How much has theology progressed since this example was 'state-of-the-art' in 1995?

[BurtWorm]

Theologists complain that atheists aren't qualified to speak to theology unless they stay current with the theological dialectic raging in academia. To ignore up-to-the-minute theology, they argue (and some accommodating atheists or humanists have agreed with them) is on par with a theologian ignoring Darwin to speak on evolution.

This is from Charles E. Winquist's book Desiring Theology, published in 1995. I'm guessing that in the 15 years since this appeared, theology must have advanced as much as cellular biology has developed in the same period. Right? :insert smiley with tongue stuck in cheek:

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/the-emptiness-of-academic-theology/


Theology belongs to the population of all discursive practices. It remains text production. There is no special privilege to its discursive formations that comes from outside of the text production. The theological exigencies inscribed within its texts are effects of the metonymical placing of extreme formulations throughout the texts. The efficacy of these formulations is in their pressure upon ordinary usage and reference. The pressure of figurations of ultimacy on the pragmatics of discourse is a transvaluation of the ordinary. Formulations and figurations of ultimacy, when metonymically placed in a textual practice, can magnify the already existing fissures of received texts. The differential play of reference extends the witness to that which is other than the text through the incompleteness that is the result of the placement of these formulations. Theological texts explicitly express their internal undecidability. In this sense, theological texts introduce an incommensurability into discursive practices that is an internal trace of the other (124).

[Teaser]

1. That's just someone imitating Derrida

and not doing a good job of it.

It's actually fairly easy to understand.

[BurtWorm]

2. This was state-of-the-art God-talk in 1995.

What's state-of-the-art God-talk like now. Do you know?

[Teaser]

3. dunno

I am a fan of post-modernist philosophy (in spite of the rather shallow critique offered in the linked article). I don't keep up with theology, as my own research is more pressing and I'd rather read Heidegger anyway. But if I had to pick someone that I think was influential, even to this day, I'd pick either Jean-Luc Marion, who basically argues that God doesn't *exist* (which is not the same as saying God isn't real, according to Marion) or Sally McFague.

[BurtWorm]

4. The linked article is a critique of theology's use of pomo criticism

in light of the development among the New Theists to want to denigrate science and reason in order to put theology on an equal footing.

Thanks for the tips. I'll look into them.

[BurtWorm]

7. I looked into Marion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Marion#Notable_ideas

According to John D. Caputo, Marion "is famous for the idea of what he calls the “saturated phenomenon,” which is inspired by his study of Christian Neoplatonic mystical theologians....<The idea that> there are phenomena of such overwhelming givenness or overflowing fulfillment that the intentional acts aimed at these phenomena are overrun, flooded—or saturated."

:think:

[Teaser]

34. translating too well will lessen what Marion is trying to say

But an analogy would be that he considers divinity to be a "gift" from the universe. Life itself, in other words. It is true gift, without thought of recompense. And the appropriate response is to honor the universe that gives itself to us.

[BurtWorm]

42. So because some french dude says life is imbued with instrinsic givenness

there must be a giver? I thought he thought god didn't exist. Or was it that he doesn't "be?"

[Teaser]

53. no, no giver. this isn't an argument for a god

Marion wouldn't make that argument, nor would I.

the metaphor of the gift he uses as follows: the gift, once given, leaves a void, or an emptiness, where it had previously been. That void, Marion identifies as "God". Do I believe this? No. But I don't believe anything at all. So what I think doesn't matter. But it's a more pleasant definition than the all powerful sky being.

[Jim__]

5. I don't think he's imitating Derrida at all.

One main difficulty with this type of writing is that when it's taken out of context, it tends to sound like gibberish (this is not meant to imply that Derrida's writing is gibberish). However, this book is available (at least for preview - I believe the amount you can actually read is limited) on google. I can't excerpt from it, however, the introduction, The Exigency of Theological Thinking, can be browsed - scroll to the TOC, then select the introduction and, the parts that I've read, in context, are easy to read and understand.

The non-contextual selection of somewhat confusing paragraphs from a book like this is on a par with creationist misrepresentative quoting of scientists.

