Philosophy and Critical Theory

Philosophy, Politics, and Critical Theory

Philosophy

"If the Lord is Risen, why can't we see Him?"

Badiou: Event, Truth, Subject

Badiou on Heideggar on Truth

Badiou on Truth and the (re)turn of Philosophy

Theology's Conversation Partners: Continental, Analytic, or Beyond?

Ricoeur on Levinas: “Self” between the “I” and its overthrow

Levinas' Infinite Trauma

Levinas on Levinas

Zizek on Levinas: Smashing the Neighbors Face

Universalism, Truth, and St. Paul: interview w/ Badiou

Ethics of the Other? Badiou on Levinas

Escape from the ‘Now’, or Return turn to the Present? toward an answer (pt. 2)

Escape from the Now, or Return turn to the Present (pt 1)

Objectivity and Truth: the new war (part 2)

Objectivity and Truth: the new war (part 1)

With Friends like Rorty, who needs Enemies.

Reviews of "Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

Realism, not Empiricism

Multitude, People, or...

Critical Theory

Political priests and Sectarian Theologians: is the shrine empty? (3)

“empty signifier vs. the empty shrine”: EC and American Political Discourse. (2)

Emerging Church as “Empty Signifier”: Labels don’t fit because the container is Empty (1)

Politics

Advent Explorations

Third Party- christians and politics

“It’s not about racism, it’s about law and order.”

christians and the political

Emerging Church

Post on the Emerging Church

“empty signifier vs. the empty shrine”: EC and American Political Discourse. (2)

Emerging Church as “Empty Signifier”: Labels don’t fit because the container is Empty (1)

Culmination-Culture, not Counter: of temporal refugees

Lines of convergence: global-urban-postmodern

Science Fiction Fridays

Series on Science Fiction, Ideology, and Theological Hermeutics

Science Fiction Fridays: Weekly Series

Science Fiction Fridays: C.S. Lewis on SciFi

Why Star Trek is liberal ideology.

SciFi and the Body

Objectivity and Truth: the new war (part 1)

Objectivity and Truth: the new war

(please forgive my militarist tone: i was sitting in the hot sun on vacationwhen I wrote this: although i’m uncertain about the correlation).

below i present the new linking of ‘objectivity’ and ‘truth’ which pragmatist develop against foundationalist. But I think this new link is bad, and that truth is not objective. (see also a good discussion from a while back at generousorthodoxy)

old war

The collusion of objectivity and truth has been under fire for several years now, especially among evangelical Christians. Usually the warring parties gather under the banner of ‘modern’ or ‘postmodern’. (I could site parties but I’m not going to bother.)

The conservatives (or modernists) argue (or merely assume) that Truth is only assured by Objectivity. If something is not objectively true, then it is not true. Truth is not subjective after all, for that would be merely whim or opinion. They generally disparage the enemy by claiming their opponents have given up on Truth all together and have embraced relativism, or at least agnosticism.

The liberal (postmodernist) responds by saying that they certainly have not given up on Truth, but they realize that Truth is very hard to get at, that there is never merely an Objective point of view, and that instead of Objectivity we must realize our embeddedness in particular stories, local contexts, and idiosyncratic interpretations, all of which do not bar the Truth, but open up the Truth is different ways.

Now concerning this war, it is somewhat old news, and while the battles rage, I do not think that those articulating the postmodern (or premodern depending on your view) perspective should continue fight this battle, when a more pressing conflict is brewing, drawing new battle lines.

Well, I'll tell you tomorrow or Monday.
But what do you think is the most pressing issue after ?
Have I majorly misconstrude the issues?

on Jason Clark's "why we live in the now"

Jason Clark has this great post I just came across, on “The past of the Future: Why we live in the now." Following something he read he argues that we are trapped in the ever present ‘now’, totally losing any sense of past or future.

below is my response looking at it from the angle of ‘desire’ instead of ‘information.’

----

jason,

on the level of ‘information’ I totally agree with you. But on the level of ‘desire’ I think it is totally opposite.

Because of capitalism’s endless need for new desires, creating new opportunities for consumption, we are always forced into the future where we hope to find satisfaction–but it never comes, it is always in the future. and conversely, we are trapped into a pastward gaze of regret b/c of all the failed attempts at satisfaction–this is called ‘buyers remorse’ for a reason.

