EngineeredTheology

G.K. Chesterton followed himself into heresy only to find he ended up discovering Orthodoxy. This book discovers the reformation. The main difference is Chesterton realized the irony of “discovering” something like Orthodoxy.

With a warning on the first page like “You might throw this book down in disgust; you might pick it back up again in curiosity; you might shake your head in frustration as you wonder, ‘How could I have missed this before?’ or ‘Is this guy crazy?’” (15), I was expecting something different than what I found. I have been to my share of churches around the world, and I suspect there would be very few reformed churches who would have any issue with the foundational theology of this book.

Following deeply in current reformed theology, the book is a cheerleader for total depravity and perseverance of the saints. Unfortunately, by the end of the book we end up with a good reason why Jesus died, but no real reason for why he lived. We need to seriously work through why the gospel writers thought it so important to document all those events between Christmas and Easter. We can not just short circuit it all and have our Christology consist totally of a virgin birth and a sacrificial death. We would then be missing Christianity at the point where it is so important. We dishonor the memories of the early Christian martyrs when we say that they must have died because people didn’t like them going around preaching that humanity needed to relax and stop trying so hard. Just coast it out because Jesus has done it all is not a particularly dangerous message. This is where the inaugurated eschatology needs to step; this is where the Kingdom of God really meets Rome.

Ok, writing a summary of this book didn’t really work out. The writing style is so dense that it is impossible to summarize concisely. I ended up just quoting most things because I couldn’t really say them better or more precisely than they were written.

I usually find books of this period somewhat lacking in logic, and was very surprised to find a logical critique on “modern” thought. It is amazing how appropriate much of this critique is on current Christian critics. His arguments were still quite solid that pure logic thought cannot bring us out of insanity. There were still sections of the book that I largely left out of the summary because either I didn’t understand the logic, or I didn’t see where it was leading (possibly because I didn’t understand).

If nothing else, the book is interesting, extremely quotable, and a valuable defense of the faith.

The Maniac
It cannot be taken for granted anymore that there is a universal agreement that sin exists. Instead of judging an argument by if it would make a man loose his soul, we now ask if it would make him loose his mind. We think of the insane person as someone who is not grounded in logic, but this is not true.

“Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom.” (5)

What we find is “The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.” (7) The maniac condenses the world into a smaller, self referencing circle. For one who accuses everyone of conspiring against him, his logic follows a complete (but small) path. Logic cannot be used to bring him out of madness, since it was logic that brought him in. What his logic doesn’t see is that there is a world outside of himself – he is imprisoned by his one idea.

If we look at the materialist, we see the same sort of simplistic argument (without arguing about the trueness of the argument – but their relation to health), both covering everything and leaving everything out. The theist knows the world is complex and even miscellaneous. The materialist must believe that all things are deterministic (a solid chain of causation) and is a slave to that one idea. “The materialist’s world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane.” (10)

The same is true not just for the man who says there is only what he sees, but also for the man who believes nothing that he sees. All the world is a dream in his head. He has the same perfectly circular logic in that all he believes in is himself. No logic can bring him out of this, as they are all arguments that could be presented in a dream.

What we find is that it is mysticism that keeps men sane. It is finding two truths bound by a contradiction and taking them all together. “The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious and everything else becomes lucid.” (12)

The Suicide of Thought
The Christian faith was shattered at the reformation and the virtues and vices it held together are now floating free with no structure. We still have the virtues, but they are misguided. Humility, which had a man doubting in himself but never doubting truth has turned to doubting truth, but never doubting himself.

