Apocatastasis - An Interesting Article

I came across an interesting article titled "Apocatastasis in Patristic Theology" by John R. Sachs, S. J. published in Theological Studies 54(4), 617-640, 1993.  Here is a link to the pdf file.  Apocatastasis is related to the concept of the restoration of all things and is connected to the concept of universal salvation.  He says:

Within the limits of Catholic "orthodoxy" what is encouraged by most is a strong and active hope that all will be saved.

I take this to mean that it is perceived that there is a possibility that this is the case and it is approved to believe in this possibility.

To some, such a change in perspective may seem to be merely another example of modernity's relentless dilution of the gospel, a superficial optimism that refuses to acknowledge the power of evil in our world and our responsibility for it. In fact an ancient Christian instinct or sensibility for the power of divine grace, precisely in the face of the grim reality of human evil, lies at the hear of this "new" attitude.

John gives the examples of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and two of the Cappadocian fathers and indicates there are others.  He says that 

According to Clement, God's absolute goodness implies that punishment can only have a pedagogical, purifying, and healing function, not only in this life, but after death as well. God does not take vengeance, for that would be simply to return evil for evil. But in loving providence God "chastens with a view to the good" of all, much as a father or teacher disciplines a child.

With regard to Origen, according to Wikipedia, though he has been considered through the ages to have been a proponent of this, recent analysis of his extant writings are not conclusive. Nonetheless, John shows that Origen wrote much that provides support for this outlook.  I suppose he was wrestling with the cruelty of everlasting punishment and his views evolved over his lifetime and that assuming a consistency of thought on his part does not capture the situation. How did Origen engage the usual passages regarding punishment of Hell's fire?  According to John:

Can such a fire really burn eternally? The answer to this question is of central importance for understanding Origen on the subject of apocatastasis. A number of different perspectives emerge in his thought. First, simply with respect to the word and concept of the eternal, Origen often notes the ambiguity of the word "eternal," pointing out that aiôn and aiönios can mean duration without end or simply a very long period of time, an "age" or an "aeon," which would have an end. 

This is a topic I come back to from time to time.  That's it for now.  

While Unpacking Books at Our New Home - Thoughts from Hermann Hesse

After six weeks of living with family, we are finally in our home in Collierville, TN and we unpacking and arranging things.  I've kept some of my books for forty years now and am once again wondering about throwing some of them away.  I picked up one by Hermann Hesse just now.  He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946.  The book is Magister Ludi, which originally I read in 1973. Had not looked at it since then and as it was about to be tossed into the recycle pile I accidentally noticed a few things I'd underlined back when I was 22 years old.  Late in the book the main character describes a man he knew who I think fits with a model human from Hesse's perspective.

Granted there are those among us who are to easily satisfied, who enjoy a sham serenity; but in contrast to them we also have men and generations of men whose serenity is not playful shallowness, but earnest depth.  ..  In the last years of his life this man possessed the virtue of serenity to such a degree that it radiated from him like the light from a star; so much that it was transmitted to all in the form of benevolence, enjoyment of life, good humor, trust and confidence.  It continued to radiate outward from all who received it, all who had absorbed its brightness.... 

Even though whole peoples and languages have attempted to fathom the depths of the universe in myths, cosmogonies, and religions, their supreme, their ultimate attainment has been this cheerfulness.

I think I'll hold onto this book and give it another read.  Don't remember my 22 year old self being impressed with that but I'm glad to have come across it now.  There is something of value there. Previously on this blog I quoted extensively from something Hesse wrote about trees.  That one has stayed with me consciously for all these years.

A Month Away from Knoxville

We've been living out of a suitcase for over a month since leaving Knoxville.  We are bouncing around between family members.  Haven't had much time to read.  One more week to go.  Ready to get settled.  Life is different.  How does where you live affect who you are and what you believe?  I've attended several churches recently.  I plan to visit a lot of churches.  There are a zillion here in Memphis with all kinds of cool names like "Truth and Grace" , "Heartsong", "Ram in the Bush", etc.  Churches are changing and life is changing from what it was even in the early 2000's and we often do not realize it.  Personal computers are a thing of the past, they are on the way out.  My tower sitting below me is a fossil now.  And I have less control than I did of my computer.  It decides when and how to upgrade and add "security."  In my smart phone I cannot tell when an application is closed and when it is not.  In its browser I cannot go back and then forward.  Things changing so fast it is hard to keep up.  I've got a Tumblr account.  Just getting started with it and not sure how it works.  I'll try this link:

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/swallison50

Which contains this from the Tumblr microblog by emergentdigitalpractices.

emergentdigitalpractices:

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
(Hat Tip to Lynn Schofield Clark)

And my response is that this has been one of the ongoing themes of my life.  I noticed it while I was young, how older folks had a problem with new things, and promised myself I would not be like that.  Well, I have caught myself reacting as in number 3 from time to time.  I try to recognize it and overcome it.  It is a constant battle.

Equations are like Sonnets

Lifted the paragraph below from Krita Tippet's On Being.  It is about the joy of math.  I recall struggling in the first and second grade with it.  Then mid-way through the 3rd grade we began working on our multiplication tables and I perceived its patterns and rhythms. From then on I've loved it.

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The Joy of Math: Keith Devlin on Learning and What It Means To Be Human
Mathematical equations are like sonnets says Keith Devlin. What most of us learn in school, he says, doesn’t begin to convey what mathematics is. And technology may free more of us to discover the wonder of mathematical thinking — as a reflection of the inner world of our minds.
- See more at: 
http://www.onbeing.org/program/the-joy-of-math-keith-devlin-on-learning-and-what-it-means-to-be-human/5946

On the Way to Memphis

We arrived in the Knoxville-Oak Ridge area of East Tennessee in Dec of 1978.  It is where we have lived for nearly 35 years.  We did take a one year interlude to Charlottesville, VA when I was a visiting research professor at the U of VA in the 89-90 school year. Now, we are headed to the Memphis, TN area.  We will be close to our families.

Haven't been reading much.  All I can do to keep up with my work and pack the house too.  And there have been frequent trips to Memphis.  Downloaded another Richard Rohr book some time ago and what I've read so far is great and a help.  The other book I've read by him is falling upward.  A recent review by Carl McColman is here and a quote from it follows:

I think, especially for those who might be a little uncomfortable with concepts like mysticism or contemplation, Immortal Diamond can be a wonderful introduction to the visionary and optimistic of Richard Rohr’s teaching. Even long-standing fans of his work will enjoy this book, if for no other reason than to see his profoundly spiritual insights presented in a new way. If this is your first book by Rohr. You’re in for a treat. Follow up with either Everything Belongs or The Naked Now (and if you’re over 40 years old, Falling Upward as well).

New Book about Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul is one of those writers whose name I've seen here and there through the years.  But the passing references never piqued my curiosity, until now.  He is perceived as anti-technology and that is how I make my living.  I came to consciousness just as he published his 1954 work on the Technological Society.  The 1950's TV shows about space travel and the wonders that were appearing everyday defined my person.  Probably based on the following I'd written him off because I was given a wrong view of him.  Thanks to Len at Next Reformation summarizing and linking to a review over at Cardus.  The book is Understanding Jacques Ellul and it claims that he is misunderstood.  Seems he was perceived as a Luddite.  Perhaps he was patiently working through the implications and diagnosing our present situation. I liked this snippet from the Cardus review:

Thinking a bit more broadly, though, we might also observe that in setting forth ideas over the unexpected scale of several books, Ellul follows in the footsteps of other prominent thinkers, including Socrates/Plato, Jesus, and Kierkegaard, who have each in different ways recognized that pursuing the truth often requires a certain obliqueness in approach. And herein we glimpse an important strategy for doing public theology in this present technological society.

I discussed this indirectness  here in a summary of previous blogs. And a commenter gave the contra case, also very edifying for me.

Great to read the thoughtful comments to the Cardus article, clicked up on each of them.  One of them sent me to the Jesus Radicals web site.  Ummm. Interesting.

Evolution Moves Us to the Hyperpersonal and Ultrahumanity - Ilia Delio and Teilard de Chardin

Downloaded to my Kindle a third book by Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being:  God, Evolution and the Power of Love.  I'm liking it.  She continues in this book to refer to the writings of Teilhard de Chardin as she did in the others.  I slogged through the Phenomenon of Man by him and it was rough going.  I picked up on some of it and it was profound.  It is a great thing that Ilia has lived with his writings and like John Haught can interpret and show how Teilhard's thinking and ideas are applicable to our times.  Below is from the chapter on Technology and Noogenesis.

