With chapter 9 we come to one of the most important chapters of TCCL. In it Borgmann elucidates the Device Paradigm, which is his way of explaining technology by reference to paradigmatic examples of it. The idea is that through a careful analysis of several obvious examples of technological devices, discussed in contrast to the pretechnological situation, we will begin to see the pattern which heretofore was invisible, hidden as it was behind the veil of being taken for granted.

As we have seen, Borgmann claims technology seeks to provide liberation and enrichment, i.e., to make these qualities available. Availability is therefore a big part of technology. Technological availability has four essential qualities (which Borgmann explores via the contrast between a central heating system and a wood-burning stove). For something to be technologically available, according to Borgmann, it must be:

1. Instantaneous: The fire in a stove is not instantaneous because wood is not instantly available in burnable form. It comes in the form of trees which must be chopped down, cut up, etc… On the other hand, a central heating system procures heat instantaneously, with the sliding of a switch or dial.
2. Ubiquitous: A wood fire is not ubiquitous because it does not heat a given area evenly; a stove typically only heated one room of the house. A modern heating system, however, pumps heat wherever it is needed without any extra effort.
3. Safe: Wood fires are not safe, since one might be injured while cutting wood, or burned by flames, or the house itself might burn down. Central heating systems are much more safe and reliable.
4. Easy: All the work required to produce and maintain a stove fire clearly rules out its being easy. The central heating system, on the other hand, requires no work at all on the part of beneficiary of the heat.

These contrasts help to sharpen the outline of an important distinction: the distinction between things and devices. Let’s first understand the concept of ’thing’. A ’thing’ is inseparable from its context. Its world is therefore inseparable from our engagement with it, and this engagement is always a bodily and social one. Because of this inherent embeddedness, things always provide more than one commodity. Take the example of the wood-burning stove—it furnishes much more than mere warmth. It is first of all a focus for people, a center for activity. Its status reflects the stage of the day (from embers to flames and back again). It assigns to different family members different tasks (gathering sticks, chopping wood, stoking the fire, etc…). It provides bodily engagement through forcing one to go outside, to interact physically with trees and wood, and so on. It requires exertion and the learning and passing on of skills. Larger social contexts are sustained by and focused in things (meals, celebrations of major life events, etc…). As Borgmann says:

Physical engagement is not simply physical contact but the experience of the world through the manifold sensibility of the body. That sensibility is sharpened and strengthened in skill. Skill is intensive and refined world-engagement. Skill, in turn, is bound up with social engagement—it molds the person and gives the person character (42).

A ‘device’, by contrast, procures a good without the world of relationships we just saw exists with ’things’. “A device such as a central heating plant procures mere warmth and disburdens us of all other elements. These are taken over by the machinery of the device. The machinery makes no demands on our skill, strength, or attention…” (42). Devices therefore have a tendency to shrink or background themselves to the point of becoming invisible, since all that matters is the commodity they are procuring, and the less a device burdens us, even visually, with the machinery that does the procuring, the better. The only physical properties which are important are therefore those which relate to the specific function of the device. (Borgmann defines a ‘commodity’ informally as “what the device is there for”, i.e., warmth in the case of a heating system, music in the case of a stereo, a meal in the case of a microwave dinner, etc…)

It follows from all this that any device can have many functional equivalents, since a device is defined functionally in relation to the commodity it procures. Take the example of a TV: old, bulky sets were eventually reduced to picture-only flat-screens. The commodity (i.e., the moving picture) was maximized and the machinery minimized. There have also been vast improvements in availability (in terms of time, place, and variety of content): first video cassettes, then cable, then DVR technology, and finally Netflix-style programming, available instantly from any connected device. The point is that this radical division between means and ends is one of the hallmarks of a device. In practice, the ends (e.g., warmth, or a moving picture) are stable, whereas the means are free to vary in any way that improves delivery of the commodity. Borgmann points out that this encourages a concealment (or backgrounding) of the means (which to the consumer are irrelevant and burdensome) and a prominence (or foregrounding) of the ends. “A commodity is truly available when it can be enjoyed as a mere end, unencumbered by means” (44).

Much of Chapter 9 is devoted to a case study, from the turn of the 20th century. The data comes from English wheelwright George Sturt, who wrote with surprising clarity of the changes underfoot as a result of industrialization. One of his most captivating passages is on the changing relationship of the craftsperson to nature. His was a philosophy of cultivating, adapting to land, in contrast to the more destructive industrial methodology. Wheelwrights, Sturt says, had a “relationship not of domination but of mastery” (44), echoing Borgmann’s statements about skill and engagement, and presaging an all-too real future where domination became the norm. Unfortunately, it would be too much for this entry to dive into those interesting passages more fully!

