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Indwelling: The Presuppositional Air We Breathe

When we accept a certain set of pre-suppositions and use them as our interpretative framework, we may be said to dwell in them as we do in our body…They are not asserted and cannot be asserted, for assertion can be made only within a framework with which we have identified ourselves for the time being; as they are themselves our ultimate framework, they are essentially inarticulable.

– Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, p. 60

A parable:

A crab walks into a bar the ocean and says to a fish, ‘Dude, you should really get out of the water sometime; it would be good for your complexion.’

‘Huh?’ said the fish.

The crab responded to the perplexity of the fish: ‘Seriously bro, you stay wet all the time; you need to soak up some sun.’

‘Blub, blub,’ said the fish, and then he began his soliloquy: ‘Crab, I have no idea what you’re talking about; I’m not wet, I don’t even know what wet is.’

‘Are you serious bro?’ replied the crab…

I could go on, but I won’t. (A while back I wrote a POEM that tries to express the same point) The point is simple: For the fish, the water becomes and extension of himself; it is his atmosphere, his ecosystem. Human minds have ecosystems as well; I suppose you could call them ego-systems. In order for a radical conversion of thought to take place, the fish (yes, back to the fish) must see, 1) that there is such a thing as water, 2) that he lives in it, 3) that the fact that he lives in it has major ramifications, and 4) that there is a possible alternative that might suit reality better.

This won’t work for a fish because water is the only environment that suits its purpose – unless of course the fish is a mermaid, like Ariel, and realizes that the seaweed is greener in another world. Come to think of it, the Little Mermaid had an epistemological crisis of the sort we’re driving at here: she saw a more suitable alternative that fulfilled her deepest longings. But, alas, we have digressed from a brilliant chemist and philosopher to a lame parable to the Little Mermaid; by all means, let’s wrap this up.

Our basic presuppositions are the air that we breathe. In order for someone to abandon them they must be made aware that they exist, see there faults demonstrated, and see that there is another, and more suitable, alternative. You won’t get the fish out of the water, in this case, by jumping in yourself. The task is to get the fish out, not to get yourself in. If you do jump in the water, it must be for the purpose of blowing up the lake (metaphorically speaking of course) so that others will come running out with you.

The Pleasure of Self-Limitation

It is plain on the face of the facts that the child is positively in love with limits. He uses his imagination to invent imaginary limits. The nurse and the governess have never told him that it is his moral duty to step on alternate paving-stones. He deliberately deprives this world of half its paving-stones, in order to exult in a challenge that he has offered to himself…

I have [played] myself, by piling all the things I wanted on a sofa, and imagining that the carpet around me was the surrounding sea.

This game of self-limitation is one of the secret pleasures of life.

– G.K. Chesterton, The Romance of Childhood, from In Defense of Sanity, pp. 251-252

I thought of this quote yesterday and had to go back and look it up. My wife and I were walking with our children in a large outdoor shopping center. Throughout the plaza are large, elevated patches of garden holding various plants. As is always the case when we visit there, my daughters climbed up the planter walls and started using them as balance beams. We were surrounded by space: sidewalks, roads, stores. And they limited themselves to the smallest space available. So, I said to my wife, Chesterton is right. She had no idea what I was talking about (but that’s beside the point).

Every time we walk through Kroger, with its black and white tiled floors, the choosing of a particular color to step on ensues; every time they wander off into the neighborhood, we always find them coming home – to a small house in a big world.

Last year I listened to an interview of a wide receiver in the NFL. He talked about learning to run routes. In college he usually ran straight down the field or wandered around through zone coverages until he found an opening. Now, in the NFL, he had learned the discipline of proper route-running. He found, he said, that limiting yourself to one route and one sure destination freed him up to play at his fastest (which is 4.3/40 fast). If you know where you are going, you can run hard to get there. If the route is sure, you can knock obstacles out of the way to get to that spot. It limits you, but it makes you faster.

There is a romance and liberty in limitation if we have eyes to see. If all were right, a man who limits himself to one wife would find romance and liberty. If all were right, a man who limits himself to one God would find romance and liberty. For romance and liberty do not demand wide open spaces; they only demand a willingness to see the beauty of the limitation itself. Can your children see this better than you?

The Imagination and Mental Pictures: The Justification of a Non-Visualist

In my mind, at least, I always believed that the ‘imagination’ had to do with images. Hence I always believed that I did not have a good imagination, for I was never good at producing mental images. Even when my football coach told me that I needed to visualize a game happening in my mind, I couldn’t produce it. The Waterboy (Adam Sandler reference), however, could do it quite well.

As a young preacher this especially bothered me. Early on I read a lot of Jonathan Edwards’ sermons. He was a master of images: a spider hanging over a fire comes to mind (from Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God). I read that, and it moved me, yet I still couldn’t draw up the image of it in my mind. Even now, as I write, I try to force the image into my mind and it just doesn’t come easy. But, here’s the but, the idea is there even if the image is not. And even without a mental image, the idea still comes to me with power and force.

