I believe that each citizen has the right and responsibility to determine whether he or she is fit to vote, and not to vote if they determine that they cannot do a good job of it. But there should also be a preferential option in favor of voting; and the best argument ever made on the subject is, I think, this beautiful speech by Calvin Coolidge. The whole speech is great, but I especially like this paragraph:
But the right to vote is conferred upon our citizens not only that they may exercise it for their own benefit, but in order that they may exercise it also for the benefit of others. Persons who have the right to vote are trustees for the benefit of their country and their countrymen. They have no right to say they do not care. They must care! They have no right to say that whatever the result of the election they can get along. They must remember that their country and their countrymen cannot get along, cannot remain sound, cannot preserve its institutions, cannot protect its citizens, cannot maintain its place in the world, unless those who have the right to vote do sustain and do guide the course of public affairs by the thoughtful exercise of that right on election day. They do not hold a mere privilege to be exercised or not, as passing fancy may move them. They are charged with a great trust, one of the most important and most solemn which can be given into the keeping of an American citizen. It should be discharged thoughtfully and seriously, in accordance with its vast importance.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Why I Believe in Free Will: Point # 1
I have decided to do a series of posts (I think it will end up being a very long series) on why I believe human beings have free will (in the traditional incompatibilist 'libertarian' sense of this statement). It's a good idea for me to state up front that not all of these points will be equally crucial. Some of them will be merely supplementary points that have an influence on my belief although they are not foundational reasons for it. Others will not be reasons themselves but rather parts of reasons; that is, they only become relevant to the issue when combined with other points. So merely because I post a point doesn't mean it's intended as a direct argument for the libertarian position; and, indeed it could very possibly be intended as no more than a mere part of an indirect and supplementary argument.
I should also say right off that I don't like the term 'free will', for a number of reasons. One of these is that the issue of 'free will' is not entirely about the will. It includes (at least) two parts, which can in scholastic terminology be easily identified as 'free decision' and 'free choice', but which are never seriously distinguished in analytic discussions. Nonetheless, we need a convenient phrase for the complex created by the union of these two parts, and 'free will' is what does best in English.
Those who read this weblog know, I think, that I'm not afraid to advocate views no one else does, when I feel like doing so. This series will bring out a lot of that. So we'll start out with a bang:
Point #1: 'Event causation' is a figure of speech
Event-based analyses of causation are fairly recent in the history of philosophy. They originate when people recognize that in certain possible cases we can have a causation-like phenomenon that is not 'true causation' - and the great historical irony is that these phenomena originally identified as noncausal develop into the basis for most contemporary attempts to account for causation. In this post I will 1) sketch out the basics of this account of the origination of the notion of 'event causation'; 2) suggest that Hume is completely right about causation if causation is event causation; 3) indicate my own view of the relation between causation and events.
1.1 Event-based analyses of causation are based on the supposition that causation is a law-like relation between events. This has not been the view of most people through history; for instance, it does not describe the Aristotelian account of causation at all. Part of this account (as it later developed) is the view that efficient causation is the act of a substance. This was the standard philosophical view for a very long time. What changed this status quo was (remotely) mechanism and (proximately) occasionalism. In the 16th and 17th centuries mechanistic accounts of motion were on the rise, along with a concomitant rise in conceptions of the world (and thus of science) in terms of laws of nature established by God. In this context strains of occasionalism began to develop. Occasionalism, which is the view that only God is a cause, had occasionally shown its face before, but the newer mechanistic worldview was far more conducive to it than the older Aristotelian view. The most notable and influential of all occasionalists was Nicolas Malebranche.