Back to Borgmann’s claim: it is that, given the clear distinctions we have been able to draw between things and devices, devices “dissolve the coherent and engaging character of the pre-technological world of things” (47). In other words, in the pre-technological world, commodities were never procured without some kind of engagement. Devices blast through this bond and deliver commodities with fewer and fewer modes of engagement with anything other than the ends (commodities) themselves. Borgmann considers two objections to this claim.

The first objection is that the ‘concealment of machinery’ we see with devices is really due to ignorance on the part of the consumer, or maybe technological illiteracy, and not to the character of the device itself. In fact, Borgmann says, many technological devices are made specifically so that they cannot be engaged with by their consumers, either in the case of discardable products (made to be thrown away), carefree products (such as plastic or stainless steel, made so that no harm can come to them), or in the case of highly complicated devices like computers, where their precise realizations are too complicated and/or in flux to be known by very many people.

The second objection is that, wait a second, people are actually engaged with the machinery of devices, and not just their ends, aren’t they?. Don’t people drive cars? Don’t they use computers to install software? Don’t they program remote controllers? Borgmann’s response is that these are not examples of engagement in a skillful, bodily, or social way. Programming a remote control is an entirely cerebral excercise: it admits of no skill, care, or bodily engagement.* It is furthermore anonymous, in that it does not disclose anything about its creator (or manufacturer) or reveal an orientation in nature, the way that a hand-carved chair reveals something both about the craftsperson who made it and about nature, through the specific qualities of the wood and its form.

Borgmann claims that, while everyone in a technological society understands that the means are important, they can and do spend their time enjoying the ends quite independently of them. And here Borgmann sees a tight connection with a modern understanding of labor and leisure, where labor is equated with the machinery or means of the good life, and leisure is seen as the ends which are to be enjoyed and which define that good life. But for a discussion of society, labor, and the good life, we will have to wait for the second half of Part Two!

*My own personal view is that some technological pursuits, like certain kinds of computer programming, do allow skillful engagement in a deep way, even though they are entirely cerebral (being perhaps analogous to writing stories).

This chapter begins Part 2 (The Character of Technology), the first half of which (chs 8-12) aims to describe and articulate the paradigm of technology, and the second half of which (chs 13-16) aims to ask how we have come to terms with technology politically and socially. The thesis which Borgmann will be following throughout is that technology, as the characteristic way we engage with the world, is guided by a basic pattern. This pattern, however, like many deeply ingrained patterns, can be impossible to see. This is essentially the observation that the features of our worldviews which are fundamental (in the “background”, so to speak) are themselves not open to our introspection without some serious effort.

That effort for Borgmann is put to use in returning to the first articulations of technology. They go back to the founding event of modernity: the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was the original modern liberation movement, and thus technology (as a liberating force) is usually seen as a corollary of it; Borgmann claims, to the contrary, that technology is a primary current in that stream. Descartes, for example, calls out technology as an obvious tool of intellectual liberation, describing its potential for self-determination (making us “masters and possessors of nature”), for freedom from labor, and for freedom to enjoy one’s faculties.

The proper grounding of this vision was not seen until the middle of the 19th century, however. Before that, machines and efficiency multiplied, but with a corresponding degree of toil and misery. Eventually, industrialized nations saw the fruits of the new technological order, and strong arguments indeed can be made for the disburdening character of technology (disburdening us from disease, hard manual labor, etc…).

This promise of technology (of self-determination and freedom) is reiterated constantly in all kinds of social and political rhetoric. The implication is that the mature technology of an advanced industrial society is continuous with the liberating technology which, for example, helped more and more people survive and do business in North American winters. Borgmann doesn’t take this for granted, and offers modern advertising as an example of the macabre and seemingly trivial ends to which technology is now put. Marketers selling us “world-class cuisine” without leaving home (through the use of the microwave) seems somehow hollow when put next to vaccinations of serious diseases.

So, we can ask several questions about the promise of technology. Can technology be successful in delivering this promise, even on its own terms? Will it impose new burdens to replace the old (a pernicious irony which can be seen quite clearly in the traffic jam, for example). Can it fulfill its promise in a just way, without merely sweeping toil under the rug of the developing nations? And finally, is the promise well-conceived and worth keeping to begin with?

The promise presents the character of technology in broad outline. It is essentially “the general procurement of liberty and propserity in the principled and effective manner that is derived from modern science” (39). But is this outline too broad? Does it allow for technology to descend into meaningless “improvements”? As Borgmann says, “Initial genuine feats of liberation appear to be continuous with the procurement of frivolous comfort” (39). If this is the case, it is perhaps worrying.

