Comments on: On Morality and Narrative Law

By: Elton Kelly

Elton Kelly — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:13:43 +0000

I know I am a bit late on this conversation, but have you heard of the Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. He the book on narrative ethics called “After Virtue.” Some one above mentioned Aristotle. MacIntyre is grounded in Aristotle.

By: Jude

Jude — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:30:56 +0000

P.S.- CORRECTION: In my first comment above, I meant to say that the Bible clearly says that we are not to impose and expect to impose the believer’s moral code on NON-believers. God’s goal isn’t to have religious, morally correct people- His point is to have a personal loving relationship with them.

By: Jude

Jude — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:19:19 +0000

As for the comments above on Christianity, I do believe it’s true that when man gets his hands on something from God, he tends to take away from the beauty of it. When I fall into “Church-ianity”, it takes away from the whole point and the reality of Christ and how amazing it all is- I have to go back to God’s Word and try to read it as though I were reading something I had not heard so many times before. It has to be FRESH- and not filled with just what I’ve been taught about it before. When I am able to do this and to spend time alone under the stars listening for God, it is amazing again and REAL. Christ was always going off to a lonely place to be with the Father. One thing we need to trust is God’s Word, and to keep it real. I try to filter any teaching I hear and I really enjoy those teachers who I know are truly desiring God’s work in their lives to be real.

By: Jude

Jude — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:07:03 +0000

I scrolled down and haven’t read all the comments, but I will say I agree that Don’s book is definitely not about living some life just filled with endless adrenaline rush, but just a life of meaning. He even mentions it not being about him- one of the trees in the forest, but it’s about the forest. Also, it is true that God does provide a moral code for believers, but not to be imposed on all who don’t believe- the Bible clearly says that it is not to be expected from believers, so I’m assuming that Don is referring to that- as far as society as a whole goes, that maybe his idea would be effective…

By: Mollye

Mollye — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:24:28 +0000

Hi Paul,
YES! That is exactly how I feel. I love and connect with God but I am not able to swallow wholesale the “package” being offered as “Christianity.” So, I find myself picking through the attic of dogmas, ideas, and pronouncements in an attempt to find authenticity. This may sound hooey, but I am measuring what I hear on how it hits me at a heart level. Part of my journey has been learning to trust that deep place in me where the divine resides (some would call it intuition, some call it the holly Spirit), to tell me what is honest and true and what is human invention. Not saying I’m always right, who could be, but I am learning to trust that self that I stymied and shut out for so long. Guess what that part of me responds most to…Grace, in all its forms. Brings me to tears every time. Thanks man. I appreciate you

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:40:19 +0000

Hi Mollye – For me, only those expressions of Christianity that are organic vs. organizational, authentic vs. autocratic, bring me hope. What I may find hard to grasp with ‘the church’, I find nobly endowed in the idea of Christ. I may question the historicity of scripture but feel only ‘the scriptures’ Jesus’ perfect for my soul-ish longings. It is amazing that I can affirm so great a God-need as needing Jesus and at the same time… question it all as being too good to be true or at least, true enough to be good. I guess GRACE is the permission I get to travel this journey of faith and doubt.

By: Mollye

Mollye — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:10:41 +0000

To Paul, Those are good questions all. I am feeling disillusioned about organized religion. Miraculously, I still have a relationship with God, but I have such a knee-jerk aversion to anything overtly “christiany”, and I don’t feel like I can really trust much that comes from the church. I question EVERYTHING. So its helpful to hear someone else throwing out a barage of questions. Thanks.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:00:41 +0000

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses,
And all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.”

Can propositional truth ever be put together again?
Should it be?
Can the narrative achieve this feat?

What if people just reject truth?
Will scrambling it or serving it poached make any different?

Joseph Campbell solution was the power of myth.
What distinguishes the narrative from myth? What wall will it rest on?

Or will the narrative be just a clever conveyance of the Old Dumpty? (Try new our ‘contemporary service’)

Whatever it is, I hope it can stare cancer in the face.
I hope it can give the promise of life to the abused.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:38:55 +0000

Don,
I like that you use Bold in the first sentence of each paragraph. It looks important and helps the ADD kid in me to organize my thoughts (well, your thoughts as interpreted by my brain).

Nice work.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:31:13 +0000

I was at the event last night in Waterloo…you kept mentioning a sort of shared moral compass at least amongst those in our immediate locations. I thought that this was pretty cool…in that it seems very similar to some of the stuff we’ve been doing in a class of mine that is looking at the relation of aesthetics and politics.

The connection arises from Kant’s “Critique of the Power of Judgment”, which is then developed by Hannah Arendt in her “Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy”. To get to the point, there is talk of the “sensus communis” in both of them. This sense that is common to all (Kant thinking cosmopolitanly (haha, not a word, but…) thought this was possible for everyone) is the basis for our judgments of things like beauty, meaning, value, etc. This isn’t morality per se, but given that the word morality contains in it a sense of “mores” it has some bearing.

There is also something quite interesting in that, for Kant, free speech and the freedom to publish are important in all of this (the previous paragraphs). Which means, you have to write it…and its all taking place amongst an eternal march towards progress…which is never really reached…we’re basically stuck in Act 2- remind you of anything?

Also, Aristotle mentions the need to speak the political to make it happen. You have to tell the story and live the story to make politics (that is, life) actual…I guess that’s my Millerian reading of Aristotle, haha.