Against Abortion: A Logical Argument



(Backgammon, in Jerusalem)

(I am re-posting this because the heat is rising and I want to keep this in play.)

Here is Baylor University philosopher and jurisprudential scholar Francis Beckwith’s logical (not religious) argument against abortion. (See Beckwith, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice.)

Beckwith’s argument does not depend on religious beliefs. I think it’s a good argument to use in my logic classes because logical arguments are to be non-emotive. The abortion argument can get very emotional! 

In logic, the idea is - attack the argument, not the argument-maker. To do the latter is to commit the informal logical fallacy called ad hominem abusive. Attacking a person rather than the argument is ineffective in getting at truth.

FRANCIS BECKWITH’S LOGICAL ARGUMENT AGAINST ABORTION [1]

1. The unborn entity, from the moment of conception, is a full-fledged member of the human community.

2. It is prima facie[2] morally wrong to kill any member of that community.

3. Every successful abortion kills an unborn entity, a full-fledged member of the human community.

4. Therefore, every successful abortion is prima facie morally wrong.

By “full-fledged member of the human community” is meant that the conceptus [3] is as much a bearer of rights as any human being whose rights-bearing status is uncontroversial, like you or me. As Beckwith says, “the unborn entity is entitled to all the rights to which free and equal persons are entitled by virtue of being free and equal persons.” “Full-fledged member of the human community” cannot mean something like “viability,” since then we have two problems:

1) the arbitrariness of deciding who’s a full-fledged member and who’s not; and
2) the odd philosophical idea that there is suddenly a “moment” (call it time ‘t’) when the conceptus/fetus/inborn child becomes a person, which means at time ‘t-minus-1 second’ it was not. “Abortion advocates argue that the unborn entity is not a person and hence not a subject of moral rights until some decisive moment in fetal or postnatal development.” (Beckwith, 130) Such a position is incoherent and fraught with philosophical problems.

“Virtually no one disputes – including leading defenders of abortion-choice – that every mature human being was once an adolescent, a child, an infant, a baby, a newborn, a fetus, and an embryo.” (131) But the abortion advocate argues that it is morally permissible to end a human being’s life at the embryo stage of human life. How is this possible? Beckwith says they argue that not all human beings are equally intrinsically valuable because some do not have the present capacity to exhibit certain properties or functions that would make them intrinsically valuable. (130) The judgment is made that the fetal self is not “intrinsically valuable.”

Beckwith holds to a “substance view of persons.” This means that a human being “is intrinsically valuable because of the sort of thing it is and the human being remains that sort of thing as long as it exists”. That is, an individual “maintains absolute identity through time while it grows, develops, and undergoes numerous changes”. To use another example, the term “universe” refers to one entity that goes through various stages. The universe at t + 1 second, though much smaller and far more inchoate than the universe now, was still at that time as much “the universe” as it is now. So, the term “universe does not suffer from vagueness. It is in precisely that sense that “person” does not suffer from vagueness as well.

Various functions and capacities, whether fully realized or utilized do not constitute a person. Thus, a human being is never a potential person, but is always a person at different stages of development, whether potential properties and capacities are actualized or not.

To explain: a human being may never realize the ability to reason logically. It would then lack this ability. In contrast, a frog is not said to lack something if it can’t study logic, because by nature it is not the sort of being that can have the ability to do logic. But a human being who lacks the ability to think logically is still a human being because of her nature. A human being’s “lack” makes sense if and only if she is an actual human person. (E.g., a rock does not “lack” the ability to see.) Most pro-abortionists argue that personhood is not inherent or intrinsic, but based on certain capacities and functions, be it consciousness, sentience, self-awareness, the ability to reason, and so on.

WHAT ABOUT THE FOLLOWING POPULAR ARGUMENTS FOR ABORTION CHOICE? Beckwith says many of them commit the informal logical fallacies of “appeal to pity” and “begging the question.”

An argument from pity is an attempt to show the plausibility of one’s point of view by trying to move others emotionally, although the reasonableness of the position stands or falls on the basis of other important factors. Here are some arguments from pity:

Argument from the dangers of illegal abortions

If abortion is made illegal, then women will perform illegal abortions. If women perform illegal abortions, then women will be harmed. Therefore, if abortion is made illegal then women will be harmed.
This argument “begs the question.” Only by assuming that the unborn are not fully human does the argument work. “But if the unborn are fully human, this abortion-choice argument is tantamount to saying that because people die or are harmed while killing other people (i.e., unborn people), the state should make it safe for them to do so.” (94) Therefore, the argument begs the question.