“For old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful of his aims, which will make him stop working altogether” (14)

There is one thought that will stop all thought, and that is the evil that all religious authority is aimed to prevent. With the shattering of religion, we have removed those guards. The questioning now is the questioning of reason, the doubting of existence. “Anarchism adjures us to be bold creative artists, and care for no laws of limits” (19) – but art IS limitation. We cannot free a triangle of its three sides and still have a triangle. We cannot free a camel of its hump or a giraffe from its neck. “For madness may be defined as using mental activity so as to reach mental helplessness; and they have nearly reached it” (21)

The Ethics of Elfland
In the real world we say that things are causal, this is not so in fairy tales. There is still reason in fairy tales (if Cinderella’s sisters are older, then Cinderella must be younger). You can imagine trees not growing fruit (but instead a tiger), but not that 2+2 doesn’t equal three. “We believe in bodily miracles, but not mental impossibilities” (26). In real life, we assume that there is some causal relationship between a chicken and an egg – but we are trying to explain something we do not understand.

“When we are asked why eggs turn into birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o’clock. We must answer that it is magic. It is not a “law”, for we do not understand its general formula.” (26)

Because of familiarity, we forget the magic of things. We assume (like the sun rising), if it continues to happen it must be a dead system – but we know that variation (as in our daily routines) is because of inaction not action. Children never bore because of their fullness of life and always want us to “do it again”. We have gotten old, and lose some of this life. What if God has the overflowing life of the child? The sun rises because He never tires of it and every morning says “do it again”?

The Flag of the World
We say that the world is made of pessimists and optimists – as if we could rate it like we would if shopping for a house. Unlike house hunting, we have no option; instead we are patriots. “The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and sadness a reason for loving it more” (35). The pessimist is the anti-patriot who does not love what he chastises. The optimist whitewashes everything and so he can never make things better.

Suicide is the ultimate evil because it destroys all things. It rejects absolutely everything as being unworthy. “A suicide is a man who cares to little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything” (39). A martyr is the exact opposite. “..this is the ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live” (40).

We find that Christianity is the answer to the optimist and pessimist. God didn’t create the world to enslave it, but to set it free. Christian optimism is the answer of how we can love the world, but not be worldly – and based on the fact that we don’t fit in the world. Because of the fall, we are in the wrong place.

The Paradoxes of Christianity
The trouble with the world is that it is almost logical. When we think we have things figured out is where we find that the world is no longer logical. Christianity explains the world when it is logical, but also when it turns illogical.

Christianity is accused of being two pessimistic, then in the same breath too optimistic. It is accused of stopping men from finding joy because of rules, and then painting an unrealistically pretty a picture of reality. It is a nightmare and a fools paradise. It is hated for its resistance to fighting, and also for the cause of many wars. “Perhaps, after all, it is Christianity that is sane and all its critics that are mad – in various ways” (51). “The modern man found the church too simple where modern life is too complicated; he found the church to gorgeous exactly where modern life to too dingy” (51)

We see sanity in some sort of equilibrium. Paganism solves this by taking the black and white and making grey. Christianity takes both extremes at the same time. Courage is “a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. ‘He that will lose his life, the same shall save it’.” (52). Christianity separates the crime from the criminal so we can absolutely hate one and absolutely love the other. Christianity has held white and red side by side, but “it has always hated pink” (55). “Anyone might say, ‘Neither swagger nor grovel’; and it would have been a limit. But to say, “Here you can swagger and there you can grovel’ – that was an emancipation” (56).

It is constantly assured, especially in our Tolstoyan tendencies, that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is–Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? THAT is the problem the Church attempted; THAT is the miracle she achieved. (55)

The Eternal Revolution
Up to this point it has been argued that 1)Some faith in our life is required to improve it 2)Some disatisfaction with the way things are is necessary to be satisfied 3) To have the necessary discontentment, we cannot have a Stoic equilibrium. We then need to define what “better” is. We cannot look to nature because nature has no plan or princaples, no equality or inequality. The only reasonable idea of “better” is whatever we happen to want. In order for that, we must have a vision. Progress is about changing the world to suit this vision, so that vision must stay fixed. The surest way to ensure that nothing changes is to have a real vision, but an ever changing one. Things have progressed “..because Radicals were wise enough to be constant and consistent; it was because Radicals were wise enough to be Conservative” (60). Wild free thought then prohibits freedom (the freedom to act). “If I am mearly to float or fade or evolve, it may be towards something anarchic; but if I am to riot, it must be for something respectable” (61). This ideal, this respectable thing, is exactly what Christianity provides in Eden.

