A Polanyian View of Church Order?
As most people probably already know, I am a theologian. I am not a theologian by profession except inasmuch as all pastors are implicitly theologians, whether they take that task seriously or not. I am not academically qualified to speak as a theologian in the sense of one with a PhD in theology. And yet, I consider myself a theologian nonetheless. This does not mean, however, that theology is my only interest. It isn't. My secondary interest that has developed is the philosophy of science. Though there are certain aspects of this field that do not interest me (perhaps because I am not convinced they are dealing with the kinds of issues that are primary), I am trying to read as widely as I can since I have found the issues being discussed in it to be remarkably parallel (though not identical) with my primary interests in theology.
One of my favorite philosophers of science is Michael Polanyi, who actually may have had a more profound impact and influence on theologians than on scientists, judging by subsequent literature. Polanyi began his career as a physician, then went back to school to be trained in chemistry. Later, he was pulled into philosophy almost unwillingly because of discussions about the nature of science that were going on between Western scientists and the scientists in the Soviet Union. The question that dominated these discussions was to what extent (if at all) should the state provide guidance for the development of science. Those in the Soviet Union argued that the state, which planned everything else, should plan science. After all, if one of the great purposes of science is to serve the advancement of a state, then the state should be able to say what these scientists should be working on. In the West, this was opposed, though there was a time when this opposition was rather weak which, it would seem, is what pulled Polanyi into the debate in the first place. Western scientists argued that science could only be pure if it was free from political oversight, at least in the sense advocated by the Soviets.
Polanyi had many reasons to advocate for his view. First, because he is convinced that all knowledge, not least scientific knowledge, is the knowledge of persons who are dedicated to the truth of reality. That is, all knowledge is personal knowledge, which does not mean subjective knowledge but the acknowledgement by persons of what is the case independently of that acknowledgement. Because of this, persons engaged in research must be free to follow their personal (and largely tacit) insights and hunches. Often, significant discovery arises, not because a research program has made it clear what one should work on but because a scientist travels down the lonely road where they see a promising result that nobody else could see.
Additionally, Polanyi draws attention to the fact that much of science is only verifiable by a small number of specialists. This deviates from the kind of objectivist notions that have become increasingly popular in our culture today that say that all scientific claims are publicly verifiable, that is, anyone could do the experiment and see that the results are true. This, of course, is not true. In point of fact, only people who have been educated into a scientific culture, who have been trained to operate in ways consistent with contemporary science, who know how to use the laboratory equipment, and who have spent years working on a specialty are actually able to verify every experiment, and indeed many experiments go unverified, not least because of the tremendous cost of time and money it would involve. The point of this for our discussion is that the state is fundamentally unqualified to discern which paths in research are promising and which are not. To trust what has traditionally been done by the dynamic and unformalizable scientific intuition to bureaucrats would be to destroy science in one fell swoop.
What would seem to be a measure introduced in order to improve efficiency would turn out to be grossly inefficient, because it kills the creativity that makes science, which is far less exact and formal that many people often think, work. Rather, Polanyi argues that the most efficient way forward is to allow each scientist the freedom to pursue their own interests, to follow their own clues, and to make their own discoveries. By making the government over what research is done decentralized, it can benefit from the mutual oversight of all scientists instead of one, perhaps scientifically minded but perhaps not, politician or committee. This means decisions can be made quickly by the people who are competent to make them rather than slowly by people who may know nothing about the matter. Also, because of the practice of academic publishing, scientists can know what is going on around the world and adjust their own work to most effectively take advantage of these global insights.
In the last month or so, I have been struck with the significance of this line of thought for the church. I have begun to realize recently that most of the churches I have known have a tendency to decide, in the abstract, what it is that a church should be about, develop ideas of the kinds of ministries that should happen, and then try to recruit leaders to shape it. When this is the approach, I have noticed that several things happen. First, we tend to have some degree of difficulty to find the right people to lead these different ministries. There are some who have the skills necessary but who are already overburdened with volunteering. There are others who have the skills but have no passion for the ministry they are being recruited for. There are still others who have the skills needed but have never been asked and so may not even realize that they have such abilities. There are also times when we have people who are excited and passionate about something but simply do not have the competence to get it done.
Secondly, I find that when the ministries of the church become fundamentally more basic than the people who are leading them, there comes a time when leadership shifts for whatever reason and we often find that the idea that we might allow a ministry to cease too horrifying, so we scramble to find someone, anyone, who is willing to fill the spot. They might not be the kind of person needed for that ministry, they might be being pulled from another area where they are effective, and we must also always entertain the possibility that the church might be being called to allow a particular ministry to come to completion so that resources can be reallocated and new things can get started.
This way of approaching ministry puts the main power in the hands of very few people, who are often all too happy to take it and use it. Masterful "visions" that are generated in the mind of one person are imposed on others and what is and what is not in line with it is decided ahead of time, which carries with it the double-edged sword of the fact that the vision is clear, but it is not necessarily shared by the people. What ministries should and should not be pursued are no longer based on the prayerful answer to the question, "What is God calling us to at this time and place" and instead rooted in the question, "In what way does this further the vision we voted on once upon a time."
The problem with this whole way of approaching ministry is that it sometimes works and it has worked for some time in many churches. Leaders in a more authoritarian past established such rules for church governance and they have remained more or less unchanged. Even those who have come from such rebellious generations, who have been ruthless at changing the outer trappings of so many churches, have left the internal structure largely unchanged. The people are different and the hairstyles and clothing have changed, but the top-down authoritarian structure that the church learned, not from the self-giving Lord, but from the marketplace, has remained.