I have never been one to insert myself into stories, at least not for the most part. I don’t picture myself standing in the multitudes as Jesus preaches the Sermon on the Mount, nor do I picture myself standing at the foot of the cross. But that sermon has come to me with force nonetheless, and so has the cross. The images aren’t there, but the ideas are, and I do not believe that they are less forceful.

Let me move on to the point here. In his essay entitled Image and Imagination (from a book with the same name), C.S. Lewis has a mock-dialogue on the subject of what the imagination, or, more specifically, what an imagined thing is. One of the points he makes there is that an imagined thing cannot simply be an image (or what we might call a mental picture). For instance, using the example of an imagined tower, he makes the point that an imagined tower is not the same thing as a mental image of a tower:

Take away from the tower all its implications and it ceases to be an imagined thing and becomes merely an image. But images are not enough: for the way in which they affect us depends, not on their content as images, but on what they are taken to be. Mention a tower, or a king, or a dog, in a poem or tale, and they come to us not in the nakedness of pictured form and colour, but with all the associations of towerhood, kinghood, and doghood (Image and Imagination, p. 44).

Let me stay with the idea of a tower here. If you picture a tower in your mind, what do you picture? Do you imagine its foundation? Do you imagine each brick that it consists of? Do you imagine the particles of each brick? The mortar? Each piece of furniture? The subtle shadows depending on how the sun is shining? And when we introduce the sun, we stretch outside of the tower, to the world in which the tower exists. Do you imagine the sun? Do you imagine the dirt or grass outside the tower? Do you imagine the country in which the tower sits? Or the world in which the country sits? Or the universe in which the world exists?

The answer to all of these questions is likely ‘No.’ Therefore, Lewis is arguing, to truly imagine something, to imagine it with any sort of depth, is not simply to have a bare mental picture of it. That kind of picture is not worth a thousand words. The thousand words come from the context surrounding the image. We are stretching ourselves out from a bare picture of one object to entire worlds. But as we stretch out, we also narrow our focus in on individual blades of grass. Our image has grown substantially, and become substantially more detailed. We now have more than an image, we have a story. We have moved from the image of a castle, to a specific castle, in a specific country, in a specific world, in a specific universe. Whether this castle, world, or universe actually exists is irrelevant at this point.

Lewis goes on,

On this point I speak with some authority, having been an extreme visualist, and having learned that this unruly power – in truth not the ally of imagination, but a mere nuisance to it – must be corrected and restrained in dealing with literature. Our imagination uses our images for poetical purposes, much as a child uses material objects for its games. An imaginative man can make of very scanty and crude images all he needs for appreciation of the greatest books, as a child worth its salt can make a liner or a railway station out of the first two or three bits of furniture it finds in the nursery. It is not the children with the costly toys who play best: or if they do, they do it in spite of the toys (p. 45).

Lewis is arguing that having a good imagination does not demand our having good mental pictures. In fact, the pictures can be a hindrance to the imagination. Which brings me back to where I began.

Images are frowned upon in the Scriptures. The third commandment immediately comes to mind. One of the problems with us, as a species, is that we want to craft images, whether in the mind or with our hands. One of the Hebrew words the KJV translates ‘imagine’ has to do with making a ‘form,’ another has do with etching or plowing, creating lines. These are always frowned upon as mental acts. Perhaps the reason for this is that the creating of forms, mentally, actually causes us to lose our perspective of bigger things, and smaller things as well. Focus on an image of a castle and forget the whole world. Focus on an image of a castle and forget the grains of sand that hold it together. And in the process of losing the world and the sand, you also lose any emotional affect the castle might have – you lose the affective mood or flavor. But move from the image to the ideas – castlehood – and now you have something. You have the universe, the world, the nations, the counties, the cities, the dirt, the grass, kings, knights, princesses in distress, and you have a mood that those objects set. And it will be the mood, most likely, that moves you emotionally.

To bring this back to the examples I used earlier of Jesus preaching the Sermon on the Mount or dying on the cross, let me say this: As for the cross, if I focus on the image of a man being crucified, perhaps it will evoke something within me, like horror or sadness. But these emotions are nearly animal (animal spirits, as Jonathan Edwards called them). They are physical reactions as much as they are mental, they are a reflex against horrible sights. But if you go beyond the image, outside of it, and into the details, that’s where we find meaning. We have a man dying on a particular cross, on a particular day, at a particular place, in a particular world, for a particular purpose. All of this demands context, and bare image cannot supply it. It must come to me as an idea, or as a story, or a poem, or what have you, if it is to have true imaginative force. This is precisely what poets tend to do. They take small objects and relate them to the world, or even the cosmos. They look at a Grecian urn and end up thinking about flowery tales, deities, and priests offering sacrifices. Or they take a nightingale and, before you know it, they are thinking about ‘perilous seas, in faery lands forelorn.’

