Hello everyone,
My original plan of listening to this on Sunday and then commenting Monday was interrupted by my getting of a job, along with other things. I might be more punctual now.
I really appreciate that Dr. Arnn defined so many terms for us. I find that the background knowledge of latin/etymology of terms also helped me understand what he meant. For example, when singing in latin, "Christus Natus" means "christ child," I think. Or, as Dr. Arnn pointed out, the word "college" come from the same root word as "colleagues." I wouldn't be surprised if these courses got into mentioning the Trivium and how useful latin/greek/hebrew/ancient languages can be for learning and understanding... well, anything.
I'm also not surprised that he got to mentioning Winston Churchill, I hope/expect him to get into why Churchill was so great. Or rather, just as far as why ALL of the old people are so awesome.
I was kind of noticing that His theme of "the law of nature and nature's God" kind of boiled down to "Law" (athens) and "God" (jerusalem). Which makes me wonder, how far of a stretch would it be to say that this could be similar to Law and Gospel? As far as, God created, and there's order to His world that it helps to know. Though, in that case, Dr. Arnn would have it in the order of Gospel-Law, due to order that the events took place in history. I can definitely see how Christ could and hopefully will follow from where Dr. Arnn started, in the pattern of Gospel-Law-Gospel. Or something like that. What do you think?
Also, I'm also very enthused to see how his "choose your own reality" comment unfolds. Perhaps there will be discussion on how to deal with that attitude of relative truth. Just disprove it pretty immediately with contradictory evidence? I'd be very interested to hear more on that discussion! Aaron, if you ever got around to reading Craig Parton's book, he talks about that specifically for a bit in chapter 2.
Now, I've got to go to work, but I look forward to reading everyone else's comments/posts... tonight. Or tomorrow morning?
not all old people are great. that's why it's so important to learn about all of them. Augustine? badass. Nero? ...
ReplyDeleteI didn't listen to the actual lecture (... yeeeah), but from whenever I've heard Arnn speak on campus, he sounds pretty Laws and Works to me. I have never heard him mention anything Gospel-y, in fact. So I don't know what the lecture said, but I kind of doubt that he was getting into Law/Gospel, because I don't think he's Lutheran and otherwise that might be hard to get into.
any Athens/Jerusalem conversation i've had revolves around pre-socratic/Greek philosopher or Judeo-Christian basis for political human action. it's kind of "is religion necessary?" discussion more than a "Law and Gospel!" commentary. sad but true.
I want to read Craig Parton's book too! let's talk about that when we've all read it. lil Boy, do you have it? Keaton, do you?
I haven't read it. But I bet Craig Parton would point out the worth of being well read in the Western cannon. What's it called?
DeleteDr. Arnn is a teacher, not a pastor. It's okay that he's talking about Law stuff: that's his job. Law stuff is really useful, good, and wise for lots of things. Even to point us, eventually, to our need for the Savior. So... yeah. Go Law, when understood the right way.
Thank you, Minte, I emphasized that incorrectly. I was trying to refer to the awesome old people, the smart ones. But not... not call all the old people awesome. Once again, shows I don't know how to present what I mean in a proper fashion.
DeleteMinte, so maybe Dr. Arnn doesn't talk Law/Gospel. But what he said certainly could indicate a platform to talk about/provide the Law/Gospel. As in, He started the conversation Law/Works, but you finish it Law/Gospel.
Also, Keaton, I'm not entirely sure I understand. With your sentence, "Dr. Arnn is a teacher, not a pastor," are you suggesting that presenting a "proper order" (balance) of Law/Gospel is not every Christian's job? (If that's not what you were suggesting, then disregard the following)
So, teachers must not necessarily present Law/Gospel, only pastors? I think that, quite on the contrary, it IS his job. Perhaps that is not where you were going with your comment, though, since you went on to talk about why Dr. Arnn SHOULD talk about the Law, not any of the contrapositive or negative arguments.
Rather, this is how I see it: It is the pastor's job to present Law/Gospel, it comes from his preaching. It is the parents' job, it's in their parenting. While the teacher may present the Law, it is also definitely in their job description to be forgiving when a student makes a mistake. I can vouch for this, and say that my grades would be significantly lower were this not the case. Recently, I've witnessed a teacher's forgiveness in the form of letting me take a final that I didn't show up for, and another teacher accepting my 15 page paper that I turned in 36 hours late. Judging from this argument, I'd say that the proper distinction between (and presentation of) Law/Gospel stands very tall in any Christian's vocational definition, whether they know it or not. The way that this presentation manifests itself could vary, and may be Law-heavy in one profession or Gospel-heavy in another, but I'd say that it (the need for a proper distinction [order, balance] of L/G would still be there.