This is why I have found Polanyi's conception of academic freedom for scientists to be so compelling for the church. This is not simply because I like Polanyi's work (though I do), but because it seems to give some concrete insight into what Paul wrote so often in the New Testament. Paul does not create job descriptions out of abstract speculation and then apply them to every church without adjustment. His vision for the church approaches ministry in such a way that ministry is never a job to do, where qualified people can be swapped in and out with no real change. Ministry is always done by people who are prepared and gifted by God for the task, which means that the gift of God must be understood as more basic than the task that is performed by means of it.
To put this in more concrete terms, when Paul speaks of a five-fold ministry in Ephesians 4:11-13, we must not read it in such a way as to imply that there were clearly defined "job descriptions" for what it was to be an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher. Rather than saying, "We need these five tasks done, who can we find to do them," it seems more consistent with Paul to say, "God seems to consistently raise up these five kinds of people. It is not for no reason that he does this. Find them and recognize them." Paul often exhorts the leaders to lead, but he never seems to be concerned about where leadership would come from. God would raise it up if we only have eyes to notice.
Who knows what it means to be an evangelist? Those who receive the ministry of the evangelist? Not really. Who can spell out what an apostle is? Someone who has never been called to nor participated in the apostolic calling? In many ways, it is not even entirely possible to have the ministers themselves define what it takes to do their job, since God does not seem to be all that worried about the secular qualifications of those whom he calls. Jesus did not send Peter and the other disciples off to seminary to be trained; he simply called and they followed. Peter never took a preaching class, Paul was never formally trained in pastoral care. The passion and the anointing that comes from the Holy Spirit can do what all the training in the world could never do on its own (it should be noted that I am in no way against formal training. However, we must never imagine that God is waiting for someone to go to school before they can be used by him).
In spite of all the efficiency that seems to be inherent in a rigidly centralized conception of the church, it can be woefully inefficient. So long as the central leader is well aware of the gifts and graces of the people in the church and can entrust leadership into their hands, it is true that such church government can be quite efficient. However, it is often tempting to insist that the pastor is not only an overseer who responds to issues by reallocation of resources but is also the prime minister, who has skills that nobody else can approximate, who fills a professional need, who sees themselves primarily as an employee of a local church and not primarily as a servant called and sent by God. If this happens, ministry quickly becomes made after their image and any gift of a layperson that does not fit into such an image becomes marginalized, regardless of how necessary it may be.
If a central planning agency for science could be trusted to always know which are the promising projects, could be relied upon to always know what is needed and how to maximize resources to that end, it would be amazingly efficient and helpful. If it falls down, even in a minor way, it has the distinct possibility of crippling science and discouraging scientists from making new and hitherto unlooked for discoveries. In a similar way, if a pastor is always able to see clearly what is needed and the best way to go about responding to that need, it could be a wonderful way to run the church. However, if a pastor lacks the knowledge and discernment needed for this task at any point (which inevitably happens as they are human and finite like everyone else), they may find that their greatest strengths can turn out to be their greatest weaknesses in a given context.
Is pastoral ministry important? Absolutely. Is it as important as the ministry of lay people? Of course. But, it must be clearly noted, it is no more important than this. To behave as if this were not so not only skews the whole Polanyian system but is tantamount to an eye saying to a hand, "I have no need of you." It seems to me that a more significantly decentralized approach to ministry is more conducive to allowing the Holy Spirit to govern, not only the individuals who make up the church, but the church as a whole. Those who have gifts in particular areas will be able to provide mutual oversight, freeing up those with different gifts to work elsewhere and elsehow.
The questions that remain are these. How can we move forward? How can we convince the average Christian that God actually wants to use them, has gifted them, not only with skills, but with passions, that he wants to harness for the good, not only of the church, but of the world? Undoubtedly the answer involves prayer and repentance regarding ways we have been discouraging in the past.
Showing posts with label Polanyi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Polanyi. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Probability and Meaning
Probability and Meaning
One of the things that well-meaning apologists for the Christian Faith do from time to time, is argue that the odds against the universe having the laws that it has, especially in the combination of these laws, is astronomically unlikely. This is a fact that everyone who is aware of the issues will grant. However, the conclusion that is often drawn from this is that such an incredible statistic should drive us to conclude that the Christian doctrine of creation (and who knows but all other traditional doctrines of Christian faith) is true.
The chief problem with this, as atheists are quick to point out, is that the argument trades on a conviction that "Incredibly Unlikely" => (that's "implies") "Designed by an Intelligent Source (or at least profoundly significant in some way)." In spite of the best efforts of such apologists, such an implication is simply not valid. Not valid, that is, as stated. There is an additional dimension that is taken for granted by the apologists that needs to be made explicit and, until it is, it will not hold any water at all.
Michael Polanyi, a Hungarian Physician/Chemist/Philosopher of Science, wrote his monumental work, "Personal Knowledge" based on the Gifford Lectures of 1951-52 on a wide range of topics, ultimately arguing that the goal of absolute objectivity (or, perhaps more accurately, "objectivism") that some claim for science is unattainable and should never have been viewed as the goal in the first place. It should be noted that Polanyi did not set out to undermine science in any way, but rather to help put it back on its proper foundations, where it functions quite authoritatively. In fact, he was trying to provide a more accurate account of how science actually works (which, as a scientist, he found was not the same as the way many scientists believed it to work) and promote more complete honesty among scientists. It should also be noted, for the sake of total disclosure, that Polanyi was himself a Christian, though his Christian faith does not enter into his writings on science and his views on evolution would not be agreeable to many particularly conservative Christians.