At any rate, Borgmann agrees that we could spend much fruitful time looking at the history of the promise of technology (through e.g. Heidegger), but in this book we’ll be moving on to the contemporary analysis. This will begin in earnest with the next chapter, “The Device Paradigm”, which is one of the central chapters of the book. Until then…

These, then, are the data I am taking as given, and trying to model (notice that they are not physical data, but theological and psychological, even moral data):

1. Good and evil are infinitely incommensurable.
2. If we presume that there are beings which exhibit infinite goodness or infinite evil, these correspond to God and the devil, and “infinite goodness” would describe the character of God, as would “infinite evil” describe the character of the devil.
3. The state of spiritual development of a human being can exist on a spectrum anywhere between infinite goodness and infinite evil (though it cannot exist at either endpoint). This datum reflects the observation that humans are never found to be perfectly good or perfectly evil (excepting, in Christian theology, the special case of Jesus).
4. It is easier to be morally mediocre than morally perfect
5. Incremental advances in spiritual development (morality) are easier at a “less moral” stage than a “more moral” stage.
6. Paradoxically, one’s awareness of one’s own depravity (immorality) becomes greater the less depraved one actually becomes.

Now we may take a look at the model. I propose that all these data may be plotted in various ways around the function y = -a/bx and various ways of graphing it: (Please note that all of the graphs here may appear too small to read, in which case you have simply to click on them to load a larger version)

We have chosen for our values of a and b the number 1, since, as we will see, the actual function slope will not matter as much as its relation to certain factors. If it were possible to quantify absolutely any of what follows (which appears to be doubtful), we could experimentally determine a and b, but that is beside the point here.

Here are the initial correspondences ( INF := infinity):

• The values of the function y = -1/x correspond to possible states in the spiritual development of a human being.
• Perfect goodness corresponds to the y axis–specifically at the point x=0, y=INF.
• Perfect evil corresponds to the x axis–specifically at the point x=-INF, y=0.

And we can already begin to see how the model agrees with some of our data:

• Perfect good and perfect evil are infinitely incommensurable (data 1 and 2 above): First, they are located at points infinitely far from each other in 2-dimensional space. Second, they are not even in a continuous spectrum of points–no line which connects them can be drawn, for such a line would correspond to the impossible function y = x + INF. Moreover, they exist in two completely orthogonal dimensions.
• Our observation that human spiritual development can be on a spectrum anywhere between, but not including, perfect good and perfect evil (datum 3 above) is captured perfectly by saying that it is plotted on the graph y = -1/x. The curve never meets the x and y axes, but passes through every other x and y value (though of course not every x/y combination).

Now let us extend the model. Let us define the notion of “spiritual work” to mean the effort (whether internal or external, and relative to persons) required to move along the spiritual development curve towards good. We can quantify this notion, determining the specific amount of work required to move between two points on the spiritual development curve, using the integral of the curve. The integral of the curve between two x-values is the appropriate mathematical construct for our purposes because it tells us the area underneath the curve between those x-values. This area, importantly, reflects our observation that incremental advances in spiritual development become more difficult further along the curve. Let’s look at some examples.

First, take a graphical depiction of the area underneath our curve between the (arbitrarily-chosen) x-values -8.0 and -5.6 (for a span of length 2.4–corresponding to the amount of spiritual “progress” made):

The area depicted happens to be about 0.36, so we can say that for this arbitrarily-chosen progress of spiritual development (a progress corresponding to the number 2.4), the spiritual work required is 0.36. Now, it is important to note that neither the x-values chosen, the “progress” value of 2.4, nor the “work” value of 0.36 have been given any real-world correspondents. The main thing here is that they are related to each other in a certain way–mapping such quantities to the reality of spiritual development is outside the scope of this model (an important limitation of it), and possibly outside the scope of possibility in general.

Now, let us look at another progress-graph, this time progressing from the x-value of -3.2 to -0.8. Notice that again we have a total progress of 2.4.

As is visually obvious, the area (corresponding to work) under the curve between these points is much greater. As it happens, it is 1.39, almost 4 times greater than our previous work value of 0.36! We could, of course, continue to belabor the point with more and more examples, culminating with the discovery that, at any point where we wish to integrate from one x-value to 0, the area under the curve becomes infinite (in terms of work: impossible). Also needless to say, even the particular way in which 1.39 is related to 0.36 is not important–what is important here is that there is an increasing difficulty (in terms of work) as we move closer to pure goodness.

