Discounting the future

Nicole Foss (a.k.a. Stoneleigh) nicely summarises the effects of crises, instability and uncertainty on human ethical deliberation: our horizons shrink. This is true of both temporal and relational horizon. Nicole has written before about the shrinking relational horizon in times of difficulty (when the chips are down, you stick with those you know and mistrust strangers and those who are other to you) and this recent post points out that much of human history has been lived from hand to mouth, with immediate concerns dominating our time, effort and thinking. When you're worried about where your next meal will come from (or, slightly less pressingly, worried about where your next pay packet is going to come from), you're much less likely to be able to reflect coherently upon or plan for longer term threats and opportunities. Practical and moral vision is narrowed and shortened in order to focus upon the immediate. This is one of the reasons that ecological concerns decline during recessions.

It is also why my expectation of growing economic and social disruptions over the next few decades signals bad news for our collective ability to respond well to the longer term threats our society faces. Human reactions to increasing perceptions of threat constitute a complex series of feedback cycles, both positive and negative, rendering linear trends hyperbolic. This is why specific forecasting has such a bad track record and why "bumpy" is about the level of specificity I'm willing to commit myself to in describing the coming decades.

Some human reactions make crises worse than they need to be. Food shortages can lead to hoarding behaviour that exacerbates the problem for those with least access to food. First order problems (e.g. hunger) can lead to second order problems (e.g. riots) that drain resources from addressing the primary problem.

Other human reactions can mitigate the worst of crises. Co-operation, trust and sharing can spread the burden of a situation upon more shoulders, making it lighter for everyone. Sudden shocks to the status quo can sometimes awaken the moral imagination to envisage a new way of life (or the renewal of old ways).

Which kind of feedback is likely to dominate? It is very difficult to know, and may well differ from place to place. How is it possible to create the conditions now under which communities of trust and co-operation can flourish during times of crisis? How can such communities maintain an openness to outsiders and strangers? And what kinds of communities of trust are able to face immediate challenges without discounting the future?

Why I am neither left nor right: where I stand politically

Christians and partisanship
In the comments of a recent post, I claimed that I was a Christian "who was neither left nor right".

As a result, a friend wrote to me expressing concern that I was perhaps being disingenuous about my loyalties considering various experiences and conversations we'd shared in which I'd been critical of one "side" of Australian politics and supportive of the other. My friend encouraged me to be upfront about where I am coming from politically and so I thought I would take the opportunity to do so, if for no other reason than to give a little more context for any comments I might make on policy or party-political issues from time to time.

When I said that I was a Christian who was neither left nor right, I meant it. I didn't mean that I have no political opinions or am apolitical, but that I generally try to be non-partisan for what I believe are good theological reasons.

As a disciple of Jesus, my political allegiance is to him alone. He has received all authority in heaven and on earth from the Father and so all political authorities that remain in this present age have been put on notice. What authority they have is derivative from his and is strictly temporary. Their jurisdiction is similarly limited. And Christians may not place in them anything other than small and provisional hopes, nor expect of them anything other than partial victories and defeats in a world marred by sin and indeed should expect them sometimes to resemble the powers and principalities arranged against God. So any identification by a Christian with a political cause will be under these caveats.
Or, to put this another way, it may come as no surprise that I broadly agree with my PhD supervisor Oliver O'Donovan. For a decent summary of some of his key ideas, see this essay by Andrew Errington, which is Andrew's work but draws upon O'Donovan fairly extensively.

Neither right nor left
I reject being straightforwardly labelled as "left" or "right" for two reasons, one philosophical and one theological. First, I don't think that the spectrums of left/right or conservative/progressive are particularly useful conceptual tools for discussing a political field that has more than one dimension. At best they are a commonly-accepted shorthand, but they often obscure as much as they reveal. The two-party system that dominates politics in Australia, the US and the UK (the three arenas with which I am most familiar) generally simplifies all issues to two positions. Sometimes these two positions are actually very close to one another, but this is hidden by constant focus on their slight distinctions. This represents a (perhaps partially inevitable) dumbing down of political discourse and debate and is not helped by mainstream media sources that are more interested in profit than accuracy or nuance.

But more importantly, speaking theologically and ethically, none of the parties of which I'm aware manifestly represents the cause of the gospel. Each holds positions and priorities that as a Christian I find disappointing, disturbing or repulsive. Furthermore, neither the agenda of the "left" nor the "right" can be entirely adopted or entirely demonised by thoughtful followers of a crucified and risen king. Both contain worthwhile attempts to defend aspects of the good creation. In a world of complex goods, there will rarely be policies that are unambiguous expressions of justice, truth and the common good. By the same token, the parasitic nature of evil means that even the worst policies will lay claim to some good thing, even if, in seeking to defend it, they trample other (and perhaps more important) goods. When the complexity of the moral and political field is combined with human sinfulness and the impossibility of any leader (other than Jesus) being the Messiah,* then no party or "side" can claim the obvious, exclusive, permanent or total commitment of Christians.
*Indeed, some of my longer blog pieces have been critiquing implicit messianism, whether associated with leaders or nations. Here is one example and here is another.

