Ameritocracy

There, I have done the unthinkable (but not that I haven't done it before, so perhaps it is only unthinkable to some). A neologism has sprouted. I hereby define 'ameritocracy' as i) a non-merit-based form of power sharing policy, and ii) a kind of American behaviour in which assertions about theology and other such drivers of opinion are leavened with refusal to look at primary sources.

The latter exercises me a great deal. I keep reading stuff about how a Christian nation should behave. Oh, please. America is no more a Christian nation than Jesus was a Roman Catholic. It was founded on humanist principles and fig-leaved with God by a bunch of Freemasons and whatnot, which is why America's religious traditions tend to be oddly crazed (I use this in the sense of 'fractured').

Just this evening I was treated to the awesome contention that the Bible would not condone capital punishment. Well, it does. Unless you do a lot of unedifying stance-shifting and peculiar exegesis. Especially with Romans 13:3-4 on the table, and Paul's blatant acceptance of the right of the state to try him with capital punishment as one possible outcome.

Ah well.

Humility

It is good to stand in sober judgement over one's own self. We are told not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, but to think soberly, according to the measure of faith God has given each of us.

That is not to say that we are not to think highly of ourselves at all, but that we are to think more highly of others. In some ways, that is similar to the idea of loving ourselves; we are not told to not love ourselves, but to love ourselves not more than we love others, and to love that which is of greater spiritual value.

This is a simple idea. You cannot love your neighbour as yourself if you do not love yourself at all. And if you hate yourself, that is a bad thing for all the world, since you must then hate your neighbour too. In this age of globalisation, the thought that everyone is your neighbour is becoming more relevant.

So today then, it being Christmas Day, we have a convenient moment to sit and look at ourselves soberly. How much is the value of a life? How much more are other lives worth? Are we willing to serve others so that we might become less and they might become more?

Here is some advice from the Good Book.

Know those who work above us and among us and with us. Be at peace. Warn those that are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient to all. Do not return evil for evil, but follow that which is good. Rejoice evermore and always. Prayer unceasingly. Give thanks in all things: for this is the will of God.

And have a happy new year too!

Multipolar

The world is becoming multipolar, according to all kinds of sources. But that's a silly 'sky is falling' sort of statement. The world has always been multipolar; it's just that sometimes, the narrative has required some sort of Zoroastrian dualism (e.g. 'The American Way' vs 'The Evil Empire') or some sort of divine exceptionalism (e.g. 'Rule Britannia'). The complex poetry of the world has always been made prosaic by clever people who hate the messiness.

Look at science. Science is democratic. In theory, everyone can be part of the formal discourse because everyone shares the same starting axioms and the same reasoning process. In practice, science is elitist. It creates spiraling towers of horn and ivory, as more of it is formed into more and more specialised stuff and fewer and fewer people know what to do with it — or what can be done with it.

Look at democracy. Democracy is evil. Why? Because humans very well know that the worst thing to trust is humanity. And yet we claim that we want everyone to have the same rights and powers and privileges because all humans are equal in some sense. But democracy is good, because it gives us the comforting illusion that someone who is better than us isn't really better, and that anyone can be as good as anyone else.

These two forces are the greatest movements of the modern age. They have undeniably done much to improve human conditions from a human point of view. But they persist in making enemies, not because they are good things (and thus persecuted) but because they are human, and thus imperfect. And they love trampling over other ideas because they are good at it.

But shouldn't they win, since they are better ideas? The point is that we don't know for sure that they are better ideas. There is no objective point to view them except through the anthropocentric lens of being. We can philosophize all we want, but all we know is that they are convincing ideas to many humans. They win a lot of 'marketplace of ideas' competitions — but the marketplace of ideas can only exist in a world where democracy and science have a significant presence.

I like both democracy and science because they make my life comfortable. If that is how we decide what is good, then I guess that's good. But I'm uncomfortable about thinking that. So what else should I think?

I think I should not conform to the pattern of this world, I think.

Worthless?

Today's post was triggered by something somebody said about how worship comes with a sense of one's personal unworthiness. I think that's partly justifiable; after all, you are indeed facing the Infinite and Eternal — compared to such things, you might feel finite and timebound. But further examination proves that the position of unworthiness is philosophically and theologically untenable beyond certain limits.

Let's begin with some simple assumptions. Let's say you are conscious that God is infinitely greater than you, and not bound by time, space or any physical limitation. This makes you feel infinitely small. I would say that you have a perception problem. Why? How on earth are you perceiving (or conceptualising) infinity (whether infinitely great or small)? The Good Book says that God has set the idea of the infinite universe in the hearts of men (see Ecclesiastes 3:11). If this is true (I am assuming you must believe it is so), then you have a piece of that infinity and eternity in you. You are only a smaller infinity, a kind of aleph-null (for the mathematically inclined, look here).