I henceforth suggest that we abbreviate any future discussions on West/East to W/E, and Law/Gospel to L/G.
Craig Parton's book is called "Religion on Trial" and I have a copy here for anyone to read (when I'm done with it).
An excellent question. Here's my thoughts:
DeleteHow would a chemist go about properly balancing L/G in his job as a chemist? Does he have to assign bible verses to every compound, and make sure they remain properly distinct? He can't allow mixtures or ionic bonds because they don't properly divide the Law ions from the Gospel ions?
No--that's silly. He has to do his job as a chemist, and if he tried to understand his chemistry in terms of L/G, he'd be a really bad chemist. Chemistry happens in terms of ions, organic compounds, mixtures, bonds, electrons, etc.. It has its own terminology, and as far as I can tell, that's okay.
So... chemistry has nothing to do with L/G? How does chemistry relate to L/G?
We know that God created the world, and He made it behave according to physical rules, one of which governs ions and compounds and covalency etc. The study of chemistry is the study of God's created natural order. Chemical bonds don't tell us anything about the Gospel, because the Gospel is delivered to us in Word and Sacrament (One of which breaks the rules of chemistry anyway, so....yeah).
Studying chemistry is, in a roundabout way, studying the Law. The Law that God put into ions to make them behave like they do. The ions obey those laws. The laws of physics. The laws of chemistry. The laws of nature, from nature's God.
Should your chemistry teacher interrupt your lab to tell you about how ions are like law and gospel? I don't think so. In his vocation as a chemistry teacher, he's supposed to teach chemistry. He'll remind you that chemistry can't tell us where life came from, because that's not chemistry's job. But that's about it.
Should a doctor interrupt his open heart surgery to tell you L/G? No. Your pastor prayed with you before you went into the OR. It's not the doctor's vocation. In fact, if he didn't get on with the surgery, he wouldn't be serving or loving his neighbor very well. There's a time and a place for everything under the sun. It is good for man to enjoy his toil under the sun.
DeleteYou're asking, and you may not realize it, a gigantically good and complicated question. I am inspired to dance.
How is a history teacher any different? Yes, as a husband and father each christian man is given spiritual authority over his household. But Dr. Arnn (and later the other profs) are not your father or husband. They're your chemistry teachers. Your history teachers. Your doctors. And in each of their separate vocations, there is a way we are served.
History teachers should teach history. Doctors should heal. Chemists should mix things until they're dangerous. Mathematicians should compute. Daleks should exterminate.
There are two ways, however, in which a man can properly divide L/G in his life, throughout every vocation.
The first one you hit on already: we are called to forgive as we were forgiven. But a man or woman can do that through their actions towards someone else, whatever those actions are. They don't have to compromise their vocational duties in order to be gracious. A prof can give you an extension. A cop can give you a warning instead of a ticket. A receptionist can smile and be nice even though you're a jerk....all of which are within the bounds of their job description. But if a chemistry teacher stopped teaching chemistry and started teaching L/G, he'd be... well, he'd be a good theology prof, but a poor chemistry teacher. Get my point?
The lectures are here to teach us history. And politics. And philosophy. And how (not what) to think about all of this.
DeleteThe second thing is this:
We will have to figure out how to figure out the relationships between theology and, say, philosophy. It'd be wrong, say, for biology to make a claim that is outside of its proper limits. Biology can't tell us where life came from, but it can tell us what life looks like. Chemistry can't tell us where life came from, but it can tell us what seems to make it work. Physics can't tell us where life came from, but it can get itself really confused trying to figure out where the universe came from. Theology has a valid answer for where life, the universe, and everything came from. But theology proper can't really tell you whether gluten is good for tree frogs or not. You'd have to ask a biologist.
The relationship between theology and philosophy and the "sciences" and everything else gets complicated. Some of what we're going to read is a discussion about how these things relate, and why they relate the way they do. I'm almost %99 sure we'll end up talking about that by the time we get to the medieval era, so... hold off for a bit.
Right now, you're learning history, philosophy, and politics (There is some theology involved too, but he's probably going to keep that pretty vague for now). These things are good to learn. They are not the distinction between Law and Gospel. You already know that. And you know you can't do long division by Law and Gospel, or do a chemical transformation with L/G, and you're okay with that. There is an order to the world, some of which is physical, some of which is mathematical, some of which is philosophical, and some of which is theological.
The proper distinction between Law and Gospel deals with theology, and God's relationship with man. The rest are beautiful and useful things to know to be a human being in this world, where you have to deal with the physical, the political, the philosophical, and the mathematical. And History. And people. So... yeah. Good thought.
How long Craig Parton's the book? I'll borrow it when/if I get a chance. I've got a lot to read right now anyway. Hm.
