The Strange Death of Europe.

Rabbi Sacks makes an interesting connection between a pair of secular books:

I am currently listening to Douglas Murray's "The Strange Death of Europe." Murray's repetition of succinct and clear examples of the insanity and corruption of Western elites should provoke a feeling of anger and outrage in any reasonable reader.

Also, total confusion. What is going on here with this, and with many similar examples:

//Several years before the latest surge in the migration crisis a left-wing Norwegian politician called Karsten Nordal Hauken (a self-described ‘feminist’, ‘anti-racist’ and heterosexual) was brutally raped in his own home by a male Somali refugee. His attacker was subsequently caught and convicted with the help of DNA evidence. After serving his sentence of four and a half years the attacker was scheduled for deportation back to his native Somalia. In a subsequent piece for the Norwegian media Hauken described the guilt that he felt for this. Indeed, he said that his first instincts were that he felt ‘responsible’ for his rapist’s return to Somalia. ‘I had a strong feeling of guilt and responsibility,’ he wrote. ‘I was the reason that he would not be in Norway anymore, but rather sent to a dark uncertain future in Somalia.’23 It is one thing to try to forgive your enemies. But it is another thing entirely to be brutally raped and then worry about the future living arrangements of your rapist. Perhaps masochism is a thing that always afflicts a certain number of people at any one time. Perhaps the masochists, like the poor, will always be with us. But a society that rewards those with such tendencies, and indeed tells people with such tendencies that their tendencies are not just natural but a demonstration of virtue, is a society likely to produce a higher concentration of masochists than most.

Murray, Douglas. The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (Kindle Locations 3160-3172). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Tenets!!!!

Not tenants!!!!

Unless you are talking about someone you are renting property to!!!!!!!!

Argh!!!!!!!!!!!

If you are going to write a book on the "tenets" of the Christian faith, first learn the word!!!!!!!

Hold on! You mean I could get ...
...paid for this?

George Orwell on the pathetic life of the professional book reviewer:

The best practice, it has always seemed to me, would be simply to ignore
the great majority of books and to give very long reviews--1,000 words is
a bare minimum--to the few that seem to matter. Short notes of a line or
two on forthcoming books can be useful, but the usual middle-length review
of about 600 words is bound to be worthless even if the reviewer genuinely
wants to write it. Normally he doesn't want to write it, and the week-in,
week-out production of snippets soon reduces him to the crushed figure in
a dressing-gown whom I described at the beginning of this article.
However, everyone in this world has someone else whom he can look down
on, and I must say, from experience of both trades, that the book
reviewer is better off than the film critic, who cannot even do his work
at home, but has to attend trade shows at eleven in the morning and, with
one or two notable exceptions, is expected to sell his honour for a glass
of inferior sherry.

A long, strange trip.

Father Robert Sirico smoked pot with Jane Fonda in the '70s and now he's writing books defending the moral virtues of free market capitalism - "Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy" by Robert A. Sirico .

Looks like it's going on my "to get" pile.

Amazon Revew - What rough beast slouches to the Singularity?

The Terminal State (Avery Cates) [Kindle Edition] Jeff Somers, March 16, 2012

As always, "helpful" votes are much appreciated.

The singularity is coming, and it's not living up to its reputation.

When we first met Avery Cates, he was a cocky "gunner" - thug/enforcer/murderer for hire - in a future where all nation states had been forcibly incorporated into the "System of Federated Nations." He was on top of his game and about to step up from being a purely local nuisance into the big time. After taking on the "electric church" and destroying that weird cult of cyborg monks at the behest of the System Police's mysterious chief, Dick Marin, Cates looks set for the good life as the head of a criminal gang in New York City.

Unfortunately for him, as a bit of blow-back for his efforts in taking down the "electric church," Cates was infected with the "digital plague" - a nano-virus that effectively destroyed the human infrastructure of the System and reduced large portions of the Earth to involuntary human extinction. That kicked off the war between the police of the System and a newly formed System army, and Cates was scooped up with a lot of Very Important People and sent to the infamously, inescapable "eternal prison" , where he met up with a mysterious little Irish man, who double-crossed him in his prison escape. While there, he learns something important and chilling; it seems that the minds of everyone is being digitized onto bricks, the human meatware no longer being important enough for the trouble it causes.

Cates isn't one to be stymied, however, and he has the survival instincts of a cockroach. So, he escapes the prison.

He's lying low at the beginning of the "Eternal State," trying to get by with the low-lifes with whom he began his story. He's in bad shape. He's not young any more. He is semi-crippled. He hurts. But he is still a major bad-ass.

Unfortunately, Cates gets swept up by the System Army which is still fighting its war with the System police, and apparently killing lots of civilians along the way. The good news is that the Army implants augments into him - which makes him stronger and fitter than he's been in years. The bad news is that the augments can be used to control or kill him. Then, he's sold off to someone from his past, who intends to use his cockroach like survival abilities and general bad-attitude to steal something called the "God Augment" - more dehumanizing cyber technology - from someone hiding out in Hong Kong.

The world is in a very bad way. It seems like everyone is dying. Everyone who is not dying is being transformed into a cyborg or a digitized replica of a human being. Cities are virtually abandoned; it seems that Hong Kong has only 3,000 inhabitants.

Where is this leading?

Is this the great Singularity - where everyone transcends their human limitations?

If so, it is not what has been promised.

On the other hand, it seems more realistic than the Singularity fetishists - with their peace and harmony fantasies - could ever imagine.

The Cates stories are crisp and well-plotted. Cates is something of a sociopath, but is more to him than that; he seems to be playing out the hand that he's been dealt and with the luxury of more options, we might hope that he'd be more human than the cyborgs and avatars he is literally surrounded by.

As I noted in my review of The Digital Plague, the Cates' stories are more than noir science fiction, in that even from the second book in the series, Somers seemed to have a plotline that asked the question, what happens to humanity when machines can do everything? Cates is a stock noir science fiction/fantasy protagonist with a bad attitude and the willingness to trade off of his "bad ass" reputation with his quips and generally snotty attitude. What sets these books apart from other stories with leading characters with bad ass reputations and snotty attitudes is that Cates' world is evolving into something very new.

In some ways, this book is less interesting from the sociological standpoint than his earlier books, in that the rich underworld ecology of criminal New York is gone, along with all of its inhabitants, and the world is divided between the Army, the Police and the few civilians that remain. Nonetheless, I'm interested in seeing where this evolution is leading, and how Somers wraps up his series.

Amazon Review - The Lost History of 1914: How the Great War Was Not Inevitable by Jack Beatty.

As always, please go here and give my review a "helpful" vote.

An entertaining and informative book for the history lover.


For the lover of history, history has an inherent "Gosh, wow!" factor. A lover of history wants to marvel at the things that have brought us to where we are today, and particularly wants to marvel at the things that were better, bigger and more amazing than we can see today. There is probably no more unmitigated "Gosh, wow!" moment for a lover of history than when he's taken behind the stage where he gets to see the inner workings of history and how the firm, secure, concrete workings of history as it is could have turned out so different if a minor adjustment was made in the plot or the staging.

Jack Beatty's "The Lost History of 1914: How the Great War Was Not Inevitable" is a book for the lover of history who wants to indulge in some "Gosh, wow!" moments. Beatty's thesis is that the First World War - which has been taught for nearly a century as something that was as inevitable as the next Ice Age - could have been avoided if only certain minor adjustments in timing had been made in that last fateful year before the mass slaughter that decapitated one era and launched a newer, nastier one.

Beatty looks at the major players of the First World War - Germany, France, Britain, the United States and Russia - and points to "lost" events, i.e., events that were important at the time but are now forgotten, in order to point out that if those events had turned out slightly different or had been timed differently, then the clock-work mechanics that seems to have launched the First World War would have broken down. In France, for example, if Mrs. Cailleaux hadn't gunned down the right-wing publisher of a newspaper that had been savaging her husband, he might have been in control of France's foreign policy with his pacifist ally in August of 1914, such that he could have negotiated a peace treaty with Germany as he did during the Moroccan crisis of 1911. Similarly, if the build-up to war had been just a few days quicker, England might have been engulfed in a Civil War in Northern Ireland over the issue of Home Rule for Ireland.