[BurtWorm]

6. I didn't present it as anything other than state-of-the-art theology

which is what it was in 1995.

[Jim__]

25. Read the intro to the book. It's not state of the art.

If you'd read the introduction to the book, you'd see it's written for people who hardly ever read theology. It's a book for people generally unfamiliar with theology. IOW, it's not state of the art theology.

[BurtWorm]

43. You mean to say he was making an old fashioned point.

Using post-modern terminology. Why didn't he use old-fashioned terminology if he wasn't referring to cutting edge theology? Was there theology even more obscure for the experts, then? What was that like?

[skepticscott]

18. So please enlighten us

as to the context of the cited paragraph that makes this particular paragraph clear.

[Jim__]

29. Didn't the blog that quotes the paragraph give you the context?

Of course not, that's the point.

As to the context, I can tell you that the paragraph is excerpted from about the 25th page of chapter 8, a chapter of about 28 pages. The chapter is critiquing a number of other books. The context is not browseable online. The beginning of the chapter is browseable, and does appear to be laying substantial groundwork. I've scanned a number of chapters of the book. It is not obscure, or "obscurantist" as another post claims. The chapter may be difficult. I've seen much more difficult paragraphs quoted out of context, paragraphs that appeared senseless, where the larger context was available and I've always found the citation quite sensible in the proper context. Given the parts of the book that I can read with context, I have every confidence this paragraph also makes sense.

But the citation in the blog is completely pointless. Like I said, that type of citation is usually very similar to misrepresentational quotes by creationists.

[skepticscott]

32. The point is

that even IN context, that quoted paragraph is nothing but meaningless babble. As is your attempt to "prove" otherwise. Your "confidence" is not evidence of anything. Even misrepresentational quotes by creationists still mean something (or they wouldn't be used as they are), but the meaning is ALWAYS shown to be false or misleading after putting them in context. Until you can do so with this one, your claim is just wishful thinking and special pleading.

[Jim__]

33. My claim is that the blogger left out the context.

Quoting paragraphs with no context, either directly from the source, or at the least, an honest description by the quoter, is just a sham. In this case, the paragraph is extracted from a long, and apparently difficult, chapter which makes it particularly obvious that its misrepresentation.

[skepticscott]

40. By "apparently difficult" you must mean

that you haven't read it and have no idea whatsoever what it's like, and therefore have no idea whether the paragraph really is out of context, or whether the "context" makes the paragraph any clearer. And exactly how much "context" is required before something is "in context"? And when that amount of context is included, what's to prevent you from claiming that the additional material is now also "out of context"?

But as I pointed out, if something has a meaning to begin with, it still has one when taken out of context, (just not the one the author intended), otherwise it couldn't or wouldn't be misconstrued. So are you going to give us any sense of what this paragraph means? Or is it just mumbo-jumbo whether it is misconstrued or not?

[Jim__]

50. Of course I haven't read it. I doubt anyone here has.

Providing context for the quoted paragraph is the responsibility of the person quoting, especially when they're quoting it to claim it is difficult to understand. The point is, the paragraph was quoted by the blogger without the necessary information for a reader to decide whether or not it is meaningful.

As to your claim that the paragraph has no meaning, that's nonsense. Is there any particular sentence you can't understand? The problem is that the specific meaning is not clear. Take an example sentence: The theological exigencies inscribed within its texts are effects of the metonymical placing of extreme formulations throughout the texts. (I picked this sentence because the preceding sentences seem clear enough even without the context.)

You don't believe that sentence has meaning? A general interpretation of the sentence is clear - but not particularly informative. The problem is that there are 24 pages in the chapter preceding the quoted paragraph. Did they provide examples of the theological exigencies he's speaking of? What extreme formulations is he speaking of? In what way are these formulations placed metonymically? The first page of the chapter (the only page from the beginning of the chapter that I can read - the pages then skip) begins by speaking about the use of certain phrases in Gertrude Stein and Descartes. So, the chapter begins with a discussion that seems relevant to the later paragraph. The chapter may well provide information that gives specicific meaning to this sentence. But, no, without reading the chapter, we can't be sure. That a paragraph late in a chapter depends on information that has been brought up previously is, in my reading, expected.

