Angels in the Architecture "The Font of Laughter"

How important is laughter to the Christian life? According to Wilson and Jones, it is central. Why, then, are so many Christians found to be dour, stern looking folks? Wilson and Jones suggest it may be because they do not understand Christianity.
We must state at the outset that Wilson and Jones are, as I am, reformed in their soteriology and therefore in their view of the Christian worldview. Much of this essay derives its chief argument from a reformed understanding of the doctrines of predestination and total depravity.
As Christians, we often think our total depravity or predestination are difficult things to be resigned to. You mean, I am really that bad? Huh. You mean to say I can't do anything to save myself? Huh. What a drag.
On the contrary, argue Wilson and Jones. What a cause for rejoicing. "Congratulations Mr. Sisk, you just survived a fall of three hundred feet because someone put this inflated thing-a-ma-bob under you." "I was that high up! Man, I'll spend the rest of my life being downcast about how high up I was and what would have happened to me."
Wrong! Spend the rest of your life rejoicing that the inflated thing-a-ma-bob was put under you for your salvation. Laugh about it for heaven's sake.
Laughter is the proper response to our salvation because of predestination and total depravity, not in spite of those things.

Angels in the Architecture "Where Righteousness and Mercy Kiss"

It has been awhile since I blogged a essay in Angels in the Architecture, but I'm going to try to get back into this. I am teaching through the book in my Humanities class right now, so I'm having to read the essays again.
In this essay, Doug Jones discusses the doctrine of Justification. No real shock there, since when do Protestants not talk about Justification? But Jones comes at this from a slightly different angle. Jones rehashes the issues separating Protestant Justification from Roman catholic Justification. He argues, however, that Roman Catholic Justification, aside from being Scripturally wrong, is philosophically wrong as well. Only the Protestant vision of Justification keeps God's attributes of Righteousness (Justice) and Mercy from warring against each other. Any system that elevates either of these two over the other makes for a lop-sided Justification and fails to do God justice, so-to-speak.
To simply forgive sin without punishment would indeed be merciful, but would leave justice unsatisfied. To punish sin wholly and immediately would be just, but would lack mercy. Roman Catholicism keeps these two at odds while the Protestant doctrine of Substitionary Atonement and Vicarious Sacrifice leading to Justification by Faith satisfies both requirements.
Why must God be just, you may ask? Because it is a self-proclaimed attribute of His holiness (cf. Neh. 9:32-33). Why must God then be merciful? God, Himself, declares this to be an attribute as well (cf. Ex. 34:6-7). Righteousness and Mercy must kiss for true Justification to happen. Only the Protestant vision of this Justification satisfies the demands of a holy and merciful God.

Addendum to Positively Medieval blog entry

As I began teaching through this book, I realized something I didn't catch the last time through. A significant portion of Wilson and Jones's argument is that the Reformation cut the medieval conversation short. However, what I did not pick up on before is the suggestion that we normalized the way of life dictated by reacting to and living through the Reformation.
Think with me, if you will, of the other end of the medieval period, say, the Edict of Milan. There were essentially two reactions to the Edict of Milan. Monasticism was one reaction. Some Christians said to themselves, "It is not living for Christ if I cannot be killed for being a follower of Christ anymore, so I'll go off into the desert and live a hermit's life and deprive myself of all worldly fellowship and community." The other response was to emerge from the catacombs and instead of remaking Christian culture in the image of the catacombs, taking the best of the culture around them and putting it to good use. Churches and cathedrals were soon built, massive structures given over to the worship of the triune God.
Wilson and Jones are, to some extent, arguing that we descendants of the Reformation have been living in the desert. We decided to normalize the experience of the Reformation and reject anything, ANYTHING, that looked at all like it could have been used by Roman Catholicism. Thus we have protestants who reject infant baptism, vestments, ornate buildings, music in worship, wine in communion, a clear liturgy, and all sorts of other things that have little to nothing to do with the errors of Roman Catholic theology.
What we should have done, I guess, is correct the theology of the Roman Catholic Church and examine with a clear mind whether the rest of it was a abuse of corrupted theological thinking, or simply the conquest of culture that the church is called to.

Angels in the Architecture "The Emerging Divide"

The Emerging Divide is really an excellent essay on the most basic, most fundamental, most lasting divide that has ever existed: the Antithesis between the City of God and the City of Man. Taking his cue from Athanasius and Augustine (the latter’s famous City of God should be required reading in high school medieval courses), Jones paints a picture of modernity as one which has totally ignored and forgotten that an antithesis to anything is anywhere. He draws us firmly back to the fact that God draws an antithesis from the moment that sin entered the world and it will be with us, and will war against us, until Christ returns triumphant at the end of history.
Jones spends a good deal of time in apologetic for the medieval mind. He argues that they really were antithetical thinkers, even though modern history tends to present them as synthesizers of pagan and Hellenistic thought. He admits that there were some poor choices made by the medieval like Aquinas, but points to the fact that at least they understood to draw the line between Aristotle and Plato and that they had pretty darn good reasons for doing so. Plato was so anti-material that they felt Aristotle would be much better. They were wrong on many accounts, but at least they drew a line. Most modern Christians, Jones says, “fail to draw any line at all, synthesizing their thought with anything pagan that hops along” (55).
In the world of synthesis, we are masters. We are particularly masters of synthesizing with science. Science, Jones says, is the “Enlightenment idol” which has “gripped and throttled orthodoxy for two centuries” (55). The amusing thing is that science is so bad at what it does in the long term that if anyone bothered to consider the track record of science, the results would be laughable.

If we think in terms of centuries and millennia, few other disciplines turn inside-out so flippantly and quickly as the natural sciences. (55)

A more mature mind, Jones argues, would not be quite so hasty to call a thing knowledge. While I think he is stretching things a bit to suggest that nothing was called more than a firm belief until it had stood for two thousand years, he is certainly right that we do not give things time to steep and simmer before dragging them out and showing them off. I am always amused by the pharmaceutical industry and the commercials they dream up. What really (and sadly) amazes me though is how three months later the drug was being recalled because it causes people to grow extra ears inside their stomach and other such hideous things. If the pharmaceutical companies had waited a good ten years and conducted real tests we wouldn’t be in this mess, but then they would have lost all those profits. Yes, folks; science is run by profit as well.
The antithesis is really the most important thing to keep in mind while reading this book. What antithesis did the medieval draw? What antithesis do we moderns draw?

Angels in the Architecture "Te Deum"

Te Deum reads more like a commentary on Beowulf than an essay that fits in this collection; which is why it is one of the best in the book. Wilson, begins with an excellent statement about how limited our language is in describing God or His attributes. This is an excellent point to make, especially in our time. We have begun to assume some of the scientific mindset of our age and falsely believe that if we can name an attribute or doctrine we can fully comprehend that attribute or doctrine. Wilson draws us back to the truth of historical theology, something the medieval theologians and poets had a better grasp of than we moderns, that description is necessarily limited and does no justice to reality in the long run. Even the Westminster Divines understood this. While they took great pains to describe the nature and character of God:

There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. (WCF 2.1)

They understood they could not even begin to fully describe Him and that even the Scriptures were unclear in one way or another, being bound by human (created) language:

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them. (WCF 1.7)

From this discussion on the limits of language, Wilson suggests that we might understand the character of God and His divine attributes a little better if we listened to the language of poetry. While poetry is often imprecise (a topic we will cover again in the essay on Poetic Knowledge) it expresses the truth in more understandable ways. Consider the language of hymns, which are essentially poetic. Not only poetry, but he suggests the poetry and language of the North Sea region will be helpful in thinking through our own limitations and needs in describing the goodness and glory of God.

It is Wilson’s hope that the language and culture of the Beowulf writer will remind us of the essential medieval qualities that will help us repent of our modernity in the arena of theology. A healthy dose of medieval protestant theology is what is needed in the modern world.

Angels in the Architecture "A Wine Dark Sea and Tumbling Sky"

Like many others, I first gave serious consideration to the holiness of God after reading R.C. Sproul’s book on the subject. I also watched a video series on the subject. I remember being struck by the comprehensiveness of that attribute. The idea that God’s holiness is so pervasive and so complete that not even the angelic creatures can “fully bear that sight” was unimaginable. This first real essay calls us back to a proper understanding of God’s holiness as “the manifestation of all His attributes in all their splendor.” What a great way to put that! But Wilson doesn’t just want an academic contemplation of God’s holiness. He wants a practical application of the doctrine. Specifically to our understanding of beauty.

In short, while beginning with God’s holiness, as I am becoming more and more convinced everything should, the chapter is really about a return to an objective, universal, and invariant doctrine of beauty. Wilson actually says that sound doctrine should include a love of the beautiful.

What is beauty? Where does it come from? In the throes of modernity we have come to accept as gospel truth the maxim “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” What rubbish! And yet, it is difficult to get around the differing ideas of beauty and taste. How can I say that your love of green apples is doctrinally flawed while my love of red apples is orthodox? This isn’t really what the Bible teaches about beauty. When the Bible considers beauty it does so in contrast to the pagan notions of beauty. While we offer living sacrifices to God out of our gratitude for salvation, the pagans offered their babies to the fire and their daughters to prostitution. Which is more beautiful? While Bezalel fashioned the ark of the covenant and the implements for the worship of the living God, we have “artists” who stick a crucifix in a jar of urine and go on about their right of free speech to do it, and isn’t it clever?