A thing I liked about Beatty's book is that it brought together a lot of "background" information I knew about - vaguely - and made them the center of attention. So, I got the details of the Moroccan Crisis of 1911, whereas before it had only been a bit of stage setting. Likewise, Beatty's discussion of America's involvement with Mexico and Pancho Villa made the Zimmerman Telegram - which had been presented to me in High School history as a bit of hysterical drama on the part of America - suddenly make sense as to why Americans would take seriously a German offer to let Mexico have a piece of the American southwest; not the least reason for which was that Mexico actually had several armies, any of which were manifestly larger thanthe 25,000 to 30,000 man army that America was fielding at that time.

Beatty's book is fun, and intended to be fun. My sense is that Beatty enjoys the "Gosh, wow!" bits of history, and enjoyed introducing his readers to the characters who made up the dramatis personae of the fin de siècle. At times, I thought some of his choices were dubious in that regard, such as having Trotsky describe Tsar Nicholas as vapid. After all, how much weight should we give that bit of information? What would we expect Trotsky to say? Likewise, quoting from various books of fiction written long after the fact by authors removed from the events - as in the case of quoting "The Old Gringo" (inasmuch as Carlos Fuentes was born in 1928 in Panama City) - as if they offered insight into the experience of the people suffering through the Mexican Revolution seemed odd. Another quirk I found disconcerting was Beatty's "vertiginous" style of narration. Beatty would often segue off on a tangent from one topic for pages before it became clear that he was discussing a possibly related topic, which was chronologically prior to the original topic. In the chapter on America's involvement in Mexico, it seems that the Dictator Huerta boarded the German cruiser Dresden for exile in Jamaica three or four times. Likewise, in the chapter on Germany, after reading for pages about the German Reichstag's loss of nerve in confronting the military about its usurpation of civilian rule in Alsace-Lorraine, I was brought up short by a reminder that the Reichstag had censured the military on that issue, and I had to go back to find where the censure had occurred to remind myself what had happened. This recursive style is apparently a design feature, according to Beatty's "Acknowledgments," and is intended to "provide recurring images" and show case "parallel dilemmas. " Nonetheless, it can be confusing, so forewarned is forearmed.

1914 is filled with a feast of historical factoids for the history lover. Although as a resident of the Central Valley of California, I have known about the Armenian Genocide my entire life, I did not know that the match that lit it was a Russian victory at the Battle of Sarakamish. I didn't know that there is a current view - based on information previously unavailable in the former Eastern Germany - that there never was a "Schlieffen Plan" or that the "Schlieffen Plan" during the war was in the custody of "Schlieffen's two elderly daughters." (p. 252.) I found it surprising - although I sort of knew this from High School history - that the French "Birth Dearth" is nothing new - it was a reality in the period prior to the First World War. I really hadn't known anything about Herbert Hoover's background or his humanitarian contribution to the starving in Europe. (Again, I had heard about that subject as a "one-off" sentence that usually introduced Hoover.)

Beatty's book can obviously be criticized, and argued about endlessly, with respect to his particular cases. Did they make that much of a difference? Would they have made that much of a difference? But, heck, that's the fun of "counterfactual history," aka "parallel history," aka "alternative history." That history didn't happen, so naturally the likelihood of that parallel history ever happening was - or seems to be - unlikely. On the other hand, he makes some observations worth pondering - for example, what was the effect of the First World War on a generation of German children deprived of their fathers? (p. 316 - 317.) Was Hitler a surrogate father-figure that they were programmed to respond to by their brutal experience? It's an interesting bit of speculation to ponder.

Another thing that struck me was that the fin de siècle is so perfectly modern. In France, a vituperative press gins up the feelings of a reader who goes out and shoots the vilified politician, and we think we have issues with "civility"! In Germany, a pompous twenty-year old refers to Alsatians with the derogatory slur "wackes" - from which I suspect we get our term "wacky" - and it turns into a national crisis, and writing this within a week of the soon to be forgotten Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke "slut" kerfuffle, I have to think, "déjà vu all over again."

Finally, Beatty is enjoyable to read. I like his "vertiginous" and "tenebrous" and "rodomontade." And anyone who can write about the "boche debauched" is having a good time with his subject matter. And sometimes it must have been hard to hold back, such as when Madame Caillaux is acquitted of the public murder of Gaston Calmette after she killed the man in broad daylight after purchasing the gun and engaging in target practice because the jury concluded that Calmette just happened to fall in the path of the bullet that she intended to shoot into the floor to scare him!

This is an entertaining read for the history lover, or simply the person who wants to see how it may be the case that history wasn't etched in stone.

Amazon Review - Why It Doesn't Matter What You Believe If It's Not True: Is There Absolute Truth? [Paperback]
Stephen McAndrew (Author)

The author sent this book to me to review. Here is my review. As always a "helpful" vote would be appreciated.

Stephen McAndrew's "Why it Doesn't Matter What You Believe if It's Not True" is a well-written, highly-informative, tightly-argued examination of the questions, "Are there good grounds to believe that there is an absolute moral truth?" and "Why do people think that moral truths are 'relative'?"

McAndrew structures his as a fairly slim (approximately 90 pages with end-notes) and highly accessible argument in favor of the proposition that moral truths are "real" and not simply things that exist by agreement, stipulation or fancy. McAndrew clearly states his propositions and, in a very lawyer-like manner, marshals the proofs for his thesis. Unlike a great many lawyers, however, he is gifted with a habit of graceful prose that made reading his book enjoyable.

McAndrew's basic argument is not going to be very surprising to those who are acquainted with the usual debates about the ontological status of moral truth. McAndrew's book, however, is worth reading for the perspective he brings on the argument, particularly his recounting of intellectual history. McAndrew locates the origin of the attitude that moral truths are only contingent in the Empiricist philosophical tradition. The Empiricists denied that anything could be known - or knowable - except that information that was derived from sense experience. This view led to a crisis in Empiricism, where Empiricist philosophers found themselves denying common sense knowledge such as the fact that things continue to exist even after we no longer see them. The Empiricist tendency led to Logical Positivism, whose practitioners stipulated out of human consideration anything that could not be measured, tested or falsified.

The culmination of what McAndrew views as a dysfunctional philosophy was Ludwig Wittgenstein. According to McAndrew, the later Wittgenstein sought to "solve" all philosophical problems by arguing for the proposition that the reality experienced by human beings was found in the language established by the community and communicated to the individual by modeling and reinforcement. It seems that Wittgenstein's view was pretty comprehensive; Wittgenstein argued that pain was only "painful" in that human beings had been taught by modeling and reinforcement of behavior that certain kinds of behavior would be rewarded if such behavior "appropriately" followed certain stimuli. So, children who stumbled and fell and cried would be comforted; hence, the children learned "pain."

Wittgenstein's argument stemmed from his "private language argument." To wit, the purpose of language is to communicate publicly, which means that no one has a reason for having a "private language," which means that everything we communicate publicly has to be a community activity. According to McAndrew this insight supported and resonated with the idea of moral relativity. Thus, if "pain" is "pain" because of a community definition, then morality - which is another public activity - would also be a product of community definition.

McAndrew succinctly and quickly establishes that this approach is self-defeating by appealing to the argument that even relativists make a truth claim that is not contingent on a community definition of what counts as "truth." Simply put, if there's no "there" there - if there is no truth in that truth claim - then it isn't worth even the time spent breathing out the nonsense syllables that make up "Wittgenstein's" claim.

McAndrew also follows another line of reasoning by appealing to the "human rights urge." McAndrew points out that human rights are widely accepted as a point of established fact in international law. Most people today accept the idea of human rights as something that cannot be questioned. But if such rights are only contingent and accidental, then they don't really exist in the way that even secular modernists - particularly secular modernists - claim they exist. This puts even secular modernists into the bind of giving up one the most cherished programs of their project, and lapsing into nihilism, or conceding what they know already, i.e. that there is a moral truth.

This is a very nice argument.

McAndrew also offers some insights into why the relativist project exists. His arguments here were thought provoking. After reading this part of his book, I came away wondering at the strange cognitive dissonance that pervades modern society. For example, we don't accept the claim that truth is relative to the community when it comes to science. No one will get much mileage claiming that "global warming" is true for Europeans but not true for China. But when it comes to moral truths, suddenly there is no truth.

Except, perhaps, for those truths enshrined by secular modernists in the U.N. Charter of Human Rights.

I found McAndrew's book to be well-worth reading. I recommend it without reservations.

Amazon Book Review - Jesus in the Talmud...

