micah (3) -nature, grace and friendship
my third post:
the more i have thought about the issues dan raised in his last post, the more i have felt that an adequate response to them would require a fairly extensive treatment of what has been known in christian theology as the 'nature-grace problem', which is the question of how nature (most importantly, unredeemed human nature) relates to grace (most importantly, the grace found through redemption in christ). reflecting on this, i've concluded two things: 1) it will be unfruitful for this discussion, not to mention well beyond my ability, to address the nature-grace issue at an abstract level, and 2) just as different christian traditions offer different responses to the nature-grace issue (e.g. thomism vs. calvinism vs. eastern orthodoxy), so different christian traditions will have different answers to the questions about agreement and friendshp which, as i see it, are directly related to the nature-grace question. thus, without giving much theological support, i am simply going to give a brief sketch of how i think we can think about the issues dan raised. i present it as a (not the) christian view of these matters.
first, it is important to recognize that if the christian claims that the atheist has some proper understanding of value and some degree of virtue, then this claim need not involve the idea that the atheist secretly believes in god, or that the atheist is committed to a belief in god unbenownst to himself. the focus of the christian claim is less epistemic, less concept-oriented. as natalie mentioned in her comment, the christian is committed to the idea that the truth is not merely a matter of concepts or ideas. rather, the truth is, ultimately and mysteriously, the person of Jesus Christ. likewise, my claim for the (partially) virtuous atheist is not (or at least not first and foremost) that she has some concept of god working in her to help you to understand the nature of goodness. rather, it is the more outrageous claim that she has god working in her to help her to grasp what is good, to love the good, and to be good (insofar as any of those things is true of her)
what about dan's point that the theist is "committed to the claim that values relating to goodness etc. are conceptually related to truths about God such that one cannot have the former if one doesn’t have the latter." it seems to me that we have a variety of ways of talking about human goodness and what it means to live well. even within christianity, there are different and inter-related grammars to express the nature of the christian life -following christ as a student, obeying divine commands as a subject, loving god as a child, participating in christ's suffering a fellow-heir, etc. when it comes to general questions about how we should live -about values and practical commitments- i think the christian might say that there are correct ways of answering these questions that are semi-autonomous from reference to god. for example, we can talk coherently about goodness as a kind of proper functioning of the human organism (cf. phillipa foot's wonderful little book 'natural goodness'). this grammar of goodness -and the kind of goodness it picks out- is not conceptually dependent on the idea of god, such that one must employ the idea of god in understanding such natural goodness. in this sense, there are correct ways of understanding value-notions and forming practical commitments that are autonomous of the concepts of christianity.
however, these ways are only semiautonomous, in both an 'conceptual' and a 'metaphysical' senses: 1) conceptually, these ways of speaking will only tell a part of the story about human beings, and about what it means to live well. the fullness of the story is to be found only in the person of christ, and the Story of god's creation and redemption of humanity. thus, to understand completly what it means to live well and to have the right committments, one must go beyond concepts that leave out the divine. 2) metaphysically, the reality of all goodness, including the good for humans, is what it is because of god, whether we recognize this or not. one aspect of this is that even when an atheist has incomplete, 'natural' goodness, her goodness is still dependent on her (unrecognized but real) participation in god (see two paragraphs above).
it seems to me that, when talking about whether or not dan and i share the same practical values or engagements, much depends on the description and degree of specificity of those values and engagements. some descriptions make reference to the theological aspects of our behavior in ways that others don't. for example, we can descibe the same action as, 'she tried to forgive him', or as 'she tried to forgive him as christ forgave her.' the second picture gives us a fuller picture of the agent's motivations and desires, but the first picture is not wrong.
with respect to friendship, the key point is that the agreements which ground friendship don't have to go as far as the second kind of descriptions. that is, friendship doesn't depend on full agreement, but on the kind of partial, practical agreements that characterize so much of our lived interactions and getting on in the world.
at the same time, however, i think this also gives reason to see why there might be limits to the kinds of friendships that are possible between christians and non-christians, or theists and atheists. the basic thought is this: just as the second kind of description gives us more information about the person's beliefs and desires than the first (e.g. that she believes christ forgave her, that she thinks following christ's example is a good thing, etc.), so agreements which can be characterized in a more detailed or in-depth way will be agreements that touch on more of our beliefs and desires. that is, they will be agreements that touch on more of ourselves. and to share those kinds of agreements with another person, it seems, opens the door to being able to share more of oneself with that person. and, crudely put, the more of themselves that friends are able to share with one another, the deeper the possibilities for the friendship.
this point dovetails with my earlier comment about friendship and projects. we have different ways of describing the same project, and some of these descriptions get at deeper or more important aspects of ourselves that are invested in the project. for example, the same set of choices and practices might be viewed variously as part of the project of: 'trying to get a phd' or 'trying to live the examined life' or 'trying to use well the gifts god has given me.' whether or not a person can only understand or participat in the first of these projects, as opposed to the second or third, seems to say a lot about the possibility of me sharing this aspect of my life with that person, and hence the possibility of friendship with that person.
ok. this post was too abstract and too long. i would like to write (at least) one more thing about friendship. next time: love and hell.
