DIAGNOSIS OF LOVE

Can the quality of one's love be assessed?

Is it possible to diagnose a condition of love?

By conceiving LOVE as a tetracompound force - eros, philos, storge, agape (in dynamic relation) - a diagnosis of LOVE can be made that allows one to discuss how healthy the condition of that LOVE may be.

The diagnosis begins by considering

a series of statements

concerning each component of LOVE:

first eros (11 statements),

1. The LOVE I count is what I experience physically.
2. I base my LOVE relationship on what I can receive?
3. I consider our LOVE when I experience a biological response to my partners overtures.
4. I don’t expect to do anything to experience LOVE from my partner.
5. I cannot help experiencing LOVE with my partner.
6. I think the process of my LOVE is simply a normal function.
7. My ideas about right and wrong are effected by my feelings and LOVE behavior with my partner.
8. To put it most simply, I would say that LOVE is a feeling.
9. If the feeling isn’t pleasant, I would not call it LOVE.
10. LOVE is doing what comes naturally.
11. Morality should not interfere with the experience and the recognition of a LOVE relationship.

Now add your scores for the 11 items and divide by 11. This is your rank for eros.

next philos (13 statements),

1. We both like to spend time together even if it is doing nothing planned or specific.
2. We share whatever we have with each other.
3. We spend time interacting socially, like conversing, telling each other where we’ve been and what we are doing, going places and doing things together.
4. I expect to, and I do carry half of the responsibility of our social life and my partner shares half. We do this informally and willingly not in some formal accounting manner.
5. We speak the same language and we are helping each other to expand a common vocabulary.
6. I hope my partner reciprocates with me and I look forward to her reciprocation.
7. I believe friendship has been and continues developing between us.
8. We enjoy sharing with each other.
9. Our friends support our LOVE relationship.
10. Apart from LOVE, we consider each other best of friends.
11. We recognize that social principles dictate social relationships.
12. I recognize that I must be sociable in order to expect my partner to be sociable to me.
13. I must discern and keep the moral code which evolves over time through our interaction.

Add the score for all the statements and divide by 13. This is your rank for philos.

then storge (12 statements),

1. Before we could express our LOVE toward each other so that we understood the behavior which meant LOVE we had to express the signs and symbols which in our culture meant LOVE.
2. We both understand what the appropriate behavior is that indicates respectful love for our partner.
3. We understand that the pattern for engaging in a LOVE relationship emerged from the culture in which we live.
4. We had to learn what LOVE is.
5. There is a passive intellectual aspect to our LOVE for each other.
6. In spite of our feelings, our culture defined the process of our LOVE.
7. We could not ignore how our culture defined LOVE and we had to know it before we could LOVE each other in a healthy and productive manner.
8. In spite of how we feel we know that we LOVE each other.
9. The boundaries of our LOVE is set by our culture.
10. We measure our LOVE by how well we adhere to social norms.
11. Our LOVE is regulated by cultural laws.
12. We consider moral behavior by what is culturally acceptable

Add up the scores of these 12 statements and divide by 12. This is your rank for storge.

and finally agape (13 statements).

1. I often willfully express my LOVE to my partner in spite of the way I feel.
2. I look for ways to give, especially time, esteem and appreciation to my partner despite the way I feel.
3. I believe my partner and I strive for spiritual reconciliation to begin the healing process when there are differences between us.
4. While in practice it may not be so, I assume I am totally responsible for what goes on in our LOVE relationship.
5. I assume the responsibility of initiating loving behavior.
6. I make rational decisions to act on behalf of my love partner.
7. I believe the ideas I have and express modify my behavior.
8. I see our love as primarily my giving.
9. I am responsible for setting and protecting the boundaries of our LOVE.
10. I measure my LOVE for my partner by my sacrifice.
11. The old law of LOVE was loving your neighbor as yourself, but the New Law is to LOVE my partner as God loves me.
12. To LOVE my partner is to reflect what is Godly.
13. I believe agape is the only source for an authentic Morality.

Add up the scores of these 13 statements and divide by 13. This is your rank for agape.

