Logic and Learning

I took my logic final yesterday. It does not follow,however, that I am finally logical. So glad was I to be done with the class that I began to clear my desk of all things relating to logic. (I leave you to interpret the ambiguity and decide if I mean relating to the class or logic itself).

Apart from my main textbook I have a small Mars Hill exercise book that I thumbed through at the beginning of my class and subsequently ignored the rest of the semester. I picked it up again after my final and gave it one parting glance. Skimming the list of fallacies, my eye caught one that was not in my other textbook; however, I recognized it anyway. The term “Bulverism” was coined by C.S.Lewis and that explains why I recognized it and also why it is not an official term for a fallacy in other textbooks. Bulverism does have its corresponding term in my text as the “ad hominem circumstantial.” That is, the second arguer attacks the person of the first arguer by claiming something about the circumstances of the first arguer that makes him or her argue that way. For instance, “he claims the book is exciting and that everybody should read it but he only says that because he is paid by the publisher.”

Since any excuse will serve that allows me to read C.S.Lewis, I no sooner saw the term Bulverism than I pulled down God in the Dock and reread the essay: “'Bulverism:' or, the Foundation of 20th Century Thought.” Just like the ad hominem circumstantial, Bulverism ignores the actual truth or falsehood of an argument and instead tries (and often succeeds) in discrediting the arguer. “In other words,” Lewis explains, “you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly” (273). Lewis records the origin of Bulverism,

a vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it.... Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father—who had been maintaining that the two sides of a triangle were together greater than the third—'Oh you say that because you are a man.' 'At that moment,' E. Bulver assures us, 'there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall' (273).

Why—the day after my final when, at last, there is no need to think about logic—do I write about this subject that, frankly, I didn't like very much while I was taking a class on it? After writing the paragraphs above I asked myself that question and came to the realization that this fallacy became interesting to me because it is connected to something else I am interested in, namely, C.S.Lewis. We learn things best if we are not forced to learn them; when something or someone we love makes us want to find out more. I think George MacDonald had it right when he said: “we must learn things as they come to us and when we want to. Otherwise there will be little remembering. You can never make yourself like a thing” (65). And now, whether you liked it or not, you've read the history of Bulverism and George MacDonald's philosophy of education. The question is, will you remember it or, like me before yesterday, think it is the most boring thing in the world.

Lewis, C. S. God in the Dock: Essays On Theology and Ethics. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1993.
MacDonald, George. The Tutor's First Love. originally David Elginbrod. 1863. Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 1989.

The Hunt For the Souls of Men

In the winter of 1887, Wilfred Meynell, editor of the Catholic Magazine Merry England, received a mysterious parcel containing an essay and some poems written on dirty scraps of paper. In the cover letter, pardon was asked, “for the soiled state of the manuscript,” claiming it was not through slovenliness, but the unavoidable circumstances under which they were written. Meynell published one of these poems, hoping by this means to gain further correspondence. His bait worked and one day an unkempt, ragged man, suffering from an opium hangover, entered his office, introducing himself as Francis Thompson.

Born in 1859 to Catholic parents, Thompson was sent to Ushaw College to study for the priest-hood. But at 18 he returned home with a letter from the headmaster which said: “It is quite time that he should begin to prepare for some other career.” So accordingly, for the next six years he lazily studied to become a doctor like his father. But he failed the medical exam three times. About this time he took up opium which was not only available for medical use, but was, as a liquid called laudanum, cheaper and just as available as beer. After his threefold failure he took to the streets of London; a bum, poor and homeless.

It was during these years on the streets writing poetry that Wilfred Meynell found him. Meynell and his wife Alice (also an accomplished poet) took Thompson under their wing, placing him in a drug clinic and then a monastery to recover. For some years he seemed cured of his opium addiction and during this time he wrote nearly all of his poetry and a number of literary essays. But in 1898, Thompson relapsed into his opium addiction from which in part he died in 1907 at the age of 48, due to a mixture of tuberculosis and laudanum poisoning.

From out of this shaky life, in 1893, Thompson wrote "The Hound of Heaven," a poem that is considered his masterpiece. Coventry Patmore called it, “one of the very few ‘great’ odes of which the language can boast.” After gaining fame in England, Thompson’s popularity quickly spread to America and beyond, due in part to critics like G. K. Chesterton who called him “a great poet.” His patron Wilfred Meynell hoped to promote Thompson as "the Poet of Catholic orthodoxy" and even claimed: “One greater than Milton is among us.”

