EPS Blog

Suppose you go to Wal-Mart to buy a microwave oven. What is it that you want? You might think that you want an inexpensive appliance, or that you want one that fits in the corner of your counter, under your kitchen cabinet. Actually, those are not the things you want. What you want is hot coffee and popped popcorn. You are willing to buy a microwave because you want those things. You want to be able to put a cold cup of coffee into it and take a hot cup out. You want to defrost frozen chicken or to put un-popped popcorn in and take out popped popcorn.

Now suppose a salesperson approached you in order to persuade you to choose a particular model. What would she do? One thing she would not do is take out the little booklet that you find in the bottom of the box, turn to the back and explain the schematic to you. The schematic is the diagram with the kind of symbols only engineers understand. It explains what sort of mechanism the particular model has. The mechanism is extremely important. It is what makes the microwave work. The salesperson does not explain it to you, however, because she knows that you do not care about those details. You want a microwave that will heat your coffee.

In thinking about microwaves, I have raised two questions. Although, I raised them in reverse order, they ought to be asked as follows. First, what makes a microwave work? Second, what does a person want such that he might buy it? Notice that with microwaves, the answers to these questions are nearly always distinct. What motivates someone to buy a microwave has little to do with what makes it work.

Now think about the Gospel. Let's ask the same questions. First, what makes the Gospel work? What is its mechanism, so to speak? Second, what is that people want such that they might turn and accept the Gospel? These two questions ought to raise others as well. Do we hold forth the Gospel as a compelling vision for life or do we explain the schematic? Are these incompatible? I will off some thoughts later. Stay tuned! In the meantime, here are other parts in my current blog series.

Labels: core identity, gospel, spiritual formation

The question with which I ended my last two blog posts was: How do we bring Jesus into our core identities? This question raises different issues depending on the audience we have in mind.

People who aspire to be faithful followers of Jesus will be motivated to have their core identities shaped by Jesus. Those who are not believers need to discover that Jesus captures what they want most deeply. In this post, I shall think about believers. In my own spiritual journey, I have found only two things that help me bring Jesus into my core. The first is obedience. The second is to meditate on the encounters with Jesus in the Gospels.

When discussing how our core identities are formed, I mentioned that they come about as we inhabit certain belief and value structures over time. As we make choices along the contours of our core identities, these become more deeply entrenched.

It is easy to see how a person's choices to obey what she thinks God wants for her will bring Jesus more deeply into her soul. Every choice she makes to obey is a choice that following Jesus is more important or valued more deeply than the alternatives. Thus the person inhabits these value structures over time.

Meditating on Jesus' encounters with others in the Gospel has also been fruitful for me. I began by asking questions about how I fit into the story of the encounters.

• When am I like the paralytic (I need to be in the presence of Jesus but I cannot get there on my own)?
  
• When am I like the crowd, so caught up in my own concerns that I will not make room for others?
  
• When am I like the Pharisees, standing in judgment on what God is doing for others?
  
• When am I like the four friends who would not allow any obstacle to prevent them from bringing their friend to Jesus so Jesus can do what only Jesus can do?
  
• Wrestling with these kinds of questions brings me more deeply into the text.

I see myself, my heart, my longings in a new light. And I see them within the story of Jesus' actions in the world. To be honest, it takes me a long time. Over the past decade, I have latched on to a few of these encounters and thought about them constantly.

As I see myself in Jesus' encounters, I taste how he meets me in more than my intellect. He meets me in my affective world. I find myself wanting him more. He becomes more real. I begin to experience the truth that Augustine observed: He has made me for himself. I am restless until I find my rest in him.

Labels: apologetics, christology, core identity, gospels, spiritual formation

With this post, I continue my blog series on the ontology of knowledge.

What kind of thing is intentionality?

For one, I don't see how it could be a relation. If it were, then any time I have a thought about something, even Pegasus, Pegasus would have to pop into existence, lest there not be a relation. So, most philosophers realize intentionality is a property of "mental states," whatever those end up being ontologically (so as to not beg any questions here). Fred Dretske & Michael Tye, e.g., two naturalists, realize this is so.

But, as a property of things like thoughts, beliefs, & experiences (at least of those kinds that are used to make observations), what kinds of features do intentional states have?

First, here's a quality they DON’T have: there is NOT a necessary connection between thoughts, beliefs, or experiences of an object and the object itself. A mental act’s mere "ofness" is not sufficient, for we can think about many things, including possible states of affairs, without them having to obtain in reality (e.g., Pegasus; if my glasses are on my desk at home (and they aren’t); etc.). The latter case parallels those in scientific testing, where we form a hypothesis and test for its accuracy.

Conversely, the existence of an object does not entail that there would be any thoughts or experiences of it. Their connection, therefore, is NOT existential, thereby undermining causal chain accounts, such as those proposed by Tye, in which intentionality just is causal correlation between an external, real object and our “mental” states which are “of” this object under optimal conditions. For him, mental states are just a way of describing brain states.

Positively, there are at least three key, even essential, features of intentional states:

1. They are particularized. Consider my thought about tonight’s dinner, or my experience of being seated in Starbuck's. What they are of is not generic or undifferentiated. In each case, their intentionality is directed “toward” some intended “object.” 
2. These mental states necessarily have intentionality. It does not seem we could have a thought, belief, or an experience in making an observation that lacks it. 
3. They also seem to be intrinsic, or essential, to each mental state. My thought about tonight’s dinner could not be about anything else and still be the thought it is. I could observe a gas’s behavior, but that experience could not have been of my being seated. So, how do we best explain these three essential features of intentional states?

