What Is “Color”?

Close your eyes and count to three.   Then open them and focus on one stationary object.

Where’s the light coming from, and how does it reflect off the object?  Where are the shadows?  What is the object’s depth—could you calculate it in inches or feet?  How accurate do you think your calculation is?  How are you estimating it?  Would the object still be recognizable if you reduced it to two dimensions (in other words, if you drew it)?  Can you imagine how the object would appear if you are looking straight down at it from above?

Finally: What color is it?

Are you sure?

These appear to be questions about perception, but actually they are questions about philosophy.  In fact, one of the very first philosophy questions is, if we perceive the world around us through our senses, can our senses be trusted?

The “Problem of Color” has plagued both scientists and philosophers for centuries—or that’s what Mazviita Chirimuuta says, in a provocative piece called “The Reality of Color Is Perception.” At first the title proposition seems obvious: Why, sure.  Light reaches our eyes in wavelengths and the brain perceives those various frequencies as color.  But . . . does that mean there really is no such thing as “color”?  That color is not a real property of the things we see, but it’s all in our head?  Or does color consist of some objective quality of the light? What is color?

Scientific theories tend to lean in a subjective or objective angle.  Color is either a brain phenomenon or it’s a light phenomenon.  But there’s another theory, the “relationist” theory, that  sees it as both.  Janus, the Roman god of time, serves as a metaphor because he looks both forward and back—the two-faced god.  Likewise, color relates both to the objective world and to the individual mind.

Ms. Chirmuuta likes that idea: “This is a common thread in scientific writing on color vision and it has always struck me that the Janus-facedness of color is its most beguiling quality.”

She goes on: “Indeed, I argue, colors are not properties of minds (visual experiences), objects, or lights, but of perceptual processes—interactions that involve all three terms.”  In that way, color perception is the same kind of process as consciousness itself.  “[C]onsciousness is not confined to the brain but is somehow ‘in between’ the mind and our ordinary physical surroundings, and . . . must be understood in terms of activities.”

Let’s say then that color is mind, object, and light.  Three perspectives, one phenomenon that we associate with recognize lilacs, sunsets, oceans, autumn.

Consciousness is mind, world, communication.  Three perspectives, one process.  St. Augustine, without the benefit of an electroscope, defined vision as eye, brain, correlation.  Three perspectives, one capacity that most of us never think about.

Object, word, meaning.  Frequency, ear, music.  Father, Son, Spirit—is anyone seeing a pattern here?  Maybe I’m just being philosophical, but once you’ve adopted a Trinitarian Creator you see Him echoed everywhere.

In the comments section below the article, one snarky responder calls out “the arrogance of philosophers who don’t know their place as they are just pseudo scientists filling the valleys and cracks of ignorance until real knowledge makes them obsolete.”  As for that plaguey problem of consciousness: “all philosophy has to offer there is confusion as well which will try to persist after inquisitive scientists have solved that puzzle too.”

Might be a long wait.

Bible Challenge Week 23: The Kingdom: David’s Fall

What’s your idea of a hero?  Is there anyone today, in the military or the sports world, who looks like a hero to you?  To a nation that had been longing for the ideal king to lead them and a “Mighty man” to look up to, David fit that description: the teenage boy holding up the head of a giant, the captain who had “slain his ten thousands,” the loyal subject who became a generous monarch, the chief shepherd of his people who made them feel like somebody.

But, as he made sadly apparent once he had reached middle age, David was not their ideal king.  If anyone still hoped, their hopes would have been dashed to see the mighty slayer of ten thousands sneaking out of his palace at night to escape of his own son.

How long would God’s people have to wait for their ideal king?