The problem I see facing the church in Theocapitalism, is how to regain the present, a present totally full of gratetude and thanksgiving, living contently. Then the past will be redeemed and the future fulfilled.

We live in a fantasy of a future (my next sexual encounter, getting a raise, buying a car that will symbolize my status) that we never embrace the present. Also, our culture is fixiated on the 'new and improved' and everything 'faster/better' that we live discontent with the present, looking toward the future.

But of course this is an individualized future (of personal desire), not a social future of uptopian dreams.

So it is a bit of both: concerning information and concrete planning, our culture is trapped in the "now"; concerning our desire (which inform our consumption) we are trapped in a future of false hope and a past of regret.

But I would say, pastorally, our concern is to help people live into the present full of contentment (not letting the future rule them) and without guilt or regret (not letting the past rule them). But we also, along the information level, need to teach church history especially (past), and a proper doctrine of eschatology (future).

anyway, those are my thoughts on the topic.

---

What do you think our problem is? Are we stuck in the 'Now', or stuck in the 'Future' never able to embrace the present?

Warning Label for the Bible

Go over to Dan Kimball's blog for a warning label for the Bible. It is all too true.

“It’s not about racism, it’s about law and order.”

“It’s not about racism, it’s about law and order.”…a response to the immigration marches I read last month.

Now of course the true debate around ‘illegal immigrants’ are neither that they are immigrants (concerning racism) nor that they are illegal (law and order). What this is all about really concern economics, not law or ethnicity.

but now someone has gotten it all right, but so wrong:

“The rich, they’re totally oblivious to this situation—what the illegal immigration, the illegal housing, the day labor is doing to us [‘us’ being legal middle class citizens trying to exist]…Everyone’s exploiting these people [immigrants]—landlords, the contractors. And now we [middle class Americans] can’t afford to pay taxes. People like me who want to live the suburban dream, we’re being pushed out unless we join the illegality.” (NYTime Frontpage story)

Yet the speaker of these words, while properly diagnosing the problem as economically driven big business exploitation on both sides of the border, thinks the solution, the way to save these immigrants is to throw them out. He is trying to only buy from American owned, larger chain businesses who he thinks only employs legal workers. But could it be that the very American Dream of the middle class is producing its own nightmare lived out before them, exploited laborer who they think are ruining their lives.

What we really need to do is join the illegality of the situation, join with and support the illegal immigrants against the exploitation in general, rather than merely undergirding American exploitation against legal workers. By joining the illegality, I don’t mean going and breaking the law, but standing against what ‘law and order’ is meant to protect, the economic status quo.

-soon i’ll relate this to ‘workers rights’ movements and ‘civil rights’ movements and how they are being played off each other in relation to 'illegal immigrants.'

I was gone; now i'm back

So I've been gone for the last 2 weeks. Roughly on vacation. Two weeks ago I was in MN with a bunch of other emerging church people. fun times. and last week I was with only my family. Great time.

I did some reading and some writing and some brainstorming so hopefully I'll have some time to sit down and work out what I've been thinking.

But alas, now I've got to get out from under all these emails in my inbox.

Political priests and Sectarian Theologians: is the shrine empty?

(continuing on...)

It goes like this: The priests of the ‘empty shrine’ (like Stout and Laclau) see a religious community making substantive (and theological) claims about itself and politics in general. To the priests this is an attempt at creating a particularist identity without reference to the larger context (the secularizing context), and therefore sectarian. The theologians counter that they are indeed making reference to the context, and that they are even trying to change the context. But the priests reply that the theologians are closing down discussion (rather than opening it up) because they are attempting to fill the ‘empty shrine’ with their particular god. But by definition the shrine must remain empty, otherwise political disagreement will revert back to sectarian violence. So the priest remind the theologian, either enter politic by acknowledging the ‘empty shrine’, or continue in your sectarian complacency and complaining.

It seems some in the EC are opting to endorse the ‘empty shrine’ approach of modern democracy, seeing no alternative in their compulsion (which is good) to bring their faith out the private realm into the public, this is their equating the 'empty signifier' with the 'empty shrine'.

But might what we think is 'empty' is really a cover for both the invisible idols of nationalism and capitalism?

“empty signifier vs. the empty shrine”: EC and American Political Discourse.

