religious faith & secular philosophy, interface

8/6/2019 Religious Faith & Secular Philosophy, Interface

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The Interface between Religious Faith and Secular Philosophy:Contrasts, Comparisons, and Comments occasioned by

the Philosophy of John William Miller

byHugh Nevin

Precis

A Prelude and Postlude provide information and points of view related to but external tothe presentation of the subject matter. Section I identies the perspective from which the writerviews religious faith. Section II presents an overview of key elements of Miller's thinking,displaying the uniqueness of his approach and noting contributions that result. Section III beginswith an identication of the incompatibility of Miller's philosophy with religious faith, followed byexamples of ways in which he addresses it. Next, three religious faith perspectives are presented,

each of which "locates" God in a different way. Finally, the commitments of Miller's way of thinking are compared with those identied in Section I.

Prelude

I became a philosophy major at Williams College in the early 1950s as a result of myexposure to Miller as the professor of the introductory course, Types of Philosophy. Subsequently Ireceived a master’s in systematic theology from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and,later, a doctorate in religion and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Throughouta professional career as a Presbyterian pastor serving campus ministries as well as localcongregations in New York State, I was exposed to a variety of perspectives and experiences thatalso inform these pages (to say nothing of inuences from my upbringing). As a member of the John W. Miller Fellowship Fund Committee at the College, I have been gratied by the appearanceof publications that have brought together many of Miller’s writings and, especially more recently,other publications that introduce him to those interested - whether for the rst time or anew. Whatfollows here is, in a manner of speaking, a footnote to these more substantial efforts.

J.W. Miller’s thinking ranged far and wide; it found expression in a trenchant use of language that could be in turn - even at the same time - simple, profound, and difcult. Anappropriate grounding in that thought, sufcient to view Miller’s secular philosophy over againstreligious faith within the space of a paper, requires choices: what should be included; how is it bestpresented? This task is conditioned by two further questions: what can be assumed about theinterests and knowledge of the reader; what should be said about the writer’s knowledge of thesubject matter? Responses to these latter questions follow here; responses to the former ones restwith the reader: the degree to which the presentation makes sense; the degree to which it can beassessed in light of the reader’s own knowledge and experience.

The initial paragraph above provides an impression of the settings and activities in whichmy knowledge and experience of religious faith developed. As to familiarity with Miller and hisphilosophy, the excitement I felt listening to him as an undergraduate has largely been replaced bya newer sense of appreciation developed through moderate reading across the range of his



publications and the archival holdings, strongly supplemented by what others have written abouthim.

As to the interests and knowledge of the reader, I imagine someone who is looking for afresh perspective on the main topic, something I believe Miller’s philosophy facilitates. To theextent possible, I have tried to be guided by the editors of the most recent collection of Miller’swritings, The Task of Criticism: Essays on Philosophy, History, and Community, when they say of their approach, “We asked ourselves what sort of volume would best help the reader approaching

Miller for the rst time.” 1 While my intention is to offer something of similar usefulness here, 2

my selective appropriation of key concepts in Miller’s thought, given its own end in view, hardlyqualies as an introduction in the usual sense.

I.

To begin, it will help to look for a moment at the topic of religious faith in order tounderstand the perspective from which I view it as I approach Miller.

Ivan Strenski, professor of religious studies at the Riverside campus of the University of California, has made the following distinction. “In our discussion of the problems for religionthrown up by the critical study of the Bible and religious texts in general, I argue that one needs,for example, to distinguish between what Christians believe Jesus to be and what, as a matter of history, it is possible to say about Jesus’ life and works. We can thus distinguish between the claimsmade about Jesus by a particular Christian community from those it is possible to afrm in the broader public domain. This is not to say that one is true and the other is not - that, say, the Jesus of faith or of a particular Christian group is a ‘myth’ and thus not true, while the Jesus of ‘history’ or of the public domain necessarily tells the truth about Jesus. It is however to say that ‘history’ and thedemands of the public realm in diverse and pluralistic societies differ in certain key respects from

‘myth’ and the demands of a believing community.” 3

Tensions between these two perspectives are still very much with us as we have paidtribute to the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. In recent months, for instance, thePBS program, NOVA, presented “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.” A two-hourrecreation of and commentary on the 2005 landmark federal court case, Kitzmiller v. Dover SchoolDistrict, the website where its materials can be found offers an in-depth example of how these

tensions can play out. 4

Here, I afrm Strenski’s distinction as described. I also admire the fortitude anddetermination of those teachers in the Dover School District who went to trial to preserve thedistinction as it was threatened in the particular challenge confronting them. Several of themappear to be as committed in their experience of the Christian faith as their Independent Design/Creationist opponents are in theirs.

Finally, the term “religious faith” is so broad - true in its own way of the term “Christianfaith,” as the foregoing controversy suggests - that there is an additional set of descriptive markersthat needs to be mentioned, aspects of the habit of mind of the Reformed tradition within the life of the broader Christian community. This is the framework out of which I work as engagementwithin a diverse and pluralistic public domain is undertaken. Its aspects have been given helpfulexpression by B. A. Gerrish, for many years a faculty member at the University of Chicago



Divinity School, where he is now John Nuveen Professor Emeritus (and one of the nest historicaltheologians of his day). Not included in what I want to quote from him here is attention totheological education, the context in which he is speaking, and the secondary foundation for hisremarks, the commitment to certain habits of mind in university education. All too briey but inhis own words, the rationale for and elements of this more particular framework are described asfollows in an address titled:

Tradition in the Modern World: The Reformed Habit of Mind

“The usual approach to discussing the Reformed tradition is to catalogue some distinctive beliefs ordoctrines....

“The difculty with all these checklists...is that they change. Or perhaps that’s the good thing aboutthem. Puritan Calvinism was not Calvin’s Calvinism, and the Westminster Divines were notfundamentalists. The reason why a separate Reformed church rst emerged from the Reformationconict was because no agreement could be reached between the Lutherans and the Reformed onthe Lord’s Supper. But there wasn’t perfect agreement among the Reformed either....

“What’s the alternative, then, to a list of “Reformed distinctives” (as we sometimes say)?...

“It certainly does not follow that we do not need doctrines, or even lists of fundamental doctrines. Itwould be mere feeblemindedness to say: “We must cleave to Christ. Let’s leave it at that.” Whatfollows, rather, is rst that we try to write new confessions of faith for every generation , and second that weappeal to something more constant and even more fundamental than fundamental beliefs; namely, goodhabits of mind , all of which rest nally on the one foundation , which is Jesus Christ.

“Here, then , are what I myself would propose, not as the ve points of Calvinism, but as ve notes of the Reformed habit of mind, out of which we make our confessionas the times require of us.

“The Reformed habit of mind...is rst of all deferential: a habit of deference to the past. I use theword “deference” in its dictionary sense to mean “respect and esteem due to a superior or anelder.” ...If there is to be a Reformed tradition at all, there must be a deference to the apostles andfathers of the church: This is not to suppress the energy and excitement that we must bring to eachnew cause.

“Second, however, the Reformed habit of mind is just as essentially critical—even of the fathers. Andhow difcult it is to be both deferential and critical! ...Without criticism of tradition, there wouldhave been no reformation of the church. Now there is a Reformed tradition, but it cannot be aReformed tradition without continuing self-criticism.