Malebranche argued that attributing causation to creatures, as the Aristotelians did, was pagan and idolatrous, and because of this launched the most sophisticated set of arguments for occasionalism that have ever been produced (Malebranche's only rival for this distinction is al-Ghazali). He makes a distinction between 'true causes' and 'occasional causes'. There is only one true cause, God; God is a true cause because the effect necessarily follows on His willing it. In no other case is this true. However, we do often speak of creatures as causes, and while Malebranche thinks that we mistakenly think this means they are true causes, he does think we are genuinely latching onto something real when we speak of them this way. Creatures are not true causes; however, they are occasions for causation. When y happens to a creature this serves as an occasion for the true cause (God) to do x. When we speak of causation in creatures, then, we are really talking about the divine laws that govern what events follow what other events. This, Malebranche insists, is not true causation. It is causation only by metonymy: creatures may be called causes only because they are occasions for causation, not because they are genuine causes. This is occasionalism.
Malebranche's views on causation influence a number of people. Two of note are George Berkeley and David Hume. Berkeley accepts the basics of Malebranche's occasionalism, but insists that some creatures are genuine causes. He is not, therefore, an occasionalist in the strict sense. Berkeley draws the line between 'true cause' and 'occasional cause' differently than Malebranche; for him, any agent, i.e., any mind, is a true cause. We are true causes, God is true cause. Bodies are not true causes, however; they are inert, and therefore can only be occasions for causation. Hume takes a different tack. He takes the occasional causation found in Malebranche and Berkeley and argues that this is the only idea of causation we have; he explicitly insists that when we think of minds causing, or of God causing, the only idea of causation we have here is that of a necessary connection (which turns out, with some complications due to Humean psychology, to be lawlike relation) between objects. While he isn't the only influence by any means, it is primarily due to Hume that event-based analysis has become so common, to the extent that there are lots of people who even insist (with less argument than Hume) on the Humean line here: event causation is the only causation that makes any sense. Even the use of the word 'event' is probably due to Hume, who uses it extensively (Hume, however, seems to have used the word simply as a synonym for 'effect', the standard meaning in the 18th century).
It is noteworthy that the quarrel over whether there can be such a thing as 'agent causation' revives the Berkeleyan 'true cause' under different terminology. This is not at all surprising; theories of 'agent causation' are heavily influenced by Thomas Reid, who was a former Berkeleyan, and who used the notion to respond to Hume.
1.2 I want to insist that Hume is exactly right about causation if all causation is event causation as generally understood. The only possible relations between distinct events are 1) resemblance; 2) contiguity in space; 3) contiguity in time; 4) association in the mind. Any account of causation entirely in terms of event causation will inevitably be forced to the Humean view that causation is, objectively, just constant conjunction of events and, subjectively, constant conjunction with an inferential movement of the mind added.
To defend this would require a rather complex argument. I won't go into one here (that might end up being a later point) but will just refer you to Hume's arguments in the Treatise and the Enquiry (it's worth noting, by the way, that many of Hume's arguments are adapted Malebranchean arguments) with the insistence, which you can accept or not, that they have never been answered in event causation terms; and the suggestion that this is probably because they can't be answered in those terms.
1.3 Likewise, I won't give a full account of my own position here, but instead just list some of my views as food for thought. Essentially, my own view of causation is a return to the pre-occasionalist view in which causation, properly speaking, is an act of an actual subject. (Not all acts are causal - this is a complication of the view that I won't get into here - another candidate for a later post.) Cause is a more fundamental notion than event, but both are dependent on the more fundamental notion of act. All causation involves events, not because causation is a relation between events, but because any particular case of causation is a single event; indeed, probably the paradigm sort of event. The only relations among events are being like each other, being near each other in time and/or place, and overlapping with each other; but the latter is just because talking about the world in terms of events is an indirect way of talking about it - and the overlap of any two events is just an event mediating between two events. There are no distinct 'events' in the real world; when we actually distinguish events, we do so entirely in terms of intentions and causal dispositions of various sorts. Events are actions (described a certain way) and (mentally composed) mereological fusions of actions and/or events. We can speak of one event causing another by metonymy, but all such speech can be broken down into a more fundamental causal discourse.
Event causation is a figure of speech.
As I noted, some of the points I will make in this series are not directly related; this is one of the indirect ones. The link is that I think a lot of the acceptance of determinism and compatibilism has to do with an uncritical acceptance of event causation language as literal rather than figurative.
