A Thinking Reed

Author: Lee M.

  • Sovereignty, intervention, and self-interest

    Russell Arben Fox points us to a debate between scholar Michael Berube and what he calls “the Z Magazine/Counterpunch Left.” In a nutshell, the Z/CP crowd, notably iconclastic leftist crank Alexander Cockburn (and I say that affectionately as someone who enjoys Cockburn’s writing), accuses Berube and other left-liberals of being insufficiently pure in their devotion to anti-interventionism, while Berube charges the Z/CPers with making a fetish out of national soveriegnty (e.g. in their opposition to the wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan in addition to the Iraq war; Berube opposed the Iraq war but supported the other two) and dubs them “the Sovereignty Left.” The point being, I take it, that it’s odd for leftists, who are supposed to be internationalists, to elevate the principle of national sovereignty to some kind of absolute, especially considering that most actually existing nation-states are controlled by the kinds of pernicious elites that leftism purportedly stands against. Meanwhile, the Z/CP-style response is that they’re not “pro-sovereignty” so much as they’re anti-imperialist. It has all the classic features of a intra-sectarian left-wing ideological battle. Russell also adds his own thoughts on the whole kerfuffle.

    Now, interesting as this all is, I have to say there is a certain surreal quality to this debate. What you have is various species of left-winger arguing about how best the U.S. government can serve the interests of foreigners in faraway lands. Should we leave them alone or selectively intervene to protect human rights? In the whole debate there is little or no discussion of the interests of Americans.

    I speculate that this is part of the reason that a lot of leftish ideas never gain any traction with most Americans. Polls consistently show that many Americans favor left-of-center policies, especially on economic issues, but if left-wing intellectuals frame their policies in terms of benefitting humanity at large rather than their fellow citizens, it’s only natural that most people, who, after all, think most about the well-being of themselves and their families, their communities, and their own country and certainly put it ahead of the interests of the citizens of other countries, will tune them out. Right or wrong, most people seem to exist within concentric circles of concern that diminish in intensity the farther they get from kith and kin.

    There was, to my mind, a perfectly good case agains the Iraq war that took American self-interest as the primary, if not sole, criterion: there was no demostrable or imminent threat from Iraq; the consequences of going to war were unpredictable; we had our hands full with the pursuit of al-Qaeda, etc. A variation on the same could be said about most of the USA’s other military interventions over the years. The bar for spending one’s own blood treasure ought, logically, to be high. This doesn’t mean that moral concerns aren’t also important, but if you don’t even reach the bar of self-interest then there’s no need to worry about the moral veto on your proposed action.

    And I personally think there are good reasons, at least at the national level, to take this kind of broadly self-interested view combined with what I would call moral side constraints on how we can treat others. To put it another way, what philosophers call “positive duties” are largely concerned with obligations to kith and kin, while “negative duties” (e.g. do no harm) extend to everybody. So, it’s entirely proper that a nation’s foreign policy be conducted primarily with the aim of protecting its own citizens, as long as in so doing it doesn’t inflict injustice on others. Some liberals and leftists have a hard time making peace with this idea, since it flies in the face of universalist and cosmopolitan tendencies that are deeply rooted in those outlooks (though more among intellectuals than actual politicians, most of whom tend to be unabashedly nationalist). But whether or not it’s a morally correct position, it’s important to recognize that it’s one that many, perhaps most, Americans hold. (It’s worth pointing out that there’s a species of internationalist universalism among some neoconservatives on the right that seems just as out of touch with sound patriotic concern for the well-being of one’s own country.)

    My point is simply this: whatever your idea of a saner American foreign policy is, it should first and foremost be a pro-American policy. I think this both because it’s the first duty of a government to look after its own citizens, but also because it’s the only policy that’s likely to actually sell.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 4

    In chapter XI Anselm turns to the question of sin, since one needs to get clear on that before determining what it means to make satisfaction for sin.

