[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" hundred_percent_height="no" hundred_percent_height_scroll="no" hundred_percent_height_center_content="yes" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" status="published" publish_date="" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" enable_mobile="no" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" margin_top="" margin_bottom="" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" spacing="" center_content="no" link="" target="_self" min_height="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_image_id="" background_position="left top" background_repeat="no-repeat" hover_type="none" border_size="0" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" border_radius="" box_shadow="no" dimension_box_shadow="" box_shadow_blur="0" box_shadow_spread="0" box_shadow_color="" box_shadow_style="" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="" margin_bottom="" animation_type="" animation_direction="left" animation_speed="0.3" animation_offset="" last="no"][fusion_text columns="" column_min_width="" column_spacing="" rule_style="default" rule_size="" rule_color="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id=""] At Gutenberg we sometimes refer to Romanticism as the Enlightenment’s “evil twin”—somewhat facetiously, of course, but a certain amount of opprobrium does attach to the term in the annals of intellectual history. Romanticism has been characterized as the refuge of irrationalists, obscurantists, even solipsists who would downplay or even deny the reality of the phenomenal world. The English poet Alfred Tennyson (1809-92) epitomizes the Romantic temperament when he reacts to controversial scientific ideas like Robert Chambers’s “transmutation of the species” (a precursor to Darwinian evolution) and their tendency to view human beings as unexceptional: “Let Science prove we are, and then / What matters Science unto men, / At least to me?” (“In Memoriam,” Canto 120.) If science, history, and representational art are windows through which we see the world outside, then surely Romantic art and philosophy are mirrors in which, like Narcissus, the gazer is lost in an imaginary dream. But what, after all, is the difference between a window and a mirror apart from the fact that the former shows what is behind it and the latter what is before? Indeed, one could argue that the window—corresponding here to scientific observation with its supposed objectivity—presents the greater obstacle to true knowledge because of its very transparency. Its presence, and thus its effects on the observer and the observed, is easily forgotten. The mirror, on the other hand, which obviously presents nothing more than an image of reality, never lets one lose sight of the fact that one’s perspective is limited. Even for the Apostle Paul, the mirror is a more appropriate metaphor for the medium of earthly knowledge: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Romanticism, then, might be understood as a reaction to the epistemological pretensions of Enlightenment thinking. But that is not all. By framing their artistic and philosophical productions as so many mirrors—most are loosely if not strictly autobiographical—the Romantics restored to our picture of reality what the Enlightenment and its heirs tended to erase: the human being, instinct with the breath divine. This human being is not, in Tennyson’s words, “wholly brain”; not merely a pair of hands to pull a lever or crank a machine; not—notwithstanding the reductions of the Darwinist—nothing but that part of the body for which the modesty of a former age sewed an apron of fig leaves. In contrast with all such analyses, all such breakings-down of the human being, the Romantics saw the goal of philosophy to be a synthesis , a putting-back-together-again. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), who of all the Romantics offers the fullest exposition of their thought, writes thus of the imagination, a faculty more important to them than any other: It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify. (Biographia Literaria) The idealized, unified, synthesized image of the human being that we glimpse in the mirror of Romantic poetry and prose is beautiful and maybe even flattering, combining as it does many of the features that we would sooner associate with God: “For Mercy has a human heart, / Pity a human face, / And Love, the human form divine, / And Peace, the human dress.” 1 The effect of the picture as a whole, however, is a melancholy one, for in a corner of the frame, small but conspicuous, crouches a hideous creature: Death. If the prey for whom it lies fiendishly in wait, the human being, were merely an animal or a machine—as some of the Romantics’ contemporaries averred—the picture would lose its sadness along with its beauty. American Romantic Edgar Allen Poe (1809-49) makes the connection between sadness and beauty explicit in his comments on a kind of self-elegy written by another Romantic, William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878): The intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of all the poet’s cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to the soul … Let me remind you that (how or why we know not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of beauty. (“The Poetic Principle”) Here Poe professes not to know the reason why great beauty should grieve us, but I believe the foregoing discussion provides an answer. The more beautiful we find something—that is, the more we recognize in it the imprint of the divine—the sadder we are tempted to become, understanding or remembering or only vaguely sensing that it, too, must pass. Or perhaps, observing beauty that seems perpetually renewed, like winter blooming into spring, we are saddened at the thought of our own continuous decline. “Beauty,” as the English Romantic John Keats (1795-1821) famously wrote, “is truth” (“Ode on a Grecian Urn”). Poe puts his finger on this idea in a later essay when he writes: “[T]he death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world” (“The Philosophy of Composition”). Many of his poems and stories, and all of the more beautiful ones, have just this as their theme. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE; And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, In her sepulcher there by the sea— In her tomb by the side of the sea. This is not the affectation of a poet who has simply realized that sorrow sells. Poe wrote “Annabel Lee” after the death of his consumptive wife at the age of twenty-three. We may also confidently trace the origins of “The Raven,” “Ligeia,” and “Berenice” to her long illness—and to Poe’s memory of his young mother’s death from the same disease when he was still a child. Poe is not the only Romantic to sound this note of sadness. Just as some have detected in Thomas Gray’s “Elegy written in a Country Churchyard” (1751) the first signs of the Romantic sensibility, the elegy may be the genre in which the Romantics did their more characteristic and beautiful work. In “Adonais,” the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) writes: I weep for Adonais—he is dead! Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head! Again, this is no lachrymose little number performed by a hired mourner at the head of a Roman funeral procession. Shelley wrote it less than six months after Keats’s death from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five, seeing in his friend’s fate not only the tragedy of the beautiful Grecian youth beloved of Aphrodite but also a foreshadowing of his own demise. (Shelley was to die six years later, young himself and, like Keats, relatively obscure.) Shelley’s grief, like Poe’s for his wife Virginia, was real. Real too is the grief in the sonnet beginning with the words “Surprised by joy” by the English Romantic William Wordsworth (1770-1850), the last of the sad, beautiful poems that I shall adduce for you here. Its first words, of course, were later used by C. S. Lewis as the title for his 1955 autobiography, testifying to the poem’s importance for him. In this sonnet, Wordsworth recounts the pain he felt when, turning unconsciously to share a moment of happiness with his three-year-old daughter Catherine, he remembers that she is dead. —That thought’s return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more; That neither present time, nor years unborn Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. C. S. Lewis, remembering the time when he was still seeking a philosophy of life that would do justice to his experience of it, writes: “The only non-Christians who seemed to me really to know anything were the Romantics” (Surprised by Joy). Like the Romantics, he rejected the latest instance of Enlightenment thinking, the psychological “realism” of the day according to which even our highest aspirations are sublimations of sexual desire—a simplistic and even sophomoric account of the human condition. For Lewis, such a theory failed to account for what he calls “Joy.” Joy is to be distinguished from pleasure and even happiness, he writes; in fact, one might almost call it a kind of grief. Most interesting for our purposes is the genre of the literary work to which Lewis traces his first encounter with Joy: the elegy. “I heard a voice that cried, / Balder the beautiful / Is dead, is dead…” 2 The death of the beloved, the beloved’s beauty: this might be a poem by Poe, Shelley, or Wordsworth. Lewis found in Romanticism a view of the human being that better accounted for the reality of Joy, for that strange mixture of elation and dejection we feel when love reveals to us man’s beauty with the toll of a passing bell. But this is not the end. Joy—grief—is not the end, as Lewis came to realize, but a signpost directing us thither. It may be an inseparable part of all the higher manifestations of beauty, as Poe observed, but it can have no share in the highest. As any Christian could have told them, and as Lewis discovered, the highest manifestation of beauty (and the end of sadness) is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Once