In blogging, it's difficult to build a sustained and thorough argument; posts are more congenial to a piecemeal construction. The above points bring up a lot of issues, most of which I hope to deal with in some form or other at a future date, but if anything particularly bothers you, leave a comment, and I'll see if I can address that issue in the comments, or in a post soon to come.
I'll be adding new points soon. You can consider it a sort of philosophical mosaic that builds up the picture of libertarian worldview. (Point # 2 is closely related, and depends upon, this point.)
I should also say right off that I don't like the term 'free will', for a number of reasons. One of these is that the issue of 'free will' is not entirely about the will. It includes (at least) two parts, which can in scholastic terminology be easily identified as 'free decision' and 'free choice', but which are never seriously distinguished in analytic discussions. Nonetheless, we need a convenient phrase for the complex created by the union of these two parts, and 'free will' is what does best in English.
Those who read this weblog know, I think, that I'm not afraid to advocate views no one else does, when I feel like doing so. This series will bring out a lot of that. So we'll start out with a bang:
Point #1: 'Event causation' is a figure of speech
Event-based analyses of causation are fairly recent in the history of philosophy. They originate when people recognize that in certain possible cases we can have a causation-like phenomenon that is not 'true causation' - and the great historical irony is that these phenomena originally identified as noncausal develop into the basis for most contemporary attempts to account for causation. In this post I will 1) sketch out the basics of this account of the origination of the notion of 'event causation'; 2) suggest that Hume is completely right about causation if causation is event causation; 3) indicate my own view of the relation between causation and events.
1.1 Event-based analyses of causation are based on the supposition that causation is a law-like relation between events. This has not been the view of most people through history; for instance, it does not describe the Aristotelian account of causation at all. Part of this account (as it later developed) is the view that efficient causation is the act of a substance. This was the standard philosophical view for a very long time. What changed this status quo was (remotely) mechanism and (proximately) occasionalism. In the 16th and 17th centuries mechanistic accounts of motion were on the rise, along with a concomitant rise in conceptions of the world (and thus of science) in terms of laws of nature established by God. In this context strains of occasionalism began to develop. Occasionalism, which is the view that only God is a cause, had occasionally shown its face before, but the newer mechanistic worldview was far more conducive to it than the older Aristotelian view. The most notable and influential of all occasionalists was Nicolas Malebranche.
Malebranche argued that attributing causation to creatures, as the Aristotelians did, was pagan and idolatrous, and because of this launched the most sophisticated set of arguments for occasionalism that have ever been produced (Malebranche's only rival for this distinction is al-Ghazali). He makes a distinction between 'true causes' and 'occasional causes'. There is only one true cause, God; God is a true cause because the effect necessarily follows on His willing it. In no other case is this true. However, we do often speak of creatures as causes, and while Malebranche thinks that we mistakenly think this means they are true causes, he does think we are genuinely latching onto something real when we speak of them this way. Creatures are not true causes; however, they are occasions for causation. When y happens to a creature this serves as an occasion for the true cause (God) to do x. When we speak of causation in creatures, then, we are really talking about the divine laws that govern what events follow what other events. This, Malebranche insists, is not true causation. It is causation only by metonymy: creatures may be called causes only because they are occasions for causation, not because they are genuine causes. This is occasionalism.
Malebranche's views on causation influence a number of people. Two of note are George Berkeley and David Hume. Berkeley accepts the basics of Malebranche's occasionalism, but insists that some creatures are genuine causes. He is not, therefore, an occasionalist in the strict sense. Berkeley draws the line between 'true cause' and 'occasional cause' differently than Malebranche; for him, any agent, i.e., any mind, is a true cause. We are true causes, God is true cause. Bodies are not true causes, however; they are inert, and therefore can only be occasions for causation. Hume takes a different tack. He takes the occasional causation found in Malebranche and Berkeley and argues that this is the only idea of causation we have; he explicitly insists that when we think of minds causing, or of God causing, the only idea of causation we have here is that of a necessary connection (which turns out, with some complications due to Humean psychology, to be lawlike relation) between objects. While he isn't the only influence by any means, it is primarily due to Hume that event-based analysis has become so common, to the extent that there are lots of people who even insist (with less argument than Hume) on the Humean line here: event causation is the only causation that makes any sense. Even the use of the word 'event' is probably due to Hume, who uses it extensively (Hume, however, seems to have used the word simply as a synonym for 'effect', the standard meaning in the 18th century).
It is noteworthy that the quarrel over whether there can be such a thing as 'agent causation' revives the Berkeleyan 'true cause' under different terminology. This is not at all surprising; theories of 'agent causation' are heavily influenced by Thomas Reid, who was a former Berkeleyan, and who used the notion to respond to Hume.
1.2 I want to insist that Hume is exactly right about causation if all causation is event causation as generally understood. The only possible relations between distinct events are 1) resemblance; 2) contiguity in space; 3) contiguity in time; 4) association in the mind. Any account of causation entirely in terms of event causation will inevitably be forced to the Humean view that causation is, objectively, just constant conjunction of events and, subjectively, constant conjunction with an inferential movement of the mind added.
To defend this would require a rather complex argument. I won't go into one here (that might end up being a later point) but will just refer you to Hume's arguments in the Treatise and the Enquiry (it's worth noting, by the way, that many of Hume's arguments are adapted Malebranchean arguments) with the insistence, which you can accept or not, that they have never been answered in event causation terms; and the suggestion that this is probably because they can't be answered in those terms.
1.3 Likewise, I won't give a full account of my own position here, but instead just list some of my views as food for thought. Essentially, my own view of causation is a return to the pre-occasionalist view in which causation, properly speaking, is an act of an actual subject. (Not all acts are causal - this is a complication of the view that I won't get into here - another candidate for a later post.) Cause is a more fundamental notion than event, but both are dependent on the more fundamental notion of act. All causation involves events, not because causation is a relation between events, but because any particular case of causation is a single event; indeed, probably the paradigm sort of event. The only relations among events are being like each other, being near each other in time and/or place, and overlapping with each other; but the latter is just because talking about the world in terms of events is an indirect way of talking about it - and the overlap of any two events is just an event mediating between two events. There are no distinct 'events' in the real world; when we actually distinguish events, we do so entirely in terms of intentions and causal dispositions of various sorts. Events are actions (described a certain way) and (mentally composed) mereological fusions of actions and/or events. We can speak of one event causing another by metonymy, but all such speech can be broken down into a more fundamental causal discourse.
Event causation is a figure of speech.
As I noted, some of the points I will make in this series are not directly related; this is one of the indirect ones. The link is that I think a lot of the acceptance of determinism and compatibilism has to do with an uncritical acceptance of event causation language as literal rather than figurative.
In blogging, it's difficult to build a sustained and thorough argument; posts are more congenial to a piecemeal construction. The above points bring up a lot of issues, most of which I hope to deal with in some form or other at a future date, but if anything particularly bothers you, leave a comment, and I'll see if I can address that issue in the comments, or in a post soon to come.
I'll be adding new points soon. You can consider it a sort of philosophical mosaic that builds up the picture of libertarian worldview. (Point # 2 is closely related, and depends upon, this point.)
On Being Pessimistically Pro-Life
Dr. B gives what I think is the strongest argument for a pro-choice position. While I'm pro-life myself, I agree entirely with her view that more abstract arguments are not as important as the more concrete and personal issues. I do think they play a role, but they can't be allowed to dominate the discussion, as they certainly tend to do.
I don't normally talk about the issues surrounding abortion, precisely because of that (and, for related reasons, because I think this is a case which in a sense can only be successfully handled by women - not that men can have no view of the matter, but it really is a matter in which women can have more insight, and in which real progress can in general only come through women). My own view of the situation, which like a lot of my views is shared by no one else, is that the issue is caught up in a binary opposition or unresolved contradiction within progressive thought itself, inasmuch as the best arguments of both sides draw from different aspects of traditional progressivism; and this gets hardened by more reactionary members on both sides who are unwilling to recognize any insight in the other position. The progressive tradition cannot handle a lose-lose situation very well; and in this type of case there are, in my view, inevitable lose-lose situations.