    Simply put, sin is to fail to render to God what is due him. But what is it that we owe? “Every wish of a rational creature should be subject to the will of God.” Therefore, when a rational creatrue fails to subject herself to the will of God she is guilty of sin:

    This is the debt which man and angel owe to God, and no one who pays this debt commits sin; but every one who does not pay it sins. This is justice, or uprightness of will, which makes a being just or upright in heart, that is, in will; and this is the sole and complete debt of honor which we owe to God, and which God requires of us. For it is such a will only, when it can be exercised, that does works pleasing to God; and when this will cannot be exercised, it is pleasing of itself alone, since without it no work is acceptable. (Book One, Chapter XI)

    It’s not clear from this chapter alone how Anselm understands the relationship between obeying the will of God and human happiness. Is it rational to obey the will of God simply because it’s God’s will, or is God’s will for us integrally connected to our own happiness and flourishing? Anselm says elsewhere that God creates rational beings so that they can attain to eternal happiness and blessedness, so it seems likely that he will say that God’s will for us is geared toward our attainment of that goal. In other words, in failing to subject ourselves to God’s will, we aren’t simply dishonoring God, but we’re frustrating our own created purpose. I think this is important to keep in mind in order to better understand Anselm’s view on God’s honor and satisfaction which have been subject to much criticism.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 3

    One of the most vexing questions about the death of Christ theologically speaking is whether and in what sense we can say it was willed by God the Father. Was it specifically the death of Jesus that was required to reconcile God and sinners? Looming here is the modern critique of traditional Atonement theory as exhibiting “cosmic child abuse” and encouraging an abusive mentality in Christians.

    Contrary to some accounts of his views, though, Anselm specifically denies that God willed the death of Jesus in any direct sense. Boso asks:

    [H]ow will it ever be made out a just or reasonable thing that God should treat or suffer to be treated in such a manner, that man whom the Father called his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased, and whom the Son made himself? For what justice is there in his suffering death for the sinner, who was the most just of all men? What man, if he condemned the innocent to free the guilty, would not himself be judged worthy of condemnation? And so the matter seems to return to the same incongruity which is mentioned above. For if he could not save sinners in any other way than by condemning the just, where is his omnipotence? If, however, he could, but did not wish to, how shall we sustain his wisdom and justice? (Book One, Ch. VIII)

    First of all, Anselm denies that the Son went to his death against his will, since “the Father did not compel him to suffer death, or even allow him to be slain, against his will, but of his own accord he endured death for the salvation of men.” But Boso replies that the Son nevertheless fulfilled his Father’s will in going to his death, so mustn’t we say that the Father willed the death of the Son?

    Anselm goes on to distinguish the Son’s obedience from the consequences of that obedience. His mission, as it were, was “that, in word and in life, he invariably maintained truth and justice,” viz. what every human being owes to God. And it was on account of this that he was put to death. God doesn’t directly will the death of the Son; he wills that the Son should come into the world and lead a perfect human life. But, of course, God knew that this would lead to his death. His death, as it were, was a foreseeable but inintended outcome of his life of perfect obedience.

    God did not, therefore, compel Christ to die; but he suffered death of his own will, not yielding up his life as an act of obedience, but on account of his obedience in maintaining holiness; for he held out so firmly in this obedience that he met death on account of it. It may, indeed be said, that the Father commanded him to die, when he enjoined that upon him on account of which he met death. It was in this sense, then, that “as the Father gave him the commandment, so he did, and the cup which He gave to him, he drank; and he was made obedient to the Father, even unto death;” and thus “he learned obedience from the things which he suffered,” that is, how far obedience should be maintained. (Book One, Ch. IX)

    The gift that the Son gives isn’t his death per se, but his life of perfect obedience, the life that no other human being can offer. Still, it can be said that God wills the death of the Son in an indirect sense, as a necessary outcome of his mission:

    So the Father desired the death of the Son, because he was not willing that the world should be saved in any other way, except by man’s doing so great a thing as that which I have mentioned. And this, since none other could accomplish it, availed as much with the Son, who so earnestly desired the salvation of man, as if the Father had commanded him to die; and, therefore, “as the Father gave him commandment, so he did, and the cup which the Father gave to him he drank, being obedient even unto death.” (Book One, Ch. IX)

    Of course, even if we concede that the death of the Son wasn’t directly willed by God in the sense that he was appeased by it or required it, it still seems unjust to send an innocent man (much less the Son of God!) to his ceratin death if the same good could be obtained in any other way. This seems to be why Anselm needs a strong sense of the necessity of the Incarnation; if there was any other way for God to save us, then the price of the death of the Son, whether directly intended or not, would seem too high.

  • A Marian witness

    As today is the (transferred) Feast of the Annunciation of Our Lord, I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts on the talk given by Bishop Steven Charleston on Marian devotion at our parish adult education forum yesterday.