It's easy to interpret each sentence in the paragraph and find its non-specific (not related to the chapter) meaning. However, the problem is that we wind up where we did with the single sentence - it doesn't give us a lot of information. Presumably, the chapter has provided that information, and this paragraph is performing a sort of summary. The paragraph can be an efficient summary of certain points that have been raised throughout the chapter. To decide, ultimately, what the meaning of the paragraph is, we need to know what has been said in the chapter.

[charlie]

21. Some context

It's ungainly, but parsable at first. But soon...

Sorry about the images. Typing up this obscurantist thicket would be miserable work.

[skepticscott]

22. Thanks for the context

that makes it all crystal clear...

:crazy:

[Jim__]

26. That's not the context.

The paragraph is from page 124 of Desiring Theology. Your cited paragraphs do not appear anywhere near there.

[charlie]

36. Huh

I know where the cite is from. It isn't available in the book preview from Google, so I looked for a different source. I found a collection of essays, including one from Winquist excerpted above. I got a phrase match and the surrounding sentences matched as well, so I thought it was a chapter from the book. Apologies.

The OP cite is reproduced in his points Five and Six above, most of it verbatim. You can use it to decide if it's clearer in context. Or not.

[Jim__]

48. It's not even from the same book.

To pull information from another book and claim that it is context for a paragraph in another book is pure nonsense. And, no, based on the contents of the chapter 8 (where the paragraph is pulled from) the context is not the same.

[charlie]

51. Alright, once again

I acknowledged that it wasn't the same book or the same paragraph, that I had made a mistake, didn't I?

What I pointed out to you was that Winquist looks to be plowing the same field in both excerpts, using identical passages. Lest you think I'm trying to pull a trick, this is the OP paragraph followed by two from my excerpt:

Theology belongs to the population of all discursive practices. It remains text production. There is no special privilege to its discursive formations that comes from outside of the text production. The theological exigencies inscribed within its texts are effects of the metonymical placing of extreme formulations throughout the texts. The efficacy of these formulations is in their pressure upon ordinary usage and reference. The pressure of figurations of ultimacy on the pragmatics of discourse is a transvaluation of the ordinary. Formulations and figurations of ultimacy, when metonymically placed in a textual practice, can magnify the already existing fissures of received texts. The differential play of reference extends the witness to that which is other than the text through the incompleteness that is the result of the placement of these formulations. Theological texts explicitly express their internal undecidability. In this sense, theological texts introduce an incommensurability into discursive practices that is an internal trace of the other.

............................................................

Fifth, theology is text production. There is no privilege to its discursive formations that comes from outside of the text production. The theological exigencies inscribed within its texts are effects of the metonymical placing of extreme formulations throughout the texts.The differential play of reference witnesses to that which is other than the text through the incompleteness that is the result of the placement of these formulations. Theological texts are not self-contained because of their internal undecidability.

Sixth, theology is a social text. Its subjectifications are material folds in specific social and historical locations. Its efficacy is in the pressure of its formulations upon ordinary usage and reference when they are metonymically forced into a discourse. The pressure of figurations of ultimacy on the pragmatics of discourse is a transvaluation of the ordinary. Theology is a social text that makes a claim upon the economy of forces and received texts that constitute its specificity through the particularity of its fold. Formulations and figurations of ultimacy when metonymically placed in a textual practice can fold the already existing folds of received text.

Even the unhighlighted sentences in the OP have corresponding passages, eg:

Formulations and figurations of ultimacy, when metonymically placed in a textual practice, can magnify the already existing fissures of received texts.

Formulations and figurations of ultimacy when metonymically placed in a textual practice can fold the already existing folds of received text.

So, it's the same author working the same themes, using nearly the same abstruse chains of jargon, embedded in much more context.

This one should make sense in its own context, right?