a Romantic myself, I believed that our Lord had forever sanctified human sorrow with his tears. “Weep with those who weep,” Paul tells us in Romans 12:15, and this is just what we see Jesus do in John 11:35, where he weeps with those who mourn the death of his friend Lazarus. But whom, we may ask, is Jesus weeping for? Is he, as the Romantics would have done, weeping for Lazarus? Scholars disagree on the answer. The text, however, shows Jesus greeting the news of Lazarus’s sickness and death with equanimity because he knows he will raise Lazarus from the dead. It thus suggests that Jesus weeps not for the dead man, who has only “fallen asleep in Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:18), but sympathetically for the living. Today I search the New Testament in vain for the sadness I found so beautiful in the Romantics. “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?” (Matthew 9:14). And he is with us always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). For a long time, our writing has either drily painted the world without us (like the Enlightenment writers) or run with the tears of self-reflection (like the Romantics). What would our writing look like if it were to crystallize into a vision of the world to come? What if we, beholding our visage in the center of the mirror, were to sit ourselves down and see above us the image of the one who stands at our back, the one true man and express image of the Father, rising victorious over the grave, and ourselves raised with him? Perhaps such writing might look like the Hyperion of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) at the height of its passion: Auch wir, auch wir sind nicht geschieden, Diotima, und die Tränen um dich verstehen es nicht! [We too, we too are not parted, Diotima, and the tears for you understand it not!] Perhaps it would resemble the “Dream-Fugue” of Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859) in the splendor of its final throes: A thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, has God shown thee to me, standing before the golden dawn, and ready to enter its gates—with the dreadful Word going before thee—with the armies of the grave behind thee; shown thee to me, sinking, rising, fluttering, fainting, but then suddenly reconciled, adoring; a thousand times has he followed thee in the worlds of sleep—through storms; through desert seas; through the darkness of quicksands; through fugues and the persecution of fugues; through dreams, and the dreadful resurrections that are in dreams—only that at the last, with one motion of his victorious arm, he might record and emblazon the endless resurrections of his love! Or perhaps we would see in it something of “Crossing the Bar,” that lofty valediction from the poet with whom this essay began, Alfred Tennyson: Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For tho’ from out our borne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar. Whatever the case may be, we may appreciate the work of the Romantics for what it is—a fairer, sadder, higher view of the human being than the Enlightenment thinkers gave us. But let us move beyond their view of “the higher manifestations of beauty,” entangled as it is in death and grief, and instead thank God for that highest beauty that holds no sting. __________ Notes: 1 “The Divine Image,” William Blake (1757-1827). Back to text 2 “Drapa” (Death Song or Dirge) by Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér (1782-1846) as translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 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Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. (Matthew 7:6) This verse in the Sermon on the Mount is one of the strangest things Jesus ever said. Are we really supposed to decide which people are “dogs” and “swine,” and then refuse to give them our “pearls”? That seems to be a very common way of taking this verse. The holy things and the pearls represent the things of God, perhaps the gospel itself. The dogs and pigs represent hostile, unworthy people. And so the statement translates into something like this: Do not preach the things of God to hostile, unworthy people. This interpretation is often presented as a sort of counterbalance to the previous verses where Jesus warns against judging others. Take, for example, this explanation I found on the internet (the first one I came upon): In context, Jesus just taught his disciples not to judge in Matthew 7:1-5. The kind of judgment Jesus meant is the judgment of a critical and censorious spirit... On the other hand, there are times when Christians are to use good judgment, particularly since they have a mandate to preach the gospel and make disciples. Times come, however, when the audience to our witnessing to the truth in Christ Jesus will confront us with hostility, hatred, and even occasionally violence. In situations such as those, Jesus does not expect us to continue being his witnesses to such hostile audiences. Interpretations like this are almost universal among the commentaries I looked at. Some of the commentators, it is true, seem to feel a little uneasy. They admit that the verse is difficult, and they seem a little apologetic about their interpretation, but they don’t have a better one to suggest. Well, I think I have a better one to suggest. For me, the key to understanding Matthew 7:6 is found in a bit of Old Testament background. In Exodus 22, Moses is giving the law to Israel. Many of those laws are about keeping themselves religiously holy. They are to eat a certain way. They are to dress a certain way. These practices are an outward, ritualistic expression of an inner commitment to holiness and righteousness. One of those laws is found in Exodus 22:31: And you shall be holy men to Me, therefore you shall not eat any flesh torn to pieces in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs. Moses is writing into a very human situation. People need food to live, and people have to work hard to get that food. To get meat, they have to raise animals or go hunting. Given this situation, “roadkill” would seem like a real find to most people. They didn’t have to work to obtain this animal; another animal killed it for them. It would be tempting to think, “Great, let’s take it and eat it.” But God gave Israel a religious restriction against eating that meat, a restriction that makes a certain amount of sense. We all recognize something is a little unsavory about roadkill. It has been violently killed—in Moses’ time, usually by another animal. It has been lying on the ground for who knows how long. The flies are all over it. And so God forbids Israel to eat roadkill because He wants their eating habits to be a symbolic picture of their commitment to cleanness, holiness. God knows the people need food, but what is more important to Him is that their entire lives symbolize a concern for holy and appropriate living. Therefore, God says through Moses, “Don’t take the meat; instead, throw it to the dogs.” These are wild dogs that prowled outside their camps, not pets. To throw the meat to the dogs is a way of saying, “This is not for you; get rid of it.” There is plenty of meat that a holy person can eat. You can eat the animals you raise. You can eat animals you hunt. That meat is holy; it has an appropriate place in the life of a person committed to God. But according to the religious symbolism by which God wants them to live, roadkill is not holy. It has no place in a holy life, so throw it to the dogs. This little command in Exodus gives us very important background information for reading our verse in Matthew. What do we do with unholy meat? We throw it to the dogs. To throw meat to the dogs is to say, “This is unholy; this is not for us.” But what then do we do with holy meat? We keep it; we eat it. What kind of foolish, perverse people would we be to throw the holy meat to the dogs? That holy meat is a gift from God to sustain our lives. Throwing what is holy and good to the dogs shows that we are fools, that what God has called good and holy we have treated as garbage. The most likely meaning of “Don’t throw what is holy to the dogs,” then, is “Don’t treat what is holy and godly as being common and profane.” Unholy things are thrown to the dogs; holy things are meant to be kept and treasured. Notice how different this is than the common understanding of verse six. The typical, common understanding might be paraphrased as this: You have holy things (such as the gospel, the message of the Scriptures) that you must give to others. Don’t think, however, that you can give them to everyone. Some are like the dogs and the swine; they are hostile and unworthy, so don’t give your “pearls” to them. But if I am right, the expanded paraphrase is more like this: There are holy things that must be kept and treasured, and there are unholy things that must be thrown away. Do not, however, treat the holy things as if they were unholy. Only a fool would treat what is holy and sacred as if it were common and profane. This verse, then, is not about the dogs. It is about the fool who would treat what is holy as worthless. Jesus is not saying, “Figure out who the hostile, unworthy people are and don’t preach to them.” Instead, he is saying, “Don’t take what is holy and precious and treat it as worthless.” The verse is not about judging other people’s values; the verse is about getting our own values straight. Likewise, that is the significance of throwing pearls to swine. Pearls are beautiful, and pearls are valuable. They are meant to bring wealth and adornment to a person’s life. So what kind of foolish, perverse person would throw them to the pigs? Again, to do so is to say, “These are not valuable enough to keep. Maybe these pigs can find a use for them.” Jesus is not saying, “Figure out which people are like pigs, and don’t cast your pearls of wisdom before them.” Rather, he is saying, “Don’t be the kind of fool who throws away what is beautiful and precious.” At this point, a very natural question arises: What about the rest of the verse? That is, do not give what is holy to dogs nor throw pearls to swine “lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” There are two questions that need to be answered: Who exactly is doing the trampling and tearing to pieces? What, if anything, do these words add to the basic idea of the verse? As far as who is doing the trampling and tearing, a straightforward way of reading the verse would be: Do not give what is holy to dogs, And do not throw your pearls before swine, lest the swine trample them under their feet and then turn and tear you to pieces. But many propose that another possibility is to see this verse in an A-B-B-A pattern: Dogs-pigs-pigs-dogs. Then the clause would read like this: Do not give what is holy to dogs (lest they turn and tear you to pieces), And do not throw your pearls before swine lest they trample them under foot. I used to lean toward the second option, with the dogs doing the tearing and the swine doing the trampling. I think I am now leaning toward the first. That is, we have one simple statement about not giving holy things to dogs. And then we have a similar statement about giving pearls to swine, with the added warning that it will turn out badly for us if we do. It is hard to be sure exactly what these words about trampling and tearing mean, but I think the general picture is reasonably clear. The fool in this verse has thrown away what is holy and precious. Perhaps he thought there would be some mundane benefit from it: maybe it will keep the animals happy, and they will leave him alone. But instead, his action backfires, and things turn out worse for him than he intended. He loses the valuable thing he had, and instead of being left alone, he is attacked. If these words do indeed add to the power of Jesus’ message in this verse, they warn us that such perversity is not going to serve us well in the end. Now that we have explored the basic argument Jesus is making in Matthew 7:6, two points emerge that I would like to discuss, a minor point and a major one. The minor point is a philosophical one concerning biblical interpretation. The common interpretation of this verse treated it as a symbolic statement to be decoded. The first step was to ask questions such as, “What do the pearls and the holy things represent?” and “Who do the dogs and swine represent?” So, the common interpretation decodes a statement like “Don’t give what is holy to the dogs ” to mean something like this: “Don’t preach the gospel to those who are hostile and unworthy.” If, however, my argument is correct, we can see that the verse is not really a symbolic code at all. The dogs and swine don’t symbolize anything. We are not supposed to be asking ourselves, “Which of my acquaintances are dogs and swine, unworthy of my pearls?” Rather, the entire statement paints an overall metaphorical picture. Unholy meat, which is not for you, should be thrown to the wild dogs. But what kind of perverse person would throw the holy meat to the wild dogs? Dogs don’t symbolize particular kinds of people; they are just part of an overall background expression “throwing unholy meat to dogs.” If I said, “Don’t flush your first-edition manuscripts down the toilet,” I don’t intend you to ask what the toilet symbolizes. The whole statement is just an expression for treating something valuable as if it were not. Matthew 7:6, therefore, confronts us with an issue that we find in many places in the Bible. How should figurative language be interpreted? Some people, for example, tend to treat Jesus’ parables as if they were symbolic codes to be deciphered. We face the same issue with the imagery used by the prophets. This is a bigger topic than can be explored here; my point is merely that we should not assume that all figurative language is filled with symbols waiting to be decoded. For example, when we read the parable of the prodigal son, we would be unwise to ask, “What do the pigs represent?” Likewise, it turns out that this is the wrong question to ask about Matthew 7:6 as well. My final and major point concerns the overall message of this verse. In particular, what role does it play in the overall message of the Sermon on the Mount in which it is found? As we have seen so far, the general sense of this verse concerns not perversely treating what is holy as something common and worthless. The question is not: Who are the pigs? The question is: What do you value? Cling to what is precious. If you are going to throw things to the dogs, throw the unholy things, not the holy things. How, then, does this general theme relate to what Jesus has said in the rest of the Sermon, and what should we do about it? I can’t help thinking of the contrast in the Sermon on the Mount between the genuine believers and the Pharisees, whom Jesus calls hypocrites. The believers long for eternal life in the kingdom of God. The believers will put up with persecution to gain that life. The believers store up the true treasure, the treasure in heaven. But the Pharisees use their religion to promote worldly gain and self-righteousness. They pray and fast and give alms so that other people will see them and applaud them. They use the law as a means of demonstrating how righteous they are. They see their religion as a way of making their lives better now, in this world. And yet they have lost sight of what is truly valuable. Our little verse, therefore, fits right into the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Cling to the holy and precious things of God—His promises, His commandments. Value them above all else. Do not be like the Pharisees, who devalue the things of God by using them for worthless, worldly goals. Do not throw meat that is holy to the dogs; instead, keep it, be nourished by it. It is for you, to give you life. Do not throw your pearls before swine. Instead, cling to the valuable and beautiful things of God. They are your treasure; don’t throw them away. If you do not keep and treasure them, it will not turn out well for you in the end.

This article was adapted by the author from a talk titled “God’s Gone: A Guided Tour of Transcendence in Western Culture” that he gave at Gutenberg’s 2017 Summer Institute, “Meaning and Flourishing in a Secular Age.” The author cites one of the Institute readings, The New Demons by philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul (1912-1994). ---------- On the surface, the idea that science is sacred makes no sense. We associate the sacred with God and religion. We have sacred scriptures and sacred shrouds that are squarely in the realm of the divine. But we tend to view science as having replaced the divine in many ways. So then, how can science be sacred? I would argue that science plays the same role in our society as the sacred has played in the past. Although science is not sacred in the sense that it is related to the divine, it fits the bill in all other senses, especially as science is part of a much larger phenomenon that Jacques Ellul refers to as “technique.” Technique, in Ellul’s sense, is “the totality of methods, rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” It is the impulse to find the “best way” in every activity. One of the hallmarks of technique is the desire to achieve an impersonal goal over the desire to serve the real needs of the people involved. Taken as a whole, technique defines not just a particular method, but an attitude toward the use of method. Ellul is not critiquing technology per se, but rather the spirit of “techniqueism.” Technique, as Ellul means it, is rampant in our society. We can see it everywhere. Politically active organizations carefully research and test their use of symbols and speech to maximally increase votes rather than serving the real needs of their constituents. Advertisers study psychology and cultural norms to craft the most effective message to sell a product. Employers hire consultants in human resources to help them craft policies and workplace methods to maximally enhance productivity instead of considering employees as human beings. Big data firms mine Google searches for information they can sell to companies. In all these examples, efficiency in the “means” is elevated over the ends of serving people. The problem inherent in technique is not that carefully designed “means” are used, but that these means are prioritized over the individuals involved. If the politicians, employers, and advertisers use constituents, employees, and buyers to achieve their own goals, then that is technique. It would be foolish not to create good methods in whatever endeavor we pursue. For instance, when crafting an article, I want to use the best method of writing so that my article is clear and understandable. But that is not necessarily technique. It becomes technique if I use rhetorical methods that try to manipulate readers into an action I desire by bypassing their reason and playing on desires or fears. To prioritize method over man is madness. Now that I have clarified the nature of technique I would like to look at the various senses in which something can be thought of as sacred. In New Demons (Seabury Press; January 1975), Ellul defines the sacred as that which helps to provide order and meaning in the incoherent and incomprehensible world. Man sees the sacred as the means by which he can solve what he believes to be his most important problem. Thus, man submits himself to the sacred as a solution and finds in it power, mystery, and existential danger. The sacred can determine his destiny and is wholly beyond influence or question. The sacred must exist for man to find any meaning. Two examples of the sacred can be found in past eras: when polytheism dominated the world and in the early Christian era up through the Middle Ages. Polytheists, such as the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks, held nature as sacred. Man’s most important problem was how to survive. Survival was uncertain because it depended on natural occurrences outside his control. Man could not control the annual flooding or the rainfall for agriculture. He could not control the wild beasts or crop-eating insects. Childbirth was dangerous, and storms at sea sank ships. The ancient polytheists saw the