    First of all, Bp. Charleston seemed like a really interesting person. He’s a Choctaw Indian who was born in rural Oklahoma and raised a Southern Baptist. In his teens he joined the Episcopal Church, later becoming a priest and then Bishop of Alaska. He’s been very involved in Native American ministry among other things, and currently serves as dean and president of the Episcopal Divinity School in nearby Cambridge, MA. He came across as a very down-to-earth guy who wore his position lightly, and had a rather quiet but direct demeanor. (He was also yesterday’s guest preacher and preached a very straightforward – and short! – sermon).

    Anyway, I guess I had originally been expecting a kind of theological disquisition on Marian devotion, but Bp. Charleston’s talk was much more along the lines of an evangelical-style testimony or witness! He spoke of his own very vivid experience of the comforting presence and intercession of Mary and how he’s become something of an “evangelist” for devotion to the BVM in the Episcopal Church. I guess that’s what happens when you mix a Southern Baptist upbringing with Anglo-Catholic theology and piety!

    He also spoke movingly of Mary as a kind of salt-of-the-earth working woman, not as the rather frail figure we see in some representations, of seeing her in the faces of Mexican women working in market stalls, or of careworn mothers on the subway. He talked about his efforts to introduce Marian devotion into the very low-church ethos of his Alaskan diocese, and said that, by the time he left several parishes had installed statues of Mary.

    I actually liked this talk better than I probably would’ve if it’d been the kind of theological discussion I was expecting. Like I wrote a while ago, as important as the theology is, there’s something uniquely compelling aobut lived experience (again, assuming that it’s consistent with sound theology). So I found Bp. Charleston’s witness to be very powerful. Proudly brandishing his Rosary, he encouraged us all to mediate on how we might make room for Mary in our own spiritual lives and to share that with others.

    During the brief Q&A period I asked him what he says to people who contend that devotion to Mary risks overshadowing devotion to the Trinity. He said that, first and foremost, Mary only finds her proper place in the story of Christ; she’s not some sort of goddess figure who stands on her own. She prays with us and for us, but this is always oriented toward God. Secondly, he said that God allows us to approach him in a variety of ways, depending on our particular needs at the time. He mentioned asking for St. Francis’s prayers in his work on environmental issues as an example.

    I can see how one might interpret this as setting up “mediators” between us and God in addition to Christ, and it seems clear that, in practice, devotion to the saints has sometimes taken that form. But maybe a better way of thinking about it is that each saint, in his or her uniqueness, shows forth a part or aspect of God in a unique way, like a prisim which refracts white light into a rainbow of colors. Maybe, in asking a particular saint to pray for us, we’re trying to “plug in” to that aspect of God that they refract particuarly clearly.

  • Random weekend culture notes

    On Friday we went with some friends to see The Decemberists at the Avalon, a club near Fenway park. Fantastic! The theatricality of their music comes out even more on stage. I’m not generally a fan of “indie rock” as a genre (not sure the Decemberists even fit into that category), but these guys are really good and fun.

    Also saw Casino Royale this weekend. Meh. I guess, despite my best efforts, I’ve never been able to become a real fan of the Bond series. The character has always struck me as fundamentally uninteresting. CR was certainly far better than most of the recent Bond movies, but still not as good, qua spy thriller, as something like, say, The Bourne Identity. Took itself a bit too seriously too.

    Oh, and speaking of indie rockers – Arcade Fire, what’s up with these guys? I’ve only listened to a few songs, but what I get is fairly well-crafted Springsteen-esque pop. OK, but nothing to justify the preposterous amount of hype surrounding this band. Can anyone ‘splain this to me?

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 2

    It’s interesting that in Book One, chapters VI and VII it’s Boso who gets to critique one of the more widespread theories of the Atonement at the time of Anselm’s writing, the so-called Ransom theory favored by several of the Fathers.

    In a nutshell, the Ransom theory teaches that, by sinning, humankind had put iself under the dominion of the devil and that Satan had acquired lordship over us. However, despite exercises this authority over humankind, Satan overstepped his bounds in killing Christ, because Satan had no rights over Christ since the latter hadn’t sinned. Thus, in illegitimately killing him, Satan forfeits his rights over the rest of us. I think it was Augustine who compared Christ to the bait on a fishhook: Satan snaps up the human being Jesus, but the divinity concealed within proves to be his undoing. A version of this theory seems to be at work in the depiction of Aslan’s death in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In betraying his siblings, Edmund has effectively made his life forfeit to the White Witch. But Aslan, agreeing to be slain in Edmund’s place deceives the Witch, who is unaware of the “deeper magic” and the fact that death will ultimately be unable to hold Aslan.

