A long overdue essay
This post is the first in four part essay that outlines, in some systematicity and depth, what I believe. I’ve been asked about my views from a number of Christian friends who knew me as a fellow traveller. Until now, I’ve felt like I’m responding to Christianity, rather than forging a viewpoint . This essay is an attempt to say, positively, what I value and what my core beliefs are.
Part One: Prologue
It’s been nearly four years since I left seminary mid-MDiv and left the church community I’d grown up in and struggled with my entire life. During these past few years, I’ve become part of a Unitarian Universalist Church, worked through a degree in philosophy, and continued to search for a more unified conception of the world into which I’ve been tossed. For as much as I disagree with Christian theology, in my time at Covenant Seminary, I found a genuine spirit in many of my professors. There was a richness and excitement in the way they approached living under the authority of the Bible–these were no mere Bible-thumping fundies, but reflective men and women like Esther Meek, Hans Bayer and Michael Williams.
After leaving, I began to wonder whether I had given up a rich narrative (from the garden to the cross to glory) in exchange for the dry facts of science and a shrinking sphere of confidence. Would skepticism rule? Could I, without the notion of a personal creative god, see beauty and awe in the world around me? Today I can state with assurance, “Yes” to both. There are two particular authors that have been important to me in this quest, and one so-called “spiritual path,” although you’ll see that I don’t like that terminology. I have no creed to hand you, ready-made and replete with footnotes. But I have an emerging sense of where I stand. It’s a place which is joyful and filled with a glimpse of what Dr. Meek would call “infinite future manifestations” of the real.
The two authors who have influenced me so much are ones who I have only encountered recently. In a way, their thoughts impact me because of the groundwork laid by others. I’ll mention a few of the forerunners: Daniel Dennett, Wilfrid Sellars, Annie Dillard, Michael Foucault, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Donald Davidson and John McDowell. Certainly these men and women don’t all fit together neatly; some of their central claims conflict. However, they’ve taught me the importance of culture and language in our experience of the world. At the same time, they’ve taught me to be skeptical of the claims of hard empiricism and a thorough-going relativism. I’ve become more aware of the biological backstory that brought humanity to where it is today. And I’ve come to see how difficult it is to pull biology and culture apart, to examine them on a philosophical operating table. The study of the human mind, the nexus where these concerns must pass through, has become central to me (I better toss in Immanuel Kant and Christine Korsgaard, too!).
In terms of teaching me to live with a sense of hope, gratitude and awe, the two authors I’m thankful for are Ursula Goodenough and Martha Nussbaum. Further, my Buddhish sensibilities have given me a very practical way to navigate through the world, not only in terms of philosophical presuppositions about reality, but in the lived experiences of emotion, self-identity, passions, etc.
I’ll start with Ursula Goodenough, who I’ve also heard speak.
(Part Two forthcoming)
Image: Cezanne’s Mt. St. Victoire (1902)