chaotic actions of nature as resulting from the chaotic decisions of the gods, who either were nature or were in nature. Nature had other characteristics of the sacred as well: it was mysterious, powerful, and could both give and take life. Polytheists of the time feared and revered the gods of nature and sacrificed to them in an attempt to be spared from the gods’ destructive whims. Nature was sacred. In the early Christian era up through the middle ages, sacraments were sacred. In the West, man’s problem was how to gain eternal salvation. Christianity had turned the focus from survival in this world to survival in the next. Part of that transition included desacralizing nature. Christians rejected nature gods and brought all of nature under the dominion of God, who is wholly distinct from nature. Nature was no longer sacred. Instead, the sacraments were sacred because the solution to man’s problem—needing to be saved—was to partake of the sacraments. Holy baptism, communion, confession, and last rites were all central aspects of gaining eternal salvation. The punishment reserved for heretics was excommunication, which suspended the right to take the sacraments. An early Christian understood the order and structure of heaven and earth and the role the sacraments played in that structure. The sacraments held power, mystery, and existential fear. They held the power of salvation and at the same time the fear of eternal damnation. And a great deal of mystery was bound up in the sacraments, for instance, in transubstantiation during communion. The sacraments were not debated but assumed as part of early church practice. Thus, the sacraments fulfilled the role of the sacred. Given these examples of how the sacred functions in a culture, let us now look at the role technique plays today. In a sense, technique has robbed nature and the sacraments of their sacredness; it has desacralized them. Science has conquered, in a sense, the unpredictability of nature. Science has “explained away” the supernatural and thus life after death, rendering the sacraments as mere ritual. Most importantly, man’s “problem” has largely shifted—from physical survival and eternal salvation to the problem of comfort and security. We are mostly buffered from death and no longer overly worried by it. Clearly, we all die, but survival does not drive our actions and thoughts like it did for the polytheists. Thus, we are not motivated by the fear of death. Similarly, for the most part, our culture is not motivated by the desire for salvation and eternal life. The fear of damnation is not in the forefront of our minds like it was for the early Christians. Today, we are overwhelmed by a desire to live comfortable and secure lives. This is what gets us going in the morning and focuses our attention. Students are educated to get a good career because a career provides comfort and security. Adults work toward a satisfying income. Those people who do not contribute to the cause of comfort, such as stay-at-home parents, may feel unproductive and useless. Vacation and entertainment demand a great deal of our attention as a part of comfort. People buy lottery tickets in droves because of the promise of comfort and security. The two main goals of government have become increasing wealth and enhancing security from danger, both foreign and domestic. Universal health care, for example, is born out of the need for security because we fear the discomfort of bad health and large medical bills. These things point to our culture’s current interests. Man’s solution to this problem is technique. Today, technique is sacred. All sectors of society have decided that there is a best and most efficient way to increase comfort and security. We battle endlessly over what that most efficient way is, but we do not question whether we should pursue the best way with all of our resources. In the pursuit of the best way, we lose track of what a human is and what a human needs. Technique holds all the power, mystery, and existential danger in our lives. Technique has power over our economic and personal well-being, both privately and publicly. Technique is used by economists in the Federal Reserve and by the government to improve national comfort and security. Technique is used by businesses and non-profit organizations that provide us with jobs, and thus technique has power over our livelihoods. Technique controls how we communicate on our phones and computers. It provides us with food, shelter, and entertainment. Technique has the power that we once attributed to gods and sacraments. Technique is also feared and revered. We revere the politician (if he is on our side!) who can find the most efficient and powerful way to accomplish our political goals. Followers of Ayn Rand see the most powerful practitioners of technique, the CEOs, as the saviors of society. We also rely on all sorts of complex computer, financial, energy, and transportation infrastructure. In a sense, we take them for granted, but we fear any interruption of that infrastructure. We are afraid of failures like Y2K or the 2008 housing crisis or the 1973 oil embargo. Because our comfort and security depend on the smooth operation of technique, we fear it. Lastly, technique is a source of mystery. Technique is not an occult, magical mystery, but it is a mystery nevertheless. Who knows how a cell phone really works and how excessive pollution in China may affect our retirement funds? In fact, no one person can penetrate fully any of the complex mysteries of our world because expertise and knowledge are so distributed. So, although technique (and science as part of technique) does not reference any gods or supernatural beings, it does perform the function of the sacred. A culture must have a structure and some sort of promise that there is a solution to its great problems. There must be sacred practices, principles, and objects to provide some order and hope. The alternative is despair, which is intolerable. As in other times and places, there is always a resistance and rejection of the sacred. Today, a variety of movements reject technology, corporatism, government, and media. For instance, some wish to save the environment from the ravages of technique-driven corporate and government power. Others wish to find alternatives to technique-driven industrial educational models. Still others wish to avoid the technique-driven food industry. These are worthy goals based on good insights. But we should keep in mind that while individuals may find some success here, it is not clear that we will have much success as a culture. On a large scale, when one technique goes awry, another, better technique is hailed as a solution. Changes in education over the last few decades have swapped one technique for another, but the goals have continued to drift toward job training for comfort and security. Those who use “organic” to capitalize on market trends are simply adapting techniques to the times. Efforts to save the environment are rife with political, judicial, scientific, and advertising techniques. This analysis of our situation is nothing new. Ellul was writing about it fifty years ago, and others were writing about it before him. The harder problem is to know what to do about it. There are innumerable viable responses to our situation. Some emphasize a return to small communities where we can love, care for, and support each other in our walk of faith. Others emphasize the use of natural foods, which are more in keeping with the way God made us. Many encourage supporting small business where owners can have a relationship with both employees and customers, treating them as valuable humans rather than as means to profit. There are hundreds of different ways that we can refocus on treating people well and prioritizing them over our comfort and security. But it is not easy. We must encourage each other in that effort and remind ourselves of the truth. For a Christian, technique should not be sacred. Our hope should be placed in God’s kingdom, not the comfort and security of this world. We cannot serve two masters. Because skills, interests, and personalities vary, there are as many practical ways to pursue God on this earth as there are people. But the ultimate and best rejection of sacred technique is to seek to know and understand the things of God and to live our lives in accordance with that understanding.

Jesus tells us in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” This, of course, is terrifying. Is anyone “pure in heart”? I could never claim that my heart has been completely “pure” in anything I have thought or done. To me, Calvin has it right: Let the holy servant of God, I say, select from the whole course of his life the action which he deems most excellent, and let him ponder it in all its parts; he will doubtless find in it something that savors of the rottenness of the flesh, since our alacrity in well-doing is never what it ought to be, but our course is always retarded by much weakness. (Institutes 3.14.9) Could we get around this seemingly impossible demand for purity by postponing it to the next age? Could Jesus be saying, “One day, in the kingdom of God, you will be blessed by being pure in heart, totally free from sin”? Well, no, he is almost certainly not saying that. I understand each of the beatitudes to have the same structure: those whose lives today are characterized by X are the truly fortunate people because they will inherit the kingdom of God in the future. Those who are poor in spirit now will inherit the kingdom in the future. Those who mourn now will be comforted in the future. And thus, those who are “pure in heart” now will see God and His kingdom in the future. There is no getting around it; Jesus tells us that only those whose hearts are pure now, today, in this life, will see God, will inherit the kingdom one day. Since Jesus is telling us that only those who are pure in heart now will see God, we had better try to discover what He means by “pure in heart.” As it happens, I believe that Jesus is drawing on the Old Testament for the concept of being pure in heart. And we see this