Flocanrib – a parable (Dale)

Apr 192013
 

Flower Close Up In DarknessIrene was the only little girl in her whole extended family, and everyone loved giving her girly gifts. Three of her uncles liked to give her certain gifts every birthday. Uncle John always gave her a flower, uncle Jack always gave her a box of candy, and uncle Jerry always gave her a hair ribbon. They always gave together, and in secret. The night before her birthday, the three would meet together in the dead of night with their presents, and together leave them on her doorstep. Irene would awake each birthday morning to find such presents, much to her delight. But she didn’t know who they were from and naturally assumed that it was one giver, not three.

As they coordinated the drop off each year, the conspirators would communicate, and they took to referring to themselves as “Flocanrib.” They would say things like “When is Flocanrib meeting next Tuesday?” and “Can Flocanrib do it again this year?”

When she was little, Irene thought of the source of her yearly presents as her birthday fairy “Presenty.” But later, she thought it must be a single human being – she imagined, a relative – still called, in her mind, “Presenty.” One day, when she was in high school, her birthday came, but the presents did not. They never resumed, and Irene still wondered who Presenty was; she was eager to thank this person. Continue reading »

A Tale of Three Kims – Part 2 (Dale)

May 282012
 


To continue:

Jun-suh had heard rumors that both Kim Il-Sung and then later Kim Jong-Il had died. Jun-suh reasoned that since the Great Leader could not die, some foolish people must have mistaken the economic Leader (Leader as manifested to North Koreans, i.e. Kim Jong-un) for the immanent Leader (which is incomprehensibly great). In himself, he is one Leader but is three men. He has manifested himself as such, and we can trust that the economic Leader is the immanent Leader, and vice-versa. He remembered reading this somewhere, and was firmly convinced of it.

His Leaderology was now highly developed. But his friend Seo-yun made one last try to convince him Continue reading »

A Tale of Three Kims – Part 1 (Dale)

May 272012
 

The news came by state radio, state newspaper, and state television. Great Leader Kim Il-Sung had make a startling announcement.

Hereforth, my beloved son Kim Jong-Il is also your Leader.

What did it mean?

“They are really one Leader” said Jun-suh. Look at their portraits. Are they not one man, photographed slightly differently?

“No,” argued Seo-yun; Kim Jong-Il is the son of Great Leader.

“Well, that would make him also a Great Leader, wouldn’t it?” And we all know that there is just Great Leader. We have been taught this all our lives.

Seo-yun countered, raising an eyebrow, “One can’t be one’s own son…”  She paused to let the point sink in.

But Jun-suh was unmoved. He pressed his case. “The Great Leader is one. This goes without saying. Our love and loyalty are for him, and him alone. It is him alone we praise at our festivals.”

“Wait… I was at that recent rally… the Great Leader and his son our Leader were both there!” Continue reading »

Theophilus Lindsey on human stubbornness (Dale)

Apr 012012
 

…very rarely is there found candour enough in the human breast, for a man to recede from opinions, for the defence of which he has drawn his pen, and been highly applauded, however strong and demonstrative be the evidence to the contrary that is presented to him. (Theophilus Lindsey, An Historical View of the State of the Unitarian Doctrine and Worship, From the Reformation to Our Own Times, p. 175)

Sad but true.

I must add, though, that one should be very careful in wielding this charge. In the context Lindsey is unfair; he makes this remark about a person in a dispute who in my judgment was not simply being stubborn, not ignoring a mass of evidence to the contrary.

We can be too quick to mock politicians (“Flip-flopper!”) who’ve changed their minds about substantial issues. We assume, cynically, that they must be merely saying they’ve changed beliefs to gain political advantage. But how do we know they haven’t really changed their mind, after revisiting the evidence? Case in point: Romney on abortion.

Given how finite and fallible we are, if someone never changes his mind, you can be sure that he just doesn’t think much.

True story: On the day I successfully defended my PhD dissertation Continue reading »

Rush 2.0 and Rush 3.0 (Dale)

Nov 302011
 

(continued) Unbeknownst to Brian and Rich, powerful aliens from Alpha Centuri were listening in on their conversation. The aliens thought it a shame that Rush was not a musician. After some discussion, they decided to make a band which was otherwise just like Rush, but which was itself, or rather, himself, a musician – a power trio who was a virtuoso. For starters, they copied the patterns of Peart, Lee, and Lifeson, ensuring they could duplicate their musical abilities. Then, they set about making a power-trio-man.