The Therapy
For purposes of discussion, let us suppose the ranks are: eros = 8, philos = 5, storgé = 4, agape = 4. Your profile is 8-5-4-4.

From the above profile, you can suspect that the best thing working for you (in our example) is eros. Now for an ideal procedure, never begin the therapy with eros, and always begin it with agape. The reason for this should be obvious. You have no control over eros. The stimuli from your partner that generated a pleasant feeling was simply a neurological response that you reported as a pleasant feeling. If your partner’s stimulus evoked pain, so be it, you experienced pain. You could fake the first and deny the latter but that doesn’t change the fact of the reality, postmodern ideology notwithstanding!

Mutual commitment to change as necessary for healing is absolutely important!
To begin with, for optimal improvement both parties in the relationship should sincerely be committed to wanting to see continued improvement. The level of this commitment will determine the success of your love again flourishing. Remember, it takes two persons to develop a productive relationship, it takes only one person to destroy it - or at least prevent it from improving. Only you know how sincere and complete your commitment is. And all you can do initially with your partner is believe what your partner says. The outcome will help you to determine how sincere and profound the commitment to the healing of the fractured LOVE was.

1. Improving storgé.
Remembering that agape is the willful behavior of LOVE, mind work is necessary here. Do not expect nor work for some big LOVE thrill to heal the fractured LOVE. Focus in on storgé which you have major ability to conform and which ranked lowest at the 3 level. Go to the paradigm and read across on storge. Ask yourself: how you can improve storge at each characteristic of LOV? How can you share more completely in social and cultural understanding? Often it is a spiritual hiatus that divides a couple so that the moral, ethical and spiritual friction that is the result keeps a healthy LOVE life from developing. How well have each of you achieved at least a functional level in a common culture?

Speak to each other in order to understand the ramifications of your partner’s statuses and roles. How basic is you relationship – i.e., are you two spouses, engaged, cohabitors, daters, occasional lovers, relatives; what are you both to each other? How well have you respected the expectations of your relationship? Now intentionally treat your partner in the light of the expectations of your relationship. If you behave towards each other as spouses when in fact you are only daters, your love relationship becomes adversely affected. Make all the necessary changes in what you say and how you act so that your behavior is appropriate for the recognized relationship.

Make sure that your behavior towards your partner outside of your relationship is appropriate. As a matter of fact, our relation with the one we love and want to be loved by is profoundly affected by our behavior towards others. Unlike other relationships, when we identify another as our lover, just about every other relationship must be modified in some way. Not to do this is to put an otherwise productive relationship with our lover at risk.

A student, who was to be married shortly after graduation, told me that he agreed to marry his girlfriend when she agreed that after the marriage he did not have to change his life-style. I assured him that he was guaranteeing marital trouble. After about seven years they divorced. Once you decide to get married, it implies that you agree to modify your behavior accordingly in all of your other relationships.

Behavior deemed appropriate must be modified as our love relationship changes. The change must first begin in our heads. A person must imagine and think of what behavior is now appropriate given your love relationship. If the work is not done adequately in the head, it will not be adequately seen in our behavior. To the extent that it is otherwise overtly acceptable while covertly we are otherwise, we are practicing a deception that is corroding and eroding our relationship whether or not we admit it

Storge admits to no deviance and tolerates no plea of ignorance (see Table 1). The 3 in your profile must be transformed to a 10 for engaging in an optimum love relationship.

2. Working on agape. (Indirectly improving philos and generating eros.)
If you concentrate on elevating agape, you will find that philos will improve and the consequence will be that eros will be generated. How do we improve agape? Try the following.

You must lay aside whatever feelings lead you to negative behavior toward your partner. You must understand that the behavior to which you shall be called is independent of the way you feel. You must not engage in this on the basis of what you expect in return. Consequently, this process begins in your head. Just imagine what you can do that will enhance your partner, regardless of the way you may feel. Here is where you do not go for broke in your actions. Remember that LOVE is built on trifles. For example, I shall assume that you are a male. Rather than yield to the desire to buy her a dozen roses, get just one rose and a card and place it by her bed, or desk, of some other conspicuous place.