Argument from financial burden

We can’t minimize the fact that there are tragic circumstances, like a poor woman with four small children who becomes pregnant by her alcoholic husband. “But once again we must ask whether the unborn entity is fully human, for hardship does not justify homicide.” (98) For example, if I knew that killing you would relieve me of future hardship, that’s not sufficient justification for me to kill you.

Argument from the unwanted child

This argument, again, begs the question. Because only if we assume that the unborn re not fully human does this argument work. It is extremely difficult to argue that the value of a human being depends on whether someone wants or cares for that human being.

Argument from the deformed and handicapped child

First, if this argument succeeds in showing that abortion is justified if a woman is pregnant with a deformed or handicapped fetus, it only establishes the right to abort in those kind of situations. But this argument again begs the question. “For if the unborn are fully human, then to promote the aborting of the handicapped unborn is tantamount to promoting the execution of handicapped people who are already born.” [4]Of course having a handicapped child can be a terrible burden. “But it is important to realize that if the unborn entity is fully human, homicide cannot be justified simply because it relieves one of a terrible burden.” (102)

Argument from interference in career

Again… this begs the question. “For what would we think of a parent who kills his two-year-old because the child interfered with the parent’s ability to advance in his occupation?” (104)

Argument from rape and incest

This is a horrible thing, of course. Note: this argument is not relevant to the case for abortion on demand. Note also this: “the unborn entity is not an aggressor when its presence does not endanger it’s mother’s life (as in the case of a tubal pregnancy). It is the rapist who is the aggressor. The unborn entity is just as much an innocent victim as its mother.” (105-106) Again… this argument begs the question by assuming that the unborn is not fully human.

Another popular argument is the Argument from Imposing Morality.

This argument says: It’s wrong for anyone to “force” his view of morality on someone else. Pro-lifers, by attempting to stop women from having abortions, are trying to force their morality on others.

But this argument cannot be right. Because it’s not always wrong for the community to institute laws that require people to behave in certain moral ways. E.g., it’s not wrong to institute a law against child molestation. If the unborn entity is fully human, forbidding abortions would be perfectly just. Any law prohibiting abortion would unjustly impose one’s morality on others only if the act of abortion is good, morally benign, or does not unjustly limit the free agency of another. The real issue is: what counts as a “person,” a full-fledged member of the human community.

[1] All quotes from Francis Beckwith, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice

[2] Prima facie is a Latin expression meaning “on its first appearance”, or “by first instance”. It is used in modern legal English to signify that on first examination, a matter appears to be self-evident from the facts. In common law jurisdictions, prima facie denotes evidence that (unless rebutted) would be sufficient to prove a particular proposition or fact.

[3] The fertilized egg

[4] See Peter Singer, who admits that “pro-life groups are right about one thing: the location of the baby inside or outside the womb cannot make such a crucial moral difference… The solution, however, is not to accept the pro-life view that the fetus is a human being with the same moral status as yours or mine. The solution is the very opposite: to abandon the idea that all human life is of equal worth.” (In Beckwith, 101)

Healthy Guilt

 

                                                      (Across the street, from our house)

I have been a Jesus-follower since 1970. I was twenty-one years old. Which makes me now...???

At the heart of my conversion was a great sense of my sin, which was manifesting itself in many ways. I felt guilt.

My guilt was different from a guilt trip laid on me by some self-righteous person. This guilt was from God. That's how I saw it. God was convicting me. I had done wrong things. I had hurt people. I was entitled and narcissistic. And then, thankfully, I began to feel a sadness about myself that would not go away. I am so thankful for this revelation of my sin!

There is a healthy guilt that is different from self-hatred. Brennan Manning writes:

"Healthy guilt adds not a single paragraph to the script for self-hatred. To the contrary, the conviction of personal sinfulness leads to realistic confrontation, ruthless honesty, and self-knowledge; it stimulates compunction, contrition, the desire for reconciliation, and inner peace." (In Faith That Matters: 365 Devotions from Classic Christian Leaders, p. 305)

In 1 John, the apostle John is writing to believers, "to assure believers of the certainty of their faith and to refute heretical doctrines teaching that Jesus was not fully human and fully divine." (Keener, NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, p. 10936) 

In chapter 1 John says, 

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

Have I sinned since my conversion to Christ in 1970? Sadly, but of course. Yet when my sin has been accompanied by healthy remorse and guilt, it has often led to greater transformation of character. Of which there is surely more to come.

