To reason or not to reason

"In the warmth of the afternoon they went on again, and it came into John's mind to ask the lady the meaning of her second riddle.
'It has two meanings,' said she, 'and in the first the bridge signifies Reasoning. The Spirit of the Age wishes to allow argument and not to allow argument.'
'How is that?'
'You heard what they said. If anyone argues with them they say that he is rationalizing his own desires, and therefore need not be answered. But if anyone listens to them they will argue themselves to show that their own doctrines are true.'
'I see. And what is the cure for this?'
'You must ask them whether any reasoning is valid or not. If they say no, then their own doctrines, being reached by reasoning, fall to the ground. If they say yes, then they will have to examine your arguments and refute them on their merits: for if some reasoning is valid, for all they know, your bit of reasoning may be one of the valid bits.'"
C. S. Lewis, The Pilgrim's Regress, Book 4, Chapter IV

What is the colour of things in the dark?

"'You said that there were two things to say,' said John, 'What was the second?'
'The second was this. Did you think that the things you saw in the dungeon were real: that we really are like that?'
'Of course I did. It is only our skin that hides them.'
'Then I must ask you the same question that I asked the giant. What is the colour of things in the dark?'
'I suppose no color at all.'
'And what of their shape? Have you any notion of it save as what could be seen or touched, or what you could collect from many seeing and touchings?'
'I don't know that I have.'
'Then do you not see how the giant has deceived you?'
'Not quite clearly.'
'He showed you by a trick what our inwards would look like if they were visible. That is, he showed you something that is not, but something that would be if the world were made all other than it is. But in the real world our inwards are invisible. They are not coloured shapes at all, they are feelings. The warmth in your limbs at this moment, the sweetness of your breath as you draw it in, the comfort in your belly because we breakfasted well, and your hunger for the next meal- these are the reality: all the sponges and tubes you saw in the dungeon are the lie.'
'But if I cut a man open I should see them in him.'
'A man cut open is, so far, not a man: and if you did not sew him up speedily you would be seeing not organs, but death. I am not denying that death is ugly: but the giant made you believe that life is ugly.'
'I cannot forget the man with the cancer.'
'What you saw was unreality. The ugly lump was the giant's trick: the reality was pain which has no colour or shape.'
'Is that much better?'
'That depends on the man.'
'I think I begin to see.'
'Is it surprising that things should look strange if you see them as they are not? If you take an organ out of a man's body- or a longing out of the dark part of a man's mind- and give to the one shape and colour, and to the other the self-consciousness, which they never have in reality, would you expect them to be other than monstrous?'
'Is there, then, no truth at all in what I saw under the giant's eyes?'
'Such pictures are useful to physicians.'
'Then I really am clean,' said John. 'I am not- like those.'
Reason smiled, 'There, too,' she said, 'there is truth mixed up with the giant's conjuring tricks. It will do you know harm to remember from time to time the ugly sights inside. You come of a race that cannot afford to be proud.'" C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim's Regress, Book 4, Chapter III

Scheduled Posts

From henceforward I shall make scheduled posts whenever I feel like it. This way I can save up material instead of dumping it all at once. So I tell blogger when I want it to post a post and it does so.
No, I did not get up at 4:30 to make this post.

Brief Update

On Resident Aliens, I read chapter 2 and it is becoming evident that it's a liberal book, but I still think there are quite a few pearls of wisdom in there. It is somewhat a matter of presuppositions, though; it's the sort of thing where you'll tend to read in your own views when the author is using words quite differently.

My little sister meanwhile is a budding classics scholar, she said something like this the other day, "Aeneas is the slave of duty, just like Frederick from Pirates of Penzance."

Worth noting

``Sir Jasper Finch-Farrowmere?'' said Wilfred.
``ffinch-ffarrowmere,'' corrected the visitor, his sensitive ear detecting the capitals." P.G Wodehouse, A Slice of Life

If you don't know the mistakes of the present you're doomed to...?

The most appalling thing about reading history or at least about reading a good history is that you discover that people don't think the same way now that they used to, and back then they didn't think the same way as their ancestors. It makes you somewhat suspect that perhaps Reason isn't Supreme after all. I mean, the ancients had reason, the medievals had reason, and the enlightenment philosophers had reason, but reason never brought them to the same point.
The frightening thing is that we can't see the past the way those living in it saw it, and we never will. It makes you wonder if you're just a product of your age just as they were products of theirs. Then you say "Nah" and go back to watching the presidential debate.
Postmoderns would say that there's no way out. You're trapped. You can't think differently if you try, and you're not to be blamed, unless you are a white, male, capitalist oppressor. That is your fault.
But if you really know your history, it will do something for you. You may be able to see more than just the mistakes of the past. You may see the mistakes of the present.
Oh, and back to my other point about Reason. A modern examining the past ought to despair because he has been led to believe that it is pure Reason that makes him think what he thinks. He may, if he is honest, discover that it isn't.

Real Christianity

I've been reading bits and pieces of a book we have floating around our house called Resident Aliens, which claims in it's subtitle to be "A provocative Christian assessment of culture and ministry for people who know that something is wrong," and it may well be just that. I've only made it through the first chapter and so far it's been insightful. I know nothing about it's authors, had never heard about it before, but it's first chapter is certainly enough to keep me reading. I'll probably post more about it; it's quite quotable.

Who cares, modern theologians asked, whether or not Jesus walked on water, or Moses split the Red Sea, or Christ bodily rose from the dead? The important matter is not these prescientific thought forms but the existential reality beneath them. Everything must be translated into existentialism in order to be believed. Today, when existentialism has fallen out of fashion, the modern theologian is more likely to translate everything into Whiteheadian process theology, the latest psychoanalytic account, or Marxist analysis to make it believable.

"We have come to see that this project, though well intentioned is misguided. The theology of translation assumes that there is some kernel of real Christianity, some abstract essence that can be preserved even while changing some of the old Near Eastern labels. Yet such a view distorts the nature of Christianity. In Jesus we meet not a presentation of basic ideas about God, worlds, and humanity, but an invitation to join up, to become part of a movement, a people. By the very act of our modern theological attempts at translation, we have unconsciously distorted the gospel and transformed it into something it never claimed to be- ideas abstracted from Jesus, rather than Jesus with his people." Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon