Tuesdays with Thomas: Aquinas and Aristotle

Here is a link to my newest installment of YouTube videos exploring the thinking of Thomas Aquinas. This week's thrilling episode is on the influence of Aristotle on Aquinas.

The Dark Knight of the Soul

Last week Indiana University celebrated the 40^th anniversary of its undefeated 1976 national

championship men’s basketball team. The players and their families returned to Bloomington to receive the love and appreciation of one of college basketball’s greatest fan bases. And that team certainly deserves adulation. Not only was it the last undefeated college team in NCAA Division One basketball, it could have easily been undefeated for two straight years. One of IU’s stars, Scott May, broke his arm late in the prior season, and that injury most likely cost IU its only loss of the 1975 campaign, a two-point defeat by Kentucky in the NCAA regional finals.

So it was a great night for one of college basketball’s great traditional powers. But someone was missing.

Coach Bob Knight.

If you follow college basketball, you know that IU fired Knight a few months before the start of the 2000-2001 basketball season. In the spring of 2000, a video from one of IU’s practices from several years earlier began circulating, showing Knight grabbing one of his players (Neil Reed) by the throat. As a result, IU president Myles Brand placed Knight on a “zero tolerance” order of no further physical contact with student-athletes. But in September of 2000, an IU student claimed that Knight grabbed him by the arm and scolded him for yelling, “Hey Knight.” That was enough for Brand, and Knight was gone.

Before I say more, I need to offer some “full disclosure” about my feelings toward Bobby Knight. I grew up in Kentucky, and part of that birthright is a love of basketball. In high school I was a manager for our basketball team, and the head coach my first two years was a disciple of Knight in many respects, so I came to learn a lot about the technical side of basketball from him. As a basketball nerd, I fell in love with Knight. I used to love to watch old VHS tapes of his clinics. And I read everything I could about him. A Season on the Brink by John Feinstein, Playing for Knight by Steve Alford (my personal favorite), and the lesser known BobKnight – His Own Man by Joan Mellen.

Not only was Knight a great coach, he was also serious about coaching genuine student-athletes. His kids went to class, they graduated, and they stayed out of trouble. And Knight didn’t cheat, in stark contrast to some of the people involved with my beloved Kentucky Wildcats. And by all accounts, once a player graduated, Knight would do anything he could for him.

So I was a huge fan of Knight. For a long time one of my prized possessions was a letter I received from him in response to a letter I wrote to him expressing my admiration (he answers all the mail he receives from fans). And one of my sports fantasies was to be invited to go fly-fishing with Knight! Needless to say, this love for Knight was much to the chagrin of my fellow Wildcat fans!

Imagine my surprise, then, when after reading Knight’s long awaited autobiography, Knight: My Story, my feelings for him completely changed. And I’m not exactly sure I can pinpoint one reason why. To some extent I suppose it had to do with the way he discussed the Neil Reed controversy. I don’t want to rehash this – you can YouTube for it and decide if you think Knight choked Reed (which is what Reed claimed), grabbed him briefly by the chest (which is what Knight claimed), or grabbed him briefly by the throat (which is what I think happened).

Knight intimates in his autobiography that tape was tampered with (“what was shown was fuzzy and greatly magnified, and unexplainedly blurred in the central area.” p. 312). I don’t buy that for a second. But he was happy to have the tape released, because – as he declares in his autobiography – “I knew it couldn’t do anything but absolve me, because I knew I had never choked anyone” (p. 311).

Except Knight had choked someone, and told the story himself, and thought the story was funny.

In Bob Knight – His Own Man, Knight recounts an episode with a player he coached at West Point named Schrage. Schrage missed a free throw, which Army rebounded.

I call time, and I have him by the throat. I can remember my fingers slipping off his Adam’s apple or I would have killed him. I had his shirt in my fist in the time-out and I said,

“I want to tell you something. Some day do you want to be a ____ general?

“Yes Sir.”

“You’ve got no chance being a ____ second lieutenant if you shoot that ______ one more time. Do you understand?” (p. 102)

If Knight was willing to tell a story about choking a player to the point he could feel his Adam’s apple – and think it is funny! – I have a hard time imagining that Knight did not put his hands on his players many times. The reality is that in previous generations, coaches were often verbally and physically abusive to players, and no one thought anything of it. I’m not saying this to defend or excuse any abuse, but just to provide a context for what coaches like Knight did. I  must say that I never saw a coach do what Knight did in the video with Reed, but I am sure some of you have.

The point is that rather than just simply say, “Yes, I grabbed Neil Reed in a moment of anger, and I realize that grabbing a kid even near the throat is not a great move,” Knight couldn’t do that. And if there is one trait that emerged in the course of reading his autobiography, it was the abiding belief that Knight always knows just a little bit more than anyone else. And if that is what you think, then admitting you are wrong is the most difficult thing in the world.

But none of this is the main point of this post (hey I’m a preacher and I love basketball, so I tend to go on once I get started!). The main point has to do with bitterness, with the poison of resentment, and the darkness it brings to the soul.