Metaethical Studies

 

(Our front yard, designed by Linda)

One thing I occasionally do when I browse the internet is check out university philosophy websites. Like here, e.g.

I look at their faculty pages, and graduate students. Like here. 

Most of the graduate students have brief statements about where they have studied, and what their current research is on. (My doctoral research at Northwestern U. was in philosophy of language, linguistic semantics, hermeneutical theories, and metaphor theory, and how metaphor refers.)

What stands out to me is that a significant number of U-Michigan grad students in philosophy are working in the areas of ethics, moral philosophy, and metaethics.

Metaethics has special interest to me, since being introduced to metaethical studies by Nietzsche, as an undergrad in the 70s. Today I bought and began to read Metaethics: A Short Companion, by J. P. Moreland and David Horner.

"Some of the most interesting questions and debates in ethics are metaethical ones, such as Is morality something grounded in the nature of things, or is it a human construction? Are moral values objective, or are they relative to different individuals or cultures? Does morality depend on God, and if so, how?" 

Science Cannot Bridge the Gulf Between 'Is' and 'Ought'

                                                        (Monroe County Fairgrounds)

I'm enjoying reading The Morality Wars: The Ongoing Debate Over Human Goodness . It's a collection of metaethical essays by atheists, ambivalents, and theists.

I just read Stephen Weinberg's contribution. He's an atheist, and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. I found it interesting that he holds to a variation of Stephen Jay Gould's "NOMA"; viz., that science and religion are "Non-Overrlapping Majisteria." I used to teach Gould's theory in my philosophy of religion classes.  (See here.)

I'm with Weinberg's thesis that science tells us nothing about morality. Weinberg accepts (contrary to Sam Harris) Hume's famous fact/value distinction, and that to think one can derive 'ought' (morality) from 'is' (science) is to commit the naturalistic fallacy. Weinberg writes:

"Science cannot give us any help in discovering the principles on which we ought to base our actions. It seems to me, as it did to David Hume, that there is an unbridgeable gulf between the “is” and the “ought.” Science does have a morality of its own—a commitment to honesty, an aversion to wishful thinking—but it cannot without circularity justify itself." (The Morality Wars (p. 74). Fortress Academic. Kindle Edition. )

Alvin Plantinga and the Modal Argument for Dualism

On Monday night, in my "Heaven, the Soul, and the Afterlife" class, one of the things I am going to do is simplify, as much as possible, this neat little argument of Alvin Plantinga against the idea that the mind and the brain are the same thing.

P (R/N&E) Is Low

(I ate this fig and portabella mushroom pizza in Boston.)

I'm reading Science and Religion: Are They Compatible, a dialogue between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett. I just finished Plantinga's opening statement. I'm going to here explain his claim that naturalism is incompatible with evolutionary theory. But first I must note that Plantinga is brilliant, and funny. I love his playfulness and sense of humor. That's a lot for me to confess, since I am Finnish, and mostly find nothing funny.

Naturalists are materialists about human persons: "a human person is a material object through and through, with no immaterial self or soul or subject." (17)

Let N mean naturalism, let E mean current evolutionary theory, and let R mean the proposition that our cognitive faculties are reliable.

Plantinga then reasons:

1. P (R/N&E) is low. (Read this as: "The probability of R, given N & E.")
2. One who accepts N&E, and also sees that 1 is true, has a defeater for R.
3. This defeater can't be defeated.
4. One who has a defeater for R has a defeater for any belief she takes to be produced by her cognitive faculties, to include N&E.
5. Therefore, N&E is self-defeating, and can't be rationally accepted. (I.e., naturalism is incompatible with evolutionary theory.)

See pp. 17-21 for Plantinga's defense of these premises. At the heart of this is the idea that "natural selection doesn't give a fig for true belief just as such. It rewards adaptive behavior and punishes maladaptive behavior, but it doesn't care about truth of belief; as Patricia Churchland says, "Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost." (19)

Dennett responds to this, Plantinga responds back, then Dennett again, then Plantinga one more time. Good, healthy reading!