I do not mean by all this that one should not have mental pictures. What I do mean is that the common notion of the imagination simply as something that supplies mental images is wrong, and deadly (as far as the imagination is concerned). Someone who uses their mind to build castles in the sky is useless. Someone who can tell me a story about castles in the sky is quite useful.

Perhaps this post is an attempt to justify my own mental bent, or justifying my own way of imagining. But I hope that will encourage anyone who is not an ‘extreme visualist.’ It doesn’t mean you don’t have a good imagination. In fact, you may be better off.

A Drop in the Bucket

Every other year, as the Olympics roll around, my mind gravitates back to one great scene in Chariots of Fire. Eric Liddell has abstained from competing in the Olympics on Sunday, to honor the Christian Sabbath. As the pomp and pageantry of the Olympics plays out on the screen, Liddell stands in a pulpit, reading from Isaiah 40.

The stadium is full, and Liddell reads, ‘the nations are as a drop in the bucket, and are accounted as small dust in the balance.’

The race goes on, the crowds cheer on, and Liddell reads on, ‘He bringeth the princes to nothing, he maketh the judges of the earth as a vanity.’

A runner strides with all his might, biting the dust in defeat. He reads on, ‘Hast thou not known?’

Another runner crosses the finish line, giving his last great burst of energy to break the tape, and still he reads on, ‘Has thou not heard…that the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not? Neither is he weary.’

He ends the reading of Isaiah 43: ‘He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no strength, He increaseth might…They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary…’

I witnessed the pomp and pageantry again tonight. I saw Russia’s spectacle – a sordid history in digital technicolor. And so did God. He saw it all when it happened, and what he saw was another drop in the bucket. Babel, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Britain, Germany, the United States, Russia, et al – all drops in a bucket, all dust on the scales. We enjoy our 15 minutes of fame and flame, and we fizzle out. And God races on, as powerful as ever, never growing faint or weary.

Jesus Christ is our true and greater Olympia.  He is greater than Zeus, the greatest of the olympians (Acts 17:28), for his power is the power of life. He takes on the flesh of man, and with joy runs the race before Him (Heb. 12:2), being crowned with the wreath – the crown of thorns – on the cross, before saying, ‘It is finished.’ And because it is finished – because he lived the life we couldn’t live and died the death we deserve, taking the very last drop of the wrath of God- we do not need the accolades of the earth. We do not need to run fast to prove that we are worthy of our existence. We do not need the affirmation of judges and nations. It is finished.

The true Judge of the earth stood on that great scale of God and was found wanting – not an 8 from the Russians, but the perfect judgment of God, not because of anything lacking in him, but as a substitute, standing in our place, receiving our own judgement. And now we, who are dust on the scales, are exalted to heaven by him. You don’t have to run that race. It is finished. He takes dust and he makes them stars. He takes less than nothing and makes exalts it to the heavens. He takes the weak and makes them mighty. He takes the weary and makes them soar like eagles.

All the nations together are a drop in a bucket. But a drop of the blood of Christ makes insects into eagles, beggars into princes, dust on the scales into jewels in a crown.

 

The Reality of Apostasy

‘After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”’ (John 6:66-67).

In real life, at this moment, I am lamenting over an apostate friend who is on the brink of taking his own life. We had gone to high school together and he and I picked up our crosses to follow Jesus at about the same time in the early 2000’s. He was a trophy of God’s grace in my eyes, much more so than me. We had never been friends, but our common love for Jesus drew us together. I taught him everything I knew. He taught me everything he knew. We prayed together. We sang together. At times we went to church together.

One night, he showed up at my house unannounced, in great trouble of soul. He asked if we could go for a walk. As we walked, he confessed to me that he had not prayed in months. He still believed, but he could not pray. Guilt weighed him down. I prayed for him. I have continued to pray for him on a semi-regular basis for about the past 8 years. Social media allowed me to watch his continued downward slide from half way across the country.

My wife came to me tonight and said, ‘Maybe you should write him.’ I’ve tried that before. The fact of the matter is that two of my best friends from my early years in the church have become apostates. And in addition to that, I’ve seen others, whom I spent many hours with, teaching, listening to, and learning from, who haven’t stepped foot in a church building in quite a while. And it goes beyond that, it’s not just about not going to church. It’s about a husband abandoning his wife shortly after the birth of his first child. A woman finding freedom in Christ, and then using that freedom to move in with her boyfriend. And more.

I think that they would all say they still believe the gospel in some way, but you would never get a clue of that from their lives. Apostasy is a reality. It doesn’t only happen to churches or denominations, it happens to people. That’s the reason for the warning passages in the book of Hebrews.