concept echoed in other parts of the New Testament. To understand who are the pure in heart, we will look at three passages: Psalm 73, Psalm 24, and James 4. Psalm 73 The psalmist begins: Surely God is good to Israel, To those who are pure in heart! (73:1) The psalmist describes God’s goodness to the people of Israel; that is, to those who are pure in heart. He believes in this goodness, but he also sees a serious problem: But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, My steps had almost slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant As I saw the prosperity of the wicked. (73:2-3) The psalmist believes that God is good to the pure in heart, but he is deeply troubled by the fact that those who are not pure in heart seem to prosper in this world. And in the next verses he goes on to give us a very clear picture of what he means by the “pure in heart” by giving a long description of those who are not pure in heart. They are arrogant, wicked, proud, violent, mockers, oppressors, setting their mouths against the heavens. In other words, they are as far from being faithful, repentant, believing Israelites as you could imagine. The psalmist goes on: Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure And washed my hands in innocence; For I have been stricken all day long And chastened every morning. (73:13-14) The psalmist does not think purity of heart is some hypothetical moral perfection that no one can obtain; he sees himself as having kept his heart pure—that is, having kept his heart from arrogance and hostility toward God. But he wonders whether he has been a fool to do so. After all, the wicked are prospering, but he, the one who has kept his heart pure, is suffering greatly. But then he thinks more clearly: When I pondered to understand this, It was troublesome in my sight Until I came into the sanctuary of God; Then I perceived their end. Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction. (73:16-18) The wicked may be prospering now, but their end will be destruction. But for the one whose heart is pure, for the faithful follower of God, this is true: Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You will guide me, And afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. (73:23-25) So the meaning of “pure in heart” in this context seems pretty clear. The pure in heart are the believers, those who have purified their hearts from a wicked, greedy, arrogant, rebellion against God. There is nothing here to suggest that the pure in heart are perfectly without sin. After all, in his sufferings, the psalmist doubted God and was tempted to abandon his faith. But in the end he did not because his heart was cleansed from a fundamental rebellion and hostility toward God. Psalm 24 The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it. For He has founded it upon the seas And established it upon the rivers. Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood And has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the LORD And righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of those who seek Him, Who seek Your face, the God of Jacob. Selah. Lift up your heads, O gates, And be lifted up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! Who is the King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates, And lift them up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah. This psalm has some tricky aspects to interpret, and we will not explore those now. Our main concern is, once again, the idea of a pure heart. What does it mean? It would be possible to interpret David as saying, “Only a morally perfect person could stand before God”—in other words, no one is worthy to stand before God. But that doesn’t seem likely in this context. The psalm looks as if it were intended to be recited in a ritual ceremony of entrance into the city and the holy place, perhaps when David returned the Ark of the Covenant. The question is asked as the people approach, “Who may ascend into the hill of Yahweh?” And then the reply is given, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” A blessing is promised to such a one, and indeed the people describe themselves as being such ones, the generation of those who seek the face of God. They are among the pure of heart that come with sincerity before God. Then the psalm ends with a call and response about opening the gates so that God (represented by the Ark, perhaps) may enter in. The point, then, is not that only morally perfect people can go before God. Rather, as they approach the holy place the people are agreeing that God only accepts those who seek to bring their lives in line with His will. Their actions (as represented by their “clean hands”) are in keeping with God’s will, and their inner commitments (as represented by their “pure hearts”) are also in line with what God wants. In other words, it is those who repent and turn towards God that will receive His blessing. Many suggest that Jesus has this psalm in mind when he speaks the beatitude of Matthew 5:9. The psalm speaks of the pure in heart. It says that God blesses them. And it describes them as those who seek the face of God—that is, those who want to see God. That Jesus has this psalm in mind seems quite plausible to me. In any case, both this psalm and Psalm 73 portray the pure in heart not as the morally perfect but as the repentantly faithful. Their hearts are pure because, unlike the wicked, they have sought to purge godlessness from their inner lives. James 4 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel... You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God... Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. The context of this passage is important. James is writing to churches filled with people who claim to be Christians. They “believe” the gospel of Jesus Christ. And yet they live as if the gospel were not true at all. Their inheritance in the kingdom of God seems to mean nothing to them. Their entire focus is on gaining wealth and power in this life. They fight and even kill to gain wealth. They treat people poorer than themselves with contempt. In other words, although they call themselves believers, their mindset is exactly like those the psalmist called “wicked” in Psalm 73. They want the things of this world, and they are ignoring the will of God to get them. James calls them “double-minded.” On the one hand, they think of themselves as believers. But on the other hand, their actions and motives are entirely worldly. Their “hands” (actions) are unclean and their “hearts” (motives) are impure in that they act and think like unbelievers. James’ admonition to his readers is: “cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” That is, they need to repent of their unbelieving thoughts and actions and truly embrace and live out the gospel. To James, to have a pure heart is to have a single mind, a sincere faith. They need to truly believe what they say they believe. And then they need to act in keeping with those beliefs. Purity of Heart The preceding passages help us to see what Jesus means when he says, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” He is not talking about some hypothetically perfect people. He is not saying that only morally perfect people can be saved. No, to Jesus all genuine believers are among the pure in heart. All have hearts cleansed of their fundamental unbelief and hostility toward God. They are not just ritually pure or outwardly moral in their behavior; they are genuine in their inward desire to trust and follow God. Kierkegaard wrote a famous book called Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing. In that book Kierkegaard wrote a great prayer: Father in heaven! What is a man without Thee! What is all that he knows, vast accumulation though it be, but a chipped fragment if he does not know Thee! What is all his striving, could it even encompass a world, but a half-finished work if he does not know Thee: Thee the One, who art one thing and who art all! So may Thou give to the intellect, wisdom to comprehend that one thing; to the heart, sincerity to receive this understanding; to the will, purity that wills only one thing. In prosperity may Thou grant perseverance to will one thing; amid distractions, collectedness to will one thing; in suffering, patience to will one thing. Oh, Thou that giveth both the beginning and the completion, may Thou early, at the dawn of day, give to the young man the resolution to will one thing. As the day wanes, may Thou give to the old man a renewed remembrance of his first resolution, that the first may be like the last, the last like the first, in possession of a life that has willed only one thing. Alas, but this has indeed not come to pass. Something has come in between. The separation of sin lies in between. Each day, and day after day something is being placed in between: delay, blockage, interruption, delusion, corruption. So in this time of repentance may Thou give the courage once again to will one thing... Oh, Thou that givest both the beginning and the completion, give Thou victory in the day of need so that what neither a man’s burning wish nor his determined resolution may attain to, may be granted unto him in the sorrowing of repentance: to will only one thing. Kierkegaard is probably borrowing from James, who tells us purity of heart means not being double-minded. Kierkegaard says something similar: purity of heart is to will one thing. And that one thing is God. But Kierkegaard rightly acknowledges that our own sin provides the biggest obstacle to being pure in heart. It is so easy to be distracted and confused and stubborn. And so he prays that God will grant us the victory which is repentance, so that we might be pure in heart and might will one thing. Kierkegaard is here praying for the blessing that Jesus speaks of in the beatitude. We are blessed, we are fortunate, if we are single minded. We are fortunate if our sin leads us not away from God but to repentance, where we remember again that we want God and His promises above all else. To have hearts sincere in their commitment to God makes us a truly fortunate people.