In the third chapter, on Order (and following a chapter on Probability), Polanyi suggests three scenarios. The first is that, at a particular village, when one enters by rail, there is a statement on the railway embankment in pebbles that reads "Welcome to Wales by British Railways." It is clear that those stones were placed by an intelligent human being who designed their location with some care. If someone were to challenge this view, how might we defend it? We would take the number of all the different ways that those pebbles could be arranged to make the phrase, and divide it by the total number of ways the pebbles could be arranged on the embankment (an incomprehensibly higher number) and say something along the lines of, "See? It is so improbable that it would have happened by accident; it must have been planned."
The problem arises if we imagine that, long after the person responsible for the phrase dies, the pebbles may find themselves scattered around the embankment in a haphazard manner. But what if someone were to argue that the evidence was just as strong that they are in this position by intelligent design than it was earlier. If we do the math, we find that the odds of the pebbles falling to this exact location is just as astronomical as before. Using a purely statistical approach, the evidence is identical on both sides.
Another example is that we would find it coincidental, interesting and incredibly unlikely (in the sense of "surprising") that someone was the 500,000 visitor to an exhibition, whereas we would not if they were the 573,522nd visitor, even though, if we do the math, the odds against being the latter are higher than against being the former.
The third example is to take twenty flips of a (fair) coin. Let us say they are all heads. What are the odds of this happening? Two to the twentieth power, or 1,048,576 to one. Sounds significant. But if we think about it, it turns out that every unique sequence of twenty throws of a coin are equally improbable. We now have over a million results that are, statistically, equally unlikely. Why single out one of them (or two if we also consider twenty tails in a row to be significant) to be particularly striking?
The point that Polanyi is getting at is that probability is not the only factor at work in this kind of reasoning. The striking thing about the first example is not that it is unlikely that the pebbles would be arranged at random, but that they were arranged at random and it resulted in an English phrase that made complete sense in that particular location where it wouldn't in nearly any other part of the world. The distinguishing factor is meaning. It isn't that we could pile a bunch of rocks in any particular way and have it happen to be unlikely how it turns out, but it is that it is incredibly unlikely that such a pile would be the carrier of a message (in whatever form this message may take) that has meaning for a specific group of people. The issue is whether the unlikely event is of no particular meaning, that is, it could easily have been different with no substantial impact ("noise") or whether it makes a considerable impact (a "tune").
This raises the key question. How can we tell whether what seems to us at first glance as random is a tune or whether it is just noise? That is to say, how can we know if there is a message, whatever that message may be, embedded in the details or whether it is nothing more than random facts with no significance? This is a real question (though the example is somewhat trivial) for those who cannot see the hidden images contained in Magic Eye puzzles. Everyone around them proclaims that there is an image to be seen; they can independently verify what it is and can even trace it out with their fingers, but, so long as the individual in question cannot see it, the dilemma remains: Is there really an image that I cannot see, or is everyone around conspiring against me?
Another example might be that of Stonehenge. Such a huge monument has attracted attention for years. If we were to forget everything we knew about the function of Stonehenge, we would have to ask the question, "Were these stones placed here for a reason, or is it merely random?" We might be inclined to the former conclusion because it might seem impossibly improbable to explain how the rocks ended up where they were merely by chance, but, since chance is not convincing evidence in and of itself, as we have noted above, it is not sufficient to tilt the argument decisively in one direction or another. It is only when we begin to say, "These rocks are here as a calendar," when we notice how it charts the solstices, that we are fully convinced, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the rocks are meaningful.
The problem still remains. How can we judge whether the object of our study is truly random, that is, purely coincidental or meaningful in a way we cannot yet understand? How do we know that what seems to be nothing more than white noise does not contain a message we have simply not yet learned the language to understand? The fact of the matter is that there simply is no surefire way to judge ahead of time which is the case. What is more, there is no way to ever prove that there is no message, even after countless trials. One can only prove, or make a strong case for, a message bring present; never that one is absent. After all, a message may emerge one day after years of fruitless research. Projects to understand a given reality may even be abandoned and yet be pregnant with a meaning that we have not yet been able to grasp.
This does not mean, of course, that we should operate with the assumption that every seemingly meaningless thing has a hidden, deep meaning. We simply cannot function if we look at every arrangement of rocks or grass as holding a deep truth about the universe. Sometimes things that appear meaningless are precisely that. Among scientists, there is only so much grant money available, there are only so many pages in a given journal, there are only so many lab technicians, which means some selection must take place. Not every lead can be followed; not every pattern can be analyzed in every possible way. Decisions must be made and they must be made knowing full well that by doing so, important discoveries that have hitherto been just beyond reach, might be missed.
So, to return to the question raised by apologists in our modern world, is the universe an accident or is it created? The decisive point in the argument is not on the improbability of the universe being precisely what it is and not otherwise, but on whether the universe being what it is is full of meaning that would be destroyed if it were not what it is. This often takes place around the issue of the so-called "anthropic principle." I do not mean to suggest that this observation will solve this or other problems easily, but that it must be taken into account and realized that the battlefield upon which much debate has raged is a false one and should be abandoned by both parties, so that we might start again and have more authentic, more fruitful, more honest discussions. The question is (we might say always) one of meaning. Not just "What is it?" but "What does it mean?"