‘”Thirdly, the Reformed habit of mind is open: open to wisdom and insight wherever they can be

found, not simply among fellow Presbyterians [his audience for these remarks]. The original geniusof the Reformed church, I believe, was that it borrowed gratefully from both the Lutherans and theRenaissance humanists, creating a “Christian philosophy” (as Calvin called it) that was at oncefaithful to the gospel and deeply committed to learning....

“Perhaps the special responsibility of those who work in the seminaries [today] will be to ask theiruniversity colleagues how the scientic ideal is related to other human values. On the other side, Idon’t see how the seminaries can responsibly address social, economic, medical, legal, moral, or



ecological problems, as the church surely must, without the knowledge that comes chiey from theacademy. And this brings me to my fourth ‘note.’

“The Reformed habit of mind has always been unabashedly practical. Truth, the old divines used tosay, is “in order to goodness.” I’m not sure I would be willing to admit that of all truth, butcertainly of theological truth....

“Calvin made it clear that he had no interest in any knowledge of God that did not have to do with“piety,”... ‘The duty of a Theologian . . . is not to tickle the ear, but conrm the conscience, byteaching what is true, certain, and useful.’

“But no one is likely to conclude that he was therefore shut up in a narrow world of privatedevotion! ...What we nd in Calvin, at the very source of the Reformed tradition, is a powerfulsense of the duty to reform every department of public life, not just to preach—much less (in aphrase of James Luther Adams) just to manicure our own souls.

“For my fth and last note of the Reformed habit of mind, I come back to the full historic title: “the

churches reformed according to the Word of God”....“That is the very heart of the Reformed habit of mind, even if it is not peculiar to the Reformed.Let’s call it the evangelical habit. And I mean “evangelical” in its good Reformation sense, as distinctfrom its misappropriation by the fundamentalists. The rst Protestants called themselvesevangelicals because they put one thing only — the gospel of the Word made esh — at the

center. ...To be an evangelical is to think everything in relation to the Word of the gospel.” 5

As the focus now turns to a discussion of Miller’s philosophy, there are three points I want toemphasize in what has been laid out so far.

First, by using a particular sub-community within the larger Christian community to standfor “religious faith,” a variety of other faith perspectives go unrepresented. Strenski’s discussionrecognizes this in its reference to religious texts other than the Bible. At the same time, he narrowsBiblically-based faith to the example of what some Christians believe about Jesus, thereby also bypassing the range of beliefs about Jesus held by other Christians. This makes an unstated point:the expression of religious faith is always particular. True, there are characteristics shared more orless universally across the religious spectrum. However, it should become apparent below that suchcharacteristics do not represent the best vehicle for exploring issues of compatibility with Miller’sway of thinking. His exploration of universals mines the accidentals of historic processes.

Second, Christian faith, as an example of religious faith, provides a good t for discussingMiller’s views. In part this is because his thinking grows out of the western philosophical traditionwith its admixture of Christian thinking, especially in the Middle Ages; for example, he discussed

the classic proofs for the existence of God in Types of Philosophy 6. Additionally, some brand of Christian faith was likely predominant among the afliations of his students. The Williams campusof the 1950s didn’t seem especially diverse or pluralistic. For instance, compulsory attendance atSunday chapel services, characteristically Protestant, was not ended until the 1960s - after Miller’sretirement. Finally, American culture was only beginning to come to grips with religious diversityas his career neared its end. Will Herberg’s Protestant, Catholic, Jew was published in 1955.



Third, the extended quotation from the lecture by Brian Gerrish presents the thinking of aChristian intellectual with sufcient fullness to make this point: both the traditions of Christiantheological discourse and its commitment to Jesus Christ provide a clear contrast to the terms andtraditions of Miller’s work and his own most fundamental commitment. As he said of the latter in“In Sum,” “I want the actual to shine and I want to feel the wonder of a yardstick, a poem, a word,a person. The here-and-now appears to me quite dreamlike unless it can declare the world. I am

glad that the dream is dispelled for me.” 7

II.

To repeat, this presentation of aspects of Miller’s thought is intended to provide a groundingfor a discussion of the interface between secular philosophy - with which I identify Miller - andreligious faith. (Note in passing: I sometimes identify this interface by reference to a primary issue,compatibility.) The focus of the topic and the truncated treatment of Miller here leave much unsaid.

First and foremost, what is it that prompts a person to engage in the type of thinkingespoused by a philosopher? Miller’s answer, very much his own, is developed as follows.

“There has been a view, a mistaken view, that, whereas most persons act, the philosophercontemplates, that he contemplates the same scene that leads others to act or invites their acts.While others do , he contemplates. Actually what the philosopher observes is not a factual scene, butan active one. He notes what is being done. This is not the case in natural science, where onenever notes an act but notes an appearance to which no action can be ascribed. Natural sciencemakes a point of this exclusion of action from its own explanations. Only the act , in contrast,

furnishes the occasion of philosophy.”8

Miller begins with a set of circumstances constituted by several actions. In this case heidenties two: the stating of a cultural view of philosophy and the stance of natural science. Each,

in a different way, excludes this philosopher’s interest in action. In response, Miller puts forth hisview.

An integral preliminary word: as a thinker, Miller always knows, or is trying todetermine, where he is and with whom he is speaking. The intention is that his action, hisspeaking, be one of engagement of these prior actions. Regarding, for instance, those who walkedin and sat down in his classroom, the following words apply: “The teacher of philosophy is alwaysfutile when he develops his own ideas without rst assuring himself that his starting point, hisquestions, and his presumptions are those of the student. ...The cultivation of philosophy is the

cultivation of a deep respect for the questions and difculties of every man.” 9 (Note: Miller’s way of expressing himself preceded attention to the use of inclusive language; also, the student body atWilliams was all-male during his teaching days.)

Returning to Miller’s initial discussion above, “In these prior activities [statements of thecultural view and the natural science view] there lies the presumption of a control. Indeed, thecenter and essence of an act is in that presumption....

“Philosophy is the locus of the control that natural learning had merely assumed. .. . To

control better what comes naturally is the occasion of any philosophical study .”10



In the fuller discussion of the points above, Miller illustrates, for example, with theexperience of speaking to another person and being misunderstood, even unintentionally givingoffense. The consequent need is to regain control of the interaction. Since, up to that point, thespeaker was only doing what came naturally, talking, these experiences serve to reveal the earlierpresumption that the situation had been under control. Much of the time we just don’t have tothink about it.

Philosophical study, then, arises as a response to a situation in which control has brokendown, is unclear, or can be improved. Stated another way, a philosophical response adequate to asituation either reestablishes control if it has been lost, claries control that is uncertain, or providesa positive expansion of existing control.

The examination of human activity as an expression of control is at the center of Miller’sthinking. For instance, “Arrowheads rate as artifacts; they are not found in nature. ...Man is anartisan; he makes artifacts. Find an artifact and you encounter a man; nd a stone and you do not.”Observations such as these lead to the stating of one of Miller’s key concepts, local control. “Theanthropologist does not come upon man until he discovers the artifact, a revelation of local control ,

that is, something done at a specic place and time.”11

By way of examples consider: in France, in the city of Chartres, the construction in the 12thto 13th and 16th centuries, by many hands, of the Cathedral, Notre Dame de Chartres; in Austria,in Vienna, the composition in the 18th century, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, of the main vocalmaterials for his Requiem Mass in D Minor (during his last illness, from which he died at 1 a.m. on5 December 1791). This cathedral and this Requiem are human artifacts. That each is, in a quitedifferent way, the result of a complex task is also evident to anyone who has read about suchenterprises or tried her own hand at building or composing.