As a matter of pure personal opinion I think, incidentally, it's unfortunate that in the United States the discussion so often centers around Roe v. Wade, for two reasons: 1) I think Roe v. Wade was a good decision in that I think the law that was struck down by Roe v. Wade deserved to be struck down, and while I don't think the justices wrote the decision very well at all, for constitutional reasons that could be stated the way they stated them; 2) I think Roe v. Wade was also a bad decision because it did not introduce real clarity into the situation as good Supreme Court decisions should, and I think this can be shown objectively by looking at the confusion it has spawned - had the justices deliberately written the decision to guarantee it would be controversial and challenged for the next ten decades, they could hardly have done a better job of it. Roe v. Wade is peripheral to the real issue; the real issue can be found only by understanding the women who genuinely do face the hard choices that Dr. B rightly notes can't be legislated away. They are many; and they are too often unseen by people on both sides who get caught up in the abstract arguments.
Because of my view of Roe v. Wade, I think it's probably the case that the only genuinely sustainable legal solution for the issue, if there is any at all, is pro-choice; that is, I think it very likely that no one will ever be able to find a pro-life legal state that will not violate women's rights, and that a pro-choice legal state is more easily sustainable. Being pro-life, I do think that a pro-choice legal state violates the rights of the unborn, which I think morally they have (however I turn the issue, I find I cannot in good conscience except them from my conviction that all human beings are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights). But moral rights are not the same as legal rights, and I see no way in which it would be possible to give them equal legal rights without detriment to the moral and legal rights of women. But I am not convinced that there is any legal solution to the problem at all; that is, I am not convinced that anyone has come up with a genuinely sustainable legal solution, nor that anyone ever will.
What I would like to see is for us to have a genuinely pro-life culture; but no one is doing any of the work that would have to be done to prepare for it. A genuinely pro-life culture would have to be a culture in which every effort is made to be supportive to women in hard situations, in which women are not shunned or despised because of pregnancy out of wedlock but instead lovingly supported, in which women are not isolated by economics or situation but always have available to them the wisdom and support of a living community of women, in which real people are more important than Pharisaic moralism. I think this is a society worth aiming at. Unfortunately, I don't think it is genuinely attainable. But any progress toward it would be worthwhile. But, again, I don't see much of the work being done that would be necessary for progress in this direction.
So while I am unabashedly and firmly pro-life, I am very pessimistic about our prospects on this issue. I think it would quite literally take a miracle or Kingdom Come to resolve the issue in an ideal way, and it is beyond human power to bring about either.
In any case, this will probably be my last post on this issue, at least for a long while. The discussion is better carried about by my betters on both sides, by people who have more insight and better character than I. If anyone is interested in the further state of the discussion, Dr. B notes several resources on the pro-choice side; several on the pro-life side can be found at Pro-Life Blogs, although I haven't checked on the quality of any of them - probably mixed, since these sorts of things usually are (and it should be noted that this is simply an aggregator, so a lot of the posts that show up to it aren't relevant to the issue).
I don't normally talk about the issues surrounding abortion, precisely because of that (and, for related reasons, because I think this is a case which in a sense can only be successfully handled by women - not that men can have no view of the matter, but it really is a matter in which women can have more insight, and in which real progress can in general only come through women). My own view of the situation, which like a lot of my views is shared by no one else, is that the issue is caught up in a binary opposition or unresolved contradiction within progressive thought itself, inasmuch as the best arguments of both sides draw from different aspects of traditional progressivism; and this gets hardened by more reactionary members on both sides who are unwilling to recognize any insight in the other position. The progressive tradition cannot handle a lose-lose situation very well; and in this type of case there are, in my view, inevitable lose-lose situations.