Consequently, voting is only ever possible while holding one's nose. I've rarely voted with much confidence and never without some degree of regret, often quite deep. And remember, voting is only the tip of the iceberg when considering what makes for a healthy political authority. But if and when you do vote, it ought to be done thoughtfully and out of concern for neighbour.

Politics and love
Indeed, all Christian political activity (which may begin with voting, but is not at all limited to it) is a response to the royal law of love - love for God and neighbour. This is also what prevents political apathy or disengagement, or a total retreat into cynicism. To write off the political authorities as irrelevant, uselessly corrupt or ubiquitously anti-Christ frequently means to abandon one's neighbour to the strongest or sneakiest bully. Of course, political engagement is neither the start nor the end of the love command, and it is a task that falls on the church community as a body, in which different members may play different roles. It is not the case that every member needs to be equally well informed or passionate about every political matter.

A significant part of Christian political responsibility will be warning political authorities when they are overstepping their jurisdiction, or when they are neglecting to protect the vulnerable and uphold justice. And so part of this task is unavoidably critical. But it is also important to seek ways forward, to offer creative suggestions, to pursue the best that it is currently possible to achieve, to engage in the often messy and always imperfectible pursuit of justice. And so it may be the case that some Christians will be called into seeking elected office, into partial and provisional loyalty to a party or cause for the sake of the common good. Being a Christian ruler is not necessarily oxymoronic.

My recent political activity
On my blog I have made positive comments about a variety of political parties and individuals and not all on one "side". I have supported particular campaigns by various groups who in some cases identify as either "progressive" or "conservative", but this doesn't mean I endorse everything they do.

I don't think that I have ever campaigned on my blog for a particular party or individual, but even if I have (or do so in future), this would represent a provisional and highly fallible position based on my evaluation of current needs and opportunities.

I am not claiming to be a swinging voter (though I have voted for various parties at various times) nor to be a centrist (though, like the "left" and "right", it has some good points). I am not saying that I have no preferences or sit on the fence.

At different times I have written to MPs, councillors, government and shadow ministers and prime ministers of many parties (in a number of countries) seeking to put forward particular policies, offer praise and humbly present criticism. Always I have promised to pray for them and I try to keep that promise.

At times I have expressed frustration at how common it is in some circles to assume that Christian discipleship entails partisan political conservatism (though I am just as frustrated by the opposite assumption, it is simply a little less prominent at this point in history). I have argued against the idea that most issues have a single and obvious Christian position; I think that it is possible for biblical Christians of goodwill and honesty to disagree on the policies that will best uphold and pursue justice. I reject the assumption that only certain issues are "Christian", or that there are a small range of issues (generally to do with sexuality) on which Christians ought primarily or exclusively to base their voting and other political activity. And, perhaps quite obviously, I believe that there are some issues (such as ecology) that Christians have generally not paid enough attention to.

So if you had me pegged, pigeonholed or stereotyped, I hope that this helps to clarify where I do (and don't!) stand politically. I am not trying to hide anything; I am sorry if I have not always been sufficiently clear on these matters.
UPDATE: a slightly modified version of this post has been included on the CPX site as part of their election coverage.

Gillard's climate inaction and the Citizen's Assembly

As we "move forward" to an Australian federal election on 21st August, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has just announced the ALP's climate change policies.

I'm a little underwhelmed.

Still aiming for endless economic growth, no price on carbon until after 2012, same tiny target (5% down from 2000 levels by 2020. Most of the rest of the world uses 1990 as a benchmark, as agreed at Kyoto. Australia doesn't, or our "reduction" would be revealed as an increase), slight increases on fairly lacklustre funding for alternative energies, more coal power stations (as long as they are "capture ready", which is a little like building a car with a third pedal but no braking system and calling it "breaking ready"), and in what is perhaps the most telling proposal, a Citizen's Assembly held over twelve months to build a bipartisan consensus on the issue that will last longer than an election cycle.

This last idea could be dismissed as a populist move aimed to give sceptics a chance to bury the hatchet or at least air their grievances and vent some steam, but there is more at stake. The perceived need for something like this is based on the observation that in Australia, some kind of legislation involving a price on carbon enjoyed bipartisan support for the last few years until this collapsed suddenly around the end of 2009 with the election of Tony Abbott to lead the Coalition, who has described climate change as "absolute crap" and whose policies even manage to make the ALP look green (which is all the ALP need, basically). Gillard's speech compares the need for such a consensus (which needn't include everyone) to support for Medicare (Australia's public health system), which began life as a partisan issue, but which gradually won widespread public support until it is now politically unthinkable for either side to abandon it.

The Citizen's Assembly will be accompanied by the creation of a Climate Change Commission "to explain the science of climate change and to report on progress in international action". If people think that the CSIRO, the Australian Institute of Physics, the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Socities, the Geological Society of Australia, the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Australian Coral Reef Society, the Australian Medical Association and the Institution of Engineers Australia are all too political, part of a hoax, taken in by a fraud, in it for the money or whatever other argument people use to ignore the body of scientific opinion on climate change, then I am unsure what contribution another group set up by the government are going to make to building a community consensus.