It appears, then, that the model accurately handles our observations of how spiritual progress is made, and its corresponding difficulty (data 4 and 5 above). Already some theological fruit is ripe for the plucking as a result of the model, particularly in regards to work: statements in the New Testament such as “With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible” take on new meaning as we see via the model that (if it is accurate), becoming purely good is indeed impossible for us. Perhaps, then, these words of Jesus are not referring to such actions as we would normally consider “supernatural” (throwing mountains into the sea, having power over the weather, etc..), but rather to the spiritual development we normally find impossible. Alas, in order to stay on task, we should save such ruminations for a later essay.

Now we come to the last datum under discussion (6 above), namely the psychological observation that, the closer we get to God’s nature (perfect goodness), the farther we often feel from it. A cursory reading of the Apostle Paul’s epistles is enough to prove that this feeling has been with Christians since the beginning. How can this psychological fact possibly be modeled using the same graphs with which we have been working? The key here is in the realization that the datum refers to our own perspective, our own awareness, rather than a definite aspect of the reality of spiritual development. That is, in reality, the closer we get to God’s nature, the closer we are to pure goodness, however we might feel about it. All this amounts to saying is that, if we have made spiritual progress, we have made spiritual progress! The tautology arises because we have simply defined “spiritual progress” as “growth in character which brings that character closer to God’s”. So, given that the datum under discussion is not about our actual progress on the path of spiritual development (the actual location on the curve in the model), it stands to reason that there should be no “real” change to the model necessary to accommodate the datum. And, in fact, this is what we find.

It turns out that, just as the datum concerns perception in the reality of spiritual development, so it concerns perception (better called “perspective”) in our model. Specifically, our feelings about our spiritual development (i.e., our closeness to God) can be mapped to a relation of (a) our position on the curve, and (b) the specific way the curve (always mathematically the same) is represented to our visual senses, via properties of whatever “viewport” (screen, paper) we use to look at the curve.

Take, for example, this graph (the same as our first):

The dot at -0.4, 2.5 corresponds, let’s say, to our current position on the spiritual development curve. (If only we could be so lucky in real life!) Now there are two values we need to fill out the relation between (a) and (b) above. First, there is the x-distance between where we are and pure goodness (call it the “actual remaining progress”). We get this by subtracting our x-location from the x-location of pure goodness; in this case it’s the value 0.4. So close, yet so far away! Next, we need what I will call the “width of the viewport”. That is, the maximum x-value shown on the graph minus the minimum x-value shown on the graph. In this case it is 10. Finally, the value we want is the actual remaining progress divided by the width of the viewport (in our case, 0.4 / 10.0 = 0.04). We can call this value the “perceived remaining progress”. So for this graph, we have a perceived remaining progress of 0.04.

Now, let’s look at another graph:

The dot is now at -0.38, 2.63, meaning that the actual remaining progress is now less than in the previous graph: 0.38. We have become better! However, the dimensions of the viewport have changed. Even though the curve looks much the same, the numbers on the axes give the lie: the width of the viewport is now 5, not 10. (To further deceive, I made it so that the x and y axes are no longer equivalently scaled). In other words, we have “zoomed in”. The perceived remaining progress is then 0.38 / 5.0 = 0.076. It is almost twice the perceived remaining progress of the previous graph, which reflects our observed intuitions that spiritual progress, coupled presumably with an increased awareness of the goodness of God, can actually result in a greater perceived remaining progress (a greater distance from God). This “increased awareness”, then, is modeled here by the act of “zooming in”, which we have already more rigorously defined. The net result is that, even though in the second of the two recent graphs we have made progress, we appear to be further from our goal.

In order to determine what laws, if any, govern the moments at and degrees to which this “zoom” takes place, we would need to engage in empirical observation. We could start with the basic assumption, for example, that every decrease in actual remaining progress brings about a corresponding decrease in viewport width, so that perceived remaining progress is always more or less the same. Of course, this assumption is probably erroneous, if only because it ignores the spring-like oscillations that relate changes in viewport width to changes in actual remaining progress. At any rate, the point here is just to show that the model can handle the data under consideration, regardless of whether we can somehow shoehorn it into another model which can make accurate predictions.

Now, since we have seen that the mathematical model I proposed does indeed handle data 1-6 above, we are left with a few questions. First, is there any feature of the realities of spiritual development as we experience them that cannot be countenanced under this model? We already mentioned the theological claim that Jesus was both a human being and perfectly good. Does this wreck the model as a whole, or can we make special exception for him given his somewhat transpositional nature (much as a physicist does not treat very small quantum particles with the same rules as macroparticles)? In other words, what are the limits of this model?