Labels: epistemology, intentionality, naturalism, Naturalism and our Knowledge of Reality (book), ontology of knowledge

On Open-Mindedness

Many Christians are wary of open-mindedness. They worry that it amounts to a kind of intellectual wishy-washiness, cowardice, or foolishness. But these misgivings about open-mindedness betray a misunderstanding of its basic nature and structure. In its most basic form, open-mindedness is a willingness and ability to transcend a certain way of thinking in order to “take up” or “take seriously” some distinct way of thinking. And it is rooted in or flows from a “love” of epistemic goods like knowledge, truth, and understanding.

When conceived of in this way, Christians have good reason to think of open-mindedness as an intellectual excellence or virtue. It comports well with the value that the Old and New Testaments place on truth and wisdom. It is obviously useful in the context of education and in “intramural” theological disputes. And it fits well with—and indeed may be required by—the kind of neighbor-love, enemy-love, and humility that Christians are called to by Jesus himself.

A question remains whether Christians should be open-minded about matters pertaining to their own Christian faith. Arguably they should, since the alternative would amount to being intellectually dishonest. That said, there limits on the sort of open-mindedness that can reasonably be expected of Christians. For instance, they can be expected to, say, modify or give up one of their Christian beliefs only if, from a settled, all-things-considered perspective, the evidence demands it.

Becoming open-minded is not a matter of direct or immediate choice. Rather, it requires intentionality, placing oneself in certain environments and avoiding others, self-reflection, and, for the Christian in particular, a rich and meaningful spiritual life.

Issues for further inquiry:

1. The chapter provides some indication of when or with respect to what beliefs or ideas it is appropriate to be open-minded. But much more could be explored and said along these lines. For instance, exactly what considerations govern when an exercise of open-mindedness would be intellectually virtuous and why?
2. It is fairly obvious that many Christians could do a better job of being (appropriately) open-minded in the context of public debate or discussion with persons with whom they disagree. Here as well it can be asked: when, in the context of public debate, is open-mindedness called for? How can and should it be balanced with other virtues like intellectual courage? And what exactly would greater open-mindedness look like in this context? The articulation of some guiding principles on these matters would be illuminating and practically beneficial.
3. There is something paradoxical about the idea that a person might have distinctively Christian reasons for altering or even giving up one of her Christian beliefs. For it looks as though, once she gives up the belief, she might lose the very reasons she had for doing so! On the other hand, it seems unreasonable (for reasons discussed in the chapter) to think that Christians should only be open-minded about their non- or a-Christian beliefs. How, then, can we make sense of these competing considerations?

Labels: Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life (book), ethics, jason baehr, open-mindedness, virtues

In my previous posts, I have been exploring the notion of Core Identity. I have been arguing that what is most efficacious in how people adopt or change world-views is a deep set of desires about what sorts of persons they think they are or want to be. For those who aim to bear witness to Christ faithfully through their work as scholars, the role of these desires is worth investigating.

Do you remember Quine's web of belief? In his classic paper, Two Dogmas of Empiricism, he challenged the notion that some truths are true necessarily and some only contingently. Rather than this distinction, he argued that we are more willing to revise some claims than we are others. A claim such as 1+1=2 is not necessarily true; it is just more deeply embedded in our web of beliefs. A claim such as Most philosophers are Dylan fans is less deeply embedded, although it is undoubtedly true. Each of these claims could be given up and, as a result, our web of belief can be restructured. To give up belief in simple mathematical truths requires a major overhaul of our web. To give up another belief, requires very little.

When we confront new evidence against a belief or theory that we hold, Quine thinks that we try to weave that new evidence into our web. There is no correct way to accomplish this weaving. We aim for coherence, but there are many (perhaps innumerably many) different ways to achieve coherence. We tend to be conservatives in that we tend to weave new evidence into our webs by revising as few of our deeper beliefs as possible. We could give up simple truths of arithmetic or of logic. Rarely will we do so.

Quine's web of belief represents a kind of epistemology that we want to reject. It does serve, however, as an instructive picture or illustration of the structure of our beliefs and desires. Certain desires make up our core identity. We tend to keep these, even as we revise and restructure everything around them. It takes quite a shakeup to pry our deeper loves and beliefs out of the center of our souls.

So, I shall end this post with the same question I ended with in November. How do we bring Jesus into our core identities? I will make some suggestions in a future blog post. Then I shall apply these insights to evangelism and apologetics. Then, I will listen to "Blood on the Tracks"!

Labels: core identity, epistemology, web of belief

Craig Mitchell, an EPS member, Philosophia Christi contributor and former member of the EPS Executive Committee had the privilege of testifying for a U.S. House committee panel ("On Oversight & Government Reform"), which testifying on the following topic: "Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?"

The February 16th hearing focused on the morality and constitutionality of the Obama Administration's "mandate" that health insurance plans cover contraceptives.

Chairman Issa made the following remarks as a preview to the panel's presentation:

The Administration's actions have forced us to confront a more fundamental question about the proper role of government in our lives.

This hearing is about basic question of religious freedom, and whether or not protection will be afforded to religious institutions who wish to follow their conscience in refusing to pay for products they find morally objectionable.

   Mitchell's presentation is about 58 minutes into the recording.


A full transcript is also available here.

As reported by the Baptist Press, Craig Mitchell told the committee, "The thing that concerns me is that if [administration officials] don't see this as a religious liberty issue, what do they see as a religious liberty issue? And where do they stop? What I see here is a hollowing out of what the concept of religious liberty is almost to the point of eventually it will be nonexistent."

Labels: civil society, craig mitchell, political philosophy, political power, religious liberty