{"id":6154,"date":"2020-07-14T08:52:16","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T16:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=6154"},"modified":"2020-07-14T08:55:50","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T16:55:50","slug":"christianity-for-modern-pagans-vanity-of-human-reason-of-dogmatism-and-of-the-philosophers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2020\/07\/14\/christianity-for-modern-pagans-vanity-of-human-reason-of-dogmatism-and-of-the-philosophers","title":{"rendered":"Christianity For Modern Pagans: Vanity of Human Reason, of Dogmatism, and of the Philosophers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Blog readers: Chi Alpha @ Stanford is engaging in our annual summer reading project. As we read through an annotated translation of Pascal\u2019s Pensees called Christianity For Modern Pagans<\/a>, I\u2019ll post the thoughts I\u2019m emailing the students here (which will largely consist of excerpts I found insightful). They are all tagged summer-reading-project-2020<\/a>. The reading schedule is online<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week we\u2019re talking about chapters 7\u20139, the vanity of human reason, of dogmatism, and of the philosophers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing that stood out most to me is the skepticism that Pascal applies to reason. Recall that he is one of the greatest scientists in history and that his pioneering work laid the foundation for many fields of study. He knows well what reason can achieve, and as a result he also realizes its limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026demonstration is not the only instrument for convincing us. How few things can be demonstrated! Proofs only convince the mind; habit provides the strongest proofs and those that are most believed\u2026. We must resort to habit once the mind has seen where the truth lies, in order to steep and stain ourselves in that belief\u2026, for it is too much trouble to have the proofs always present before us\u2026. When we believe only by the strength of our conviction and the automaton is inclined to believe the opposite, that is not enough. We must therefore make both parts of us believe: the mind by reasons, which need to be seen only once in a lifetime, and the automaton by habit.<\/p>Pascal, Pensee 821 (pages 99\u2013100)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is brilliant, although the translation feels clumsy to me. Kreeft\u2019s commentary on this is helpful:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026once reason has convinced us to believe, we require the aid of good habits to overcome bad habitual tendencies in the opposite direction. Therefore we must act as if we believed, go to church and so forth, thus habituating the automaton to obey what reason has discovered to be true. Habit is not an honest substitute for reason, but it is an honest and needed servant to reason. If we try to fight against irrationality with reason alone, we will lose. We need cruder weapons too.<\/p>Kreeft\u2019s commentary on Pensee 821, page 100<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is one reason that Christian community is often so instrumental in someone\u2019s conversion. Reason, like a map, can guide people to Christ but only if they actually follow the directions. Other parts of their self must be engaged for the journey to take place, and these parts are most commonly called forth through relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also occurs to me that this may be a good way to explain why Christianity has such a countercultural perspective on sex. Sex engages the whole person and can either do so in a way that reinforces the gospel message or in a way that undermines it (see Ephesians 5:31\u201332 and 1 Cor 6:12\u201320). Paul lays this out in Romans 1:18\u201327<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18<\/sup>The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19<\/sup>since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20<\/sup>For since the creation of the world God\u2019s invisible qualities\u2014his eternal power and divine nature\u2014have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.<\/p>

21<\/sup>For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22<\/sup>Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23<\/sup>and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.<\/p>

24<\/sup>Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25<\/sup>They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator\u2014who is forever praised. Amen.<\/p>

26<\/sup>Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27<\/sup>In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.<\/p>Romans 1:18\u201327 (NIV)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When people reject the knowledge of God, they must build lives to reinforce that rejection of God. Paul says they do it using idols and sex, and he adds that they suffer for it. Of course they do. They are living based on a false conception of human nature, which makes it inevitable that there will be needless pain. Paula recently had a plate shatter in the microwave. We had both assumed it was microwave-safe, but because we were wrong the shattering was inevitable. The cause of the damage was the interaction of invisible things (the microwaves and the molecular structure of the plate), but the resulting damage was easily observed. Sadly, our culture (and many lives within it) are shattering and the reasons are invisible to many people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other thoughts from these chapters that stood out to me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To reason is to rely on reason, and to rely on reason is an act of faith, not of reason. Therefore reason presupposes faith\u2026 Indeed, how could reason itself be validated? There are only three possibilities: (1) by something subrational, like animal instinct (which is obviously absurd: How can the inferior validate the superior?); or (2) by something rational, by a piece of reasoning (which is also absurd: How can the part justify the whole? All reason is on trial; how dare the one piece of reasoning you use to justify all reasoning be exempt from trial?); or (3) by something superrational, by faith in God (which is the only possibility left).<\/p>Kreeft\u2019s commentary on Pensee 131, pages 110\u2013111<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

FWIW, I think Kreeft\u2019s inclusion of God in the third point is valid but it\u2019s really something he should argue for. I think many skeptics would counter that something like the platonic laws of logic could stand in for God in option 3, which is true but doesn\u2019t get them as far away from God as they think. Having read other things by Kreeft, I believe he has had this argument before and is merely announcing checkmate when it is still not obvious to his opponent that the game is over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can think skepticism, but you can\u2019t live it.<\/p>Kreeft\u2019s commentary on Pensee 131, page 111<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Philosophers and theologians do not practice what they preach any better than the rest of us\u2013less, if they preach better than the rest of us.<\/p>Kreeft\u2019s commentary on Pensee 142, page 117<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

why Christianity has such a countercultural perspective on sex<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"In which Pascal helps me explain why Christianity has such a countercultural perspective on sex.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[124,140,283,163,282,137],"class_list":["post-6154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources-reviews","tag-apologetically-interesting","tag-culture","tag-pascal","tag-sex","tag-summer-reading-project-2020","tag-thinking-clearly"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-1Bg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6154"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6164,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154\/revisions\/6164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}