Here is my question, of which I do not have answers, just a feeling.

“If the EC has assended to the function of ‘empty signifier’, does that mean it needs to support the politics of the ‘empty shrine’?”

My feeling and hope is to answer, NO. But some (perhaps many) in the EC answer, YES.

Let me explain:

The logic of the “empty signifier” seems to give a good understanding of the emerging church and its self-understanding as a ‘conversation’ and in its perpetual mis-understanding by everyone else.

But this logic applied to politics by Ernesto Laclau [in Emancipation(s)] leads straight toward a politics of the “empty shrine” (where there is no “common good”, no common vision for society, and no telos...only the competition of ideas without any gods underwriting it all). The problem is that this vision of politics (which is Liberalism) assumes conflict and violence as the norm, assumes scarcity and loss, and usually disregards substantive theological claims/practices.

So might not the EC enter into a differential relationship not only with those in modern theological/political context, calling that context into question and thereby moving along in the logical of the ‘empty shrine’, but also question the context of antagonistic politics altogether? But to do this looks like a return to sectarian communities with ontological assurances which cannot be allowed into democratic discourse.

What say you?

(next..."political priests and sectarian theologians: is the shrine empty?")

...pithy saying on politics…

We the Church must develop more self-confidence, not assuming ourselves merely one soul among many hoping to be infused into the Frankensteinian body of the State. We already have a body, a flesh in which we are living. We are the public Body of Christ, and as such we must continue to proclaim to the world, "This is my body, given for you."

next, the 'empty signigier (of EC) vs. empty shrine (of Politics)'

Emerging Church as “Empty Signifier”: Labels don’t fit because the container is Empty

Claim

The Emerging Church has always been called a conversation, and it is generally always misunderstood by those trying to define it? Why a conversation? And why such misunderstanding? (See the recent call not to have a statement of faith, the reminder of EC as conversation, and a friendly diagnosis of potential pitfalls [see especially Peter Rollins comment], all revealing the perplexing nature of the EC)

I suggest that the Emerging Church (conversation) is in the position of the ‘empty signifier’ which enables discursive transformations. The Emerging Church is an ‘empty signifier’ gathering together all the different protest directed at the modern church (both liberal and conservative) and it relationship with culture and politics. It is so difficult to define the EC because it in general is situated in a negative (empty) relationship with many different discourses (the discourse of conservative evangelicalism; mainline Protestantism, Religious Right, etc.). The EC is a signifier for something that does not yet exist (empty signifier); or rather, it designates something which all the other discourses can not yet talk about. Yet over time, the EC with change the discursive system enough (created alternative differentiations) that a definition will emerge.

(This understanding also helps to make sense of disagreements within the EC concerning allegations of ‘liberal’ theological hangovers, and ‘sectarian’ political engagement. This is occurring not so much because the is rampant liberalism or sectarianism with the EC, but because our discursive systems are transforming in relations to different primary oppositions.)

Questions: Why do you think it is so important that this is all a conversation, and that its so misunderstood?

Explanation

Let me explain: (these thoughts brought to you be Ernesto Laclua’s “Why do Empty Signifiers Matter to Politics?” in Emancipation(s).)

A discursive system (or conversation/language/language game) is constituted by oppositional differences, situating various relationships. Each element sets itself off as different than another element (class, race/ethnicity, political affiliation,) by means of certain markers (class= clothing, cars, houses; race/ethnicity= color of skin, traditional cultures, languages; politics= big/little government, welfare, Republican/Democrats). But these of course are not necessary relationship of differentiation, but merely contingent, and the discursive system is never able to fully close (totalize) or account for itself. And to this largely structuralist account, post-structuralists, of which Laclua is a part, notes that is always slippage and protest within a discursive system.

So, how do you question a discursive system? How do conversations change? Well different people and communities begin questioning the necessity of particular differentiations among various discourses (from questioning if there is any real difference between Democracts and Republicans; between theological conservatives and liberals; between American Empire and the EU). These particular struggles begin concretely as a differentiation from a certain element (theology= post-liberals and post-conserative from liberal/conservative; politics= the green or independent party from Democrat/Republican), but also function thereby to question the entire system (a leaving of modern theology in its liberal or conservative guises; leaving partisan politics).