As a matter of pure personal opinion I think, incidentally, it's unfortunate that in the United States the discussion so often centers around Roe v. Wade, for two reasons: 1) I think Roe v. Wade was a good decision in that I think the law that was struck down by Roe v. Wade deserved to be struck down, and while I don't think the justices wrote the decision very well at all, for constitutional reasons that could be stated the way they stated them; 2) I think Roe v. Wade was also a bad decision because it did not introduce real clarity into the situation as good Supreme Court decisions should, and I think this can be shown objectively by looking at the confusion it has spawned - had the justices deliberately written the decision to guarantee it would be controversial and challenged for the next ten decades, they could hardly have done a better job of it. Roe v. Wade is peripheral to the real issue; the real issue can be found only by understanding the women who genuinely do face the hard choices that Dr. B rightly notes can't be legislated away. They are many; and they are too often unseen by people on both sides who get caught up in the abstract arguments.
Because of my view of Roe v. Wade, I think it's probably the case that the only genuinely sustainable legal solution for the issue, if there is any at all, is pro-choice; that is, I think it very likely that no one will ever be able to find a pro-life legal state that will not violate women's rights, and that a pro-choice legal state is more easily sustainable. Being pro-life, I do think that a pro-choice legal state violates the rights of the unborn, which I think morally they have (however I turn the issue, I find I cannot in good conscience except them from my conviction that all human beings are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights). But moral rights are not the same as legal rights, and I see no way in which it would be possible to give them equal legal rights without detriment to the moral and legal rights of women. But I am not convinced that there is any legal solution to the problem at all; that is, I am not convinced that anyone has come up with a genuinely sustainable legal solution, nor that anyone ever will.
What I would like to see is for us to have a genuinely pro-life culture; but no one is doing any of the work that would have to be done to prepare for it. A genuinely pro-life culture would have to be a culture in which every effort is made to be supportive to women in hard situations, in which women are not shunned or despised because of pregnancy out of wedlock but instead lovingly supported, in which women are not isolated by economics or situation but always have available to them the wisdom and support of a living community of women, in which real people are more important than Pharisaic moralism. I think this is a society worth aiming at. Unfortunately, I don't think it is genuinely attainable. But any progress toward it would be worthwhile. But, again, I don't see much of the work being done that would be necessary for progress in this direction.
So while I am unabashedly and firmly pro-life, I am very pessimistic about our prospects on this issue. I think it would quite literally take a miracle or Kingdom Come to resolve the issue in an ideal way, and it is beyond human power to bring about either.
In any case, this will probably be my last post on this issue, at least for a long while. The discussion is better carried about by my betters on both sides, by people who have more insight and better character than I. If anyone is interested in the further state of the discussion, Dr. B notes several resources on the pro-choice side; several on the pro-life side can be found at Pro-Life Blogs, although I haven't checked on the quality of any of them - probably mixed, since these sorts of things usually are (and it should be noted that this is simply an aggregator, so a lot of the posts that show up to it aren't relevant to the issue).
Friday, October 15, 2004
Semantic Compositions on Lakoff
The blog "Semantic Compositions" has been critically reviewing Lakoff's political writings in a delightfully sane and fun way:
Part I: What George Lakoff knows about the mind
Part II: How not to test a hypothesis
Part III: Excellent, excellent
Part IV: Relax? I can't relax!
All of them are good, especially the last one, which is excellent. The series isn't done yet; there's a Part V that I'll try to remember to put up when it comes out.
UPDATE (10/18): And Part V is out:
Part V: Elephants in George's Pajamas
Part I: What George Lakoff knows about the mind
Part II: How not to test a hypothesis
Part III: Excellent, excellent
Part IV: Relax? I can't relax!
All of them are good, especially the last one, which is excellent. The series isn't done yet; there's a Part V that I'll try to remember to put up when it comes out.