..by Peter Schafer.

The review is here. I'd appreciate a "helpful" vote.

Inflammatory material handled in a scholarly and interesting way.,

February 6, 2012

Peter Schafer does a terrific job of threading the needle on a subject that could be inflammatory in any of several directions. Professor Schafer handles the incindiary subject matter of slurs against Jesus and his mother by focusing on matters of scholarly interest, namely by examining what the Talmudic texts meant about the interaction between Jewish and Christian communities and Palestine and Babylon and about the knowledge of Jewish writers with the basic Christian narrative.

It shouldn't be surprising to find that there were some really vile slurs against Jesus, his mother and disciples floating around in Jewish communities during the period from the 2d to the 4th Century. Judaism and Christianity were engaged in a forceful debate about the meaning of Jewish and Christian identity, and as Oscar Skarsaune argues in In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity there was a heated competition between Christians and Jews for adherents.

We know about the Christian anti-Jewish side of the inter-religious slandering competition. "Jews" are described in the Gospel of John as being children of Satan; a fair number of early Christian fathers wrote embarrassingly anti-semitic tracks; and there was a tradition that equated Jews with being "God-killers."

It would be unimaginable to think that Jews wouldn't respond in kind.

As Professor Schafer points out they did by regularly inverting the Gospel narratives. So, in place of Jesus' birth from the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary, or Miriam, is a whore and an adulterer, and Jesus is a "mamzer" (bastard) whose real father was a Roman soldier names "Panthera." (Professor Schafer speculates that the theme of intentional inversion may be seen in the name "Pantera," which seems to invert "Parthenos" (virgin-birth) to "Panthera." (panther.)

If that isn't enough, Jesus was a bad son, a brick-worshipping idolater and a magician. Jesus' disciples recanted, pled for mercy and were killed. Jesus was never resurrected, rather he spends eternity boiling in excrement, in another inversion of the Gospel narrative that his followers should eat his flesh.

Schafer does a nice job of showing how these odd stories actually play a role in crafting a powerful "counter-narrative" in the Jewish community against Christian claims. Thus, rather than disclaiming responsibility for the death of Christ it seems that the Jewish community - particularly the Babylonian community - was proudly saying that "yes, the Jews did kill Jesus, which is what he deserved as a blasphemer and an idolater."

Schafer discounts the possibility that the odd stories found in the Talmud have any historical significance for understanding the life of Jesus. Rather, the stories have significance in showing what the Jewish community new later, and how it responded to the insurgent threat of Christianity.

Schafer concludes his short - approximately 130 page - text with discussion about the differences between the Palestinian and the Babylonian communities. My sense was that the scandalous stories about Jesus were few and far between in the Talmud's of both communities. Moreover, when the stories were told, the stories themselves were not so much the center of attention, but rather the stories were taken as a given and the information that the stories related were used to make some other point about Jewish law and customs. One of things that I take-away from this book is that even if the scandalous things said about Jesus were few and far between in the Talmud, I suspect that these stories circulated in a fairly unrestrained fashion in discourse between and among Jewish and Christian communities.

In any event, these stories were more often to be found in the Babylonian Talmud. Schafer points out that the reason for this may have been the fact that Babylon was under the control of Zoroastrian Persians, and, after the conversion of Constantine to Christianity, Persia began to look at Christians as a potential "Fifth Column" and began a long period of persecuting Christians in the Persian Empire. The Jewish community of the Persian Empire may have been emboldened in that context to, as Professer Schafer argues, "take up, and continue, the discourse of their brethren in Asia Minor."(p. 129.)

From my standpoint, I find the mention of the Zoroastrian persecution of Christians to be something I don't think I had heard about before. Likewise, my next book will probably be Robert Louis Wilkens' John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century. After reading this book, I will probably have a better context to weigh the rhetorical excesses of Chrysostem because this book suggests that the "norm" of inter-religious discourse was not particularly edifying.

Amazon Review -

"The End of Eternity" by Isaac Asimov.

Please go here and give me a "helpful" vote.

This is my first re-read of Asimov's "End of Eternity" in nearly forty years. It was interesting to see what I misremembered and how my perception of the book may have changed since my first reading in my mid-teens.

****Spoiler Warning****

Andrew Harlan is a "Technician" in "Eternity." "Eternity" is an organization/environment that stands apart and outside of "Time" during all the centuries running from the 27th Century up to the 70,000th Century. Eternity is given to making changes in history in order to cause "reality changes" in a given century. These reality changes are designed to improve the human condition by editing wars, disasters and dysfunctional social customs out of history. Under Asimov's rules, "reality changes" tend to wash out after a few centuries so that a change in one century doesn't really have much effect on a century more than a few centuries "upwhen," i.e., in the future.

Technicians are the personnel in Eternity who actually implement the changes in Time that are determined by "Computers" and "Sociologists" and other "Specialists." Because of their "grim reaper"-like occupation - reality changes cause people to disappear or for personality changes or the elimination of great works of art and scientific progress - Technicians are the scape-goats of Eternity, and are ostracized but feared.

Harlan is, to put it simply, something of a "dick." He's arrogant and prickly and not-likeable. And, yet, he's taken as a protege by the head Computer, Twissel, who is one of the most powerful men in Eternity. One of Harlan's queer interests is his study of the Primitive, i.e., the period before time-travel was invented by a rare genius named Vikkor Mallanson in the 24th Century. Along with other tasks given to him by Harlan is given to him by Twissel, Harlan is told to tutor an odd young man named Cooper in the history and customs of the Primitive eras.

Harlan also meets a woman named Noyes Lambert, who, frankly, seduces him. Harlan flips from being a total misogynist - Eternals are generally celibate, and very few Eternals are women because extracting women from Time is much more disruptive of Reality than extracting men. So, Harlan has all the social graces and emotional maturity of a twelve year old. He falls hard, and starts committing crimes because of his infatuation for Noyes.

There is also the overriding mystery of the "hidden centuries" - an 80,000 century period into which the Eternals can traverse but not enter, but at the end of which, when the Eternals can re-enter time, humanity has gone extinct. There is also the overriding them of the futility of space travel. In fact, the only reality change we observe is when Harlan moves a cup by four feet in 5284th Century and eliminates space travel from the Reality of that era.

Who is Cooper? Why are there the "hidden centuries"? Why the heck does the lovely and uninhibited Noyes seduce the cold-fish and unlikable Harlan?

***End Spoilers ***

Assessment:

Asimov works all of the questions he sets for himself with near mathematical precision. The story moves along, and we do get a resolution of the questions. The story is entertaining.

But...

It may be the pespective change after forty years, but I found that Harlan was a jerk. A point that Asimov was making, of course, was that Harlan was, in fact, a jerk, but I found it harder to engage with the story in my fifties when I didn't like the insufferable Harlan, than in my teens when I was all about the *gosh, wow* storyline. That is certainly not accidental, since, in many ways, Asimov and science fiction of the '50s was about appealing to teenage males.

Another issue that kept recurring to me was "how does Eternity work?" Why don't Eternals run into themselves when they return from their missions? There are apparently many "generations" of Eternals working in their various sections of Eternity - Eternals age and die like Timers - but apparently one generation from a later "time" in "Eternity" does not meet the members of prior generation. How does that work? Asimov simply assumes that this is not a question and moves from there. Fine. He's the author, and there probably is not answer, so he's entitled to his legerdemain. I don't recall being concerned with this forty years ago, but today it kept recurring in my mind.

Another thing is that Harlan's flip from misogynist to infatuated teenager seemed unreal and unappetizing. Again, though, this is classic Asimov and the fact that his strength was ideas and not characters.

On the other hand, I always remembered that "The End of Eternity" was the true prequel to Asimov's Galactic Empire stories. I have always made a note in my mental schema of Asimov's writings that the fundamental choice offered by Asimov was Eternity or Galactic Empire.

That choice is the thought-provoking idea that we expect from Asimov, and it is the idea that give the book its motive power and entertainment value, as well as the fact that this quick read has remained in my memory for four decades.

"The End of Eternity" is a must-read for anyone interested in Asimov or "classic" science fiction. It is worth reading for anyone looking for a plot-driven science fiction book that delivers a single big idea in a quick, entertaining read.

Post-Script:

Something occurred to me after I put this review to bed, and it seemed too interesting not to note somewhere.

On reflection it occurred to me how much Eternity resembles the milieu of Asimov's primary occupation - academia in a university from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Consider, for example, the absence of women from Eternity.  Certainly, that would approximate what Asimov saw when he attended department meetings. Likewise, Eternity is broken down into departments and specializations, such as "Sociologist" and "Computer" and "Life Plotter" and "Observer." The rigid limits of these specializations look like university departments.

Then there is Harlan's odd reflection on the role of "Maintenance."  Harlan reflects that no one notices Maintenance workers, but without Maintenance workers - who are really not Eternals in some sense - Eternity couldn't last more than a few days.  It sounds almost as if Asimov is reflecting on the nameless, forgotten university staff that changed the lighbulbs in his classroom.

And, then, there is the distinction between thinking and doing.  Eternity exists to critique what others have done.  Eternals review the reality produced by people really doing things in Time. When the Eternal's "criticism" of Reality find reality lacking with respect to the standards set by Eternity, then Eternity changes the reality of Timers without consulting the Timers for their desires.  Timers are like students in a classroom who will accept the curriculum provided by their intellectual "professors" in Eternity.

There is also the disdain of the other professional classes for the "men of action" - the Technicians.  The Technicians do things - they don't merely critique.  They are the professors involved in applying science; they aren't engaged in pure abstract research. I wonder if Asimov exprienced a kind of similar ostracism at the hands of other professors on account of his involvement in writing science fiction.

Finally, Eternity is the antithesis of the Galactic Empire. One thing that a Galactic Empire is essentially is that it is a thing made by "doers" not "critiques."  The ascendent elite of a Galactic Empire will be people who do things - make things - conquer - invent - rather than set back and critique others who do those things.  Again, I wonder if Asimov's view of Eternity ruling out the Galactic Empire, and vice versa, does't in some way arise from the uneasy sense of academia that there was a world "out there" that viewed academic values with disdain.

I'm not saying that this interpretation is essential to an understanding of "The End of Eternity," but, on reflection, I'm now wondering how much of Asimov's personal experience went into shaping his view of Eternity.

Book Review ...

...The Story of a Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard's 'Sentences' (Rethinking the Middle Ages) by Philipp W. Rosemann

Please go here and give me a helpful vote.

This is a wonderful book of history. The author Philipp W. Rosemann offers a fascinating examination of Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences and its treatment over four centuries. Rosemann provides a look at a rare slice of medieval life, specifically the role that the Book of Sentences played in the developing universities. Finally, he shares an insight into a feature of human thought, namely its tendency to unfold a text into insights, theories and speculations until it fractures, at which point there is a refolding of the diverse skeins of insights, theories and speculation back into the original text.

Rosemann organizes his book in a century by century form, devoting a chapter to each of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, with the final chapter on the "Long Fifteenth Century" culminating in Martin Luther's involvement with the Book of Sentences.

The Book of Sentences was written by Peter Lombard, aka "The Master of Sentences" or "The Lombard," in the mid-12th Century as a "study aid" for his students. In the 12th Century, education was moving from the monasteries to the universities. Paris hosted a number of private theology teachers such as Peter Lombard. The Master based his book on the lectures he had been giving to his students for the previous thirty years. The book organized the opinions of religious authorities, such as Augustine and Gregory, on various subjects in a format that covered topics ranging from the Trinity to the sacraments. As the centuries went by this organizational format would persist as the way that systematic theology was structured during the ensuing centuries, even after theologians stopped interacting with the Lombard's actual text.

Lombard's book was an instant hit. Lombard became Bishop of Paris in 1159. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 consecrated the Sentences as supremely orthodox by approving Lombard's understanding of the Trinity. (p. 61.)

The Sentences were used by teachers of theology throughout Catholic Europe. Some universities had regulations requiring that the Sentences be taught. After Lombard, every theologian of note, including Aquinas, Ockham, Scotus and Luther, wrote a commentary on the Sentences.

Although it was a study aid, the early history of the Sentences involved developing study aids to assist in the use of the study aid. This resulted in the production of glosses and abbreviations. The glosses were the lecture notes that were added to the sides of the student's texts. Eventually, these glosses became books in their own right, although they required the text of the Sentences in order to follow the explanations in the glosses. Interestingly, one can see this format in Aquinas' commentaries on Aristotle and the various books of the Bible. Eventually, the gloss commentaries developed into stand-alone texts, beginning the tradition of writing commentaries.

Abbreviations were summaries of the texts. One interesting point made by Roseman is that at the time of the earliest abbreviations, in the 13th Century, the alphabetical order was still new, which resulted in a certain incompetence in creating alphabetical indexes. (p. 89.) Previously, and continuing throughout the 13th Century, the practice had been to arrange references in a "logical or indeed cosmological order," such as starting with God and working down through creation, as the Master had done in his book. (p. 89.) Rosemann makes the priceless observation that the move from the "cosmological" to the alphabetical order constituted a Copernican turn whereby men moved from being readers of signs, whose principle task was to understand the cosmos, to writers of signifiers, whose task was to impose an order on the universe. (p. 90.) Rosemann doesn't explore the issue, but one has to wonder how much of that "Copernican turn" eventually resulted in Nominalism and modernity. It's a topic worth contemplating.

Rosemann does a brilliant job of explaining the "crisis" provoked by the condemnation of various scholastic teachings by Bishop Etienne Tempier, the Bishop of Paris, in 1277. Tempier's condemnation was based less on the fact that anyone was actually teaching heresy, but on his concern that such a heresy might develop. The errors condemned in 1277 seem to be those teachings that sought to put philosophy on a higher plane than theology. The condemnation led directly to Nominalism, according to Rosemann, in that one of the earliest figures in the development of Nominalism - Duns Scotus - was deeply influenced by Henry of Ghent, who had been one of the members of the commission that drew up the list of errors that were condemned in 1277 by the Bishop of Paris. (p. 103.)

Rosemann's follows the development of Nominalism into its ever more abstract mode of thought. Nominalism was inspired by an effort to carve out an area of autonomy for theology by distinguishing between God's inscrutable absolute power - potentia absoluta - and God's power as exercised in a covenantal relationship with creation - potentia ordinate. (p. 137.) In contradistinction to Thomism, Nominalism taught that because all of creation was absolutely contingent on God's exercise of his absolute freedom, there was no "metaphysical structure" that could be traced back to the Creator and thus the created order was "best analyzed at the level of the existing individual." ( p. 138.) Over time, it appears that once God's freedom had been secured, theologians felt "authorized to unleash the tools of liberal arts without restraint." (p. 187.)

A theme that runs through Rosemann's book is the movement from "signs" to signifiers." Rosemann writes, "If there obtains no necessary, metaphysical connection between the Creator and the creation - if the connection is historical, covenantal, and hence contingent - then creation needs to be analyzed in itself, without recourse to a foundation in the meta-realities such as God or universal, abstract natures that sustain it. For this reasons the nominalist project is no longer aimed at understanding the cosmos through the analysis of signs, but rather at understanding the signifiers that we employ in speaking about the world." (p. 188.)

Another theme of Rosemann's book is that the move from signs to signifiers as the basis for thinking about the world was accompanied by a decoupling of theology from piety. As theology moved from sacra pagina - the study of scripture - to scienta divina - the divine science - theology became less and less concerned with lived spirituality, such as moral theology (p. 47; Cf. Servais Pinckaer, Morality: The Catholic View), scripture (p. 76), spirituality (p. 108), and salvation and the nourishing of faith. (p. 128.) By the "long Fifteenth Century," the project of theology was looking for a return to its roots as some theologicans, including the "Ecstatic Doctor" - Denys the Carthusian - sought to restore a concern for the nourishing of faith to theology. Eventually, the separation of theology from spirituality had reached the point where Martin Luther could condemn "Aristotle, the stinking philosopher" (p. 182) and, eventually, after Rosemann's book closes, advocate a wholesale return to sources in a return to the Bible alone.

Rosemann's book is an excellent read. He manages to move the story along by a narrow focus on the Book of Sentences, and, yet, offer a panoramic view of the major shifts in thought and ideology that were associated with the treatment of the Sentences. Rosemann also provides a nice glossary of the scholastic terms of art used in the book.

Amazon Review.

A Century of Progress by Fred Saberhagen.

Go here and give me a helpful vote.

As a Saberhagen fan, I wanted to like this novel,but the further I got in the novel, the less I liked it.