the more i have thought about the issues dan raised in his last post, the more i have felt that an adequate response to them would require a fairly extensive treatment of what has been known in christian theology as the 'nature-grace problem', which is the question of how nature (most importantly, unredeemed human nature) relates to grace (most importantly, the grace found through redemption in christ). reflecting on this, i've concluded two things: 1) it will be unfruitful for this discussion, not to mention well beyond my ability, to address the nature-grace issue at an abstract level, and 2) just as different christian traditions offer different responses to the nature-grace issue (e.g. thomism vs. calvinism vs. eastern orthodoxy), so different christian traditions will have different answers to the questions about agreement and friendshp which, as i see it, are directly related to the nature-grace question. thus, without giving much theological support, i am simply going to give a brief sketch of how i think we can think about the issues dan raised. i present it as a (not the) christian view of these matters.
first, it is important to recognize that if the christian claims that the atheist has some proper understanding of value and some degree of virtue, then this claim need not involve the idea that the atheist secretly believes in god, or that the atheist is committed to a belief in god unbenownst to himself. the focus of the christian claim is less epistemic, less concept-oriented. as natalie mentioned in her comment, the christian is committed to the idea that the truth is not merely a matter of concepts or ideas. rather, the truth is, ultimately and mysteriously, the person of Jesus Christ. likewise, my claim for the (partially) virtuous atheist is not (or at least not first and foremost) that she has some concept of god working in her to help you to understand the nature of goodness. rather, it is the more outrageous claim that she has god working in her to help her to grasp what is good, to love the good, and to be good (insofar as any of those things is true of her)
what about dan's point that the theist is "committed to the claim that values relating to goodness etc. are conceptually related to truths about God such that one cannot have the former if one doesn’t have the latter." it seems to me that we have a variety of ways of talking about human goodness and what it means to live well. even within christianity, there are different and inter-related grammars to express the nature of the christian life -following christ as a student, obeying divine commands as a subject, loving god as a child, participating in christ's suffering a fellow-heir, etc. when it comes to general questions about how we should live -about values and practical commitments- i think the christian might say that there are correct ways of answering these questions that are semi-autonomous from reference to god. for example, we can talk coherently about goodness as a kind of proper functioning of the human organism (cf. phillipa foot's wonderful little book 'natural goodness'). this grammar of goodness -and the kind of goodness it picks out- is not conceptually dependent on the idea of god, such that one must employ the idea of god in understanding such natural goodness. in this sense, there are correct ways of understanding value-notions and forming practical commitments that are autonomous of the concepts of christianity.
however, these ways are only semiautonomous, in both an 'conceptual' and a 'metaphysical' senses: 1) conceptually, these ways of speaking will only tell a part of the story about human beings, and about what it means to live well. the fullness of the story is to be found only in the person of christ, and the Story of god's creation and redemption of humanity. thus, to understand completly what it means to live well and to have the right committments, one must go beyond concepts that leave out the divine. 2) metaphysically, the reality of all goodness, including the good for humans, is what it is because of god, whether we recognize this or not. one aspect of this is that even when an atheist has incomplete, 'natural' goodness, her goodness is still dependent on her (unrecognized but real) participation in god (see two paragraphs above).
it seems to me that, when talking about whether or not dan and i share the same practical values or engagements, much depends on the description and degree of specificity of those values and engagements. some descriptions make reference to the theological aspects of our behavior in ways that others don't. for example, we can descibe the same action as, 'she tried to forgive him', or as 'she tried to forgive him as christ forgave her.' the second picture gives us a fuller picture of the agent's motivations and desires, but the first picture is not wrong.
with respect to friendship, the key point is that the agreements which ground friendship don't have to go as far as the second kind of descriptions. that is, friendship doesn't depend on full agreement, but on the kind of partial, practical agreements that characterize so much of our lived interactions and getting on in the world.
at the same time, however, i think this also gives reason to see why there might be limits to the kinds of friendships that are possible between christians and non-christians, or theists and atheists. the basic thought is this: just as the second kind of description gives us more information about the person's beliefs and desires than the first (e.g. that she believes christ forgave her, that she thinks following christ's example is a good thing, etc.), so agreements which can be characterized in a more detailed or in-depth way will be agreements that touch on more of our beliefs and desires. that is, they will be agreements that touch on more of ourselves. and to share those kinds of agreements with another person, it seems, opens the door to being able to share more of oneself with that person. and, crudely put, the more of themselves that friends are able to share with one another, the deeper the possibilities for the friendship.
this point dovetails with my earlier comment about friendship and projects. we have different ways of describing the same project, and some of these descriptions get at deeper or more important aspects of ourselves that are invested in the project. for example, the same set of choices and practices might be viewed variously as part of the project of: 'trying to get a phd' or 'trying to live the examined life' or 'trying to use well the gifts god has given me.' whether or not a person can only understand or participat in the first of these projects, as opposed to the second or third, seems to say a lot about the possibility of me sharing this aspect of my life with that person, and hence the possibility of friendship with that person.
ok. this post was too abstract and too long. i would like to write (at least) one more thing about friendship. next time: love and hell.
posted by micah at 3:15 PM
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