It seemed to them that Lee was the font of Rush. So first they created the new Lee. But they made him with an unstoppable urge to rock, and a power, like theirs, to create things from nothing. He automatically gave rise to Continue reading »

Meeting Rush (Dale)

Nov 292011
 

“Is this your first Rush concert?”

“Yes, I’m so excited.”

Rich and Brian had been talking about this for months. Like geeky hard rock fans worldwide, they had long been in awe of Neal Peart’s furious and precise drumming, Geddy Lee’s dancing bass and soaring vocals, and the rich textures and screams of Alex Lifeson’s electric guitar. This was their first Rush concert, and they crowded towards the entrance with thousands of other fans, many decked out in concert t-shirts.

But Rich and Brian had an edge over nearly all of them: backstage passes. “I can’t wait to meet him,” said Rich.

“Who?”

“Rush.”

Brian gave him a strange look but said nothing. Continue reading »

Her only true love (Dale)

Jul 122011
 

“Melissa, you’re my only true love,” whispered the mother.

I was just within earshot, pretending to read. The girl leaned into her mother, received a kiss on her forehead, and then went back the children’s section of the library. The mother returned to her book.

She was a beautiful woman, with a kind face. How sad, I thought, that all she has is her daughter. She must be a widow, or have been abandoned. Has she no living siblings, or parents? Or has the family been torn asunder by some falling out? How sad. I went back to my book, but was too blue to enjoy it.

A quarter of an hour later, a young boy approached the woman. He looked to be about five years old. She reached out knowingly to him, and he fell into her embrace.

“Jimmy, you’re my only true love,” she said.

I had misunderstood. Just because the daughter is her only true love, it didn’t follow that the son wasn’t also her only true love. They both were.

Was this a mystery, a contradiction of the heart? Did she really only love Mellissa, and also, really only love Jimmy? I decided not. It was just a phrase. I imagined that at home, she probably has a husband who is also her “only true love”. But when she says it to him, I wondered, does it mean something more exclusive? What about when she says it to the dog, or to the cat?

She assembled her children and they approached the counter to check out their books. I think I heard the girl say, of two different books, that each was her “favorite.”

Counting Wives – a tale of three polygamists – Part 2 (Dale)

Jul 112011
 

This time, the second and final part of our tale. (Part 1.) It features staggering scientific breakthroughs and moderate fool-pitying, so it should be suitable for all audiences. 

Bill went on to serve for several decades at the Central Police Station, and often enjoyed regaling guests or fellow employees with tales of the two most confused polygamists he’d run across. “Probably too much of the firewater,” he’d opine, “or else, too much metaphysics!” He even gussied up the stories a bit, making the first feature identical triplets, and the second, two sets of conjoined twins. (In the improved version, the man insisted that he’d only two wives, but plainly, he had four – just, in pairs).

But the young Bill never expected the amazing advances in science that took place throughout his career, and for the most staggering alleged polygamy case he could imagine. In brief, it’d been discovered that Aristotelian-Thomist dualists were correct. Continue reading »

Counting Wives – a tale of three polygamists – Part 1 (Dale)

Jul 092011
 

 Here’s a bit of fresh fiction, possibly part of a future paper or book some day. Of course, there is purpose behind the madness. (See 2.2.2 here.) It is dedicated to philosopher Bill Hasker. Enjoy.

It was a quiet day at the Salt Lake City Central Police Station. Bill looked at the clock and fiddled with his pen. Two hours till quitting time, and he’d only booked two new arrests. Little did he know, it would still turn out to be an interesting day.

“Bill, wake up.” It was officer Smith, escorting a bearded man in handcuffs. “Book this fellow, would you?”

It was a polygamy case. Bill had seen these from time to time. Although the state of Utah had always outlawed polygamy, and the Mormon church had stopped the practice in 1890, ever since, there had been holdouts, people the media called “Mormon Fundamentalists” who insisted on practicing the old Brigham Young lifestyle, usually out in the boondocks.

“But I’m innocent,” insisted the accused, whose name was Mr. Dienay. Continue reading »

THE EVOLUTION OF MY VIEWS ON THE TRINITY – PART 5 (DALE)

Apr 082011
 

As I mentioned last time, in 1995 I decided to take my M.A. in Philosophy from Claremont and go elsewhere for my Ph.D. With the support of all my professors, and a pretty decent GRE score, I applied to twelve programs.