Even what appears to be quite simple can, with reection, be perceived as quite complex.A child singing a nursery rhyme generally does so effortlessly: “Frere Jacque, Frere Jacque;

dormez vous, dormez vous?...” Suppose, on the other hand, one decides to be a singer. 12 Now oneneeds to attend to: physiological concerns - the production of sound and the training to master itsrange of expression; musical concerns - reading music, rudimentary harmony at least, accuracy of pitch, correct singing of intervals and changes in the dynamics of volume, tempo, and phrasing;communication concerns - the marrying of words or sound to pitches to produce melody, the use of different languages, the meaning of the text, the import of different styles of composition fromdifferent time periods, the development of a repetoire; engagement concerns - the characterizationof audiences in terms of interest and ability to appropriate what is being heard, the expression of emotion that weds the creation of the composer with the capacities of the singer as, in the act of making music, the seamless combination of their contributions reaches into the auditory-cognitive-emotional universe of the audience member. This much, at least, is involved in the act of singing.

The following statement raises this description to the level at which Miller intends it: “‘Action has never been a category. ...Present active participles do not occur in traditionalmetaphysics. They do in mine. I start with speaking, counting, measuring, trying, failing,

singing, etc.’ ”13

The complexities of building, composing, or singing alert us to the role of will in theaccomplishment of any such undertaking. Thus Miller also says, “ The will is



consideration of what Miller counts as “the fatalities of thought.” His course on the Types of Philosophy examined such fatalities as they are expressed in different philosophical stances whicharise in a necessary way in response to each other. For instance, Spiritualism, the rst philosophy,

begins with “an experience of personal agency,” 19 without which no further development of philosophic thought is possible. Just so, it gives rise to Naturalism, the focus on “a world of objects

and their ways.” 20 Each of these primary monisms excludes the other in its explanation of howthings are. Thus there arises Dualism. Now both Spiritualism and Naturalism are seen asnecessary, but the former is faulted for its failure to take the natural world into account while thelatter is seen as lacking for its failure to take human agency (including its own) into account.Miller applies the impact of this development in thought: “...common sense is dualistic. This is the

point of view which most people who do any thinking at all hold.” 21

Skepticism, however, confronts dualism and common sense. “Skepticism is a systematicmistrust of the reliability of human knowledge,” says Miller. “...we are dissolved into disbelief

and lack of condence. At the bottom of Descartes[’][dualism] is the feeling of failure.” 22 Morerecent philosophies, Pragmatism and Existentialism among them, have been attempts to deal withSkepticism’s enduring legacy. Pragmatism is particularly noteworthy for its recognition that, asMiller says of it, “Something in our nonintellectual nature - our ‘temperament’ has some controlover our philosophy. ...This is the skeleton in the philosophical closet - that philosophy is not

entirely intellectual.” 23 John Dewey speaks of this recognition in detailing the role of emotion inprimary experience. “In a thoroughly normal organism, ...‘feelings’ have an efciency of operationwhich it is impossible for thought to match. Even our most highly intellectualized operationsdepend on them as a ‘fringe’ by which to guide our inferential movements. They give us our sense of what to select and emphasize and follow up, and what to drop, slur over and ignore, among the

multitude of inchoate meanings that are presenting themselves.” 24 Or, more succinctly, Dewey cansay, “Even ‘the greatest philosopher’ exercises an animal-like preference to guide his thinking to its

conclusion.”25

Miller’s focus on the primacy of action introduces a powerful response to Skepticism’schallenge, incorporating the recognition of the pragmatists in a more thorough-going manner.

What dualism had done was to show that “opposition is unavoidable when thought takes place.” 26

Descartes’ mistrust of sense as also involved had led, fatefully, to Skepticism’s challenge. Bycontrast, Miller’s claim is that these oppositions, such as subject-object, self-world, real-ideal, are onlygiven to thought as they are contained together in the actual where sense is operative - in the“doings” that take place. To speak of them only as a diad overlooks this triadic rootage in actuality.A childhood example: to count one’s toes is at one and the same time to disclose the number of appendages that are really there on one’s own feet and reveal a formal or ideal mathematical order

that is universally applicable - both are whole together, even as the distinction between them isenforced, in a world disclosed in the counting. 27 The mechanisms by which such revelations take place

Miller calls functioning objects (of which the human body is primary). The world - the human world - in

which such objects exercise control he calls the midworld.28 Joseph Fell says of the range of philosophical studies in which Miller engages to establish the roles of functioningobjects and the midworld, “These arguments comprise the most adequate resolution known to me of

the still-vexing problems posed by Cartesian dualism.” 29



In “Types of Philosophy,” in the second semester lecture introducing Existentialism, Millerputs it this way. “The factor of control, dened in the rst term and redened in the second term, isthe factor we contribute. No contribution, no voice. ‘You pays your nickel, you calls your tune.’One’s contribution is systematic - and becomes more and more so as one proceeds through thesecond term’s types. One does not turn up in a capricious way,...

“We’re playing for keeps in Philosophy 1-2, you know. We want to put you in charge of

yourselves. This is deadly business.” 34

On this note we are ready to look at the interface between secular philosophy and religiousfaith.

III.

A statement of Miller’s indicates his own approach to that interface. “To speak at great

hazard: The only word is the incarnate word.” 35

In the context in which he is writing, a discussion of artifacts and actuality, the statementabout an “incarnate word” is simply consistent with the point he is making. That he prefaces itwith the warning suggests that he knows that his reader (to whom he was writing) was aware thatthis phrase is one also used to refer to Jesus Christ, with all the faith implications that usage implies- something he is not endorsing by his own use of the phrase.

In what follows I will begin with examples of circumstances in which it is clear that Miller’sphilosophy is incompatible with expressions of religious faith. Next, I will briey look at histreatment of the “proofs” for the existence of God, at several faith-laden terms he uses in his ownway, and at some Biblical references he uses. Then, I will shift the focus to faith perspectives,

beginning with aspects of the life and thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Consideration of two othertheological perspectives useful in a comparison with Miller’s thought will follow. A nal discussionwill be preceded by a review of Brian Gerrish’s ve notes of the Reformed habit of mind in light of the discussion to this point. In all of this there is much room for further exploration anddevelopment.

In his rst lecture on Spiritualism, Miller states “In Spiritualism the act, agency, is the

reason for events, i.e., the explanation of events.” 36 He then instructs his students to read the rstchapter of the Gospel of John. These verses both make the point and ground a contrast to beelaborated. “In the beginning was the Word, ...and the Word was God. All things came into beingthrough him,.. . And the word became esh and lived among us [Jesus as the Christ, the Word

incarnate].” 37

Spiritualism in historical perspective comes into view in the following comments. “As anoutlook on forces that are agents, Spiritualism leads to theism: to both polytheism andmonotheism. Monotheism is a monopoly of force. In a genuine monopoly, you have a distinct ces[s]ation of will. A monopoly of force destroys local centers of force, local agents. If you carrySpiritualism to this limit, you destroy its validity [see, as an example, the 1978 Jonestown massacre



compatible with Miller’s philosophy.

