Stories & Soliloquies

Stories & Soliloquies
  • About my Soliloquies
  • Metaphysics, Myth, & Magic
  • My Poetry & Fiction
  • Philosopher Fridays
  • The Philosopher’s Lexicon
  • Tag: lexicon

    • The Philosopher’s Lexicon: Soteriology

      Posted at 11:00 pm by Michelle Joelle, on May 20, 2016

      Welcome back to The Philosopher’s Lexicon. My primary goal in this series is to explore common philosophical vocabulary, hopefully transforming these words from useless jargon into meaningful terms. My secondary goal is to highlight how contentious some of these terms can be – especially those which seem obvious. These definitions will not be comprehensive by any means, so please feel free to add your own understanding of each term as we go. This week’s edition is the final entry in a sub-series on theological terminology. 

      magnifier-389900_640

      Next up in this theology sub-series is Soteriology, defined by Merriam-Webster as “theology dealing with salvation especially as effected by Jesus Christ”. Essentially, a theologian’s “soteriology” is their doctrine of salvation – how we are saved, what it means to be saved, who gets to be saved, what we are supposedly being saved from, and the like.

      Even if we stay within the Christian tradition, this can be a dicey, divisive topic. At a basic level, most Christian theologians agree that we need salvation from our sins, redemption for our transgressions, and they agree that the way of salvation is Christ on the Cross. But they do not all agree on how we come to Christ. For some, we do so by confession, atonement, and repentance. For others, such a method comes dangerously close to putting salvation in our own hands, and argue that it is not through good works, but only through dedicating our lives to Christ that we can be saved. Still others think that our salvation is predetermined and thus totally out of our hands, while many others believe in universal salvation.

      This often includes a thinker’s take on original sin, which itself comes with a range of interpretations. For some thinkers, our ability to sin is inextricably tied to our ability to reason, which sets the foundation for free choice. This, of course, gives rise to yet another debate: does “original sin” mean that we are born immoral, or that we are born with the potential for immorality – a potential which grows in accordance with our ability to be moral? Is it the foundation for free choice? Other interpretations view original sin less as a judge of our moral worth and more of a necessary component of our mortality, from which we must be saved as all mortal things suffer and fall away. A thinker’s attempt to pull all of these different elements together forms their “soteriology”.

      But though Christianity is the primary religion in which salvation is the centerpiece, it does not have the market cornered on soteriology. In the interest of brevity, I will keep my focus to the Abrahamic religions, and only then on a very few points. Islamic salvation involves an adherence to a doctrine of active repentance, so that those who disobey God can find forgiveness rather than suffer punishment, though, of course, there is debate here among different sects and theologians as to what this means and how it works. Overall, though, the onus is more on the individual seeking mercy than on a salvific figure (like Christ). In Judaism one seeks salvation more in the present moment than in Islam or Christianity, and also focuses on the salvation of the collective, rather than on the individual. And of course, just as in Islam and Christianity, there are soteriological debates within Judaism also. This is, of course, completely insufficient as an overview of any particular soteriology, and is meant only to show some possibilities.

      This term is broad, but useful, as it allows readers, scholars, and those seeking spiritual guidance a companion to theodicy. In many ways, a theologian’s soteriology is the other side of the coin; in theodicy, they seek explanation for the evils they suffer, and in soteriology, they seek a way to avoid (or make up for) causing evils, either intentionally or accidentally. Abrahamic soteriology is about freeing religious adherents from their own limitations and temptations, and a direct focus on how to do good, live well, and align with God.

      This brings my sub-series on specifically theological terminology to a close. From here on out, I will likely be mixing philosophical and theological definitions in at random. I will also be mixing some Philosopher Fridays entries back into the rotation as well. There will be no regularly set schedule, so stay tuned to find out what’s coming up next.

      Posted in Series | 0 Comments | Tagged academia, lexicon, philosophy, religion, soteriology, theology
    • The Philosopher’s Lexicon: Theodicy

      Posted at 5:00 pm by Michelle Joelle, on May 6, 2016

      Welcome back to The Philosopher’s Lexicon. My primary goal in this series is to explore common philosophical vocabulary, hopefully transforming these words from useless jargon into meaningful terms. My secondary goal is to highlight how contentious some of these terms can be – especially those which seem obvious. These definitions will not be comprehensive by any means, so please feel free to add your own understanding of each term as we go. This week’s edition is part of a sub-series on theological terminology, which will continue for a few weeks.

      magnifier-389900_640

      The first time I heard today’s word – “theodicy” – spoken aloud, I thought the speaker had cleverly merged the words “theology” and “odyssey” to convey a thinker’s spiritual journey. I thought “theodyssey” was an exciting bit of jargon, and I still think it should be taken up officially. After some time, I began to notice that there was only ever one kind of theodyssey taking place, and I began to doubt my understanding of the word. Sure enough, when I finally saw it in print, the meaning became clear.