But Minte, don't forget that we can learn what NOT to do from the bad people.
DeleteBrennick, I like your willingness and enthusiasm to relate things to God and how He relates to us (Law and Gospel). I see the comparison you are making, but you are skipping a ton of steps. In other words, what you said is quite a stretch (though I believe it's still correct) so you need to fill us in more on HOW you got from Jerusalem/Athens to Gospel/Law. I REALLY liked your observation of the pattern Gospel/Law/Gospel, and I intend to let that roll around in my brain.
Keaton, I think you go a step further than I do in what you say to Brennick. I say, "You're right, but work on explaining yourself better." I'm going to try to synthesize your long comments to mean that you say to Brennick "Your thought process is good, but you are not properly distinguishing between theology and other fields of study. In theology, most everything can be put in terms of Law and Gospel, but this is not true of all other fields of study." I have a complex thought in response to this.
You are right in that when we study nature, we are studying law, and that the Gospel is revealed to us in Scripture and Sacraments. But I would add to this that when we fully understand a field of study (say we learn ALL there is to know about chemistry), we realize that we don't really, truly understand it until we apply it to everything else. What good is chemistry is it doesn't lead us to questions about biology, sociology, geography, and theology? Not much. What I'm saying is this: when we study nature, we study law, but as the law (of a field of study) becomes more fully understood, so too its need for other fields of study in which to become manifest and applicable is shown. What does Law do? Shows us our need for a savior (Gospel). It doesn't SHOW us the Gospel, but it shows the NEED for one. This goes with my earlier interest in paradox and balance/cooperation.
How do you react to that, Keaton? Do you think that, if in nature we see law, then the law of nature can show a need for the gospel?
Wow! Aaron, that was an excellent summary of what I said. Thanks.
DeleteYour excellent question sparked some thoughts that ask to be answered more fully, in a different post. So.. hang on.
I must be a little fuzzy on either history or the lecture. Was he talking about the FOUNDING of Jerusalem and Athens, or the significant events which took place there? If the latter, (I was thinking the events were Jesus and the philosophers) then Athens came before Jerusalem. I'm just a little lost in the analogy, though I knew right away you were going to bring Law and Gospel into it!
ReplyDeleteI've got the book! I'll try to read it when I'm not at work or running or eating or sleeping or at play practice? (no I don't excrete--ain't nobody got time fo' dat!)
Both. Your question will be answered by the next couple of weeks, when we get to the respective lectures. I believe Dr. Arnn was generalizing a bit when he was referring to Athens and Jerusalem, but his generalization worked to bring out the point he wanted to bring out: "wise people from J and A answered enduring questions, and learning their answers is worth it." More details will have to follow later.
DeleteTo be honest, these lectures will have to be abbreviated somewhat, because of time restrictions. I've had some exposure to the real courses themselves, as has Minte. I think I can safely say that we'd both recommend the readings as well as the videos, if you really want a feel for what people in history thought.
Yet I'm also sympathetic to blog syndrome: having an enthusiastic start, and then waning interest after that. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves... burn too brightly now, only to flicker out later.
This whole reply/tab thing is QUITE atrocious and hard to determine. Is there a way to rearrange it, oh master and commander of the far side of this blog?
DeleteI'm starting to wonder why Dr. Arnn referenced Jerusalem, when a Christian would look at the beginnings of a monotheistic religion from much much earlier. Would not a better reference be, perhaps, Abraham? Or Israel? Why did he pick a city from late-hebrew-history?
I'd also like to comment that the logic from my previous comment might be incorrect. Instead of my "rearranging," perhaps I should look better into UNDERSTANDING what I have been seeing as a problem. For example, if my communication in my relationship is broken, I could solve by divorcing and starting with a new, better wife, rather than understanding and improving and fixing. So although this brings up a whole very interesting topic of "break it, get new or fix it"? Or rather, I don't understand a topic [the blog format], do I complain and fix it, or just learn to understand it and see the benefit in it?
Delete...that aside, the reply-tabbing/not-tabbing is confusing me
Thats funny, there's a "comment" feature at the VERY bottom that's slightly different than the "reply" feature." See, this also works with my above metaphor. By doing slight research into my topic, I was able to come to an understanding of my "problem."
DeletePerhaps I could even relate this to the people who nowadays make laws and rules within America, that on account of them not understanding something, they have to have a "fix" THEIR way. As in, the "we-don't-understand how to use guns so we'll outlaw them for everyone" mentality.
Which reminds me of this website, (http://www.molonlabe.com/) that I saw a week or so before watching this week's video. It's not really worth a look, except that it talks specifically about what Dr. Arnn was referencing. And how the past relates to the present, something that I think was brought up somewhere else on here.