UPDATE (10/18): And Part V is out:
Part V: Elephants in George's Pajamas
Wisdom from Hume
Here then are the advantages of free states. Though a republic should be barbarous, it necessarily, by an infallible operation, gives rise to Law, even before mankind have made any considerable advances in the other sciences. From law arises security; from security curiosity; and from curiosity knowledge. The latter steps of this progress may be more accidental; but the former are altogether necessary. A republic without laws can never have any duration. On the contrary, in a monarchical government, law arises not necessarily from the forms of government. Monarchy, when absolute, contains even something repugnant to law. Great wisdom and reflection alone can reconcile them. But such a degree of wisdom can never be expected, before the greater refinements and improvements of human reason. These refinements require curiosity, security, and law. The first growth, therefore, of the arts and sciences, can never be expected in despotic governments.1
1 According to the necessary progress of things, law must precede science. In republics, law may precede science, and may arise from the very nature of government. In monarchies, it arises not from the nature of the government, and cannot precede sciences. An absolute prince, that is barbarous, renders all his ministers and magistrates as absolute as himself: and there needs no more to prevent, for ever, all industry, curiosity, and science.
[David Hume, "Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences." Curiosity, which is mentioned in this passage, plays a very important role in Hume's philosophy of science (a term which includes philosophy). The only Hume scholar I know who puts the sort of emphasis on this that it deserves is Fred Wilson, although I don't agree with him on everything. At some point I'll have to blog about the notion of curiosity in Hume.]
[David Hume, "Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences." Curiosity, which is mentioned in this passage, plays a very important role in Hume's philosophy of science (a term which includes philosophy). The only Hume scholar I know who puts the sort of emphasis on this that it deserves is Fred Wilson, although I don't agree with him on everything. At some point I'll have to blog about the notion of curiosity in Hume.]
The Word They Hear
I scribbled this today, and thought I'd share it. "The Word they hear," of course, is unspoken, at least by us.
The Word They Hear
"No word have I," said I, "no word at all
To tell of Him" - and yet within this call
We have from Him, can voice be silent still?
And even were this so, and silence spread
And bound my tongue as though it were now dead,
And shook away all discourse and all speech -
Yet then, what seeking soul could word not reach?
For let us not mistake that call that pours
From Heaven through Its Love, and not ignore
The nature of Its calling, strong and sure:
Though all fell dumb, yet message should endure,
Though quiet overcome, the Word be known.
For what cannot be said may oft be shown,
And though my tongue were bound with iron bands,
The gospel could I spread throughout the lands,
For though it needs a word, with Heaven's Lamb
I need no word but this, the word I am.
For even were I mute, this word is better,
And voiceless I may yet be word in letters,
Graven by the holy Son, the highest Word,
And being like to Him is always heard,
Though ears may yet hear nothing and I not speak,
Lord! In my living let them see 'tis You they seek!
The Word They Hear
"No word have I," said I, "no word at all
To tell of Him" - and yet within this call
We have from Him, can voice be silent still?
And even were this so, and silence spread
And bound my tongue as though it were now dead,
And shook away all discourse and all speech -
Yet then, what seeking soul could word not reach?
For let us not mistake that call that pours
From Heaven through Its Love, and not ignore
The nature of Its calling, strong and sure:
Though all fell dumb, yet message should endure,
Though quiet overcome, the Word be known.
For what cannot be said may oft be shown,
And though my tongue were bound with iron bands,
The gospel could I spread throughout the lands,
For though it needs a word, with Heaven's Lamb
I need no word but this, the word I am.
For even were I mute, this word is better,
And voiceless I may yet be word in letters,
Graven by the holy Son, the highest Word,
And being like to Him is always heard,
Though ears may yet hear nothing and I not speak,
Lord! In my living let them see 'tis You they seek!
Thursday, October 14, 2004
The End is Nigh
The Philosophy Department had the first talk in its Colloquium series today, "The End is Nigh: An Adventure in Rational Eschatology," by Peter van Inwagen. It sounds more interesting than it was. While it would, I think, make an interesting paper to read, having to listen to it being read was deadeningly dull, and it has the dubious distinction of being the first Colloquium talk that bored me to the point of nodding off. The topic of the paper was the so-called Doomsday Argument (see here for a simpler presentation), and most of the talk was just about the application of Bayes' Theorem. It consisted chiefly of intuition pumps, which contributed in great measure to my boredom.
I suppose no one can be interested in everything!
I suppose no one can be interested in everything!
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