The Moral Argument for God's Existence: Some Resources

 

                                (Redeemer Church in Monroe)

The moral argument for God's existence is my favorite, among arguments for the existence of God. People have not stopped making moral judgments and pronouncements. But if these judgments are not grounded in the reality of a transcendent command-giver, and we are left with atheism, then they are mere subjective tastes.

To understand the moral argument, begin by reading "The Indispensability of Theological Meta-Ethical Foundations for Morality," by William Lane Craig.

Here are posts I have written on the moral argument for God's existence, and on moral-ethical issues in general related to this argument...

William Lane Craig's Moral Argument for God's Existence

The Most Compelling Argument for God's Existence

The Moral Argument for God's Existence (Facebook Live)

Moral Obligations to Tell People They Are Wrong

If There Is No God Then There Are No Moral Facts

Morality Is Non-binding if God Does Not Exist

Objective Moral Values and Duties Exist (Premise 2 of the Moral Argument for God's Existence)

Biological Determinism and Moral Responsibility

George Mavrodes On the Weirdness of Moral Obligations in a Russellian World

Metaethical Studies and Moral Nihilism

Explaining Objective and Subjective Moral Values

Is Paul Copan A Moral Relativist?

On Objective Moral Values

Science Says Nothing About Moral Values

What Is It Like to Be a (Moral) Bat?

Does Moral Action Depend on Reasoning? Part 1

The Naturalistic Fallacy (You Can't Derive Moral Facts from Scientific Facts)

Is God a Moral Monster? #2

Is God a Moral Monster?: #3

On the Moral Argument for God's Existence: Objective Moral Values Exist

Objective Moral Values - Another Example of Proper Basicality

The Difference Between Moral Ontology and Moral Epistemology

The Moral Argument for God's Existence - Going Deeper

Is God a Moral Monster?: #4a

Marcello Pera On the Moral Necessity of Assuming the Existence of God

How One Atheist Lives Without Morality

Christianity's Moral Claim

Is God a Moral Monster?: #5

Michael Shermer's Category Mistake About Moral Progress

Logic, Moral Reasoning, & the "Trolley Problem"

Atheists Who Agree That Without God There Are No Objective Moral Values

You Can't Derive "Ought" From "Is"

The Christian Roots of Atheistic Morality

Franz DeWaal & the Atheist Dilemma

Divine Command Theory and P1 of Craig's Metaethical Argument

On Evolutionary Accounts of Ethical Beliefs

The Euthyphro Dilemma

If There Is No God, then Right and Wrong Don't Exist (Moral Nihilism)

Just as I Am?

 

 

                                                                (Monroe County)

Does Jesus invite me to come to him "just as I am?" Thank God, yes!

When I follow Jesus will I stay "just as I am?" Thank God, no!

The book of Galatians explains both statements.

The first statement is about justification. Justification means being made right with God.

There was a teaching floating around in the early church that what Christ accomplished on the cross was not enough to justify us. More was needed, taught the Judaizers. In addition to Christ's atoning sacrificial death, one must also become a Jew, and, if male, be circumcised, and follow the Mosaic law and the dietary laws and keep the Jewish holy days. 

To this, Paul gives a resounding "NO!" That is a "different gospel - really, no gospel at all." (Gal. 1:6-7). Such teachings "pervert" the gospel of Christ.

But once we come to Jesus, just as we are, and are justified, are we then to stay just as we are? To that idea, Paul gives a resounding "No!" To explain this, Paul contrasts the works of the "flesh" (sinful inclinations) with the works of the Spirit. Works of the flesh include,

sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 

20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, 

fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 

21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. 

I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

The works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit are contrary to each other, are in conflict with each other. Paul's beautiful prayer for these new Christians was that they be "formed into Christlikeness," by the power of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 4:19).

Now, in Christ, we are new creations. God has put his Spirit in us. We are to walk in the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit, say "Yes" to the leadings of the Spirit. As we do this, the Holy Spirit grows "fruit of the Spirit" in us, which includes...

love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 2

3 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 

24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh 

with its passions and desires. 

25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 

All who have come to Christ, to include myself, were a hot mess. Yet we could come "Just as I am." That's justification. Thank God for it!