Darwinism provides two mad moralities, but not a sane one. “The kinship and competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely cruel or insanely sentimental; but not for a healthy love of animals” (63). It can have us train the tiger to be like us, or have us like the tiger, but not to treat the tiger reasonably (admire the stripes and respect the claws). The root of all of this is treating nature as our mother. “Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate” (63). Something to be laughed at as well as love.

Progress must first be fixed, then be composite. It is not one thing swallowing up all others (love, pride, peace, adventure), but a picture of all things in relation. As things tend to progressively get worse without action, progress must always be on the lookout for privlidges being abused (freedom turning to slavery). Christianity says that men backslide and human nature tends to not get better, but to rot. Modern men believe that a rich man, or a man of stature, is more worthy and less corrputable than a poor man. Why should the rich rule? The rich man is rich because he takes a bribe, not because he doesn’t. Christianity says that any man is capable of any fall. The man who should rule is not the one who wants it most, but precicely the one who feels he is unfit for the task. In the west, with a Christian background, we treat aristocracy as a bit of a weekness, an allowed weekness. Compare this to the casts of India, where the butcher is better than the baker in an concieved real sense. Socialism is no better, as there should always be dreams that are not attainable. “That all men should live in equally beautiful houses is a fream that may or may not be attained. But that all men should live in the same beautiful house is not a dream at all; it is a nightmare” (70). In order to make sport worth playing, we must have a real chance of loss.

The Romance of Orthodoxy
Most modern innovations are labor-saving, which allows people to be more lazy. The same is true with modern language, with long words requiring less and less actual thought. If you just use one syllabal words, you will find that you are obliged to think. “The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard” (71). We confuse words like when we say an idea “liberal”. We have this fixed notion that instead of being free to think and come to conclustions, it means that we are only free to conclude certain things. “It always means a man who is free to disbelieve that Christ came out of His grave; it never means a man who is free to believe that his own aunt came out of her grave” (72) It is not because “miracles don’t happen” as many miracles are asserted today, that would have been rejected by older science – but because of the dogma of materalism. You may call it impossible, but not illiberal as it is the liberty of God (and therefore less restrictive and more liberal).

Modern liberals will tell us that all religions are the same in what they teach, and it is just the packaging that is different. The exact opposite is true. Most religions have priests, scriptures, altars, sworn brotherhoods, special feasts. They all agree in how to teach, but differ on what to teach. “It is rather like alluding to the obvious connection between the two ceremonies of the sword: when it taps a man’s shoulder, and when it cuts off his head. It is not at all similar for the man” (75). For people who say religions are the same, it is strange they never notice the difference in art. The buddhist in peace with his eyes asleep, the christian in derision with his eyes alive.

Modern Panthiesm (and Buddhism) tells us that we are all one and therefore need to love ourselves. Christianity says we are different and love eachother. We can loosely love ourselves, but not fall in love. “Love desires personality; therefore love desires division” (76). Only when we are seperate from the world can we love it, and therefore reform it.

Christanity is not a fixed sum of events, but a story. A story gives what theology calls free will. “You cannot finish a sum how you like. But you can finish a story how you like”(79). “If we want, like the Eastern saints, merely to contemplate how right things are, of course we shall only say that they must go right. But if we particularly want to MAKE them go right, we must insist that they may go wrong” (79).

Authority and the Adventurer
Orthodoxy then guards order, but also guards liberty. Why then can’t we take the truths of Christanity and leave the dogmas? The answer is that we should have a reason for those truths, and the arguments against christianity are weak. The three common arguments are 1)all men are much like beasts 2)early religion is based on ignorance and fear 3)preists have brough bitterness and gloom. For these, if you think men are like beasts you need to stop reading about them and go look at them. Animals do not create, they do not draw, they do not celebrate the great ones of their society. “So that this first superficial reason for materialism is, if anything, a reason for its opposite; it is exactly where biology leaves off that all religion begins” (84). Secondly, science knows nothing about pre-historic man. “History says nothing; and legends all say that the earth was kinder in its earliest time” (84). As for the last, it also disagrees with reality. Those countries still influenced by priests is where art and dancing flourish. The case for Christianity is rational, but it is not simple.