Questioning the system always has this dual nature: both a particular struggle within the system, but also representing the universal struggle against the system. This move from particular embattlement to universal critique reveals the place of the ‘empty signifier’, reveals it as the rallying points for various different struggles. The signifier is empty because it is not fully identified with a particular struggle (a particular sign) but is freely floating between, or unifying, many struggles.

This I propose is how the EC is functioning with ecclesiastic systems (mainline and evangelical), disrupting the discursive coherence and creating an opportunity to ask different question, occupy different spaces, and arrange different relationships. All of this makes it exceedingly difficult to label, pin-down, or box in the EC. And even within the EC, I would say that Radical Orthodoxy, American Pragmatism, and the Duke School all function is a similar way as an ‘empty signifier’ transforming current discourses.

Again: Why do you think it is so important that this is all a conversation, and that its so misunderstood?

…Next up…“empty signifier vs. the empty shrine”: EC and American Political Discourse.

the 'theonomous self', II

What’s it matter? Why is this important? Who cares about the theonomous self? Because it ought to effect how we think about and execute our liturgies, prayer, songs, and discipleship.

The theonomous self could be seen to align more with heteronomous self, the self which is imposed, legislated, or given by anOther, as a Law. And surely this is true, to an extent. But to be distinguished from merely being the Law of another, the theonomous self must be non-coercively received, it must be without violence or alienation (if that is possible). The emergence of this theonomous self is glimpsed in the OT shift from the Law to Wisdom, from outer to inner piety. But this is not an interior autonomy, free from exterior forces, but the cultivation of virtue and character guided by wisdom. Or rather, it is the shift from exterior Law to the interior of Love, which is always flowing again toward anOther.

The autonomous self ends/begins in a narcissistic loop of desire, disfiguring reality according to it own twisted logic/Law; while the heteronomous self is disfigured by another’s desire, caught in the web of a Law beyond itself, both giving life to alienation and despair. But the theonomous self is received from anOther who would rather give his life than take ours, who draws us into the eternal self-giving of perichoretic love between Father, Son, and Spirit.

Therefore, as we enter into times of prayer, discipleship, singing, and liturgy, we must be aware of the dual pull of auto-/heteronomy at work in the lives of all those following Christ. We must work tirelessly to overcome the dialectic of other and same, in the Trinitarian logic of Christian worship.

the "theonomous self", I

I recently came across a concept that perfectly describes what I’ve been after concerning a sacramental subjectivity: the theonomous self.

The question for me is how, beyond modern autonomous subjects, and the postmodern proliferation of subjectivities (or subject positions), can we conceive of the Christian ‘subject’ in relation to Christ, through the Spirit, to the Glory of the Father. The ‘theonomous’ concept as described by Ron Anderson in Worship and Christian Identity does not answer that question, but it is a wonderful naming of it.

Here are some quotes.

“This self-in-relation I call, following Catherine LaCugna’s use of the term, the theonomous self, a self that is neither self-determined (autonomous) nor completely other-determined (heteronomous), but defined by the character of on’s relationship with God” (p. 114).

“To the extent that our postmodern context permits any language about “self,” it requires us, at the least, to address the multiplicity of the self as well as the unitive sense of the self…The Trinitarian theologies and social-relational psychologies explored…address these concern, offering ways to name the self that are neither reductive (the One) nor fragmentary (the many)” (p. 147).

“It is in the divine perichoresis, the dance of the Trinity, the communion of persons, that we find an adequate way of describing the multiplicity of a self faithed in relation to God. It is here that we discover the impossibility of either a pure hetereonomy, as a “naming of oneself with reference to another,” or a pure autonomy, as a “naming oneself with reference to oneself….It is here in the dance that we find the source and reference for the truly “theonomous” self, a self “named with reference to its origin and destiny in God,” an origin and destiny of relatedness to and with God.”

christians and the political

here is something that I ran across earlier this week and thought I should comment on.

The article is from NYT : Christ Among the Partisans

here are my thoughts on it.

This debate within the EC and among evangelicals, and even those for/against the Hauerwasian mafia (or so called sectarians) is still raging, but necessary: does the Church have a politic of its own?