      Theodicy is the word used to describe a theologian’s answer to the problem of evil – or at least their attempt to figure it out. As many thinkers found this to be a faith-testing problem, you can see why I was content to see it as a kind of spiritual journey, fraught with temptations and tests and questions and difficulties that would threaten to undo the entire edifice of a given thinker’s trust in God or religion. In the end, a thinker engaged in theodicy is trying to find a way to defend their faith against the difficulties and demons that lurk in the shadows.

      Though the initial questions behind any theodicy are simple – Why would an omnipotent God allow evil to exist? Why would a God who is Good let innocent people suffer? Why would a just God create people who desired to harm each other? – there is no such thing as a simple theodicy. Nearly every potential difficulty comes with its own set of new problems to solve, logical inconsistencies, troubling thoughts, and more.

      In Confessions VII, among several other texts, Saint Augustine reflects on the questions that tormented him prior to converting to Christianity, wondering if perhaps God could the source of goodness while materiality was the source of evil (for those familiar with Augustine, I am referring to his time with the Manicheans). But this proposal, he finds, threatens both God’s role as creator and his omnipotence:

      What then is the origin of evil? Is it that the matter from which he made things was somehow evil? He gave it form and order, but did he leave in it an element which he could not transform into food? If so, why? Was he powerless to turn and transform all matter so that no evil remained, even though God is omnipotent? Finally, why did God want to make anything out of such stuff and not rather use his omnipotence to ensure that there was no matter at all? Could it exist contrary to God’s will? – Chadwick translation.

      His rejection of the ontological dualism of Manicheanism comes out most clearly in “On the Nature of the Good“, where he argues fairly effectively against the claim that evil could be an equal opposing force to good. The argument is thus: if God and Evil were equal forces existing in the world, then they would be naturally opposed, each attempting to destroy the other. But if that were the case, then there would only actually be Evil; evil, by its nature, aims to destroy Goodness. If God were aiming to destroy Evil, then God too would be a destructive force, rather than a creative one. This would mean that God was actually Evil – and thus would not be God, as Goodness would not exist at all. There would only be one force – Evil – operating against itself.

      The answer for Augustine, then is that there is only one ultimate force of reality. Since there is goodness in the world, and that goodness must come from somewhere, the relation above must be the inverse of what was initially presented – Evil is a privation of being, and Goodness the creation of it. Evil thus, Augustine, cannot be a true existing force, but the absence of goodness (this thinking both stems from – and feeds – Augustine’s engagement with the books of the Platonists), while God remains utterly good and creative, acting to restore that which is lacking, giving order to the orderless.

      This, of course, does not resolve Augustine’s torment, but it does provide a foundational step. His full theodicy is rich, troubling, salvific, unsatisfying, hopeful, and more – as any sincere quest to justify God’s goodness in the face of evil would have to be. While many theologians come across in purely intellectual, pastoral, or even preachy terms, their humanity is difficult to miss when it comes to the problem of evil. In Book 19 of the City of God, Augustine turns to God to help him through the pain of being mortal, and facing the destructive acts of others, and here frames his theodicy as a lifeline – it is his desire for God’s existence that pulls him from the depths of mortal despair. While a thinker’s meditation on trinity or proofs of God’s existence can read like linguistic puzzles, a thinker’s theodicy often reads out the vulnerability that lies underneath, and as such can make for the most interesting – if least satisfying – part of a theologian’s work.

      So when you see reference to a theologian’s “theodicy”, this is what is being referenced: their fear, their mortality, their hopes, and their attempts to understand and make sense of what seems to threaten not their faith, but their ability to cope with the world. A theologian’s theodicy shows you what they need and desire, and often what has prompted them to turn to the project of intellectually engaging with God in the first place.

      Next up in the theological sub-series of the Philosopher’s Lexicon: soteriology.

      Posted in Series | 14 Comments | Tagged academia, Augustine, city of god, confessions, lexicon, on the nature of the good, philosophy, religion, the problem of evil, theodicy, theology
    • The Philosopher’s Lexicon: Apophatic Theology

      Posted at 7:00 pm by Michelle Joelle, on March 28, 2016

      Welcome back to The Philosopher’s Lexicon. My primary goal in this series is to explore common philosophical vocabulary, hopefully transforming these words from useless jargon into meaningful terms. My secondary goal is to highlight how contentious some of these terms can be – especially those which seem obvious. These definitions will not be comprehensive by any means, so please feel free to add your own understanding of each term as we go. This week’s edition is part of a sub-series on theological terminology, which will continue for a few weeks.

      magnifier-389900_640

      This week’s entry into the Lexicon is apophasis, and its more relevant corollary, apophatic theology. The term apophasis more broadly construes any form of knowledge that is based in a denial. On the surface, it’s a bit of a trick. Merriam-Webster defines it thus:

      :  the raising of an issue by claiming not to mention it (as in “we won’t discuss his past crimes”)

      But in terms of theology (and epistemology in general), the term is more than just a pretense; it’s a door to the unknown. Simply put, there are two ways to deal with the unknown; on the one hand, if something is unproven or unexplained, we can write it off as false or untrue. If there is no evidence of a thing, then that thing must not be there. Apophatic epistemology, on the other hand, looks at things a little differently; if there is no evidence of a thing, then all we can say of that thing is what we know we don’t know of it. To rephrase, all we can say of that thing is what we know is not true of it – what we know cannot be proven or shown by means we have available to us.