The story opens in 1983 with an old man named Alan Norlund contemplating the slow death by cancer of his granddaughter. He has a cryptic conversation with a mysterious woman who vaguely promises that the granddaughter will be cured if he agrees to sign on for a mysterious job with a mysterious organization. After some developments in the grandaughter's cure and relapse when he refuses the offer, he agrees and is - Hey! Presto! - sent back to the Chicago of his youth to post mysterious devices around the Chicago area. The reason for planting the devices is never explained, and it's never explained why he is the necessary man for the job, apart from the fact that he was pre-adolescent in 1933.

The story involves either time-travel or parallel time lines; Saberhagen never explains. Initially, it looks like the story is about time travel because the mysterious organization manages to snatch out of the air a character that Norlund had shoved out of a Flying Fortess back in 1943 in order to demonstrate that Norlund can and will be sent back to the past. On the other hand, there are vague references to timelines and to the emergence of a new timeline. Also, it turns out that the chief aim of the mysterious organization is to kill Adolph Hitler in 1934 during his visit to the Chicago's World Fair, an event that never happened in our history.

In fact, after a hundred pages of planting devices and hanging out in 1933 New York, the whole "mcguffin" of the story turn out to be that the chief aim of the mysterious organization is to kill Hitler in ever timeline it can find. It also turns out that there is a parallel organization headed by the "Lawgiver" which wants to protect Hitler for no explained reason; in fact, the characters in the good mysterious organization point out that they don't know why the other organization wants to save Hitler, except, maybe, to bring him to the "future" to take over their "future" society.

The chief frustration of the book is that nothing is explained. Apparently, Norlund gets briefed about "timelines" because he suddenly gets rejuvenated and starts operating a "time-traveling" or "parallel time traveling" armored personnel carrier, but we don't share in his briefing. Who the mysterious organization is, or what there relationship is to a future society - which looks to be around 2033 - or who is underwriting the, or, even, how many there members of the organization there are - it looks to be a couple of dozen or so - is never explained. Likewise, where the evil mysterious organization comes from or who the "Lawgiver" is - who actually makes a cameo appearance in 1934 - is never explained.

Another frustration is that things happen because they just have to happen for the book. Norlund's friend from 1943 is introduced, inducted into the good mysterious organization, does nothing in particular, and then is summarily dispatched by a stray death ray without ever having done anything. Norlund is rejuvenated by amazing and mysterious medical techniques from 2033. Why? Obviously, so he can be age appropriate for a female character introduced in the middle part of the book. The female character's estranged husband is killed in a plane crash just before the rejuvenated Norlund returns to her time. Why? Obviously, in order to resolve that plot complication, because the husband never plays a role in the book. The Lawgiver travels to 1934. Why? So he can shake Hitler's hand, not that the Hitler whose hand he shakes is his timeline's Hitler, or our timeline's Hitler, but, rather, is just one of many Hitlers in one of many parallel lines, all of who seem to be different people, if the fact our Hitler never traveled to Chicago in 1934 has any significance.

Ultimately, we learn that the mysterious organization was sucessful and that Norlund's granddaughter and her children grew up in a history that never knew Hitler.

Huh?

But weren't we told that this wasn't time travel? Weren't we told that there were parallel timelines? If that was the case, then how did they grow up in a changed history if the point of Norlund's adventure was to "split off" a "new timeline."

Ultimately, this book is a confusing mess.

*Sigh*

I had hoped for better.

Amazon Review -

Morality: The Catholic View by Servais Pinckaers


Please go here and give me a "helpful" vote.


This is a brief, clear and thoroughly accessible book. Pinckaers exposition of Catholic moral teaching is broken up by a number of tables and charts that expand, illuminate or summarize the points that his points.


Pinckaers divides the work between an historical exegesis and a meditation on the nature of Christian morality.

According to Pinckaers, Catholic moral teaching is not a mere code of prescriptions and prohibitions; Catholic morality is a response, he says, to the aspirations of the human heart for truth and goodness, and seeks to educate men for growth. (p. 1.) Morality today is considered the domain of moral obligations, whereas it was historically viewed as the area in which the question of happiness and perfection were answered. (Id.) Pinckaers points to the Sermon on the Mount as illustrating an exhortation to excellence, rather than a code of conduct. Likewise, Paul exhorted Christians in the second part of Romans to a way of life that would conform to their new life in Christ. Pinckaers calls this kind of moral exhortation "paraclesis" from the Greek work "parakaleo" ("I exhort") from which the term Paraclete, signifying the Holy Spirit, derives. Pinckaers points to the other exhortations as an invitation for Christians to live up to a model of perfect Christian behavior rather than simply following a set of rules.

The theme of exhortation toward virtuous living continued as a feature of Christian moral thinking. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, subordinated moral obligations to the virtues. (p. 32.) However, over time, particular during modernity, the focus of morality became the calculus of obligation. Aquinas' contributions, such as the treatise on happiness, were forgotten. According to Pinckaers: "Because of its focus on obligations, moral theology has detached itself from everything that goes beyond legal imperatives; from the search for perfection, which is henceforth reserved to an elite; from the interior mystical movement of the heart so closely linked to love; and from spirituality in general." (p. 40.) Fortunately, after the Second Vatican Council, the hope is to reclaim the original sense of moral theology as exhortative and to move away from treating morality as merely a set of obligations.

The second part of Pinckaers' book opens with the distinction between "moralities of excellence" and "moralities of obligation." This distinction grows out the difference between the "freedom for excellence" and the "freedom of indifference." "Freedom for excellence" takes the position that there is an objective good that can be discerned through reason and the will, the discernment of which motivates the will to make a choice. The movement of the will toward this objective good is "freedom for excellence" because the will seeks the good, which is its own perfection. The "freedom of indifference" posits that there is no objective good in the world, rather the will simply chooses between things that are indifferent as between themselves. The exercise of the capacity to choose is what is meant by "free choice." Pinckaers lays the divergence of views at the feet of William of Ockham and the Nominalists during the 14th Century, in that it was the Nominalists who made indifferent and arbitrary "choice" the sine qua non by which human actions were understood.

The freedom for excellence necessitates a morality of happiness. Insofar as choice is necessarily directed toward the good, or the perfection of oneself, such a view necessarily and directly takes up the issue of what is good. The freedom of indifference leads to a morality of obligation, says Pinckaers, because insofar as there is no good in nature to be discerned by reason, there is only arbitrary choice by the will, and that choice becomes paramount in the form of "obligation." Nature is thus drained by the proponents of the philosophy of the freedom of indifference of any intrinsic goodness.

Pinckaers also points out an interesting feature of the morality of happiness, namely that "joy" is a virtue in such a system. People who are seeking excellence may not feel particularly "happy" about their pursuit of excellence, but they can feel joy, e.g., an athlete seeking excellence may hurt in training, but there may be joy in being the best, or merely better.

Pinckaers also takes up the theology of the Holy Spirit and its relationship to morality. Aquinas concludes his analysis of law with consideration of the "Evangelical law." In Christian theology, the Holy Spirit lives in the hearts of believers and gives them the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and love. From the consideration of the morality of excellence, we know that love is that which motivates human choice. The Holy Spirit is therefore the Paraclete - the Exhorter - driving believers to become better. Pinckaers returns to a consideration of the Sermon on the Mount by pointing out that the Sermon is not a set of new obligations; rather it is an exhortation to become perfect, an exhortation that can only be accomplished by love and not by a sense of duty.

Pinckaers concludes with an analysis of "Natural Law and Freedom." Natural law, according to Pinckaers, "does not primarily function by constraint but by attraction." (p. 94.) The five inclinations that natural law provides are (1) the natural inclination toward the good; (2) the natural inclination to preserve one's being; (3) the natural inclination to marry; (4) the natural inclination to know the truth; and (5) the natural inclination to life in society.

Pinckaers has many interesting and worthwhile things to say in each area. For example, he points out that the first principle of morality - that good is to be done and evil avoided - is not primarily about obligation, rather it "expresses the attraction of the good, which it extends by enjoining us to search for the true good and avoid the really evil." In other words, the first principle of morality is not the first principle by edict, rather it is the first principle because it is the basis of our very nature, i.e., we love the good and we hate evil.