The verse form is irregular and somewhat confusing even after an initial reading. There are rhyming couplets and quatrains spaced throughout that give it just enough regularity to throw off the novice reader (like myself). Even ignoring all rules of order and blindly rushing after the pageant of florid words, however, is often excitement enough. For as nearly everyone who has read it has remarked, the pace is frenzied, running and rushing headlong, as if the Hound of Heaven were indeed close behind.

Thompson was called a mystic poet, that is, he used allegorical and symbolic figures to represent God and other spiritual things. In "The Hound of Heaven," which is autobiographical, the allegorical image is that of Thompson being pursued by a hound, the Hound of Heaven. From which he flees,

Down the nights and down the days...

Down the arches of the years...
Down the labyrinthine ways

of his own mind. But no matter where he goes or what he does, he cannot escape,

From those strong Feet that followed,
Followed after. But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace.

Soon, the reason he flees is made clear; he does not wish to give up his dreams or his sins. "Lest having him, I must have not besides."

He then says that during the pursuit he leaves even the fellowship and abode of men. Hoping that by living under the open sky and eating in the “wind walled palace” (i.e. outside) he might partake of Nature’s delicate fellowship.

But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart...
And past those noised feet
A voice comes yet more fleet--
'Lo! Naught contents thee, who content’st not me.'

At last the Hound draws near and asks him why he delays. What is so precious on earth? Doth he not know that,

Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest me!
Strange, piteous, futile thing!

"The Hound of Heaven" is very forceful in presenting humanity fleeing from God even though the gloom is after all only, “Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly.” The poem reaches a raw, emotional pitch rarely attained in written words. As G. K. Chesterton said: “It was an event of History, as much as an event of literature, when personal religion returned suddenly with something of the power of Dante or the 'Dies Irae,' after a century in which such religion had seemed to grow weak and provincial, and more and more impersonal religions appeared to posses the future.”

Many people from all walks of the Christian life, not just Catholics, have appreciated "The Hound of Heaven" because of its overarching theme: the love of God. That no matter where we are or what we’ve done God is always pursuing, not in wrath, but in love. Perhaps Chesterton expresses best what this poem means: “The awakening of the Domini Canes, the Dogs of God, meant that the hunt was up once more; the hunt for the souls of men…. and…the hunt will continue until the world turns to bay.”

Gorgias (No, Not Georgia)

My first tentative reconnoiter into the field of Greek literature after reading Who Killed Homer, was with the playwright Aeschylus. While all went well, I did not learn much, and subsequently, have nothing to report. But though my first foray was unfruitful, the adventure I am currently in the middle of has already yielded a wealth of interesting things. I am, as it were, still on the front lines, in that I have not yet finished exploring Plato's Gorgias. I only have a partial picture of Socrates' dialogue (did the spelling change to dialog recently and I missed it? Spell check isn't happy with me and I'm not happy with it.) with Gorgias and Callicles on the purpose of oratory.

Even though I started with the intent to learn what Plato thought about public speaking because I am enrolled in a public speaking class, my interest has been taken captive by the discussion of good and evil that he creates. Basically, Plato, speaking through Socrates, claims that the evil man who inflicts harm is more miserable than the good man who unjustly receives it. Also, the wrongdoer who escapes harm is more miserable than the wrongdoer brought to justice.

Even if, like Callicles, we disagree with what Plato says about a disciplined and upright life being a happier state to live in than unrestrained immorality, where does the differentiation between good and evil come from? In other words, why does Plato (a pre-christian) even recognize the existence of good and evil, right and wrong? And further, see the two alternatives as the most important choice a person can make?

O.k. I want to read a few more pages of this dialogue (or dialog) before bed.

Reflecting on the "Emerging Church"

There seems to be quite a stir going on over what it means to be an "Emerging Church" inside the Emerging Church. I've always been a bit confused over what the term means, but now Dan Kimball, author of The Emerging Church, posts on his blog that he too is, "finding that the term has become so broad now and so confusing." But maybe none of us should be surprised that a word like "emerging" that denotes movement and change is doing just that: changing.

The "emerging conversation" is starting to sound like an argument as some groups all of a sudden try to distance themselves from "emerging" or scramble for some other label like "missional" or "emergent." One blogger noted that there is now a polarizing movement with leaders like Kimball on the right focusing on evangelism and others on the left embracing a more liberal theology. I've been out of the loop for a while so maybe this has been building for some time. If I get the chance I would like to understand the Emerging Church a little more and maybe post my findings. We'll see. Until then you might want to check out Dan Kimball's post, which he promises is the first of a series.

Informational speech on C.S.Lewis

Below is a speech I will be giving in my public speaking class next Thursday. Let me know what you think about it. I am open to suggestion for improving it. Just remember it is 6-10 min. long so not all the interesting stuff I wanted to put in would fit. Also, the headings I have put in are required in that order. Enjoy


Attention Getter:

200 million. That’s the number of C.S.lewis books sold over the last 70 years, according to publishing numbers. Less than 100 authors have sold over 100 million books; Steven King, Charles Dickens, and the author of Harry Potter are in this list, but who is C.S.Lewis and why are his books so popular?

Credentials and relevancy:

I’ve been a C.S.Lewis fan for years, ever since reading his Chronicles of Narnia fantasy series as a kid. Since then, I’ve read nearly all of his 34 books and numerous biographies. Part of the answer to why he is so popular is that he is fun and easy to read. But what you will learn today is that Lewis wrote a great variety of books that have appealed to a great variety of people. You’ve probably heard of, or even read, the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis’s wildly popular children’s fantasies, but if you think you’re too old for that, Lewis wrote some other bestsellers that might be right down your ally.

Purpose statement and preview of the main points:

Today you’ll hear what some of those books are as we look at 3 aspects of C.S.Lewis’s life: C.S.Lewis the Scholar, C.S.Lewis the Christian, and C.S.Lewis the novelist.

1st. main point:

First, Let’s look at what sort of scholar C.S.Lewis was. As a boy growing up in Ireland at the beginning of the 20st. century, Lewis liked nothing better than reading books in the family’s attic. This love of reading led him to become a student at Oxford University, where he studied literature and philosophy. Immediately after graduating, Lewis began teaching and writing on these subjects. Eventually he became the chair of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge University. He was such an expert in this field that he was asked to write the official Oxford History of 16th. Century Literature.

2nd. main point:

Besides his career as a brilliant literary scholar, Lewis had another interest: Religion. I mentioned that you would hear about C.S.Lewis the Christian but C.S.Lewis wasn’t always a Christian. As a teenager and college student he was an outspoken atheist. This began to change, however, when he met a fellow professor whom I think most of you have probable heard of: J.R.R.Tolkien. Just like Lewis, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books have sold 300 million copies, enough for everyone in the United States to have one.

One evening in 1931 the two friends got to talking about one of there favorite subjects: religion. Lewis the atheist arguing against it, Tolkien, a Christian, explaining why he believed. According to George Sayers, a friend and later biographer, they walked into the Oxford college rose garden and kept talking, and talking, and talking…until 3 in the morning! The end of the story is that Lewis became a Christian. Any Lord of the Rings fan will be interested to know that Lewis’s funny and profound bestseller, The Screwtape Letters, was dedicated to Tolkien. This book is the imaginary correspondence between a high-ranking devil and his young apprentice tempter Screwtape. It’s funny but has some keen observations about humanity as well. You don’t have to be a Christian to enjoy it. In fact, very few of Lewis’s quote “Christian” books were written for Christians Since he was once an atheist, Lewis wrote many books to those people asking the same questions about God and the meaning of life that he once asked. Mere Christianity, a [citation needed] million bestseller is one of these books that answer some tough questions about Christianity. The Problem of Pain asks why—if there is a God—he would allow suffering in the world.

3rd. main point:

So far we have looked at 2 aspects of Lewis’s life and a sampling of some of the books that derived from it. But C.S.Lewis the scholar and Christian have only sold about, oh, 75 million copies, so where do the rest come from? They come from C.S.Lewis the Novelist.

You already know Lewis loved to read, but what kind of stories were his favorite? According to [citation needed], he loved fair tales and fantasies. It didn’t matter if they were written for children; he still loved them. In his own essay entitled: “Sometimes Fairy Stories Say Best What’s To Be Said,” Lewis said that

I fell in love with the [fairy tale] form itself: its brevity, its severe restraints on description, its flexible traditionalism, its inflexible hostility to all analysis, digression, reflections and ‘gas.’ I was now enamored of it. Its very limitations of vocabulary became an attraction; as the hardness of the stone pleases the sculpture or the difficulty of the sonnet delights the sonneteer.

He goes on: “[As an author myself] I wrote fairy tales because the fairy tale seemed the ideal form for the stuff I had to say” (On Stories, 47). And so we have the Chronicles of Narnia today. Not children’s stories only but stories with a simplicity and clearness of writing that even children can understand. The reason why Narnia is so popular for many adults still, may hinge on what Lewis once said, quote, “It certainly is my opinion that a book worth reading only as a child is not worth reading even then” (On Stories, 48).

Science Fiction is not all that different from fantasy. During the1940s and 50s when Lewis was at the peak of his writing career, Science Fiction was just becoming popular. Lewis contributed to the rise of Sci-fi with a space trilogy. In the first book, Ransom is abducted by an evil scientist who plans to take him to Mars as a gift/sacrifice/offering to the Martians. On landing he escapes but is soon recaptured by the strange natives. They don’t sacrifice him on a bloody alter like he thought, instead he must help them send the evil scientist back to earth. That’s a simplification but I don’t want to give everything away before you’ve read it for yourself.

Review of the preview:

The third and final book in this trilogy, That Hideous Strength, is one of my favorite books. Maybe that’s because it reveals all aspects of C.S.Lewis that we just looked at. C.S.Lewis the Novelist is at his height writing about a scientific conspiracy to control all of England. C.S.Lewis the Christian has his hero wrestle with choosing to resist evil or join it for the sake of power and wealth. His heroine also discovers that helping others is better than always thinking of oneself. Finally, C.S.Lewis the Medieval Scholar supplies the background for the reappearance of the legendary wizard Merlin after a 1000-year sleep.

It’s hard not to like an author who has a little something for everyone. Whether you’re a history buff wanting to empress your history or lit teacher on a test, or you’re looking for the easy to understand answers to the hard questions of life, or you just want to curl up with a good story, try C.S.Lewis. 200 million other people have liked him; you might too.

Who Killed Homer?

"Until the fog of classicism has lifted, the greater classics are invisible.”--C.S.Lewis (28).

Occasionally (translate, once in a great while) I will read a book with a more substantive content than my usual fair of “fluff in fiction.” When this does happen I am often surprised both by the inscrutable, unfathomable content and by how much I enjoy it. The latest instance of this is Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath’s inquiry into Who Killed Homer. To be honest, I didn’t actually read it (that would be impressive!); I listened to it, so it may have gone in one ear and out the other.

If you haven’t heard of Victor Davis Hanson yet--you have now. A good way to meet him is through his blog, Works and Days, that right now is devoted to national politics. That he could be one of the best political commentators as well as one of the best Greek historians and educators is strong testimony to his intellect.

Who Killed Homer seeks to do three primary things: (1.) discover why the Iliad and Odyssey and other Greek and Latin classics are so little studied, (2.) Shame classics professors into actually teaching their students instead of seeking tenure and grants to spend on “esoteric” research projects, and (3.) Warn that Western culture will be lost if we forget “the Greek way of thinking.”

A number of factors have contributed to “the demise of classical education” (that happens to be part of the subtitle). A proliferation of degrees in fields such as “gender studies,” psychology, and so on, have sapped students and resources from classics departments. Students are too lazy to devote their time to learning Latin and Greek when easier courses are available (I don’t blame them, I’m unilingual too). These and other factors, Hanson and Heath argue, have made it so that today most colleges do not even have a classics department and those that do…. Well, this calls for a new paragraph on the second point listed above.

Classics professors often do not teach their students the foundations of Greek language, literature, and history. In their place classes that make the student feel good, or that do not require the teacher to prepare, or, just as bad, classes on esoteric topics are substituted. Hanson and Heath seem to take great relish in lampooning the titles of “esoteric” (seemingly one of Hanson’s favorite words) papers and theses written by less than admired colleagues. “Feminism in Greek Culture” takes precedence over actually teaching about Greek culture and “Homosexuality and Gender Issues in Such and Such an Author” trumps teaching what that author actually wrote. Hanson and Heath feel so strongly about poor teaching quality that they advocate abolishing the tenure system, cutting grants for research projects, and increasing teaching loads across the country.

