One Metaphysic to Rule Them All

This is a game. Join in if you wish. A friend and I have been discussing which thinker of the 20th century created the most robust metaphysic. Of course, there isn't one right answer. But since it's the 20th century, on the tail end of modernism, a last discussion of one meta-narrative to rule them all isn't completely out of bounds.



So here is how I would assess things. If we were to go with a philosopher, the obvious choice would be Heidegger. Except Heidegger is forever going to be tainted by his connection to Fascism, so he is out. This leaves some later philosophers, and although much can be said for Foucault, or Derrida, or even alternative thinkers like Girard or Husserl or Arendt, in the end, I think we would have to name the century Deleuzian.



However, philosophy does not provide a complete metaphysic, so we drift out from there, and consider some theologians. Although much is made of the Barth-Balthasar pairing, and this would be very legitimate, given how each of them wrote a body of work that really attempted to be complete, I would give the century in theology to Dietrich Bonhoeffer if we are speaking of Protestants, and Rahner or de Lubac if we are speaking of Catholics. And Schmemann or Bulgakov if we are speaking of the Orthodox.



Yet this does not yet cut it. This is simply theology. More complete metaphysics are on offer from some of the greatest creative authors of the 20th century. If we move in this direction, the obvious choices include J.R.R. Tolkien, and his progeny, such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Lloyd Alexander. Although C.S. Lewis made an attempt, he was more of an apologist than a creator of worlds, so Tolkien is a more appropriate choice. Le Guin is my favorite in some ways even above Tolkien, if you consider her entire oeuvre. And into this category of 20th century thinkers I would also place such novelists as Dorothy Sayers and G.K. Chesterton.



If I were to take the next generation still in the 20th century, I would go for Discworld (Pratchett), who creates an entire universe that points in an interesting way towards the 21st century. And of course there is Rowlings, whose universe is much more robust than she is often given credit.

Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement

Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement. By Catherine Keller. Columbia University Press, 2014.  Pp. 394, paper.  

Let's start with one of the more important considerations. Of all the authors writing theology in English today, Catherine Keller must be ranked as perhaps the best and most innovative prose stylist. Her command of the language is incredible, and to such a degree that it might be said that Keller's contribution to constructive theology is as much in her use of language as it is in her proposal of concepts or analysis of the tradition.

For this reason, if for no other (and there are plenty of other great reasons), I recommend you read this book, then delve back into Keller's earlier works, especially her work on Revelation (Apocalypse Now and Then), and her most recent work on process theology (On the Mystery and The Face of the Deep).

Keller is patently a process theologian, deeply influenced by Whitehead, but what makes her unique among process theologians is the creative and grounded approach she takes to such theology, engaging, as she does in this wonderful book, contemporary physics, transcendentalist poetry, medieval theology, and contemporary philosophical work in relational theology.

Just listing these entanglements gives some indication of the breadth and depth of the work, but it is never inaccessible. Cloud of the Impossible expects much of its readers, but it is far from "impossible" to read.

If nothing else, one take away from the book is the extent to which the "cloud" itself stands as a symbol and image in Christian tradition. I certainly had not considered it as intentionally as other dominant motifs in Scripture like temple, Torah, body, baptism, or meal, and yet the more one looks at the breadth of the tradition, from the cloud that went before the Israelites, to the famous anonymous spiritual work Cloud of Unknowing, it becomes apparent that clouds are not a minor motif in Christian thought, but rather a dominant motif frequently overlooked.

Dig a bit deeper, and one discovers that clouds played a central role in the theology of such eminent theologians as Clement of Alexandra, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Gregory of Nyssa. For some reason, our vision of clouds has been clouded. Part of Keller's task in this work is simply to draw our attention to what had always already been there.

Additionally, because climate change is a core ethical issue in Keller's theology, the entangled relationship between clouds and climate comes forward. Clouds and climate change permeate the book. Towards this end, Keller makes frequent epigraphic use of lyrics from the enigmatic environmental indie band Cloud Cult--and to good effect. The epigraphs in the book sent me to Spotify for a re-listen to the albums, and they are splendid explorations in musical form of the theology developed in Keller's work.

Keller herself does an excellent job of describing the book's overall agenda. "The task before us will be to stage a series of encounters between the relational and the apophatic, or, to paraphrase, between the nonseparable and the nonknowable. Many of these encounters will take place as readings of nontheistic texts, requing little God-talk. But the series will nonetheless unfold chapter by chapter as the pulses and queries of a theology constructing itself even now" (6). This sentence lines out the agenda. Another sentence, nearby, illustrates her prose: "The Cloud of the Impossible hopes to demonstrate, billowingly, that these relations that materialize as selves and as collectives, the relations that crowd, that differ and matter, come also apophatically entangled in and as theology. For at a certain point the darkness--just where it turns theological, beyond all light supremacism--begins to glow: 'in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence'" (8).