    What Anselm/Boso takes issue with is the idea that the devil has rights over humankind such that God couldn’t release us from bondage to Satan merely by fiat:

    I do not see the force of that argument, which we are wont to make use of, that God, in order to save men, was bound, as it were, to try a contest with the devil in justice, before he did in strength, so that, when the devil should put to death that being in whom there was nothing worthy of death, and who was God, he should justly lose his power over sinners; and that, if it were not so, God would have used undue force against the devil, since the devil had a rightful ownership of man, for the devil had not seized man with violence, but man had freely surrendered to him. (Book One, Ch VII)

    Anselm/Boso doesn’t deny that Satan has a certain de facto power over humanity. After the fall we are certainly in Satan’s thrall and subject to his torments. What is denied, however, is that Satan has a de jure authority over us. The devil tempted humanity by means of treachery, so he can’t have acquired legitimate authority over us.

    It’s allowed that God may justly permit the devil to be the agent of our punishment, but it doesn’t follow that Satan acts justly. “For man merited punishment, and there was no more suitable way for him to be punished than by that being to whom he had given his consent to sin. But the infliction of punishment was nothing meritorious in the devil; on the other hand, he was even more unrighteous in this, because he was not led to it by a love of justice, but urged on by a malicious impulse.” This is similar to the way in which, in the OT, God permits Israel to undergo certain hardships as a means of chastisement, without the agents of that chastisement (typically other nations) being just in themselves. God can use their malicious intentions as the agents of his justice. But they in no way have the right to do what they’re doing, just as Satan has no rights over us.

    Thus, as a matter of justice, God is in no way obliged to respect Satan’s supposed rights. Therefore the Ransom theory, while getting at part of the truth – that, in Christ, God frees us from the power of the devil – can’t be the whole story.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 1

    As a sort of Lenten-ey thing I’m re-reading St. Anselm‘s Cur Deus Homo, his famous (infamous in some circles) treatise on the reason for the Incarnation and how it effects our salvation. So, I thought I would post a series of notes on things that strike me. This won’t be a systematic exposition, which would be beyond my powers, but more like some ruminations informed by the text.

    The work takes place in the form of a dialogue between Anselm and Boso, his interlocutor who poses objections to the Christian docrtine of Incarnation and Atonement. The idea is to present reasons which, independently of revelation, show our need for atonement and how it can only be effected by God becoming man. The purpose is both to turn away the objections of “infidels” and to reach a greater understanding of Christian truth.

    The first objection mentioned by Boso is that it’s unbecoming for God to become human, and that “we do injustice and dishonor to God when we affirm that he descended into the womb of a virgin, that he was born of woman, that he grew on the nourishment of milk and the food of men; and, passing over many other things which seem incompatible with Deity, that he endured fatigue, hunger, thirst, stripes and crucifixion among thieves.”

    In response, Anselm immediately introduces the concept of “fittingness,” which, along with the related notion of “beauty,” plays an important role in his argument:

    We do no injustice or dishonor to God, but give him thanks with all the heart, praising and proclaiming the ineffable height of his compassion. For the more astonishing a thing it is and beyond expectation, that he has restored us from so great and deserved ills in which we were, to so great and unmerited blessings which we had forfeited; by so much the more has he shown his more exceeding love and tenderness towards us. For did they but carefully consider how fitly in this way human redemption is secured, they would not ridicule our simplicity, but would rather join with us in praising the wise beneficence of God. For, as death came upon the human race by the disobedience of man, it was fitting that by man’s obedience life should be restored. And, as sin, the cause of our condemnation, had its origin from a woman, so ought the author of our righteousness and salvation to be born of a woman. And so also was it proper that the devil, who, being man’s tempter, had conquered him in eating of the tree, should be vanquished by man in the suffering of the tree which man bore. Many other things also, if we carefully examine them, give a certain indescribable beauty to our redemption as thus procured. (Book One, Chapter III, emphasis added)

    Fittingness and beauty seem integral to Anselm’s understanding of how God orders and governs creation, which will become clearer later. For the present I think it’s helpful to note that, contrary to some caricatures of Anselm’s position, God’s love is the motive for the Incarnation. There may be some popular presentations of the Atonement which picture a vindictive God appeased by the killing of his innocent Son, but Anselm is clear that God’s love for us is demonstrated in the act of Atonement, not secured by it.