It seems that Wills has it exactly right, but has not gone far enough. He says, “There is no such thing as a "Christian politics." If it is a politics, it cannot be Christian. Jesus told Pilate: "My reign is not of this present order. If my reign were of this present order, my supporters would have fought against my being turned over to the Jews. But my reign is not here" (John 18:36). Jesus brought no political message or program.”

This is exactly right from the perspective of the State, or the Institution/Government, or more properly, those with the Power. Jesus doesn’t have a Statist politics, a politics oriented principle toward the Powerful. But this doesn’t means that he is oriented solely toward heaven, or the other-worldly, but rather to the poor, powerless, disenfranchised. From the perspective of the State/Powerful, there is NO politics unless it is oriented toward the State. But Jesus claims that the State is not the only gig in town, and this infuriates those in power.

He calls the very notion of ‘political’ into question, so that he can institute a true politics beyond the State/Powerful. But of course this get called all sorts of nasty names by the powerful (Sectarian, Fideistic, Abdication of Responsibility) by those holding State Power or those wishing to hold or influence State Power.

Of course Jesus’ politics need not be antithetical to State oriented politics, just as long as it doesn’t forget that State politics is not solely, or primarily the concern of the Church.

It seems Will is right in saying that the ability of the State to secure justice will always fall short of the Christ’s injunction to display love. But if the State cannot unity justice and love, surely the Church can, and should, according to any means available.

out until march

So, just as I'm about to enter into a more regular blogging cycle, now its gonna be disrupted. Our pastor at life on the vine, Dave Fitch, is going to Russia to adopt their son, so all the church details (and the teaching of his class) are falling to me. So I'm not going to have any time for blogging until march.

Science Fiction Friday- Why Star Trek is liberal ideology.

Now I’m going to try and keep this short. My goal is to cover the role of aliens, the Borg, and Q within Star Trek as a means of understanding a more general understanding of aliens within SciFi. My analysis of Star Trek, I believe, follows through to at least Andromeda and Star Gate, if not many other current SciFi shows. This will all set up my discussion of Firefly, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica. .

So first off, it is fairly transparent that the role of alien species in Star Trek is to set up a multiculturalist dynamic, creating a diversity of story lines concerning the clash of civilizations, the (im)possibility of understanding other forms of life, and various means of solving these dilemmas. Of course the Federation has the ‘prime directive’ which is an attempt to govern the interaction of, or interference, of superior species with lesser species, as to not upset the nature flow of each species evolutionary development (it is noteworth that Stargate has problematized the flow of technology). So, within this world of aliens meeting each other, and overcoming difference (and sometimes not), we are trained into a worldview of tolerance (at least the attempt).

Now, disrupting this universe of conflicting interpretations (of democratic discourse), come the Borg. They are the figure of the Totalitarian regime, the harbingers of assimilation of all difference into the same of the Collective, waging war on everything until all is assimilated, for “resistance is futile!” This generally aligns with Cold War fears of communism.

But then we also have the Q. The Q of course were the most interesting and most god like, as in pagan god like, for Q was whimsical, capricious, and meddlesome. And just like the gods, Q acts as the measure of humanity, embodying its hopes and fears. From the very first episode (Farpoint Station) to the series finale, Q comes to test humanity (as represent on the Enteprise), to find out its true potential, or its radical collapse. In the very last episode we hear Q confess that the reason they have taken such an interest in humanity is because in humanity they see the emergence of a rival, a potential power that will one day dethrone the Q.

So basically, for me, Star Trek is nothing other than the perfect liberal-capitalist ideology.

Here is why.

Concerning the multiculturalism of Star Trek, I grow suspicious of two things. The first is the assumption that everything is fine and dandy on the home world of each alien species (or at least of all the good guys). Sure, there are some problems and disagreements, but the conflict is between different cultures, not within them. The second, and much more important, is the near total lack of economic/technological concerns within the Star Trek universe. Sure there are differences of technology between species, but it is assumed that each home world allow for equal access to the same technology among all in the same species. You never find a Klingon who can’t afford a blaster. So I would say, Star Trek is a liberal fantasy about technological equality, distracting from economic issues through multiculturalist stories.

Concerning the Borg…well everyone needs an Enemy, and the Borg embody the enemy of liberalism. The fear of liberalism is that we would be made to do what we don’t want to do, that we would lose our individuality and expression (an individuality and expression that Capitalism desperately needs in order to keep selling things we don’t really need). So again, the Borg are a pretend Enemy (totally outside ourselves) which keeps us from considering that the true enemies might be closer to home.