Then, all who abide in Christ and worship Him become different creations. That's sanctification. Thank God for it!

Here's the idea, again, from the apostle Paul.

Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral 

nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 

10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers 

nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 

11 And that is what some of you were. 

But you were washed, you were sanctified, 

you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ 

and by the Spirit of our God.

***

Want to dig deeper into the book of Galatians? I recommend...  

Craig Keener - Galatians: A Commentary

Ben Witherington - Grace in Galatia: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Galatians

Scot McKnight - Galatians: The NIV Application Commentary

N. T. Wright - Galatians

Tim Keller - Galatians for You

Spirituality of Howard Thurman

(I'm teaching Spiritual Formation at Payne Theological Seminary this week. Here are my notes on the prayer life and spiritual formation ideas of Howard Thurman. I've been reading Thurman for the past forty years, having been introduced to him in A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants.)

Spirituality of Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman is, I think, the person who has most influenced African American meditative and contemplative spirituality. Thurman is brilliant and deep, something that is always a deadly spiritual combination. He is Jesus-centered. And humble. Here is one who had real authority, who was used by God to influence many people, not the least of whom was Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of Thurman's quotes describes my Spiritual Formation class well. Thurman writes: “One of the great services that the Christian church can render to the community is to provide spells and spaces of quiet for the world-weary men and women whose needs are so desperate.” (HTEW, 57) This is what my class intends to do, not as a one-week experience, but as a lifetime spiritual habit.

*****
SPIRITUALITY OF HOWARD THURMAN

1. Influences on Thurman

Thurman said that he learned more “about the genius of the religion of Jesus from my grandmother than from all the men who taught me all… the Greek and the rest of it. Because she moved inside the experience [of the religion of Jesus] and lived out of that center.” (In L. Smith, Howard Thurman: The Essential Writings; hereafter HTEW, 15)

• To embody the Christian faith, rather than just head-know it.
• To actually know Christ, not to merely know about Christ.

Thurman was influenced by Quaker mystic, scholar, and social activist Rufus Jones.
• “Jones guided Thurman’s first extensive formal study of mysticism. Thurman described his time with Jones as ‘a watershed from which flowed much of the thought and endeavor to which I was to commit the rest of my working life.” (HTEW, 18)

Thurman met with Gandhi. (HTEW, 20)
• “They were the first African Americans to meet with Gandhi.” (L. Smith, HTEW, 20)
• When Thurman returned to the U.S. after meeting with Gandhi “he traveled throughout the country speaking about his time with Gandhi and the relevance of nonviolent resistance as a means for addressing racial injustices.” (L. Smith, HTEW, 20)
• L. Smith writes: “Directly and indirectly, Thurman was the messenger for connecting the spiritual methods of India’s struggle for independence to the need for a spiritually based nonviolent movement to transform racial injustices in the United States.” (L. Smith, HTEW, 20-21)

See also:

Luther Smith. Howard Thurman: The Mystic as Prophet.

Walter Fluker. They Looked for a City: A Comparative Analysis of the Ideal ofCommunity in the Thought of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Howard Thurman. WithHead and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman.

2. Focus on the Timeless Issues of the Human Spirit 

Prof. George Cross advised HT – “Give yourself to the timeless issues of the human spirit.” (Luther Smith, Introduction, Howard Thurman: Essential Writings [HTEW], 13)
• Ontological issues.
• Cultivate an ontology of the human spirit.
• Nouwen – the deeper we go in persons, the more we are all the same.


3. The Relationship of the Particular to the Universal

L. Smith writes: “The major themes in Howard Thurman’s spirituality are:
• The significance of religious experience
• The hunger for community
• The realization of a true sense of self. (HTEW, 30)

“Within each of these themes, a proper understanding of particularity and universality is crucial.” (L Smith, HTEW, 30)

L. Smith – “Thurman’s social analysis and theology are based on understanding the relationship of the particular to the universal. Thurman believes that a particular contains the universal, and the universal is composed of particulars.” (Smith, in HTEW, 25)

• In relation to spirituality, and spiritual formation/transformation/renewal/restoration…, this means: the deeper we go inside people the more we are all the same.
• E.g. – when God deep-searches out my particular heart…, the ontological realities of my particular heart are the universal-ontological realities of the human heart.