Because Knight was so famous, when he was terminated by IU, he undoubtedly felt a keen sense of painful and public humiliation. And considering how much he had done for the university, he must have felt betrayed as well. No one likes to be fired. It is a deeply wounding experience, especially when you feel like you have poured your heart into the job, only to be treated unfairly from your point of view.

But that was sixteen years ago. And despite the fact that many officials from IU repeatedly asked him to come to the celebration last week, despite the desire of his players for him to return and share with them in the amazing record they accomplished, and despite the loyal affection of the majority of IU fans, Knight refused to return to Bloomington.

Though from a Christian point of view it is unhealthy to nurse personal grudges, I can understand why Knight would still be angry with Myles Brand and Neil Reed (both of whom have tragically passed away). But neither those two individuals, nor even the handful of trustees that agreed to the decision to fire him, are the entirety of the Indiana University basketball tradition. That legacy represents the dozens of staff and administrators, the hundreds of players, and the thousands of fans, who have converged to make IU great, and by refusing to overcome his bitterness against a few, Knight has severed himself from so many who wish to embrace him.

Maya Angelou once wrote, “Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.” And just as cancer diminishes the body, bitterness shrivels the soul. It is a sad spectacle to observe the coach I once idolized disintegrate before my very eyes.

Proverbs 14:10 says, “The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy.” Only Bob Knight truly knows what it is going on in his heart. It seems to me that someone who prides himself on being so tough has in fact succumbed to one of the greatest weaknesses of all. But he doesn’t have to answer to me. The main thing here is for me (and for you) to constantly be on guard against the insidious and suicidal temptation of bitterness.

Tuesdays with Thomas - Introduction

About a year-and-a-half ago I discovered the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and I haven't been the same since! And to spare my wife's sanity, rather than pestering her with late-night questions about Aquinas, I have opted for a different outlet - YouTube videos. From time to time I would like to share some things I have learned from my study of Aquinas with you. "But why bother studying a 13th century monk?' you ask. Good question! That's what this video is all about. 

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

This week a professor at Wheaton College (a conservative evangelical school) was suspended for stating that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Is she correct? The answer to this question is complicated. 

The Problem of Evil - Proof or Puzzle?

Many of you know that my wife has cancer. Her long-term prognosis is not great, but the most recent scan we had shows that the chemotherapy is reducing the size of her tumors, and we are very thankful. We are keenly aware that many other cancer patients received bad news this week, and are suffering terrible physical and emotional pain from this horrible disease.

The reality of pain and suffering – whether caused by diseases like cancer, disasters like tsunamis, or inhumanities like murder – is a great challenge to faith. The psalmist Asaph says his faith faltered as he “saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Psalm 73:2-3). In the midst of his anguish, Job complained about God’s seeming indifference: “It is all one; therefore I say, He destroys both the blameless and the wicked” (Job 9:22). And even the Lord Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46, quoting Psalm 22:1).

Philosophers refer to the difficulty in reconciling the existence of suffering with the existence of God as the problem of evil. To state the argument in its classical formulation, it goes like this:

Premise 1: Evil exists.

Premise 2: If God was all-powerful, He could prevent the existence of evil.

Premise 3: If God was all-good, He would prevent the existence of evil.

Conclusion: Therefore God does not exist.

What are we to make of this argument? Christians accept the first premise – evil does indeed exist. And Christians agree with the second premise – God is all-powerful, and He could prevent the existence of evil. But what about the third premise – that if God was all-good He would have prevented the existence of evil? This is the key contention, and it is the one that I want to focus on in a moment.

Israel and the Church

Recently I posted a response to an article defending Christian Zionism. Some of you who read that article may have encountered terms that you had never seen before, and felt like you were walking into the middle of a very confusing conversation. So I wanted to take some time to define as simply as I can (hopefully without being unfair) the basic terms I discussed in that article.

While Zionism is a broad term, it refers to a set of movements that hold in common the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland in the ancient land of Israel. Religious versions of Zionism believe that this right is divine, and that the modern state of Israel is the inheritor of God’s promises of a homeland for Abraham’s offspring. Christian Zionists believe that God maintains a special commitment to ethnic Israel, as distinct and separate from the church.

Most Christian Zionists are adherents to a theological system known as dispensationalism. This doctrine derives its name from the belief that God has worked through very different ages or dispensations of history, sharply distinguished from one another. But the essence of dispensationalism is the belief that Scripture should always be interpreted literally. This means that when the Old Testament makes promises about the nation of Israel, those promises must be fulfilled literally in ethnic, fleshly Israel. Therefore, the age of Israel is to be sharply distinguished from the age of the church, and the promises made to Israel cannot apply to the church.

I appreciate the motivation behind the desire to interpret Scripture literally. Dispensationalism emerged in a time when theological liberalism sought to explain away the miracles of Jesus as nothing more than parables. By superimposing on the gospels a bias against the possibility of the supernatural,  liberalism distorted the clear historical claims of Christianity. Ironically, by superimposing its own grid of “literal” interpretation on the Bible, dispensationalism likewise distorts the clear teaching of the New Testament.