The next day stop your car along the highway and pick some wild flowers - just a few, enough to place in a glass. Do you see that this conveys the unspoken message that you have been thinking of her when you are alone. Get together a series of otherwise individually unimportant ideas. Just do them, whatever, without any fanfare.

What your say during this time is very important. Do not joke, or pull any smart alecky tricks. Watch your language. Speak in a manner that you know is acceptable to her. Be positively responsive to her gestures and suggestions, even though at other times you would express disfavor with them.

The principle here is to think of what you can do to enhance her persona. Ask for her advice, opinion, and suggestion in a matter of fact way. Do not expect anything from her and be grateful for whatever she gives.

How much of this must you do? And for how long? It all depends on the seriousness of the fracture in your love relationship. If you are really sincere about your commitment for healing, than you cannot show any anxiety about time.

If you engage your partner in committed interaction, that will generate a sentiment of trust, which will become the motivation to want to engage in activity where committed interaction can go on. And the cycle goes on. It all begins with committed and sincere interaction on your part. READ THIS AGAIN. IT IS A BASIC PRINCIPLE IN CREATING AND SUSTAINING PRODUCTIVE RELATIONSHIPS. TRY IT AND YOU WILL SEE THAT IT WORKS. It can be represented by the following model 4 – The Social-Psychological Model of Human Relationships.

3. Spending Time to Generate Philos
There is no substitute for the expenditure of time to generate a desirous, productive and lasting friendship. It is said that many a courtship has been ruined by marriage! The truth of the matter is that during courtship the couple will spend unmeasured time together just hanging out. Their love was always on their mind and they longed to just be together. Most of their interaction was composed of small-time chit-chat whose content they themselves forget in short order.

But what was happening? They were bonding. Bonding takes time whether it be before marriage or after marriage. Whether it be between two adults, an adult and a child, or between two children. Philos demands time, and regardless of the excuses to the contrary, no time to give, no friend to have.

But what can be done when due to circumstances two persons are separated and can not be physically with each other except for very brief periods? This may be due to working hours, or military service of some other type of occupation, or perhaps unmarried persons living great distances from each other? We must understand that friendship is carried by us in our heads. It is there that a consciousness of the other’s presence is carried and practiced.

Indeed, two persons may be very close together physically, but mentally, they are miles apart. Our imagination is a very powerful mechanism we possess. It is there we must carry and interact imaginatively with one we wish to bond with. This is not a substitute for giving time to be physically together, but a superior technique to prevent the erosion of friendship. The old adage, “Out of sight, out of mind,” need not be true. The contrary proverb, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” is true only if in the absence of our friend we carry on our interaction imaginatively.

Now we must understand that this technique is not useful if we think to use it to deliberately be absent from each other, or to justify an excuse to stay away from the other person.

4. The Eros Surprise!
I am not oblivious to the fact that we all want to receive good feelings in a relationship we deem important. This is especially true in love relationships.

The critical mistake that is too often made when a relationship, especially a love relationship, is fractured. One – and usually the male – seeks to act humorous, or suggest activities where there is fun and laughter, supposing that stirring up some good feeling (eros) will heal the fractured relationship. If it looks like the relationship is healed through acting funny, you are being deceived. The good feeling and laughter must be the result of the healed relationship and fractures, not the cause.

Another grave mistake often made by one party – usually not the aggrieved one – is that (s)he supposes that if they do something big like going on a week-end cruise, or going out to the most expensive restaurant in town after attending the most expensive movie in town, after buying two dozen long stem roses and an expensive gift of some some, that everything will be all right. Don’t hold your breath!

Understand, that conflict invariably occurs because of some sort of communication problem. Consequently, it is in the arena of communication that the fracture can be healed. The variety of communication problems is so great that to try to list them here would be futile. The problem is not being able to articulate the problem accurately and in minute detail, but to understand the dynamics of coping and resolving the conflict.