She says:

Evolution is progress toward more being and technology is the new means:  "It is not well being but a hunger for more-being which, of psychological necessity, can alone preserve the thinking earth from the taedium vitae."  quotation from The Future of Man 317 (kindle loc 3530)

She gives this quote from The Human Phenomenon p185:

It is a mistake to look for the extension of our being or of the noosphere in the impersonal. The future universal cannot be anything else but the hyperpersonal.

and follows with this:

                                                                     Ultrahumanity

Teilhard’s vision of evolution is not based on personal enhancement (like the transhumanists) but on community and creativity. He sees the convergence of human and machine intelligence as completing the material and cerebral sphere of collective thought. His hopeful vision of transhumanism is a richer and more complex domain through the connectedness of minds joined together, a collective or global mind for the forward movement of cosmic evolution. He imagines psychic energy in a continually more reflective state, giving rise to “ultrahumanity,” by which he means the need for humanity to enter into a new phase of its own evolution. The value of science, according to Teilhard, can only be for the deepening of spirituality, since knowledge increases mind and mind deepens spirit. (kindle loc 3550)

  Long before the internet I was in a Philosophy of Religion class where the concept of the Omega Point and the noosphere were discussed.  At the time it made no sense at all to me.  But now that we are almost 20 years into the internet era and with our smartphones connecting us to each other and soon, via medical technology, to our insides; it is clear that he was a visionary and what he said is coming to us.

Thoughts on "The Marriage of Sense and Soul" by Ken Wilber

The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion by Ken Wilber

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

 I read this book in the fall of 1999, the first time, and it still holds up. His explanation of the Great Chain of Being and what others call Emergence has been a great help to me in reconciling science (which I live with everyday as a R&D professional and in which I have confidence)and religion (which I also have intimacy with by virtue of family, place, and personality).

We have names for different eras of time such as the Dark Ages, the Medieval Period, etc.  The age from the 18th to the 20th is generally considered to be the Modern Period and also the Age of Enlightenment.  It is the Enlightenment that gave us industrialization, the explosion of science, the movement of societies from religious to secular, and many other things.  But in recent decades there has been a recognition by many that we are at the beginning of the next stage.  Wilber begins by explaining and critiquing the Modern as an age that is emotionally and spiritually a "flatland", an era where enchantment and meaning have been negated.  Wilber also has critiques for critiques of modernism and works to arrive at synthesizing both in an intellectually and emotionally satisfying way.  Some call the new era the Postmodern.  I don't recall if he used that term or not.  But times are definitely different now and we have continued to move and develop into the Postmodern in the 14 years since he wrote the book. 

Another reason this book is important to me is that it prepared me to understand Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian which I read three years later.  It was then that my inward life turned around and I could finally say I'd found what I'd been looking for since my early twenties.

View all my reviews

Manichaens, the World, Beauty and God

Have been enjoying on my Kindle Voices of Gnosticism: Interviews with Elaine Pagels, Marvin Meyer, Bart Ehrman, Bruce Chilton and Other Leading Scholars (Miguel Conner)

Here is an interesting quotation by Jason BeDuhn of Northern Arizona University on the Manichaens.  This is in response to the meme that the Manichaens had a pessimistic, life-denying view of earthly existence.

And so, if you look at the Manichaean hymns, as apparently you have, you’ll see this poetry, a lot of affirmation of the natural world as the manifestation of God. And there’s even the claim in the later Islamic tradition, when it is trying to suppress certain radical forms of Sufism, the claim is made that the Sufis have learnt from the Manichaeans how to meditate on beauty as a form of drawing close to God. And of course that’s everything from meditating on a flower to meditating on the face of a beautiful woman. So, for more conservative Islamic forces, this kind of religious devotion to material forms is antithetical to the values they’re trying to cultivate. But it fits perfectly the Manichaean view that God is tangible in what is beautiful, is tangible in what affects the senses in a positive way. So God smells sweetly and God is light as opposed to darkness. These very sensory ways of talking about the divine which are the very things that Augustine and others criticised as too materialistic are actually ways in which you can see Manichaeans affirming the world as being permeated with divinity in a way that you miss in many other forms of spirituality.

The Secular Age by Charles Taylor continues to attract attention

It was my Christmas present shortly after it was published.  It takes a long time for him to say things, like so much that philosophers write.  It is densely packed with a lot of interesting information.  Shortly after it was published, the blogging world had a lot to say about it.  But since then, every once in a while, I see reference to it.  That is a testament to its value.  Just came across this interesting article in the NYT by David Brooks.  The comments are just as insightful.  The culture has  moved from an enchanted world in which it was easy and obvious for anyone in the year, say, 1500 to believe in God to the modern world where such is not the case.  Charles Taylor argues, according to Brooks, that it is not a matter of a secular view replacing a religious one, but that there are multiple expressions of the spiritual living along side secularism within the same people.  