  • The church that prays together…

    Since last fall I’ve been helping to facilitate a small community group that meets about once a week primarily to study the Bible (we typically read and discuss the Gospel lesson for the upcoming Sunday), pray and socialize. I guess it’s a “small group” in the parlance of evangelicalism.

    Anyway, one of the things I really like about our group is its theological diversity. We have evangelicals, Roman Catholics, lifelong Episcopalians, one guy who’s Armenian Orthodox, and your scribe. We also range from liberal to conservative. The end result is some really lively and interesting conversation.

    Case in point: last night we were reading this Sunday’s lesson, Luke 20:9-19, a.k.a. the Parable of the Tenants. Somewhat naturally, the conversation turned to Atonement theory. Some of the folks from more evangelical backgrounds were suprised to learn that there were ways of understanding how Jesus saves us besides the theory of Penal Substitution. Another guy mentioned that he didn’t really like to think of the Cross in terms of some kind of payment for sin, but preferred to focus on the idea of God coming into our world and suffering alongside us (e.g. Whitehead’s “fellow sufferer who understands.”). Another said that his Episcopalian upbringing had taught him to emphasize the Incarnation more than the Atonement. For my part, I tried to defend a more-or-less Anselmian account.

    Unsurprisingly, we didn’t come to any consensus, just as the universal church hasn’t. But one of the really valuable things I’ve gotten out of this group is the conviction, and experience, that it’s still possible for Christians with serious theological differences (including differences over things like women’s ordination and homosexuality) to read the Bible and pray together (and head off to the pub for a friendly pint afterwards!). In spite of all the nastiness going on at the macro-level, maybe there are seeds of something hopeful there.

    Also, regarding the Atonement, and in the spirit of the Anglican via media, I’ve often been impressed by the way the Eucharistic Prayer A weaves together different understandings of the Atonement:

    Holy and gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us for yourself, and, when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.

    He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world. (BCP, p. 362)

    I really like how this includes elements of an “Abelardian” account of Christ coming and sharing our nature to manifest God’s love, but without losing all talk of sacrifice or satisfaction.

    Obviously all our differences aren’t necessarily going to be resolved in some harmonious whole, but I like to think that there’s something to that idea of holding seeming opposites in a fruitful tension.

  • Radicalism vs. gradualism on responding to climate change

    This is where I, as a layman, get lost. Bill McKibben and others argue that we’re in the middle of a catastrophe in the making and that only radical changes in our way of life can mitigate the disaster.

    Meanwhile, Jonathan Rauch admits that climate change is a real and harmful phenomenon, but argues that gradualism is the only workable solution and that we should focus on minimizing the most serious harms at the margins. “No rethinking of capitalism is required.”

    I just don’t have a decent enough grasp of the science to adjudicate between these two positions.

  • More on growth, happiness, and climate change

    Following up on yesterday’s post, here’s an interview with Bill McKibbon that fleshes out some of his economic ideas a bit more.

    McKibbon uses the term “deep economy” (the title of his new book) to describe an economy that

    tends to draw in its supply lines instead of extend them. It produces using more people instead of fewer. It’s an economy that cares less about quantity than about quality; that takes as its goal the production of human satisfaction as much as surplus material; that is focused on the idea that it might endure and considers durability at least as important as increases in size.

    Essentially his point seems to be that we need more local economies which can, in turn, be regulated more effectively by stronger communities. He’s clearly taking inspiration from thinkers like E.F. Schumacher and Wendell Berry here.

    In fact, McKibbon says that tight-knit local communities might be needed for sheer survival:

    [I]f you stop to think about it, you start to understand that the communities we need to build in order to slow down global warming are the same kind of communities that are going to be resilient and durable enough to help adapt to that which we can’t prevent. In the not very distant future, having neighbors is going to be more important than having belongings. Membership in a community is going to become important once again both psychologically and physically in the way that it’s been for most of human history.

    The point doesn’t seem so much to be that we need to put a stop to growth, but that it needs to be effectively regulated, and that we need to put a check on our appetites. He points out that economic research is discovering what philosophy and religion have known for centuries: that after a certain point more stuff doesn’t make us happier. I think I’d like to read the book to get a better sense of what he’s describing at any rate.