Many assert that we must first know the cause of the conflict before we can expect to resolve it. I thoroughly disagree. If we first learn and understand the dynamics of living together, our need to give our lives in trying to extricate the cause of the conflict becomes unnecessary.

Furthermore, in so many cases of interpersonal conflict, it becomes virtually impossible to really learn the truth concerning its cause. Have you ever tried to learn who started the fight between two young siblings? All you get is, “He did it.” “No, I did not, she started it!” “I did not, he started it when...” and on and on it goes.

What is needed, and it is the simplest and most straight forward action, is to ask each other how you want the conflict to be resolved ,i.e., what is the goal you wish to accomplish together? If one replies that he wants to see the other punished, then in vain will you settle the dispute. It always takes two to establish and maintain a good, productive relationship, but it takes only one person to destroy it and keep it in disarray. If both parties agree that they want to have the conflict end with them being friends, or at least on basic speaking terms, then that is the goal to work towards. Work towards the common goal each seeks, instead of consuming energy on determining the cause. So what after you learn – or think you learn – the cause of the conflict? The chances are that you never learn the real cause. You might reach the point of agreeing to disagree and just get off the fighting, but that is not getting to the real cause. Actually, the real cause – or at least a good part of it – is that you two did not understand the dynamics of producing and maintaining a productive relationship.

I can virtually guarantee that if you follow the recommended regimen, eros will be a consequence without you asking for it. Try it – it doesn’t have to cost you a cent!

FROM FRACTURE TO FULFILLMENT

A Clinically Proven and Therapeutically Practical Concept of Marriage

* In March 1992, I edited this essay from excerpts of my father's unpublished monograph, "Towards an Operational Definition of Marriage and Its Implications for Divorce and Remarriage." It was his contribution to a committee of the General Council of the Assemblies of God who were commissioned to consider the credentialing of married ministers who have a living spouse; that committee, chaired by Glen D. Cole, published its report on March 30, 1990.

What is marriage?

There really is no definitive agreement

on the nature of marriage.

We simply assume that, since we all use the term "marriage," there exists a common meaning. As long as we are not confronted by problems related to its meaning, these remain confused and confounding issues. The consequences are severe. If the validity of a marriage cannot clearly be articulated, there will be both uncertainty and disagreement about what divorce is and how the dissolution of a marriage actually comes about. How can any clear guidelines be provided for the role of persons bogged down in such a quagmire?

A simple conceptual definition is inadequate.

In order to identify a valid marriage, we must progress to an operational definition to describe the composite reality we call "marriage." This beginning point is what is to be established. An operational definition is necessary for marriage so that we can measure the components of this phenomenon which we treat as a single entity. This will help us in determining the time when a marriage indeed exists, as well as the factors which can disintegrate the marital relationship.

The model developed embodies what is asserted to be

universally characteristic of marriage

in both recorded human history and myriad cultural settings.

Identified in this model are three components - coitus, commitment and culture. These components are in dynamic relation to each other through their paired elements: in coitus are the elements of procreation and pleasure; the elements of commitment are word and work; and in the cultural component we have elements that are regulatory and religious.

BIOLOGICAL: Coitus (procreation & pleasure)

interfaces with Culture & Commitment

PSYCHOLOGICAL: Commitment (word & work)

interfaces with Coitus & Culture

SOCIAL: Culture (regulatory & religious)

interfaces with Commitment & Coitus

(CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE)

When these elements are rightly related

to Jesus Christ

for the glory of God

Flowing from this model is the operational definition which establishes a basis for determining a valid marriage. A usual, normal marriage is one in which a man and a woman exchange verbal and behavioral commitment to each other, who meet the requirements of their culture, and who share sexual relations with one another. Elements of this dyad may be missing, deviant, or otherwise different due to cultural diversity. However, we still have a marriage. It may be fractured, yes, but still a marriage. With this established, the marital dyad can be assessed as whole, or, if deteriorating, as fractured, and with continued deterioration, as disintegrated.

A usual, normal marriage =

a relationship in which

a man and a woman exchange

verbal and behavioral commitment to each other,

who meet the requirements of their culture,

and who share sexual relations with one another.