Click below for the .pdf of this week’s study, with Bible passages, questions, and activities for kids and grownups:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 23: The Kingdom – David’s Fall

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 21: The Kingdom – David’s Rise

Next: Week 23 – The Kingdom – Solomon and the Temple

 

 

The Age of Smug

“Millions of evangelicals and other Christian fundamentalists believe that the Bible was dictated by God to men who acted essentially as human transcriptionists.”  Well guess what, you millions of simpletons: “If that were the case one would have to conclude that God is a terrible writer.” Psychologist and author Valerie Tarico is here to share some important insights on why this is so.  For instance, did you know

  • That an undetermined number of writers over approximately 900 years wrote the pastiche we now call the Bible?
  • That they drew on propaganda and myths that was floating around various oral cultures, like the many versions of the flood story?
  • That the result is not a “unified book of divine guidance,” but a mix of genres, including myths, laws, poetry, court records, and mysticism?
  • That the content represents the concerns of iron-age primitives, rather than “timeless and perfect” messaging direct to us from God?
  • That there are 2 conflicting creation stories, 3 conflicting Ten Commandments, and four conflicting Easter stories?

Did you know that, evvies and fundies?  Obviously not, or you wouldn’t keep on taking the whole outmoded book literally.  And you would understand that the Bible isn’t even a good example of sacred literature because it’s so badly written:*

Mixed messages, repetition, bad fact-checking, awkward constructions, inconsistent voice, weak character development, boring tangents, contradictions, passages where nobody can tell what the heck the writer meant to convey.  This doesn’t sound like a book that was dictated by a deity.

Dang!  Why didn’t I think of that before??

In his introduction to The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis longed for an earlier day when atheists argued like men.  Excuse the sexism; he meant rationally and substantively.  Ms. Tarico, who claims some understanding of evangelicals as she used to be one (or something) argues like a teenager: You say that because paternalism.  Your conclusions are stupid and so is your book.  The Bible contains no accurate scientific information or health tips and therefore it’s worthless.  Like other critics from the high-school debate club, she

  • mischaracterizes the other side, presenting the most simplistic view of people of faith imaginable;
  • pretends, or fails to acknowledge, a world of biblical scholarship that has addressed every one of her objections over and over;
  • litters the field with straw men, such as believers who insist on taking every verse literally (when she’s actually the one who insists on taking every verse literally);
  • assumes herself to be at the pinnacle of human understanding in which every new intellectual trend invalidates every old one;
  • wraps herself in a cocoon of smugness.

Am I being smug?  It’s a temptation.  It’s also a cliche: the rolled eyeballs, the sigh, the headshake.  I’m tempted, but a serious issue lurks under the shallow reasoning of the Spirit of this Age.  We’re in danger of kicking away the ladder that got us to this enlightened age of tolerance and sanitation.  The Bible is, primarily, a book about God, starting with two major premises:

1. He made this universe and it belongs to him.  2. Humans are special to him and every one of them without distinction is made in his image.  Every moral principle that could ever be flows from those two enduring principles.  That’s what the Bible makes clear, over the centuries of its composition and the variety of its genres, and no other sacred writing come close.  Kick that away, and all things are permitted.

*”Why is the Bible so badly written?” was published on the Salon website last week, but Salon received so many complaints about the poorly-written article they took it down.

Bible Challenge Week 22: The Kingdom: David’s Rise

“The nation” is now a kingdom.  King Saul, as it happened, was a prelude.  Now the true king appears, the one God had in mind all along.  Every Sunday-school child knows about the boy who killed the nine-foot giant with a single stone, and the shepherd who killed predators with nothing but a stick and his bare hands.  David is also one of the few people in the Bible who receives a physical description.  From the minute he appears, it’s as if the Word is saying, “Watch this one: he’s special.”  But for all that, David’s purpose and place in salvation history outweighs his person.

Through David, the Lord wold accomplish two great milestones in the story of redemption.  What were they?  Click here to find out:

Bible Reading Challenge, Week 22: David’s Rise

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 21: Failure!

Next: Week 23: David’s Fall

 

 

Bible Challenge Week 21: The Nation – Failure!

FAILURE! is starting to sound like the buzzer on a talent show that tells the performer to clear the stage.  It’s an ugly sound–but if we don’t like it, just imagine it sounds to God!

