the outside course I never took

I had a very interesting discussion today with a guy who believes in the ubiquity of trees and who challenged me to read more philosophy of science; specifically, Paul Feyerabend. I've only ever dabbled in philosophy of science since I changed my mind about doing it as my third subject in first year at uni. (Instead I did linguistics, and look where it got me.) Philosophy of science intrigues me, but when it gets irrational, I get annoyed, and give up.

The point of saying all this is to distance myself from one possible interpretation of what I said in my last post ... magic ... It didn't strike me as worth noting yesterday, but since then, I've dipped into Feyerabend, and in the light of his irrationalism, it is worth saying today! Science and magic are different things ... I do believe we have made advances in knowledge since ancient times - I do believe it is possible to know things and be sure of their truth and factuality - I do believe there is objective reality (reality is not a social construct!)

I'll defend any of those claims if anyone is interested in challenging them, but in the meantime, I still like the quote from Firth, because obviously, neither a single human nor any collection of humans will ever know everything there is to be known ... in comparison with what there is to be known, we hardly know anything; in comparison with what used to be known, we know a lot, and we're learning more, and it's interesting, worthwhile, and objective.

None of that is very original, of course.

"Let there be no mistake: I am not proposing that we teach only what can be ascertained as true. On the contrary, we must doubt our learning, and we must continue teaching that we are all ignorant in most respects and to some degree or other. But we must also teach that ignorance can be gradually overcome by rigorous research, that falsity can be detected, that partial truth can be attained and perfected ..." M Bunge (1996), 'In praise of intolerance to charlatanism in academia.' p108

(Ps - The article titled The Ubiquity of Trees is available here)

developmental linguistics

Here's JR Firth talking about the magic of language - an ancient notion which is still useful, he said.

"All the children of men learn to speak in an atmosphere of magic. When a baby’s bodily disturbances reach the ears of those around him, all sorts of feelings are mobilized in his service – motherly solicitude, paternal pride, and the obligations of hired servants or neighbours. When a baby speaks there is magic on the air. By means of this phonetic magic, which obviously moves people and makes things happen, his majesty soon learns he has a voice in the world and that it works miracles. It is not surprising that he apprentices himself eagerly to such a craft, and submits to the rule and ritual, and the practice of other members of the magic circle as a condition of practising it himself. It is no matter for surprise therefore that man should believe his cries create, and, having 'created', no wonder he 'crows' about the accomplishment. There is no doubt about this power of speech to mobilize strong feelings, common prejudices, common desires, common fears, and all the forces of public opinion. It also commands great forces, great alliances, and in writing has by its conquests created man’s new world. Throughout this book we shall keep before us this view of speech as a social instrument both for 'sense' and 'nonsense', work and play – practical, productive, creative." Firth (1937), The Tongues of Men (ch 1.7.1)

I need to find out more about Firth, particularly his ideas about prosody. Meanwhile, I like the acknowledgement that at the end of the day we might as well still be talking in terms of "magic", for all that we've learnt since the Sanskrit scholars. (Which reminds me, I need to find out more about them too.) Better get back to it.

on pain and suffering

It bothers me that we're able to talk freely within reformed circles about the possibility that God can suffer. This has been bothering me in a serious way for over a year now, but sometimes it attacks me with more urgency than other times. It strikes me as being a deeply misguided and irreverent way of speaking and thinking - in fact, as being actually wrong.

One reason why I think so is because of who God actually is. Up to now, it's been accepted that the view expressed for example in sections 2.1 and 2.2 of the Westminster Confession (summarised in my last entry) is an accurate way of stating the fundamental truths about the God who we profess to believe and worship. The fact that the Confession says this obviously doesn't make it accurate, but it's a starting point, and anyone who diverges from it while still claiming to be reformed in their theology has a bit of explaining to do: someone who believes in a mutable and vulnerable deity clearly does not believe in a God who is unchangeable and absolute in his being, glory, blessedness, and perfection, as the Confession (and, as I believe, the Bible) presents him to us.

Another reason why I disagree with the view that God is capable of suffering is because of the nature of suffering. In a perfect world, there would (obviously) be no suffering ... but we live in a fallen world, where sin and misery are facts of life, and where misery is caused by sin. But God is holy: he doesn't sin: so he has no reason to suffer. So even if he was not the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable I AM, he would have no reason to suffer, because he is holy and sinless.

The final reason which I'll give just now for why I do not believe that God is capable of suffering is, because of who Christ Jesus is. He is fully God (God the eternal Son) and he is fully man, and yet he is one person: a divine person who took to himself a human nature. It was only because he was man as well as God that it was possible for this person to be born, to be made under the law, to obey the law, and to take the place of sinners under the law. (God is the Law-Giver, he does not obey.) It was only because he was man as well as God that he could suffer - as God, he was still just as infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, glory, blessedness, and perfection, as he ever had been as the Eternal Son of God in eternal harmony with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. He did not cease to be what he always had been, when he became something which he had never been before. There is no reason, even while we acknowledge and believe in the sufferings which Christ Jesus underwent on the cross for his people, to attribute these sufferings to either of the other persons of the Godhead, or even to his own divine nature, because he is God and man in two distinct natures - inseparably joined, but joined without conversion, composition, or confusion.

This post is long enough now that it's well past time for me to stop writing ... not but that there's more that could be said (as ever), but that's got at least something off my chest. Till next time.

postponing number 3

I'm going to deal with that leftover third point from friday some other time ... in the meantime, here's a bit of a confession.

• There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute ...
  
• God has all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of Himself; and is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which He has made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things; and has most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever Himself pleases

Westminster Confession of Faith, 2.1 and 2.2.

friday thoughts

What better way to round off a Friday than with a bit of blogging.

It's been a fairly successful week, work-wise - I had several discussions with people on amending the pilot version of my experiment and even, amazingly, made a bit of progress towards the next stage. There was also some positive news on a couple of issues which have been bothering me - for one thing the government agreed to drop the 'religious harassment' part of its Equality Bill, thereby admitting defeat on its latest attempt to crack down on freedom of speech, and also, support came from Stella Rimington, ex head of MI5, for the argument that ID cards will after all be useless, whether for fighting terrorism or any other purpose.

Needless to say there are still several things bothering me ... 1) the threat of a bill in favour of legalising assisted suicide appearing in the Scottish Parliament; 2) the government, claiming to "understand the pain and anguish" it would cause, still deciding to send paramilitary fugitives back to Northern Ireland without facing prison (other suspected terrorists just get deported to places where they'll get their human rights abused); and 3) the fact that I have a blog to write now, so I've got to keep thinking up stuff to write. Ok, number 3 is a bit feeble, but I'll have to tell you about Moltmann, Calvary, and Moriah some other time.

The first

I've been wondering recently what my blog would look like, if I had one. Tonight I'm finding out. It's not like I need more excuses to waste time not working ... but egotistically speaking the idea of a place to write down all my random thoughts is too good to resist. And I did lots of work today anyway. So here goes: the first post. We'll see how long this lasts.