Autobiography is connected to spirituality. Luther Smith: “Whatever one seeks to discover about the meaning of life in general must take into consideration how such meaning is found in one’s own life.” (HTEW, 14)

• Because the deeper we go into our own selves the more we are like others…
• …such autobiographical study and research provides keys to “the meaning of life in general.”
• Therefore, find the meaning of your own life.
• Soul-research. Be yourself searched-out by God.
• “Search me, O God, and know my heart.”


4. Spiritual Disciplines

HT relies on spiritual disciplines “to tutor our spiritual discernment so that both the familiar and the strange are understood in light of the desires of God’s heart.” (L. Smith, HTEW, 32)

• Spiritual disciplines “tutor our spiritual discernment.” This brings “understanding.”

Spiritual disciplines “are meant to ‘ready’ the mind, the emotions, the spirit. They are no guarantor of Presence… God reveals His Presence out of the mystery of Being. With all of my passionate endeavor, I cannot command that He obey.” (HTEW, 45)

• E.g. – if I played basketball. I engage in “training” so as to compete in the game.
• The training, the “disciplines,” prepare me for the game.
• Spiritual disciplines “train” the body and mind and spirit of a person.

In Disciplines of the Spirit HT identifies five spiritual disciplines:

• Commitment
• Growth
• Suffering
• Prayer
• Reconciliation

1. Commitment

“Commitment means that it is possible for a man to yield the nerve center of his consent to a purpose or cause, a movement or an ideal, which may be more important to him than whether he lives or dies. The commitment is a self-conscious act of will by which he affirms his identification with what he is committed to. The character of his commitment is determined by that to which the center or core of his consent is given.” (HTEW, 46)

• In commitment there is a “yielding.” There is a “giving oneself to…”

“Commitment” is related to “surrender. “Whatever stands in the way of the complete and full surrender, we must search it out and remove it.” (HTEW, 48)

“Surrender your inner consent to God.” (HTEW, 48)

I think “commitment” and “surrender” are like: jumping out of the plane and trusting the parachute to open. It is a whole-being thing.

Like: “I surrender all…”


2. Growth

“Growth means development in the life of an organism. It means change manifest in structure.” (HETW, 51)

• “Change manifest in structure” is: transformation.
• Structural change.
• Systemic change.
• Which will lead to changes in attitude and behavior.

“There are many adults who for various reasons have escaped this essential discipline of their spirit. True, in terms of physical and intellectual development they have continued to grow. Their bodies and minds have moved through all the intervening stages to maturity, but they have remained essentially babies in what they expect of life.” (HETW, 52)

• It’s either deep change or slow death.
• It’s either maturing or endless baby-hood.
• It’s either dining on spiritual meat or drinking spiritual milk from the bottle.

One of the real challenges of growth is crisis, and the “real possibility of failure.” “To guard against this and be prepared to deal with it when it occurs is an authentic discipline of the spirit… And for the religious man, it is to grow not only in grace but also in the knowledge and experience of God.” (HETW, 54)

• Ongoing engagement in the spiritual disciplines prepares one for crises and failure.
• Always growing deeper… the body wastes away but the spirit is being renewed day after day after day… closer knowing and experiencing of God…

What HT says about “growth” sounds like what I mean by spiritual transformation; the pain of change.


3. Suffering

“When a man is driven by suffering to make the most fundamental inquiries the meaning of life, he has to assess and re-assess his total experience. It may be that… he has never thought seriously of God. He has taken his life and all of life for granted. Now under the assault of pain he is led to wonder about the mystery of life. Why do men suffer? He asks himself. He sorts out the answers available to him…” (HTEW, 55)

“What would life be like if there were no suffering, no pain? The startling discovery is made that if there were no suffering there would be no freedom. Men could make no mistakes, consciously or unconsciously. The race could make no mistakes. There would be no error. There would be no possibility of choice at any point, or in any sense whatsoever… Freedom therefore cannot be separated from suffering. This, then, may be one of the ways in which suffering pays for its ride…” (HTEW, 55)

“Why do men suffer? They suffer as part of the experience of freedom. They suffer as part of the growth of life itself.” (HTEW, 55)

“Without suffering there is no freedom for man.” (HTEW, 56)

“What hostility may do is to serve as a guide through the wilderness of our suffering until we are brought to the door of the temple.” (HTEW, 56)

“There are many people who would feel cheated if suddenly they were deprived of the ego definition that their suffering gives them.” (HTEW, 56)

o Which means: some people are self-defined by their suffering. They are men and women of sorrows, and that is all. So to free them of their sufferings, to redeem them, would be to deprive them of their core identity. Such people resist the redemptive activity of God. They need their sufferings.