Saul, like Samson before him, has a spectacular fall.  He’s a tragic character worthy of Shakespeare, who might have written a play about him if it hadn’t been sort of illegal to present Bible subjects on stage.  Still, I think of Saul as the “King Lear” of the Bible.  Which raises the question, why choose him in the first place?  Especially when the Lord has–and always had–another man in mind for a replacement, who made his appearance last week and will now come to “live in Saul’s head.”  The plot thickens . . .

To read more, click below for the printable download, with scripture references, thought questions, and activities:

Bible reading Challenge Week 21: The Nation – Failure!

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 20: The Nation – Saul

Next: Week 22: The Kingdom – David’s Rise

Bible Challenge Week 20: The Nation – Saul

Be careful what you wish for!  That saying wasn’t current in 1050 B.C., but it’s the theme of the prophet Samuel’s speech to the people in I Sam. 8:10-18.  You want a king?  Here’s what kings do.

They still want a king, so God gives them one.

And it doesn’t seem like such a bad deal.  The first king of Israel has some kingly qualities, both on the outside and on the inside.  He has no palace or royal guard or many of the fancy trappings that come with a long-standing monarchy.  Still, once the crown is on his head it goes to his head, as power usually does.  We’ll begin to see that process this week.  And we’ll encounter another problem that has puzzled Bible readers ever since.

For the printable download, with scripture references, discussion questions, and activities, click here:

Bible Reading Challenge Week 20: The Nation – Saul

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 19: The Nation – Samuel

Next: Week 21: The Nation – Failure!

One Cranky Prophet

I’ve been reading Isaiah this month, two chapters a day.  Reading Isaiah is like riding a yo yo: up and down; up and down.  The mood changes almost mid-sentence from righteous judgment to gracious reconciliation—but let’s start at the beginning.

The LORD strides upon the scene, calling out his grievance to the heavens and the earth:

“Children have I reared and brought up

but they have rebelled against me.”  (Is. 1:2b)

This is the problem: the rest of Isaiah (and all the prophets, come to think of it) chew on that theme: Ah, sinful nation: sick desolate, ruined.  These are the judgments of the Lord, but also the natural consequences of cutting themselves off from the very Creator who put the breath in their bodies.  That breath remains and not only commits Israel to him, but commits him to Israel.  He has bound himself to them, and difficulties immediately arise.

For the first four chapters (and throughout the book) a personality emerges that a psychiatrist would label schizophrenic.  Reams of condemnation roll out, alternating with brief passages that look like the speaker is reconsidering: “Come, let us reason together . . .”

“. . . they shall beat their swords into ploughshares . . .”

“Zion shall be redeemed. . . ”

“It shall be well with the righteous . . .”

The weight of sin and rebellion drags the oracle down, down, down—but still it struggles to rise.

Chapters 5 and 6 forge a theme for the first “Book” of Isaiah (chapters 1-39).  The case against “my people” is accurate and detailed and could apply to “our people” today.  And if our people complain about His peevishness, vindictiveness, arbitrariness, and cruelty, here’s his answer:

The LORD of hosts is exalted in justice,

and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.

He can’t be holy and righteous without judging.  And he can’t judge without holiness and righteousness.

But—what about those people, whom he made and shaped and breathed immortal souls into?  As the rock-ribbed Calvinists say, he has every right to send all of them to hell.  There is none righteous; no, not one.  But—

He has committed himself, by his very breath.

What to do?

That (speaking in purely human terms) is the Divine Dilemma.  “Children have I reared and brought up . . .”  Every parent with wayward children can sympathize.  What do you do?

You don’t stop loving them—unless you never really loved them in the first place.  If you saw your kids as an extension of yourself, intended to draw praise back to you for how well you raised them, it might not be that hard to cut them off: Sayonara, punk.  You had your chance and you blew it.

But even if there’s a smidgen of love in your complicated feelings, there’s at least that much pain.  Love is a risk.  I might even say that love is risk.  You’ve cut yourself open to admit the unknown; a being that brings its own complexity, hidden dangers, and uncertain future.  And it turns on you.  That which promised to complete you now claws at you and threatens your very identity.

