Importance: 10%
The Big Idea
This is a Tree of Thought for the ideas surrounding what it means to be human from a biblically founded perspective that we are creatures
Need to work out the core questions of what the world is and what humans place in it is
What is the place and purpose of human work?
What is a healthy theology of change that comes for a biblical basis.
What if mechanistic science is not the highest or best good when it comes to exploring and building
Grounded cosmology
Wholeness and centers as ways of understanding space
Rhythm, and liturgy as ways to understand time
God’s eternal power and divine nature can be seen clearly through creation. See Rom 1:20
Psalm 19 creation speaks of God, then move to how the law or God is good and valuable, then ends with personal application and prayer to be in sync with Gods good law and his good creation
The Starting Point of Theology and Cosmology
Creaturely Anthropology
a theology of change
Two Poor Mindsets about Change
- Anti-change. Tend to hold onto the past and the good old days. “We have never done it that way” syndrome
- Change as inherently good. Fast pace and relentless end up focusing on changing toward very overly specific and sometimes very short sighted objectives.
Two valid forms of change
Structure Preserving Transformation or Smooth Change
Importance: 10%The Big Idea
This change is basically the idea that all life giving change comes from an unfolding process that starts with the current structure of the whole and makes step by step changes to enhance and extend the wholeness. This process respects the current structure and basically seeks to change the least amount of big/strong/living centers in order to maximize the positive effects of the change. Because if you introduce a new strong center but destroy two others you really haven’t improved anything.
Notes that I am reading through and hope to get my hands on a full copy soon: Link to Nature of Order Book 2 Cliff notesChristopher Alexander lays out the process for how he sees structure preserving change come about. - Alexander uses the 15 properties of good centers or the geometry that gives them more life as also the names of structure preserving transformation that injects that particular type of strengthening into the system of centers. This is generally called “unfolding” by Alexander - list of these transformations - The overall way to under stand this is through the process of Differentiation of the whole to get parts. Like a cell divides to grow a baby. This is vital rather than the mechanistic model of adding parts together to make a whole. The whole idea is that we are starting from wholeness and enhancing it rather than assembling it. this preserves the previous structure and enhances it. The process of differentiation - In parallel with differentiation is a cleaning out process Conclusion of the discussion on generated complexity
Link to original- Radical or Disruptive change
- Disruption by DeYmaz is a good example of a book that lays this kind of change out. Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains another example.
- The idea with this type of change is that change gets rid of the old to make space for the new.
- This is usually put in terms of life or death. Basically change or die. From Bolsinger
- DeYmaz is a little less depressing and more uses the idea of disrupting a market as the kind of change he is after that the Gospel basically should come in and totally shake up an area by totally changing the name of the game.
Mechanistic Cosmology and the Death of Theological Wholeness
The idea that we view scripture as incomplete which is true from a mechanistic perspective
But this then leads to the idea that scripture only really gives an overview or some kind of spiritual perspective on how the world works
I think that Scripture works from a wholistic standpoint of the human and the universe. We see an accurate and immensely deep and nuanced perspective of everything in scripture. The problem is that if we are looking for the mechanics of everything we won’t find it but if we are looking for a wholistic approach to life and everything than Scripture and theology is all we need
Need
Start with the reason we need such an anthropology and basis for life and theology
We have lost the ability to see God in the world around us. Sure we see him in the spectacular or the stunning but hardly ever in the normal or the ordinary or even the holy that we encounter
Vocation gets us a lot of the way there but it also doesn’t give us a practical understanding of actually doing what we say we should do. We know we are all of the roles we are for the glory of god and the reflect his light but then practically we go about all of those vocations in the exact same way as anyone else
The reality of competing cosmologies
The idea the we sometimes don’t see how different cosmologies affect us
The idea of worldview doesn’t really capture this reality
Mechanistic nature of the universe as described by Christoper Alexander in nature of order book 1 preface
We often operate like the world around us is a mechanistic world that God kind of just breaks into now and again but the actual daily moment by moment participation and perceptible reality of God is not there. Or if it is then we end up acting like conjurers looking for got to bend reality for our benefit or something along those lines
Evolutionary cosmology as a way to think of change, development and “progress”
Both of these can come into a Christian’s interaction of the world without ever rising to the level of “worldview” but can deeply affect how we approach and enact our vocations and life in the world
Foundation
Then move to the basic laying out of a creaturly anthropology. That is defined as the dependence and overlay of parts
Application frameworks
Next outline the basic idea of building on this basis with the idea of common characteristics
My work with rhythm and liturgy is off of the coming characteristic of being time bound beings
The work of Christopher Alexander (Architect, Author) is interesting in this area since it is based on the commonality of human feelings and the basis of wholeness as essential for understanding the world.
Many other possible common starting places that would all work legitimately off of the foundation
- Models of Human Rhythms
- Patterns of Liturgy-The Rhythm of Life
- Embodiment of Community
- Sacred Space
- Thoughts on Liturgy and Rhythm