Second, are there any more correspondences that we could make under this model? Perhaps, for example, we could do more with the y-dimension, treating it analogously to distance from a certain massive object. Then we would employ the physical rules of gravitation to explain why there appears to be a constant “downward” (evil-ward) force with regard to morality (explained in Christian terms as a propensity to do evil as a result of the Fall). For another example, we could attach meaning to the derivative of the spiritual development curve at a given point (the slope of the line tangent to that point on the curve), saying it represents somehow “spiritual momentum” or “commitment”, on a scale of 0 to infinity.

Lastly, in order to make the model useful in application as well as reflection, is there any way to empirically determine values to replace any of the arbitrarily-chosen I have used here? In other words, is there any way to make these values correspond to actual states of spiritual development? No doubt there are some features of spiritual development that are general and could be explored in the same way by everyone, but some are no doubt relative to individual persons. Could the model be extended to include, say, “spiritual constants”, much as the physical laws of motion are extended to handle constants of friction for certain surfaces? Or on the other hand does the very nature of the phenomena under investigation preclude any kind of testable or repeatable introspection (or examination of others)? I am forced to admit that I am not optimistic about finding positive answers to these questions.

Still, I don’t think the model wholly useless, and believe that (as good models should), it can provide clear abstraction of some points of the spiritual development process which help us to better understand what is going on, even if these abstractions necessarily have their limits. This clarity is, of course, what all mathematical models grant to investigators who use them to model reality. At different times and for different strata of reality, they cohere more or less exactly with their subject phenomena, and I hope in this essay to have illuminated at least one possible path of researching and modeling spiritual development that uses the resource of mathematics to its advantage.

First, it’s a fun read. The plot is more or less a movie script–chopped up into small scenes, and everything described seemingly just for the director of photography. In some cases I even had the strange feeling that when I see the movie this weekend (or whenever), I’ll have predicted most of the zooms and fades that will be a part of the cinematography. I guess that’s supposed to make The Da Vinci Code bad literature. I don’t really have any love for the lit snobs, but Shakespeare aside, it was sort of annoying. It felt syncopated, and like I was being coddled or overfed. You just can’t have 100 climaxes in one novel; there needs to be more foreplay. But all that is to say, I think it will be a great movie. The plot itself is certainly fast-paced, and the mysteries are for the most part not inane. Some of the clues were easy to figure out beforehand, but others weren’t. Anyway–a fun read. And quick. Moreover it appealed to the cryptologist in me–I used to study and write ciphers and codes when I was a child, and spend hours reading about their historical uses and such.

Second, it’s easy to see why Christians would protest the book. After all, one thing we know about Christians is that they will protest anything that looks like it could undermine their already-fast-eroding image in popular culture. The fact that this is the subject of The Da Vinci Code just makes people pay less attention. The book’s basically saying, “Christianity acts to silence things it doesn’t like”, so whatever the factual state of the content which drives that polemic vehicle, people will feel it is corroborated by Christians acting to silence it. In “responding”, Christians will unwittingly substantiate the very claims they want to debunk. This is both unfortunate and unfair. I say it is unfair because the situation is set up in such a way so that any “response” will seem hollow from the outset. I say it is unfortunate because, again, things are set up to disincline people on either side from looking beyond the red-herringed, surface issues. What matters at this stage is not, as you might think, whether Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and all the rest. What matters is that such a suggestion will rile Christians up so that any interlocutor will sense a great amount of defensiveness, and feel justified in affirming the book’s central tenet. What is that central tenet? To illustrate, I’ll quote a longish section (from the end of Chapter 82, in a conversation between the main characters):

“There’s an enormous difference between hypothetically discussing an alternate history of Christ, and…” He paused.

“And what?”

“And presenting to the world thousands of ancient documents as scientific evidence that the New Testament is false testimony.”

“But you told me the New Testament is based on fabrications.”

Langdon smiled. “Sophie, every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith–acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school. Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors.”

“So you are in favor of the Sangreal documents staying buried forever?”

“I’m a historian. I’m opposed to the destruction of documents, and I would love to see religious scholars have more information to ponder the exceptional life of Jesus Christ.”

“You’re arguing both sides of my question.”

“Am I? The Bible represents a fundamental guidepost for millions of people on the planet, in much the same way the Koran, Torah, and Pali Canon offer guidance to people of other religions. If you and I could dig up documentation that contradicted the holy stories of Islamic belief, Judaic belief, Buddhist belief, pagan belief, should we do that? Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that we have proof the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth.”

“My point exactly,” Langdon said. “Religious allegory has become a part of the fabric of reality. And living in that reality helps millions of people cope and be better people.”

“But it appears their reality is false.”