God doesn’t need us for completion.  Still, what do you do . . . if you are God?  Two choices:

One, you let it go.  Let the heedless children destroy your house, trample your rules, leave your righteousness in tatters.  In the process they choke on their own autonomy and you cease to be righteous and thus no longer God.  They’ve squandered their identity and stolen yours.  Nobody wins.

Two: you exercise your righteous judgment, stop the oppression, punish the oppressors.  You are still God, but your creation is stuck in an endless round of destruction and renewal (see the book of Judges) until it exhausts itself.  Technically, you win . . . but not really, if your grand experiment reveals itself to be a failure and the fiery hallways of hell ring with Satan’s laughter.

Or wait—there’s a third option.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given . . .  (Is. 9:6)

Higher criticism insists that this child is a contemporary born into the royal household, a brief uptick in Judah’s downward drift.  But the extravagant language—Mighty God, Everlasting Father, etc.—is a bit much, even for court-flattery.  The child the virgin conceives may be the son of a virtuous, recently-married young woman of Isaiah’s time.  But there’s another Son, another sign given to a later virgin who wonders, “Wait . . . how can this be?”

Tucked among Isaiah’s fiery images and agonized and wrathful pronouncements wrung from Israel’s struggle with God, a Man emerges.  A promised child, like Isaac and Samson; a sapling from the seed of Jesse like David; a servant and prophet like Moses, a sacrificial victim like . . . no one else.

He’s the third way, the resolution of an impossible dilemma and the reconciler of opposites.

Bible Challenge, Week 16: The Nation – Home at Last

Did you catch the change in headings from last week to this week?  We’re no longer talking about “the people,” but “the Nation.”  By crossing the Jordan, Abraham’s wandering descendants passed a milestone.  A promise made to that landless patriarch almost 500 years earlier is fulfilled by the dramatic events that open the book of Joshua.

After the tribulations of the wilderness and numerous setbacks, the book of Joshua seems like an unblemished triumph.  But there are problems, both within the text and outside it.  Some of them you’ll encounter in this week’s reading challenge.

Click here for the printable .pdf, with scripture references, discussion questions, and activities:

Bible Challenge Week 16: The Nation – Home at Last

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 15: The People – Blessings and Curses

Next: Week 17: The Nation – Failure!

Testimony

These are personal testimonies collected years ago at a Christmas ornament exchange.  True stories; only the names have been changed to protect privacy:

Debbie’s life was chaos, owing to a dysfunctional family: abusive dad, passive mom, no system or order in the household.  Her father made plenty of money, but she remembers walking to school in clothes so old her teachers thought she was a  charity case.  She came to the Lord sweetly and naturally, through high school friends who sought her out (she didn’t realize until later that they were evangelizing her).  Her life since has had its dramatic ups and downs, but she is ever “in his grip.”

Donna’s life was ignorance.  Her father wasn’t around much, especially after the War began.  At the age of three she was evacuated from London because of the blitz, and lived with two families for most of the duration.  Looking back, she can see the seeds planted in her early life, such as an occasional Sunday school, that finally sprouted when she read a gospel tract her husband brought home.  It struck like an arrow, filling her heart with joy. She was elated, and believed at once, eagerly kneeling to accept Christ as Savior.  Over the years, she’s become more grounded, learning that being a Christian doesn’t solve all your problems.  But she’s not going anywhere else.  Her favorite verse: “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Linda felt unloved and insecure.  Her father died before she could know him and her step-dad, whom she called Daddy, never took her to his heart; when his own kids were born his favoritism was obvious and hurtful.  When a chain of circumstances brought Daddy’s mother to live nearby, this godly woman took Linda to church.  Though hostile to faith, her stepdad welcomed the Sunday-morning time he could spend with his “real” kids.  They never came to the Lord, but Linda did.  If her earthly father didn’t love her, she knew her heavenly Father did.  Love was at the center of her conversion, and ever since she has felt secure.