      The difference is subtle, but important. The first option is limiting, while the second is open-ended. In science, the difference would come down to the pragmatism. While working within a specific scientific paradigm, it’s necessary to rule out that which lacks evidence. But in a larger theoretical sense, it’s also important to keep an open mind to that which is immeasurable or unknowable. Even though such big-picture openness is welcome among more theoretical scientists and philosophers of science (Bronowski, Kuhn, Popper, Feynman, Einstein, etc.) such apophatic epistemology isn’t very common in mainstream visions of scientism, which tend to prefer the reliance solely on positive evidence, as it evident in the obvious sarcasm of the “black cat analogy“. The argument runs thus:

      Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat.
      Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there.
      Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there, and shouting “I found it!”
      Science is like being in a dark room looking for a black cat using a flashlight.

      The assumption here is that truth can only be asserted in a cataphatic way, meaning that the only things which could be said to exist are those things for which there is clear, positive evidence. “Positive” here does not mean “optimistic”, but rather that the evidence and truth can be actively affirmed. Apophatic epistemology is negative, meaning not that the knowledge is “pessimistic”, but rather that it has no substantive, affirmative content – that we can only express what we know for sure by means of denial.

      In the case of the black cat in the dark room, apophasis would have us look around the room with the flashlight, and then instead of deciding that the cat, if not found, simply did not exist, that the things we could potentially say about the cat could only be formed in the negative. We could know for sure only that, if there was a black cat in existence, it was not visible to the human eye, or not present in the room the same way we were, or something of that fashion. We could speculate that the cat was invisible, that it purposefully hides from the light, that the light makes it disappear, or that it was outside of the room entirely, but that would be speculation, not knowledge. But an apophatic epistemology would say that affirming the non-existence of the cat entirely would also be just as speculative; the argument is that just because we can’t say something positively or affirmatively about a thing, it does not necessarily follow that the thing does not exist – it just does not exist according to the parameters we have positively defined.

      In terms of apophatic theology, when coupled with faith in God, such a negative epistemology takes on a more explanatory character. Rather than simply holding the door open to the unknown and currently unknowable, apophatic theology is more specifically metaphysical and mystical. It asserts that the only thing we can say with certainty about God is that God is outside of our knowledge and parameters for positive affirmation. Rather than saying that God is anything in particular (powerful, personal, etc.), negative theology says that all we can say is what God is not. While it’s opposite approach, cataphatic theology, positively asserts attributes and possessions to God, apophatic theology says only that God is not mortal like we are, else he would not be God. Thus we can say that God is immortal. God is not limited in the same way we are with clear measurable boundaries, so we can say that God is unlimited, immeasurable, infinite. We cannot see God, thus we can say with some certainty that God is invisible, or intangible, immaterial. And so on. Knowledge comes in the form of not asserting truths or characteristics, rather than by positive affirmation.

      For many theologians (Pseudo-Dionysius is a great example), this leads to mysticism, and the idea that knowledge of God can only be gained by shedding all that we know, but in general, apophatic theology says that all we can really know of God is that he cannot be seen with a flashlight in the dark room, and having faith means knowing that there is more than what can be illuminated with a flashlight we have made.

      Next time in this theological sub-series of The Philosopher’s Lexicon, I’ll be tackling theodicy.

      Posted in Series | 17 Comments | Tagged academia, apophasis, cataphasis, lexicon, negative theology, philosophy, theology
    ← Older posts
    • Looking for Something?

    • Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

      Join 422 other followers

    • Follow on Bloglovin
    • Popular Posts & Pages

      • The Writers Roast
      • About my Soliloquies
      • A Bit of Winter Hygge
      • Of Physical Laws and Fictional Characters
      • For Ever, and Ever, and Ever
      • Why the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a Good Thing
      • The Philosopher's Lexicon: Apophatic Theology
      • The Blacksmith's Apprentice: a Poem
      • 30 Days of Painting, Day 1: Floral Vine and Lace Doodles
      • 30 Days of Painting, Day 28: Sunset Colors
    • Tags

      academia acrylic acrylics aquinas arendt art Augustine awards beach books C.S. Lewis christmas definitions dictionary editing ephemerality epistemology favorite words feynman Fiction film food god harry potter history husserl hygge illustration kindle language learning lexicon libraries links list literary time consciousness literature logic longreads magic medieval Metaphysics music myth my work NaNoWriMo nature painting pensieve philosopher fridays philosophy photography Plato poetry reading reason reblog religion Rousseau science snow spring stories storytelling syllabus temporality theology time tolkien trees vikings vocabulary water colors words writing
    • The Archives

    • top blog sites
      top blog sites

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×
    Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy