Martin Heidegger: Helping Old Ladies Worship Jesus since 1927 AD



Mark 10:17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him (Jesus!) and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

And Jesus said: "You must make a cognitive assent to something called substitutionary atonement so that you can sit and listen to 45 minute sermons about what is in the Greek and slowly gain more knowledge of Christian stuff."
And the man went away sad because it didn't make any sense to him.

Okay, so I am playing a little hard and fast here, but a question came to me earlier: "What it means to be a Chritian?" Take a moment and answer that for yourself. I have a certain answer but I am concerned that many evangelicals display or give off an entirely inappropriate one. For instance, does being a Christian ultimately mean gaining more theological knowledge or more exegetical skill in determing what the Bible says? Obviously not, for if this were so then the majority of the "Christians" in the world would be barely that. Then you have the problem of Christianity before the printing press, did God just let them off the hook? I don't think so.

The deeper issue though seems to be our attitude towards a certain type of knoweldge: that is knowledge of facts and assertions. Somehow or other the knoweldge of facts seems to have become the hallmark of certain parts of Christianity; you can't be a "good" Christian unless you know that you have imputed righteousness from the atonement applied by the Holy Spirit through various means except by your baptism. Confessionalism, which once was a way to mark boundries in churches, has become the hallmark of your relation to Christ; the more theological facts you know the better. But like the man in the story, to most of us this way of seeing the world doesn't make sense of how we live. Living is not about knowing facts, it is about being-in-the-world. And here is where Heidegger comes to the rescue of old ladies who go to church ever week without "knowing" what is going on in the Eucharist.

Heidegger sees a serious mistake in ontology which has been carried down through the history of philosohpy since Plato (!). I don't want to go in depth on this, if you are interested I encourage you to give Being and Time a go, it is well worth the effort! But back to Heidegger's thesis. He sees our metaphysics as something detached from life; we see objects and think about objects, and make theories about objects, all as subjects. Heidegger wants to scream Nein! to this whole notion of subject/object distinction because he says we are not beings seperate from the world, be are beings-in-the-world, or Dasein. He says that the way we normally see "knowledge" in this old framework is through objects being "present-at-hand", which to him is a derivative form of knowledge and existence. The more fundamental way of being in the world is involvement with the world as "ready-to-hand". When we are being fundamentally we are involved in the world, not speculating about it. This is the "everydayness" which Heidegger sees as most fundamental in ontology, whereas traditional ontology stepped past this mode of being to a detached and less "real" mode.

Okay, let's have an example or two just to get the feel of this. Take the case of writing a letter. There is a world of involvement in this little operation, but we will focus on the paper, the pen and the person (sounds like a Protestant sermon, eh?). Traditional metaphysics would want to break the whole situation down into its constituent parts, i.e. what the pen is doing, what the paper is doing, what the person is doing. We could then go deeper, say the person and look into their muscle interactions, then their neuro interactions, and then...well you get the picture. The problem is that in doing this "deconstruction" we have actually missed what is going on in the involvement whole of the activity. Heidegger says you can't break Dasein up like that becauce you can't seperate being from the world, hence the hypens in being-in-the-world. For instance, while you are writing it is absolutely imperitive that you have no "object" oriented knowledge of the pen at the moment. If you did recognize the pen as an object in this detached fashion you would not be able to write! The same goes for the paper and even the person. When something is happening (anything, even thinking?) there is a total involvement of the world which can not be seperated. It is in this case that Heidegger says object reflection is a second order form of knowledge.

Knowledge to Heidegger is more "knowing how" than "knowing what" about something. The second is derivative from the first, present-at-hand comes after a break down in ready-to-hand knowledge. Here is another example. I was practicing squash today, as I am wont to do sometimes, and I was trying to reflect on what I was doing. But when I tried to think about each shot and each motion, I was no longer able to play the game. In order to play squash I needed to be involved in the whole, not thinking in part. This goes for any sporting activity really, you can't think of every motion otherwise you won't be able to move! It is much like the story of the centipede being asked how it coordinates all its legs. When it tried to think about it it got all tangled up, but before being asked and having to reflect on it the centipede was happily able to walk along. In traditonal metaphysics this "non-reflective) stance has been called "unconsciousness", but not the negative attitude to it. It is not-conscious, and in that sense has the feeling of not being the right mode of being. Heidegger wants to turn this on its head by saying the involvement in the world pre-reflectively is the normal and primary mode of existence, reflection is always a secondary and detached way of existing.

So you are probably wondering how this all fits in with old ladies at church on Sunday? Well, the traditional evangelical understanding of the faith of these old ladies is that they are not as "good" at being Christian since they lack the requisite doctrinal or reflective knowledge of the faith. Most people will deny this implication, but I think they are just making excuses. You can find this out by asking if anything needs to be done for these old ladies as compared to me, the theological student. Evangelical answer: time for Alpha or Christianity Explored! But you can hopefully see that this understanding can be turned around by Heidegger's metaphysics since these old ladies do not have a deficient life in the faith; in fact they may be "more" Christian than many reflective evangelicals who do not attend church like the ladies. As a case in point, these old ladies do know a lot about the Christian faith; it is just a involvement and ready-to-hand form of the knowledge, which Heidegger says is the primordial form of being. When asked about Eucharist they will respond by saying "I go every week" or "I communicate every week." This is not a meaningless action. In it they are affirming in the strongest terms that they believe the Lord Jesus is here and alive today, and working in his people to those who recieve him. The liturgy itself is part of this Christian faith, it inculcates Christianity in not primarily reflection but in active involvement; which is the most important form of living, whether playing squash or worshipping Jesus.

So old ladies dutifully following the liturgy are not "less" Christian because they can't tell you how Justification by Faith works, they are more sure about Jesus and their relationship because they are involved in it. It is only on reflection that doubt can arise; while playing squash I never doubt my existence, but if I sit around long enough I can try and convince myself. In this sense it is the liturgy in its "pre-reflective" splendour which constitutes the Church; for the Christian faith is not about thinking, it is about living.

Incarnational? What do you mean by that?



A certain term has been showing up more recently in conversation in certain classes here: incarnational. I am sure most people think they know what this means, but to be honest I am not sure they do understand the term. As far as I can tell this word is brandished as a weapon against people of a more hierarchical bent in applied theology. So when I ask what role a priest or theologian has in theological leadership and formation of the laity the classic response is they need to be "incarnational." This appears to settle the debate since if I disagree about this it is taken to mean that I don't like Jesus. Hmmm.... Can we take a moment to investigate how this word is used?

The Incarnation is the classic dogma of the Christian faith that discusses the union between the divine nature and the human nature of Jesus Christ. Two natures held together in a hypostatic union. If you want a quick summary, read here. So what is essential about the incarnation is that God has taken up human flesh, Divine Word has become man. Jesus has become "incarnate."

Now, if this divine and human hypostatic union is the definition of the incarnation, I think it is at least theologically and intellectually naive (and borderline blasphemous!) to appropriate this word in terms of a minister's role. How could a Christian minister possibly be "incarnational" in the truest sense of the term? Are all Christian ministers God incarnate or a hypostatic union of Divine and Human nature? Really?

The obvious answers to these questions is no, of course not! A much better term or phrase for what evangelicals mean would be "dwell among the people" or "tabernacle" or "be amongst them like Jesus." Minister's are supposed to be among the people like Jesus spent his time with the outsiders. But it is absolutely incorrect in my mind to view this action and role of Jesus as "incarnate" ministry. Jesus' incarnate ministry was becoming man, his "humble" ministry was to divest himself of any human royalties here on earth and be amongst the poor and lowly.

So why is it that evanglicals so often use this term "incarnational" when it appears to be blatantly mistaken? Well, I think it is not only a lack of theological awareness in most, but also a desire to have a trump card with a big name on it. Obviously since minstry is suppose to be just like Jesus and nothing like any development in the Church (like robes! or priests!) then everything that Jesus was needs to be imitated by the minister. That is authentic ministry!

But of course this only shows a lack of respect for Jesus' uniqueness and role in salvation history (interesting comparison with how evangelicals view the "cult of the saints". At least Catholic aren't claiming that saints are incarnate!). Only Jesus is incarnate because only Jesus is God. In one sense, only a Catholic can have an incarnational ministry, for the Sacrament of the Eucharist is exactly that: union of divine nature and human nature present on earth.

Now this immediately sounds alarms because then the bread and wine are seen as divine; but the fact is that there is no more incarnation, it is the incarnate Lord who is present again in the sacrament (no need to discuss how this is at this time, only to affirm that since the second century the Christian Church has taught "real presence"). There are no more incarnations, only the continual presence of the one incarnation, Jesus Christ the only divine and human being held together in hypostatic union. If evangelicals really want to have an "incarnational" ministry then they need to go to the incarnation, not to their desire to hang around with people "where they are."