Langdon chuckled. “No more false than that of a mathematical cryptographer who believes in the imaginary number ’ i’ because it helps her break codes.”

Sophie frowned. “That’s not fair.”

There are many, many things to unpack in this segment. We might begin by pointing out that Sophie’s retort at the end is right on–it is unfair for Langdon to assume the non-reality of i. The non-reality of mathematical entities is by no means a settled (or majority) philosophical opinion. The larger issue is of course The Da Vinci Code’s implicit claim that there are really two “realities” that we exist in. One is the reality of objective truth, where “scientific evidence” belongs. The other is the reality of “fundamental guideposts”, of “religious allegory” that “helps millions of people cope and be better people.” Here Brown reduces to a strident echo of the vox populi of our age, and he fails to adequately respond to Sophie’s insistence that “their reality is false.”

There really is a deep philosophical tension here. Why is it at all appropriate to sidestep questions of truth in favor of a pseudo-reality that somehow “helps people”. Why would we think there is any guarantee that pseudo-realities can “help” people? It seems that in our most primitive of experiences (walking, eating, and so forth), departing from that more “objective reality”–the one where science operates–comes with deadly consequences. Everyone knows there are a million examples, but I’ll give one: it does me no good to declare that, although Drano, scientifically speaking, is not food, in my “spiritual reality” or whatever, I can partake of it for sustenance. Now, it is one thing to talk about partaking of Drano. If, on the other hand, I really engage in the activity, I will soon learn that my self-constructed “spiritual reality” is no match for that other reality. It seems that The Da Vinci Code agrees so far (“The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors.”)

So let’s ask another awkward question: How could it be beneficial to believe in anything that we don’t consider to be a part of that “objective” reality? How could it be beneficial to me to believe that Drano is sustenance if I simultaneously know that Drano is not really sustenance? The imagined response is that the Drano example is nonsensical, whereas if we’re talking about Jesus, the answer is obvious: Jesus inspires people. He was the proto-feminist, he was a liberator, etc. But this dodges the issue, for the issue is why it would be beneficial to continue to speak of things like Jesus’ divinity, his virgin birth, his miracles, and his resurrection, if such things did not happen. The only way out appears to be to say that these things are all symbolic–they remind us and point out to us the things that actually are real in the non-religious sense of “real”, e.g., his proto-feminism, his love of outcasts, and so forth. But does this not seem like some sort of Da Vinci Code itself? Some sort of serpentine path of clues that leads right back–to where we started. My point is this–if you believe certain things about Jesus and not others, you will ultimately only be inspired by the things you believe about him–not the ones you don’t.

And yet there is a bit of positive insight in the passage we just read as well–people do try to “get at” God, or the “unprocessible” via metaphor. Metaphor is extremely valuable in this sense. And of course, as The Da Vinci Code suggests, to believe literally in these metaphors is to commit a fallacy. But it is not a fallacy to believe literally in the thing the metaphor is attempting to “get at”. Moreover, it goes without saying that Dan Brown pulls a bit of a fast one in that it is presupposed that language of Jesus’ miracles and resurrection are metaphorical. While it is inappropriate to take a metaphor literally, it is not inappropriate to take a literal statement literally. “Jesus Christ is Lord of the Earth” is thus a statement whose metaphoricity, and therefore the appropriateness of its being taken literally, depend on the epistemology of the one uttering the statement. In fact, metaphor always operates this way–so it is curious to see The Da Vinci Code proposing the metaphor as existing somehow objectively. What should be proposed as existing (or not existing) objectively are facts which substantiate the literal form of the statement. If there are none such, those who believe the proposition can be stated literally will eventually find themselves in the proverbial Drano-drinking situation. So it is at this stage that it begins to matter whether Christ resurrected or not.

Anyway, all this is supposed to highlight: The Da Vinci Code seems to propose that it is OK to “believe” things that, strictly speaking, we know to be false (in the “real” reality), as long as we just talk about believing them, or believe them in some vague non-propositional way, or engage in some other as-yet-undiscovered propositional attitude like “believe-as-metaphor” towards claims like “Jesus is divine” or “the Buddha came from a lotus blossom”. The instant we transfer those claims to normal propositional attitudes like “believe-to-be-true”, however, we have transgressed. Why? Because, according to The Da Vinci Code, they are not really true (in the story, remember, there are “thousands of ancient documents” which prove such claims to be false). But there is no good reason given for why anyone should think it is OK to believe things we know to be false, other than that it helps us become better people. Why better people, rather than worse people? It’s unclear, when it’s exactly the thing that needs to be the clearest–something is practical only insofar as it is seen to be useful for a certain, pre-defined end. In this case The Da Vinci Code is supposing that “false religious belief” is practical, but the only end in sight is this one of “becoming better people”. Since such an end requires definition and elucidation, but none is forthcoming in the book, we are left at a dead end.

Ironically (but perhaps sensibly, given what I’ve said), the story’s main characters do not seem to spend a lot of time pondering whether they should adopt some false religious beliefs to better themselves. No–they are enlightened because they have the knowledge that these beliefs are actually false, and so feel no pull towards engaging in belief of them, metaphorically or otherwise. Robert and Sophie spend their time deliberating what to do about “all those poor people who actually really believe these things”, and settle on this strategy of protecting their schizophrenic reality. You definitely get the feeling that they are looking down from the heights of enlightenment and power because they actually know the truth. They’ve chosen to keep that truth hidden, for the psychological safety of the world, but the last thing they’d do is engage in beliefs that contradict that truth.

Thus the book sends an odd message, which if I were to paraphrase it, would be like this: “Seek the truth with all your heart, and when you’ve gotten it, congratulate yourself on being more enlightened than the rest. Go to great lengths not to disturb others with your enlightenment, because the brutes aren’t ready; they might be destroyed. Now contemplate the sacred feminine.” Or something similar. So there is a very devious talking out of both sides of the mouth going on. On one side we have the age-old draw of Gnosticism–come closer, and I will ravage your soul with secret knowledge that will transform you into something greater! It’s no less Gnosticism for the fact that, in The Da Vinci Code, it could be construed as atheistic. And on the other side we have a very un-thought-out religious pluralism, where religious beliefs live in some sort of “personal reality” that, when all is said and done, don’t affect anyone’s lives at all. (“Jesus is divine” just ends up meaning “Jesus was a feminist” or something). In this story, the Gnostic heroes end up being the guardians of the rest of humanity, and their secrecy is reinforced

It seems to me that, once all these issues are on the table, the door is opened to discuss the factual nature of The Da Vinci Code’s claims about Christianity, specifically. As it turns out, most of the more juicy ones are quite historically off, or uncorroborated, or pure speculation spun into a good mystery (but taken by many as true). I won’t go into any of these specifically here. But I will mention that we at Teleios have recently partnered with Alpha in the UK to deliver a video seminar of theirs on The Da Vinci Code, where they do go into some detail. I’d recommend taking a look at it–but only after having read all the foregoing. As I said before, jumping right into defensive debates about the facts can only reinforce that message of the book which says that Christians do have something to fear. To get to the course, just go to http://alpha.org/davinci/. Incidentally, I’ve got a Reddit going trying to promote it–if you find the framework/video valuable, please go to this page and vote for it!

The second part of what I want to say has to do with what I would call The Da Vinci Code’s misconstruing, not now the facts of Christianity, but rather the meaning, or message, or point of it. Here are some key implications from the book:

• The nature of Christianity is such that it is constantly engaged in covering things up, hiding them
• Christianity opposes free thinking
• Christianity subjugates women
• Christianity glorifies masculinity and silences femininity
• The Church, not Jesus, is the source of our understandings of him
• The Church opposed paganism, not because she (curiously, the Church is often thought of as female, something which doesn’t make sense on The Da Vinci Code’s reading of it) thought it was false, but because it was afraid paganism would reveal the Church’s true roots
• Christianity is anti-sexual, and tries to suppress our natural and good longings for sex

…and so on. These are the things that really frustrated me, because it showed a very deep and personal (on the part of Dan Brown) misunderstanding of Christianity and the Church. Let me put it very bluntly: to the extent that those statements describe an actual religion or an actual group of people, that religion and/or that group of people are not Christianity or the Church!. The fact that so many people obviously resonate with The Da Vinci Code’s vision of Christianity shows that these claims have been too often corroborated in people’s experience. That is where our shame (as Christians) should be–not that we have hidden or covered up anything (because we haven’t–not like the The Da Vinci Code says, anyway), but rather that actions or words of ours have been interpreted as substantiating (or, worse, really did substantiate) those claims.

What I want to do is uphold both Christ’s resurrection and Christianity’s reverence for both the male and female roles and purposes and all the rest. There is no need to invent a Christ who married Mary Magdalene to convince me that Christianity promotes equality for women. But the tone of the book is that such is indeed the way of things. Another example: there is a sharp line drawn, in The Da Vinci Code, between a “healthy” sexuality, and Christian practice. While of course I would disagree with many people’s views on what is a “healthy” sexuality, I want to deny that Christianity has anything to do with repressing sexual desire in general, or treating it as unholy, or punishing people for certain thoughts, and so on.