Second, Miller reinforces this conclusion that follows from his thinking about historic agencywith an assessment of Christianity’s specic claim about Jesus Christ. As indicated in the quotationsabove, he rst nds it lacking for it’s failure to “universalize revelation.” Stated again, but now in apositive expression of his own view, “I am proposing that any utterance has that quality of revelation” - that quality Christian faith invests in Christ’s incarnation, wherein “Christianity gaveauthority to the actual.”

Before proceeding further, a few words need to be said about “utterance,” which has nowappeared a second time. Generally, Miller uses the word “utterance” to refer to any articulation inone of the several media of disclosure whereby something becomes authoritatively present in

human experience as a revelation. 45 Specically, he means by it a particular form of spoken orwritten discourse. It is a form not dissimilar to the one we have already encountered in thefunctioning object. In this case, the three-fold engagement involves the authoritative presence of theutterer in such a way that neither “the objective validity of the utterance or the authoritative

presence of the auditor” are undermined. 46 Importantly, this means that “The author as I addresses the reader as you by means of utterances not intended to seduce the reader to admire theauthor or to espouse some cause to which the author is devoted but intended to empower the reader

to come into deeper possession of the inheritance of his own discourse.” 47 Further, this means thatthe utterer afrms an alignment with a tradition of utterance in such a way that her unique personal

presence is afrmed even as shared humanity is acknowledged. 48

As one then and now aligned with a community of religious discourse at variance withMiller’s philosophy over the role of theism, I have come to realize that what so excited me in whathe was saying was his unbending commitment to and articulation of this particular form of utterance, in all three of its dimensions.

There is a second set of circumstances in which the expression of religious faith is at oddswith Miller’s philosophy. On the one hand, these circumstances follow from the situation discussedabove; on the other hand, they encompass stances other than those of religious faith. They involvethe role of dogma and dogmatic actions. In religious terms, dogma can be said to exist on acontinuum as regards enforcement in belief and behavior. For instance, the practices of RomanCatholicism and Unitarianism are quite different in this matter; Presbyterianism (as an embodimentof the Reformed perspective) is somewhere in-between. To the point, however, here is how Milleridenties the issue.

“Idealism is the answer to the opposition between skepticism and dogmatism....Between dogmatism and skepticism there is no conciliation. Both are absolutisms, because both

deny the sway of criticism. Dogmatism, by making unconditional assertions, entails anunconditional denial of alternative assertions.” 49

As usual, there is a good deal more that Miller has to say on this topic. However, forpresent purposes, it will sufce to note the key assertion: because dogmatism is an absolutism, itsets itself beyond criticism. Thus Miller also says, “Dogmas do not really conict. Would that theymight! They merely negate each other. What cannot be reconciled in thought offers no conict of

thought.”50



To the extent that religious faith is subject to dogmatism, it sets itself beyond criticism, thatis to say, beyond the purview of thought. Indeed, the constraints of dogma, strictly observed, standover against the structures of thought. Of the latter, Miller says,

All the categories represent codes for the restriction of the content of nite points of view. Every category describes at once an innite orderand a nite content that seeks to enlarge itself. Categories are nottranscendental, nor are they psychological and accidental. They are thestructure of criticism, the dynamic of expanding meanings according tolaw. Thus idealism [meaning philosophy in this instance] asserts noAbsolute, but rather denies the possibility of any assertion immune

from the order of contingency. It is that order which is absolute. 51

Stephen Tyman captures the contrast for religious faith when he says, “Even as the God of Genesisfounds the world by being the separating principle parting the skies from the waters, Miller’smidworld founds the range of knowledge and informed experience by standing between the coeval

derivations of founder and founded, subject and object.” 52

What is at issue between Miller and religious faith is the status of thought, of criticism.“Criticism has no background. It is underived. It is absolute. ...Criticism has no basis except itself.One may as well acknowledge at the outset that to go beyond this, to introduce a single specic factinto one’s conception of reality, be that fact one’s own self or scientic data or God, is to accept

dogmatism in principle.” 53 As the act of God is the creative force in religious faith, so the act of criticism is the creative force in Miller’s philosophy.

Miller discusses the “proofs” for God’s existence in the context of his classroom lectures onNaturalism’s denial of the supernatural. The rst two arguments, the cosmological and teleological,fail through lack of logical consistency. It is Miller’s summary comments that are noteworthy here.“In the end we seem to resort to an act of faith, which we do not argue. These proofs show our

tendency to rest uneasy when faced with the incomplete, the unsure.” 54 The third, the ontological,relies neither on logic or dogma but posits a stance in which “God is what you would get if you

could see all before you.” 55 With this statement Miller couples an unattributed quotation, “Thereis none beside Thee.”

Given mandatory Sunday chapel attendance and the likelihood of exposure to the hymnelsewhere, Miller assumes his listeners will realize they have sung these words, though they maynot be able to place them where they occur, in the third stanza of the third verse of “Holy, Holy,Holy! Lord God Almighty,” (a primary trinitarian hymn in most Christian hymnals). To the pointhere, Miller has no argument with acts of faith since, as such, they are beyond reason. At the sametime, he identies a need in the realm of faith that has its counterpart in the realm of criticism. Bynoting human uneasiness with the incomplete and the unsure, he lays the groundwork for theassertion that the actual involves the exercise of control.

Turning from the “proofs” - expressions of faith in other words - to terms that have onemeaning in the context of faith and another in Miller’s philosophy, “incarnate word” and“revelation” have already been noted above. Here I want to mention additional examples: “grace



of God,” “saved,” and “sin.”

“Grace of God”and “saved” come up in a quotation Michael McGandy uses from Miller’sposthumous book, The Philosophy of History with Reections and Aphorisms.

History is the dimension in which we see ourselves, not as others see us, but as we are genetically identied. “There, but for the grace of God, go I”is not enough. One has to say, “There, by the abounding grace of God I toond myself.” ...Nobody can, by the grace of God, feel himself saved fromparticipation in the enormities of the past, any more than he can dissociate

his own heart and mind from its glories.... 56

Here, again, Miller is using faith-laden terminology to make his own point, that we are, ashumans, fated bearers of a heritage, both good and bad. Coincidentally, he introduces a usage of “grace of God” that makes better theological sense than the self-centered intent of the popularusage. At the same time, his negative use of the phrase “saved from participation in the enormitiesof the past” calls into question the religious emphasis on being “saved from sin.” Indeed, his direct

usage of the concept of “sin” brings into view his judgment as to why religious faith - “theology”in the quote below - continues, impervious to thoughtful criticism.

Man will not be a nobody. And he’ll fry in hell before he’ll lose hisselfhood. A person who is too simple is not convincing. Adam and Eveknew a lot more about God after they were thrown out of the garden. Thesurest way to make man believe that he’s something is to show him thathe’s the author of an “evil” deed. Man doesn’t really dread sin. More

than sin he dreads the loss of his capacity to sin. 57

The same assessment comes up in relation to theology’s interpretation that Jesus died to

atone for human sin.

Theology still gains much acceptance, although it is intellectually indisrepute, because it gives vent to the common man’s desire to besomething. The Lord God has to go to all this trouble just to keep youin a minimum or a maximum of upset - this is very attering to man.

That a man should have to die for us inates our personal importance. 58

When, nally, Miller makes direct Biblical references, results like the following occur.