And concerning the Q, well I don’t have much against the Q because they totally reveal the Star Trek universe to be a hoax. For one they encourage the myth that humanity is really progressing somewhere positive (the myth of progress, that anyone can overcome obstacles and make a life for herself). And most damaging, by having the Q state that humanity is its rival, show that the multiculturalism of star trek has always been about affirms one particular way of life (the eminently America liberal way) against all others. At the end of the day we find out that the Enterprise is really the hope of humanity, but not only humanity, but of all alien life, and all other species be damned. The Q expose the fantasy if only we would look a bit.

So all that to say, I think, in general, the uses of aliens in SciFi generally conform to this multiculturalist agenda, obscuring economic matters, and therefore is a type of ideology of liberal-capitalism. And this is not a future I want to be part of.

So, where do we go from here? Well, we go to Lost, Firefly/Serendipity, and Battlestar Galactica.

But first, what is your take on alien life in SciFi? Am I being to harsh? Have I overlooked a use of aliens that upsets my little typeology?

on human rights

A response to a comments from the previous post (and me trying on some ideas)

Gordon (and everyone else) ,

I definitely understand you point, which is first and foremost a theological point about the nature of human beings. And while i would agree with the drift of you response, I would have to say that I'm coming at the question somewhat differently. While explicitly what goes around as a discourse on human rights (even by Christians) goes along the lines you suggest (that we have obligations to act decently toward each other) I would ask questions at the implicit level.

like, 1) who benefited from the creation of 'rights' during the enlightenment; 2) who guards these 'right'; 3) and for what purposes do they deploy them.

The answer to the first question is that merchants (the precursors to capitalists) benefited most from the creation of 'universal rights' because it leveled the playing field between them and the Lords, Barons, Dukes, and other land owners, shifting the flows of currency and commodity out of the aristocracy into the hands of the merchants. Some have even argued that the merchants spearheaded this discourse to wrest power from the powerful (who relied on tradition, heritage, and title). But here the exploitation is more hidden than the over exploitation between serfs and lords.

In answer to the second question, in general the guardians of ‘human rights’ are nation states who have the power (police within territory; military outside of borders) to protect these human rights. But generally, the right to have ‘human rights’ comes with the cost of citizenship. Being a citizen of the USA gives you the right to be treated humanely by the USA. And the same with other countries. If you are a citizen, then you have rights. But if you aren’t a citizen, then things get sticky. The paradigmatic example (for Agamben) is the image of the refugee because the refugee is one without a land and therefore stripped of everything but his very humanity, his body without symbolic support. Yet, these are the very people which the nation-state know not what to do.

And to the last, this discourse, guarded by the State is put forward for questionable purposed. Military intervention in the name of humanitarian aid becomes the norm in the name of basic human rights, yet prevention beforehand is not considered, nor are economic measures (like debt relief) seriously considered.

Which all comes back to my basic problem, that the discourse of human rights (while in it theological articulations within the church) tend to be used for dubious means by the State and by Capitalism.

Free of Charge: by Miroslav Volf

Chapters 1: God the Giver

(For those wanting my commentary and not the summary, skip to the bottom)

“There is God. And there are images of God. And some people don’t see any difference between the two.” In Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, Miroslav Volf attempts to separate out the difference between God in reality from our images and idols. And he does this principally around the themes of giving and forgiving. Proceeding by way of summary, paraphrase, and quoting, I’ll run through Chapters 1 and 4, offering a bit of reflection at the end. Chapter 1 now; Chapter 4 later.

God the Giver

Two particularly false images of God are God the negotiator and God the Santa Claus. When we view God as the negotiate we see God as one to whom we can pitch a deal, make an arrangement. If God will do this for us, we will give God that. All of us have lived this way, and know many more who do also, but Volf draws our attention to the fact that even if God were a negotiator, it would still make no sense to make deals with Him. He always has the advantage, the upper hand. There is nothing that God could need we could give him. Everything is already his. Volf makes clear that God is emphatically not a negotiator: “God’s goods are not for sale; you can’t buy them with money or good deeds. God doesn’t make deals. God gives” (26).

