Justin Kim

Archive for the ‘Epistemology’ Category

Which Came First?

In Epistemology, Morality, Reflections on October 29, 2010 at 11:32 am

Which came first?  No, not the chicken or the egg scenario, although according to the latest cutting-edge research, it is the chicken (tic).  Rather, the question should be asked, “Which came first:  sin or death?”  While the creation / evolution issue can be debated on the realm of evidence, scientific method, and technical jargon, there are repercussions in the realm of theology, which flip back to philosophy, which often are not highlighted.  Here are some brief thoughts:

One has to create a new system, or program a new OS if you will, if you start with the premise that death can exist before sin.  Death becomes a means of life, creativity, progress, advancement, hope, and optimism.  It then has to have no bearing on morality, theology, ethics, or anything related to salvation.  This OS creates a background where mutations are hoped for (whether theistically evolved or by chance is another issue) and the hope for bettering life.  It is the harshness of failure that cancels out anything otherwise.  It is the breakdown of the genetic transcription or replication process that gives life its next step to perfection, albeit weeding out the other astronomical number of errors that are imperfect.  If death existed before sin, then one cannot make judgments on the process of death, the means of death, the experience of death, or anything remotely related to death.  One has to ask the question, if one cannot address death, then how can one even address life?  Take this to the larger perspective and one is forced to be mute in the fields of ethics, morality, liberty, politics, ontology, theological anthropology, any social science, and any biological life science.  Furthermore, the denial of user access to religion and theology are obvious.  If anything, academia shifts on focusing on how one should reach death faster and quicker; if not, discover methods to induce mutations and using intelligent processes of eliminating inferior humans for the larger survival of the human race.  Alas, doesn’t this electrifying version inspire the human drive for hope and salvation?  The sad reality is the twentieth century already gave multiple examples of this perversion.

An OS that determines that sin came before death would have to conclude that there are ethical and theological realities that have affected our human condition of life.  This would have biological, psychological, as well as existential and ontological repercussions that would not only give an appropriate and accurate explanation of the world and its follies, but our personal shortcomings as well as that one guy we can’t stand too.  Life would be the stable factor and sin the contingent repercussion.  Hence, isn’t it the doctrine of sin that needs no theological evidence for?  More thoughts on this later.

The geology, astronomy, cosmology, and physics of it all will need to work themselves out, as they once did when the first batch of intelligentsia were bona fide Christian theists.  But before we even enter that arena, shouldn’t we decide now, before-thinking these things through, that we need an appropriate OS to platform these thoughts to begin with?

Which came first:  sin or death?  You choose and divvy out the ramifications:  proper functionality and resonance with reality or self-destruction and delusional aberrance.

Romans 5:12  Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death…

1 Corinthians 15:56  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

James 1:15  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

1 John 5:17  All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.

Context and Connection

In Bible Study, Epistemology on June 2, 2009 at 10:43 am

Perhaps one of the worst ways to feel “disconnect” is when you have no bearing on what seems like the entire internet and their grandmothers are already familiar with a particular conversation. People either laugh up to endorphic nirvana, shout a myriad of incomprehensible exclamations, or convey telepathic resonance by spelling out familiarity with vigorous nods.

No one wants to be that sole loner who looks around in anxiety and über-lostness. They look like broken GPS screens clawing for a signal. Other signs include nervous laughing, nursing a drink, or the proto-classic “huh?” look. This anti-spotlight can be a merciless source of “disconnect.” In order words, everyone wants to know the inside joke.

In order to appreciate the culinary delicacy of an inside joke, one needs context. One needs to be have been an active participant in a pre-contextual scenario. Secondly, there needs to have been a moment where this context was understood in its comic-dramatic glory. And thirdly, there needs to be a future encounter where one can exercise this understanding, either in the exercise of its re-storytelling or in a responsive emotional fit of hilarity.

This is the function of any social scenario. This is also the function of any Bible study. The biblical authors were scribbling letters to localized groups in precise times in history, namely around two thousand years before now (give or take a few days). These e-mails then became viral forwards and then posted and compiled as one of the greatest expositions of this whole Gospelizationology thing. The compilation was so potent that in a matter of time, the world’s greatest imperial systems of politics, economics, military, and society (and perhaps Apple someday) collapsed to it!

While any reader especially in our day of wi-fi, Twitter blogs, and 156,000,000 Google results in 0.10 seconds would rather have a micro-summarized, lite version, anyone seeking really to “get” an inside joke (or the fullest experience from Bible study – really connecting with the text) is to sit back, click the “video on full-screen,” watch it in high-definition Blu-Ray, and really try to understand a particular biblical book or letter by studying the context, for this topic is no inside joke, but your eternal status of salvation!

