It's all Nominalism's Fault???

Part of my dissertation preparation is to read as many books on the "theological" origins of modernity like the recent books by Michael Allen Gillespie and Joshua Mitchell.  In other words, to look at books and essays that note how important religious issues were at the beginning of modernity until the present.  Even the Enlightenment itself was a contest of competing religious options and not simply the triumph of science and rationality over superstition (even though it was probably the French that popularized this particular narrative).

I guess in some cases of popular wisdom, religion has ceased to be a major factor in the continual quest of Western societies quest for modernization.  However, research has shown that the narrative that says religion will be passed by because of growing secularization is a myth.

Now the more and more I read about this issue, the more and more I come to the conclusion that 1) religion is here to stay because it is adaptable (much like many other things in society-see Giddens post on tradition) and 2) in many cases, the religious element has learned to correspond with the secular elements quite well.  In short, it is a very complex relationship between the secular and religious forces.

The problem with books by theorists like Gillespie and others is the need to boil down this complexity to a single, overarching problem.  He claims that it was the Nominalism of Ockham, later inherited by Luther, that led Western society into secularization.  Now Gillespie joins a host of other thinkers (not typically historians, I might add) like Milbank and the RO, who lay blame for modernization at Nominalism.

A recent discussion with George Hunsinger led me to see this move toward the Nominalist bogeyman to be a traditionalist account of modernization.  In other words, when one pulls out the Nominalist card it usually is a catchword for "Catholic" defense of religious traditionalism where the Church is still the controlling center of society (I detect even some of this in Protestant thinkers like Pannenberg).  The fact that modernization and secularization has decreased religious influence in society is frowned upon by many of this group, but I think otherwise.  There is still religious influence in society, sometimes it crosses over the church/state borders, but again, I think that is due to its complexity and in a democratic society with competing structures, it is up to its subjects to work the messiness out.

Finally, of course Nominalism had a part to play in the beginning of modernity, but I do not think it had the central part.

Giddens and Tradition

As I get closer to actually writing my dissertation, I have really tried to look at all the possible ways to analyze "my" actual methodology.  Because of my experience in studying historiography, I have lately developed a sort of love affair with sociology.  Mind you, this is not a "Christianized" sociology, much like I don't like to talk about a "Christianized" history.  Since I will be teaching Historiography in the Fall, I will be dedicating much of my summer time to exploring important sociologist with regards to modernity.

A couple of sociologists I have warmed up to are Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens.  What makes both of these figures special is that they fall somewhere in the middle with regards to the structure and agency argument.   Being the Barth guy that I am, I believe that Barth is also somewhere in the middle of the two; one can see his late work on Christian witness as an effect in light of the Spirit's previous work in giving humans real agency but without losing the focus of our place in societies structures.

I have only read a little from Giddens; I have just purchased his Consequences of Modernity and just read his short book Runaway World.  One thing that stood out to me is his important words about traditions and the Enlightenment:

"In my view, it is entirely rational to recognise that traditions are needed in society.  We shouldn't accept the Enlightenment idea that the world should rid itself of tradition altogether.  Traditions are needed, and will always persist, because they give continuity and form to life." (62-3)

The valuable point Giddens makes is that traditions will never cease to exist, yet, in the globalized world, traditions will find it difficult not to change, adapt and reinvent themselves in order to survive.  In fact, tradtions have historically always adapted to their environment.  One of the mistakes that the "secular" Enlightenment made were to make superstition and ignorance synonymous with tradition.

Zizek Reads Barth

Seems like Zizek has read a little Barth (specifically from God Here and Now, which was one of the first books I read by Barth).  From his most recent books, Zizek writes:

"With Christianity, it is the obverse-not "God proposes, man disposes," but rather, "God (first) disposes, (and then) man proposes."  What this means is that, although the Event has already happened, its meaning is not decided in advance but is radically open.  Karl Barth drew the consequences of this fact when he emphasized how the final revelation of God will be totally incommensurable with our expectations:

God is not hidden to us; He is revealed. But what and how we shall be in Christ, and what and how the World will be in Christ at the end of God's road, at the breaking in of redemption and completion, that is not revealed to us; that is hidden.  Let us be honest: we do not know what we are saying when we speak of Jesus Christ's coming again in judgment, and of the resurrection of the dead, of eternal life and eternal death...continues long quote...see pages 45-6 of God Here and Now).


See God in Pain pages 223-5 for Barth references

Danto on History: The Importance of Narrative

"Our incapacity, which is granted, to observe the past, is not a defect in history itself, but a deficiency which it is the precise purpose of history to overcome."

"History has been the central category of my philosophy, and the way we define our experience through narrative structures - through stories. The thing about stories is that we don't know how they are going to turn out, and how different the beginning is going to look to us when we see how it all ended. Philosophers mainly get hung up on the connection between consciousness and the brain, but my interest is in the historical structure of consciousness - how the consciousness of someone living in the thirteenth century has to have been different from the consciousness of someone living as we do in the twenty-first century."