[Jim__]

55. That is not the context that's in "Desiring Theology."

You can read the beginning of chapter 8 and you can also read pages 123 thru 125 from "Desiring Theology." That is enough to show that the context is different. It is also enough to give you an idea of what is being discussed in chapter 8 before this paragraph. It appears that he is discussing specific excerpts from theology texts. If that is what he is doing, it is very possible that this paragraph is some type of summary or conclusion based on what has been discussed.

Because you don't know what particular passages mean, passages that have been pulled out of context, does not indicate that the passage is abstruse jargon. Yes, post-modernism tends to use its own jargon. So does just about any other academic subject. While jargon makes it difficult for the uninitiated to read, lack of jargon in a complex subject area makes communication more difficult. Since this book is written for people who do not ordinarily read theology ("almost never" is what the intro says), my guess is that the reader is familiarized with the jargon as he reads through the book. My reading of parts of other chapters indicates that they are not as jargon-filled; but then, I don't have access to the whole book, and based on this thread, no one else here has either. IOW, we're all discussing something without knowing very much about it; and, unfortunately, the blog didn't provide sufficient, or any, background for us to have an intelligent discussion about the paragraph.

[charlie]

57. You can. I can't

Google sometimes randomizes page availability over time and sessions. I've never seen more than the preface, chapter 1, and the first pages of chapter 2. Even a table of contents is missing. Today it's telling me pages 12-165 aren't available. This is the reason I searched for other sources.

Because you don't know what particular passages mean, passages that have been pulled out of context, does not indicate that the passage is abstruse jargon.

True. Usually.

Yes, post-modernism tends to use its own jargon.

And how.

So does just about any other academic subject.

Really? When a discipline seems to revel in not only ambiguities in essential principles, but also expression, how do you spot the bullshitter? Unpacking other academic arcana can be tedious and trying, and I'm often lost. But, it does become clearer, if only somewhat. I don't get trapped in a spiral of meta-meta-meta conditionals with no ground in sight.

But, I'll agree, I don't have the wattage to comprehend academic po-mo. Though, when I see something like Winquist explaining what Jacques Lacan is up to in his writing, I think it's a wonder anyone does:



Link

BTW, Benson's blog allows commenting. You can ask the article's author to better make his case.

[Jim__]

58. "how do you spot the bullshitter?"

It's not always easy. But that's not confined to postmodernism (my bolding):

The rumor appears to have begun with an email from the physicist Max Niedermaier to the physicist Ted Newman, and it spread like wildfire. I received copies from many people, and soon there was a heated discussion of what this meant for the state of theoretical physics. Had the subject become so divorced from reality that not even the experts could recognize the difference between real work and a hoax?

...

However, I assure you that the Bogdanoff's theses are gibberish to me - even though I work on topological quantum field theory, and know the meaning of almost all the buzzwords they use. Their journal articles make the problem even clearer. You can easily get ahold of these, because they are appended to the PDF files containing their theses. Some parts almost seem to make sense, but the more carefully I read them, the less sense they make... and eventually I either start laughing or get a headache.

more ...

At least one of the Bogdonoff's was awarded a PhD in physics based on the referenced paper.

When I read something that I can't understand after making a serious effort to get it, I just move on. If that happens a couple of times with one author, I wouldn't read her anymore. Does that mean I believe the author is just bull shitting? Not unless I can find (serious) inconsistencies in the text. There are many things that I don't understand, and, for at least some of those things, other people do understand them. My lack of understanding does not imply that the text is bull shit. Before I can make any such claim, I have to find at least some inconsistencies or specific, identifiable nonsense.

[onager]

24. It's often gibberish IN context, too.

As proven by the famous Sokal Hoax...

Sokal wrote "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", an article proposing that quantum gravity has progressive political implications, and that the "morphogenetic field" (a New Age concept by Rupert Sheldrake) could be a cutting-edge theory of quantum gravity...

On its date of publication (May 1996), Sokal revealed...that the article was a hoax, identifying it as "a pastiche of Left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense...structured around the silliest quotations (by postmodernist academics) he could find about mathematics and physics".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair

[Jim__]

30. Yes and Bogdonoff was awarded a PhD in Physics for publishing a paper that was gibberish.

Sokal's paper was published in an unrefereed journal. Sokal was asked to amend his article and refused. The edition of magazine was on the topic of science and postmodernism (or some derivative).