I have no doubt that a born again man cannot spiritually die again. We are resurrected into everlasting life, not temporary life. They were not of us, for they went out from among us. The parable of the sower is clear as well.

But, perhaps the most heart-wrenching passage in all of Scripture is John 6:66-67. Jesus sees his followers and friends walking away. He sees his inner-circle shrink from 72 to 12 in a day. And he turns to those who are left to ask them if they’re going to leave him as well. They would have. The number would shrink to 11 before all was said and done. It could have dwindled to zero were it not for God’s persevering grace.

I find myself at times looking at those around me and wanting to say those same words: ‘Are you going to go away as well?’ My friends, never take one day of grace for granted. Every day that you wake up loving Jesus is a miracle of divine grace. Seek him while he is near. Seek him while he may be found, before the sun goes down on your opportunity. If you have light, walk in the light, lest you find yourself soon in darkness.

And if someone dear to you has left the faith or fallen into gross error or sin, take courage. You are not greater than your master. The masses turned away from him. They are still turning away from him. But he never turns away from us.

Music of the Spheres: The Heavens as a Hymnbook

I will say up front that this is one of the most helpful paragraphs I have ever read:

The unreasonable creatures are in some sort said to glorify him: [Psalm 19:1] ‘The heavens declare the glory of God.’ How? They give occasion and afford matter whence we may take hints to glorify him. As in music there are the notes set out in the book, and the tongue that sins, or hand that play, which makes the music. The creatures are the notes, or music, that is set, and have the notes, the keys, and characters of the harmonious glory of God stamped upon them, Rom. i. 20. But then there must be an understanding creature, that hath skill and ability, to utter forth the music and harmony of all these.

(Thomas Goodwin, The Work of the Holy Spirit in Our Salvation, p. 498).

Goodwin uses the analogy, we could say, of a hymn book in relation to the shining of the glory of God in creation. The heavens declare the glory of God like a hymnbook declares music. That is, if the heavens are to effective in God’s purposes, they must be read and sung.

I cannot read music. But I can read words. And so I get maybe half the benefit of a hymnbook. I use one every Sunday, and sometimes during the week, and I am able to sing songs that I do not know by heart because of it. A pianist, however, is able to play songs that he or she does not know by heart. I see circles and lines in black ink, she sees music. I see glory, but she sees more glory. And so, in some ways, she is more able to glorify God with that book, because, in light of her knowledge, she can use her instrument to make something that I cannot, and therefore glorify God in a way that I cannot.

The heavens, Goodwin says, are like that hymnbook. There is glory in them. Can you read it? Can you make music out of them? Do you look at the winter sky and, as it were, hear the ‘music of the spheres’? Or, at least, does it cause you to sing?

I was never interested in the planets until I started reading C.S. Lewis, and especially after reading Michael Ward’s book Planet Narnia. But since then I have studied the planets as an interested layman. And so, as I was having a dull drive home from work one night, a bright star, just beside the crescent moon, caught my eye. I began to pan the sky for other stars. I couldn’t find any. And so, I thought to myself, ‘that must be Venus!’

Though Venus had stared at me many nights, I had never really seen her. And there she was, the Evening Star, otherwise known as the Morning Star. I thought of how the Book of Revelation calls Jesus Christ the Morning Star. I thought of how he promised to give us the Morning Star. I thought of the amazing fact that Earth’s sister planet was there, suspended in mid-air, circling around the sun at great speed, but appearing as a still star. I found myself praising God for, and in, this train of thought. For the first time, I understood something of that note in that heavenly hymnbook. Venus was declaring the glory of God. That moment has stuck with me now for over a month. I even wrote a poem about it (HERE).

I have learned not to look at space as space. The Bible calls it ‘the heavens.’ Space is empty. The heavens are full – full of fascinating things, and full of God’s glory.

But the hymnbook analogy has its limitations. I once heard someone, I can’t remember who, ask this question: If a beautiful tree grows deep in the rainforests, where no man has set foot in man years, does that tree glorify God? It almost sounds like the old dilemma of a tree falling when no one is there to hear it. The answer to that dilemma is simple. Who cares if we are not there to hear it, God is there. A lonely tree glorifies God because it is not really lonely – it has a heavenly audience. God sees all, and rejoices in the works of his own hand.

And so, I think, perhaps, Goodwin pushes the analogy too far, as if the hymnbook had no value in itself were there no one to read it. For God can read it. And God can make music of his own. Analogies are never perfect.

And therefore, it is good to see the heavens as a heavenly hymnal of sorts. The black sky is God’s staff. The planets are his bass clef. The stars are his treble clef. We need pianists, violinists, organists, etc. now to read and play. And a gospel to make us a sing.

You can read related thoughts HERE and HERE.