LA Times Idea

I'm still thinking about this piece--whether I agree or not---but it offers an interesting idea, to have Biden as a transitional president to move us back to a better national place. (But there would also have to be a lot less poison from the right-wing media, and better GOP leadership overall.)

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-ol-le-joe-biden-clean-up-after-trump-20190428-story.html?fbclid=IwAR0awZE0VbLE2m9MceR_VPexqbilzmpWTKFhbsdGlr8mEga-KPEA6W1bmWo

Humboldt's Cosmos

My ongoing appreciation of classic books of science includes this set, an eagerly awaited, best-selling work of its time.

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was the preeminent scientist and explorer of his day. Although forgotten in popular consciousness for a long time, he has been the subject of recent, appreciative books by Laura Dassow Walls, Aaron Sachs, and Andrea Wulf. (I’m leading a book discussion on Wulf’s book next month.) Humboldt influenced Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, John Muir, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Frederic Edwin Church, and many other artists, even Edgar Allan Poe, and he visited dignitaries like Thomas Jefferson and Simon Bolivar. He traveled extensively through Latin America and Asia; his 1804 travel book about South America accompanied Darwin on his own voyage.

Humboldt reclaimed the ancient Greek word kosmos and adapted it for his view of the harmony of the earth and the heavens. He combined a careful scientific method with an aesthetic appreciation of beauty that can together lead to a wholistic, contemplative view of life. One reason, I think, for recent interest in Humboldt is the fact that he predicted human-caused climate change.


His Kosmos – Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung (Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe) was based on his lectures at the University of Berlin and were published in 1845 through 1862, the fifth and last volume a posthumous completion of his notes. It has been translated into several languages. Cosmos was nothing short of a comprehensive vision of the universe via science, history, art, philosophy, and other subjects.  The first volume surveys not only the physical phenomena of the earth—flora and fauna, volcanoes, climate, geography, etc.—but also outer space. In the next volume, he considers how nature has been perceived in different period of history and through the work of artists. Volumes 3 through 5 go into additional detail about geology, geography, and astronomy.

Here is an article by Laura Dassow Walls, “Introducting Humboldt’s Cosmos.”
https://www.humansandnature.org/introducing-humboldt-s-cosmos

Here is an article about Humboldt’s influence on Darwin:
https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/alexander-von-humboldt

Easter Rising, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

It's the 103nd anniversary of the Easter Rising, when Irish republicans sought to end British rule in Ireland and establish an independent Irish Republic. The day is also Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the day the Ottoman persecution and genocide of Armenians began in 1915.

Toyohiko Kagawa

In the Episcopal and Lutheran churches, the Japanese pacifist and activist Toyohiko Kagawa is remembered today, the anniversary of his 1960 death at the age of 71. Author of over 150 books, he was also active in relief work, labor organization, environmentalism, the women's suffrage movement in Japan, and efforts on behalf of the poor and exploited. One of his books, Brotherhood Economics, described an economic alternative to socialism and capitalism. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/143.html

Harnack's History of Dogma

When I was a student at Yale Divinity School in the early 1980s, I worked for a time in the Divinity Library. One day, I noticed that a 1909, seven-volume set of Adolph von Harnack’s classic History of Dogma was being pulled and discarded from the stacks. I asked if I could purchase the set and did so.

At the time I had a goal of being a Barthian theologian at a seminary. I thought that Harnack’s set would be helpful—plus, he was one of Barth’s own teachers—and I liked the look of the set. The Lord guided my paths along different lines (although I’ve taught Christian history in undergrad settings). The labels have remained on the books’ spines, which is a nice reminder of that wonderful library as I’ve carried the books through my life all these years. The other day I decided to take the books from the shelves and look through them again. Here is the outline of Harnack’s teaching.

[Volume 1]

Introduction  

Chapter 1: Prolegomena to the study of the history of dogma
1. The idea and task of the history of dogma
2. History of the History of dogma

Chapter 2: The presuppositions of the history of dogma
1. Introductory (the scriptures and the Greek and Roman worlds)
2. The Gospel of Christ according to his own testimony
3. First generation preaching about Jesus
4. Exposition of the Old Testament and Jewish hopes for the future in early Christian preaching
5. Hellenistic Judaism and the early preaching
6. Greek and Roman philosophy of religion
Supplementary section concerning Paul and early ecclesiastical forms

Book I: 

The Preparation
1. Historical survey
2. Element common to all Christians and the breach with Judaism
3. Beginnings of Gentile Christianity
4. Gnostic Christianity
5. Marcionite Christianity
6. Jewish Christianity

[Volume II]

Book 1, Division 1: Laying the Foundations

Chapter 1: Historical Survey
Chapter 2: The setting up of apostolic standards for ecclesiastical Christianity
1. Transformation of the baptismal confession into the apostolic rule of faith
2. Designation of Christian scriptures
3. Transformation of the episcopal office into an apostolic office
Chapter 3: continuation: Old Christianity and the new church
1. Montanism and penance
2. Fixing the Hellenizing of Christianity as a  system of doctrine
Chapter 4: Ecclesiastical Christianity and Philosophy, the Apologists
1. Introduction
2. Christianity as philosophy and revelation
3. Doctrines of Christianity as the revealed and rational religion
Chapter 5: Beginnings of an Ecclesiastico-theological interpretation and reivion of the rule of faith in opposition to Gnosticism
1. Irenaeus and his contemporaries
2. The old Catholic fathers
3. Cyprian and Novatian
Chapter 6: The transformation of the ecclesiastical tradition into a philosophy of religion
1. Clement of Alexandria
2. Origin and doctrines of God, the fall, and redemption

[Volume III]

Continuation of Division 1

Chapter 1: The decisive success of theological speculation in the sphere of the rule of faith.

Division 2: The Development of the dogma of the church
Book 1: the history of the development of dogma as the doctrine of the God-Man on the basis of natural theology 

Chapter 1. Historical situation (western and eastern churches up to Nicene II).
Chapter 2 Fundamental conception of salvation
Chapter 3: Sources of knowledge: Scripture, tradition, and the church

A. Presuppositions of doctrine of redemption or natural theology

Chapter 4: Presuppositions and conceptions of God the Creator as Dispenser of Salvation
Chapter 5: Presuppositions and conceptions of man as recipient of salvation

B. Doctrine of Redemption in the Person of the God-man, in its historical development.

Chapter 6: Doctrine of the Redemption in the Person of the God-man, in its historical development.

[Volume 4]

Chapter 1: The doctrine of the Homoousia
Appendix, the Doctrines of the Holy Spirit and of the Trinity
Chapters 2 and 3: The doctrine of the Perfect Likeness of the Nature of the Incarnate Son of God with that of Humanity (with the several theologians like Athanasius, Leo I, Justinian, and the early councils.
Chapter 4: The mysteries and Kindred subjects (Lord’s Supper, worship of the saints, images)
Chapter 5: Historical sketch of the rise of the Orthodox System

[Volume 5]

Division 2 continued, The Development of the dogma of the church
Book 2: the expansion and remodeling of dogma into a doctrine of sin, grace, and the means of grace on the basis of the Church 

Chapter 1: Historical Situation (Augustine’s period)
Chapter 2: Western Christianity and Theology before Augustine
Chapter 3: Augustine’s historical situation as reformer of Christian piety
Chapter 4: Augustine’s historical position as teacher of the church
Chapter 5: History of Dogma in the West to the beginning of the Middle Ages, 430-604
(including Semi-Pelagianism, Gregory the Great, etc.)
Chapter 6: History of Dogma in the period of the Carlovingian Renaissance

[Volume 6]

Book 2 of Division 2 Continued

Chapter 1: History of Dogma in the period of Clugny, Anselm, and Bernard
Chapter 2: History of Dogma in the period of the mendicant Monks, till the beginning of the 16th century (including the doctrine of the church, Scholasticism, Penance and indulgences, theology of merit, and Thomism

[Volume 7]

Book 3 of Division 2: The Threefold Issue of the history of Dogma

Chapter 1: The historical situation of the Middle Ages and opposition to curialism
Chapter 2: The issues of dogma in Roman Catholicism (including Trent, the decline of Augustinianism, and Vatican I).
Chapter 3: The issues of dogma in Anti-trinitarianism and Socinianism
Chapter 4: The issues of dogma in Protestantism (with a focus on Luther)

Harnack concludes with a long paragraph that summarizes his investigation:

"The Gospel entered into the world, not as a doctrine, but as a joyful message and as a power of the Spirit of God, originally in the forms of Judaism. It stripped off these forms with amazing rapidity, and united and amalgamated itself with Greek science, the Roman Empire and ancient culture, developing, as a counterpoise to this, renunciation of the world and the striving after supernatural life, after deification. All this was summed up in the old dogma and in dogmatic Christianity. Augustine reduced the value of this dogmatic structure, made it subservient to a purer and more living conception of religion, but yet finally left it standing so far as its foundations and aim were concerned. Under his direction there began in the Middle Ages, from the nth century, an astonishing course of labour; the retrograde steps are to a large extent only apparent, or are at least counter balanced by great steps of progress. But no satisfying goal is reached ; side by side with dogma, and partly in opposition to it, exists a practical piety and religious self-criticism, which points at the same time forwards and backwards — to the Gospel, but ever the more threatens to vanish amid unrest and languor. An appallingly powerful ecclesiasticism is taking shape, which has already long held in its possession the stolid and indifferent, and takes control of the means whereby the restless may be soothed and the weary gathered in. Dogma assumes a rigid aspect ; it is elastic only in the hands of political priests ; and it is seen to have degenerated into sophistry ; faith takes its flight from it, and leaves the old structure to the guardians of the Church. Then appeared Luther, to restore the "doctrine," on which no one any longer had an inward reliance. But the doctrine which he restored was the Gospel as a glad message and as a power of God. That this was what it was, he also pronounced to be the chief, nay the only, principle of theology. What the Gospel is must be ascertained from Holy Scripture ; the power of God cannot be construed by thought, it must be experienced ; the faith in God as the Father of Jesus Christ, which answers to this power, cannot be enticed forth by reason or authority ; it must become a part of one's life ; all that is not born of faith is alien to the Christian religion and therefore also to Christian theology — all philosophy, as well as all asceticism. Matthew XI. 27 is the basis of faith and of theology. In giving effect to these thoughts, Luther, the most conservative of men, shattered the ancient church and set a goal to the history of dogma. That history has found its goal in a return to the gospel. He did not in this way hand over something complete and finished to Christendom, but set before it a problem, to be developed out of many encumbering surroundings, to be continuously dealt with in connection with the entire life of the spirit and with the social condition of mankind, but to be solvedonly in faith itself. Christendom must constantly go on to learn, that even in religion the simplest thing is the most difficult, and that everything that is a burden upon religion quenches its seriousness (" a Christian man's business is not to talk grandly about dogmas, but to be always doing arduous and great things in fellowship with God " 1 Zwingli). Therefore the goal of all Christian work, even of all theological work, can only be this — to discern ever more distinctly the simplicity and the seriousness of the gospel, in order to become ever purer and stronger in spirit, and ever more loving and brotherly in action."