You cannot therefore be thinking of yourself as worthless, only less worthy than you think you ought to be.

But that's wrong too.

Let's go to another assumption. The standard of 'worth' must be external to the things being assigned a value of 'worth', or else it can't be used as a benchmark. God must be the source of this standard, or else 'worthiness' with respect to God is a useless measure. So either you are not worthy enough (according to God), in which case you can't even aspire to come before Him or worship Him or even interact in any other way with Him; or you are worthy enough — and it's not because of you, but because He has assigned you a sufficient value of 'worth' so that you may approach Him.

You cannot therefore be too unworthy, and to think you are is actually some sort of negative pride or false humility (or humility based on false assumptions).

There are hymns with lines like, "I, though so unworthy, still am a child of His care..." and those have quite another meaning. It means that you are indeed unworthy of your own merit, but you are thankful that he has assigned you sufficient merit to be worthy of grace.

But what is the textual evidence for all this? Many Christians think that philosophy is the next worst thing to sorcery, and the textual evidence for it is that human philosophy (the philosophy of men, human philosophers, the philosophy of the world etc) is quite soundly rejected as long as the basis does not accept the major premise. That major premise is of course that God exists and interacts with us, and St Paul, for example, uses philosophy based on this premise quite shamelessly and extensively (his own words, not mine).

So let's look at the text. From searching the Good Book in its many versions, I have yet to see a human claim unworthiness successfully. God does say that many things are worthless or of no value, but the text says even physical training has value. The text also says that humans have been given (or will be given, conditional on their free-willed request or acceptance) many things — gifts, grace, wisdom, peace... the list is very long, and all of it confers and implies God-assigned worth.

Hebrews 12:3 does caution against the peril of considering oneself more highly than one ought (after all, that was the sin of the greatest of the Kherubim), but it also enjoins us to consider ourselves with sober judgement, and the next few verses talk about our gifts. The implication here is clear: don't think too highly of yourself, but do evaluate your worth according to the standards of God.

A similar concept arises when humans are told that the wise man should not boast of his wisdom, the strong man of his strength, or the rich man of his riches; rather if they must boast, they should boast of how well they know God, specifically in terms of the countervailing virtues of kindness (a scholar should be kind and teach, not mock, the less-educated), justice (an officer should be just and not tyrannical in his exercise of power) and righteousness (a gentleman should be righteous in his use of wealth, and be generous, not hold on to it out of avarice).

In other words, you can hold on to your sense of self-worth, provided you know how that worth is calibrated and what it is measured against. It is no sin to be honest, but it is a sin to bear false witness; in this context, 'bearing false witness' means to either inflate or deflate your actual worth. The Good Book tells us not to use dishonest scales or measures. And this is why we have to soberly judge ourselves.

Have we done what we are told to do? Are we fit (as in exactly a match for) the tasks we have been given? The point is that we fail these tests often, but we do succeed sometimes. And when we fail, we suffer the consequences, but we also know that the Master does not hold most failures to be the be-all and end-all.

So, we're not so worthless after all. What we need to do is figure out how much we're worth and then use that capital to do what we're supposed to do.

Counterfactual

History (ἱστορία), as the Greeks defined it, was 'knowledge acquired by investigation' or 'that which is seen into'. It was the counterbalancing principle, though equally valued, to Aletheia (ἀλήθεια, 'that which is not forgotten, that which is not lost'). History is the active principle, it seeks to delve deeper so that more can be added to Aletheia. This latter word is at present most often translated as 'truth'.

Sometimes, however, you catch people thinking about 'what might have been' or 'what may yet be'. Neither of these things are related to either historia or aletheia. Such thoughts are sometimes called 'counterfactuals' because they do not go according to established facts, and actually go counter to the facts as we know them.

The reason I mention this is that I recently caught myself thinking along those lines. On Monday 17 Mar 2008, I was told that my contract would not be renewed, and the reasons given, as established by various other parties, were seen as vague and unjustifiable. Oddly enough, the evidence shows that on Sunday 16 Mar 2008, I had just posted on this blog an outline of the morning devotions I had intended to give on the morning of Tuesday 18 Mar 2008.

It will probably never be known if that was the precise breaking point or not. But just imagine, what would have happened if I had actually delivered those devotions on Tuesday morning, 18 Mar 2008? Would there have been interesting consequences? Would lightning have fallen from heaven?

We will never know; we can never know. But one thing to me is certain: whatever happens will always have happened for the best, in this world which is only possible world, as far as we can tell.