So my main frustration is the way the Incarnation is thrown around today as if it is always available anytime you want it. It is not and could not be so; there is only one incarnation and Our Lord is pleased to make himself known in his incarnation if we so seek him. But this does not mean we are to label a "power to the people" ministry as incarnation, unless you want to baptise anything you think is important with the label of God. That sounds like idolatry to me, not ministry. So let's be careful about how we use that blessed word; words are important, especially the Word who became flesh to save us from our sin.

Calvin's Providence - puppets or people?




I think I have written on this before, and if you are tired of the debate don't worry about it, but providence to me is the most confusing and most exciting doctrine in Christian theology from my perspective (I know other people will favour Trinity and such, but I am a Calvinist in the 21st century so happen to be most oriented towards Providence). And I think this is a continuing issue of some importance since we all seek to be assured that God is in control and that He will triumph ultimately (even after such events as the Amish incident). What I want to do is stay away from emotive arguments such as "I don't like that kind of God (and world)" and keep to a more rational account, of course taking into account that just because something is rational does not mean it is right. All I want to do here is try and defend a Calvinistic form of providence against the objection "That makes us puppets with no free will!", a comment I heard just recently from a close friend. So on to the show!

A few words from Calvin first:

"For he is deemed omnipotent, not because he can indeed act, yet sometimes ceases and sits in idleness, or continues by a general impulse that order of nature which he previously appointed; but because, governing heaven and earth by his providence, he so regulates all things that nothing takes place without his deliberation." (Institutes, I.xvi.3)

"Let him, therefore, who would beware of this infidelity [grounding causality to motion of the stars] ever remember that there is no erratic power, or action, or motion in creatures, but that they are governed by God's secret plan in such a way that nothing happens except what is knowingly and willingly decreed by him." (Institutes, I.xvi.3)

So what we have in Calvin is a total providence, such that nothing happens without God's positive control (whether that is willing permission or something else is left aside). God decrees or ordains all events in the most meticulous manner. The natural response to this is of course "Then we are all just puppets and free from all blame for our actions!" Now there are a number of ways to approach this objection, but let's have a go at it from the free will angle and see what we get.

Free will. Everyone knows (or should know) that we must have free will of some sort in order to make sense of what we all experience in everyday life. We all make choices and these are owned by us in such a manner that we can honestly say "I did that." No one, especially not Calvin, would dispute this. Free will, in some sense, is necessary for the doctrine of sin and atonement, along with other Christian principles, let alone mental satisfation that we lead meaningful lives. So no one in the Christian tradition should dispute the fact that we have free will.

The question is, what kind of free will is it? Here is where the debate begins. Calvin maintains that we have free will insomuch as our wills are not constrained. He does not believe we have free will in the sense that we can do whatever we like. Here is a trivial example of this: I have free will to jump in the air or not to jump in the air. I do not have the free will to jump 100 feet(probably even 2 feet, to be honest!) in the air. My free will concerning my desire to jump is constrained by my non-ability to jump a certain height. I could change this to a degree (say by practicing) but only to a degree (it is physically impossible for me to jump 100 feet without assistence). But it would be insane to say that I did not have free will when I chose to jump! The issue of free will then depends on how constrained the will is. Morally Calvin thinks the will is pretty constrained, but I want to focus in on the metaphysical constraints on the will because of a meticulous providence.

To focus down then, imagine coming to a fork in the road. For simplicity's sake let's assume there is an unclimable wall on all sides except these two paths before you and the one you came from (basically you are in a maze). When you come to the fork you have basically four options: go left, go right, go back, or sit and meditate. Now there are a ton of options that you can think of but are not allowed to do: climb the wall, go through the wall, jump over the wall, become a Blue Whale. But that does not remove your freedom, for your freedom is ultimately placed in the fulfillment of your desires - you always have a limited number of options and you are free insomuch as you own or desire a certain one. So eventually you will decide which one of the paths to take, but the most important part is not the fact that you chose between one from another, it is that you desired or made that certain on your own. In this sense the fact that other options are available is besides the point; only one options is really necessary to excercise free will in the basic level of accepting or desiring a path.