So far I have been summarizing some pretty specialized topics in Who Killed Homer, those not interested in the decline of education standards over the past few decades and who have no power to change it anyway, may ask the not unimportant question: “what’s in it for me?” Hanson and Heath point out that Western culture is directly descended from the Greeks and Romans. All our most important institutions and ideals—Western culture itself—are from that ancient world. Individual freedom, constitutional government, free speech, you name it, were all patronized and defended by the Greeks. Hanson and Heath claim that never has a country been so influenced by the Greeks and yet (increasingly) so ignorant of them. They warn that if “the Greek way of thinking” is lost, Western culture, as we know it, will disappear. So there’s your answer, if you live in America or any country that still claims to be part of the ideological “West.”

The concluding half of Who Killed Homer’s subtitle is: The Recovery of Greek Wisdom. Hanson and Heath argue that “the Greek way of thinking” must be encouraged through teaching people the basics of Classical history and thought. More than just a few musty old professors and irritatingly brilliant students need to know about the principles of Greek culture to be able to recover its wisdom. Every citizen of the Polis should “think like a Greek.”

For a sample chapter modified into an essay by the authors click here.

C.S.Lewis, English Literature in the 16th Century, Oxford Univ. Press, 1954.

The Man Born To Be King

“You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born.” –John 18:37

Dorothy L. Sayers has an impressive variety of books under her name. Detective stories, translations of medieval writings, essays and commentaries on literature, and last, but not least, plays. I have had the opportunity to get a brief sampling of each of these with the exception of her dramas. That is, until I recently read her series of plays under the title: The Man Born To Be King. These plays chronicle the life of Christ with sometimes free, but never irreverent or improbable, additions of suppositional history and dialogue.

Call it coincidence if you will, but I just happened to start reading in Matthew the week I began this book and, due to slow reading and many distractions, was still reading it all the way through Mark, Luke, and John. This turned out to be a good thing because, like most things that get stale and boring after much familiarity, the story of Jesus as contained in the four gospels was starting to get old. Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems that sometimes we start reading and immediately disconnect our brain (or, equally fatal, our heart) and merely process empty words. At the end of a chapter we vaguely remember a string of platitudes and parables heard a hundred times before but don’t really care to recall them to mind or ponder who they were spoken to and why. The narrative of Jesus life hardly stirs our interest or emotions anymore. Even that piercing and heartrending cry uttered from the cross of suffering: “my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” can eventually be read with indifferent and sleepy eyes. The Man Born To Be King, however, lets us experience the life of Christ anew. Like Ben Hur and other historical novels that introduce the sights, sound, and “feel” of a scene, so Sayers adds little details that make the bare facts more lifelike.

Knowing the end of a story can also make us less attentive readers. Sayers combats this by developing Judas’s character so that we don’t know if he will really betray Jesus for some time. He starts off as a good guy like all the other disciples but is slowly gnawed by mistrust of Jesus’ pure motives in the corrupt political landscape of Judea that Sayers envisions. Pilate’s role is also realistically done I thought. Why all the vacillating between having Jesus flogged and evading condemning him on the technicality that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction? Or between allowing Jesus to be crucified but immediately washing his hands of the whole affair? Sayers presents it as a sort of political chess game that Pilate was forced to play with the High Priest. Although Pilate was able to put the Jews in check with the admission that, “we have not king but Caesar,” he was checkmated by his own move when the Jews countered by charging: “if you let this man go you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”

To sum things up, The Man Born to be King retells the gospel story with a little suppositional history and plot development that make the real history more interesting for those that both have or have not heard it before. Originally, the goal of these plays on the life of Christ were to introduce people to Jesus apart from “religion” and the language of the King James Bible. The mid 20th century British language and employment of the hardly popular drama form will probably turn most people today off just like the King James Language often still does, but we can hope it was useful to B.B.C. radio audiences in the 1940’s. And, even now, for a few like me to once again follow in the dusty footsteps of the Carpenter from Nazareth who is the Man born to be King.