One of the things that well-meaning apologists for the Christian Faith do from time to time, is argue that the odds against the universe having the laws that it has, especially in the combination of these laws, is astronomically unlikely. This is a fact that everyone who is aware of the issues will grant. However, the conclusion that is often drawn from this is that such an incredible statistic should drive us to conclude that the Christian doctrine of creation (and who knows but all other traditional doctrines of Christian faith) is true.
The chief problem with this, as atheists are quick to point out, is that the argument trades on a conviction that "Incredibly Unlikely" => (that's "implies") "Designed by an Intelligent Source (or at least profoundly significant in some way)." In spite of the best efforts of such apologists, such an implication is simply not valid. Not valid, that is, as stated. There is an additional dimension that is taken for granted by the apologists that needs to be made explicit and, until it is, it will not hold any water at all.
Michael Polanyi, a Hungarian Physician/Chemist/Philosopher of Science, wrote his monumental work, "Personal Knowledge" based on the Gifford Lectures of 1951-52 on a wide range of topics, ultimately arguing that the goal of absolute objectivity (or, perhaps more accurately, "objectivism") that some claim for science is unattainable and should never have been viewed as the goal in the first place. It should be noted that Polanyi did not set out to undermine science in any way, but rather to help put it back on its proper foundations, where it functions quite authoritatively. In fact, he was trying to provide a more accurate account of how science actually works (which, as a scientist, he found was not the same as the way many scientists believed it to work) and promote more complete honesty among scientists. It should also be noted, for the sake of total disclosure, that Polanyi was himself a Christian, though his Christian faith does not enter into his writings on science and his views on evolution would not be agreeable to many particularly conservative Christians.
In the third chapter, on Order (and following a chapter on Probability), Polanyi suggests three scenarios. The first is that, at a particular village, when one enters by rail, there is a statement on the railway embankment in pebbles that reads "Welcome to Wales by British Railways." It is clear that those stones were placed by an intelligent human being who designed their location with some care. If someone were to challenge this view, how might we defend it? We would take the number of all the different ways that those pebbles could be arranged to make the phrase, and divide it by the total number of ways the pebbles could be arranged on the embankment (an incomprehensibly higher number) and say something along the lines of, "See? It is so improbable that it would have happened by accident; it must have been planned."
The problem arises if we imagine that, long after the person responsible for the phrase dies, the pebbles may find themselves scattered around the embankment in a haphazard manner. But what if someone were to argue that the evidence was just as strong that they are in this position by intelligent design than it was earlier. If we do the math, we find that the odds of the pebbles falling to this exact location is just as astronomical as before. Using a purely statistical approach, the evidence is identical on both sides.
Another example is that we would find it coincidental, interesting and incredibly unlikely (in the sense of "surprising") that someone was the 500,000 visitor to an exhibition, whereas we would not if they were the 573,522nd visitor, even though, if we do the math, the odds against being the latter are higher than against being the former.
The third example is to take twenty flips of a (fair) coin. Let us say they are all heads. What are the odds of this happening? Two to the twentieth power, or 1,048,576 to one. Sounds significant. But if we think about it, it turns out that every unique sequence of twenty throws of a coin are equally improbable. We now have over a million results that are, statistically, equally unlikely. Why single out one of them (or two if we also consider twenty tails in a row to be significant) to be particularly striking?
The point that Polanyi is getting at is that probability is not the only factor at work in this kind of reasoning. The striking thing about the first example is not that it is unlikely that the pebbles would be arranged at random, but that they were arranged at random and it resulted in an English phrase that made complete sense in that particular location where it wouldn't in nearly any other part of the world. The distinguishing factor is meaning. It isn't that we could pile a bunch of rocks in any particular way and have it happen to be unlikely how it turns out, but it is that it is incredibly unlikely that such a pile would be the carrier of a message (in whatever form this message may take) that has meaning for a specific group of people. The issue is whether the unlikely event is of no particular meaning, that is, it could easily have been different with no substantial impact ("noise") or whether it makes a considerable impact (a "tune").
This raises the key question. How can we tell whether what seems to us at first glance as random is a tune or whether it is just noise? That is to say, how can we know if there is a message, whatever that message may be, embedded in the details or whether it is nothing more than random facts with no significance? This is a real question (though the example is somewhat trivial) for those who cannot see the hidden images contained in Magic Eye puzzles. Everyone around them proclaims that there is an image to be seen; they can independently verify what it is and can even trace it out with their fingers, but, so long as the individual in question cannot see it, the dilemma remains: Is there really an image that I cannot see, or is everyone around conspiring against me?
Another example might be that of Stonehenge. Such a huge monument has attracted attention for years. If we were to forget everything we knew about the function of Stonehenge, we would have to ask the question, "Were these stones placed here for a reason, or is it merely random?" We might be inclined to the former conclusion because it might seem impossibly improbable to explain how the rocks ended up where they were merely by chance, but, since chance is not convincing evidence in and of itself, as we have noted above, it is not sufficient to tilt the argument decisively in one direction or another. It is only when we begin to say, "These rocks are here as a calendar," when we notice how it charts the solstices, that we are fully convinced, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the rocks are meaningful.
