T. F. Torrance and Richard Dawkins

by Kim Fabricius

The Independent features an obituary of T. F. Torrance, who was undoubtedly the greatest British theologian of the 20th century.

The obituarist David Fergusson rightly points to the immense contribution that Professor Torrance made to the dialogue between theology and science – or rather between the science of theology and the science of nature. Only in the English-speaking world do we find the ideological reductionism that cedes the natural sciences hegemony over the rational and critical investigation of reality and allows the likes of Richard Dawkins fraudulently to prosper.

David Fergusson remarks on the conflict between Torrance and his colleague James Barr, citing Torrance’s stinging remark that “Barr had been a brilliant tailgunner in the RAF and had carried on shooting throughout his academic life.” At least Barr shot at moving targets. Dawkins prefers shooting fish in a barrel to taking on the great whales like Torrance who would have him for breakfast.

St Mary’s Parish Church Whitekirk, where Torrance was buried last week.

Žižek and theology

Our friends at T&T Clark announce an exciting new book series on “Philosopy and Theology.” There are books in preparation on Nietzsche, Badiou, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Hegel, Kant and Kierkegaard.

The series is opening with Adam Kotsko’s book, Žižek and Theology. Adam describes this book in a guest-post at the T&T Clark blog.

Churchly terrors

Byron asks: “Does church terrify you? Do you get shivers down your spine when you arrive each week? Do you wake up early on a Sunday morning in a cold sweat? You should.”

Reminds me of Annie Dillard’s memorable observation about church.

Markus Zusak on radio

I’ve told you on an earlier occasion about Markus Zusak’s beautiful novel, The Book Thief. On tonight’s excellent ABC radio programme, The Lyric Voice, you can hear an excerpt from Zusak’s novel, accompanied by a very moving performance of Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel. You can listen to the programme here (in Real Player) or here (in Windows Media). The Zusak reading begins at 28:20 into the programme.

Five quotes on language

“We live in our language like blind men walking on the edge of an abyss.” —Gershom Scholem to Franz Rosenzweig, 26 December 1926.

“Language is the language of Being as clouds are the clouds of the sky. In what it says, thought leaves inconspicuous furrows in language. They are even more inconspicuous than the furrows that the farmer, slow of step, draws through the field.” —Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” in Pathmarks (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), p. 276.

“The origin lies at a place of inevitable loss, the point where the truth of things corresponded to a truthful discourse, the site of a fleeting articulation that discourse has obscured and finally lost.” —Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 143.

“The Wittgensteinian definition of the mystic as the appearing of what cannot be said is literally a definition of the gag. And every great philosophical text is the gag exhibiting language itself, being-in-language itself as a gigantic loss of memory, as an incurable speech defect.” —Giorgio Agamben, Means without End: Notes on Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2000), p. 60.

“In the beginning was the Speech.” —John 1:1.

A few things I never could believe

In his delightfully pessimistic song, “Everything Goes To Hell” (2002), Tom Waits sings:

    There’s a few things that I never could believe:
    A woman when she weeps
    A merchant when he swears
    A thief who says he’ll pay
    A lawyer when he cares
    A snake when he is sleeping
    A drunkard when he prays…

So that got me thinking. And here are a few things that I never can believe:

• A telemarketer who wants “just a few moments.”
• A politician who talks about “our way of life.”
• A church which describes itself as “Bible-based.”
• A record company which produces “Christian music.”
• A theologian who uses the word “tolerance.”
• A TV preacher who says “glory to God!”