The book begins at Sinai, with a consideration of Shekinah, God's presence as cloud and dwelling. Keller emphasizes that the unnameable name of God draws out the basic oscillation she is seeking to enact between enfolding and unfolding, saying and unsaying, possibilizing and making impossible.

Part 2 of the books shifts from Nicholas of Cusa and the Shekinah to a look at scientific, philosophical, and poetic explications of ontological entanglement. She makes splendid use of the quantum phenomenon described by Einstein as "spooky action at a distance." She also engages the philosopher most responsible for bringing Whiteheadian philosophy into complicated conversation with post-structuralist philosophy and psychoanalysis--Deleuze.

After a brief and wonderful journey through Walt Whitman, Keller then proceeds to outline a theopolitical mutual implicating of planetary entanglement in our ecological crisis with a constructive apophatic theology of love. This is a fascinating concluding proposal, because what it implies is that possibility itself, posse ipsum, may be precisely what love is, what Keller then terms an amorous cosmopolitics.

If I have one quibble with the book, it is her use of Nicholas of Cusa. As a constructive theologian, she seems to have built Cusa into that which she already needs to propose what she is proposing, rather than taking Cusa for what and who he is. But this is nothing that ultimately takes away from her theological proposal. In some senses, it will strengthen future readings of Cusa, because theologians of Cusa will have to, as Keller proposes, say and unsay in order to say more clearly how his theology differs from her interpretation of it.

What remains is what Keller has become known for, surprising sentences that knock the top of the head. Here is one, worth the price of the book: "After all, still, the God question. With one last gasp of theological authority, let me therefore say unto you--that for which God is a nickname cares not whether you believe in God. Doesn't give a damn. Isn't in the damning business. What matters, what might matter endlessly, is what we earth-dwellers now together embody. Not what we say about God but how we do God" (306). That'll preach, if you dare, but you'll get entangled in it, literally. Which is the point.

[Forthcoming as a review in Word & World: Theology for Christian Ministry]

Best Reads for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

This past year, I have become convinced that the reconciliation paradigm for race relations in the United States is a faulty approach, and plays into many of the white racist biases of our culture. Because the experience of various races in the United States is incommensurable, a paradigm based on parallelism of experience simply perpetuates the power dynamics intrinsic to racism as embodied in contemporary North American culture.

A couple of recent books have especially convinced me of this. The first was James Cone's The Cross and the Lynching Tree
  which illustrates that even white liberal Protestants of the 20th century failed to connect the horrendous lynchings in the south to the crucifixion of Jesus, even while they attempted to address racism theologically.

A second book, Dear White Christians (Prophetic Christianity)
makes the most compelling argument I have ever read for reparations as the essential paradigm for race relations, over against reconciliation. It is really a must read.

Of course, the recent movie Selma is also convicting, because it illustrates the degree to which the Civil Rights movements was a Black Church movement, and how infrequently the white church participated in the movement.



Some recent excellent essays on Selma include:

Why the Oscars' Omission of 'Selma' Matters

What went wrong with the Oscar hopes for 'Selma'?

What the hell happened to 'Selma'?

Selma and Clergy

Then there is perhaps the most important book ever written in English on race and theology, J. Kameron Carter's Race: A Theological Account

He and some colleagues have written an essential post today that is worth the time on King's faith as driving his activism.

Finally, this brief post from Huffington Post on MLK Jr.'s name change, includes a podcast with Paul Rauschenbush that is totally worth a listen: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/17/martin-luther-king-jr-name_n_6481554.html?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000055

Cursive Contains the Cosmos (or something like that)

Earlier this week 5 News was outside Butterfield Trail Elementary asking parents their views on proposed legislation requiring cursive be taught in Arkansas elementary classrooms. The reporter looked cold and was slow in getting takers, and my daughter seemed thrilled to watch the proceedings, so I agreed to talk. Here are the results: http://5newsonline.com/2015/01/15/state-representative-proposes-mandatory-cursive-writing-education-in-arkansas/

I was ill-prepared to answer the question as thoughtfully as I'd like. Honestly, I think like quite a lot of us, I hadn't given cursive much thought. Everybody has their personal history with hand-writing. Mine is not a glory story. I promptly stopped using cursive some time in middle school and reverted to print, which I've used ever since, except on signatures and checks. My hand-writing is terrible. I much prefer to type.

Having given the question more thought, I've decided there is a more interesting question, one worth pondering. Rather than discuss: Should cursive be required? I'd like to ask: What is cursive, after all?

