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Some Things Are Worth Dying For
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
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- © The Author 2006. Journal compilation © The Dominican Council/Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
Footnotes
1
Thanks to William Rowe and William Hasker for timely access to their fine papers. Thanks to Maureen Tilley for help in tracking down information about Christian martyrs. Thanks to Matt Minix for his research help and to my friends and colleagues, Terry Tilley and Bill Portier, for their close and insightful reading of earlier drafts of this essay.
References
2 Russell Watson, Sex, Death, and Videotape Newsweek. (29 May 1995 [accessed 8 Oct 2004]); available from LexisNexis Universe.
3 Norris, Kathleen, “Maria Goretti—Cipher or Saint?,” in Martyrs, ed. Bergman, Susan (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996)Google Scholar.
4 Rowe, William L., “The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look,” in The Evidential Argument from Evil(Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), 276–77Google Scholar.
5 Wykstra, Stephen J., “The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: On Avoiding the Evils of ‘Appearance’,” in The Problem of Evil, ed. Adams, Marilyn McCord and Adams, Robert Merrihew (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1990), 159Google Scholar.
6 Drury, M. O’C., “Some Notes on Conversations with Wittgenstein,” in Recollections of Wittgenstein, ed. Rhees, Rush (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1984), 105Google Scholar.
7 Rowe, “The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look,” 275. Emphasis added.
8 Ibid., 266.
9 I number myself among the spectators, though I hope one day to be numbered among the saints in the sense I am using the term.
10 Cited in Bush, L. Russ, ed., Classical Readings in Christian Apologetics A.D. 100–1800(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervans, 1983), 6Google Scholar.
11 Wykstra, “The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: On Avoiding the Evils of ‘Appearance’,” 152.
12 For example, Alvin Plantinga thinks that true belief hinges in part on “proper function” of one's faculties. Plantinga, Alvin, “Justification and Theism,” in The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader, ed. Sennett, James F. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998)Google Scholar.
13 Rhees, Rush, “Mescaline, Mysticism, and Religious Experience,” in Rush Rhees on Philosophy and Religion, ed. Phillips, D. Z. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 340Google Scholar.
14 Ibid.
15 Otto, Rudolph, The Idea of the Holy; an Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational, trans. Harvey, John W. (London: Oxford University Press, 1950)Google Scholar.
16 Hebrews 10:31.
17 Unfortunately, my knowledge of saints is limited to those recognized by the Christian tradition. Early in Christian history, the Buddha was momentarily nominated for Christian sainthood. But since those earlier times, dialogue between supposedly rival traditions of saintliness has only recently begun. Almond, Philip, “The Buddha of Christendom: A Review of the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat,”Religious Studies 23 (1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 …iam et ipso optione carceris credente. “The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas,” in The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, ed. Musurillo, Herbert, Introduction, Texts and Translation by Musurrilo, Herbert, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 124Google Scholar.
19 The familiar game of competition and acquisition is implied by James’ phrase, “bitter jealousy and selfish ambition”; James 3:14.
20 Kierkegaard, Søren, “Every Good and Perfect Gift Is from Above,” in Edifying Discourses; Vol. 1(Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing, 1943), 38Google Scholar.
21 Kierkegaard, Søren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Swenson, David F. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), 296Google Scholar.
22 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Zettel, ed. Anscombe, G. E. M. and Wright, G. H. von, trans. Anscombe, G. E. M. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970), §419Google Scholar. Emphasis mine.
23 Ibid., §413.
24 “If someone does not believe in fairies, he does not need to teach his children ‘There are no fairies’: he can omit to teach them the word ‘fairy’. On what occasion are they to say: ‘There are…’ or ‘There are no…’? Only when they meet people of the contrary belief.” Ibid.
25 Ibid., §414. Emphasis mine.
26 Ibid., §417.
27 I was sent a recent e-mail by a fundamentalist Christian grad student who, thinking me to be an anti-realist and therefore a relativist—a sin of the highest degree—asked me whether when I stumbled while hiking in the woods, did I trip over the log or over the word ‘log’?
28 Wittgenstein, Zettel, §416.
29 Ibid., §418.
30 I owe this point to Terry Tilley.
31 Phil 3:7–11.
32 The term “Christian” was a term of scorn assigned to those whose hero was a loser, for crucified criminals were at the bottom of the Ancient Near East social ladder. See Wilkins, Michael J., “Christian,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. Freedman, David Noel (New York: Doubleday, 1990)Google Scholar.
33 “The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas,” 124–25.
34 Ibid., 126–27.
35 I can’t help but be reminded that Wittgenstein thought this sort of logic typified our contemporary scientific outlook: “What a curious attitude scientists have—: “We still don’t know that; but it is knowable and its only a matter of time before we get to know it!” as if that went without saying.“Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, ed. G. H. von Wright and Heikki Nyman, trans. Peter Winch, English translation with the amended 2nd. ed. (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1980), 40e.