I guess in sum it is just sad that The Da Vinci Code’s accusations have found such a ready reception. It means that they are obviously not baseless, in terms of how Christianity is seen and what some Christians have done in the world. But they are baseless in terms of who Jesus Christ was, and how it was intended that Christians live their lives, even and especially on an orthodox view of Christ, including his divinity and resurrection and all that. It is the pages of the Christian scriptures, not the Gnostic ones, that hold the keys to true freedom, liberation, and happiness–indeed the very kind of freedom, liberation, and happiness that people want! (Not some made-up “church” kind. Actual, real happiness).

Now, let me bring things to a close and restate my thoughts more succinctly: First, the way The Da Vinci Code phrases its claims is somewhat sneaky, in that some ways of responding to it could actually inadvertently substantiate those claims. So in talking about it, some groundwork must be laid. Second, whether or not it is OK to be a Christian actually depends on some facts about the world (like whether or not Christ rose from the dead)–not just on whether I can, in some reality distortion field, make metaphorical claims that sound like Christian tenets. Luckily, The Da Vinci Code doesn’t dig up anything that need cause those central issues to be doubted (though it should be said, of course, that if one held certain non-central issues as central, one might find them eroding). Third, we (Christians) need to do something to re-educate the world about our views on the list above, to show that, really, they have no basis in the life or teachings of the one we supposedly follow.

Well, I’m looking forward to seeing the movie this weekend or soon, and watching the reactions. As always, I will hold my breath more out of fear that the “Christian” response will be inappropriate or stupid, or not nuanced enough to see the questions that are really beneath the surface, and not the ones on top. But that’s just the way it is! Meanwhile, the general spiritual backdrop of our time continues to shift further away from the Christianity of modernism. While that shift will continue to be attended by pockets of popular (but unsubstantiated) speculation, like The Da Vinci Code, it is in my mind a good thing, overall. One has only to visit certain churches in the US to know that, even if there was no cover-up, something, somewhere down the line from Christ, has been lost. Maybe it would be better for us to engage in the search for that Holy Grail than to worry about how Dan Brown is defining his.

Recently, I have become aware that community is much like this. One might think that a community is just an aggregate of particles (individuals), and so it should behave like an aggregate of individuals. Another might think that a community is like a wave–it behaves like a single extended entity. These people will treat community differently; the first person will place ultimate foundation in each individual, and will argue that their motions (i.e., the influence of God’s will in their life, and their response) qua individuals define the epiphenomenal motions of the community at large. Those of the wave persuasion will argue conversely that God directs the community as a whole according to his will, and the motions of individual members follow like crests and troughs in a wave–all very connected.

It is hard to know within which paradigm I should be viewing community right now. Are we fundamentally separated, and therefore at the end of the day we must discern our calling from God as pertaining to ourselves alone? Or are we fundamentally connected, and must therefore all collectively submit our motions to the movement of the larger group?

Right now, it seems appropriate to view the motions of some as following the particle paradigm, and others as following the wave paradigm. Are we therefore separate entities (i.e., in separate communities)? Or are we exhibiting the true essence of community and just failing to describe it in classical sociological terms, exactly the same as physicists failed to describe quantum phenomena using Newtonian language?

We have been gathering data for a while now, but I think we still need some more. Anyone else have any data worth sharing?

The content is basically science, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, theology, and where we can find a healthy and fruitful convergence of these disciplines. Of course, I’m all about that, so I’m finding myself taking more notes and asking more questions in three days then I did in most whole courses at Stanford.

Best of all, I was able to convince Nick, Jenna, and Justin to come to Orlando, stay at my house, and attend the seminar as well. We are having great times of hanging out at night, chilling in the hot tub (look, a joke!), cooking, maybe a little beering, whatever. It’s meaningful for me to have them here especially today, since it’s one year exactly since I took a hindsightedly fateful flight from Orlando to California, and met up with people there for the first time since graduation. This of course spawned that whole series of discussions on faith and community that lasted months, and culminated in my eventual (and gradual) move back to Palo Alto, which was a decidedly big switch in life trajectories. I’m still in the middle of the fruits of that decision, but I’ve already seen so many wonderful things come of it. I’m only hoping for more, though I have no idea what it might or might not look like.

So, even though I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep due to, ahem, World of Warcraft with my brother, and there’s no doubt lots of things I could complain about in various areas of my life, it would be a supreme travesty to feel anything but a profound sense of gratitude at this moment. That gratitude also conveniently enables me to put aside my perennial worries about the future and girls and so on (mostly girls), at least for a while, and it’s a welcome relief! I can always pick those worries up again when I get tired of being at peace (which will probably be in about 5 minutes…never had much luck with the stuff).