DeleteThis is fun to watch, to see the timestamp on the comments and try to figure out what order you wrote them in.
DeleteIf you want to reply to the main post on the page, go all the way to the bottom and either a) type in the box or b) hit "add comment."
If you want to reply to a comment, hit the "reply" button beneath the one to which you are replying.
The comments are nested.
ΜΩΛΟΝ ΛΑΒΕ. yus. I've heard of them. It's a product thing too, but if I didn't want to pay them money, I could probably just make my own sticker, if I owned guns and wanted to en-sticker them.
Why Athens and Jerusalem? They're the best examples of cities from cultures that made major contributions to the Western Heritage. Technically speaking, He should have started in Eden, then gone to Noah, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Solomon.... but that's a whole lot more explaining. Rhetorically, it makes more sense to generalize it down to two cities. We'll find out more as time goes by.
Yay for jobs!
ReplyDeleteI got excited and wrote entirely too much to Aaron, and probably scared him off, and mis-established the tone of the blog conversation (I promised informal; I delivered way too formal). So I'm toning it down.
"Natus" is a past participle, meaning "born." Singing christus natus est translates as "Christ is born." So a "nature" of a thing refers, etymologically, to it's birth. To is genesis, and essential makeup. And yes, an understanding of language and history is really helpful in figuring out the nature of the universe.
In fact, human beings describe the nature of the universe with words. It's our best tool to describe the world, to understand it. That's why the word for "logic" comes from the greek word λόγος, which means "word, account, reason." So knowing words helps, and being precise with them helps. Forgive me if I get to embroiled with semantics, at the expense of everyone's understanding.
Winston Churchhill was a great leader. He's also Dr. Arnn's go-to guy for historical examples of courage and prudence. In part, this is because Churchill was, as they say, "a boss." The other part is that Arnn wrote a book about him. I'm sure it'll come up eventually, but that's not important for right now. There are other great leaders to hear first.
It's a stretch to say that he was talking about Law and Gospel. He's not. Not everything is Law and Gospel. Most things, as it turns out, are straight up Law. And that's okay. Repeat: that's okay. In fact, it's good for us, as long as we treat them according to their rightly ordered position. We need the Law to learn how to treat one another in the civil realm. We need the Law in order to describe what is right and wrong, to talk about ethics and justice, about what the right ordering of the universe is. The Law(s of nature) were written by God (who made nature), so when we learn about the nature of things, we are learning about the Law of God.
Eccl: 2:13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness.
Ps 1:1-2
1 Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
Ps 119:174 I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight.
Proverbs 1:1-7
1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
6 to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
ReplyDeleteThere's also that bit at the beginning of Romans, where Paul argues that even pagans have a natural knowledge of some kind of God in their hearts, by the Law written on their hearts. Among other things, we're studying that Law. The Natural Law, and the wisdom it brings. We as christians can boldly confess that this law is God's law. We can look around and see how sin has messed up the world, and how mankind has tried to answer the enduring problem of evil and live together in peace and harmony until we are taken home,.
So to be clear, it is okay that we're learning this. Dr. Arnn is not a pastor; he's a teacher. It would be odd to expect him to preach the gospel to you. That's not his vocation. But he is teaching stuff that is good for us to know. Not stuff that gets us eternal life, but stuff that is very useful to know for the wisdom reasons above, and also so that we can better serve and love our neighbors in our vocations here.
The greeks in Athens discovered something about Natural Law. They noticed that it was better for men to live righteously than to live evilly. They tried explaining why, and I think their explanation was a very good one. I really don't want to talk about this more right here and now, because we'll be talking about the greeks for one whole lecture next time.
By the time you get to Aristotle the real heavy duty philosophers, using human reason, had to admit that if there was a god, there was only one God, and that God was far beyond the knowledge and understanding of any human being on his own. Plato and Aristotle rejected fickle gods like zeus and ares, etc.... A lot of people in the middle ages believed that if Aristotle had had a chance to hear the revealed Word of God, as revealed by God to the Israelites, he would have believed in it and come to faith in the real God. I don't know if they're right or not, but I haven't read enough of the other history to be able to say for myself.
Enough on the greeks. I don't want to spoil your appetite. We'll talk about their specifics later. For now, I just wanted to point out:
There are other dynamics besides Law and Gospel. There are other ways of looking at the world. Most of them we can safely order underneath the category of "Law." That's okay. We should some new ways of looking at the world. When approaching the question of human government, for example, the distinction between Law and Gospel isn't much help. We need some more appropriate conceptual tools to figure that out. Some were forged in greece, by pagans. Some were formed in Jerusalem, by Jews. Some were formed in Rome, by papists. Some were formed in France. Some were formed in England, or the colonies, and eventually America. So we're going to go get some more tools.
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