If you are like me, some miracles in the Bible are hard to believe. On the one hand, ample evidence shows the Bible is true and inspired. On the other hand, making sense of some miracles in the context of our understanding of the physical world is not easy. Miracles create a tension in our belief system that is not easy to resolve in many cases. For instance, figuring out what it means in Joshua 10:13 for the sun to have stopped in its course is a bit mind-boggling. One approach to addressing the tension is to pursue the well trodden paths of assessing the two sides of the tension through careful analysis of both the Bible and our scientific understanding. This requires a sensitive reading of the Bible, an exploration of the reliability of the text, an understanding of the person of Jesus (who believed in the truth of the Scriptures), and an understanding of the intention of the authors. It also requires a nuanced understanding of science, the nature of scientific claims, and the limits of scientific knowledge. Over the years, talented people have produced an enormous amount of work regarding these questions, some of which is extremely cogent and clear. Ultimately, the best resolution and understanding come from these sorts of analyses and pursuits. But such pursuits are difficult and time consuming. Few have the ability, inclination, or skills to thoroughly explore the ins and outs of the questions. The sheer number of questions is daunting, and for many people, they are not burning issues. Most people will decide based on other sources. In this article, I want to explore some of the non-analytical factors that direct most people’s thinking about miracles. To do so, I want to look at one of the primary historical arguments against miracles and how it fared in Western culture. But first we need some background. Prior to the Renaissance, there was little if any question about miracles. It was not difficult to believe in miracles; everybody did. The disciple Thomas may have doubted that Christ rose from the dead, but I do not think the reason was because he had a hard time believing miracles were possible. After all, he had spent years witnessing Jesus perform miracles. In the medieval period, miracles and the supernatural permeated life in Western society. Lewis writes in the Discarded Image that the model people accepted of the world was full of supernatural beings and activity. Ghosts, angels, and demons walked and worked in the world. The motions of the heavenly bodies influenced our fates and characters. Further, people accepted that relics, pilgrimages, and papal bulls could affect one’s soul and spiritual condition. Bread and wine turned into the blood and body of Christ every day. Thus, when a medieval person heard that Moses parted the Red Sea or that the sun stood still, there was little cause to doubt. There was no reason to question the possibility that such things could and did happen. Background presuppositions supported a view in which supernatural activity was accepted, even expected. The medieval response to the sun standing still was WOW, not how. Our culture no longer holds these assumptions. Why is that, and how did it happen? The common explanation goes something like this: As modern science began to develop, people began to see that previously held beliefs were no longer supportable. The earth is not the center of the solar system. The planets move according to impersonal Newtonian principles. Magic does not work. The body acts in many ways like a complex machine without a “vital source.” When society had no scientific explanations, many things were explained by supernatural or non-mechanical causes. But since we now have science—so the story goes—we no longer accept the supernatural. While this explanation does give part of the picture, it does not fully account for the shift from a world where miracles were expected to a world where miracles are hard to swallow. To see why this is the case, it will be helpful to look now at a specific argument against miracles put forward during the period of the Enlightenment by Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776). Hume made a strong and influential argument against the likelihood of miracles, which he published in 1748 as part of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding . The essence of his argument was that we should assign probabilities to events in accordance with the amount of empirical evidence that supports them. He reasoned that there was an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence for the existence of natural laws; we see such evidence every day. The evidence for miracles, on the other hand, was minimal and relied not on empirical observation but on testimony. He expanded on his theme at some length, but the core of the argument relied on an appeal to the experience of our senses—that is, cold hard data. The argument is a good one if, and only if, you accept his premises—namely, that we must judge based purely on the amount of empirical evidence. Miracles are believable only if we have a large quantity of miracle observations. He presupposes that other sorts of judgments, analyses, and sources of evidence are invalid. For instance, Hume attacks the validity of apostolic testimony and disregards the internal coherence of biblical and historical evidence. If one assumes that all that exists is what we observe, then that which we cannot observe cannot exist. Hume’s argument, then, is flawed because it assumes what was to be shown. Nevertheless, the argument took hold in the culture’s imagination. It was, and still is, persuasive to many and continues to be discussed and widely debated. If this argument had been written a hundred years earlier, however, it would have been either ignored or (perhaps more likely) censored. What was the appeal of Hume’s argument? Why did it gain traction? Was it the cogency of the argument or something else? I would argue that people saw Hume’s argument against miracles in a favorable light because of their desire for morality. On the face of it, such a claim seems like an outright contradiction. If people were interested in morality, why turn from the truth of the Bible? Why reject the goodness of God and the resurrection of Jesus for the sake of morality? The answer lies in the cultural context of Hume’s time. When Hume published his treatise on miracles in 1748, Scotland had experienced two Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745. The Jacobites, whose name came from a Latin form of “James,” sought to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King James VII of Scotland (James II of England and Ireland) and his heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The famous battle of Culloden in 1746 resulted in a final loss for the Jacobites at the hands of the British. It signaled the end of the attempts to put James’s son Charles Stuart, a.k.a. Bonnie Prince Charlie, on the British throne. These uprisings were, in a sense, the culmination of over a century of civil war and religious persecution in the British Isles. In the early 1600s, several non-Anglican protestant churches were growing: Puritans, Quakers, and Congregationalists. Catholicism, on the other hand, was severely repressed and restricted. Catholics could not hold any positions of power and were often persecuted. The animosity between Protestant England and Catholic France tended to make those tensions worse. In the 1640s and 1650s, Cromwell, a Puritan, successfully led a civil war against King Charles I who was perceived to be too friendly to Catholics. Cromwell was successful for a time, but eventually the monarchy was restored. After the restoration in 1660, the new king, Charles II, took steps to outlaw all religions except the Anglican Church. Later in 1685, after the death of Charles II, James II (Bonnie Prince Charlie’s father) ascended to the British throne. He was, as it turns out, a Catholic. He began to overturn all the statutes against Catholics and appoint Catholics to positions of power. For many this was anathema, and he was deposed three years later in the so-called “Glorious Revolution.” He avoided the usurpers and made his escape to France. The Jacobite rebellions of the 1700s were the trailing edge of these struggles. Although these wars, rebellions, and uprisings were political in nature, they also had a strong religious aspect. One’s fortunes as a Puritan, Catholic, or Anglican depended a great deal on who was in power. Persecution was common. Catholic priests could be tortured. Religious intolerance was often extreme. The result of all these struggles was not primarily the growth of religious tolerance, although that did begin to grow. Instead, the late 1700s saw the growth of religious indifference. People were no longer zealous for their perspective. Dogmatism was out. I certainly cannot claim to know the hearts of those living in the late 1700s, but I cannot help but make some guesses about their frame of mind. The people of the British Isles must have looked back on the sins of the previous generations in disgust. They called for a new and different way, a moral way without all the animosity. They desired to distance themselves from the bloody feuds and intolerance of the past. Each generation rejects the moral failures of the past, and Enlightenment rationality must have seemed like a powerful alternative. According to Enlightenment thinkers, a just society could be established by using reason and science. Appeals to the Bible and to God were potentially divisive. For instance, John Locke proffered Reason as a solution to political differences. Newton used Reason to understand the solar system. Francis Bacon claimed scientific induction held the key to understanding the natural world. Immanuel Kant, in his essay “What is Enlightenment,” claimed, “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity”—that immaturity being to appeal to authority rather than to think for oneself. He aimed squarely at leaders who promoted a religious, authoritative intolerance. This was the context of Hume’s argument against miracles. He did not need to have a flawless and elegant argument to sway the men of Reason. He needed simply to appeal to the sensibility of the culture. He needed to appeal to the possibility for a better way, a more “moral” approach to solving differences. History shows that any attempt to take Hume’s argument seriously and show its failures was a pointless exercise. During Hume’s life, Thomas Reid did exactly that. He clearly and cogently exposed the vacuousness of Hume’s whole philosophy. And for a while Reid was widely adopted. But in the end, he fell into disrepute and obscurity. According to most philosophers and authors, Reid was backward looking; he stood for the past, for Aristotle, and for Christianity. Hume’s argument against miracles still exists in various forms in the psyche of our culture. The amount of scholarship, even recently, on Hume’s argument is enormous. For many, Hume’s argument has overwhelming persuasive power. The power of the argument and its many forms, however, resides not in the elegance of the logic or the obviousness of the premises. I believe its power resides in a perception that conformity to the Bible will lead to bad things. To a lesser extent, the same scenario that played out in Hume’s day is being repeated today. Our cultural elite are attempting to paint a picture that associates immorality and injustice with strong religious conviction. Of course, the “sins” of such convictions are fantastically tame in comparison to the religious intolerance and wars of the 1600s. Nevertheless, those “sins” are broadcast widely and loudly. Religious confidence and conviction, we are told, lead to intolerance and bigotry and dogmatism and oppression. For those who accept this story, who wouldn’t want to find a better, more moral way? We all want something better than intolerance and bigotry. Most want a path in which morality can flourish. In such a cultural context, people give credence to any argument that questions perspectives seen as dogmatic or unscientific. In the end, the supernatural view of the world has passed us by. We are in a secular world where anything that smacks of the supernatural starts on the back foot, taking a defensive posture. Clearly, part of that secularist view derives from the materialistic perspective on nature that has grown out of Enlightenment and scientific thinking. But I suggest that a significant source of that secular materialist view comes not from science but from a desire for a better cultural path, as did Hume’s case against miracles. I realize I have not addressed the issues I first raised about miracles. I did not intend to delve into an argument for or against miracles. What I hope to have done instead is to step back and examine beliefs and how they are formed. As much as I would love for it to not be true, it seems as if many of our cherished beliefs (and I include my own) are held based on our desires and assumptions, not based on careful and thoughtful examination. Naturally, some of those desires are selfish, related to our baser instincts. We try to fight those. Other desires, though, are noble. Many people desire some sort of morality. Because those desires are good, we feel justified and satisfied in pursuing them. To the extent that our culture wants morality (although I think many probably are not interested in such things), it should be applauded. There is a common ground upon which to dialog. However, simply wanting morality is not enough. The desire needs to be coupled with a sober-minded examination of what constitutes morality. We should look at the source of intolerance and what it looks like in all its different forms. Without careful examination, a desire for a better way, as honorable as it may seem, can lead us down dark paths. The Enlightenment may have delivered us from religious wars, but it also led directly to the bloody French Revolution. Good intentions, indeed, pave roads, but not all are good.

Dear student, I heard that you believe that the assignment I gave you is too difficult—that it is beyond the training you’ve received in class and could even result in your failure. In short, the assignment “stresses” you. People often use the word “stress” for unfocused anxiety. For example, much of ordinary American life is driven by a frenzied sprint to accomplish an innumerable series of economic tasks without relational or emotional resources. I googled the word “stress” and discovered that mentions of stress in letters, newspapers, and books has skyrocketed since 1800. Stress is on the rise in modern life. And no one likes to be stressed. My assignment is not intended to create anxiety. (You probably have enough of that already.) If I wanted to increase your anxiety, I’d hand you a screaming baby and six-figure debt. My assignment is intended to create a very specific stress. By “stress,” I mean a state of mental or emotional strain that comes from adverse or demanding circumstances but which is intended to promote growth. My assignment was designed to create a specific, focused stress that can be overcome. If you overcome this stress with industry, intelligence, and courage, you will receive a high grade. Furthermore, you will expand your ability to overcome future stresses. Think of my assignment like a trainer adding five pounds to a weightlifter’s maximum lift. Adding this weight creates a new goal that, with training, can be accomplished. But without adding those five pounds, the weightlifter will remain in “homeostasis”—that is, his ability will tend to remain at the same level. Mark Rippetoe, one of the most decorated strength-training coaches in the United States, is fond of repeating a simple truth: The only way an organism grows stronger is by overcoming stress. Stress “disrupts homeostasis” and demands that the organism “adapt to the new requirements imposed by change.” Rippetoe reminds his weightlifters that they will only get stronger by attempting to lift more weight than ever before. A weightlifter with a maximum deadlift of 200 pounds will remain in homeostasis unless he attempts to lift more than he has ever lifted. To move from homeostasis—to get stronger—the lifter must add weight to the bar. My assignment adds weight to the bar. Your past assignments have proven you are strong. Now it’s time to grow stronger. By attempting to lift slightly more weight, you will. Indeed, receiving and overcoming stress is the basic transaction behind all quality education. If overcoming stress is the basic task of learning, homeostasis is the biggest obstacle that stands in the way of a meaningful education. And what is a meaningful education? It is not accumulated knowledge; rather, it is knowledge that leads to a life of good action. David Hicks, a leading light in the world of classical education, is right to argue that “the end of education is not thinking, it is acting.” As your teacher, my hope is that you will not just believe true things, but that you will become a first-class learner and that your knowledge will manifest itself in good actions: you will love your neighbors, pursue justice, and resist evil. And so, I do not hesitate to put a stressful assignment into your life. I recognize, however, that the stress I have described is uncomfortable. Homeostasis—that tendency toward a stable equilibrium—is comfortable. We all prefer to remain in homeostasis. In homeostasis, the water isn’t too cold or too hot. The world is predictable, comfortable, known. But homeostasis suffocates a basic principle of life: If you are not growing, you are fading. The only time an organism achieves lasting homeostasis is by dying. Do not mistake homeostasis for harmony. Harmony comes from the Greek word harmos , meaning “joint.” Living “in-joint” with others and yourself is one of the great joys of human life. Singing in harmony with family, friends, or even enemies, results in a beautiful sound. But those who have achieved harmos have learned from stress, not avoided it. The husband and wife who live in harmos have faced the truth that they are different people with conflicting temperaments, hopes, and wounds. The husband and wife achieve harmos by avoiding homeostasis and learning from the stress caused by conflict. Likewise, the violinist fails many times before achieving harmony with the cellist. If the violinist remains in homeostasis, she will not achieve harmos . You’ve told me that you don’t like my assignment because it requires you to make your work public. Your paper will not just be seen and graded by me. It will be seen and assessed by others. This means that if you fail, others will see. Because my assignment is harder, you are in greater danger of failure. Based on your past performances, I do not believe you will fail. But you might. Any time you attempt something new and more difficult, the risk of failure increases. I’d love to assure you that you won’t fail, but I can’t. By risking failure and working hard, however, you can succeed and grow. Public failure hurts, and I recognize how scary risking failure is. I still recall my own public failures. In college, the basketball coach publicly posted a clipboard listing the team roster. My name wasn’t on the clipboard. Not only did I not make the team, but I was embarrassed that everyone knew it. Few things frighten like the possibility of failure before others. Some people believe that all our moral stances are actually attempts to be accepted in the eyes of our peers. They say that we tell the truth, not because it’s what God wants or because it creates harmony in the soul, but because our moral actions are driven by a deep-seated need to justify ourselves among networks of allies. In Plato’s Republic , Glaucon argues for this very point. He claims that virtue and justice are social-constructions. Instead of pursuing true, eternal norms of goodness, humans are motivated only by a deep desire to maintain their reputation. Public failure on my assignment could result in disapproving whispers among your friends. I recognize how deeply these disapproving whispers might hurt you, but if you seek to achieve peace by constantly negotiating your reputation, you will not achieve the deep harmony you desire. Although Glaucon’s philosophy rightly describes much of human moral behavior, it does not lead us toward peace. Without a peace that springs from deep inside you, Glaucon’s philosophy will create greater anxiety by locating the source of your peace in the gaze of other people. In other words, if your value is dependent upon others, you will be their slave and will only feel free when others think highly of you. No matter how spotless your record, your reputation ultimately lies beyond your control. The world’s great teachers align with Socrates, not Glaucon. Socrates recognizes that genuine harmos cannot be found by seeking to preserve our reputation. Likewise, Marcus Aurelius warns against “the emptiness of applauding hands” and the people “who praise us,” because they are “capricious” and “arbitrary.” Jesus teaches against being like the Pharisees who “pray on the street corners to be seen by others.” My assignment calls for your work to be seen and assessed by others. If your value depends upon that assessment, you will only feel at peace if others approve you. But this peace will not last. Life is a series of ongoing grades, public tests, and trials issued by other people. Many of these people will be fickle. Others will be confused. Some will be evil. Why would you depend upon them? Instead, seek abiding peace inside, not outside yourself. The “peace that passes understanding” is founded upon your soul’s disposition toward God and the story He is telling through your life. Jesus’ repeated refrain in the Sermon on the Mount is to turn away from the daily anxiety of life and to base your life upon your soul’s deeper value: Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? (Matthew 6:27-8) I designed my assignment to produce a stress that can bring about growth. If you rise to the challenge of the assignment, you will earn a good grade, and, more importantly, you will grow in knowledge and skill. But there is a lesson deeper than the assignment’s lesson. It is this: Life will present you with a constant succession of distractions—a constant series of bribes. These bribes are intended to move your gaze toward homeostasis, toward your reputation, toward your performance—anywhere other than a harmos of soul. As your teacher, I write against these bribes and in support of seeking peace through your soul’s disposition toward God.