The problem still remains. How can we judge whether the object of our study is truly random, that is, purely coincidental or meaningful in a way we cannot yet understand? How do we know that what seems to be nothing more than white noise does not contain a message we have simply not yet learned the language to understand? The fact of the matter is that there simply is no surefire way to judge ahead of time which is the case. What is more, there is no way to ever prove that there is no message, even after countless trials. One can only prove, or make a strong case for, a message bring present; never that one is absent. After all, a message may emerge one day after years of fruitless research. Projects to understand a given reality may even be abandoned and yet be pregnant with a meaning that we have not yet been able to grasp.
This does not mean, of course, that we should operate with the assumption that every seemingly meaningless thing has a hidden, deep meaning. We simply cannot function if we look at every arrangement of rocks or grass as holding a deep truth about the universe. Sometimes things that appear meaningless are precisely that. Among scientists, there is only so much grant money available, there are only so many pages in a given journal, there are only so many lab technicians, which means some selection must take place. Not every lead can be followed; not every pattern can be analyzed in every possible way. Decisions must be made and they must be made knowing full well that by doing so, important discoveries that have hitherto been just beyond reach, might be missed.
So, to return to the question raised by apologists in our modern world, is the universe an accident or is it created? The decisive point in the argument is not on the improbability of the universe being precisely what it is and not otherwise, but on whether the universe being what it is is full of meaning that would be destroyed if it were not what it is. This often takes place around the issue of the so-called "anthropic principle." I do not mean to suggest that this observation will solve this or other problems easily, but that it must be taken into account and realized that the battlefield upon which much debate has raged is a false one and should be abandoned by both parties, so that we might start again and have more authentic, more fruitful, more honest discussions. The question is (we might say always) one of meaning. Not just "What is it?" but "What does it mean?"
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
The Role of Community in Personhood
09/07/11 Role of Community in Personhood GUMC Youth
Last week, we spent some time thinking about the people that Jesus called to be his disciples. We noticed how incredibly different they were from each other and how they all had their own problems, just like we do, but that through following Christ, they were challenged to grow and become who God had called them to be. I want to take tonight and look at the big picture issue of the role that the communities in which we find ourselves shape who we are. It is particularly appropriate to do this now, since we were just thinking about the community that Jesus called into existence to follow him.
In America, we have a long tradition of seeing ourselves as isolated individuals, who do whatever we want. We tend to see the individual as more important than the community in which that individual finds itself. We have some basic rules about how we live together, but by and large, we consider our individuality to be more important than who we are in relation to others. We like our constitution because it shows us that our community values individuality.
In spite of that, what we are finding more and more is that the community plays an incredibly important role in who we are. Perhaps one of the most important ways it shapes us is in the way our community plays a role in what we can know. Did you know that there are some things that you simply can't know unless you are in a community of people who knows them? That you have to live in the right place and with the right kind of people, and live in the right way to even see certain things and to know certain things?
To give a somewhat simple example of what I am talking about, how many different words do we have in English for "snow?" Just one. However, even though we have only one word for snow, we can actually identify a few different types of snow, can't we? I have not yet experienced a Spencer winter, but I've been led to believe you get a fair amount of snow, so you might know more about snow than I do, but most people I've met can identify about four or five types of snow. There is light, powdery snow, there is wet and heavy snow, there is slushy snow that is hard to drive in, and a few others. But if we are really pressed, we can't come up with too many more types of snow that we experience.
But, if you were to travel into parts of Alaska and meet with certain tribes of Eskimos, you would find that they have over forty different words for snow. But if you looked at the different types of snow, you probably wouldn't be able to tell much difference between them. After all, you can only identify four or five kinds of snow. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference, in fact, you might even think that the whole tribe is playing a trick on you, but to the natives, it would be as plain as could be. They have absolutely no trouble telling the difference between the forty-odd types of snow they have; it is as natural to them as breathing.
So, what is the difference between them and us? Why can they see what we cannot? Is there really a distinction that we just can't see or are they just tricking themselves into seeing what isn't really there? Well, there isn't a real difference in their eyes or their brains, so there is no biological reason why they should be able to see what we can't, so what could it be? Well, if we were to move away from Iowa and move in with the Eskimos with the many words for snow, and we not only saw the same snow as they did, but lived the way they did and experienced snow like they did for a period of several years, you would start to be able to tell the difference between some more of them, but you still might not ever have quite as many words for snow as they do.
The reason for this is that the Eskimos have a deep need to be able to tell the difference between the forty types of snow. Their very lives depend on it. If they aren't careful about what kind of snow they go out in, they might very well die. But the reason I bring all this up is because, even though it is as clear as night and day to the Eskimos, people like you and me simply can't see it. They might be able to break down the differences so that you have some idea of what to look for, but even with a great guide, it would take quite some time before you were able to really see what you are looking for. You have to indwell, to use the term of scientist, Michael Polanyi, a way of life and experience before you can really know what is there. It is something like the process of learning an instrument or a sport, or any new subject. It takes time to get used to the rules or how you move your body before you can really do or know it.
The fact of the matter is that knowing is much more complex than we often give it credit for being. You will find militant atheists who try to hide behind the advances of sciences to be the reason why they can't bring themselves to believe in God. They say that, unlike the claims of Christian faith, anybody who simply does the experiment can see the truth of science. Well, this simply isn't true. As it turns out, most people, even if they had access to a world-class laboratory, couldn't actually reproduce the experiments and, even if they managed to pull it off, wouldn't even be able to see what they were looking for. It is only when people have spent years of their lives being trained in a particular field of inquiry that they can actually understand and experience what is really there. Unless you are a trained scientist, the claims of natural science are not any more accessible to you than the claims of Christian faith. You know, even if you were a trained scientist, only a small portion of the findings of science would be open to you. In fact, if you have been a Christian for a while and have your thoughts and life transformed by the gospel, you might be able to understand the claims of Christian faith far better than you could do lab work.