Operating Systems

In Epistemology on August 10, 2008 at 9:33 pm

The computer screen that you are reading right now is more than an assembled group of colored pixels. Rather, it is a composite of complex computer instructions – one that evolved from “Pong” of the 70s to “MSDOS” of the 80s, which became “Duke Nukem” of the 90s, and to “Google” of the 2000s (Some would end this sentence with “Apple” of the x, but that would be a stretch of a statement).

In all, there is a digital infrastructure that, unless you have specialized training, no normal user could recognize. Pressing the F2 button doesn’t send some chipmunk inside to retrieve a file, but commences a chain reaction that sets off a myriad of sub-routines and command programs. Once processed through the hardware and monitor, the action results in a small box that pops up (or whatever effect) on your screen.

When an error box pops up (on Apple’s as well as PC’s), the user would experience frustration, thinking the problem to be a superficial one. In actuality, there is a root error somewhere in the deep recesses of the machine’s hard drive. Clicking the OK button would remove the box of frustration temporarily, but the problem is “subconsciously” inherent within the mainframe.

Similarly, the problems that we have, crises of ideology, discrepancies of value systems, dissonances in meta-narratives are not superficial error boxes, but mistakes at the subconscious level (not in the psychological sense, but in the presuppositional).

It’s like asking the computer to think about its own computing process. Of course, due to the lack of sentience, it is impossible for the computer to do this. Just like how computer programs are superficially running on the screen, our lives are running various programs: MS Work, Family OS, iChurch, etc.

When these programs are having problems, we shouldn’t be asking “how do I fix this,” but rather “why am I running these programs this way to begin with?”

Before thinking, one must think about whether thinking is worth thinking about. This is not a mere tautomer, but the objective in a discipline called epistemology. How do you know what you know is what you know? This is discipline that differentiates humanity from its artificially intelligent counterpart.

Individuality

In Epistemology on July 25, 2008 at 10:36 am

There is an inbred, genetic, innately psychological need to be an individual. For example, the teenage years is time for individuality to emerge, truthfully quite subjectively, no matter how objectively similar adolescents are with each other. “I want to be who I am and dye my hair green like the rest of my green-haired friends!”

Toddlers want to do whatever others want to do. Siblings think whatever big brother is doing is always cooler. The toy your playing with isn’t as fun as the toy he is playing with. These thoughts then dissolve once puberty hits, and the “I” thinks its emerging.

This craving however is not only found in the monad, but also in society. From the classroom to the casket, every social institution looks down upon a lack of individuality. Other designations include poser, loser, unoriginal, imitator, wannabe, commonplace, low-class, plagiarists, pedestrian, in-the-box thinker, “part of the system,” etc. Students are encourage to draw their own creative picture. Funeral services should have been unique and “the way he/she would have wanted it.”

Is this why society is fascinated with the new, cutting-edge, “what’s next,” etc.?

Ironically though monads desire individuality, social trends intentionally or unintentionally do away with any derivative of independence. By definition, that’s what a trend is. “I” want to be “me,” but let me find out what “everyone” else is doing to see if that is really is “me.”

False Individuality

Atheistic models and its sub-currents such as evolutionary biology claim diversity was and is achieved through random trait survival. If a noodle of a trait survives the harsh environmental conditions of the colander, then its phenotype is seen in nature (or the kitchen sink). So nature waits patiently for the gene pool to morph (or mess up depending on how you look at it) and if it survives, then poof!, a new trait; or, the creation of uniqueness; or when applied to social psychology, we have individuality.

If anything, though a rational model, uniqueness is stomped out by the conditions of the environment. Genetic mutations (if you assume diversity has its hope in the malfunction of RNA polymerase) are at the mercy of the goddess of nature and the elements. Given enough time, the same survival traits should be manifested in all species until one emerges and all divergences are expunged (until the next great fad in mutations – sound familiar?).

Based on the monotheistic narrative of Scripture, Christianity states that diversity had an original point. God who has the innate characteristic of diversity within His essence (dubbed the Trinity) created all possibilities of individuality in the beginning (within humanity as well as other). Adam and Eve were to “be fruitful” and spread out these potentials of individual traits and complex combination of these traits through their posterity.

True individuality is found in the mental blueprint of the original mechanic that installed these traits and that designed a complex, unique product. There is a firm confidence that there is only one of us in this universe, just as there is only One of Him in this universe. We do not need to compare ourselves with the rest of the universe (or the rest of society) to see this. Even if we do, we will end up losing our individuality in the process.

So then this inbred, genetic, innately psychological need was in fact designed and implanted. In turn, the common desire of society to find individuality is a great argument that we were designed to be individuals. Created.

Before thinking, one must question whether they are thinking. Too often, reproducing the traits (thoughts) of another species (individual) is understood to be survival (thinking). Rather, true thinking comes from individuality. And the individuality of the creature comes from the Creator.

Divine ontology is a foremost prerequisite to proper epistemology.

“Every discipline must be framed by a theological perspective; otherwise these disciplines will define a zone apart from God, grounded literally in nothing.” – John Milbank

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