I wonder...

I've been blogging for close to five years now, and I am starting to wonder if it is worth my while. Originally, I intended to use my blog as an opportunity to keep my writing sharp while I prepared for seminary. I do think it was helpful in that regard. However, now that I'm in a PhD program, I find myself having less time and less of a desire to blog.

My thinking on this is threefold:

First, blogging in general is dangerous. It is easy to publish stuff without a great deal of thought. This really came home to me this past week. I watched people publish inappropriate material and have it hurt them or other people. Inappropriate material comes in all forms and types. It is not just the "rants" that I am thinking of right now. I am also thinking of sandbagging other scholars without reading their books, publishing material that was not intended to be public, etc. Because there is no peer review process, it is simply too easy to do this sort of thing, and once it is out there with your name on it, it's out there.

Imagine a future employer googling your name and discovering one of your less careful posts. I've seen this sort of thing happen.

Second, academic blogging can also be dangerous. Once you have put your ideas out there, anyone can pick them up and claim them as their own. This is why I have become more and more reticent about publishing my thoughts on the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, etc. I may want to use some of my work in my dissertation, but if I put it out there ahead of time, it is possible that someone might steal my idea. I know I sound paranoid, but I think caution is in order.

Third, I have become somewhat cynical about blogging. Many bloggers (myself included) can easily develop an inflated sense of scholarly worth based on sub-par work ("Hey everyone! Look how many hits I got on that post! I must be amazing!"). Similarly, much that passes as blogging is basically a modified form of academic narcissism ("I did this today... I read this..."). I wonder how many people really want to know what I've been reading.

Perhaps I am being too hard on the medium, but I am seriously considering putting my blog to bed. If anyone has any thoughts/arguments on why I should continue blogging, feel free to comment. I haven't officially decided yet, but I am leaning towards stopping.

continue reading I wonder...

Dooyeweerd, Derrida, (and Vanhoozer... Sort of)

The other day I was rereading some of Herman Dooyeweerd's Prolegomena to his A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, when I came across Dooyeweerd's most famous paragraph (trust me, it's worth it to read beyond the fold!):

"This universal character of referring and expressing, which is proper to our entire created cosmos, stamps created reality as meaning, in accordance with its dependent non-self-sufficient nature. Meaning is the being of all that has been created and the nature even of our selfhood. It has a religious root and a divine origin." (I:4)

Given that I've also been reading Kevin Vanhoozer's discussion of Derrida (in his Is There a Meaning in This Text?), I find this paragraph more striking than ever. While deconstructionism is busy suggesting that everything is a text subject to the vicissitudes of interpretation (and thus always lacks meaning), Dooyeweerd (who, incidentally, agrees with post-modernity about the naivete of Enlightenment epistemologies) begins his work with an appeal to God as the source of all meaning. I find this very telling. For Dooyeweerd the cosmos itself is inherently meaningful because God has spoken it into existence. Likewise, reality is stamped with dependence. Apart from God's activity, reality lacks existence and meaning. Because of this divine origin, Dooyeweerd can presuppose the meaningfulness of being and of writing because there is something (Dooyeweerd would say, "Someone") beyond the boundaries of created reality.

Vanhoozer has commented time and again in his book on how deconstructionism begins with the assumption that God, and thus the "author," is dead. As a result deconstructionists complain that any attempt to find "meaning" in a text via the "author" is nothing more than a power play. Indeed, to the deconstructionist any attempt to differentiate between a "good" reading or a "bad" reading of a text is inherently oppressive and authoritarian. Readers (in this view) should be allowed to play freely with a text, creatively constructing their own meaning.

Now, at a certain level, I can sympathize (and even agree) with the deconstructionists' point, but at another level, this all feels like a teenage temper tantrum to me: "How dare you tell me what to do! You're destroying my life with all of your rules! What right do you have to come in here and tell me how to live my life?" I'm not trying to trivialize someone like Derrida's concerns, but every now and then all the talk about getting rid of the "authoritarian author" strikes me as a tad childish. I realize that if there is no God left in the universe, then there can be no final arbiter of interpretation. Yet, if one starts with the assumption of God's initial and continual creative activity, it is hard not to conclude that certain aspects of deconstructionism (nota bene: I said "CERTAIN" aspects) are little more than an expression of fallen humanity's resistance to submission to the Divine Author.

In summary, then, it would seem that a philosophical system like Dooyeweerd's would stand directly opposed to some of the central assumptions of deconstructionism.

continue reading Dooyeweerd, Derrida, (and Vanhoozer... Sort of)

Luther's works...

Today I picked up the 4 volume set of the Selected Writings of Martin Luther (1517-1546) edited by Theodore Tappert and published by Fortress Press for $10 at Half Priced Books here in Ft. Worth! Talk about a deal! While I'm not a Lutheran, I think that this should be a fine investment.

continue reading Luther's works...