But the trick to all of this is that it means that you can only know the truth if you are part of the right kind of community. If you want to know the truth, you need to be surrounded by people who are also seeking the truth. If you want to really understand what Jesus says, you need to be in a community of people who are passionately committed to what Jesus says. One of the greatest thinkers in the history of the church, Athanasius, wrote a book on God becoming a human being in Jesus Christ. At the very end, after he had written for pages and pages explaining the biblical and theological issues, he says this in his last paragraph.
"But for the searching and right understanding of the Scriptures there is need of a good life and a pure soul, and for Christian virtue to guide the mind to grasp, so far as human nature can, the truth concerning God the Word. One cannot possibly understand the teaching of the saints unless one has a pure mind and is trying to imitate their life. Anyone who wants to look at sunlight naturally wipes his eye clear first, in order to make, at any rate, some approximation to the purity of that on which he looks; and a person wishing to see a city or country goes to the place in order to do so. Similarly, anyone who wishes to understand the mind of the sacred writers must first cleanse his own life, and approach the saints by copying their deeds."
I want to make absolutely sure that you understand what he is saying. He is saying that, if you insist on living in sin and doing what you know to be wrong and making a habit of breaking God's laws, you will never be able to understand what the Bible says. If you knowingly and lovingly engage in sin on a regular basis, don't be surprised if you can't make any sense out of the Bible. If we want to know things, we have to live in a way that is consistent with them.
You know, this emphasis on community really shouldn't surprise us all that much. After all, one of the core claims of Christian faith is that God is, in God's own life, a community of Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For God, community isn't just an extra options that he can choose to be in or not; community is rooted in the very being of God, and we are made in God's image. How can we be surprised when we find out that the communities in which we find ourselves make up part of who we are? God is who God is because of the community that God is.
You know what? Even natural science supports this idea that who we are is partly shaped by those we are around. It used to be, according to a Newtonian view of the universe, that everything could be broken down into atoms that just bumped into one another. They were individual particles that had no real connection to any other particles, unless they all just happened to move in the same direction at the same time. With the insights of James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, and others, we have come to see that we can't really think of things this way. All of what we call matter can be understood as knots of energy in a continuous field of energy. Remember the equation E = mc^2? It is saying that energy and matter are not finally separate things, but that matter is a form of energy and energy is a form of matter. The point is that particles aren't just free-floating individual things, but are only what they are in their interrelations with each other.
So, if we can only know certain things if we live in certain ways, and if God wanted to reveal himself to humanity, what would he have to do? Well, he would have to mould and shape a whole culture from the very beginning. So, he would have to pick one person and take him out of his context, so he could start to reshape their basic ways of thought and life bit by bit. God would have to establish a special relationship that is unlike his relationship with another nation, not because God does not also love those other nations, but because God has to start somewhere. Over thousands of years, God would have to teach the people how to live so they might be able to understand him. He would have to give them a law, a distinctive form of thought and life, would have to continually call them back whenever they went astray, and carefully and slowly reveal himself using these transformed words that mean something different in that nation than they do anywhere else. Only after this culture is shaped over a long period of time would God be able to really reveal himself in his fullness.
I don't know if you remember back to Sunday School and confirmation, but this is exactly what God has, in fact, done. God selected Abraham and took him from his home, gave himself to his descendants in a particular way, delivered them from Egypt and gave them a law, sent prophets to call the people back to faithfulness. Eventually, Jesus came, but he couldn't have come until Israel's culture was ready to understand him, at least brokenly. That is why Jesus came in Israel. Not because they were better than other people, nor because they were worse, but simply because they were better equipped to understand him and this is only because God had been moulding and shaping them, sometimes painfully, over the last several thousand years.
The question you might be asking yourself is, "What does all this have to do with me? What difference does this make for my life?" It actually makes a lot of difference, especially as someone who comes to youth group and goes to church. You see, youth group isn't just a place where we can come and hang out with friends or meet new people. It isn't just a place where we can eat some food and play some games. It isn't just a place where we can sing some songs. We are about the business of creating and shaping a whole culture, a community of young people who follow the Lord. There is a sense in which we are constantly trying to develop culture that has been established earlier, since none of us were here with this youth ministry was started, but it is also a culture which, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is continually being established anew.
Another reason why this stuff about community affects you is because you are profoundly shaped by your communities outside of youth group as well. If you surround yourself with people who love the Lord, who are passionately committed to the gospel and allowing it to impact every aspect of their lives, you will find that is is so much easier to be faithful yourself. When there are people you can go to for support, when you know that you aren't alone in your seeking after God, it is much easier to do what you are supposed to do, to live right, to read your Bible, to pray. If you, on the other hand, surround yourself with people who don't really care about God, who like to do all kinds of things that are contrary to what God calls us to do and be, you will find that it is incredibly difficult to be a faithful Christian. In fact, if you spend all your free time in destructive communities, it doesn't really matter what your influences are at home or at church, it will be nearly impossible to really follow Jesus.
