As with all posts, I must insert the caveat that I'm no philosopher and my opinions on matters like this amount to a hill of beans. Or maybe one bean. I'll let the counters decide. Just realize that you're reading something written by the uneducated. I'll try to generalize enough to get to the point.
The problem of universals, as I understand it, is one of articulation. There are a few different questions asked under this umbrella. One is whether or not words have an objective meaning, or if meaning is only in the mind of the speaker and listener. In other words, is there something inherently "green" about Kermit the Frog, certain types of apples, and grass, or is "green" a conventionally accepted word that could just as well be replaced with "black" or "spammy"?
When we talk about colors, the problem is almost trite; but when we talk of morals, it suddenly becomes quite sticky. The Christian appeals to a Universal moral standard when he convicts himself of breaking the rules. The atheist (and others, of course), appeal to what is societally advantageous: morality is a human construct designed to make society work, and what is "wrong" is not really wrong in a universal sense—it merely is wrong for setting back society. There is therefore no moral guilt associated with any particular crime.
The history of the problem may be found at Wikipedia; the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy also has an introduction.
My education is obviously not in theology or in philosophy; they are merely subjects with which I wish to be better acquainted.
However, Computer Science intersects with these disciplines often, since we often find ourselves trying to simulate intellect (through artificial intelligence) and create and design systems. CS is a modelling science, and should probably be considered a branch of applied mathematics.
We run up against the problem of universals as soon as we start to model objects in a system. In computer science parlance, a class is the definition of an object (an object is basically any noun you can think of). When I taught an introductory programming course, I would tell my students that they could think of a class as the definition we read in a dictionary.
However, that definition is not the object itself; no one points to "tree" in the dictionary and says, "How pretty those leaves are!" The same is true in computer science: we use the definition to produce an instance of the object we have defined. I would tell my students they could think of the instance as an example of the object they had previously defined.
This corresponds nicely with the problem of universals. The universal is the class, or definition, and the particular is the instance.
As it happens, most programming languages also incorporate a feature called polymorphism ("many-formed-ness"), which allows us to refer to objects as general classes (e.g., "tree") yet have varieties of instances (e.g., "oak tree") with different properties and characteristics—even though they all share the same root definition.1
It is interesting to me that while many reject Universals by and large today, the very things we use to model the world and solve extremely complex problems depend on them to work.
[1] An amusing thought occurs here—does this mean that java.lang.Object is like God?
Monday, January 22, 2007
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Suffering
(Evidently, sporadic writing is not caused much by subject matter. I think perhaps it has something to do with having essentially two jobs. I am a software engineer by day and a karate instructor by night. Though I ruminate in the car, it does not often translate into blog postings.)
It often happens to me that my view of Scripture is sharpened more in times of trial than happiness. This is not surprising in the least; while the problem of pain causes a lot of consternation among agnostics and Christians alike, parents and teachers know full well that children grow best with an application of the rod (or if they don't, they'll find out sooner than later). Discipline is the root of growth, and all discipline seems for the present to be grevious, as we read in Hebrews.
There is a fairly ridiculous belief among some Christians that suffering is not part of the plan. The obvious contradicting example is the Cross, but suffering is a theme of many passages. Jesus promises tribulation in John, Paul writes of it in his letters to the Romans and to the Philippians, and James and Peter also provide counsel regarding suffering.
The church I attend has recently been studying in first Peter, and the Bible study I (rarely) attend (due to schedule conflicts) has been following it in parallel. One of the main subjects of the book is our suffering in relationship to Christ's. He was our example, suffering for doing right, and we should rejoice when the same happens to us.
We might ask why. Why rejoice? There are many people who have answered this question better than I can or will in these brief words. But the most appealing answer to me is that the experience teaches us more about Christ. Suffering in general (not just from the perspective of suffering for doing well) seems calculated to this end. When we suffer, we better understand the cross and acquire a more eternal perspective.
This hit most home for me when I was reading for comfort. I cannot make any claims of being a particularly good Christian, and I have wrestled my own guilt more than once.1 In reading through Romans 7 and 8 one day, I connected the notion of suffering in 8.17 with the deliverance of 7.24 ("Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?").
In that moment, I thought that part of our suffering with Christ is sin. Sin disrupts our fellowship with God, and it is a grim experience. But he suffered that same separation, and he bridges the gap in fellowship to pull us from our sin. We are not, in fact, cut off as he was cut off. We are not alienated, we are not alone. At once, we are given a small part of the dread he must have suffered as the fellowship of the Godhead was sundered, and the confidence he had in its restoration.
There is something to rejoice about there, and that is the confidence that he will never leave us nor forsake us. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
[1] While not particularly pertinent to the essay, I have found that brushes with grace are not often pleasant in one sense, viz. the realization that we actually need grace. It is one thing to preach God's grace, and entirely another to come to grips with one's need for it. It has been a long road for me to translate the fact of the matter into the practice.
It often happens to me that my view of Scripture is sharpened more in times of trial than happiness. This is not surprising in the least; while the problem of pain causes a lot of consternation among agnostics and Christians alike, parents and teachers know full well that children grow best with an application of the rod (or if they don't, they'll find out sooner than later). Discipline is the root of growth, and all discipline seems for the present to be grevious, as we read in Hebrews.
There is a fairly ridiculous belief among some Christians that suffering is not part of the plan. The obvious contradicting example is the Cross, but suffering is a theme of many passages. Jesus promises tribulation in John, Paul writes of it in his letters to the Romans and to the Philippians, and James and Peter also provide counsel regarding suffering.
The church I attend has recently been studying in first Peter, and the Bible study I (rarely) attend (due to schedule conflicts) has been following it in parallel. One of the main subjects of the book is our suffering in relationship to Christ's. He was our example, suffering for doing right, and we should rejoice when the same happens to us.
We might ask why. Why rejoice? There are many people who have answered this question better than I can or will in these brief words. But the most appealing answer to me is that the experience teaches us more about Christ. Suffering in general (not just from the perspective of suffering for doing well) seems calculated to this end. When we suffer, we better understand the cross and acquire a more eternal perspective.
This hit most home for me when I was reading for comfort. I cannot make any claims of being a particularly good Christian, and I have wrestled my own guilt more than once.1 In reading through Romans 7 and 8 one day, I connected the notion of suffering in 8.17 with the deliverance of 7.24 ("Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?").
In that moment, I thought that part of our suffering with Christ is sin. Sin disrupts our fellowship with God, and it is a grim experience. But he suffered that same separation, and he bridges the gap in fellowship to pull us from our sin. We are not, in fact, cut off as he was cut off. We are not alienated, we are not alone. At once, we are given a small part of the dread he must have suffered as the fellowship of the Godhead was sundered, and the confidence he had in its restoration.
There is something to rejoice about there, and that is the confidence that he will never leave us nor forsake us. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
[1] While not particularly pertinent to the essay, I have found that brushes with grace are not often pleasant in one sense, viz. the realization that we actually need grace. It is one thing to preach God's grace, and entirely another to come to grips with one's need for it. It has been a long road for me to translate the fact of the matter into the practice.
Friday, December 1, 2006
Literalism
In my experience, Christians who think they read the Bible literally often don't, in particular neglecting genre as a key element of understanding the Bible. The reading of Genesis is a common example. Christians have an unnerving tendency to make origins the main subject of the first few chapters, arguing ad nauseam about whether the Creation was instantaneous or prolonged, whether it could happen with or without intervention, and so on.
But what they miss—I think by forgetting the genre—are striking pictures of the person and work of Christ.
Adam is a type of Christ, for example, and Eve a type of his bride, the church. And so when Adam is naming the animals, we see that none was found sufficient as a partner for him. And so Eve is formed from a part of Adam, as we are formed from Christ; as she was made for Adam, so we were made for Christ.
Adam typifies Christ in eating from the tree; unlike Eve, who was deceived, Adam knowingly ate, choosing Eve over God. In the same way, Christ knowingly took our sin burden, alienating himself from God to be with us.
It happens again when Adam and Eve form their own clothing from fig leaves. Their own works (the fig leaves) are insufficient for covering up their sin. God establishes a precedent in Genesis—the death of the innocent in place of the guilty—when he sacrifices an animal and clothes Adam and Eve in skins. The picture is clear: our own works are insufficient to fix the sin problem; God must take it upon himself.
All of this is there (without even mentioning the cursory nod to the prophecy of the Messiah in 3:15), and mostly ignored by people who are so intent on figuring out problems with populating the earth, Cain's wife, the longevity of our ancient forebears, origins, and so and so forth. These are worthy issues to discuss, and not without interest; but Genesis isn't a cosmology textbook and doesn't speak very effectively to molecular biology.
If we took three minutes to take the mythic1 genre of Genesis into account, I think we'd have a more refined picture of how it fits in with the rest of Scripture.
In my experience, plenary verbal inspirationists have a bad understanding of what it means to read the Scripture literally. I want to make clear that while I absolutely believe in plenary verbal inspiration2, I don't think as a consequence that it permits us to change the scope of Scripture. We otherwise tend to co-opt the Bible for temporal concerns and lose an eternal perspective of what is contained in it.
[1] Myths are not necessarily false.
[2] There are many consequences to plenary verbal inspiration which I don't have much time to write about in this particular essay. There are also several definitions of "literal" that should be examined. I've hinted already that a literal reading incorporates more than just the facts, but also, for example, genre.
But what they miss—I think by forgetting the genre—are striking pictures of the person and work of Christ.
Adam is a type of Christ, for example, and Eve a type of his bride, the church. And so when Adam is naming the animals, we see that none was found sufficient as a partner for him. And so Eve is formed from a part of Adam, as we are formed from Christ; as she was made for Adam, so we were made for Christ.
Adam typifies Christ in eating from the tree; unlike Eve, who was deceived, Adam knowingly ate, choosing Eve over God. In the same way, Christ knowingly took our sin burden, alienating himself from God to be with us.
It happens again when Adam and Eve form their own clothing from fig leaves. Their own works (the fig leaves) are insufficient for covering up their sin. God establishes a precedent in Genesis—the death of the innocent in place of the guilty—when he sacrifices an animal and clothes Adam and Eve in skins. The picture is clear: our own works are insufficient to fix the sin problem; God must take it upon himself.
All of this is there (without even mentioning the cursory nod to the prophecy of the Messiah in 3:15), and mostly ignored by people who are so intent on figuring out problems with populating the earth, Cain's wife, the longevity of our ancient forebears, origins, and so and so forth. These are worthy issues to discuss, and not without interest; but Genesis isn't a cosmology textbook and doesn't speak very effectively to molecular biology.
If we took three minutes to take the mythic1 genre of Genesis into account, I think we'd have a more refined picture of how it fits in with the rest of Scripture.
In my experience, plenary verbal inspirationists have a bad understanding of what it means to read the Scripture literally. I want to make clear that while I absolutely believe in plenary verbal inspiration2, I don't think as a consequence that it permits us to change the scope of Scripture. We otherwise tend to co-opt the Bible for temporal concerns and lose an eternal perspective of what is contained in it.
[1] Myths are not necessarily false.
[2] There are many consequences to plenary verbal inspiration which I don't have much time to write about in this particular essay. There are also several definitions of "literal" that should be examined. I've hinted already that a literal reading incorporates more than just the facts, but also, for example, genre.
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