Ankersmit on Historians

"I wanted to cut through all ties with literary theory and why, without changing conceptually or theoretically, I preferred to replace the term narrative by  representation.  Representation is a neutral term. I think it also quite adequately describes what an historian does – he gives a representation of the past in the sense of making the past present again. That is why we need historical writing. A representation is not necessarily a narrative; you have the so called cross-sectional studies, the famous example being Jacob Burckhardt's Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien or Huizinga's The waning of the middle ages or Braudel's on the Mediterranean world. They do not tell a story, they do not give us a narrative with a certain beginning, middle and end, but they are historical works representing the past."


"This is why the epistemological situation in which you find yourself when having to do with truth no longer exist when it comes to representation. You cannot say of representations that they are true. What you can say is that one representation is in a certain sense better than another and it is the task of the philosophy of history to clarify how one can be better in one way or another. And that is what I try to do with the notion of metaphor."


"Historians are swamped by historical truths – and this is how it ought to be. The more truths we have about the past, the better the historian's representations of the past may become."

More on the Election and Trinity Discussion

After taking my Comprehensive exams on Barth's theology  I tried to summarize in my mind where we are at after the McCormack's thesis on election (see earlier posts for what I am talking about):

1. Barth was inconsistent with regards to both election and the Trinity.  In short, he is sometimes very close to McCormack's reading and other times he is with Hunsinger and company.  Therefore, the context of what Barth "actually" believed is not a steady foundation.  You can proof text to make him fall into either positions. I think one should strive for authorial intent but at this point this does not rule which theory is more viable.

2. Barth's inconsistency deals with the nature of revelation and his constantly beginning again at the beginning.  The self-critical technique places Barth in a position where he is consistently working through and reworking ideas, which it is dangerous to simply proof text him.  Thus, this leads to points where he emphasizes the historicity of Christ and the humanity of God and other places he zones in on the freedom of God.

3. McCormack has made the point that Barth's view of election was his most important contribution to the realm of 20th century thought (not just theological), yet he also thinks it is underdeveloped; McCormack also acknowledges that Barth did not go further with this idea than he should have so he even sees his own project as somewhat original and creative ( a point his detractors sometimes do not respect).

He could not be more right!  I think Barth was pioneering with this idea and is consistent with his anti-idolatry, anti-metaphysical tendencies.  In what sense?  It frees us to think of God as God-in-relation with humanity (and the cosmos-ie Moltmann), so that one is not constantly trying to develop a theology of history that is different than what is revealed.  In short, it tries to curb the power of speculation between God's being and God's acts.  In other words, McCormack is playing to the somewhat Hegelian tendencies of the later Barth.

One of Hegel's points was how can one even talk about God if there is no interaction with humanity?  I think Hegel's question is even compelling to some of Barth's defense of the detached, transcendent (yet free) God.  If Barth (even unwittingly) teaches us something, it is to stop with the escape into the speculative, foundational metaphysics and to deal with the way the revealed religions contribute to our understanding of what God has revealed and how we live in light of this revelation.

Evangelical Calvinism=FAIL (or why John Piper is a bad man)...

It is an interesting thing to look back on why I decided to get involved in academics.  One of the motivating factors was that I was an avid reader of all types of evangelical Calvinism (Piper, Sproul, the Puritans featured in the Banner of Truth, some Augustine and of course Calvin himself), and I wanted to become a theologian to understand the Reformation better because of course the main problem in the world today is that there is a fight against the Reformation's view of justification by faith (ALONE)!

I tried to be a strong evangelical Calvinist for about a year or so (I remember famously getting in an argument with my mom and her "Wesleyian, Semi-Pelagian tenedencies"-c'mon, who talks like that!-over the issue of predestination and free will; there is a certain condescending attitude that sets in when you are one of the elect).  However, the fact that I studied history and enjoyed studying philosophy on the side "reformed" my theology to be less Calvinist (even though I have learned to appreciate Calvin, but the people who helped in this transition were Barth and Bonhoeffer).

One of the main issues had to do with the way evangelical Calvinists will almost robot-like claim that God was behind everything even events like genocide and murder (I guess tornadoes was the last event).  But they are consistent in the extent that God has to be sovereign over all things especially in the salvation of the elect; adding any foreign elements of goodness apart from God would mess up their formula (because humans are sinful to the core), so that leads them to make God completely in charge of salvation and also of damnation.

When it comes down to the issue of predestination and free will or the elect and non-elect I have gotten to the point of saying that I really don't care about this issue.  It has WASTED a lot of pens and paper and probably many an evangelical will argue some more over the Calvinist versus Arminius views.  However, rumor has it that many evangelical Calvinists are trying to draw the line in the sand that states they are the only "true" evangelicals.  Well, have at it...

If God is not a saving God and the gospel is not a good news for all humanity then I don't want to hear it (God is also holy and just and judges sin but, for me, not before the dawn of human time).  I would honestly rather side with Voltaire than with a Calvinist because at least Voltaire had the good moral sense to see disaster in the world as a bad thing and not try to rationalize how something like the Holocaust or child abuse could be somehow used to God's glory.  I just think it is about time for more evangelicals (or people in general) to call out this type of rationalizing.  It honestly does not help anyone.