It should be self-evident that we are all born strangers. We hold the power to modify that initial relationship through communication. From stranger, we may go on to acquaintance to casual friend and on to close friend. Out of nothing we create a unique relationship. Just as we can create and nurture our social relationships, we also can act to dissolve those very same relationships. After creating a close friend relationship, we can use our decision-making capability to modify it, and, instead of cultivating the friendship, cause it to deteriorate, even going on to change the relationship to enemy. But we can never be a stranger to that other one ever again.

Fractures are characteristic of,

not the exception to, all human systems.

Theoretically,

all fractures in these human social systems

can be healed.

In practice, this rarely occurs.

The dissolution of a relationship does not include being relieved from the responsibility that goes with the privilege of exercisin the power to establish the relationship in the first place. For example, with the privilege of creating a friendship come the responsibility that makes it impossible to ignore the other's person without consequently fracturing that friendship. Fractures are characteristic of, not the exception to, all human systems. Theoretically, all fractures in these human social systems can be healed. In practice, this rarely occurs. Some continue to worsen until the system no longer holds together and the relationships no longer continue to contribute to the cohesion of the group. This process of "ungluing" is the reverse of that which brought the relationship together. It accounts for a human condition that does not occur suddenly but is instead drawn out over time.

Hardness of heart begins when bitterness,

however slight, whatever its form,

is allowed to take root within a person.

Attitudinal and behavioral rather than physical, this condition involves spiritual, psychological and social factors. One might describe it as "growing cold." The biblical label is "hardness of heart." In fact, Jesus himself taught that provision was made for divorce on account of "hardness of heart." Hardness of heart begins when bitterness, however slight, whatever its form, is allowed to take root within a person. The longer the bitterness is nurtured, the colder the heart gets, until one becomes afflicted with "hardness of heart." When this process occurs and is allowed to continue in a marriage relationship, the elements of the marital dyad become anemic and weak. Such a marriage is in trouble to the point of deterioration. Trifle by trifle, in one element after another, the marital dyad becomes unglued. The process that brought it together has reversed itself. This is what conventionally is meant when we say "their marriage is falling apart."

It is possible, and preferable,

that a couple stay together

and work out their problems together.

Coming upon hard times is no ground to say a marriage is fractured beyond repair. Despite that such circumstances are often bitter and frustrating as well as emotionally and intellectually exhausting, a fractured marriage is still a valid marriage. A valid marriage constrains the pair to maintain their responsibilities towards one another so that each may derive the privileges therefrom. A spouse who is committed to the marriage relationship imagines, thinks, and behaves in a covenantal way. Relationships are created and maintained by two persons. It is doubtful that there are very many marital problems in which one party is totally innocent, that is, one did not contribute in any way to the delinquency of the mate. If both parties "will to do the will" of the laws involved in creating productive relationships, disintegration of a union may be stopped and reversed.

Marriage vows are sacred

to self and society.

In being committed to maintaing their marriage, a husband and wife must continually seek how they may enrich, encourage, enjoy and enhance one another. While it only takes one spouse to ruin the marriage, it takes both to maintain a healthy and holy marital relationship. This model has proven to be a practical clinical tool for diagnosing a developing, healthy or troubled relationship. Especially helpful is its usefulness for developing a comprehensive therapy to maintain ro restore an adequate and successful marriage. Marriage vows are sacred to self and society. Using this conceptual model of marriage may help husbands and wives facing struggle, strain and separation to keep honoring their vows together.

A man and woman, as husband and wife,

commit themselves

to maintaining their marriage

by continually seeking how they may

enrich, encourage, enjoy and enhance

one another.

While it only takes one spouse

to ruin a marriage,

it takes both to maintain

a healthy and holy marital relationship.

IS ALTRUISM ULTIMATELY A FATALLY FLAWED IDEA?

I learned from my father that the word "altruism" was coined by Comte to avoid having to use the God-laden word "agape." Bad move because such love is impossible without God's empowering grace. Loving others as oneself is fully possible only as one fully loves God with one's whole self, body and mind and soul and strength. Loving others is our response to God first loving us; we become imitators of God by depending on God's grace to help us act towards others for their good without no reciprocal demand, just as Christ loved us and gave himself for us.