The reading from the Gospel of John, with its emphasis on “incarnate word,” provides bothcontrast and an opportunity to state his own views, as already noted.

A discussion of causality, in which the rst two arguments for the existence of God areclearly in the background, leads to this use of Job’s encounter with the Almighty as an example of the problem.

...the well-known outcome of the appeal to divine management is completeresignation to the inscrutable. God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind:“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou



hast understanding [Job 38:4]!” Ours not to reason why, but to ride blindlyand without comprehension into the valley of death [a reference to Psalm

23?], trusting to a benecent plan, withheld from our penetration. 59

On the other hand, having said that the scholar can only overcome fate by identifying with

its laws, Miller shows an openness to something he nds in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (2:12-16).

There Paul, with his characteristic intensity, wishes to avoid a life thatis forever under the law and never in itself the generator of the law.

That is a bold idea indeed. 60

Ultimately Paul comes up short in Miller’s reading. The point is, however, he does not dismiss thisrepresentative of religious faith out-of-hand, but listens seriously to him.

Lastly, in discussing the alliance between an individual and the universal, Miller notes thelikelihood that the demonic or fanatical may result. He concludes,

What would you? Where the self is not dened in commitments, it hasno actuality. It cannot be even wicked. [Examples from Kipling andDante are cited, followed by:] ...And the apocalyptic writer declares[the Revelation of John], “I know thy works, that thou art neither

cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot [Rev. 3:15].” 61

Where Scripture can be referenced, Miller grasps the opportunity.

In summary, the examples of utterances we have just been considering are subject toMiller’s insistence that the auditor must be granted authoritative presence. In this sense, Job’schronicler, the Gospel writer, the apocalyptic writer, Paul - and those of Miller’s listeners andreaders for whom they are authoritative - deserve and receive serious attention. Serious attentionmeans, however, that critical reaction is not muted, should it, in Miller’s judgment, be warranted.

More, however, is involved. Theology and Biblical literature, however viewed, haveinuenced our culture and our civilization to the degree that to overlook them or dismiss themwould be to misunderstand where we now are and who we are. At this point, Miller’s view of history is key, though a discussion is beyond the focus here. “...history is the revision of outlooks atthe point of conict between them. It is the process of putting us in rapport with each other, and

with those monuments of expression that are the substance of civilization.” 62

Miller identies the approach of piety as essential in appreciating history. As Vincent

Colapietro describes this approach, “Reverence [piety] is a condition for comprehending the effortsof our ancestors for what these efforts are: endeavors giving status and authority to the immediate by composing, through their distinctive forms of utterance - their buildings and laws no less than

their books and speeches - a world of their own.” 63

On this note we turn, again, to considerations from the perspective of religious faith. Thistime, however, they are introduced in response to Miller’s statement of a secular philosophy.



The German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, offers an interesting contrast to J. W. Miller.Eleven years his junior, he was a devout, yet highly cultured Lutheran pastor-theologian whoseteaching and political activity brought him into increasing conict with the Nazi state. Hisinvolvement in the resistance movement responsible for the plot to take Hitler’s life led to his ownexecution in the nal weeks of the war in Europe.

As background for considering some specics in Bonhoeffer’s thought and life, it is useful torecall, insofar as religion is concerned, the rise of secularization that was beginning to be evidentwhen both Miller and Bonhoeffer were in their prime. It became especially notable in theologicaleducation circles later, in the second half of the century. It was, perhaps, heralded for the generalpublic in the Time magazine issue at Easter in 1966 with its cover question, “Is God Dead?” In anycase, the public face of the “God is Dead” movement (so-called), Thomas J.J. Altizer, published thatyear his book titled, The Gospel of Christian Atheism. A responsible scholar, Altizer exploredBiblical and Christian proclamations in a unique way. To oversimplify, he posited a developmentwhereby the outpouring of God’s spirit, beginning with the creation of the world, reached aculmination in the death of Jesus, such that God’s presence took on a new form in the world.

(Several years later, at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he taught in theEnglish department for close to thirty years, those of us providing chaplaincy services at theUniversity received ofce space, in no small part due to his advocacy.)

Interesting, then, that in 1944, writing from prison, Bonhoeffer authored several letters inwhich he began to develop a theme. Here are selected excerpts.

...God is being increasingly edged out of the world, now that it has comeof age. Knowledge and life are thought to be perfectly possible withouthim. Ever since Kant, he has been relegated to the realm beyondexperience.

There is no longer any need for God as a working hypothesis,whether in morals, politics or science. Nor is there any need for sucha God in religion or philosophy (Feuerbach). In the name of intellectualhonesty these working hypotheses should be dropped or dispensed withas far as possible.

I nd it very slow going trying to work out a non-religious interpretation

of biblical terminology, ...a far bigger job than I can manage at the moment. 64

Four days after writing these words, the explosives intended to take Hitler’s life missedtheir mark, and Bonhoeffer’s freedom to communicate was increasingly restricted before his life waseventually taken. As early as 1933 he had stated in a published article, “the church has anunconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society..., not just to bandage the victimsunder the wheel, but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself. Such action would be direct political

action.”65 Additionally, as Marilynne Robinson has noted, a year earlier he had written, “ ‘[T]heprimary confession of the Christian before the world is the deed that interprets itself.’ An obedientact owes nothing to the logic or the expectations of the world as it is, but is afrmed in the fact of

revealing the redeemed world. Action is revelation.” 66 For Bonhoeffer, “Christ is in the world, notas inuence or loyalty but as active presence, ...as the one source and principle of life for those who



constitute the church.” 67 “The mystery of the world for Bonhoeffer,” says Robinson, “comes with

the belief that [God’s] immanence is pervasive, no less so where it cannot be discovered.” 68

Bonhoeffer’s life was that of a churchman - preaching, teaching, and immersed in thepractices of private and public worship and the administration of church affairs. Yet all of this wasconditioned by the overriding impact of the Nazi state. He rejected the racial nationalism of theGerman Christian movement within the churches (a particular case of the root problem of humanlyconstructed religious concepts of God displacing the divine reali ty made present in revelation). Atthe same time he was a leader of the Confessing Church’s seminary at Finkenwalde where pastorswere trained for resistance churches. Seeking the removal of Hitler and a supernatural concept of God were of a piece with all this.

Had Bonhoeffer lived to develop his “world-come-of-age” Christianity, one wonders if thereception of Altizer would have been any different (because of his views, the latter’s position atEmory University became untenable and he received death threats). In any case, the point, asregards the compatibility of religious faith with Miller’s thought, is this: there were efforts withinMiller’s lifetime on the part of theologians, Altizer and Bonhoeffer most prominently, to dispensewith a traditional God hypothesis. If the possibility of a conversation on this topic was on Miller’sagenda, I am unaware of it.

A second point is also noteworthy. In his own way, Bonhoeffer evidences a consistentcommitment to action, to utterance in word and deed, that shares much with Miller’s. He, too, takeshistory with the utmost seriousness. In another letter from the spring of 1944 he wrote, “Thedifference between the Christian hope of resurrection and a mythological hope [release from this

world] is that the Christian hope sends a man back to his life on earth in a wholly new way.... 69

Finally, however, the difference with Miller is that (not unlike Altizer, though in a quitedifferent way) Bonhoeffer is living and thinking out of a commitment to a divine presence in theworld - no longer a supernatural deity acting in history but an immanent mystery in which theactions of the church nd their source. Revelation again, but not with Miller’s meaning of the term.