Why the certainty? Why the diminution of angst? Some things must be taken on faith; it is not too farfetched to reduce all things to the quality of faith simply because we can never directly know everything. Those are the limitations of both historia and aletheia — they cannot encompass all things; we can never know all that there is to know, or seek out all that we would like to know.

For me, trained as a scientist and a professional member of scientific organisations, trained in epistemology and amateur scholar of many disciplines, it still boils down to one irreducible statement. That statement begins, "Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem cæli et terræ, visibilium omnium et invisibilium..." — "I believe in one God, almighty Father, maker of heaven and earth, all things visible and invisible."

Sinister Dexterity

Over the years, some people have asked me why I seem so critical of 'the system', whether in the general sense of what happens in the world, or in the more specific sense of what happens in the country, or in the even more specific and painful sense of what happens in some institutions. I wonder why this question is asked without the reflection that should logically precede it.

The point is that if 'the system' works, there is at least one clear way to make it work better. That is to look at it critically (from Greek kritias, 'a judge') and evaluate its successes (how can these be improved) and its failures (how can these be reduced or avoided). There are other ways, including changing the system altogether — surely a much more radical (from Latin radix, 'a root') step.

In the 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, St Paul warns us against conforming to the patterns of the world. There is a simple reason for this which I've mentioned before: the world is too limited. Excellence goes, almost by definition, beyond the limits of the known world.

This is why I look at things critically. The Good Book also says, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." But this injunction is about moral judgement; taken together with the rest of that Book, it warns that the morally flawed should not presume to sit in judgement over the rest of the equally flawed. Here, when I say 'critically' and as 'a judge', I am only applying the simple tests of consistency and reason, just as any analyst might.

It is probably best that we attempt to rectify (from Latin rectus, 'righthanded') anything that is awry while making sure that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. This allows you to make a two-handed catch, which is normally preferable to a one-handed catch where catching is appropriate. (As the saying goes, "Catch no ball, good if you're not the goalie.") But to do this, one must necessarily appear at least somewhat sinister ('lefthanded').

A Roman Devotional

Sometimes, one is driven by the exigencies of service to speak about things that come abruptly to one's sparsely prepared mind. The response is difficult, the pressure is dire, the words seem too small to convey and contain what is too large. And thus it came to me while in the shower today, that the Romans have a lot to answer for, and have a lot of answers for which there are no questions.

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Here is the Roman meditation that I am about to say something about. It comes from the letter to the Romans, chapter 12, verses 1-6a.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.

What is clear is that we are all gifted. And the tragedy on display is that this is masked, defeated, debilitated. By conforming to the statistical, logical, socially-constructed patterns of this world, we ensure that the laws of 'normal distribution' require us to describe each one of us as 'above the mean', 'below the mean' or 'within n standard deviations of the mean' – as if these mean something. The truth is simple: we are multifactorial, talented in a myriad ways. To put ourselves into any of the world's reific and disintegrative ways is to deny an holistic truth and to make atoms out of whole people. It is the Bertrand Russell way, but it is not the way of God.

For we are all, once we subject ourselves to sober judgement, gifted to an exact degree which only God knows – but the assurance of faith is that we ARE gifted. In fact, we are gifted so much that we need not think of ourselves too highly, or too lowly; to do either would be to spurn the gracious power that has been given to us for a lie of our own device. We must renew our minds, banish all thoughts of numerical ratings, and be transformed.

At this point, everyone will rise up and condemn what seems to be my misplaced idealism. Well, I don't think that God calls for a lower standard, and I am not saying that. I believe that numerical ratings cannot capture the excellence that comes with being your best. It is not possible that your best is worse than any grade the world can give you. If you are an IB student capable (as far as God knows) of scoring 44 points at best, then 44 points is honourable, distinguished, powerful; the same goes if your God-given limit is 34, though – then 34 would be excellent. With this reasoning, I hold all my students to a higher standard than I can possibly demand on my own: can you be the best that you can be? Can you see yourself as being licensed to touch the face of God and be a finger of His hand in this world?

But how would we know what our best is? There are two things to ponder. The eagle is a symbol of Roman might; the prophet Isaiah also used it in his inspirational message: "You will soar on wings like eagles." Note: you will not soar on eagles' wings, but on wings like eagles. It is the difference between the numerical grades of this world (mere wings) and the excellence of God (something like wings, but better). It is only on the wings of the spirit and of the Spirit, that you can reach above the surly bonds of earth. You were all made for better things; the best is yet to be. You were all made gifted and talented; why should you despise yourself? And lastly, there is nothing normal about your distribution.

