Against Systematic Theology

| briansabey

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

-Emily Dickinson

I participate in a theology book club in which we are reading Exploring Mormon Thought, by Blake Osler. Osler is interesting in that he is doing systematic theology, but at the same time he questions the value of systematic theology, doubts its ability to attain its own goals, and admits the limitations of language and the necessity of experiential and relational knowledge in spiritual matters, in contrast to propositional beliefs.

I agree with his questions, doubts, and admissions. I appreciate his work and consider it worthy of our time and attention, but I could be just as good a Christian without once cracking a book of systematic theology.

Now I want to be clear that I am fully in favor of careful thought and intellectual rigor, of seeking greater and greater light and knowledge. Indeed, doing so is a spiritual necessity. If our light and knowledge is not growing, it is shrinking (see Alma 12). Far more than most brands of traditional Christianity, LDS thought enjoins intellectual effort as a duty: we are commanded to “seek out of the best books words of wisdom” and informed that we cannot be saved in ignorance. My target here is not intellectual effort or even theological carefulness, but solely systematic theology. Continue reading →

In Defense of Extreme Views And Political Compromise

| briansabey

It is commonly believed that the truth is always in the middle. Given any two views or any two disputants or any two accounts of an event, both sides have some of it right and some of it wrong; therefore, both sides need to move towards the center.

While this may be a good rule of thumb when it comes to human disputes—divorces, litigation, discrepancies between two people’s memories, etc., it is nonsense as a rule. It often happens that one side is simply right and the other simply wrong.

More importantly, it is utter nonsense in the realms of thought and creativity. When it comes to world views, thought systems, and artistic schools, to make compromise a rule would merely be to abandon consistency and rigor. Continue reading →

Faith and Intellectual Integrity

| briansabey

I hope this essay will be helpful for dealing with honest questions and for helping others who are dealing with honest questions related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many of the things I write will apply equally or almost equally to faith journeys within other religions as well.

When people leave the Church, I would suspect that their questions about doctrine and history are not usually the main issue, but in many and probably most cases, they are one of the issues. And I think such questions can be more productively dealt with in a Church culture where there is, perhaps appropriately, certain pressures to express certainty and to stand united behind all the teachings of the prophets, and where our manuals and lesson plans tend—again, perhaps appropriately—to focus on reaffirming core doctrine rather than exploring the limits of what we know. Continue reading →

Why we must resist demonization, Even of the worst fascists

| briansabey

As I begin to write about the worst Fascists (i.e., the Nazis), it occurs to me that humanity is altogether more wonderful and more terrible than we commonly imagine it, more angelic and more diabolical. The mundanity and the moral and intellectual mediocrity of most lives is not the native and inevitable condition of the average human soul, but rather an impasse between vast forces of good and evil and immense impulses towards life and towards death. From this conflict we seek refuge in numbing routine and stultifying dogma, content for the most part to experience the battle at a safe remove, transmuted into art. Our impulse towards life and effort, fierce as the Sun, is satiated, because we are thinking and acting; and our impulse towards rest and stillness, inexorable as outer space, is mollified because our thoughts and actions rotate, like the Earth itself, in the same circuit every day. Continue reading →

A Reader’s Response to Haidt’s The Righteous Mind and The Necessity of Morality Beyond Evolution

| briansabey

I recently read Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion. It is worth reading, but it was a very mixed emotional experience for me. Politically, it was interesting, insightful, and personally affirming, while philosophically it was interesting, insightful, and personally aggravating. Continue reading →

Being Placenta

| joshsabey

So far, we’ve had two babies. Both boys. I’ve seen them come into the world, wet, followed by placenta. The nurse unfolded the slimy mound and showed it to me. “Look,” she said, “the tree of life.” It actually looks like a tree, the blue blood vessels forking like branches from a trunk. The way the nurse spoke, with rapture, it was clear she was not feigning her amazement. This was an authentic placenta fan. She had me run my finger across the oozy membrane. Like a fish, or ray, or some other deep ocean organism. My wife was less interested. 

And that was not surprising. Her body was full of recovery. The pain, still seeping out of her muscles, and relief swelling in like the tide. Of course, the placenta was nothing in this moment. Some seaweed caught in a wave. This was a moment when a new baby’s cry was filling the room as it tried to latch onto his mother’s breast. And so I took a picture, to show Sarah after. After she had some time to recover. After the baby was less marvelously new. When the miracle of a placenta might be observed for its own beauty, un-eclipsed and un-eclipsing. 

But Sarah never cared much about the placenta. It was, to her, just a little bit gross. Like observing her own fecal matter. Something her body produced that was necessary, but best unobserved. So Sarah is not a placenta fan. She is not like Dia, my brother’s wife, who eats her own placenta after birth. This might seem like crazy-granola-lady-hippie behavior. But it is common in almost all mammals and just about every animal that produces a placenta. There are only a few exceptions including aquatic animals, camels, and most humans. 

Continue reading →