Bogdonoff got his article published in a refereed physics journal and was awarded a PhD. Many physicists claim the article is gibberish:

We all laughed when the physicist Alan Sokal wrote a deliberately silly paper entitled Transgressing the boundaries: towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity, and managed to get it accepted by a journal of social and cultural studies, Social Text.

But in 2002, on the 22nd of October many of us began hearing rumors that two brothers managed to publish at least five meaningless papers in physics journals as a hoax - and even got Ph.D. degrees in physics from Bourgogne University on the basis of this work!

The rumor appears to have begun with an email from the physicist Max Niedermaier to the physicist Ted Newman, and it spread like wildfire. I received copies from many people, and soon there was a heated discussion of what this meant for the state of theoretical physics. Had the subject become so divorced from reality that not even the experts could recognize the difference between real work and a hoax?

more ...

So, does this have the same implications with respect to physics that the Sokal article has with respect to postmodernism? Or, even worse implications given that the physics article was published in a refereed journal and was the basis for a PhD?

[onager]

35. What does that have to do with hoaxing po-mo?

Though I can certainly see your personal attraction to dense, pompous gibberish.

[Jim__]

38. It's the same thing - except the hoax was on physics and the hoaxer was awarded a PhD in physics ..

... for his trouble. At least some of physics seems to be just po-mo too.

[skepticscott]

41. The same thing?

Science corrects itself, and physicists pointed out the problems with these papers. Which pomos pointed out the problem with Sokal's article? What self-correction mechanism does post-modernism have as a method of inquiry?

[Jim__]

59. No, science did not "correct itself."

The physicist who originally thought the paper was gibberish apologized to the authors when they told him it was not intended as a joke. The Bogdonoff's retain their PhDs. The referees who approved the paper stand by their decision - without denying that the paper is gibberish.

Yes, some physicists continue to call it gibberish. No one seems to be sure that it's not. But, it remains an accepted part of the scientific literature.

[skepticscott]

60. And science will continue to investigate

and inquire in this area, and get closer to the truth as time goes by...as it ALWAYS does. Maybe not within your acceptable time frame, but of what concern is that? The fact remains that the only reason you were aware that there even MIGHT be something wrong with that paper, something that made it worth your dredging up in the first place, was because of the oversight of other scientists.

And funny....you failed to answer my other two questions: Which pomos EVER pointed out the problem with Sokal's article? And what self-correction mechanism does post-modernism have as a method of inquiry? Go on...take a stab. While you're at it, enlighten us as to pomo's proven history of getting closer to the truth as time goes on.

[Jim__]

61. Well, if you really need answers to your questions, let's start with the simplest one.

Which pomos EVER pointed out the problem with Sokal's article?

I doubt anyone outside of Sokal and the staff of Social Text ever read Sokal's article before he publicly revealed it was a hoax - Social Text was not, and still is not, a refereed journal. His article in Lingua Franca, revealing that the article in Social Text was a hoax, appeared on the same day as the original article.

And what self-correction mechanism does post-modernism have as a method of inquiry?

There is no such thing as a "postmodern" discipline. Post modernism is a catch-all term for changes in various disciplines that took place mostly between the 1960s through the early 1990s.

While you're at it, enlighten us as to pomo's proven history of getting closer to the truth as time goes on.

See above.

[skepticscott]

62. Which is just another way of admitting

that postmodernism is really not a field of inquiry or a way at getting at any kind of truth worth knowing. Very much like theology, in other words.

[struggle4progress]

8. I'm behind in my reading. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around

"You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself" and some other old texts

[BurtWorm]

9. Define: "you," "shall," "love," "your," "neighbor," "as," and "yourself"

:popcorn:

[struggle4progress]

10. There was a man, who was walking the road that goes from Jerusalem to Jericho.

And as he went his way, bandits attacked him. And they took everything he had, even his clothes, and beat him brutally. And they left him there, half dead and naked ... Luke 10:25-37

[BurtWorm]

11. Define: "And," "he," went," "his," "way,." etc.

Your pomo brethren don't understand you.