Might Miller’s judgment be that this is Spiritualism of a non-transcendental type? In anycase, no “underived” (p. 13) thought here; no argument to be joined.

While noteworthy, Bonhoeffer’s “religious” faith is a far cry from the predominant religiousperspectives and patterns with which Miller would have been familiar. Here, and only briey,mention should be made of one. In various denominational guises, it involved (and still does) anemphasis on sin and salvation. It has no better exemplar than the sixteenth century theologian, John Calvin.

For our purposes, while the topic overall begins with Adam’s experience on leaving the

garden of Eden 70 and extends to resolution much later on in the death of Jesus at Golgatha, two brief quotations from Calvin will serve to introduce what we need here, his views on the two facetsof the soul, the understanding and the will.

First, in man’s perverted and degenerate nature some sparks still gleam.These show him to be a rational being, differing from brute beasts, because he is endowed with understanding. Yet, secondly, they show this



light choked with dense ignorance, so that it cannot come forth effectively.

[As a result of arguments advanced], it will be indisputable that free willis not sufcient to enable man to do good works, unless he be helped bygrace, indeed by special grace, which only the elect receive through

regeneration.71

James Goodloe, Executive Director of the Foundation for Reformed Theology, expands onthe second statement in this way. “Calvin realized that most ancient philosophers, too many of thetheologians before him (all but Augustine), and even the common masses had presumed thathuman beings have free will. ...Of course, Calvin admitted, human beings have freedom of choice.The problem is that after the fall, we no longer have the freedom to choose between good and evil.

All that remains to us is the ability to choose among various evils.” 72

Calvin’s command of resources - philosophical, scriptural, theological - is both extensive andimpressive. All too frequently, those today who claim his view of the human condition as their ownhave little if any sense of the degree to which it represented a conversation with the world of thought of his day and the role of criticism within it (constrained as that may have been fromMiller’s perspective).

What should be clear from even these brief statements is that expressions of religious faithguided by Calvin without revision (including its counterpart, a literal or near literal reading of Scripture) are inimical to Miller’s manner of thinking. (In his own day, Calvin warned againstgetting too close to the philosophers.) At the same time, it would be unfortunate if the “pressappeal” of this brand of Christianity were misinterpreted to mean it is representative of the faith ateither its intellectual best or in its range of expressions of faithfulness - and this apart from its lack of an accurate contemporary assessment of Calvin’s own thinking.

Here, in any case, is a full-blown supernaturalism, with the divine actor controlling allwithin his purview. While, on the one hand, this produces some tortuous logic on Calvin’s part indescribing the status of evil, on the other hand and over time, it has produced an impact on societythat has been considerable - not a little of it positive.

A third perspective in Christian religious faith may be said to have regained interest inrecent years. It distinguishes itself from traditional supernatural theism. At the same time, it is notthe same as the “pervasive immanence” Marilynne Robinson identies in the theology of DietrichBonhoeffer - which allowed him to contemplate the development of a nonreligious Christianity.This renewed perspective has an articulate spokesperson in Marcus Borg, for many years a professorof religion and culture at Oregon State University, with a scholarly specialty in historical Jesus

studies.

Borg starts from the assumption that, at a foundational level, there are two primaryworldviews: religious and nonreligious. Using William James’ term, “More,” Borg characterizesthe rst as including an additional dimension of reality beyond that of the visible world of everyday experience, By contrast the second worldview says there is no “More” to the world weexperience.



At this point, non-compatibility with Miller’s thinking is already clear. However, theaddition of this third perspective is helpful in imagining routes to possible revisions in philosophyand/or religious faith, as human experience continues to unfold.

Referencing Karen Armstrong’s A History of God, Borg notes that the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, not only have a tradition of supernatural theism going back totheir beginnings but a tradition of “panentheism,” equally as ancient. “Rather than imagining Godas a person-like being ‘out there,’ this concept imagines God as the encompassing Spirit in whom

everything that is, is.” 73 On this view, reality is pictured as more nearly a two-layered structure -one, the material universe; the other, the Spirit.

Panentheism, as a tradition, has a particular expression beginning in the Celtic countries of the British isles, dating from the 5th century C.E.. To this renewed interest it has contributed theconcept of “thin places.” “They are places where the boundary between the two levels [thevisible and God] becomes very soft, porous, permeable. Thin places are places where the veil

momentarily lifts,...” 74 While, traditionally, natural locations have been associated with theexperiences thus evoked, other revelatory settings (music, literature, etc.) can function in the sameway. Borg identies practices through which religious faith nds expressions indebted to “thinplaces.”

In summary at this point, it is useful to take advantage of the human propensity for usinglocation as a key in identication (a corollary of Miller’s point about local control). At the risk of overgeneralizing, supernatural theism identies God as a person situated outside our daily worldwho, nevertheless, acts among us. Panentheism sees God not as a supernatural person but as thename for a layer of reality beyond and surrounding the universe, with which/whom we are incontact in special boundary settings between the two layers. The God of Bonhoeffer’s immanence(not to be confused with its near relative, pantheism) is, mysteriously, present to us as weexperience our world, the here and now. All of this, as I read it, is incompatible with Miller’s way

of doing philosophy. Thought in such settings is not free to focus, unencumbered, on and out of the structures of its own integrity.

At the same time, it seems to me that what Miller has done provides the occasion for askingsome longstanding questions in a new way. Their consideration (but not here) is what I would offeras a possibility.

For instance, since Miller has already examined structures of local control within the boundsof human action in the material world, might it be fruitful to attempt an extension of such studies toinclude attention to ways in which control operates in, for example, “thin places?” An outcome of interest would be: does control operate on a continuum across the range of all settings? If not, whatare the features that distinguish fully material operations from those in “thin places?”

Looked at from a different angle, other interests appear. The midworld represents a“place.” As regards the operation of thought there, how does it differ from operation in a “thinplace?” What, for example, is the relationship, if any, between the “not” of an object of thought andthe non-material side of the membrane in a “thin place?” (This refers to Miller’s demonstration, inthe reference in footnote no. 26, that an existing object does not have a negative except as it becomesa focus of thought.)



Or again: since Miller’s day, we have, through the Internet, become inhabitants of a newlocation, virtual space. In what way, if any, does activity here illumine further the operation of functioning objects and the terrain of the midworld? Does it provide added perspective on thequestions raised here?

One set of comparisons remains. Brian Gerrish identies the distinguishing features of aReformed habit of mind - and, yes, they represent a history heavily indebted to none other than John Calvin. Do they have counterparts in what we might call a “Miller habit of mind?”