So, first of all cursive is joined-up writing (the way most other English-speakers title it) or in some places, simply "handwriting." Print writing, the type I use most of the time, is non-continuous, block letters, like the type of this blog post.

Qur'an in classical Arabic cursive

Joined-up writing, or continuous writing, has some advantages of speed in writing, but the most important technology introduced with cursive is simple: You lift the pen from the page less frequently. This was especially important when people wrote with quills, because they were fragile, splattered if not properly used, and broke easily. Joined-up writing reduces considerably the lifting of the quill from the page.

The origins of our cursive are in Arabic. The long flowing script of Arabic manuscripts inspired Medieval Latin cursive, which inspired our modern cursive. I didn't know this until I started researching this post, but a ton of languages have cursive, including languages I've studied but never seen the cursive equivalents, like Greek. Even languages very distant from Geek and Latinate employ cursive, including Bengali, and Chinese, which employs joined-up writing more within individual characters rather than between the words (likely because Chinese is written in a radically different way than left-to-write continuous).

So that's cursive. This leaves us with a couple of questions then. First, is cursive advantageous yet today for writing with speed? To this question, I'd answer no. If you really want write fast in the modern era, learn to type. Typing is our speedwriting technology. I think we will also shift quickly to voice-to-text technologies, so the next wave of speedwriting might be those who learn how to use voice-to-text tools efficiently. Handwriting of any type is on its way out, and not coming back, at least where speed is concerned.

As an example, see this fascinating essay by Richard Powers, a wonderful novelist who dictates virtually all his writing: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/books/review/Powers2.t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

A more compelling argument can be made for cursive, however, and this is the argument from beauty. Certain types of handwriting are clearly more beautiful than others. This is also true of print, block letters, it's why we download and use various fonts. It's why some books are more pleasant to read than others, more pleasing to the eye. Print matters.

So too does handwriting. Honestly, I wish I had better handwriting. I'd like people to be able to read my handwriting with ease, and pleasure.

Lindsfarne Gospel, c. 700

Now, if you google calligraphy on, well, Google, one of the top hits is Shindig Paperie, a small business right here in Fayetteville that teaches it. I probably should sign up for a class. The point of calligraphy, its beauty, is its expansion of cursive. It is writing with long continuous strokes, as opposed to built up lettering which, although also beautiful, draws letters non-continuously by lifting the pen or quill.

Calligraphy is also the space in which writing truly passes back into the religious. Handwriting has always been focused at least to a degree on the maintaining and passing on of religious texts. In ancient periods, there were probably two primary groups who learned to write: those in power, who needed to keep political and economic records, and those in religion, who were tasked with copying religious texts. Think of the scribes mentioned frequently in Scripture.

Some calligraphic practices became high art. Pictured above, for example, is the beginning of the gospel of Matthew. Calligraphy in Arabic became especially elaborate, because of the injunction against graven images, so the text itself became the basis for much art.

But many traditions have, over time, turned handwriting and script into art. One of the most enduring is Nasta-liq, Persian calligraphy. Another is the calligraphy of Mi Fu of the Song Dynasty, China.

An example of anemic writing, by Zhang Xu

Interestingly, cursive has even drifted at times into non-meaning, abstract forms. Asemic writing, which was employed especially in avant garde artistic movements, actually has its origins with Zhang Xu of the Tang Dynasty (c 800 CE) who wrote in "crazy" calligraphy.

St. John's Bible, 2 Kings 2

I guess one might consider these types of writing the equivalent of speaking in tongues, in script. I find it fascinating that in a way commensurate to the transcendence of specific spoken languages by speaking in tongues (or Vonlenska), certain authors and calligraphers have transcended handwriting itself, either through artistic expansion or a drift a way to script of any specific sense.

That being said, a majority of calligraphy is still written for the beauty of it. One of the most famous recent examples is the St. John's Bible (http://www.saintjohnsbible.org). It is the first hand-written, illuminated manuscript written in the modern era. Like ancient manuscripts of almost any era, it was commissioned by a monastic community, Benedictines, but in this case it is illuminating a manuscript in a contemporary translation, the New Revised Standard Version.

Perhaps the problem with requiring cursive as a simple lesson to be learned in elementary school is this: It focuses primarily on the functionality (you need to learn cursive to be able to sign your checks... but in that case let's all just shift to fingerprints) rather than the art and beauty of it. If cursive is about beauty, it would better be taught in art classes. So let's have more art. Let's do calligraphy. Let's illuminate our homework, and create a next generation of young people who, through a variety of means, transcend the written word itself into something that takes wings, in whatever medium, so that art and language and voice and text all meet in a cacophony of gorgeous transcendence.