This is why we need to all work together. If any of us decides that we are going to be lazy, to just show up and go through the motions, it affects the rest of us. It is only when we all work together and support one another in our daily lives that we can really be who God has called us to be. There is no substitute for being part of a group of people who love God. As we work together and as we grow together, do not be surprised if you begin to look at the world differently, that you begin to see and understand things that you never could before. I am going to challenge you to think hard about what you believe and why you believe it. The reason for this is because we simply cannot assume that our secular culture has prepared us to know God.
If we want to study the heavens, we need to go where the telescopes are. If we want to study exotic plants, we need to go where they are found. If we want to know about microscopic life, we need to put ourselves in the places where we can learn about them. As Athanasius said, if we want to see a particular place, we have to go there. If we want to know God, we need to meet with God where he has met with us, which is, above all, in Jesus Christ and in the Bible. Not only that, we need to do it together. So let us join together, as people of different ages, with different backgrounds, and help one another meet with and come to know God in deeper ways every day. Let us pray.
AMEN
Last week, we spent some time thinking about the people that Jesus called to be his disciples. We noticed how incredibly different they were from each other and how they all had their own problems, just like we do, but that through following Christ, they were challenged to grow and become who God had called them to be. I want to take tonight and look at the big picture issue of the role that the communities in which we find ourselves shape who we are. It is particularly appropriate to do this now, since we were just thinking about the community that Jesus called into existence to follow him.
In America, we have a long tradition of seeing ourselves as isolated individuals, who do whatever we want. We tend to see the individual as more important than the community in which that individual finds itself. We have some basic rules about how we live together, but by and large, we consider our individuality to be more important than who we are in relation to others. We like our constitution because it shows us that our community values individuality.
In spite of that, what we are finding more and more is that the community plays an incredibly important role in who we are. Perhaps one of the most important ways it shapes us is in the way our community plays a role in what we can know. Did you know that there are some things that you simply can't know unless you are in a community of people who knows them? That you have to live in the right place and with the right kind of people, and live in the right way to even see certain things and to know certain things?
To give a somewhat simple example of what I am talking about, how many different words do we have in English for "snow?" Just one. However, even though we have only one word for snow, we can actually identify a few different types of snow, can't we? I have not yet experienced a Spencer winter, but I've been led to believe you get a fair amount of snow, so you might know more about snow than I do, but most people I've met can identify about four or five types of snow. There is light, powdery snow, there is wet and heavy snow, there is slushy snow that is hard to drive in, and a few others. But if we are really pressed, we can't come up with too many more types of snow that we experience.
But, if you were to travel into parts of Alaska and meet with certain tribes of Eskimos, you would find that they have over forty different words for snow. But if you looked at the different types of snow, you probably wouldn't be able to tell much difference between them. After all, you can only identify four or five kinds of snow. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference, in fact, you might even think that the whole tribe is playing a trick on you, but to the natives, it would be as plain as could be. They have absolutely no trouble telling the difference between the forty-odd types of snow they have; it is as natural to them as breathing.
So, what is the difference between them and us? Why can they see what we cannot? Is there really a distinction that we just can't see or are they just tricking themselves into seeing what isn't really there? Well, there isn't a real difference in their eyes or their brains, so there is no biological reason why they should be able to see what we can't, so what could it be? Well, if we were to move away from Iowa and move in with the Eskimos with the many words for snow, and we not only saw the same snow as they did, but lived the way they did and experienced snow like they did for a period of several years, you would start to be able to tell the difference between some more of them, but you still might not ever have quite as many words for snow as they do.
The reason for this is that the Eskimos have a deep need to be able to tell the difference between the forty types of snow. Their very lives depend on it. If they aren't careful about what kind of snow they go out in, they might very well die. But the reason I bring all this up is because, even though it is as clear as night and day to the Eskimos, people like you and me simply can't see it. They might be able to break down the differences so that you have some idea of what to look for, but even with a great guide, it would take quite some time before you were able to really see what you are looking for. You have to indwell, to use the term of scientist, Michael Polanyi, a way of life and experience before you can really know what is there. It is something like the process of learning an instrument or a sport, or any new subject. It takes time to get used to the rules or how you move your body before you can really do or know it.
The fact of the matter is that knowing is much more complex than we often give it credit for being. You will find militant atheists who try to hide behind the advances of sciences to be the reason why they can't bring themselves to believe in God. They say that, unlike the claims of Christian faith, anybody who simply does the experiment can see the truth of science. Well, this simply isn't true. As it turns out, most people, even if they had access to a world-class laboratory, couldn't actually reproduce the experiments and, even if they managed to pull it off, wouldn't even be able to see what they were looking for. It is only when people have spent years of their lives being trained in a particular field of inquiry that they can actually understand and experience what is really there. Unless you are a trained scientist, the claims of natural science are not any more accessible to you than the claims of Christian faith. You know, even if you were a trained scientist, only a small portion of the findings of science would be open to you. In fact, if you have been a Christian for a while and have your thoughts and life transformed by the gospel, you might be able to understand the claims of Christian faith far better than you could do lab work.
But the trick to all of this is that it means that you can only know the truth if you are part of the right kind of community. If you want to know the truth, you need to be surrounded by people who are also seeking the truth. If you want to really understand what Jesus says, you need to be in a community of people who are passionately committed to what Jesus says. One of the greatest thinkers in the history of the church, Athanasius, wrote a book on God becoming a human being in Jesus Christ. At the very end, after he had written for pages and pages explaining the biblical and theological issues, he says this in his last paragraph.
"But for the searching and right understanding of the Scriptures there is need of a good life and a pure soul, and for Christian virtue to guide the mind to grasp, so far as human nature can, the truth concerning God the Word. One cannot possibly understand the teaching of the saints unless one has a pure mind and is trying to imitate their life. Anyone who wants to look at sunlight naturally wipes his eye clear first, in order to make, at any rate, some approximation to the purity of that on which he looks; and a person wishing to see a city or country goes to the place in order to do so. Similarly, anyone who wishes to understand the mind of the sacred writers must first cleanse his own life, and approach the saints by copying their deeds."
I want to make absolutely sure that you understand what he is saying. He is saying that, if you insist on living in sin and doing what you know to be wrong and making a habit of breaking God's laws, you will never be able to understand what the Bible says. If you knowingly and lovingly engage in sin on a regular basis, don't be surprised if you can't make any sense out of the Bible. If we want to know things, we have to live in a way that is consistent with them.
You know, this emphasis on community really shouldn't surprise us all that much. After all, one of the core claims of Christian faith is that God is, in God's own life, a community of Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For God, community isn't just an extra options that he can choose to be in or not; community is rooted in the very being of God, and we are made in God's image. How can we be surprised when we find out that the communities in which we find ourselves make up part of who we are? God is who God is because of the community that God is.
You know what? Even natural science supports this idea that who we are is partly shaped by those we are around. It used to be, according to a Newtonian view of the universe, that everything could be broken down into atoms that just bumped into one another. They were individual particles that had no real connection to any other particles, unless they all just happened to move in the same direction at the same time. With the insights of James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, and others, we have come to see that we can't really think of things this way. All of what we call matter can be understood as knots of energy in a continuous field of energy. Remember the equation E = mc^2? It is saying that energy and matter are not finally separate things, but that matter is a form of energy and energy is a form of matter. The point is that particles aren't just free-floating individual things, but are only what they are in their interrelations with each other.
So, if we can only know certain things if we live in certain ways, and if God wanted to reveal himself to humanity, what would he have to do? Well, he would have to mould and shape a whole culture from the very beginning. So, he would have to pick one person and take him out of his context, so he could start to reshape their basic ways of thought and life bit by bit. God would have to establish a special relationship that is unlike his relationship with another nation, not because God does not also love those other nations, but because God has to start somewhere. Over thousands of years, God would have to teach the people how to live so they might be able to understand him. He would have to give them a law, a distinctive form of thought and life, would have to continually call them back whenever they went astray, and carefully and slowly reveal himself using these transformed words that mean something different in that nation than they do anywhere else. Only after this culture is shaped over a long period of time would God be able to really reveal himself in his fullness.
I don't know if you remember back to Sunday School and confirmation, but this is exactly what God has, in fact, done. God selected Abraham and took him from his home, gave himself to his descendants in a particular way, delivered them from Egypt and gave them a law, sent prophets to call the people back to faithfulness. Eventually, Jesus came, but he couldn't have come until Israel's culture was ready to understand him, at least brokenly. That is why Jesus came in Israel. Not because they were better than other people, nor because they were worse, but simply because they were better equipped to understand him and this is only because God had been moulding and shaping them, sometimes painfully, over the last several thousand years.
The question you might be asking yourself is, "What does all this have to do with me? What difference does this make for my life?" It actually makes a lot of difference, especially as someone who comes to youth group and goes to church. You see, youth group isn't just a place where we can come and hang out with friends or meet new people. It isn't just a place where we can eat some food and play some games. It isn't just a place where we can sing some songs. We are about the business of creating and shaping a whole culture, a community of young people who follow the Lord. There is a sense in which we are constantly trying to develop culture that has been established earlier, since none of us were here with this youth ministry was started, but it is also a culture which, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is continually being established anew.
Another reason why this stuff about community affects you is because you are profoundly shaped by your communities outside of youth group as well. If you surround yourself with people who love the Lord, who are passionately committed to the gospel and allowing it to impact every aspect of their lives, you will find that is is so much easier to be faithful yourself. When there are people you can go to for support, when you know that you aren't alone in your seeking after God, it is much easier to do what you are supposed to do, to live right, to read your Bible, to pray. If you, on the other hand, surround yourself with people who don't really care about God, who like to do all kinds of things that are contrary to what God calls us to do and be, you will find that it is incredibly difficult to be a faithful Christian. In fact, if you spend all your free time in destructive communities, it doesn't really matter what your influences are at home or at church, it will be nearly impossible to really follow Jesus.
This is why we need to all work together. If any of us decides that we are going to be lazy, to just show up and go through the motions, it affects the rest of us. It is only when we all work together and support one another in our daily lives that we can really be who God has called us to be. There is no substitute for being part of a group of people who love God. As we work together and as we grow together, do not be surprised if you begin to look at the world differently, that you begin to see and understand things that you never could before. I am going to challenge you to think hard about what you believe and why you believe it. The reason for this is because we simply cannot assume that our secular culture has prepared us to know God.
If we want to study the heavens, we need to go where the telescopes are. If we want to study exotic plants, we need to go where they are found. If we want to know about microscopic life, we need to put ourselves in the places where we can learn about them. As Athanasius said, if we want to see a particular place, we have to go there. If we want to know God, we need to meet with God where he has met with us, which is, above all, in Jesus Christ and in the Bible. Not only that, we need to do it together. So let us join together, as people of different ages, with different backgrounds, and help one another meet with and come to know God in deeper ways every day. Let us pray.
AMEN
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