Gerrish’s rst note (p. 3) is that the Reformed habit of mind is deferential to the past,exhibiting respect and esteem for those whose thinking and utterance has nourished it. Thecounterpart in Miller’s thinking is clear, though the word used is not “deferential,” but “piety” (p.16, but also p. 12 regarding the tradition of utterance). In Colapietro’s words - but in Miller’s spirit,“to look for the conditions underlying our own utterances” we must undertake “a pious pilgrimage

to the ruined monuments of human utterance.” 75 More particularly, in the words of the editors of The Task of Criticism, “Miller felt such deep respect for the monumental character of the great

works in Western philosophy that he did not hesitate to give this respect its proper name: piety.” 76

The second note follows directly. The Reformed habit of mind is critical. “Without criticismof tradition, there would have been no reformation of the church.” (p. 3) For Miller, criticism is of the essence (pp. 12-13). Colapietro immediately follows his statement above with another thatindicates Miller’s connection of piety and criticism. “Only then [ having taken the “piouspilgrimage”] can we ‘solve’ the problem of how ‘to nd an attachment which breeds criticism’ (JWM[the Miller papers at Williams College], 17:23) or, more fully, an alliance that generates, authorizes,

and sustains the possibility of criticism.... 77

There is a second comparison that needs mentioning at this point, though, as noted (p. 15),it involves an area of discussion not explored. For Miller, revision is a key concept, a consequenceof criticism. He sees his own philosophy, for instance, as a necessary revision of the idealisttradition. The counterpart in the Reformed tradition is the practice of writing new confessions of faith in response to the needs of particular historic circumstances. This, for Gerrish, was a point thatactually preceded his appeal to good habits of mind (p. 3).

The third note is that a Reformed habit of mind is “open to wisdom and insight whereverthey can be found.” (p. 3) In its foundational period, this meant not only from the received tradition but from “rival” reformists, especially Lutherans, and from the Renaissance humanists; then andsince, the tradition’s history in this respect has varied. That Miller was similarly open and saw thisas essential to an effective presentation of his manner of thinking almost goes without saying. Hisview of the role of the auditor in utterance is fundamental (p. 12). In earlier discussions here therehave been several remarks that indicate how this openness operated in relation to the Christiantradition. I can attest to his personal hospitality.

Gerrish’s fourth note is that the habit of mind he discerns in his studies of the Reformedtradition is also practical (p. 3). Here he uses the word “piety,” not in the sense that Miller does, butin the sense that “truth is in order to [for the purpose of] goodness” - “pious” behavior whichsubsumes Miller’s attitude toward the past. The practicality of Miller’s concerns is evident both inhis teaching and the goal of his thinking. Regarding the rst he said, “Nothing is done in



philosophy until one is changed as a person (p. 10).” Of the second he noted, “The here-and-nowappears to me quite dreamlike unless it can declare the world. I am glad that the dream isdispelled for me (p. 4).” The world declared is the midworld of functioning objects, a “new thing”in philosophy.

Finally and most fundamentally, Gerrish posits an evangelical note, by which he means, hesays, “to think everything in relation to the Word of the gospel [the good news of Jesus as theChrist] (p. 4)” In his own way, Miller is also an evangelist, a bringer of good news. Everything, forhim, is to be thought in relation to the actual. In the quotation (p. 11) where he specicallyreferenced Christianity’s commitment to the Word made esh, he juxtaposed his own commitment:“I am a Christian in so far as the incarnation is the actual.”

I nd it interesting, to say the least, that two persons - Gerrish and Miller - so clearlydistinguishable in their patterns of discourse and the commitments of their efforts should,nevertheless, exhibit such similar habits of mind. To what, then, is the difference attributable? Thestatus given to nitude seems to me to be the key variable. A concluding discussion adds further

consideration.For Miller, nitude is the category philosophy, in its journey over the centuries, has been

unwilling to acknowledge. Miller’s commitment to the actual requires that history, the story of human control, be acknowledged. It is to this that thought addresses itself. In so doing, criticismitself is the only absolute (p. 13). There is no other if thought is to operate unimpeded byconstraints other than its own.

Gerrish posits a religious faith perspective, one in which this world is complimented by“more.” Earlier discussion has suggested some of the alternatives which religious faith has used toexpress its response to the fact of nitude. Here I want to add a nal focus that expands onsomething noted in a different context earlier. I do so because it will help to ground responses to

nitude in actuality, a grounding without which a consideration of Miller is incomplete.

“Man will not be a nobody. And he’ll fry in hell before he’ll lose his selfhood.” So Millersays at one point (p. 14). At another point he notes “the common man’s desire to be something.” Inthe earlier quotation he goes on to say, “A person who is too simple is not convincing. Adam andEve knew a lot more about God after they were thrown out of the garden. ...More than sin [man]dreads the loss of his capacity to sin.”

In the garden myth, God tells Adam/Eve - the text at this point does not necessarily implygender distinction, “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day

that you eat of it you shall die.” 78 In The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker approaches the loss of thehuman capacity to act with an emphasis on its inevitability, saying, “In other words, the nal terrorof self-consciousness is the knowledge of one’s own death, which is the peculiar sentence on man

alone in the animal kingdom. ...death is man’s peculiar and greatest anxiety.” 79

More than sin, we dread the loss of our capacity to sin; death trumps all.

Short of death there is the career of nitude, the history of self-consciousness and its controlover its fate, “an actual but limited and precarious order (p. 7).” As we express that consciousness



in actual control, some responses are secular, some are religious, some seek to maintain the two intension, some lose control. For each there is the same dread.

Earlier Miller was quoted as saying to his students in that introductory course in philosophythat what they, together, were involved in was “deadly business (p. 10).” At rst glance this wouldappear to mean simply another way of saying “serious business.” But, nally, as Miller knew, thephrase was literal and actual. At Williams, a housemate in my class committed suicide. Today, inthe community of some 60,000 in which I live, there have been, among teenagers, four suicides andsix known suicide attempts in the last four months. These reections and others like them are not

trivial.80

Postlude

The most dening parameters of our nitude are our birth and our death. We cannot sayanything about our attitude toward the former based on our own recall. Depending on our state of consciousness, we may be given the ability to indicate how it is we are approaching the latter.

Bonhoeffer, as a religious man, and Miller, as a secular man, were given such opportunities.

A British prisoner wrote of Bonhoeffer in his last days that he “always seemed to me todiffuse an atmosphere of happiness, of joy in every smallest event in life, and of deep gratitude forthe mere fact that he was alive.” This same prisoner reported Bonhoeffer’s last words to him as he

was taken away to be hanged. “ ‘This is the end,’ he said. ‘For me, the beginning of life,...’ ” 81

To speak in a comparable way, it is noteworthy that Miller’s philosophy had in mind theman on Elm Street and what could be known on the walk to the post ofce. Joseph Fell hasdescribed how it was with him at the end in the course of a tribute to the chief protagonist of Miller’s legacy, the publisher George Brockway (delivered in a public memorial service held

shortly after Brockway’s death in 2001).

“Mainly through George’s devotion to philosophical discussion with Miller for over fortyyears and his dissemination of Miller’s works for a number of years after Miller’s death, the thoughtof a major philosopher is being saved for posterity, a tremendous achievement.

“...George ended a tribute to Miller as teacher that he wrote for The American Scholar withpowerful words written about Socrates by Plato: ‘Of all the men of his time whom I have known,he was the wisest, and justest, and best.’ But there was a correspondingly moving tribute to George by Bill Miller that George only conded to me relatively recently. George went to see Miller in thehospital the day before Miller died. At the end of their last conversation, Bill grabbed George’s

hand and kissed it....” 82

This was a last act by a man of great dignity, an act of profound gratitude on the occasion of a nal parting by one who had said, “I want the actual to shine and I want to feel the wonder of ayardstick, a poem, a word, a person.”

Richard K. Fenn, editor of The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion (alsopublished in 2001), provided a nal essay in the book titled, “Epilogue: Toward a Secular View of the Individual.” He closed the essay with this remark: “The self remains the resevoir of



unimaginable possibility and irreducible mystery.” 83

Religious or secular - utterer or auditor - may we appreciate these depths and their springsin each other.