And I think this is exactly what the metaphysical constaint of Calvinistic (and traditional) Providence means: you only have one option based on God's decree but that does not mean your freedom is nonexistent; it may mean it is constrained to a great degree, but then all freedom is constrained. The fact is that we all make the option ours by owning it or desiring it. What this comes down to is that free will is defined by Calvin as the absence of coercion. In the above example, you would not have free will if someone forced you by spear point to go in a certain direction because you would always be able to say "I am not desiring this!" even as you moved. But since there is no physical (let's leave out non-physical coercion for now, please) external agency then you are free to do what you desire, even if there is only one thing to desire, as in the case of Providence.

So we have free will in the sense of not being coerced and can excercise this free will in the sense of being responsible even if there is no other choice. It is the element of coercion that destroys causal responsibility. But I hear someone saying "It seems like coercion is involved, because God is the ultimate determiner of all events!" Good point, let's investigate.

Calvin's classical response to this objection is to seek a dual causality or multiple causal levels metaphysics. Basically there are always two active agents in any causal choice (involving humans, that is): God and me. Both are necessary and sufficient. But who do these two work together so that we need not appeal to pure coincidence that all of God's choices are also our choices? Well, that's tricky, but we might have a shot of explaining it by desciribing the nature of the different levels. Let's have a simple description of a certain event as follows: God ordains and I choose to do something. The first part (God's ordaining) is rather straightforward and Scripturally sound, it is the second that is troublesome, for how can God's ordination allow me to "choose" something freely? Remember first that freely means without compulsion, so it means that I desire or own something. More specifically Calvin breaks down the human choosing into three components (following scholastic thought - which may not be perfect but can be helpful): the will, the habit, and the choice. The will is the function in man which allows us to choose something, and we have already said it is free in the Calvinist sense of non-coerced. The choice is the actual decision made which leads to action (at this point the outcome of the choice is irrelevant since we are focusing on choosing not whether we actually accomplish our choice). But the key point is that there is something between the will and the choice. Our will gives us the capacity to choose while the choice is the decision - but the background or "reason" of the choice is our habit, or our desire. Now as long as our desire is our own then we have chosen "freely". And this is where Calvinism finds its ability to reconcile God's ordination and our free choosing, in my mind.

In a simple way, all events could be described as follows: "God ordains that Adam wills to choose x." This is where the levels come in: God forms our wills in such a way that our desires are towards certain things (namely, whatever happens in the world, whatever choices we end up choosing), but it is our choice which is made based on our desires. This is not to make us free in a libertarian sense from God, it merely means that God has constrained our choices to one option (remember the one path taken) but it is our choice and our desire that chooses that option. Basically God desires that we desire to choose x. This means that God does not coerce us because coercion must occur at the choice level (we can desire something differently than what is choosen in coercion), not at the desires level. So God forms our will to certain desires, but it is our choices (based on our desires) which make the happenings of the world. That is why we must always have both God and man in any description of an event while discussing providence; God wills/desires/chooses that man desires to choose x.

To give an everday example of this (which will not be perfect but may ground the discussion a little better) we can think of a parent raising a child to desire a certain thing. This happens all the time. For instance, I was raised to desire to keep dry when it is raining. I didn't have to be, in some places (probably England, where rain is just a constant experience) this desire wouldn't be necessary because it would be impossible to fill or there was never rain (in Antarctica, for instance). But when it starts raining I do not feel forced to run inside or wear a rain coat, I am just choosing based on a desire implanted in my by my parents or whatever other place I got that desire from. I am totally free in my choice to run inside, but the choice is based on a desire I did not initially determine (it was given to me). It might be the same with God - except that we are still acting in the early stages of practicing choices since we are fallen creatures and a new kingdom is coming. God plants desires into us for a certain action and we choose based on that desire, but it is us who make the choice. We are therefore responsible for the choice and the action which occurs or doesn't occur, but the event was ordained by God at the earlier level.

It seems to me that this dual-causality Calvinist account allows some insight into how we can hold together consistently the two Biblical maxims: All things are ordained by God and at the same time we are free creatures responsible for oour decisions. This doesn't totally remove blame from God for the evil in the world - but then he is perfectly happy to take a certain amount of blame as seen in the death of his Son on the cross. This explanation does not answer the question of why God planted certain desires in us towards certain actions (Amish shootings, for instance), but that question is unanswerable according to Paul ("Who are you, O man?). This account does answer the more immediate question of how Calvin's providence does not make us puppets, and I hope this account of non-coerced free will and desired choice brings some rationality (not all, of course) to that answer.