Building a widespread understanding of the issue is important, and indeed, this was perhaps my largest disappointment with Kevin Rudd, that he abdicated his chance to lead the public debate on the issue, preferring to hang back and let the opposition shoot themselves in the foot over their internal squabbling on the issue.

It is also crucial to distinguish between the climate science (where expert opinion overwhelmingly acknowledges dangerous anthropogenic climate change) and climate policy (where expert opinion is more divided and where more deliberation on the goods of society is required) and to note that though we might agree (at least broadly) on the problem, proposed responses can vary widely for all kinds of legitimate reasons.

Exactly how the proposed Citizen's Assembly will work hasn't been spelled out in detail (or at least, I haven't seen where this has been done) and I can imagine a number of possible pitfalls to this approach. Nonetheless, I applaud Gillard and the ALP for trying something to raise the level of public debate on the ethics and policies of a good national response.

We don't elect a PM

As widely expected, Julia Gillard has called an Australian federal election for the 21st August. As part of making the announcement, she said the following:

Today, I fulfil the pledge I made on the day I became Prime Minister. On that day, I acknowledged it is the right of every Australian to vote for the Prime Minister, and that in the very near future I would ensure all Australians could exercise their right.

This is simply not true. It is not the right of every Australian to vote for the Prime Minister. It is our right (indeed statutory obligation) to vote for a representative in Federal Parliament. It is up to the members of parliament to elect their leaders. It may be the case that in the popular mind we identify with a leader and vote for them, but this is a dangerous oversimplification. For Gillard to use this as the opening of her announcing affirms this misconception in the minds of voters. The problem with this line of thinking is that wise deliberation is further crowded out by personality politics more suited to celebrity magazines. Our system does not mean we elect people to mirror our views, or that MPs are obligated to advocate what the majority of voters want. We elect representatives who deliberate and make judgements on our behalf.

I am also disappointed to note that Gillard seems to be the kind of leader who is happy to allow and reinforce such misunderstandings of our system (and Abbott is no better, by the way). I know I'm fighting a losing battle on this issue, but it frustrates me to see that not even our highest elected official is willing to threaten voters' sense of entitlement (stoked by the popular media) in order to get it right.

By the way, don't forget to enrol or update your details. Ten percent of eligible voters, including about fifty percent of 18 year olds, aren't enrolled to vote and even more are yet to update their details. You can do so here.

UPDATE: Ben has pointed out that Bob Hawke has some typically colourful thoughts on Gillard's collusion with public confusion.

Acting in the dark: climate change and the paralysis of novelty

"[B]eing compelled to make decisions in a situation which remains opaque is our basic condition. [...] We find ourselves constantly in the position of having to decide about matters that will fundamentally affect our lives, but without a proper foundation in knowledge."

- Slavoj Žižek, First as Tregedy, then as Farce (London: Verso, 2009), 63.

We nearly always act in situations on incomplete or insecure knowledge. We have to do things before we truly know what they mean. Sometimes, this feeling is more acute than others. How is it possible to get married when one has never experienced making such a promise before? How can one have a child while ignorant of how it will affect your life? How can we baptise those who don't yet really know what the way of the cross entails?

The novelty of these situations is personal rather than social. We marry without personal knowledge of what exclusive lifelong commitment means. Yet we do so on trust since we have witnessed others (perhaps our own parents, perhaps some other role model) who live out the blessings and struggles of this reality before us. We may not have firsthand knowledge of the delights and despair associated with raising a child, but perhaps we are already an uncle, or a cousin, or a godfather or in some way know a little of what this has meant for others.

But what about social actions that are historically novel? How is it possible to will a new social situation that has never before been experienced, not just by me, but by anyone? And how is it possible to make political and social decisions in a situation of incomplete and contested knowledge?

That is exactly where we find ourselves today with climate change. Whether we choose to do nothing (or the equivalent of doing nothing through greenwash and weak agreements) and so continue the novelty of our present carbon experiment, or whether we choose to make widespread and untested changes to our global economy, we cannot but choose historical novelty. Our knowledge, based in the science and our estimations of what is thinkable economically and politically, is far from complete. Scientific models can give some sense of likely climate outcomes, or at least a current best estimation of various risks (which should not be sneezed at). Economic models represent some of our best guesses about the costs of action (and inaction!). Political discussion seeks to find the best solutions that it is possible to implement (though it is important not to shut down the possibility of new possibilities opening up due to radical political action: the abolition of slavery or universal suffrage would have been unthinkable economically and politically without decades of more and less radical protest). But we are still left with educated guesses taken on trust in the individuals and institutions offering them.

This could be paralysing. But it need not be. The stakes are high; the debate is heated and complex. But how is possible to seek the best options without sticking our head in the sand or waiting until our knowledge is complete? What beliefs and practices keep open such a space for careful deliberation under high pressure?

Three reasons why the rest of the world ought to be more like Australia

Jingoistic as it may seem, I really do think that Australia gets many things right when it comes to elections. Having observed the two-year circus of the US elections and had various discussions with a range of international students about their home systems, I think there are at least three slightly unusual elements to the Australian system that are worth preserving (and imitating!):

1. An independent electoral commission
In some countries (most notably the US), electoral boundaries are determined by the government, or a government-appointed board, leading to a phenomenon known as "Gerrymandering", in which electoral boundaries are manipulated for political advantage.

2. Compulsory voting
Jury duty is compulsory, though in certain extenuating circumstances, one may be excused. Voting, as another exercise in civic deliberation, ought to be the same. Compulsory voting removes the huge efforts both sides have to go to in order to "get out the vote" and so frees up more energy for discussion of the issues, since there are not two choices ("Should I vote?"; "For whom should I vote?") but only the latter. Non-compulsory voting disadvantages those with least power over their work situation and can lead to a self-fulfilling feeling of disenfranchisement and political apathy. This is magnified through weekday elections. Australia's elections seem to always happen on a Saturday, which to my mind, makes much more sense.

3. Preferential voting
While people I discuss these issues with are generally hesitant about compulsory voting (until the benefits are explained) and sometimes sceptical about the neutrality of any electoral commission, I am yet to meet someone who is not in favour of preferential voting once it has been explained to them. For those unfamiliar with it, preferential voting means that rather than simply selecting one candidate or party as the recipient of your vote, you are able (or even obliged, in Australian Federal elections, though I think this is a mistake) to rank the candidates according to your preference. When counting votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and his/her votes are redistributed on the basis of their second preferences. This process is repeated (using third, fourth, etc preferences if necessary) until one candidate has a majority. This has the enormous advantage of avoiding the "Ralph Nader" effect, in which a third-party candidate splits the vote of a major party candidate, who ends up losing, even though a majority of the population might have preferred him to the winning candidate. With preferential voting, it is possible to vote for a minor candidate without thereby "wasting" your vote. When combined with compulsory voting, it also ensures that the eventual winner will have been preferred by an absolute majority of eligible voters in the electorate over any other candidate. The only drawback to my mind is that this system is a little more complex and may confuse some voters. I understand that Canada recently tried to introduce preferential voting but the reform was rejected due to fear of it becoming too complex to understand.

UPDATE: Neil has kindly given a further explanation and defence of my three claims. Thanks!

Studying ethics

What do you think of when you hear the word "ethics"? What are the connotations?

As a postgraduate student who is currently meeting a lot of other postgraduate students, after "where are you from?" (which usually means they spoke before I did. If I speak first, then the first question is "are you from Australia?" (or "are you from Australasia?" for the more cautious ones)), the next question is almost always "what are you studying/researching?"

I have experimented with a variety of answers to this question: Divinity, Theology, Theological Ethics, Christian Ethics, Political Theology, Social Ethics, Moral Theology and more. But the only answer that seems to generate further discussion (and nearly always does so) is when I simply say "Ethics". Perhaps the others are too intimidating or simply incomprehensible, but ethics is something that people have an opinion about. And that opinion is frequently: "Why bother?" The study of ethics is seen as superfluous, with little claim to focused attention as a serious intellectual discipline.

Even putting aside a militant scientism that assumes only the natural sciences are genuine forms of knowledge, there seem to be two assumptions that lie behind this common response. The first is that ethics is simply personal: "Isn't it all just a matter of opinion?" In this case the questioner has swallowed the liberal paradigm in which "values" are a matter of personal preference and as such rational discussion or evaluation of one choice as better or worse than another is either trivial (on a par with criticising a preference for chocolate ice-cream) or even mildly offensive (like disparaging someone's fashion sense). As a long-term student (and occasional teacher) of literature, philosophy and theology, this objection and at least a few strategies to answer it are quite familiar: "It's not just opinion, but whether one's opinions are justified."

However, the second assumption has been a little more surprising (though perhaps it ought not to be). A few interlocutors have been audacious enough to claim or imply (and all this within seconds of meeting me) that ethics is peripheral to life: "I put in my ethics reports for my research, and then I have fulfilled my ethical requirements." Ethics is seen as simply a baseline minimum standard of behaviour, which, once satisfied, can be ignored so that life may proceed. I think this too is a result of liberalism. In a liberal society we conceive of ethical responsibilities through the language of rights. These rights are owned by each individual and some/all of them may be traded, exercised or waived by myself and threatened, broken or defended by others. However, such rights only relate to certain areas of life, leaving the rest of existence as an arena of "freedom" (or, to say what amounts to the same thing in other words: of the market).

In this view, most of our decisions have little or nothing to do with ethics, as long as we're not actively hurting someone else. Most of life is amoral. This also means that most of life is off-limits for rational deliberation. We can't decide which is a better or worse option because each option is simply a matter of personal preference (notice the link here with the first response). For whom are you going to vote? Well that's a private matter. Notice how only some political issues are called "moral issues", and they are ones in which someone's rights are at stake. I have discussed the limited range of this kind of rights-language at more length back here.

But this approach leaves ethics on the margins of our daily lives, only relevant in an emergency, like the fire extinguisher on the wall. Someone has to make sure it still works from time to time, and so ethicists are given a grudging acceptance for this basic maintenance. Or perhaps there is also a peripheral role to play in adjudicating line-ball cases, or areas of life that are particularly complex. The proliferation of ethics committees at hospitals is a symptom of this.

However, by reducing the ethical to observing the rights of others, morality is pushed to the margins, and life is lived in an ethical desert, with only an occasional cactus breaking the surface of a vast and featureless "freedom". In frustration, some attempt to plant more cacti, multiplying rights until they are trivialised into the right to do what I want any old time. By speaking only in a single tone of voice, an unconditional demand that my rights be respected, the rights-discourse is unable to resolve claims between competing rights: my right to bear arms vs your right not to be shot; your right to be born vs my right to avoid the complications a baby brings.

One serious challenge to the liberal consensus comes from natural law ethics, most pressingly represented in recent discussion by various streams of environmental ethics. There are simply ways of living that are against nature, and when you live contrary to nature long enough, nature fights back. This approach has the great advantage of irrigating the desert, bringing the life-giving waters of moral responsibility into every area of life so that all kinds of growth flourish until there is a veritable jungle of obligations. Soon we find that everywhere we step is squashing something.

Without denigrating the place of (a certain qualified form of) natural law ethics, my response in these conversations over the last few weeks has been to reach instead for virtue theory: ethics isn't just "do no harm", "violate no rights", but instead keeps asking questions like "who am I becoming?" In the jungle of life, where am I going and how I am getting there?

PhD proposal: the church in social crisis

I have been asked by a few people to post my PhD proposal, if for no other reason than for a good laugh when it morphs into something completely different. I thought this might be an apt way of un-pausing this blog and getting people talking again. Feel free to comment, question, critique, suggest, laugh or award me an honorary doctorate as you see fit.

First, the one paragraph version for those who are time-starved.

“In view of the present distress”
The role of the church in a society in crisisHow does an experience of severe social stress affect the possibilities and dangers faced by the Christian community in its relationship to broader society? Via historical case studies and in dialogue with significant contemporary thinkers, this project will develop a theological perspective integrating insights from ecclesiology, ethics, eschatology and political theology in order to provide suggestions to the contemporary church in its service of and opposition to a society that appears to be entering a time of heightened ecological, economic and cultural distress.

For those with a little more stamina, here is the full proposal (700 words):

“In view of the present distress”
The role of the church in a society in crisisThe church is not immune from the troubles of the various societies amongst which it exists. How does an experience of extreme social stress affect the possibilities and dangers faced by the Christian community? What does it mean for followers of Jesus to be faithful together when the broader society is under dire threat? What scriptural, theological, ethical, emotional or historical resources can the church draw upon at such times?

The scriptural tradition of both testaments records a number of catastrophes for the people of God and the series of social worlds they inhabited. What was the nature and basis of hope-filled response at such times? How did the structure, practices and beliefs of these communities function to sustain or undermine patterns of human social existence?

These questions are of more than idle interest in our own time. One of the defining features of recent decades has been, at least amongst some groups, a growing awareness of the depth and breadth of a range of ecological, social and resource crises facing an increasingly globalised human society. Numerous interconnected factors cumulatively present a grave and urgent threat to society as it currently exists.

While the global extent and technologically-enhanced degree of environmental degradation are a novelty historically speaking, ours is certainly not the first society to face a crisis that threatens the basis of its continued existence. Over the centuries, Christian communities have found themselves amidst societies undergoing rapid change, foreign invasion, sustained economic and cultural decline or even sudden collapse.

And so I would like to pursue my question through a historical lens in order to see what might be gained from a critical investigation into how the church has responded to instances of social crisis and decline in the past. Possible case studies could include one or more of the following: the response of Augustine and others to the fall of Rome in 410 (and/or the broader pattern of decline in the Western empire around this time); the Eastern response to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (and/or the broader pattern of decline in the Eastern empire); various patterns of ecclesiastical response to the Black Death in fourteenth century Europe; or the trajectories of State and Confessing churches in Nazi Germany. In all these instances, although the nature and origin of the threat varied, the Christian community found itself with the opportunity and responsibility to adopt a variety of functions with respect to the ailing society, from palliative care to armed dissent.

A selection of these case studies will provide material for critical reflection, in order to develop a theological perspective on possibilities open to the contemporary church. This theological perspective will be formed and enriched by integrating insights from ecclesiology, eschatology, ethics and political theology. To complement the various historical theologians associated with the case studies (e.g. Augustine, Gregory Palamas, medieval and reformation advice on dealing with plague, Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer), this project will also interact with a selection of contemporary writers with significant contributions to discussions of the role of the church in society. Potentially fruitful interlocutors with whom I am already familiar include: Oliver O’Donovan, Stanley Hauerwas, Miroslav Volf, Rowan Williams, Jürgen Moltmann, N. T. Wright, John Milbank, William Cavanaugh and Bernd Wannenwetsch.

The theological perspective orienting this proposal may be briefly outlined as follows. The gospel of Christ finds its most faithful expression today in hope-filled communities that subvert the idolatry of our cultural obsession with consumption, as well as the growing panic over ecological doom that is its increasingly likely result. Although there may be no divine promise of cultural continuity or even civilizational survival, a community founded upon belief in a divine word and driven by an eschatological hope of resurrection for human life and its entire created environment is able to engage in open-eyed loving service without fear. Christian hope is not otherworldly, yet by giving an origin to hope that transcends the present ecological and social order, believers are liberated to admire, care for, critique and enrich this order as a sign of trust that God’s purposes for his good world are not thwarted by decay.

The practical outcome of this study will include suggestions to the contemporary church in its service, witness and opposition to a society that appears to be entering a time of heightened ecological, economic and cultural distress.

Obviously, this needs quite a bit more narrowing down, since at the moment I've basically said "I'd like to talk about Jesus and stuff, you know, looking at most of church history and anyone I can think of who's still around and talking about what happens when there's a problem."

Since writing the proposal, three further thoughts have helped give it a little more shape. First, I am interested not simply in any old crisis in society (war, famine, pandemic, interest rate rise, celebrity gaining a few kilos), but in a crisis of society, that is, a crisis in sociality, situations in which the fabric of social life is undermined. Second, I think I'd like to look at collective deliberation and resolution, how society discerns and pursues the common good. How is that impeded by the kind of crisis of society I just mentioned and (how) does the gospel (and/or the practices of the church in response to the gospel) shape the possibilities of constructive and creative collective deliberation and resolution? Not that I'm saying that the this is the primary function or purpose of the gospel, but might it be a blessed side-effect? Finally, a few people have expanded my possible case studies, especially with historical and contemporary scenarios from the two-thirds world.

I realise I need to define "crisis" (not to mention "society" and "church"!). I'd love to hear suggestions of books to read, especially if someone has already answered this question.
If you are going to mention the latter, please also supply a replacement topic. Thanks!

O'Donovan on wakefulness IIIa: Resolving

Resolving
This is a summary of the third and final lecture of the 2007 New College lectures, Morally Awake? Admiration and resolution in the light of Christian faith, delivered last week by Professor Oliver O'Donovan. The first was called Waking, the second Admiring (and part two) and this one is Resolving.

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Each area of the good world has its own ethics: bioethics, political ethics, economic ethics, and so on. Yet despite the great variety and complexity of the world (and hence of the descriptive task), all such description is of types and so stays general. But when we ask about our decisions, we deal in and focus upon particulars: ought I do this action, now and under these circumstances? The object of our practical thinking is a future action and is thus, by definition, undetermined. It cannot be described, only resolved upon. In the second lecture, we considered the moral import of the descriptive task. The moral act begins here, but it doesn't end with description. 'Is' must become 'ought'.

Schleiermacher, the great nineteenth century German theologian, was a typical Romantic in that he desired to describe the moral life in terms of innate intuitive duties without reference to rational reflection. This was a stubborn mistake of Romanticism, yet he was onto something more important in his desire to scrutinise moral 'conflict' in order to show that no conflict existed in the final analysis. There are no real dilemmas, simply conceptual confusions or temporal coincidences. For example, I may be asked by my boss to lie and face an apparent conflict between my boss's authority and my duty to be truthful. But I need to realise that my boss's authority doesn't extend to requiring my falsehood.

His concerns have been echoed in the late twentieth century by those ethicists opposed to what they call "decisionism", the tendency to characterise the moral life in terms of decisions, as though the soul's main characteristic was to be divided against itself. But they go too far in denying a place for "decisions"; to cut the soul off from decisions is to cut it off from action. Decision is the soul coming to the point of action. Decision is (literally) the "cutting short" of the natural indeterminacy of thought, closing the question for the sake of practical action. It is not the choice between two options, but the point of resolution (see the end of the first lecture for an illustration of this). Decision does not occur in a vaccuum of thought. Nor is "deliberation" a better term, as it relies on the metaphor of weighing and so places too much emphasis on comparing alternatives and on proportional reasoning.

O'Donovan then spent some time exegeting Romans 12.1-8 as a summons to engage in action. The initial call in verse 1 (present your bodies as a living sacrifice) is far-reaching and requires further specification, which begins with how to think (verse 2). The role of thought doesn't end when admiration ends. Thought has to make the journey from is to ought. We are to distinguish what God wills for us now. Indeed, verse 3 tells us that we need to think about how to think (it is not about how to think about ourselves, as many translations imply, but how to think about thinking). When discussing the act of thinking, Paul uses the Greek verb phronein throughout this passage, which, as in Aristotle, is the verb for practical reason - the ability to reach specific and concrete determinations, judgements about behaviour that will be particular for each of us. This differentiation across the various members of the body of Christ and their differentiated faith leading to different ways of service occupies the rest of the passage (verses 4-8). Each is to follow a practical course of their own, not fitting a general pattern of the age, but a specific one for each, discerning God's will. The renewing of the mind in verse 2 is towards (Greek: eis) the discernment of God's will. The warning in verse 3 is not so much about pride (thinking too highly of oneself), but against overthinking, an inflated view of the self's practical task. We must neither accept the general pattern of the age, nor an inflated estimation of one's own import.

Faith has two sides: faith as belief (linked to the loving knowledge of the world discussed in the previous lecture); and faith as trust, which looks forward in hope. Hope requires imagination, which can be either too dull, or too 'overthought' (having great ambitions but without practicality, mere airy ideals).

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I will finish this lecture (and the whole series) tomorrow. Still to come is a discussion of the relationship between ideals and compromise and then some concluding reflections upon communal action and unity.
Twelve points for correcltly naming the Sydney suburb in which the photo was taken.
Series: I; IIa; IIb; IIIa; IIIb.

O'Donovan on wakefulness IIa: Admiring

Admiring
I will need to be briefer today as I have less time. Last night was also more difficult than Tuesday.

The second lecture was called Admiring and in it, O'Donovan spoke of the human echo to the divine 'behold, it was good'. Moral deliberation begins with observation and ends with obligation. It begins by admiring the goodness of the world and ends by resolving on the rightness of an act. In each case, this lecture sought to address the former, leaving the latter for the third and final address.

In the world are goods to be known and loved. Indeed 'admiration' admirably captures this affective cognition, or cognitive affection, this combination of knowledge and love. Admiring is not an act, it is a resting; the goods which we admire are objective (it would have been interesting to have heard someone press him on cultural construction of goods, but there were enough other interesting things in the lecture that no one did) and so morality is not a way of expressing ourselves or an act of will. Ockham's ontological miserliness needs to be countered by generosity if we are to receive anything in return. That is, whether something is 'good' or not is not an additional property added on later by human will, as though we get to decide and attribute 'values' to things.

Indeed, what we know, we know as good. What we do not know as good, we do not know. Morality doesn't begin after knowledge. Love is there with knowledge from the start. In this, O'Donovan was affirming Augustine's view of evil as privation, as a lack of good (just as darkness is a lack of light and coldness is a lack of heat), rather than as anything 'positive' in its own right. Indeed, O'Donovan's Augustinianism came through very powerfully throughout this talk.

But what about 'bare facts'? Don't we sometimes know things that are themselves value-neutral? Yes, though these are not instances of pure knowledge, purgued of subjective confusion, but of incomplete knowledge, aspects of reality that we do not yet know how to know. Like jigsaw pieces, we can describe their shape, colour and size, but until we know where they fit, we don't know them as something; we don't yet know them for what they are. Such 'objective' knowledge is only knowledge of the surface, ignoring the depth, and can only be sustained for so long.

So moral knowledge is not knowledge of bare facts, because knowledge of bare facts is not real knowledge at all. Neither does the observer disappear in self-forgetful fascination. No, moral knowledge is reflective knowledge that includes knowledge of the self as loving: "love implies love of one's own love" as Augustine said (somewhere).

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I've run out of time and need to head off, even though I haven't yet got to the most interesting material on dread, repentence, conversion, the ordering of loves, gratitude and hope. I'll have to come back to this later.
Fifteen points for correctly naming this natural speleological feature.
Series: I; IIa; IIb; IIIa; IIIb.

O'Donovan on wakefulness I: Waking

Waking
Last night I went to hear Oliver O'Donovan give the first of three lectures on Morally Awake? Admiration and resolution in the light of Christian faith.

This first lecture was entitled Waking and he took as his starting point the eighteenth century Scottish philosopher David Hume's famous paragraph questioning the route from 'is' to 'ought': how do we engage in successful moral reasoning such that our descriptions of the world (what 'is')and ourselves lead us to practical outcomes (what we 'ought' to do)?

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprized to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

- David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, book III, part I, section I.

This, he argued, was not an attempt to articulate what later became known as the fact/value distinction (between bare public facts and private selections of values), but was the first attempt to discuss the difference between the good and the right. What is good is something real about the world that we appreciate or admire; what is right is what we do as a result. We admire the good and resolve to do the right (hence the subtitle of the series; lecture 2 will be on Admiring and lecture 3 on Resolving).

Yet in order to trace a path from the good to the right, it is necessary to employ various metaphors or images: construction, insight, weighing up, making choices (O'Donovan, in keeping with his consistent anti-voluntarist agenda, was very critical of this last option). Although we may usually and casually switch images as suits the moment, at points, the metaphor we use is crucial. O'Donovan suggested that a key scriptural metaphor in this regard is wakefulness. Although in the Old Testament, the image is often used of God waking up and taking action, in the New, it is assumed that God is awake, he has acted. And so Jesus and the apostles frequently encourage believers to watch out or be alert (e.g. Matthew 24:42-43; Mark 13:37; 14:37-38; Luke 12:15, 38; 17:3; 21:36; Acts 20:28; Galatians 6:1; Philippians 3:1-3; 1 Timothy 4:16; 2 John 1:8). Although in Ephesians 5.14 waking is used of conversion, usually the image speaks of staying awake. We can't presume to be awake; we must be attentive to staying attentive.

And this attention is oriented in three directions: the world, the self and time.

First, we must be awake to the world, to the contextual framework that surrounds our existence, which precedes (and presumably postdates) our existence. It is possible to drift through the world inattentively, thinking it is a screen for my projections, and so fail to notice, or notice in only a fragmentary and fleeting manner. How we describe objects in our experience is itself part of moral deliberation: is a foetus a human being or a collection of tissue? To attend to the world responsibly means to avoid imposing our desires, assuming that how we want things to be is actually the way they are. This attention is not easy or straightforward. But failure to attend to how things are, to 'mistake' one thing for another (I thought you were an economic unit; little did I know that you were a human being with dignity and worth) is not innocent. Such inattention is culpable, and according to Augustine, is the basic human sin (the basic angelic sin is pride). Thus, the line between moral and theoretical reason does not lie between prescriptive versus descriptive language. To describe is already a moral act.