While I need to think more about the standards of beauty to come to grips with what they say, I have no doubt that there are such standards. Wilson is right. Our sense of beauty, like our sense of truth is derivative, not originative. We live by presupposition. This must affect our aesthetic as well. I haven’t worked it all out, but I know it works. Wilson points to two basic responses we, as modern evangelicals, typically have to this.

“The modern evangelical either says that our aesthetic vision should be borrowed from the world, or … we must be content with no beauty at all.”

This is no way to live. Art is to reflect the glory of the living God as we are to reflect the glory of the living God. God is the first and greatest artist, and we (as well as creation) are His handiwork. We are some of the first pieces of art. Let us bask in the freedom this allows.

Angels in the Architecture - Introduction "Positively Medieval"

Wilson begins the book with an introductory essay and posits a medieval / modern antithesis. He admits it may be odd, but says it is important to flesh out the Christian worldview and “Christian medievalism” is the best way to flesh out that story. The essays that follow cover subjects ranging from predestination, lovemaking, feasting, and agrarianism.

The obvious question for Wilson and Jones is how to define modernity and medievalism? Modernity is the current shape of the world, with all its sterility and loneliness. Modernity is whatever rejects truth, beauty, and goodness. This is why postmodernism is simply the child or grandchild of modernity, according the Wilson and Jones. The rejection of these categories means little until we recognize what they replace them with. Rationalism and sentimentalism are the virtues that modernity puts in the place of truth, beauty, and goodness. Modernity is the Enlightenment lived out to the n^th degree. It is a world without feeling, only sentimentalism. It is world without love, only cold rationalism. Medievalism, on the other hand, is the fullness of truth, beauty, and goodness and all the things that go with them. Wilson says,

“The medieval period is the closest thing we have to a maturing Christian culture.”

This maturing culture was cut short in the 16^th century by none other than the Reformation and the Enlightenment. While the Reformation was cut of the same cloth as medievalism, neither survived the Enlightenment very well. The Reformation was a revolution of sorts and revolutions always call for some serious calls to be made. Shipwreck survivors must make some very serious decisions about life and death in the immediate wake of the wreck that do not necessarily reflect how they would live normally. But the situation determines the actions. This is not a call for or an endorsement of situational ethics. No one can do anything immoral in the wake of a shipwreck or plane crash and call it OK because of the wreck. The situation never justifies the choice, but it can reasonably inform the choice. Luther and Calvin and the others made some societal and cultural choices to distance themselves from Roman Catholicism so much that their descendents mistook the emergency decision for the proscribed norm and made it normative for the resulting group.

But the true test between medievalism and modernity is the appeal of the story. Which has a better tale to tell? Would you rather hear the tale sitting before a roaring fire in a Danish Mead Hall with a mug of dark brew or in a cold, sterile restaurant on 5^th Ave in New York while you daintily sip your trendy mixed drink? Would you rather hear the tale after a long hard day’s work in your fields or after a long shift in the cubicle? To ask the question is almost to have it answered. We consider the medieval story more valuable because it was so rich. Yeah, it was dirty and we can learn that lesson later.

The introduction tells us that the medieval story was taken over by Protestantism but then lost in the trenches of modernity. We can recover it and move forward. The rest of this book, the essays that follow are guides to what medieval Protestantism would look like.

Angels in the Architecture Foreword

George Grant wrote the foreword to this book and if anyone has listened to or seen his Modernity lectures through Gileskirk, many of the themes contained herein are going to sound familiar. This foreword is typical George Grant, which is always a good thing.

Grant begins with a statement concerning the oddity of naming the period between the fall of the western Roman Empire and the rise of the Renaissance the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, or even medieval. The naming convention reflects pure Enlightenment thought concerning this time period. Read a little Voltaire and you can figure where the terminology came from. Interestingly it only came from those Enlightenment gurus who were hostile to Christianity. Artists like Van Eyk, Michelangelo and scientists like Newton and Bacon were not as harsh toward the previous thousand years or Christendom.

Grant makes a point, as do Wilson and Jones, of calling the period Christendom. It makes a difference. The dominant ideology in place during the thousand years between say AD 500 and AD 1500 was Christianity. This is reflected in its art, architecture, culture, feasting, economics, theology, politics, everything. It was not always reflected perfectly, we do live in a fallen world.

Looking at and considering what Christendom still has to say to Modernity is what the book is about. The rest of the essays reflect that theme in very remarkable ways.

Angels in the Architecture

I'm back. I am going to begin my summer (technically the students are still testing but I am not teaching anymore so ly time has opened up a little) by blogging through Angels in the Architecture by Douglas Wilson and Douglas Jones.
I read this when I was still a student and all these ideas about a reformed worldview and classical education were still in their idealistic infancy. However, I have picked this book back up again recently, eight years later, and realized its great worth. It is the kind of book you should read once a year, not once a decade. Who knows, I might even assign this book next time I teach Christendom, or Modernity.