The Devil Reads Derrida

Some of James K.A. Smith's popular pieces have been compounded into his new book, The Devil Reads Derrida, available in early May.

From the editor site:

Smith’s work as a Christian public intellectual brings theological wisdom into the service of lived discipleship. Whether grappling with the Wild at Heart phenomenon or the challenges of secularization, dealing with sex or consumerism, or commenting on The Devil Wears Prada or American Beauty, Smith tackles each issue with clarity and insight, with scholarly rigor — but always with an eye to Christian discipleship and the life of the church.

More info can be found here.

Lessing

This is german philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. He was a prominent philosopher of the 18th century, as well as art critic and dramatist. Kierkeegard spent much time in his Concluding Unscientific Postscript dealing with Lessing's thoughts on epistemological leaps to faith.

Judging from his picture, Lessing also had an almost perfectly symmetrical triangular head, which unfortunately was never discussed in Kierkegaard's work.

I'm about halfway through with ...Postscript, and finding great freedom in Kierkegaard's subjective Christianity. I'm also wondering if there's any sort of hard connection from S.K. to reformed epistemology and other postfoundational ideas of rationality.

new thoughts:

"Christianity does not lend itself to objective observation, precisely because it proposes to intensify subjectivity to the utmost; and when the subject has thus put himself in the right attitude, he cannot attach his eternal happiness to speculative philosophy." -S.K.

and also...

Belief in God is properly basic.

Such a joy to read and know!!

Ben McDonald

This is the Ben McDonald 1990 Score Rookie Card. When I was young I absolutely loved collecting and trading baseball cards. This one was one of my favorites. I loved it not because I had any particular affinity to Ben McDonald, or because he played for the Orioles, but because I wanted a necklace like his really, really badly. I showed this card to my mom that winter so that she would have a visual image of my Christmas list.

I ended up getting a necklace, sort of like this, a little less pricy I'm sure. I loved that necklace and wore it all the time. I'm not sure what happened it to it. I guess I eventually moved on to beaded necklaces, which were made with tiny beads and fishing wire. They were all the rage in 5th grade.

Merry Christmas!

Books

I've really enjoyed the recent post about intuition and knowledge over at Scot McKnight's blog (written by one of his guest bloggers), and the discussion that followed in the comments has been really good also. Good talk about God-of-the-gaps theology (as well as what seems to be Darwin-of-the-gaps thinking by some commenters).

I finally started reading Phyllis Tickle's The Great Emergence. I haven't gotten very far in the book yet, but chapter two on the three strands of society - spiritual, corporeal, and moral - is worth the price by itself.

I want to start a discussion in the next week or so about some slight differences I noticed between NT Wright's Surprised By Hope and Rob Bell's Jesus Wants to Save Christians. In short, the two seem to have different reasonings about why we as Christians should care about the world. Wright uses an illustration of a signpost throughout his book, where Christians are supposed to be the signpost to what is coming when God recreates the physical world. Bell, on the other hand, writes about us making this world into a better place here and now. I think both men obviously want the same thing, but they same to have different reasonings. In Wright's book, he even argues that this world is not getting better (i.e. evolutionary progress) or worse (i.e. some fundamentalist thinking). But since Anna has my copy of Bell's book, I can't get too deep into it right now.

Oh, and Maroon 5 apparently just put out a remix album. Now I am by no means a maroon 5 fan, however I am a big proponent of remix albums and have been a little pissy for two straight years that I can't find my Bloc Party remix album. I listened to some of it on iTunes a little while ago and I like what I've heard. Of course, that would mean having a Maroon 5 album in my library, so I'm in a bit of a quandry.

"I wind experiences around myself and cover myself with pleasures and glory like bandages in order to make myself perceptible to myself and to the world, as if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered its surface."

-Thomas Merton

ReEnchantment

In A Secular Age, Charles Taylor describes the differences in the Western world between the year 1500 and the year 2000. He describes the year 1500 as an age of Enchantment, when people believed that fulfillment was found outside of themselves, and saw non-human entities (angels, evil spirits, relics, icons, etc.) having causal influence over their lives. The year 2000, on the other hand, is marked by progress in the sciences and a greater understanding of the world in which we live, leading to an age of disenchantment. No longer do people believe that angels or evil spirits have any sort of causal influence on their lives, and fulfillment is found within the mind. There are no spirits bringing weather patterns as a result of sin or charity, only the laws of nature describing normal occurences.

For the most part though, Christians still believe in outside causal influences. Only now we cannot hold these beliefs naively, as Taylor would say. A Christian can watch the weather channel and see hurricanes forming along with the atheist. So what does it mean to say that a hurricane is sent as judgment on a city, or to pray that a hurricane not hit? Are certain hurricanes somehow injected with purpose, while others are simply the right mixture of weather patterns and waves?


.....


I want to become reenchanted with the world, but not with any sort of ignorance. To stand in awe of the God who created the stars, while understanding and acknowledging the natural existence of stars themselves. When I was little, I would see with ultimate wonder the beauties of nature as a sign pointing to the creator of nature. And I was a great philosopher then. All children are great philosophers. It only takes a seven year old son repeatedly asking his dad "why?" for every answer the dad gives him about why things are the way they are to see that. It's only when we become older that we become satisfied with simple answers and forget that our questions might actually be bigger than that.


.....


It is one thing for a scientist to tell you the history of cellular organisms, but another thing for the philosopher to tell you the purpose of cellular organisms. As Christians, we have to have open ears, wide eyes, and thoughtful mouths with our dialogue partners in the sciences and philosophies. Because purpose is still extremely important, and that means we still have a place at the table.

Descartes' Skull

This is the skull of Rene Descartes. Across his forehead is a Latin poem celebrating his genius, as well as an accusation of theft written in Swedish. Descartes believed that the mind and body were completely separate things, and the irony of his skull being separated from his bones has been noted by several sources.

But anyway, the skull of Rene Descartes is now kept under lock and key at an anthropology museum in Paris, Musee de l'Homme. In 2005, Russell Shorto went to this museum to see the skull for himself. The director of conservation led Shorto to the basement, where he took the skull out from its box where it is currently kept and presented it for his viewing...

"Voila le philosophe."