They will feel they are a nobody should their being-abused cease.

Prisonhood is their "normal"; freedom is abnormal and alien to them. Therefore one of the ways that people stay enchained and enslaved is that their chains define and delimit them. For such people to escape this horrible life-condition requires a revelation of their true self, their true identity, as children of God and made in God's image. Only then will they be horrified by their chains and suffering and cry out for release and redemption.


5. Prayer

First of all, “prayer… means the method by which the individual makes his way to the temple of quiet within his own spirit and the activity of his spirit within its walls. Prayer is not only the participation in communication with God in the encounter of religious experience, but it is also the “readying” of the spirit for such communication. It is the total process of quieting down and to that extent must not be separated from meditation. Perhaps, as important as prayer itself, is the “readying” of the spirit for the experience.” (HTEW, 57)

• Thurman: “When one has thus been prepared, a strange thing happens. It is very difficult to put into words. The initiative slips out of one’s hands and into the hands of God, the other Principal in the religious experience. The self moves towards God. Such movement seems to have the quality of innate and fundamental stirring. The self does not see itself as being violated, though it may be challenged, stimulated, inspired, conditioned, but all of this takes place in a frame of reference that is completely permissive. There is another movement which is at once merged with the movement of the self. God touches the spirit and the will and a wholly new character in terms of dimension enters the experience. In this sense prayer may be regarded as an open-end experience.”

“Fundamental to the total fact of prayer in the Christian religion is the persuasive affirmation that the God of religious experience is a seeking and a beseeching God.” (HTEW, 57)

“I agree most heartily with Rufus Jones when he says that prayer at its best is when the soul enjoys God and prays out of sheer love for him.” (HTEW, 59-60)

On the “problem” of intercessory prayer – see (HTEW, 58-59)


6. Non-Discursive Experience

By the phrase "non-discursive experience" I mean: experience that one cannot fully discourse about. (See here, here, and here.)

“Religious experience is interpreted to mean the conscious and direct exposure of the individual to God.” (HTEW, 37)

This is what William James called “acquaintance-knowledge,” contrasted with “knowledge about.”

It is “immediate experience,” if not quite “purely immediate.” (HTEW, 37-38)

“The individual is never completely one with his experiences. He remains always observer and participant. This is very important to remember.” (HTEW, 38)

• So… no metaphysical union; no essential union with God.

There is something “extraordinary” in religious experience. This is: “awareness of meeting God… the individual is seen as being exposed to direct knowledge of ultimate meaning, ne plus ultra being… He is face to face with something which is so much more, and so much more inclusive, than all of his awareness of himself that for him, in the moment, there are no questions. Without asking, somehow he knows.” (HTEW, 38-39)

“The experience is beyond or inclusive of the discursive. It is not other than the discursive, but somehow it is inclusive of the discursive… ‘IT is the knowledge of the subject of all predicates’ [Bennett].” (HETW, 39)

• To meet God. To know God, and be known by God.

“The goal of life is God! The source of life is God! That out of which life comes is that into which life goes. God is the goal of man’s life, the end of all his seeking, the meaning of all his striving. God is the guarantor of all his values, the ultimate meaning – the timeless frame of reference… ‘Thou hast made us for thyself and our souls are restless till they find their rest in thee,” says Augustine.” (HTEW, 40-41)

Sheer rational and reflective processes cannot bring us to the God-conclusion. “This is the great disclosure: that there is at the heart of life a Heart… Wade in the water, because God is troubling the water.” (HTEW, 41)

Faith is a way of knowing, a form of knowledge. (HTEW, 43)

“Religious experience in its profoundest dimension is the finding of man by God and the finding of God by man. This is the inner witness.” (HTEW, 43)

“The religious experience is always current, always fresh. In it I hear His Voice in my own tongue and in accordance with the grain in my own wood. In that glorious and transcendent moment, it may easily seem to me that all there is, is God.” (HTEW, 46)

• The constant need for NEW words from God.
• For me, e.g., every Sunday is a “new Word” Sunday.

