To Think
To be human is to think.
Aristotle believed that the essence of being human was two-fold: We belong to a larger group, the animals; but we are different from all other animals in a characteristic way. The difference that sets us as a species apart from the rest of the animals is our capacity for higher-level thought. Hence Aristotle's famous "definition": A human is a rational animal.
Biologists explain the genesis of human rationality in terms of natural selection and other evolutionary forces. But the Judeo-Christian tradition knows that, whatever role these physical factors may have played, we bear in our persons the Image of God. We share with God what it means to be a person: an affective, emotional life; sets of desires; the ability to choose and act; and the capacity for cognition. It is in this last characteristic, that of the human capacity to come to know, that we fulfill Aristotle's definition most completely. Orcas and terriers and lemurs can all cognize: They perceive, experience, process sensory information, and engage in primitive ratiocination. But (with apologies to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) no matter how clever your pet dolphin may be, it cannot make a grocery list, calculate your car's gas mileage, compose a sonnet, compare Led Zeppelin to U2, or critique Das Kapital. Alone among the creatures of the Earth, women and men are capable of such higher-level thought.
In contemporary society rationality gets short shrift: We are constantly pelted with emotional chaff, strung along by titillation of our desires, overwhelmed by a surfeit of choice, and blindingly dazzled by sensations. When we think about thinking, it is often vague images of dull teachers and dry books that come to mind. Our culture does prize the products of high rationality in terms of the fruits of math, science, engineering, and technology. But pursuing thought for thought's sake; trying to become a better thinker because that's an intrinsically worthwhile aim; wanting to know the answer to Why? in as many contexts and domains as possible -- such pursuits are viewed with bewilderment by most of us. Moreover, if we do stir ourselves enough to want to think seriously, we are easily waylaid by the sophists that surround us: The blogosphere, the popular press, cable news, self-help books -- much of what these convey is, quite frankly, rubbish in terms of its intellectual bona fides. As Plato would frame it, these are largely conduits of opinion rather than knowledge.
Conservative evangelical Christians are no better than our society as a whole. Shamefully, an attitude of anti-intellectualism pervades our worship, our message, our beliefs about God and Creation, and our relationship to the broader culture. Not only does the Church not encourage the intellectual life, it often actively discourages it. Indeed evangelical Christianity often sees high rationality as the very antithesis of true faith. We suffer from the same famine as the rest of the culture. We thus chase confetti and eat cotton candy: facile readings of the Bible, hyper-emotionalism, narcissistic desire-fulfillment, quick-fix "solutions" in our personal lives, and simplistic "answers" to our culture at large.
When we do attempt to "get serious," the results are often tragicomic: The "key" to all geopolitics has to do with the modern state of Israel. Modern science's findings on the origins of the Earth and its denizens are a fraud. There is an essential difference between the sexes such that one of them is unfit to lead the other in certain contexts. It is appropriate for a modern nation-state to explicitly align with the beliefs and practices of a particular subset of its citizens on matters that are essentially sectarian. The dietary and hygienic strictures of an ancient culture continue to have value in terms of health and nutrition. Inter alia.
This situation is, quite frankly, dumb as dirt. To seek to be a good thinker is to pursue what is a uniquely human activity. To pursue The Life of the Mind is to strive towards what is a defining characteristic of the Image of God. My mother taught me that "obedience is its own reward." So too is thinking well. But beyond its intrinsic value, the appropriate use of reason offers humans ways forward. More particularly, the use of reason, humbly and under the Mind of Christ, offers evangelical Christians the means to speak words and to do things that are grace-filled and grace-giving, beautiful, and epic. It also offers them a uniquely Christian way to render worship to the living God.
Original 7/28/14.
Aristotle believed that the essence of being human was two-fold: We belong to a larger group, the animals; but we are different from all other animals in a characteristic way. The difference that sets us as a species apart from the rest of the animals is our capacity for higher-level thought. Hence Aristotle's famous "definition": A human is a rational animal.
Biologists explain the genesis of human rationality in terms of natural selection and other evolutionary forces. But the Judeo-Christian tradition knows that, whatever role these physical factors may have played, we bear in our persons the Image of God. We share with God what it means to be a person: an affective, emotional life; sets of desires; the ability to choose and act; and the capacity for cognition. It is in this last characteristic, that of the human capacity to come to know, that we fulfill Aristotle's definition most completely. Orcas and terriers and lemurs can all cognize: They perceive, experience, process sensory information, and engage in primitive ratiocination. But (with apologies to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) no matter how clever your pet dolphin may be, it cannot make a grocery list, calculate your car's gas mileage, compose a sonnet, compare Led Zeppelin to U2, or critique Das Kapital. Alone among the creatures of the Earth, women and men are capable of such higher-level thought.
In contemporary society rationality gets short shrift: We are constantly pelted with emotional chaff, strung along by titillation of our desires, overwhelmed by a surfeit of choice, and blindingly dazzled by sensations. When we think about thinking, it is often vague images of dull teachers and dry books that come to mind. Our culture does prize the products of high rationality in terms of the fruits of math, science, engineering, and technology. But pursuing thought for thought's sake; trying to become a better thinker because that's an intrinsically worthwhile aim; wanting to know the answer to Why? in as many contexts and domains as possible -- such pursuits are viewed with bewilderment by most of us. Moreover, if we do stir ourselves enough to want to think seriously, we are easily waylaid by the sophists that surround us: The blogosphere, the popular press, cable news, self-help books -- much of what these convey is, quite frankly, rubbish in terms of its intellectual bona fides. As Plato would frame it, these are largely conduits of opinion rather than knowledge.
Conservative evangelical Christians are no better than our society as a whole. Shamefully, an attitude of anti-intellectualism pervades our worship, our message, our beliefs about God and Creation, and our relationship to the broader culture. Not only does the Church not encourage the intellectual life, it often actively discourages it. Indeed evangelical Christianity often sees high rationality as the very antithesis of true faith. We suffer from the same famine as the rest of the culture. We thus chase confetti and eat cotton candy: facile readings of the Bible, hyper-emotionalism, narcissistic desire-fulfillment, quick-fix "solutions" in our personal lives, and simplistic "answers" to our culture at large.
When we do attempt to "get serious," the results are often tragicomic: The "key" to all geopolitics has to do with the modern state of Israel. Modern science's findings on the origins of the Earth and its denizens are a fraud. There is an essential difference between the sexes such that one of them is unfit to lead the other in certain contexts. It is appropriate for a modern nation-state to explicitly align with the beliefs and practices of a particular subset of its citizens on matters that are essentially sectarian. The dietary and hygienic strictures of an ancient culture continue to have value in terms of health and nutrition. Inter alia.
This situation is, quite frankly, dumb as dirt. To seek to be a good thinker is to pursue what is a uniquely human activity. To pursue The Life of the Mind is to strive towards what is a defining characteristic of the Image of God. My mother taught me that "obedience is its own reward." So too is thinking well. But beyond its intrinsic value, the appropriate use of reason offers humans ways forward. More particularly, the use of reason, humbly and under the Mind of Christ, offers evangelical Christians the means to speak words and to do things that are grace-filled and grace-giving, beautiful, and epic. It also offers them a uniquely Christian way to render worship to the living God.
Original 7/28/14.
Links from this page:
The Life of the Mind
Philosophy and Other First Things
A Christian Philosophy
Being Critical
The Life of the Mind
Philosophy and Other First Things
A Christian Philosophy
Being Critical