[darkstar3]

12. Was this man gay and out on a Sunday in Mississippi? nt

[struggle4progress]

27. could be

[trotsky]

14. What was his name?

I mean, this is an actual event and not just some story that was made up to illustrate a point, right?

[struggle4progress]

28. it's a story made up to illustrate a point

[trotsky]

46. I agree, about the whole bible. n/t

[struggle4progress]

49. that's ok by me

[Deep13]

13. They're still just guessing. nt

[Cleobulus]

15. Doesn't matter, theology as a profession is about as credible as UFOlogists and other BS...

"professions".

[chaplainM]

16. In a coal bin at midnight, searching for...

...a black cat that isn't there.

[BurtWorm]

45. Oh my gods

you just cracked me up!

:applause:

[skepticscott]

17. Except that theology doesn't progress

like science does. It just wanders around. It does not increase the objective knowledge and understanding of the things it purports to study in any way whatsoever.

[laconicsax]

23. Exactly. You'd think that the study of God would converge in fundamental truths.

The opposite is what's happening--continual divergence on core concepts. There's no agreement on the nature of God. There isn't even total agreement among the theological community over whether the question, "does God exist" is a valid question.

This is exactly what you would expect if the object of study were a figment of the imagination rather than something real.

[dimbear]

19. When you give your wife nothing for your anniversary, wrap it in

as fancy a package as you can.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

20. Here is a man that is endeavoring to be understood:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM&feature=player_embedded

Contrast that the above excerpt. Dr. Feynman talked very clearly using only words he knew would carry the intended meaning to the interviewer. He also used pronouns judiciously, to avoid confusion as far as what precisely he was referring to.

However, in the provided excerpt, we have an author using arcane technical terms and a confusion of pronouns to the point that it is not clear what the author is talking about. The result is that I know exactly what Dr. Feynman is trying to tell me but I have no idea what the theologian here is attempting to say.

[Jim__]

31. The video is about 7.5 minutes long. Feymann gets to fully state his point.

Listen to just the first 1.5 minutes of the video and tell me Feymann comes off as making sense. He sounds like he's trying to con someone. Context is the point. The quoted paragraph is quoted in the blog without any surrounding context either from the book or via description by the blogger. That's a dead giveaway that you're being scammed. Creationists play that little no-context game all the time.

[laconicsax]

37. So why not provide the context?

For all the whining about context you've done on this thread, you've yet to provide the context or explain what specific effect it has on the excerpt.

[Jim__]

47. Because the context is not available.

The blog pulled a paragraph from the end of a chapter and without providing any context claimed the paragraph is not clear in its meaning. The book can be browsed on google, you can read the beginning of the chapter. The beginning of the chapter is very clear. You can read the quoted paragraph and a few surrounding paragraphs, but they appear to be summary paragraphs. But, we don't have access to what is being summarized. So, of course they're not clear.

[laconicsax]

52. Then your "context" argument is meaningless.

If there's no context available, you can't make supportable claims about what it changes. If you want to argue via unsupportable claims, I suppose I could give it a go.

The Gospel of Arthur clearly states that Jesus was a 7-foot tall spider monkey.

[Jim__]

54. You also can't make any supportable claim that the paragraph has no meaning.

The blog is totally pointless. It takes a paragraph from the end of a chapter and copies that single paragraph and provides no context. So, no, I can't prove the context makes it meaningful. However, the claim that it is meaningless - when no context is provided - is also unsupportable.

[BurtWorm]

56. Take a stab at translating it for us.

[darkstar3]

39. If the first 1.5 minutes seems like a con,

that could be because it is.

Screaming "context" as often and loud as you can does absolutely nothing to help validate your case when you're working with a false premise. I see where you're coming from, and it's the same stance you made in another thread: Accept the false premise at the beginning, and then everything else makes sense internally.

That's not reading (or watching) in context, that's swallowing the bait.

[BurtWorm]

44. Yes,but Feyman was no theologian.

He was just a rocket scientist.

:crazy: