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The Week

The Week, January 11-17, 2015

Creativity, apologetics, Milosz, and (a little) more

Vision
Openness vs. Privacy: Internet Privacy
Recent revelations about NSA monitoring of our communications has brought to light what Jamie Bartlett refers to as the cyber wars, the struggle between libertarians and government agencies over what should be the proper degree of openness on the Internet (“Cover of darkness,” Aeon, 14 January 2015). Mr. Bartlett has some sympathy toward each side, those who are creating software and other means to avoid detection and those who want tight control of the web. Yet, he writes, “For all the benefits of online anonymity, it is not an absolute right. There should not be parts of the internet that are entirely beyond the reach of the law enforcement, any more than we should accept similar zones of anarchy offline.” I think he’s right in saying that democratic governments need to exercise some control over what goes on the web, as in other areas of communication: “We all should have the right to be anonymous online if we wish, just as we can offline. We should be free to use Tor, to use fake accounts and pseudonyms, anonymising operating systems, encryption, and so on. But democratically elected governments should have the capability and legal right to break that anonymity if it is necessary and proportionate (and if there is a good legal system and regulation to ensure that these powers are not misused).” Lots of qualifications here, but they need to be worked out if our vision of a free society is to be one of a safe and (relatively) moral one as well. The consequences, on the Internet, of every man being free to do what seems right in his own eyes are no more promising today than the same system was during the days of the Judges.
http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/will-online-anonymity-win-out/?


Disciplines
Apologetics 
We can only be effective in reasoning with unbelievers when we stand on our own truth, as revealed in God’s Word, and refuse to give ground to any claims of true knowledge on the part of unbelievers. Take the argument from consciousness, a particularly troubling notion for naturalists. Nathaniel Gray Sutanto does a good job showing why the “common sense” approach to arguing the existence of God from the fact of consciousness cannot be persuasive for anything other than a god or some god, but not the God of the Bible (“Covenantal Apologetics and Common-Sense Realism: Recalibrating the Argument from Consciousness as a Test Case,” JETS, December 2014). Fallen people all know God, and if we do not begin our defense of the faith on that point, but instead assume we must first prove God’s existence via the use of “neutral” reason, we betray the teaching of Scripture concerning God, man, and reason. How can that lead us to where we want to go? Mr. Sutanto looks to Cornelius Van Til to suggest a more Biblical approach to defending the faith from the fact of human consciousness. He offers some very helpful thoughts about apologetical theory. And, while the article does not have much to say about the day-to-day practice of apologetics – and thus is typical of what we see from many Van Tillians – still, this is a good example of why a Biblical apologetic must always be preferred over one that takes as its starting-point the mind or experience of men.

Outcomes
Creativity
It may well be that creativity is the defining human trait. According to Kirsten Weir, creativity is what humans do that sets them apart (“To Be More a Creative, Cheer Up,” Nautilus, January 15, 2015). This is especially true with those people who lead the way in innovation. Creativity is nurtured by two particular disciplines: “Above all, though, two personality traits tend to show up again and again among innovative thinkers. Unsurprisingly, openness to new ideas is one. The other? Disagreeableness.”  These are not so much “personality traits” as disciplines, it seems to me, since they can be learned and developed. Creativity is practiced through for steps or stages: “For decades, creativity researchers have generally thought of the process in terms of four basic steps. Step one is preparation. Painters need to understand something about color and form; composers have to know how to read music. Sorry, no shortcuts. After preparation comes incubation. During this step, ideas meander through your brain’s neural networks, bumping into other ideas to combine in interesting ways. When the right ideas collide, you experience step three: illumination. This is the light bulb coming on, the fabled Aha! moment. The fourth and final step is verification. This is creativity’s logical bit—the critical thinking component in which you figure out if the idea has legs.” Since we can learn to be creative, and can improve creativity through practice, ought we not to seek it more than we typically do? Especially those of us who understand that humans are creative because we are the image-bearers of our creative God?
http://nautil.us/issue/20/creativity/to-be-more-creative-cheer-up 

Art and Philosophy
By a strange and pleasant circumstance I find myself reading Czeslaw Milosz’ The Land of Ulro. Milosz is primarily remembered as a poet – and a very good one – but his prose is also worth reading. I’m thinking of The Captive Mind, primarily, but I’m finding this current read to be equally fascinating. In it Milosz traces his development as a poet, explaining the people, times, and other influences that shaped his thinking and craft. The Land of Ulro is a series of reflections and meditations, by means of which Milosz, like Augustine in composing On the Trinity, sorts out his understanding of why he wrote what he did, railing against the grain of modernism and striving to keep open the veil that separates the temporal from the eternal. This thought rocked me to the depths of my soul: “The degree to which a work of art is of extraliterary importance is determined by the power of a given author’s philosophy, that is, by the passion with which it is engaged with ultimate things, resulting in an extreme tension between the art and the thought.” For “art” substitute “life,” for “extraliterary” substitute “more than merely personal,” for “philosophy” substitute “worldview,” and for “ultimate things” substitute “Christ and His Kingdom.” Meditate on that, take a deep breath, and then let yourself weep.

Envoi
Constantine

“In this sign conquer.” So he did,
and persecution ended.
But peace from Christian leaders hid
the price of a world befriended.

T. M. Moore

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Books by T. M. Moore

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