Second, we must be awake to ourselves. Although experimental disciplines practice a form of self-abnegation, this only makes sense within a larger self-awareness, a desire to avoid having myself as observer interfere with the object under observation. Attention is active, we need to look. And so to be aware of oneself as attentive is to be aware of oneself as active, as a force in the world, to find oneself as an agent in the world with distinct, albeit limited, responsibility. The failure to attend to ourselves as actors is the sin of sloth, the temptation to withdraw from the agentive self. This may arise from despair, or simply from a carelessness in which we sense ourselves as the suffer of the impositions of others: "Look what you made me do!"

Third, we must be aware of time, as well as the world and the self. I act now. I can reflect on the past and I can imagine the future, but I can only deliberate on the present. Of course memory and foresight are morally significant, but only as they impinge on the present. Moral thinking does not mean making predictions about the future; the moralist has no business with crystal balls. Even the Son doesn't know the day or the hour of that absolute future when the kingdom will come in fullness.

These three orientations help diagnose typical failures in moral deliberation. Attention to the world without attention to the self leads to the observational mode, in which ethics is replaced with social science. Attention to my own powers of agency without attention to the world leads to the technological imperative in which the ends serve the means. Attention to the self and to the world without attention to time leads to idealism, missing the good deeds for this time and place.

This trifold structure can also be related to a more familiar one. Love renews our consciousness of the world; faith renews our knowledge of the self; hope renews our awareness of time and possibility.

In question time O'Donovan was asked about the relationship between wakefulness and the past, prayer, conversion, decision-making, secular moral reasoning and sin. Perhaps the most interesting discussion was about decision-making. Often we understand moral deliberation as if we have an apple in one hand and a pear in the other and it's a toss up as to which we might bite into. Not so. According to O'Donovan, moral deliberation is a process of refining and clarifying in which we realise we have no other choice. The 'decision' is simply to recognise the outstanding candidate, not tossing a coin between two equal options.

The lectures will be are generously available for download in a few weeks now from the New College website.
Eight points for guessing the European city in the pic.
Series: I; IIa; IIb; IIIa; IIIb.

Why Politics? II

Yesterday, I posted the first half of a talk I gave on Friday night at the State Election Forum hosted by my church. Here is the second half.

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But there is another way, as hinted at in our language of public servants and commonweal. Politics can be more than self-interest. Leadership can be about more than lining my own pocket, or having my ego massaged. It is possible for us to deliberate together about the common good, to ask what is best for society, indeed, not just for our nation, but for the whole human community. Such questions are, of course, often very complicated and difficult, and we are likely to often, even usually, reach different conclusions about what is the best course of action. Yet it is possible to elect servants who will represent us - not by simply mirroring the desires of every vocal interest group – but who represent us by being entrusted with the task of making wise judgements about what will serve the common good.

This vision of the common weal, the common good, of the greatest leader being the one who serves, is deeply rooted in Christian assumptions about authority and makes most sense when placed in the context of Jesus’ own example of using his power in service of others. I’d like to finish briefly by offering an answer to the question ‘why politics?’ with which we began.

As a Christian, I bother with politics, I put effort to thinking about how I vote, and take my political involvement beyond voting, because of Jesus second great command: to love my neighbour as myself. The decisions made across the road in the Town Hall, over in Macquarie Street* and down in Canberra affect us all in a huge variety of different ways. While I might feel pretty comfortable and have the luxury of cynicism, thinking that exchanging one set of politicians for another won’t make any difference, my many neighbours in need don’t have that luxury. It is because I trust Jesus that I seek to make a difference for my neighbour. Of course, voting, and formal political involvement is only one aspect of doing that, but it is one that we can’t avoid.
*The NSW Parliament is found in Macquarie Street, hence together with the Leichhardt Town Hall and Federal Parliament in Canberra, these represent the three levels of government in Australia.

I hope that tonight, we have a chance to start deliberating together, thinking about a couple of the issues that face our area and our state. As we do so, I’d like to encourage all of us, whatever our background, to think beyond our own preferences and desires and consider the common good: asking the question, how can I love my neighbour through my politics? This may be slightly scary exercise for some, because the danger is, if I don’t look out for myself, who will? The good news is that we are free to take this dangerous step of thinking more about our neighbour’s need than our own because Jesus has served us all. He has provided everything we truly need. If that’s a foreign idea or even ridiculous idea for you, then come and check it out. Try being part of a Christian community for a while and see whether mutual service makes sense in the light of the one who is the true prime minister.

So, as we start to engage with the issues, with the candidates, with one another, let’s keep asking the question: what will be best for all of us, not just me.
Apologies for the lack of pictures recently. Blogger wasn't letting me upload anything for about a week. Now that it seems to be working again, ten points for the historical figure in the statue down the bottom of the picture.