“Through religious experience… the individual comes to know God’s loving presence in a personal and private way.” (L. Smith, HTEW, 35)

L. Smith – Thurman “laments the tendency of the church to substitute creeds, doctrines, dogma, and ritual for religious experience.” (HTEW, 37)

• It’s all about the God-encounter that happens in religious experience.

At Howard U “Thurman crafted liturgies that introduced dance and other artistic expressions to university worship.” (L. Smith, HTEW, 21)

Thurman’s “speaking style captivated audiences. He was a master in the use of silence. At times, he would be so overwhelmed by an understanding that he seemed to be in a trance.” (L. Smith, HTEW, 22)


7. Mysticism

The word “mysticism” comes from the Greek word muo, which means: “to conceal.”

L. Smith – “Thurman is a mystic. He describes mysticism as a form of religious experience where the awareness of a “conscious and direct exposure” to God is more intense. Thurman does not consider mysticism as a superior religious experience, only different.” (HTEW, 35)


8. Waiting on the Lord

“In the total religious experience we learn how to wait; we learn how to ready the mind and the spirit. It is in the waiting, brooding, lingering, tarrying timeless moments that the essence of the religious experience becomes most fruitful. It is here that I learn to listen, to swing wide the very doors of my being, to clean out the corners and the crevices of my life – so that when His presence invades, I am free to enjoy His coming to Himself in me.” (HTEW, 45)

• Cf. Nouwen’s distinction between “waiting” as expectation, and “wishing.”


9. On “Jesus and the Disinherited

Jesus and the Disinherited is a beautiful, loving, and powerful book. It is Thurman’s most famous text.

The most-quoted phrase from Jesus and the Disinherited is: “What, then, is the word of the religion of Jesus to those who stand with their backs to the wall?”

• The question is: “Does Jesus offer any answers that help the disinherited in this predicament of no exit?” (L. Smith, in HTEW, 27)
• This is redemptive stuff. This is “buying-out-of-bondage” stuff. This is “Exodus-stuff.”
• “James Cone identifies JD as an influential book for his development of a black theology of liberation.” (L Smith, HTEW, 28)
• Martin Luther King carried JD with him during the Montgomery Boycott. (L Smith, HTEW, 28)

***

Prayer and Stillness

Howard Thurman writes: "There is no argument needed for the necessity of taking time out for being alone, for withdrawal, for being quiet without and still within. The sheer physical necessity is urgent because the body and the entire nervous system cry out for the healing waters of silence. One could not begin the cultivation of the prayer life at a more practical point than deliberately to seek each day, and several times a day, a lull in the rhythm of daily doing, a period when nothing happens that demands active participation...

...At first the quiet times might be quite barren or a retreat from exhaustion. One has to get used to the stillness even after it has been achieved. The time may be used for taking stock, for examining one's life direction, one's plans, one's relations, and the like. This in itself is most profitable. It is like cleaning out the closets, or the desk drawers, and getting things in order.

The time may be used for focusing or re-focusing one's purposes in the light of what at first may be only one's idea of the best and the highest. Then quiet changes begin to take place. Somewhere along the way, one's idea of the best and the highest takes on a transcendent character and one begins to commune, to communicate with one's idea of the best and the highest - only a man does not talk to, or with, an idea. When the awareness of God comes in - how He entered, one does not know - one is certain that he has been there all the time. This assurance is categorical and becomes the very core of one's faith; indeed, it becomes more and more one's faith." (Thurman, Meditations of the Heart, 27-28)

I love how Thurman puts the idea of getting still in the presence of God.

·                     Withdraw daily from the rat-race of life

·                     Get still in your heart

·                     Your physical body cries out for such heart-and-space stillness

·                     Take time to "do nothing" but be with God

·                     If you're new at this, tiredness and exhaustion will take over, and the God-times may seem barren and dry

·                     Our world does not train us for this kind of stillness, so it takes getting used-to

·                     Once achieved as a lifestyle it becomes the gateway to the Source of Life

·                     In the stillness be examined by God, as you engage in listening prayer

·                     In the stillness "spring cleaning" happens every day (there's a lot of useless garbage in the human heart, which accrues in inverse proportion to the amount of "still time" with God)

·                     Then... God breaks in, creativity happens, life results, energy gets restored, purpose gets defined, direction is given, transcendence takes over, and one communes (dwells/abides) with God.