Melissa’s life was darkness.  Drug abuse, alcohol, and violence ruled the house where she grew up; she knew little else.  Certainly no gospel.  Somehow she got through high school and scraped up enough ambition to go to college.  It was there, while partying on the weekends and looking for love in all the wrong places, she met some Christian girls who started inviting her to church and Bible study.  Her conversion was quick and complete.  No backsliding; she changed like that (snap).  Her language cleaned up, her sleeping-around stopped, she was delivered from darkness into the kingdom of his glorious light.

Tabitha’s life was marked by fear.  She was afraid of everything: danger, death, hell—and this at five years old!  She knew about God because her parents taught her, but somehow she missed hearing about God’s provision for sin.  This is the classic sequence for conversions in the past: first the wrath, then the grace.  She was a tender plant, extraordinarily sensitive. Her conviction was real, even at that age—she remembers lying in bed, unable to sleep after a heinous (to her mind) misdeed that day.  She had to get up and confess to her parents, who, in the middle of the night, shared the rally good news with her.  She has believed ever since, and her life now is marked with confidence.

Tami was always Christian—can’t remember a time when she didn’t believe.  But somewhere between youth and adulthood faith is tested and personalized and purified of baby idols; for her that happened with a traumatizing church  split that put a chasm between her and close friends.  Who quickly became former friends.  She’s grateful for the ways this crisis shored up her faith and reinforced her walk, but the walk itself seemed a foregone conclusion.

As for me, my life was complacence.  My family saw to it that I was in church three times a week.  I knew all the answers, memorized the verses, sang all the verses (or at least the first, second, and last) of all the standard hymns by heart.  Sometimes I got the impression that being a Christian was pretty easy: here’s what God wants, just follow these rules.  But meandering along path, not paying much attention, I tripped right into sin.  And self-justifying, which is even worse.  I could have used a little fear of the Lord, but I never stopped believing—at the back of my mind was always a conviction that what I’d been taught was basically true, and “to whom else can I go?”  I walked back the same way I’d walked away, but this time knowing much more about myself and the depth of my need.

We hear that “There are many roads to God.”  Actually, no; but there are many paths to the one road.  Out of seven women, only three of us grew up in anything like a Christian home, so family isn’t always the path.  None were influenced by a husband or boyfriend, so romance isn’t always the path.  For two, friends in school showed the way; for one, a step-grandmother; for Tabitha and me (though at vastly different ages), it was the direct and pointed conviction of the Holy Spirit.

“This promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39).  Near by and far off, he calls.  At this minute, and the next, and the next, He’s calling to himself.  I sometimes think about all the murders being committed, all the outrages, all the unspeakable crimes going on right now.  Somewhere in this world it’s always midnight and someone who should be sleeping peacefully is instead acting violently.  Do you know where your children are?  God knows where his children are, and right now, this minute, he is calling them out of darkness and into his glorious light.

Bible Challenge, Week 15: The People – Blessings and Curses

The book of Deuteronomy is two things: a renewal of the covenant between God and his people, and Moses’ farewell.  Except for a brief introduction and a postscript, all of it is in Moses’ own voice, as he summons the people to give them a history lesson–all the amazing things their God has done over the last 40 years.

Now they stand on the brink of a new chapter in their saga.  Looking over Jordan, they see the promised land.

It’s time for a second covenant ceremony, and a reminder of what a covenant is.  The notion of a solemn agreement between a king and his underlings wouldn’t have been foreign to the people; it’s how things were done back then.  But God adds an element they might not have been expecting, an angle foreign to covenants at the time.  Any guesses?

Click here for the printable download, with scripture passages, discussion questions and activities:

Bible Challenge Week 15: The People – Blessings and Curses

(This is a continuation of a series of posts about the “whole story” of the Bible.  I plan to run one every week, on Tuesdays, with a printable PDF.  The printable includes a brief 2-3 paragraph introduction, Bible passages to read, a key verse, 5-7 thought/discussion questions, and 2-3 activities for the kids.  Here’s the Overview of the entire Bible series.)

Previous: Week 14: The People – Sacrifice

Next: Week 15: The Nation – Home at Last