Love is directly caused by the presence of the good. Something is good insofar as it is loved. Because good things are particularly good when they are loved for themselves, love is a better love when the thing loved is loved for itself. This inclination leads to the love of friendship and benevolence. The object of such love, according to Pinckaers, is another's excellence, their virtue, which then leads directly to morality. Pinckaers writes:

"The inclination toward the good is expressed in the Ten Commandments through the two commandments to love God and neighbor that express the entire law. This inclination lays the foundation for the rights and duties that the other inclinations delineate. In short the inclination toward the good gives each person the right and instills in him the duty to search for the good and reject and combat what is evil. By activating in concrete actions the general desire for justice and friendship, the virtues develop our inclination toward the good. Love of the good, being simultaneously universal and specific, provides charity its natural foundation."

Ultimately, love and exhortation cause moral development.

Pinckaers view of morality makes sense. It is definitely not the moral view of modernity, which seems to think that people will be naturally good, while teaching them that the only good is in their choice itself and, perhaps, in restraining themselves from other people. Morality as it is conceived today certainly does not teach that one kind of life is more excellent, much less better, than another, lest the advocate of such a distinction be accused of engaging in discrimination. Then, when people don't act morally, society responds by attempting to pen up their choices with regulation after regulation.

The modern approach to morality seems to be an exercise in self-contradiction. It may be time to give this ancient moral approach another go.

Fan Mail.

I wrote a fan letter to Mack P. Holt, the author of "The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629 (New Approaches to European History)."

I really liked Holt's book, which I found to be a crisply written presentation about an era that deserves a mini-series.

Professor Holt kindly responded.

Here's the exchange:

I recently read and reviewed for Amazon your book on the French Wars of Religion.

I really enjoyed your book. I was looking for a book that outlined the history of the French Wars of Religion and yours was perfect for that purpose, and compelling to read in its who's up and who's down this year storyline.

Thanks for writing it.

My review is here if you are interested in seeing it - http://www.amazon.com/review/R2JK7RRJZF3746/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Ignore the negative "helpful" ranking; it seems that I have a troll who is trying to hurt my ranking at Amazon for some reason.

And here is Professor Holt's response:

Dear Mr. Bradley,

Thanks so much for the kind review. I am just grateful that the book is still useful and being read nearly twenty years after having written it. Since so many of the popular views of the religious wars both in France and abroad are based on propaganda from biased sources, it is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to make one small step toward correcting that narrative. Thanks for all your comments and for spending the time to do so.

Best wishes,

Mack Holt

Here is my Amazon review.  I'd ask you to kindly go to this review and give me a "helpful" vote.  It seems that ever since I broke 10,000 in reviewer rankings I'm getting spammed with negative votes by trolls.

Or better still, order a copy of Professor Holt's entertaining and educational book.

Amazon Review - Are Mormons Protestants?

Christianity's Dangerous Idea by Alister McGrath.

In "Christianity's Dangerous Idea," Alister McGrath attempts to come to grips with the fundamental question of defining Protestantism. Is Protestantism a set of ideas? Is it the product of an historical event? Is it simply a reaction against medieval Catholicism? Does it even have a core set of beliefs? Is Protestantism in any sense a single phenomenon?


In arriving at his answer, McGrath engages in a broad survey of Protestantism. In three broad sections, McGrath examines the breadth of the Protestant experience. In the first section he looks at Protestant history; he examines its multiple origins in Germany and Switzerland, the emergence of the "Reformed" wing of Protestantism, and the eventual fissiparous "evolution" of many strands of Protestantism in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the second section, McGrath looks at Protestantism's contribution to culture; he examines the effect of Protestantism's insistence on recognizing the Bible as the sole, or maybe merely the highest, authority, the working out of the logic of the "priesthood of all believers, its relations to the arts and sciences, and its "mutations" into American evangelicalism. He finds evidence that Protestantism uniquely led to - or reinforced - the development of natural science and democracy, but also secularism and atheism. See e.g, p. 374, 429.) In the third section McGrath looks at Protestantism's future, and finds great potential for Protestantism in the "consumerist" model of American evangelicalism and the re-introduction of the sacred into the mundane represented by Pentecostalism.

McGrath's answer to the question "what is Protestantism" is that Protestantism is a "method" by which believers constantly examine their assumptions against the Bible and are willing to jettison or modify their beliefs without regard to the conclusions reached by prior generations. As such, McGrath feels, Protestantism is a uniquely democratic engine of adaptation, mutation and evolution. McGrath is quite explicit in his use of biological metaphors, particularly evolutionary metaphors, to describe Protestantism. (See e.g., p. 466 ("The capacity to adapt is the birthright of Protestantism."); p. 463 ("One pattern that emerges from the development of Protestantism is what seems to be an endless cycle of birth, maturing, aging and death, leading to renewal and reformulation."); p. 400 ("Protestantism is not a static entity, but a living entity whose identity mutates over time. Yet that mutation leads to a variety of outcomes - among which some flourish and others wither.")

As an attorney who has represented many local Protestant churches in their efforts to disaffiliate from their denominations - and as a Catholic for whom such a notion would be unthinkable if it involved churches in my faith tradition - I am on record - (literally, I made this argument before California's Fifth District Court of Appeals in California-Nevada Annual Conf. of the United Methodist Methodist Church v. St. Luke's United Methodist United Methodist Church (2004) 121 Cal.App.4th 754, 767 [17 Cal. Rptr. 3d 442] in 2005) - as having the highest admiration for the radical democratic energy of my Protestant brethren. These are people who will literally rip themselves out of the safety and comfort of their traditions when they feel that they cannot compromise their biblically-informed conscience. In America today, one of the most significant and, yet, unnoticed religious events is the implosion of the traditional mainline Protestant denominations as large numbers of basically "conservative" local churches walk away from their "liberal" denominations. I think that it is safe to say that while Catholics might walk individually from their church, such an organized, communal departure from tradition would be largely unthinkable (albeit I realize that it has happened on very rare occasions.)

So, I don't have problems with McGrath's overall thesis, but although I found the book worthwhile as a survey of Protestantism and gained many useful insights into Protestantism, I found myself irritated with the book concerning specific areas and disappointed with the book as a whole.

I was disappointed with the book because I thought that it was about "private interpretation." The flyleaf and title implied that "Christianity's Dangerous Idea" was the idea of "private interpretation," and there are many times when McGrath says as much. However, McGrath really does not follow up on this notion to any great extent by developing the idea of "private interpretation" and what it means and how it differs from other kinds of, presumably, non-private interpretation. For the most part, McGrath simply assumes that everyone knows and agrees that Protestants engage in "private interpretation" and that we all know what it means.

Well, I don't, and the reason I bought the book was because I wanted to know how "private interpretation" differed from what I presumably do as a Catholic as a matter of practice and not as a slogan. I felt all I got from McGrath was more slogan and very little application.

McGrath doesn't explicitly define private interpretation. In fact, the index does not have an entry for "private interpretation" which seems like a strange omission for a book about "private interpretation," (although "basketball" does get an entry in the index. However on page 208 he offers what I think is his definition, which goes as follows"

"In its formative phase, Protestantism was characterized by a belief - a radical, liberating, yet dangerous belief - that scripture is clear enough for ordinary Christians to understand and apply without the need for a classical education, philosophical or theological expertise, clerical guidance or ecclesiastical tradition, in the confident expectation that difficult passages will illuminated by clearer ones."

I think that this is what is meant by my Protestant friends when they talk about "private interpretation."

The problem from my point of view, and the reason I wanted help from McGrath, is that while I hear these words, I don't see them in actual practice. What I see are appeals to having to read the text in the original Greek and Hebrew, as well as appeals to traditional interpretations by people who deny that they are making any such appeal. On the whole, I find myself concluding that there is a whole lot of cognitive dissonance going on in the minds of people who think that they are engaging in "private interpretation." I am willing to be disabused of this notion, which was my reason for turning to this book.

What I learned, however, was that not only was McGrath of no help, his book compounds my sense that "private interpretation" is based on cognitive dissonance. Thus, McGrath points out that early Protestantism almost immediately realized that the average person could not be trusted to interpret the Bible correctly based on nothing but the Bible without coming to some wildly wrong conclusion and so early Reformers quickly developed an industry of commentaries, lectionaries, translations, catechisms, marginal notes and sermons to make sure that individual Protestants came to the right conclusion. See e.g., p. 202. Luther started cranking out catechisms as soon as he realized (a) that Zwingli was not on the same page as he was over the "Lord's supper." Likewise, the Reformed wing developed its own method of pragmatically limiting "private interpretation," as McGrath observes concerning the Geneva Bible, which was hotly contested among English Protestants because of its marginal notes: "The marginal notes of the Geneva Bible provided its readers with clear explanations of the meanings of important and yet potentially obscure biblical texts." p. 135; See also p. 355 ("We have already noted the importance of the Geneva Bible (1560) to help its readers understand what it euphemistically termed the "hard places."). How is this different from the Catholic practice of publishing bibles with notes in order to explain difficult passages, other than the fact that the Catholic Church doesn't teach its followers that the Bible is "perspicuous" when it provides the "proper" interpretation of scripture? see p. 203.)

McGrath does acknowledge the existence of "authority structures" as being necessary to any human enterprise and that Protestantism does have its authority structures outside of the Bible which control the Protestant's understanding of the Bible, but he doesn't explain what effect these authority structures has on "private interpretation" or how in a "private interpretation" either fits in his definition or works as a practical matter.

McGrath also defines private interpretation as the right of the believer to interpret the bible for himself. p. 209 ("...every Protestant has the right to interpret the Bible...")), but again this seems to be an assumed slogan rather than a reality. For example, if one is attentive to the book, although McGrath never explicitly identifies it as happening, one can see a whole lot of "imposing" of Protestantism and particular interpretations of the Bible going on. Thus, McGrath acknowledges that apart from the Anabaptists, the magisterial reformers were supported by a state actor that imposed the reformers interpretation on the population, e.g., Luther in Wittenberg and Zwingli in Zurich. This imposition was not all love and light; Zwingle had one of his former closest associates, Felix Manz drowned in the River Limmat for refusing to recant his belief that there was no biblical warrant for infant baptism. (p. 71. Likewise, the religious wars did not result in a victory for "private interpretation," rather they resulted in the local prince choosing the interpretation for his domain. Similarly, the English monarchy in its Reformation didn't permit "private interpretation" - the interpretation permitted to English citizens was that which the King permitted. Even the Reformed wing got into the act of imposing the proper interpretation when it had the power such as banning the eating of plum pudding on Christmas Day. (p. 142.)

But even after the separation of church and state, where is this "private interpretation" as a practical matter? If a member of a denomination dissents from the core interpretation of the denomination, then they can be "excommunicated." Even in non-denominational churches, presumably if an individual in a Trinitarian church decides to opt for a "private interpretation" that Jesus was a creature, presumably that person would be shown the door.

McGrath recognizes that "private interpretation" means that there is no teaching that cannot be made Protestant, so he decides to make a virtue of a necessity and decide that this diversity is a really good thing and the strength of Protestantism. As the book progressed, I started to wonder if the "dangerous idea was "the priesthood of all believers" and the fact that Protestantism disclaimed the existence of a "spiritual elite." (p. 233. But, again, this is an idea that is honored in the breach by several of the main iterations of Protestantism, such as the Reformed wing, which taught that the 5th Commandment's injunction to love and honor one's father and mother applied to one's pastor. (p. 293.)

The "dangerous idea" seems to be the formless, protean essence of Protestantism. According to McGrath, historically, there was not a single Protestantism; Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anabaptism had separate origins and distinctive and contradictory beliefs. What held the Protestantisms together was the fact that they were not Catholic. (p. 132 ("Historically, Protestantism has always needed an "other," an external threat or enemy ,imagined or real, to hold itself together as a movement."

McGrath goes so far as to question whether essential Protestant distinctive such as Sola Fide and the inerrancy of the Bible may not be required doctrines in Protestantism. (See p. 250 - 251. McGrath notes that the Protestant commitment to reassessing doctrines in the light of social development has led to "sea changes" in interpretation. For example, early Protestants held to a belief that the "great commission" of Matthew 28:19 to take the Gospel to the ends of the Earth had ended with the apostles. (p. 176, 225.) This understanding was reversed in the Nineteenth Century. Similarly, early Protetants held to "cessationism" which taught that the gifts of the Holy Spirit ended with the Apostles, but, again, in the 20th Century, with the rise of Pentecostalism, this doctrine too has been reversed.

So, it isn't clear that Protestantism has any particular core of doctrine. Even the adherence to the Trinity is questioned by "oneness Pentecostals." (p. 434) Can we say even that the adherence to the Bible only is a core Protestant idea in light of the fact that, according to McGrath, the rise of science was a principally Protestant undertaking engaged in by people who wanted to interpret the "book of words" (the Bible) through the "book of works (nature) as Calvin proposed. (p. 373 - 375. Ultimately, what is left of Protestantism, according to McGrath is a commitment to the idea that "all interpretations of the Bible must be regarded as provisional, not final." p. 377. This leaves Protestantism with nothing but a method and the core of Protestantism is the tautology that ends the book, "We have seen that Protestantism possesses a unique and innate capacity for innovation, renewal and reform based on its own internal resources. The future of Protestantism lies precisely in Protestantism being what Protestantism actually is."

Whatever that happens to be.

I found the book irritating in a host of areas, most of which involve mischaracterizing Catholicism. For example, McGrath depicts the medieval Catholic Church as corrupt, declining and stagnant for pages before tossing in a paragraph that, of course, this is not an accurate description of the actual circumstances of the period, rather Luther extrapolated from his local situation and "as historians have rightly pointed out, the evidence simply does not sustain Luther's picture of the medieval church as totally doctrinally corrupt or out of touch with the New Testament - a fact that helps us make sense of the mixed response to his demands for reform." (p. 58. The backwardness of Catholicism is an annoying trope that I find in most books on the Reformation, and while McGrath is to be complimented for providing some balance, this comes only after nearly 50 pages of handing out the stock picture of the decadent Catholic Church that most people have.

McGrath also depicts Luther as being forced into schism. McGrath asserts that Pope Leo "dithered" from 1517 until 1520 when it found it politically expedient to excommunicate Luther (see p. 49.) But he follows this up on the next page in a separate chapter by explaining that in the interim there had been formal disputations between Luther and Catholic representatives.

Likewise, McGrath constantly interjects from early in his historical narrative that Protestantism was "democratic" when no such idea was in play and, in fact, Protestantism's immediate political effect was to consolidate and centralize power in the hands of undemocratic institutions. Prior to the Reformation, German princes could not dictate to their subjects what religion they would follow, but after the Reformation, those princes saw their power expand substantially as they became the controllers of the churches and could exercise the power to determine the religion of their subjects. McGrath notes the role of "nationalism" in the rise of Protestantism but gives that factor nowhere near the role in the success of Protestantism than he gives the putative decadence of Catholicism. McGrath notes in passing that Lutheranism became a territorial religion, and that Korea's movement toward Presbyterianism was strongly nationalistic, but spends pages on the Western Schism. (See pp. 18 - 20; 87; 447 - 449. Apparently, a scandal from a previous century was much more important than a movement that played right into the hands of the emergence of centralizing states.

McGrath makes two factual mistakes that caused me to grind my teeth. The first was his statement that "the Latin term missal literally means "a service." (p. 260. It doesn't; it literally means "depart" or "go" and comes from the last words of the Mass, i.e., "ite, missa est" - "Go, it is the dismissal." In fact, we can see "missa" in the word "dismissal", e.g., "dis -MISSA -l."

The second was McGrath's statement that Catholicism recognized seven sacraments including "the mass." (p. 259. The "Mass" is not a sacrament; the eucharist, the host, the blessed sacrament, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, is the sacrament. The Mass is simply the public prayer that surrounds the sacrament.

These are small points, but weirdly basic for someone writing about historical Protestantism with its implicit compare and contrast to Catholicism. They also make me somewhat reluctant to quote McGrath without first independently verifying his facts.

McGrath also reaches for the moon in claiming that Protestantism was an essential precursor to the rise of natural science by its insistence on reading the Bible literally and not figuratively. Basically, McGrath argues that the habit of reading the Bible "naturally" rather than as though it were a puzzle hiding a deeper meaning was translated into the natural sciences by Protestants who looked at nature "naturally." This is an interesting argument, and one that I will check out, but I think that Etienne Gilson in From Aristotle to Darwin & Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species and Evolution makes a better argument, namely that modern natural science eliminated the "Final Cause" - the "why" question - from its consideration, and that it did so in order to prevent scientists from being distracted by issues that had nothing to do with the practical issues of how things work.