1. "Christiani hominis est non de dogmatis magnifica loqui, sed cum deo ardua semper et magna facere."

Here is a link that discusses aspects of Harnack's thought and career, including his role in German nationalism that so offended his former student Karl Barth, that Beth began to work his way into a new approach to dogmatics. https://www.counter-currents.com/2017/02/adolf-von-harnacks-dark-theology/

"Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation"

I love antique books, and during the last few years I've been collecting a few notable science books from the nineteenth century. I like to write about them on this blog, teaching myself many new things in the process.

Here is a book set the stage for Darwin! Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was an anonymously published book of natural history from 1844. It was a best seller, said to have even been read by Lincoln! According to the author--eventually revealed to be Robert Chambers--all thing sin existence developed from earlier forms through what we would now call transmutation or evolution. Although his science (and racist view of humans) are deficient, his notions of development of species and natural law, that were created but not necessarily guided by Providence, were influential at a time when similar theories by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck were not held in high scientific regard.

The book caught the attention of young Darwin, well ahead of his Origin of Species. He was already developing his hypotheses about special development, and because of the popular responses to Vestiges, he was able to foresee some of the controversies that would greet his own work.

Good ol' Wikipedia has a summary of the book's arguments and history of publication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestiges_of_the_Natural_History_of_Creation

Heartwarming Memory

Shopping on eBay, as I often do, I noticed this thermometer for sale. https://www.ebay.com/itm/FS-gas-station-sign-pole-thermometer-Illinois-Farm-Supply-Service-oil/333165908700?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908131621%26meid%3D3a882a8616934fbba894e92d2365b9d1%26pid%3D100678%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D7%26sd%3D123333267602%26itm%3D333165908700&_trksid=p2481888.c100678.m3607&_trkparms=pageci%3A3ec7c938-64fb-11e9-9053-74dbd180caf9%7Cparentrq%3A450c2a9c16a0ab673427f399ffffbe37%7Ciid%3A1

Sometimes small things warm your heart, and in this case, I thought of all the Farm Service signs that were common around the countryside where I grew up.  Plus, the Illinois communities Olney, Newton, and Lawrenceville were places Dad visited during his delivery routes.

Easter History

All kinds of interesting historical information about the ceremonies and customs of Easter, which of course is celebrated today in the Western churches, and next Sunday in the Eastern churches.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05224d.htm

Columbine Anniversary

It's the 20th anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School. I remember that I was just pulling up to the parking lot at Indiana University Southeast, to teach my undergrad New Testament class, when the news came on the radio.

Here is an interesting interview of Columbine-area pastors who reflect on that day and the aftermath:
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-columbine-shooting-anniversary-pastors-funerals-20190420-story.html

David Brion Davis, Historian of Slavery

Obituary of historian David Brion Davis, who wrote, “We must face the ultimate contradiction that our free and democratic society was made possible by massive slave labor.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/obituaries/david-brion-davis-dead.html

Notre Dame and Al-Aqsa

I'm not making any equivalency or contrast in these tragedies, but it's so sad that the fire Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem also had a fire yesterday, with less damage than Notre Dame, in the roof of the prayer room. Al-Aqsa is the third holiest place in Islam, after the Ka'ba in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. As we've been seeing, too, in the burning of African American churches, houses of worship and prayer are deeply meaningful to their respective communities, and in their historical connections as well, which differ depending on the structure. Their damage or destruction is heartbreaking. (Again, I'm not making equivalencies, just thinking out loud generally about different experiences of emotional trauma within religious communities.)  

Ghost Signs: St Louis

Old 66: Gravois Rd. and Tucker Blvd.