Acting altruistically rather than graciously

will lead to frustration, resentment, and worse.

Without God, we will end up saying with Cain, who killed his brother, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Altruism's appeal is that it appears to agree that I am my brother's keeper, yet it offers no way to overcome the sinful drive to favor oneself first.

Altruism is a lie

that depends on appearing to be like agape

yet really being so only superficially.

Such a masquerade, typical of the work of the Father of Lies, is exposed when one walks in the light of truth that is the way of Jesus Christ, begotten of God, the Father of Lights.

REGARDING FICTION & FAITH

A correspondence with a former student of my father

NOTE: The following is a somewhat edited transcript of an actual e-mail correspondence between myself and a former student of my father. His comments are in purple. Those comments of mine in green are later reflections from other e-mails.

I reply to this note of yours …, which I have been brooding about. I am inclined to think of faith as a question of membership, loyalty, social bonds, rather than of private opinion. One breaches faith by acts and not by thoughts. Apostasy and infidelity come before unbelief. And I think this would have been the prevailing idea in Christendom before, say, Martin Luther, who really did seem to believe you were saved by, in effect, changing your mind. On this basis, Judas's failing was not in his beliefs but in his behaviour.

CRT - Behavior begins with belief. One breaches faith in an act that is a consequence of some thought process leading up to that act. It is not either/or but both/and. Luther's "change of mind" reflects Paul's exhortation to be transformed by the renewing of one's mind (Romans 12:2).

Your comments lead me to see the difficulty with my settled view. A paradox, perhaps a contradiction, opens up. I mean in personal terms. How can I know what I have betrayed? In what order? To what effect? Am I honest about the sources of my unbelief? More to the present point, Can I have community on the basis of a half-way covenant? A covenant of nostalgia with no price to pay of cognitive assent, let alone of confession?

I am eager enough to confess to the transgression of abandonment and betrayal.

CRT - Are you “honest about the sources of your unbelief?” You are “eager enough to confess to the transgression of abandonment and betrayal.” Yet you wonder, “How can I know what I have betrayed? In what order? To what effect?” What absolution do you imagine to be forthcoming, if the response is only 'simply believe'? What have you abandoned? Whom have you betrayed? To whom will you confess?

Absolution comes from the Latin absolvo, “set free.” Is that what you are trying to imagine, being set free? Jesus simply said, “Follow me.” Freedom is found in following Jesus. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). Following Christ is believing and behaving within the boundaries of Christian fellowship. Real relationship with God and others revolves around the person and work of Jesus Christ. To be restored to fellowship is the desire that drives confession.

If 'faith begins in ... imagination' have we not placed a faculty with which people are very variously endowed, as the gate-keeper of salvation?

CRT - The faculty of imagination is that with which one figures one’s faith. Faith is a given, measured to us by God’s grace. With the measure of faith we are given, we go on to conceive how we may follow God. Either that or flee from Him.

Have we not loaded the terms of debate? A Greek would have had no quarrel with this thinking, as they had no trouble with praiseworthiness and blameworthiness as being one's fate, like Oedipus'. We could say it was Judas' fate to be Judas. He would be damned even though he had no choice, either in his temperament or in his quality of imagination or in the force of the temptation he was given.

CRT - The “quality” of one’s imagination does not quantify the measure of one’s faith. God initiates the whole process by first loving us; we then have the privilege of responding. Do we follow Him or flee? Love Him or leave Him – such a simple choice leaves little to the imagination!

How can we know what Judas was? Much less that he was cynical?

CRT - A cynic sneers at life rather than embracing its abundance. Doubt dogs a cynic until no delight is possible, only despair. Judas did doubt that joy could come from keeping to Christ’s command. He chose to act against God because he could not imagine God working the way Jesus taught. Seized with remorse, he died with the realization, “I have betrayed an innocent man.”

One might make out Thomas as the greater cynic, who was at the least a man of mediocre imagination, a vulgar materialist, an opportunist.