The issue is not whether God has made certain promises regarding Israel and the land. The issue is, how did God fulfill those promises? We could answer this question by assuming that the only possible way God could fulfill them was literally – with reference to ethnic Israel and the geographical entity called Palestine. But from a Christian point of view, we must let Jesus and the apostles explain to us how God fulfilled those promises. And what the New Testament consistently teaches is that God has redefined and expanded “Israel” to include all of those - whether ethnic Jews or Gentiles – who are in Christ. And, God has redefined and expanded the “the promised land” to include a whole new creation, “a new heaven and earth.”

With regard to “Israel,” Paul says that all of those who have faith like Abraham and are baptized into Christ become “Abraham’s offspring,” whether Jew or Gentile (Galatians 3:26-29). For this reason, Peter takes an entire series of descriptions of Israel from the Old Testament – terms like “chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation” – and applies them to Christians, regardless of ethnic identity (1 Peter 2:9-10). And this is precisely what Jesus envisioned, many coming “from east and west” to dine with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 8:11).

Christian Zionists disagree, and often describe the position I just laid out as “replacement theology,” the idea that the church has replaced Israel. Another term that is often used in theological circles is supersessionism, the notion that the church has superseded (supplanted) Israel. This terminology easily leads to caricatures, like the following claims from the article to which I replied:

• ·     “the Incarnation was supposed to turn the focus away from Israel” 
• ·      “no longer would God be concerned with the Jews”
• ·      “Israel has been left behind”

But of course these statements are completely false. Jesus came in the flesh to save Israel (Matthew 1:21), and sent the disciples to teach the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6). God is most certainly concerned with the Jews, as he is with all people (Romans 10:1), and God has not rejected ethnic Israel in blanket fashion (Romans 11:1). That is why many theologians who reject Zionism and dispensationalism nevertheless also reject the terms “replacement theology” or “supersessionism.” Those terms are easily misconstrued. I prefer the term expansionism.

Maybe all of these “isms” are still confusing! Here’s an illustration I hope will help. Dispensationalism says that God has constructed two houses: first he built Israel, and then he built the church along side of Israel. Supersessionism says that God built one house – Israel, tore it down, and replaced it with another house – the church. But expansionism says that God built one house – Israel, and then remodeled it. This “remodeling” involved the removal of some parts of the house, along with the addition of other rooms to the house. The result of this remodeling is still Israel, but Israel expanded – the church.

It seems to me that this exactly the picture Paul gives to us in his own illustration of the olive tree in Romans 11:17-24. Israel is the olive tree. Some branches were broken off because of unbelief. Others, which he identifies as the Gentiles, were grafted in. And those who were broken off in unbelief may once again be grafted back in. ONE tree, pruned and augmented for sure, but still one tree. Other illustrations make the same point: there is one body (Ephesians 2:11-18), one temple (Ephesians 2:19-22), one offspring of Abraham (Romans 4:9-12; Galatians 3:26-29).

In contrast to dispensationalism and supersessionism, there is both continuity and discontinuity between Israel and the church. There is discontinuity in the sense that ethnic heritage is no longer the defining point of entry into God’s “Israel” – faith in Christ is. But there is continuity in the sense that it is still Abraham’s family.

This same concept of redefinition and expansion is true of the “promised land.” The New Testament takes the promises of a new land and temple and applies them to the glorious eternal dwelling of God with his people in the “new heavens and earth” in Revelation 21-22. While this may run counter to the “literal” matrix of interpretation, we must ultimately yield to the way the inspired writers of the New Testament inform us of how God intends to keep his promises.

In Ephesians 5 Paul uses the relationship of marriage as a model of that of Christ and the church. He calls this a “mystery,” which earlier in Ephesians he says describes the relationship of Jews and Gentiles together in one body through the gospel (Ephesians 3:6). By insisting on special privileges for ethnic Israel, Christian Zionism pulls apart this unity that Christ achieved in making Gentiles fellow heirs with Israel. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.

The Impassibility of God - a Review of Thomas Weinandy's Does God Suffer?

Review: Does God Suffer?

By Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap. (Notre Dame: 2000).

The classical view of God defended for most of church history by

thinkers such as the early church fathers, later theologians like Aquinas, and reformers like Calvin and Arminius, was that God is impassible. This means that God does not experience changes of emotional states. But in recent times, this doctrine has come under sharp criticism by theologians of varied backgrounds.

Catholic theologian Thomas G. Weinandy’s book, Does God Suffer?, is a robust defense of the classical doctrine of impassibility. As he explains in the preface, his desire is to refute erroneous arguments made against the doctrine, and to present a positive view of God in light of this teaching. I think he succeeds on both counts.

In this review I will survey each chapter of Weinandy’s book and summarize his arguments. But before I do that, since the concept of impassibility may be foreign to many readers, I want to take just a moment to clarify what exactly this teaching means. But first, we need to understand some more basic ideas about God and language.