I remember going out for a walk one day around our neighborhood in Claremont; it was probably the dead of winter, but, you know, 55 degrees, since this was Southern California. I was praying, and I saw in someone’s front yard a sapling that had been tied of straight with a couple of stakes and cables, forcing it to grow straight. I knew that my own mind was enthusiastic but undisciplined, and I prayed that God would send me teachers to make me grow straight.

Of my twelve applications, I got into to three places, and I ended up  going to Brown University for my Ph.D. I had a great time there; no complaints at all. I’ll cover my time there in two posts.

The two who most influenced me were my dissertation adviser James Van Cleve and Victor Caston.

Victor is a ridiculously smart ancient and medieval specialist, interested particularly in philosophy of mind. I served as his Teaching Assistant for his ancient philosophy class, from which I learned a ton, and I attended Greek reading groups with him. Later, he would meet to read Aquinas with me in Latin. Urbane but not over-polite, with a smile he would simply call you out on your inconsistencies. He knew all the wiles of the species Homo Academicus, Continue reading »

The Evolution of my Views on the Trinity – Part 4 (Dale)

Mar 232011
 

As I finished my B.A. in Philosophy at Biola, I decided on graduate school, but only applied to some southern California schools. I think because of our church involvement – we were in a fairly close knit small Vineyard church plant – I didn’t want to move far.

The only place I got into was the Claremont Graduate University, then called the Claremont Graduate School. At the time the core faculty there was Al Louch, John Vickers, and Charles Young, and D.Z. Philips for half a year. I was accepted as an M.A. student, who could then be admitted to the Ph.D. if they thought I was up to it. (As it turned out, they did.) I was at CGU for two years (1993-1995), and what I mainly did was plow through yet more early modern philosophy – Locke, Hume, Kant, and now Reid. For me, Thomas Reid was a revelation after reading Hume and Kant. I actually became very interested in the history of the so-called “Common Sense” school, and sought out and read material by thinkers as obscure as Buffier, Oswald, Beattie, and McCosh. But I found that Reid was the best philosopher among them. Around that time Keith Lehrer came out with a book on Reid, but I can say that I was into Reid just a little before it was cool. :-) I bought a reprint of his complete works which is now thoroughly marked up.

I took two rigorous seminars (Locke, Hume) with Edwin McCann of USC, who had also been doing courses at CGU. His knowledge of early modern philosophy was truly impressive, and his empiricist and Wittgensteinian leanings were an interesting counterpoint to my own zeal for traditional metaphysics.This zeal met another critic in Jill Buroker, in a seminar wholly devoted to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

D.Z. Phillips Continue reading »

The Evolution of my Views on the Trinity – Part 3 (Dale)

Feb 242011
 

As with the last post, I continue in a personal vein.

In 1989 I went away to Biola University. This was an exciting time in my life for many reasons.

I met my lovely wife (in freshman orientation!), traded my trombone (uncool) for an acoustic guitar (cool), moved to Southern California, got involved in John Wimber’s Vineyard church, and in the winter term of my freshman year, in January, I discovered Philosophy. There’s a lot I could say about all of this, but I’ll try to stick to things which are somehow relevant to my thinking about God and Jesus.We’ll get more theological as we go along. Continue reading »

The Evolution of My Views on the Trinity – Part 2 (Dale)

Feb 092011
 

Last time I covered roughly the first 12 years of my life. Here, I go up to the point where I left home for college.

The Charismatic church we’d heretofore attended had split, and my family too decided to leave. Thus, we embarked on the unpleasant task of “church shopping”, for awhile going to a different place each Sunday.

We ended up at a place in Plano (near Dallas) called Fellowship Bible Church North (since renamed), founded and pastored by Gene Goetz, who had taught at Dallas Theological Seminary.

This church was a very different place, completely reflecting the ultraconservative DTS ethos. For one thing, it was strongly cessationist. This is roughly the view that now that the church has the Bible, it no longer needs, and God no longer really gives miraculous spiritual gifts such as healings, prophecies, or speaking in tongues. I remember meeting one guy there who asserted that at his former Charismatic church, there was a guy who whenever he (thought he) spoke in tongues, just Continue reading »

The Evolution of My Views on the Trinity – Part 1 (Dale)

Feb 072011
 

A number of people are curious about my own views on the Trinity. My encyclopedia entry is studiously neutral, and like most philosophers I never expose more to enemy fire than is necessary. If the argument at hand doesn’t depend on claim X, I’m probably not going to mention X, even if I think X is true and important. This is more than bum-protection – though it is that; this kind of discipline helps discussions to proceed cleanly on topic, without distractions. And it keeps the posing and grandstanding to a minimum. Yet others can perceive this way of writing, understandably, as evasive.