But if God is the God of the gift and not of the deal, is he then like Santa Claus? Does he give to all the little girls and boys gifts what they don’t need (or deserve)? Does he give without expectation or obligation? Does he demand nothing from us, giving indiscriminately and inexhaustibly? No! While God is the inexhaustible source of all gifts, he does also make demands. “Unlike Santa, God doesn’t just scatter gifts, smiling in blissful affirmation of who we are and what we do no matter who we happen to be and what we happen to do. God also urges us to do this or not to do that…God generously gives, so God is not a negotiator of absolute dimensions. God demands, so God is not an infinite Santa Clause. So, what is the relationship between God’s giving and God’s demand?” (28).

The answer is that while God gives, he also demands that we would give also; the obligation is to continue the giving. But of course we can’t gift a gift to God, for two reasons. He is already totally fulfilled, needing nothing from creatures, but gives and receives counter-gifts from each member of the Trinity. And everything that might be given to God is already God’s because he makes and sustains all things. So, “if we cannot return benefits to God, then how can obligations to God be attached to God’s gifts to us?” (42). Or, basing the question according to Romans 12:1-2, “what then is this sacrifice that is neither a gift nor a counter-gift to God?”

First, God’s gifts oblige us to a posture of receptivity, a posture where we “see ourselves as who we truly are, namely, receivers and receivers only. We do that by relating to God in faith. "The first thing to which God’s gifts oblige us is faith” (43). In reality we are all beggars. Our very existence and preservation are gifts from God of which we have not right. But this beggarly position is not full of humility, but rather is the apex of our humanity. “To receive from God in faith is the height of human dignity” (44).

Second, God’s gifts oblige us to gratitude. While when we give thanks we are not actually giving back anything, we are still honoring God and expressing our appreciation for the gifts given. Gratitude and faith cohere in that faith affirms that I am a recipient and gratitude affirms that God is the giver. “Faith receives God’s gifts as gifts; gratitude receives them well.” In neither faith nor gratitude is humanity diminished, but rather they complete us and acknowledge that life is not a self-achievement of independence, which leads to pride and sin.

Third, God’s gifts oblige us to be available to the Giver, available in the sense of being instruments and conduits of God’s gifts to others. Not only does God want to give us gifts, but He desires to impart within us the divine life of giving. The image of God in us is that we would be more than receivers, but also givers.

And in light of this, fourth, God’s gifts oblige us to participate in God’s gift giving. Not only are we conduits, potentially consumed by the task, or lose as the instrument, but we, through Christ dwelling in us, participate in Christ’s giving to the world. In this sense, we enter into the mission of God’s giving as we participate in Christ. But in the process we don’t lose ourselves, our identity as individuals. If we seek our own and a stance of pure receptivity, we will lose ourselves into the void of narcissism, but the paradox of love as gift is that when we give we find ourselves.

Here ends the summary; here begins the brief commentary.

A general and a specific observation. First it is of great merit that Volf has brought the discourse of the gift to a popular audience, allowing for an understand of God that is not strictly juridical, but rather based in the reciprocity and mutual recognition of giving gifts. The following chapters in part one of course spell out what this means for us. For those looking for a more scholarly/academic presentation of the ‘gift’ in its anthropological, phenomenological, and theological aspects, read John Milbank’s ‘Can a Gift Be Given?: Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic’ in Modern Theology 11 (1995): 119-137.

Second, of Volf’s four obligations, the first is striking in regard to something I recently recently read in Jeffery Stout’s Democracy and Tradtion. In chapter 9 he outlines the rise of the discourse of ‘rights’. Against the authoritarian rule of feudal lords comes the a discourse of rights, a claiming to have certain rights that for which one ought not need to beg. The discourse on human right rises from the desire not to beg, but rather as something demanded.

In light of faith, which is receptivity of God’s gifts, which is to acknowledge ourselves as essentially beggars, what does this means for a Christians understanding of ‘human rights’? And also, what does that mean for our entire understanding of our relation to democracy, the discourse of right?

I think there are good and bad aspects of the discourse on right, but how do you think they relate?

Science Fiction Friday: Weekly Series

I'm out of town at a conference, so I don't have anytime to write another compelling and sophisticated post on science fiction and culture, and the meaning of the Borg in Star Trek. So until next time...