CRT - What do we know? We know that both Judas and Thomas, like us, were sinners whom only grace could save. We know that Judas betrayed Jesus. We know that Thomas confessed Jesus to be Lord and God. We know that doubting has its limits and that, at some point, we must stop doubting and believe. We know that we too must face whether or not we are willing to go die with Christ. “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin …. We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true” (1 John 5:18-21).

Where is this going? I have no idea. I simply want to acknowledge a hermeneutical circle you have opened up that rattles my own somewhat materialist understanding.

CRT - The hermeneutical circle which our conversation has opened up spirals up to eternity. Our ongoing relationship now takes us around beyond the bend of comfortable conformity to encounter new possibilities of meaning and understanding. This may be the beginning of a new community that we will discover to be really in continuity with the ancient community of Christians whom Jesus called His Church.

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Psalm 51:12

The point you make is well taken. Regarding behaviour and belief, not being either/or but both/and. The sort of thing to keep a graduate seminar going for a heated hour or two. The phrase that leaps out on a third or fourth reading is, naturally, a text from Nick. The sort of arresting thing he was wont to say. I mean his "let's assume that it is true." This gets us away from circularity and proposes a method for reading. But I would run with this in two directions.

In one direction I would ask is this not also the method for reading the Koran, or the Buddhist scriptures?

CRT - Yes, assuming a text is true allows the text to speak for itself. Deconstructive criticism finds flaws in the text using the text's own criteria. That is what I like about Derrida – he insisted that one read the text first to appreciate how it is constructed before re-reading it to deconstruct it as one may.

Or, why do Catholics have visions of Mary, Muslims of the Prophet, Buddhists the Buddha, and so forth? Why does Sister Patsy see Jesus?

CRT - I am none of those, so I can only speculate. I imagine that ... hmmm, anything I write now will be true only as far as I am able to imagine what is true for others with whom I have little or no relationship. I can speculate why, but then must go to them and let them respond to my speculation, then revise what I have imagined to be true according to what they revealed by way of our relationship.

In other words, returning to our seminar conundrum, I would say that the text we choose on which to apply the method is predetermined by our community.

CRT - We're getting into Bultman's preconceptions here. Being aware of one's community is prerequisite for hermeneutical understanding.

It is not innocent to say let's read the book of John as though it were true and see what happens. We already know what will happen given the circumstances of the experiment, the community of faith to which we already belong, the bond between reader and hearers -- the bond of discipleship -- the status of the text before us.

CRT - We approach the text with expectations, to be sure. However, allowing the text to surprise us takes an openness to Truth that one may be avoiding.

Truth is truth, to be sure. But there is scientific truth, and there is a truth of the soul which arises in community. Isn't it this "hand of fellowship" which, in the end, you extend to me in your gracious and loving words? Everything else is opinion. Or anthropology.

CRT - Scientific truth is supposedly evidentially based. Yet science begins with some hypothesis that can be tested to see whether or not that hypothesis is true. This hypothetical beginning is the realm of religion, i.e., Truth.

But I said two directions. The other way I read Nick's injunction is the opposite of isolating and elevating the text in question, but rather normalizing it as literature. The operation he recommends -- "let's assume that it is true" – is precisely the exercise of mind demanded by reading a novel or other fiction, or invoked every time the curtain rises at a play.

CRT - The willing suspension of disbelief requires one to have some idea of what one believes at first.

The gospels are novels. Jesus taught in parables. It seems to me that the strongest possible doctrine of divine inspiration has to wrestle with, and assimilate, the fact that we "know" Jesus as a literary character, according to methods that do not differ in essential points from the methods by which we "know" Hamlet.

CRT - We know Jesus not merely through reading, but through relationship as well. In fact, relationship precedes reading. He first loved us, some community introduced us to that which we read. Within the context of that relationship we begin to read. Then we return to our relationships renewed by our reading. Jesus insisted that it is in our relationships with one another that we truly know him. "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be also." Their self-understanding is unfolded in reported discourse and dramatised action, and that self-understanding has universal import.

