1. Dualism

2. Chapter 6: The Problem of Dualism

3. 3 What is dualism?  A “split-vision world view”:  sacred = our spiritual life  Secular = the rest of life  Where dualism shows up:  How we view work  How we view culture  How we read the Bible

4. 4 Christians and work  A vocational hierarchy  The idea of full-time Christian workers versus “others”  Vocation + faith rather than a faithful vocation  Divide work and leisure

5. 5 The Ancients and work  Freedom/necessity  The contemplative life (vita contemplativa) versus the active life (vita activa)  Contemplation versus action  Leisure versus work  Led to the idea that only monks and priests were pursuing the true Christian calling

6. 6 Christians and culture  John 17:16-17: How do we live in the world without being of the world? John 17:16-17  The issue of Christ and Culture (Richard Neibuhr). Test case: Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye  1. Christ above culture: read it because culture is good but holiness is better  2. Christ and culture in paradox: read it to know about the evil world we live in  3. Christ against culture: don’t read it because it’s evil  Result:  1. the Christian ghetto (#3)  2. Christian dualism (#1 and #2)

7. 7 Christians and the scripture  Matt 24:36-41: What’s the issue? Matt 24:36-41  Is the future redemption is a restoration of creation and our creature life?  Or is the future about removing us from creation and placing us in heaven (= taking us out of the world)?  Which view comes from dualism?  Romans 12:2: the way of transformation Romans 12:2

8. Chapter 7: The Development of Dualism

9. 9 Plato: Soul versus Body  Plato (c. 428-348 BCE)  Reality is composed of unchanging ideas or ideals (= forms)  Foundational idea: dualism of the world  unchanging ideals = forms  unstable, changing matter  Heaven = the true and ultimate reality  Earth = a derived reality, of lesser value

10. 10 Neo-Platonism  Plotinus (205-270 CE)  Added mysticism to Plato’s rationalism  Emphasized the mystical transcendence of our creatureliness (including our reason) to a union with the Supreme Being  Christian perception: Plotinus left room for revelation

11. 11 Christians and Philosophy  By 3 rd and 4 th centuries CE:  Church leaders saw Greek philosophy as necessary preparation for Christian theology  So, you read the ancients and then do biblical exegesis and Christian theology

12. 12 Augustine: Eternal versus Temporal  Augustine (354-430 BCE)  Influenced by Plotinus  Solidified the theological justification of dualism  Example: rejected sex and the body as shameful  Taught:  Faith has priority over reason  Reason is suppose to prepare us for faith and help us understand our faith  Stress: the fallenness of humanity and nature  Result: church dominates society (dualistic hierarchy of lower and higher institutions)

13. 13 The re-emergence of Aristotle  Aristotle (384-22 BCE)  Emphasized the study of reality as we experience it empirically  In the late Middle Ages, Aristotle replaced Plato as “the philosopher” in many Christian writings  Islamic scholars preserved and translated Aristotle  Christians re-discovered him  The appeal: his focus on empiricism

14. 14 Aquinas: Nature and Grace  Late Middle Ages  Still within dualistic framework  Aristotelian: placed more emphasis on nature, its goodness, and empiricism  Taught  The created goodness of humanity and nature  Grace functioned as an “extra gift” on top of nature (donum superadditum) = grace complements nature  Biblical view of grace? Grace restores nature  Fall = the loss of the gift of grace; human rationality was only weakened, not lost  Redemption = the regaining of the donum superadditum

15. 15 From dualism to secularism  Biblical view:  All of life can be characterized by obedience or disobedience  Nature/grace dualism:  Disobedience belongs to nature  Obedience belongs to grace  Good and evil are structurally fixed into 2 separate realms  Result: Gospel is irrelevant to life as a whole  Gospel either repudiates creation or just adds to it  Gospel is only tangentially related to creation and life  Secularism  God has nothing essential to say to us about the world we live in or how we should live  Secularism questions the authority and relevance of God for the saeculum, the world

16. Chapter 8: The Rise of the Secular World View

17. 17 The birth of the “modern” world  Time line:  1470: the origin of the Italian Renaissance  1700: the beginning of the age of Enlightenment  In between – the birth of the modern world  Secularism = a world view  Pico della Mirandola (1487)  Oration on the Dignity of Man (1487)  Human autonomy  Dichotomy: the rational subject (= free, autonomous human) vs the object (= determined, law-bound nature)  Nature = the nonhuman world, the realm of externality, of objects (= the world to be exploited)

18. 18 The Scientific Revolution  Greek science = contemplative  Middle Ages – empiricism comes to the fore  Nature points to God and the realm of grace  Natural theology– evidence of God based on the order and harmony of the world  Humanistic idea:  Science as a means to dominion over nature  Starts with Francis Bacon, early 17 th c.  Scientism:  The absolutization of science  “In science we trust”

19. 19 The Scientific Revolution  Mathematic Rationalism  Rene Descartes (early 17 th c.)  Dualism:  Res cogitans = the mind  Res extensa  = matter  = a system of physico-spatial, law-determined relationships  theoretical science, not (for that time) observable science

20. 20 A Humanistic Utopia  Observable Science/Deductive Reasoning  Francis Bacon (early 17 th c.)  Divorced from speculative philosophy  Science must be harnessed for utilitarian ends  Idea of creating a secular paradise  Used some Cartesian models  Became a faith  Explain and master the natural world

21. 21 Science, Modernity, and Christianity  Is Science inherently Anti-God?  Rational Universe  Good Creation (Machine) that can be manipulated  Good Creation  Secular-no external authority  Christian-God is the sole authority

22. 22 Stewards or Gods?  Secularism vs. Christianity  Secularism  Humans are gods  We take care of creation as gods  Christianity  Humans are stewards of God’s creation  Humans are a part of God’s creation

23. Chapter 9: The Gods of our Age

24. 24 The 3 primary gods of our age  Scientism  Technicism  Economism

25. 25 Scientism  Belief that human reason – especially the scientific method – can provide exhaustive knowledge of the world of nature and of mankind  Science = the source of revelation  Original sin = ignorance, irrationality, misinformation  Praxis (= activity)  Francis Bacon: knowledge is power  Utilitarian manipulation of the world for human benefit  The promise: omniscience

26. 26 Technicism  Builds on the achievements of scientism  Translates scientific discovery into human power  End of the 18 th century:  Switch from possibility of progress to the inevitability of progress  The new world is the world of the machine  The promise: omnipotence  Philosophy:  If it can be known, it must be  If it can be made, it must be

27. 27 Technicism  The Motive: profit and economic growth  The underlying principal:  The basic law governing human existence is self- preservation or self-interest  Adam Smith  The idea that self-interested activity of individuals will ultimately benefit all society (the “invisible hand”)  Problems with the invisible hand:  Exploitation  Pollution  Etc.

28. 28 Economism  Economism:  the absolutization of humanity’s good ability to max economical choices  The promise: material prosperity  This is the primary god today in the West  Its failure:  It didn’t make us happy  It brings us pain  It has negative ramifications

29. 29 Undermining the unholy trinity  Currently:  we are in a culture of decline  We are losing faith in our world view  Results of scientism, technicism, and economism are  Quantification of life  Loss of personal involvement and meaningful commitment in scholarship  The denigration of anything that is not scientifically verifiable  The shutting off of access to all non-scientific knowledge  Utopian hope: material prosperity will bring human fulfillment and happiness  Reality: there are limits  Result: a spiritual crisis that needs a spiritual answer

30. 30 Next Week EXAM 1 W&M, Chapters 10-12