In this series I’m going to get a bit more personal. This will take me a while, but I’m determined to go up to the present day. Maybe when I’m done my co-bloggers will fess up too.

My parents got into the Charismatic movement in the 1960s. Don’t imagine quasi-hippies – far from it. Not the Jesus-people kind of Charismatics – no, the suit and tie and almost-beehive hairdo kind. The people would look more like the denizens of, say, the Lawrence Welk Show. But with hymns. I owned a lot of clip-on ties and bow ties in those days.

Christ as Life church was founded by an interesting fellow who claimed to have an apostolic ministry. We knew him as “Brother Bill”.

It was a small, close-knit church, on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas. Out where the land was cheap, the weeds were high, and the Junebugs were plentiful, they built a new building. We went there twice on Sunday, and often on Tuesday and Thursday nights as well. Everyone knew everyone, and my dad was the chief hymster on the piano. People raised their hands, and sang in tongues when the songs were done. But they tolerantly let little scamps like me play among the pews with baseball cards and go to the bathroom at least once every service out of boredom. Despite some similarities, we weren’t Pentecostals; services lacked that particular brand of excitement. We didn’t believe in falling down, rolling in the aisles, or any of that Benny Hinn type of stuff. There was some goofy legalism in the church; forbidden were Continue reading »

A Gnome’s tale (Dale)

Jan 042010
 
Willy and Will

The man (right) and his expressed sense of humor (left).

Once upon a time, I met a friendly lawn gnome named Willy. I happened upon him when trimming the bushes along the side of my house – nearly slashed the poor little guy with my electric trimmer. I quickly apologized, and asked him to come inside and have a beer with me. Willy graciously accepted, and inside my kitchen, I poured him a shot glass of Sam Adams Lager, and made some small talk.

“So, have you always live here in western New York state?”

“No.”

“Where are you from?”

“California originally. But more recently, New York City. Ah, but that was before I was a gnome.” Continue reading »

Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 16 – Mysterious Interpretations (Dale)

Aug 152008
 

“When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.” Ex. 31:18

Once upon a time, there was a smallish branch of Christians, now nearly forgotten to history, called the Fingerites, inhabitants of Obscurantia (formerly part of the Roman Empire). Although they put their point in the loveliest Latin terminology, their reading of the above verse amounted to this: God, though entirely bodiless through this time, inscribed Moses’s tablet with his (God’s) finger. They were opposed by a neighbouring sect in Obscurantia, which historians now dub the Schmingerites. They considered their brethren the Fingerites to be naive literalists. Continue reading »

Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 6 – Restraint, implicit belief, and Stalin (Dale)

Jun 262008
 
Good old, mass-murdering, cheese-burger-scarfing Uncle Joe. (image credit)

A story about implicit faith…

Once upon a time, there was a virtuous and patriotic Russian peasant named Georgy. Georgy lived a simple life among simple people, in a village so far out in the boondocks of the USSR that World War II – what Russians call the Great Patriotic War – passed by practically unnoticed. The farming life had treated Georgy and his family well, and he had only good thoughts towards the great leader of his country, Comrade Stalin. Continue reading »

Goofus and Gallant, Grok and Sophie (Dale)

Jun 102008
 

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Saith Grok: “Love thy neighbor, and buyest thou all thine goods at WalMart.”

Is Allah God? Are Christians and Muslims talking about (numerically) the same God? We’ve previously linked and joined in with discussions with Jeremy Pierce and with Kevin Corcoran.

To further the discussion, I present a tale to explain why I think it doesn’t matter whether or not “God” (used by Christians) and “Allah” (used by Muslims) refer to the same being.

A kind and generous woman named Sophie decides to sponsor two children through World Vision. She offers to give to children from “wherever the need is greatest”, and weeks later, a letter reveals that she is the new sponsor of two brothers from some third-world country she’s never heard of. Their names are Goofus and Gallant, Continue reading »

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