As I recall Nick's course on the Gospel of John, it was his "close reading," his teasing out of a philosophical and historical context for the particularities of the text, that opened my eyes to the powerful community-forming and community-judging work that literary art does.

CRT - It seems that we are saying very similar things. As an actor, I must insist that we know Hamlet best through an actor's portrayal of that character. This is why I despise Drama as Literature; one misses the essential element of "seeing" that is Theatre; drama is doing, not merely reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And whatever a human does, is done in the context of relationship. "It is not good for a man to be alone." As Christians, we have been made a theatre to the world to reveal Jesus Christ. The call to become imitators of God compels us to act out our own portrayal of the character of Christ in the daily drama of life.

I could go on and on. To this concept I have devoted my professional life in theatre and theology.

CRT 1/04/07 - The reported “self-understanding” of Shakespeare’s fictional Hamlet has no reference to the self-understanding of a historical character; the actor researching the role of Hamlet has no actual referent to guide how faithful the eventual performance may be. The self-understanding of Jesus refers to what John writes to be Logos, the Word that was/is/will be God. The reported self-understanding of Jesus Christ has the historical person of Jesus as its referent; putting on Christ faithfully, therefore, is of much more consequence.

Perhaps my father’s “close reading” of the Gospel did lead to some insight regarding “the powerful community-forming and community-judging work that literary art does,” but I wonder what effect his faithful reading had?

So I would add to my "strong" version of a doctrine of divine inspiration an allowance for diverse, layered, multi-form, even competing or antagonistic, virtual-communities embedded in scripture, implied in the numerous genres and vocabularies and rhetorics and even literary personalities on display. In my correspondence with Nick I sometimes tried to oppose a "Jewish" community of "witnesses" to his community under the Greek and neo-Platonist Word. Unsuccessfully and naively, to be sure.

CRT - Unfortunately, we depend too much on slanted scholarship to understand communities other than our own. That is why we need to be honest with ourselves about our primary relationships within our own community and be open to understanding our shortcomings in that context before going outside our community to interpret the world.

But I would also claim something else, perhaps blasphemous, which is that the inspiration which we think of as Biblical extends to all strong poets. Further, that the humblest worker in the vineyards of art and literature, writers of fictions like me, to the extent that their work is work in good faith, out of authentic response to life, are extending the reach of the Biblical Word, accumulating the tough web of repetitions and variations across the whole body of the community, rather in the manner of Talmud. Or, in a different way, of the Gnostics.

CRT - The Spirit of God breathes as He wills. It is my responsibility to respond (pun intended) when His Breath falls on me. Do I bow or break? By His grace, He hasn't blown so hard that such brokeness as I have experienced destroys me. I await Judgment Day to experience the possibility of that happening. Until then, I hope to learn to bear the burden of His Breath by relying on the wisdom that is Christ to discern His Voice wherever and whenever He may choose to speak.

CRT 1/04/07

But I would also claim something else, perhaps blasphemous, which is that the inspiration which we think of as Biblical extends to all strong poets.
Faithful reading takes into account that it is the Spirit that leads us into truth, and all truth is God’s truth. Does not the question of scriptural inspiration address the text and the author and the reader?
… the humblest worker in the vineyards of art and literature, writers of fictions like me, to the extent that their work is work in good faith, out of authentic response to life, are extending the reach of the Biblical Word, accumulating the tough web of repetitions and variations across the whole body of the community, rather in the manner of Talmud. Or, in a different way, of the Gnostics.
If work in good faith is done out of authentic response to life, what is authentic? Authenticity implies the possibility of a counterfeit (contrary to faith, unfaithful) The “humblest worker” is one who faithfully works with fear and trembling before God the giver of life.

I know Nick did not read fiction. Neither does his friend Russ Spittler. Many people of evangelical persuasion do not. Except as entertainment. Certainly with condescension. I am saddened by that. To me it is a way of knowing that is deeply Biblical.

CRT - Once again, knowing God (and others) is a matter of relationship, not reading. I hope to discuss this further as we continue our conversation.