People reject Christianity because of disbelief in miracles. “The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them” (87). They do not believe in stories of miracles because they are not credible, and what makes them not credible is that they believe in miracles. Creations of scientific conditions for mircales are pedantic. “It is as if I said that I could not tell if there was a fog because the air was not clear enough; or as if I insisted on perfect sunlight in order to see a solar eclipse” (88).

This, therefore, is, in conclusion, my reason for accepting the religion and not merely the scattered and secular truths out of the religion. I do it because the thing has not merely told this truth or that truth, but has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing. (91)

2 Story The biblical story is the basic story of Israel. The calling of the patriarchs is the answer to the fall of Adam. The rescue from Egypt should have been the climax of the story, but if Israel has been liberated, why is everything not now perfect? The Judges formed the preparation to the new climax of David where God will resolve what has begun, but with David’s successors the kingdom was divided. The Jews of the first century saw these as their stories, and were regularly looking for the proper conclusion (although there was not agreement on how that would come about). To diagram these stories, the basic story is the creator wishes to rule the world through Israel (with the help of the Torah and Temple and opposed by paganism). “The plan has gone wrong, and the hero of the larger story (Israel) has been imprisoned by the villain (paganism)” (233). The substory is to rescue Israel also through the Torah, with the help of God’s promises as opposed by pagans. As it has been so long and the Torah has not yet rescued Israel, the story changes with the intensification of various Torah sections (as described by the Essenes or Pharisees).

3 Symbols There were four main symbols that brought the story into tangible reality (temple, land, torah, racial identity). The temple was the place where YHWH lived and ruled. It was a huge portion (25%) of the city of Jerusalem. It was not just a religious center, but also the governmental and economic center. Even under the dissatisfaction of the second temple as illegitimate, it still held all these functions. The land was God’s gift to Israel as his new eden. It is the place where God would be ruler. Torah forms an unbreakable relationship with temple as Israel’s contract with God. It is also tied with the land as exile and blessings of Israel were tied in with their faithfulness to Torah. Finally, their racial identity was their separation from paganism. Israel must maintain distinctness from their neighbors.

4 Praxis “Judaism gives ‘theology’ a lower place in its regular discussions than it does to the question: what ought one to do?” (233). Regular festivals were tied not only to historical markers, but with the land. To study the Torah was equivalent to being in the Temple and one of the most characteristically Jewish activities. Keeping the Torah was marked the Jew from the pagan and provided circumcision, sabbath, and kosher laws as badges. While contact with gentiles was not forbidden (and unavoidable) it was expected to be kept to a minimum. To not respect the Torah was to challenge at least the symbols of Torah and racial identity.

5 According to the Scriptures: The Anchor of the Worldview Torah was kept alive in the understanding that the promises were not yet fulfilled. Passages were studied to look for the next coming event in the story and pointing the way towards its climax.

1 The Social Setting Judiasm in the first century BC was not a single entity, but comprised of multiple diversities, both geographic and economic. For those in Jerusalem, their ethnicity was tied to the temple. Those outside of Jerusalem (in Galilee), focused on the torah to sustain their ethnic identity in face of pagan influence. In terms of economic, the area has some wealthy, but many more middle and lower class people who struggled day to day. Revolutionary tendencies at this time were a reaction from oppression, from debt, and from Rome. Their hope then was not of some future post mortem bliss, but national liberation.

2 Movements of Revolt Movements for revolts in first century Judaism begins with the Maccabees, of whom many people were suspicious of – and groups, such as the Essenes, not recognizing their authority and setting up their own. When Rome came, various opportunities for revolt came due to heavy handed and insensitivity to Jewish ideals. These revolutionary tendencies can not be localized to just one group (the zealots), but from many different avenues (who often competed with each other).

