: “the legend of the rider who crossed the frozen Lake of Constance by night without knowing it. When he reached the opposite shore and was told whence he came, he broke down, horrified. This is the human situation when the sky opens and the earth is bright, when we may hear: By grace you have been saved! In such a moment we are like that terrified rider. When we hear this word we involuntarily look back, do we not, asking ourselves: where have I been? Over an abyss, in mortal danger! What did I do? The most foolish thing I ever attempted! I was doomed and miraculously escaped and now I am safe! You ask: ‘Do we really live in such danger?’ Yes, we live on the brink of death.” (32) The paradox is that we only know we are condemned after we are pardoned. He writes, “The cross is where God gives Himself to death in our flesh and where we find ourselves buried with Him in this death. The yes is thoroughly hidden under this no.” (35) The cross is where God simultaneous rejects sin yet accepts us. The “yes” refers to God accepting us and “no” refers to rejecting sin.

Barth writes, “the office of the Holy Spirit must be, above all, a disciplinary office, not in spite of, but indeed because, He is the Atoning Spirit of God.” (29) Here, the German word (Strafamt) for “disciplinary” also carries the ideas of “prison, punishment, and penal sentence.” We hear that Holy Spirit is the comforter, but he cannot comfort those who are “hard headed and arrogant hearted.” (30)

Thus we come across the concept of sanctification: the Holy Spirit is “the finger God, by whom we are sanctified.” (10) Barth explains sanctification as such: “since we are the ones whom God has forgiven, God’s own radical and powerful opposition falls on us.” (41)Here, God’s opposition is towards sin, and it is our duty to follow him in opposing sin. The Christian, the one who hears the Word of God, merely “exist as people who do God’s Word.” (41)

But here again we come across the problem of the ineffability of morality. We must be obedient to the Word, yet “our obedience is so obviously hidden from us.” (42) We do not know what our actions should be; it “never becomes even partially clear to us.” (42) “Only in the Holy Spirit is it determined if the given action is obedience and not disobedience.” (43) Barth stresses that “the attempt to justify oneself by works” is a “sin humans cannot get rid of.” (2) It is all through God that we are saved, and “this means that our works are categorically removed.” (28) He rejects the “work-righteousness of popular Catholicism.” (29) We are free from the law of God, “which man has misunderstood and misused,” (456) and ready for “real revelation.”

The Holy Spirit, as a redeemer, is the “Spirit of Promise.” (3) This means the following: “In the Holy Spirit, that is, in the finality and futurity of the principle of his existence in the afterlife, the human is a new creature: God’s child.” (3) The spirit transforms the individual into a “child of God,” which is a dynamic process, completed in the afterlife or Christ’s coming.

The Holy Spirit has an “eschatological” presence in our spirit. (48) This is to say that the Holy Spirit “promises to have His actual will with us in an ultimate and future sense.” (48) This will refers to the release “from the temporality of our created nature and from the contradiction of being ‘at once the sinful person and the justified person,’ and eternally belong to Him.” (50) In other words, overcoming of death and sin, and achieving resurrection and eternal life. Moreover, the Holy Spirit “works to deliver us to God when our own end comes to pass.” (47)

Furthermore the Holy Spirit conforms us to the likeness of Christ. In the Holy Spirit, we meet the “principle of existence in the afterlife” and are accordingly changed into a child of God. (3) This transformation is a dynamic process, which is to be completed in the afterlife or in the event of Christ’s coming. “Having been hidden with Christ in God the human always has a Conscience leading him into all truth, and because freedom he is bound always in gratitude to God, he prays and is heard while he prays.” (3) Believers of Christ has the Holy Spirit like a person’s conscience speaks to them, the spirit does too.

“All these things, faith, knowledge, and obedience, exist for man ‘in the Holy Spirit.’” (453) The Holy Spirit directs us to becoming a child of God, and gives “instructions and guidance he cannot give himself.” (454) The spirit is a catalyst for repentance and trust and Christ, which are key in faith; thus without the spirit, there can be no faith or salvation. (2) It is how “He establishes and executes His claim to lordship over us by His immediate presence.” (454) This is not to say that the Holy Spirit becomes “identical” with ourselves, or that we lose our identity because of the Spirit. (454) The creature the Holy Spirit is imparted to “by no means loses its nature and kind as a creature so as to become itself, as it were, the Holy Spirit.” (462) That is, “man remains man, sinner sinner,” and the “Holy Ghost God remains God.”

I now move on to comparing and contrasting Cohen and Barth, with a particular emphasis on Barth. My aim is to assess the coherence of their views on the Holy Spirit or the spirit that is holy; accordingly, I attempt to distill this from their religious convictions. I attempt to be as objective as possible, yet I must note that I adhere to many of Barth’s presuppositions – primarily, the general doctrine of Christianity. As such, I reframe from addressing issues specific to religions…

Sources

Barth, Karl. Trans. by Michael Raburn. The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life. 2002.

Barth, Karl. Trans. by G. W. Bromiley. Church Dogmatics Volume 1. 1975.

Cohen, Hermann. Trans. by Simon Kaplan. Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism.1995.