[An excerpt from a talk in a series on Matthew, given August 28, 2016, at Reformation Fellowship. To hear the complete talk, go to " Matthew " in the Audio section of our website.] Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) It is very common to see this verse as a conclusion to the entire “antitheses” section in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17-48), where Jesus repeats, “You have heard … but I say to you.” This view sees Jesus’ point something like this: Your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees. It is not enough to abstain from murder; you must not be angry. It is not enough to abstain from adultery; you must not lust in your heart. After giving more examples, Jesus then concludes, Yes, your righteousness must surpass the Pharisees; in fact, you must be morally perfect and without fault of any kind, just as your Father is. This way of reading Matthew 5:48 supports the idea that Jesus’ purpose is to drive us to despair: You must be morally perfect, but the unspoken reality is that we cannot be morally perfect, and so we despair and turn to the cross of Christ for mercy. Now, of course, in an important sense that is true. We cannot be morally perfect. And so we need the mercy that Jesus brings through His cross. But I don’t think that is the point Jesus is making in verse 48. Instead, I see verse 48 as the conclusion to Matthew 5:43-48 (NASB): You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. I would translate the word “perfect” as something like “complete.” The logic of the passage is this: Don’t only love those who love you; love your enemy as well. This is the way God is. God does not only send sun and rain to His followers. He also sends sun and rain to the unrighteous. It doesn’t make sense that God would reward you for being like the gentiles, who only love those who love them, would it? So your love should be complete, not only for your friends, but also for your enemies, just like your Father is complete in His love. Jesus is not saying, “you must be morally perfect.” Jesus is saying, “you must follow your Father in being complete, inclusive in your love.” Interestingly, Luke has his own version of this “love your enemies” passage. It ends as follows in Luke 6:35-36: But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Matthew ends: “be complete, just as your Father is complete.” Luke ends: “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” These are two different versions of the same idea. Matthew’s “be complete” means “be complete in your love; that is, include in your love those who have treated you poorly.” In other words, don’t treat people in keeping with what you think they deserve, but be merciful. This is also what Jesus says in Luke: “be merciful, as your Father is merciful.” And so Jesus says in Matthew, “be perfect, extend your love to all, just as your Father extends His love to all.” In the end, Jesus is teaching something profoundly simple—and profoundly difficult. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is, we are to seek the good of our neighbor the way we would want to be treated. And it turns out that our neighbor is everyone, including those who mistreat us.

As you know, I have stepped down as president of Gutenberg College. This will be a big change for me. I have been at Gutenberg a long time, and I suspect there will be days when I am out and about and I will be suddenly stricken with panic thinking I should be teaching a class right now. I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to a number of people who have contributed to Gutenberg in a wide variety of ways over a long period of time and have made it possible for the college to come into being and accomplish what it has accomplished. First, I would like to thank our donors and supporters. Gutenberg could not exist without the generous and faithful support of its donors. Some of our donors have given regularly for decades now. I appreciate very much what you have done. There has also been prayer, moral support, and volunteer labor. All of these things are more important than is generally recognized. Those kinds of support are particularly helpful during times when morale is flagging, and we have had some such times. Second, I would like to thank our students, both past and present. One of the things that attracted me to the idea of Gutenberg was that it was so well suited to my understanding of what it means to be a teacher. Before Gutenberg came into existence, this organization existed as McKenzie Study Center. Many of the courses offered by McKenzie Study Center were designed for the Christian community of Eugene-Springfield. They were generally offered without cost to the participants and were nine or ten weeks in duration. Students felt free to attend as many or as few of the individual class sessions as they wanted, and often the number of students in any given class would be higher at the start of the quarter and then gradually decrease as the quarter progressed. In that setting, I felt like every class was a performance. I had to be entertaining or else people wouldn’t come back the next week. But I was not made to be a performer, and I did not like that kind of pressure. I once heard Sting of the Police, when he was working on a collaborative project with some jazz musicians, talk about the difference between playing rock music and playing jazz. He said that when you are playing rock music you have to come out blazing hot from the first note. When you are playing jazz you work up to a crescendo over several minutes. Given that difference, I am not a rock teacher; I am a jazz teacher. I like to teach in the context of a relationship, where, over time, I can get to know the student and the student can get to know me, and together we can improve our skills and knowledge of the subject at hand. When I teach, it is a very symbiotic relationship. I feed off the energy and interest of the students. When I can sense that the students are interested in the topic, that energizes me. So the thought of teaching in an environment where the thing that brings us together is a genuine love of learning has always been attractive to me. Gutenberg has provided that kind of opportunity. That is not to say that students come to Gutenberg with a genuine love of learning. They come with some level of curiosity and interest, but they are not ready to deal with the questions of human existence with the gravity and profundity that such questions require. However, over the course of four years, most students go through a steady progression from mild interest to greater interest to sensing the life changing nature of what is being discussed. And as they go through this progression, you can see the change in their faces. You see their faces light up and then get increasingly brighter. I love teaching in that kind of setting; teaching ceases to be a performance and becomes something more akin to fellowship. Over the years there have been many students whose faces lit up. I am especially thankful that they chose to come to Gutenberg and that I had the privilege of working with them. (continued) Third, I would like to thank the retiring members of the board of Governors of Gutenberg College. They have had the ultimate responsibility of oversight of this institution. They have been my “boss”; they are the ones to whom I had to answer. They have provided me with valuable advice and counsel over a long period of time. We have worked through many very difficult decisions together, and they have always been very supportive and encouraging to me personally. It is unusual to find a group of men who are so principled. I would not have been able to do my job without them. And finally, I would like to thank the tutors. As I have said many times, and as I continue to believe, the tutors are the heart of Gutenberg College. The tutors are what make Gutenberg so impactful. The tutors are the ones who interact with students on a day-to-day basis, and the way that they interact with the students creates the environment which is so distinctive. Our tutors have two qualities that are of critical importance. First, they understand that teaching our students is not a job; it is a calling and a privilege. Second, they understand that students are more than “valued customers.” They are people with souls. And a soul is a precious and mysterious thing. As such, it must be treated with respect, gentleness, and humility. Our tutors understand this and do this well. I would like to thank them for many years of doing Gutenberg with me. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the labor of two of our tutors, who are also stepping down at this time. Dick Booster has had two of the hardest and most thankless assignments in Gutenberg. He has served as a tutor teaching Classical Greek and also as vice president. Few people recognize the unique challenges that are faced when teaching Greek in the Gutenberg curriculum. In a typical college, students only take Classical Greek if they choose to do so. And if they get started learning Greek and then decide that they don’t want to continue, they just drop the course. As a result, the Greek classes are only populated with students who have aptitude and interest in learning Greek. At Gutenberg, every student must take two years of Classical Greek whether he or she has aptitude and interest or not. So not only must the tutor figure out how to bring along those with little aptitude or interest, he must also deal with the fact that he will have students who are gifted with respect to languages and those who are not in the same classroom. This creates a very difficult set of challenges. Furthermore, the Greek courses are unique in our curriculum, in that they require the students to learn new material on a daily basis over a two-year period. If they do not do their work regularly and faithfully, they will not succeed in learning Greek. There is no other course in the Gutenberg curriculum that requires so much discipline on the part of the student. This is one of the reasons I think Greek is such an important part of the Gutenberg education. It has therefore fallen to Dick to be the disciplinarian and to hold students responsible for doing the day-to-day learning. On the administrative side, Dick has been our vice president, charged with the task of keeping track of our money. One would think that with so little, that would be an easy job. But he was required to keep track of both the money we had and the money we didn’t have—and there has been lots of that. Keeping the books was not Dick’s first choice of ways to spend his time. But we needed someone to do it, and Dick accepted the task. He taught himself how to do what needed to be done, and he did it very competently. I am very grateful for his years of faithful and selfless service. The other tutor who is stepping down at this time is Jack Crabtree . Jack has made a huge contribution to Gutenberg College. He has the gift of being able to present very clear explanations of very difficult issues. He is also capable of very nuanced thinking, and our students have learned a lot by interacting with him on a wide range of issues, but his knowledge of philosophy is particularly impressive. Jack has two qualities as a tutor that particularly stand out in my mind. First, he is great at answering questions. I remember way back to a course on biblical exegesis that he taught in California. He would give a lecture, and then at the end he would open the class up for questions. That was the best part of the class. He was so good at answering questions that people would come just for that part of the class. He is even good at answering bad questions. If someone asks a clumsy or ill-formed question, he is able to answer it in such a way that people come away thinking it was a great question. Jack has also been extremely available with his time for students. He has always been very willing to go out to coffee with anyone at anytime to talk about anything. Many students have taken him up on this availability. And I have marveled at the fact that Jack was always the last one to leave second discussion on Friday afternoons. He would stay until the last student asked the last question. Jack’s contribution to Gutenberg has been enormous. I am very grateful for all he has done. I wish Chris Swanson, Gutenberg’s new president, and those working with him on the transition team well. I hope they will be able to get Gutenberg on firm financial footing, so that it can continue operations on into the future. And I hope the next year goes well for students and staff. God be with you.

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