Endnotes

1 John William Miller, The Task of Criticism: Essays on Philosophy, History, and Community;Edited, with an Introduction to Miller’s Philosophy, by Joseph P. Fell, Vincent Colapietro, andMichael J. McGandy (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005), p. 10.

2At the risk of annoying some, in sections I and II I have put words in italics and underlined themas an aid to visual referencing for others.

3Ivan Strenski, The New Durkheim (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006), p. 236.

4“Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.” PBS. NOVA. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ nova/id/about.html: Nov 13, 2007. See also: “Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District.” Article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School _District.

5Brian Gerrish, “Tradition in the Modern World: The Reformed Habit of Mind,” Lecture, UnionTheological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Institute for ReformedTheology (http://reformedtheology.org/SiteFiles/ GerrishArticle.html), passim; emphases added.

6 John William Miller, Types of Philosophy (Philosophy 1-2) (Williams College, 1950-1951, copyright1991 by Joseph P. Fell), pp. 16-20. For a contemporary treatment of arguments for the existence of God, see: Alex Byrne. “God: Philosophers weigh in.” Boston Review, January/February 2009.http:// bostonreview.met/BR34.1/byrne.php.

7 John William Miller, The Midworld of Symbols and Functioning Objects (New York: W.W. Norton& Company, 1982), pp. 191-192.

8The Task of Criticism, p. 42; emphasis added.

9Ibid., p.38.

10Ibid., pp. 42-43; emphasis added.

11Ibid., p. 136; emphasis added.



12Ibid., pp. 43-44. On this point, Miller uses the image of a speaker, noting that to dene oneself insuch a way is “the watershed.”

13Vincent Colapietro, Fateful Shapes of Human Freedom: John William Miller and the Crises of Modernity (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press), 2003, p. 17.

14The Task of Criticism, p. 44; emphasis added. See also pp. 291-292 for remarks more tailored toan act of national will.

15Ibid., p. 316.

16Michael J. McGandy, The Active Life: Miller’s Metaphysics of Democracy (Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press, 2005), p. 119.

17Fateful Shapes of Human Freedom, p. 171.

18George P. Brockway, Economics: What Went Wrong, and Why, and Some Things To Do About It(New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1985), p. 37.

19Types of Philosophy, p. 8 .

20Ibid.., p. 10.

21Ibid., p. 22.

22Ibid., p. 38.

23Ibid., p. 47.

24 John Dewey, Experience and Nature, 2nd ed. (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, paperback edition,1929), p. 244.

25 John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Capricorn Books, 1958), p. 33.

26Types of Philosophy, p. 27. For a fuller discussion of how distinctions arise, see The Midworld...,

p. 70.

27The Task of Criticism, p. 26.

28Ibid., p. 27; emphasis added.



29Bucknell Review, The Philosophy of John William Miller, Joseph P. Fell , ed. (Lewisburg,Bucknell University Press, 1990), p. 29.

30The Task of Criticism, p. 206; emphasis added.

31Ibid., p. 104.

32The Active Life, pp. 39-40.

33The Task of Criticism, pp. 38-39.

34Types of Philosophy, p. 67.


36Types of Philosophy, p. 5 .

37 John 1:1,3,14, The New Oxford Annotated BIBLE with Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books,Bruce M. Metzer, Roland E. Murphy, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 125 NT.

38Types of Philosophy, p. 7; typographical error.

39Ibid., p. 10.

40Ibid., p. 8.

41The Active Life, p. 6.

42Ibid., p. 194, no. 9.

43The Midworld..., p. 145.

44Ibid., p. 153.


46Ibid., p. 47.

47Ibid., p. 50.



48Ibid., p. 56.


50Ibid., p. 62.

51Ibid., p. 68.

52Stephen Tyman, Descrying the Ideal: The Philosophy of John William Miller (Carbondale andEdwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993) p. 2.



55Ibid., p. 20.

56The Active Life, p. 119.


58Ibid., p. 54.

59 John William Miller, The Paradox of Cause and Other Essays (New York: W. W. Norton &Company, 1978), p. 14.


61Ibid., p. 190.

62Ibid., p. 219.

63Fateful Shapes of Human Freedom, p.55.

64Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison (New York, The MacmillanCompany, 1959), pp. 156, 163, 162.

65Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (Boston: Houghton MifinCompany, 1998), p. 113.

66Ibid., p. 111.



67Ibid., p. 109.

68Ibid., p. 122.

69Ibid., p. 154.

70Miller actually incorporates something of the force of the concept of original sin into his ownthinking. As quoted by Colapietro in Fateful Shapes of Human Freedom, p. 155, Miller says, “ ‘to be in History is to be an heir , but an heir to defect as well as to achievement. They go together.The doctrine of “original sin” reappears as a constitutional feature of heritage’ (PL [The Philosophyof History]).”

71 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John T. McNeill, translated by FordLewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960; from the text temporarily available online by

arrangement between Westminster John Knox Press and Princeton Theological Seminary, Calvin2009, http://www2.ptsem.edu/ConEd/ Calvin/), 2.2.12, 2.2.6.

(450 years ago, in 1559, Calvin published the nal version of the Institutes. 2009 was also the 500thanniversary of his year of birth. In honor of that occasion, staff and others associated with PrincetonTheological Seminary implemented a project to read through the Institutes during the course of theyear. The text, in rolling ve-day selections, was available online, accompanied by a commentaryon the week’s readings plus a reader’s comment blog.)

As evidence of Calvin’s careful delimiting of his views on free will, his summary comment isoffered here. “If anyone, then, can use this word [free will] without understanding it in a badsense, I shall not trouble him on this account. But I hold that because it cannot be retained withoutgreat peril, it will, on the contrary, be a great boon for the church if it be abolished. I prefer not touse it myself, and I should like others, if they seek my advice, to avoid it.” 2.2.8.

72 James C. Goodloe, IV, “Reections for the week of March 2-7,” Institutes 2.2.1-21, Ibid.

73Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 66.

74Ibid., pp. 155-156.

75Fateful Shapes of Human Freedom, p. 55. The editors of The Task of Criticism discuss piety andits implications on p. 146 there.





78Genesis 2:17, The New Oxford Annotated BIBLE, p. 4 OT.

79Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: The Free Press, 1973), p. 70. Later in the book -p. 203, Becker offers this judgment, “Finally, religion alone gives hope, because it holds open thedimension of the unknown and the unknowable, the fantastic mystery of creation that the humanmind cannot even begin to approach, the possibility of a multidimensionality of spheres of existence, of heavens and possible embodiments that make a mockery of earthly logic - and indoing so, it relieves the absurdity of earthly life, all the impossible limitations and frustrations of living matter.”

80For another issue with roots in responses to nitude, see the role of gun violence in the UnitedStates, recently lifted up in: Bob Hebert. “The American Way.” Column. New York Times onlineedition (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/ opinion/ 14Hebert.html).

81Prisoner for God, p. 12.

82Essays in honor of George P. Brockway, 1915-2001 (private printing by W. W. Norton), p. 32.

83The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion, Richard K. Fenn, ed. (Oxford, UK: BlackwellPublishers, 2001), p. 467.

religious faith & secular philosophy, interface

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