3 The Pharisees The pharisees should not be thought of as a type of “thought police” who enforced Judaic principles. They were a pressure group that began with the Hasmoneans who had no direct power, but implemented ideas by influencing those with power (which should not be minimized as many pharisees were respected political leaders) and numbered around 6,000. They were concerned with keeping traditional beliefs alive, which made them experts in the torah. The two major houses (Hillel and Shammai) represented two different ways to be pharisees – one focused on purity, the other on revolution. After 135 A.D. when revolution was out of the question, the focus on purity laws and torah intensification won out and the rabbinic movement was formed.

4 The Essenes The Essenes were a sect who had a background similar to that of the pharisees and numbered around 4,000. They saw the temple as still in need of restoration (from the Hasmoneans). God has begun to act, first through this group, and soon would send his anointed ones to lead the “Sons of Light” against the “Sons of Darkness”, cleanse the temple and redeem his people. They did not participate in revolutionary works, but expected that God would perform these works in good time. Through their purity rituals, they saw themselves as analogous with the priests in the Temple.

5 Priests, Aristocrats, and Sadducees The priests, on the other hand, far outnumbered all others at about 20,000. They were the representatives of official Judaism, with the chief priests at the top. The center of their worldview was the temple. They were conservative, and belonged mostly to the party known as the Sadducees who believed in free will (which is not surprising from the ruling party to believe that God helps those who help themselves). They did not believe in resurrection (which for a long time was a metaphor for reconstitution of Israel) – which would then mean the end of their power.

One of the most famous american novels, written by one of the most famous american authors. I have said that there are two types of classics, those which were very important for shaping thought when they were written (which may not still be good books), and those which are a timeless message and will always be good reads. This one is definitely the first of those two. In its day, it would be considered communist propaganda (which I suspect is why it has been widely banned). In reality, it is not so much pro-communist, but anti-fascist. It is the exact opposing story to Atlas Shrugged.

The story itself is engaging, but totally unfulfilling with absolutely no ending whatsoever. I was really left wondering if I was missing the last chapter. I suspect the literary intent is to show that there is no conclusion and resolution to the issues, but it leaves the book TOO open. It would be like not

I was expecting this book to be completely different. First, I had misread the title and assumed it was a history of three meals (a book about why we have breakfast lunch and dinner). The book is actually about tracing four meals back from the dinner table to its basic ingredients. The very thinly veiled premise of the book is that our current food system is dominated by corn as a result of some of the unique history of farming along with government subsidies.

Mr Polan goes back to find out where the meat in his hamburger comes from. This is one of those questions we all know the answer to, but really don’t want to ask. The answer is exactly what you would expect (that you really don’t want to know). The books solution is that sustainable farms to exist where the animals are allowed to act like animals (instead of being kept in miserable conditions). The major issue with this, that is not resolved in the book, is that the sustainable farms and organic farming have no large scale equivalent. So, if you want meat you need to find your local sustainable farm. If you want produce, you need to go to your farmers market. There is much angst about how much gasoline is involved in transporting food (so we should buy local), but it is left out how much more gasoline would be used there was not centralized food distribution (grocery stores).

The last meal he eats is one he either kills or forages for himself. This was the completely impractical meal (as he spent multiple weeks finding the food for one dinner) consisting of wild boar, mushrooms, and some fruit. It is also a very false meal because it is all food he forages for himself (along with anything he already had in his refrigerator) – it was basically a waste of time.

The book does its best to show where your McDonalds hamburger (along with most grocery store beef) comes from, and the result was exactly what I expected. The trick now is figuring out what to eat. inding good beef in France is all but impossible (let alone free range). I have no desire to be a vegetarian, but I cannot support this type of food in good conscience. The result, I suspect will be our continual movement towards less processed food and more towards creating 100% of our meals (which we are pretty close to doing) and actually eating balanced meals (especially for the kids).