After working my way through this review, I find myself realizing that I learned a lot about the subject and got more grist for the mill of contemplation. I was going to give this book three stars, but, on further reflection, I give it four stars subject to the understanding that it really isn't about "private interpretation."

"Resisting the Third Reich: The Catholic Clergy in Hitler's Berlin" by Kevin Spicer.

Amazon Review - Go here and scroll down and give me a "helpful" vote.

It is probably a good sign of good history that it makes partisans of all sides unhappy. In this book, Kevin Spicer does not entirely exonerates the Catholic clergy of Berlin with respect to its interactions with National Socialism, but neither does he smear the clergy with the label of being supporters of National Socialism. Rather, he looks into the lives of individual priests who were at the epicenter of National Socialist power and finds that they were remarkably like real human beings, each of whom had their own motivations and their own methods for dealing with the omnipresent reality that was Nazism.


Spicer begins with a review of the idea of "resistance" and notes that, in a totalitarian state, resistance can be found in things that people in a free society would find trivial or inadequate. Totalitarian governments demand the total allegiance of its subjects and view any dissension as a political act which may merit political reprisal.

The conundrum for Catholic clerics in the Nazi state is that their very existence meant that their flock did not have - and could not have - a total allegiance to Nazism. Catholicism understood itself as a separate order with an agenda that lay outside the state. Thus, "in overseeing its daily rituals and educating the faithful according to the Roman Catholic faith, the Catholic Church in Germany provided a weltanshuung that stood in stark contrast to National Socialism." (Spicer, Resisting the Third Reich," ("RTTR"), p. 5.) Although this weltanschuung often forced individual devout Catholics to become radicalized from the Nazi order, for most priests who sought to balance their duties as a Catholic with their duties as a German, the strategy became to limit their criticism of the Nazi state to situations that either "directly affected their sacramental ministry or threatened the promulgation of Church doctrine and teaching." (RTTR p. 6.)

Spicer's analysis is a kind of historiographical analysis of the individual members of the Berlin clergy, and so is filled with facts and data about individual priests and the Berlin diocese collectively. We learn that the position of Catholicism in the Berlin diocese was fairly weak. Catholics were a distinct minority in a traditionally Protestant area, they were itinerant and, therefore, not very observant, and the memories of the Kulturkampf, which emptied churches of priests, was still alive. (RTTR p. 28 ("For younger German Catholics, evoking the term elicited memories of a kind of religious apartheid in which their grandparents were the victims.").) This data conflicts strongly with the fantasy of John Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope," which asserts with no evidence that Pope Pius XI could have brought the Nazi state down simply by instructing Catholics to revolt.

The fear of a new Kulturkampf was not allayed by Hitler's nominal Catholicism. Hitler refused to take part in a Catholic mass that marked the opening of the Reichstage - a fact that should put "paid" to arguments that Hitler was a Catholic in anything but name. (See RTTR p. 29.) Instead, Hitler placed wreaths on SA graves, which, according to Spicer, "gave the impression to German Catholics that they could once again be excluded from civic activities, only this time from the National Socialist-led revitalization of Germany itself. Yet again, such actions awakened Kulturkampf feelings of inferiority and religious apartheid among Berlin Catholics." (id.)

Spicer's book describes how Catholicism went from initially opposing the Nazis very strongly to attempting to find a modus vivendi with them after their seizure of power to a fairly quick passive resistance to the Nazis when the Nazis' true agenda was disclosed. In Berlin this took the form of replacing more conciliatory bishops with bishops willing to take some risks in their dealings with the Nazis. One of the most noteworthy of such bishops was Konrad von Preysing, who was noteworthy for challenging the Nazi state on various issues, including its euthanasia policy. (See RTTR p. 65 - 66. Spicer notes that "[d]espite current historian's denigration of Pacelli's choices during the Third Reich, it is possible that the future pope urged Preysing's candidacy on the Berlin Cathedral Chapter because he realized that Preysing as a Catholic bishop of the Reich capital, a key episcopal position, had the strength to challenge the state." (RTTR p. 46.) Preysing, along with other papally supported bishops such as Galen, would travel to Rome to assist in the drafting of the anti-nazi encyclical Mit Brennende Sorge. (RTTR p. 54.)This would seem to be another blow to Cornwell's thesis that it was the ultramontane nature of Catholicism that weakened the German Catholic Church's dealings with the Nazi state.

On a related point, Spicer's book is noteworthy for underscoring a relatively unknown point when there are popular discussions about Catholicism and National Socialism, namely the involvement enjoyed by the state in selecting Catholic bishops. (See e.g., RTTR p. 45 - 46.) Preysing almost did not become Bishop of Berlin because of the state's privilege in vetting the candidates for bishop. This is yet another blow to Cornwell's thesis that it was Pacelli's drive to centralize that weakened the German Catholic church. That this thesis is nonsense is underscored by the fact that the contrary position was to leave a portion of the selection process in the hands of the Nazis.

Bishop Preysing's role in resisting the Nazis is interesting for several reasons. First, Preysing's resistance stressed individual rights founded on natural law. (RTTR p. 66 - 69.) Second, by 1942, Preysing's statements against the National Socialists, and particularly their euthanasia policy, had made him into an enemy of the state, albeit one who was at that time just too big to take care of immediately. Goebbels', for example, was looking forward to the end of the war when Preysing could be safely executed. (RTTR p. 67. Another outspoken opponent of the euthanasia policy, Bishop Clement von Galen, had similarly aroused the ire of the Nazis and had had Martin Bormann call for his execution. (RTTR p. 63.)

For Catholic priests, adopting a strategy of limiting resistance directly to their sacramental ministry was not a guarantee of safety. Catholic priests could run afoul of the Nazis in a variety of ways, including being understood as having criticized the state in religious classes, refusing to create an apartheid system separating Polish and Jewish Catholics from German Catholics, or attempting to preach Christ's message of love from the pulpit. According to Spicer, in 1933, there were 260 active priests in the Berlin diocese. By 1945, 79 of those priests had been interrogated, warned, fined, arrested, imprisoned, transported to a concentration camp or executed. (RTTR p. 73. Spicer's narrative at this point becomes horrifyingly fascinating as we learn about Catholic priests who considered themselves to be good Germans who were simply unable to accept the State's intervention into the moral life of their parishioner, or were unable to make the moral compromises required in living under totalitarianism. At times, I was put in the mind of wondering at the mulish obstinacy of some these priests, who were clearly courting trouble. Some escaped and some saw their luck "run out."

Spicer also deals with the "Brown priests." While these priests are an embarrassment to Catholcism, notwithstanding the attention they have received, they were a distinct minority; no more than 100 to 150 "Brown priests" in all of Germany, compared to a total priest population of 21,461. (RTTR p. 140.) This averaged around 5 to 6 Brown priests per diocese, which is a number that is dwarfed by the number of priests that suffered some kind of retaliation at the hands of the Nazis. (See RTTR p. 140.)

Spicer deals with the Brown priests in details, and it seems that in the Berlin Diocese, these priests were opportunists to the core. Several valued their Catholicism so lightly that they renounced their religion in favor of the state. Others committed suicide. This theme of opportunism reminded me of the opportunism described in The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany concerning Protestant pastors who were willing to jettison the Old Testament in the name of finding a middle way with Nazism.

Spicer also confronts the Catholic-Jewish question and finds German Catholicism's actions to be severely wanting. An explanation for the seeming general indifference of priests and bishops to the plight of the Jews grows out of a sacramental and ghetto mentality of Catholics in Germany whereby they believed that their job was to minister the sacraments to the Catholic population, and that other populations could and would watch out for their own interests. It is possible that one salutary effect of the Third Reich - and perhaps totalitarianism in general - was to force everyone to wake up and realize that everyone's human rights were everyone's problems.

Spicer concludes with the exception to the rule - Monsignor Bernard Lichtenberg - who did speak out in support of the Jews and who was arrested, transported to a concentration camp, beaten and died for his singular belief that he had to love the Jews as his neighbors. We don't hear about people like Lichtenberg, or about Lichtenberg, for that matter, but his life is a moment of grace in the dark, but also a singular example of the risks that ordinary people who are not made of the stuff of martyrs will face when they move into open resistance to totalitarianism.

In sum, Spicer's book is worth reading, particularly as an insightful exposition of the reality that Catholics faced in the heart of the Nazi empire.