Forget the patterns of this world. Transcend them. Think of the box, because you are constrained to; think beyond the box into the vault of the heavens, because you are more than atoms. You are what you are, and that is no mean thing at all.

Lessons And Songs

In front of me is parchment, thick material with old writing on it. Some of it goes back a long way, for we are looking down the wrong end of the telescope, into the cold days of 1980, in a land of mist and rain. In the English class, the poets come and go, speaking of more of Breughel than of Michelangelo.

Our teacher makes us read Dylan Thomas. It is my first introduction to the Voice of Wales. It will not be my last. The poem we are reading is The Hand That Signed The Paper, and it goes like this:

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.

It carries a lesson I will bear for the rest of my life. From that day on, I know that the pen is mightier than the sword. My worst enemies will come at me not with might of arms, but along rivers of ink; with penmanship, not pikemanship. And to resist I will need to learn about words as well.

Yet, a sheet of paper has two sides. The defence of vulnerability is the greatest shield of all, for the fully vulnerable is like a cloud; you may pierce it in many places, but you will not hurt it at all. The barrage of words hurled against the invading force is a counter-attack, not a defence. You cannot make a bow a defensive weapon, no matter how hard you try, no matter what philosophy shapes your action and response.

If you will build a city on a hill, and hedge it around with the engines of defence, those who seek entry may hurt themselves. A city on a hill cannot be hid. Should you then eschew defence? No, but you may post a sign here and there: this is a friendly city, but do not seek to invade or invest, for we are a power under orders from Authority. And yet, there will still be accidents. You may make reparation, but there will always be bitterness. This I have learnt as well.

I too have been hurt before. But there is one precious thing I have learnt, a third lesson. The attempt to bear no ill-will is nothing unless you bear good-will. It is hard to attempt it; it is also hard to believe in it. But after 1981, when she told me what was right but hurt me anyway, I learnt that it is always for the best. You must not hate and you must ensure you do not seem to hate; you cannot completely love, when it is not returned; you just get on with it, for you are you.

And yet, who are you? How do you know? It is the reason we are told to consider ourselves with sober judgement – for Romans 12:3 is as important as the previous two verses, if not more so. It introduces the rest of the chapter, verses 4-21, the evaluative canon with which each of us can judge ourselves and not impose the wrong kind of judgement on others.

For in the end, while there is an objective truth, we are commanded to discretion and sober judgement from a subjective viewpoint. How else can it be, when we do not know except through a glass darkly? Wisdom requires that we discern, describe, distill – and on occasion, dispel, destroy, despair. We seek to approach the objectively true, but there is only one singularity, one point from which all things are objective, and that is God's perspective from infinity and eternity.

From this, I have learnt a fourth lesson: I will always bear faith with my friends, but it may not be the faith my friends desire. I will not abandon them even if they think I have. And I may not act even when they feel I should, because it is a matter of my own judgement, flawed or not. Inevitably, I will lose most of my friends. We all will. Yet, this is the way God treats us too; He will abandon us if we deny him, but He does not abandon us for lack of belief. In times like this, I read II Timothy 2 again and again; it comforts and warns me, as all scripture does.

So here we are. We see subjectively, but judge as best we can. And where our judgement fails, we will suffer for it. But only for a while; for in the end, all things are made new, all things are made clean. At the end, we will rise, we shall be changed, we shall be made incorruptible. There are no tears beyond the end of things.

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I was at a wedding this weekend. Rather oddly, I felt, the wedding ended with an arrangement of the Andrew Lloyd Webber Pie Jesu, which is a conflation of the traditional Requiem's Pie Jesu and its Agnus Dei. One doesn't normally think of a requiem as wedding music. And yet, thinking of the god-daughter and listening...

Pie Jesu,
Qui tollis peccata mundi,
Dona eis requiem;
Agnus Dei,
Dona eis requiem
Sempiternam.

I felt my weariness lifted as I heard the venerable words and translated them: "Merciful Jesus, who takes away the sins of the world, grant them rest; Lamb of God, grant them rest eternal." She who sang had a voice sufficiently beautiful for the task, sweet and deep enough to bring out the sweetness of the truth in those words. What I like about the Lloyd Webber arrangement is the deliberate way in which the seven syllables of the third and fifth lines pace out the idea of a deliberate grace. And I remembered 'sempiternam' in particular from ancient Latin lessons; it is a hybrid of 'semper', which is 'always', and 'aeternam', which is 'forever'. Always and forever, O Lord, grant us rest.

It is my wish for a troubled world, and the people of that world. It has always been my wish, above all human strivings, ambitions and desires. Kyrie eleison!