36 Again Wittgenstein, “People are religious to the extent that they believe themselves to be not so much imperfect, as ill. Any man who is half-way decent will think himself extremely imperfect, but a religious man will think himself wretched.” Ibid., 45e. Likewise Kierkegaard claimed that remorse is not only a wonderful friend, it is a measure of one's spiritual health. Furthermore, an admission of reticence to pray may be nothing other than a confession that one is not wise, for wisdom comes through prayer. See Kierkegaard, Søren, Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing(New York: HarperCollins, 1956 [1846]), 39, 46, 55Google Scholar.
37 Tilley, Maureen A., “The Ascetic Body and the (Un)Making of the World of the Martyr,”Journal of the American Academy of Religion LIX, no. 3 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
38 St. Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1958), viii.7Google Scholar.
39 Matthew 13:46
40 Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 28e.
41 John D. Rempel, The Lord's Supper in Anabaptism; a Study in the Christology of Balthasar Hubmaier, Pilgrim Marpek, and Dirk Philips, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, No. 33(Waterloo, ONT and Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1993), 161Google Scholar.
42 Ibid. Emphasis added.
43 For example, Hütter, Reinhard, “The Church,” in Knowing the Triune God: The Work of the Spirit in the Practices of the Church, ed. Buckley, James J. and Yeago, David S. (Grand Rapids, MI & Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2001)Google Scholar, Hütter, Reinhard, “The Church as Public: Dogma, Practice and the Holy Spirit,”Pro Ecclesia 3, no. 3 (1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Kallenberg, Brad J., “All Suffer the Affliction of the One: Metaphysical Holism and the Presence of the Spirit,”Christian Scholar's Review 31, no. 2 (2002)Google Scholar, Lash, Nicholas, Easter in Ordinary: Reflections on Human Experience and the Knowledge of God(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988)Google Scholar, Volf, Miroslav, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity, ed. Padgett, Alan G., Sacra Doctrina(Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998)Google Scholar, Zizioulas, J., Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church(Crestwood: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985)Google Scholar.
44 A compromise position between process thought and static trinitarianism has been attempted by the openness of God thinkers. See Hasker, William, “The Openness of God,”Christian Scholars Review 28, no. i (1998)Google Scholar.
45 Osler, Margaret J., “Mixing Metaphors: Science and Religion or Natural Philosophy and Theology in Early Modern Europe,”History of Science 35 (1997)Google Scholar.
46 Ibid.: 92.
47 Henri De Lubac, “Internal Causes of the Weakening and Disappearance of the Sense of the Sacred,” in Theology in History(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 230. For a fuller account see Lubac, Henri De, The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. with an introduction by Sheed, David L. Schindler Rosemary (New York: Crossroad, 1998 (1967))Google Scholar. Emphasis added.
48 De Lubac, “Internal Causes of the Weakening and Disappearance of the Sense of the Sacred,” 231.
49 The speakers I have in mind date back at least to New Testament times. Granted, there is a semantic division of “spirit” and “nature” in Christian Scripture, but not the division we moderns are familiar with. Rather, the division spoken of is a division that runs straight through the human heart. As Jude reports, it is people who are “merely natural, devoid of the Spirit”(Jude 19.). See also Jas 3:5). The NT gives little evidence of a bifurcation between nature and supernature that pits the created order against its maker while human beings stand neutrally on the sideline and daring to enter the fray only at great peril to their souls. That sort of scenario was a Gnostic invention that is never widespread in the West…until the 18th Century.
50 Polk, Timothy, “’Heart Enough to Be Confident’: Kierkegaard on Reading James,” in Grammar of the Heart, ed. Bell, Richard H. (San Francisco: Harper, 1988), 221Google Scholar.
51 Ibid.
52 Jas 1.17
53 Kierkegaard cited in Polk, “’Heart Enough to Be Confident’: Kierkegaard on Reading James,” 211.
54 Cited in Ibid., 206. Emphasis added.
55 Cited in Ibid., 225.
56 Of course Aristotle's answer was “Mom.”
57 Weil, Simone, “The Love of God and Affliction,” in Waiting for God(New York: Harper & Row, 1951), 131–32Google Scholar.
58 Weil, Simone, “Letter VI; 26 May 1942,” in Waiting for God(New York: Harper & Row, 1951), 89Google Scholar. Emphasis added.
59 Rowe, “The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look,” 276. In addition to conscious awareness of the parent's presence, Rowe thinks the child also needs special assurances and age-appropriate explanation.
60 Weil, “Letter VI; 26 May 1942,” 89. Emphasis added.
61 St. Athanasius the Great, On the Incarnation(Willits, CA: Eastern Orthodox Books, nd), LVII.2–3Google Scholar.