Quotes from "Scarred Faith" by Josh Ross

Lifted by Kindle from “Scarred Faith:  This is a story about how Honesty, Grief, a Cursing Toddler, Risk-Taking, AIDS, Hope, Brokenness, Doubts, and Memphis Ignited Adventurous Faith” by Josh Ross

Deep faith is scarred faith. Faith isn’t something that is downloaded into a brain like antivirus software onto a desktop. It is about lived experiences. Faith doesn’t run deep because one is stuffed with right answers. It is cultivated by asking the right questions. Faith is about journey, experience, movement, and process. It is about adventure. And one thing we know about adventure is that there are moments of pain, regret, wounds, suspense, and questioning. - Highlight Loc. 139-42

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But most of us have a love/hate relationship with adventures. Adventures involve sacrifice, time, and commitment. - Highlight Loc. 169-70

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To strip adventure and risk taking from faith and spirituality causes immense oppression, injustice, and brokenness throughout our world, - Highlight Loc. 180-81

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A storytelling community can’t ignore the scars and wounds that have shaped us. It’s who we are. We can’t hide the grief under the rug. We can’t scrape the baggage from our identity. We can’t remove the unanswered questions we’ve carried for years. So, God, in his infinite wisdom, created community, because stories are meant to bear witness to something. They are meant to link us to all of humanity. - Highlight Loc. 1482-85

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Few people do community better than pain-ridden people. - Highlight Loc. 1371

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May God forgive us for taking better care of our buildings than we do our neighbors. - Highlight Loc. 1510

The scientific debate on climate change

The scientific debate on climate change

It is my opinion that this cartoon makes an important point.  A sober and rational view of our situation will contemplate the seriousness of this.

The times are not a-changin'

Lifted this from Crystal Downing's Book Changing Signs of Truth.  Sounds very familiar.

Summarizing contemporary culture in an essay titled "Signs of the Times,"  one cultural critic put it this way:

"public principle is gone; private honesty is  going; society, in short, is fast falling in pieces; and a time of unmixed evil is  come on us."

This apt statement appeared, however, in 1829, describing the  English culture of its author, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881).   With apologies  to Bob Dylan, it would seem that the times are not a-changin'.

One Voice For Change

One Voice For Change: A movement seeking gender equality in Churches of Christ

OUR VISION

Taking Semiotics to Church

I just came across a review titled Taking Semiotics to Church in the Other Journal by Carl Raschke of Crystal Downing's new book Changing Signs of Truth:  A Christian Introduction to the Semiotics of Communication.  The last two paragraphs are below.  I highlighted the next to the last sentence because it strikes a chord with me.   I decided to download the book to my Kindle.  Carl wrote "Next Reformation." A book I found very helpful.  I also read Crystal's other book How Postmodernism Serves My Faith.  It was great.

Changing Signs of Truth is a valuable contribution to the academic and semi-academic literature on cultural semiotics, if only because it portrays in a thorough and engaging way the glaring problem of how language is intertwined with culture and, more importantly, how language evolves over time. Interestingly, the same kinds of points Downing makes about contemporary Western culture would be a no-brainer for missiologists having to contend with the challenges of making the gospel intelligible to non-Westerners. It is a genuine sign of our current age that the controversy over language and culture has come down to whether the meanings of religious terms are somehow set in stone, as the more orthodox instinctively assume, or whether they are simply episodic types of language games, conditioned and rendered contingent by present-day attitudes and practices.

The view that these meanings are set in stone, as I have remarked extensively in my earlier work The Next Reformation (2004), relies on a pseudo-universalistic and hyperrationalistic version of epistemology that is neither biblical nor ancient but thoroughly modern, dating no later than the late eighteenth century. The notion that they are merely historically contingent amounts to an uncritical and inconsistent form of intellectual laissez-faire fostered during the late industrial era by social scientists who somehow fell under the delusion that they were in the business of solving classical problems of theoretical knowledge, when in fact they were merely substituting a naive descriptivism for what used to count as a philosophy of knowledge.
God will undoubtedly not allow the future of Christianity to endure as an interminable mud fight between shallow inerrantists and smug liberals. But in the meantime, readers will take away from this little book some genuine insights in how to rise above the fray.