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Russian Novels and Humanity or What I like about Dostoevsky & Tolstoy.

08 Jun

One thing I appreciate about Russian novels (and I’m thinking here of Tolstoy & Dostoevsky) is that they are real. They present realistic portraits of people, not one-dimensional flat characters. They take situations that people experience and make them understandable. Let me explain.

We often say to ourselves, upon hearing of something someone has done (usually horrific), “I can’t believe they did that!” by which we mean, “I don’t understand that person and I would never do that!” It seems that in order to understand them we have to either have a similar experience, or know the person so intimately that we can “experience” it ourselves.

Tolstoy and Dostoevsky have a way of making option two come to life for their readers. They force us to understand how people get to the point in their lives where they do the things they do (horrific or otherwise). By allowing the reader to experience this they can relate to other people better. In fact, the reader can, if they are open enough, begin to see how they themselves are not that far off from doing the same things they once said they did not understand and could not do.

Have you read these guys? What do you think? Here’s a few of their most popular works, each highly recommended.

 
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Posted in thought

 

John Walton on the Creation Act and Functional Ontology – Part One

02 Jun


The Giant’s Chair, Natsworthy for SX7280

What does it mean for a chair to exist? A computer? A business? Does something exist merely when its material components exist? Can a chair can be said to exist when all of its parts have just come off the factory line, or do they need to be assembled and working before a chair exists?

Another Way to Understand Existence

Contrary to what the opening paragraph might suggest, this article is not a philosophical argument about a specific ontological position. John Walton, in his work The Lost World of Genesis One, suggests that existence can be understood in other ways than merely by material presence. That is to say, it is possible to understand that something’s existence is not necessarily based solely on the fact that its material is present. He suggests this, not to argue that we ought to revise our own materialist ontological assumptions (although a case might be made for that), it is instead to show that other possibilities exist, namely functional ontology. Existence can be understood in terms of functionality.

Ancient Understand Existence in terms of Functions


http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/3378221946/

He argues that the ancients held to this sort of a functional ontology. For something to exist, it not only needs to have a material aspect, but more importantly, it needs to have a function. He argues persuasively in his second proposition, through the literature of the ancient near eastern peoples, that, for them, non-functioning things are non-existent. A barren landscape, to them, is non-existent land. Their creation stories deal with making the world a functioning place out of a non-functioning one.

What Does This Have To Do With Genesis?

This is extremely important in developing an understanding of Genesis. If all ancients held this view of existence, and for something to be created meant that something is given a function rather than given material substance (implying the material substance is required, but not part of the act of creation), then this could change our understanding of what Genesis is trying to convey. What if the act of creating is more literally understood as an act of making the world functional, rather than making its materials?

Next Time

We’ll examine how Walton proposes to make the leap from how non-Hebrew ancient near eastern people viewed creating to how Hebrew ancient near eastern people viewed creating through the evidence from Genesis.

 
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Posted in bible, hermeneutics

 

C.S. Lewis, Myth, and Christ

28 Apr

So last time, if you can remember that far back, we talked about the connection between C.S. Lewis’s idea of myth and truth. Today I want to explore that connection in light of the fact that Christ described himself in the New Testament as “The Way, The Truth, and The Life.” So if Christ is the Truth, then logically there would be a connection to myth.

Christ and Myth?

At first this sounds ridiculous since we know Christ was a historical figure and not a mythical one. However, Lewis’s definition of myth did not allow for such a harsh dichotomy between historical and non-historical. He wanted, instead, to suggest the idea did not carry a necessary historical component at all. It seems, rather, that the connection shows that Christ is ultimate myth. For, since myth is truth communicated within reality, and Christ himself is described as the truth, then Christ is the ultimate communication of truth since he is embedded in reality (as a person, not simply a story). Lewis describes this as myth become fact.

Myth Became Fact

Lewis writes, in his article Myth Became Fact, “The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history” (God in the Dock, p. 66. Italics his). While Lewis himself is referring to the stories and events surrounding Christ and the incarnation, I think it goes slightly further to include Christ himself as we have seen above. That is my own logical extension of what Lewis’s idea of myth implies, I’m not sure if Lewis himself would draw the same conclusion.

So, what does this mean?

For one, I think this deepens my understanding of Christ and his place within reality and his connection to it. I think it may also help us gain a deeper understanding of the Bible itself. I’m still thinking through all the implications of this, but I want to know what you think. So, what do you think it means?

This post is part of a series of posts on C.S. Lewis and his idea of Myth

 

Books I Directly Used (they go into more depth):

 
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Still Here – Stay Tuned.

20 Apr

So it’s been about a month since I posted my last article in the series on C.S. Lewis & Myth. I haven’t forgotten about that series, it’s still sitting in the back of my brain. Things have been a little busy around here, and when that happens I’m forced to prioritize. Which means this blog has to wait a little bit. So I’m still here, still working through the C.S. Lewis series as well as some other thoughts I have. Stay tuned. Thanks.

 
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C.S. Lewis, Myth, and Truth

09 Mar

We next turn to examine the connection between C.S. Lewis’s idea of myth and Truth (the absolute kind).

Is Truth Real?

If myth is a concrete expression of an idea (in the Platonic sense) it somehow takes Truth (abstract) and transpositions it into reality (concrete). Since Truth has to be transpositioned into reality by myth, it appears to mean that Truth is not real. However, this is not the case.

First, you have to keep in mind the his distinction between ideal and particular, or essence and existence. That sounds tricky, and but it’s not that bad, stick with me. Something’s essence (idea of a tree) is not dependent upon its existence (particular concrete expression of a tree). Lewis seems to hold that Truth is in the realm of essence and not existence.

Second, we have a common notion of “real” that differs from a philosophical notion of “reality.” When we say “real”, we mean that which is opposed to made up. Reality is the realm in which we live, move, experience things, etc. (the realm of existence). Truth is not in that realm and therefore not real – not in the non-made up sense, but in the not part of the realm of reality sense.

Myth’s connection to Truth

Thus, myth is connected to absolute Truth because it moves Truth out of the realm of essence and into the realm of existence. It makes Truth something we can experience.

I realize some of this seems kind of like just playing games with words, but I think it is more than that. It is fascinating to me to think about myth in this way. How a story, a great story, can bring an abstraction into my concrete experience of reality.

Next time

What gets more interesting the connection of myth and Christ. I haven’t even fully played with this in my head, but if Christ claimed he was Truth, then what does that mean in light of what we’ve just looked at? What is the incarnation then?

This post is part of a series of posts on C.S. Lewis and his idea of Myth

 

Books I Directly Used (they go into more depth):

 
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