When I was 7 years old I receive an allowance and was beginning to grasp how life-changing it was to have money and be able to buy whatever your heart desired (provided you did enough chores). This is also around the time my mother was teaching me about percentage and used the example of tithing.
I heard you Mom, I gotta give 20 cents of the $2 I made this week to the church on Sunday. Then if I decide to take a chore vacation (because we all know a 7 year old's chores are tough) I would have to give 10% of the $1.80 I had left and this would just keep happening until I was out of money?
I was left with only two options:
a) stop going to church so I wouldn't be robbed; or
b) spend all my money before I got to church and beat God to the punch.
Being the music minister's kid and all really took option a) off the table.
Anyway, I obviously didn't try to understand this whole tithing concept before casting my harsh judgment upon the practice and start trying to out-scheme the Omniscient Sovereign Lord of the Universe.
I made several of my classmates upset at Southeastern because when reading Descartes they were ready to write him off as a godless, humanist, skeptic, solapsarian, relativist, crypto-materialist that undermines not only the entire Christian faith but any possibility of an objective realist philosophy and I seemed to be defending him. In fact I was just insisting that we postpone all the titles, attacks, and accusations until we had an accurate and comprehensive understanding of his philosophic system and the problems he was trying to address. After that I adopted a more deliberate method of not allowing myself to criticize a book in my History of Ideas course until I genuinely felt like I had a sufficient understanding of the writer's philosophical system. This would later be expressed more succinctly by my favorite prof at the University of Dallas as "There is no such thing as philosophical reading, but philosophical re-reading."
Since I heard him say that I've been more explicit:
Today, it is too common for us to not even get through 140 characters of our 'opponents' position before we are typing up a witty and villianizing (that should be a word) reply.
When thinking about the kind of Christian, philosopher, husband, father, political activist, movie critic, fonts connoisseur I want to be, this seems to be a pretty important intellectual virtue: Patience.
Patient enough to:
How else can/should we be intellectually patient? (Answer in the comments)
"You give 10% of your money to the church as a way to recognize that the Lord is the one who...."In my 7 year old omniscient and wise state I didn't need to hear anymore, I immediately cast judgement upon this idea as "stupid" (that was pretty strong language for my age).
I heard you Mom, I gotta give 20 cents of the $2 I made this week to the church on Sunday. Then if I decide to take a chore vacation (because we all know a 7 year old's chores are tough) I would have to give 10% of the $1.80 I had left and this would just keep happening until I was out of money?
I was left with only two options:
a) stop going to church so I wouldn't be robbed; or
b) spend all my money before I got to church and beat God to the punch.
Being the music minister's kid and all really took option a) off the table.
Anyway, I obviously didn't try to understand this whole tithing concept before casting my harsh judgment upon the practice and start trying to out-scheme the Omniscient Sovereign Lord of the Universe.
It took me about ten years to really learn the problem: intellectual patience.When reading classic literature, about another world religion, or hearing a different political viewpoint, the task should be to first fully understand the concept before criticizing.
I made several of my classmates upset at Southeastern because when reading Descartes they were ready to write him off as a godless, humanist, skeptic, solapsarian, relativist, crypto-materialist that undermines not only the entire Christian faith but any possibility of an objective realist philosophy and I seemed to be defending him. In fact I was just insisting that we postpone all the titles, attacks, and accusations until we had an accurate and comprehensive understanding of his philosophic system and the problems he was trying to address. After that I adopted a more deliberate method of not allowing myself to criticize a book in my History of Ideas course until I genuinely felt like I had a sufficient understanding of the writer's philosophical system. This would later be expressed more succinctly by my favorite prof at the University of Dallas as "There is no such thing as philosophical reading, but philosophical re-reading."
Since I heard him say that I've been more explicit:
The first time I read a theology/philosophy book I should read it as a classicist (trying to understand it), the second time I can read it as a philosopher (trying to interact, analyze, and criticize it).Well, what's so hard about that? Patience.
Today, it is too common for us to not even get through 140 characters of our 'opponents' position before we are typing up a witty and villianizing (that should be a word) reply.
When thinking about the kind of Christian, philosopher, husband, father, political activist, movie critic, fonts connoisseur I want to be, this seems to be a pretty important intellectual virtue: Patience.
Patient enough to:
- Wait for the other to finish their thought;
- Listen to what the other is saying rather than thinking about my next point;
- Ask questions to make sure I'm understanding the other accurately;
- Say "let me think about that" instead of "I disagree;"
- Actually think about the point/position the other made/holds.
Odds and end (Not really part of the post, just related thoughts):
- By the way, I think this is why most individuals, especially Christians, claim they disagree with Immanuel Kant: They were not patient enough to read through two volumes of his critical project, before they found something they recognized as an argument for objective truth, morality and the existence of God.
- Why is patience the first attribute predicated to love in 1 Corinthians 13?
- When reading a philosopher like Descartes, when can you say you've been exposed to enough of his work to start analyzing? Should it be on a book by book basis, all his published works, everything we have of his that is available to us now (which would include a lot of letters)?
- Is there ever a proper time to interrupt someone? If someone is clearly going on a tangent because they misunderstood your question or if they are clearly building on a faulty premise, wouldn't it just be the kind thing to do to stop them and then give them a chance to start over with the clarification or correction?
- Given what I've seen first hand in the Texas capitol, I'm really having a hard time believing Proverbs 25:15.
Let me ask a question, what is a font connoisseur? Yesterday i was listening to my father in laws political opinions and needed lots of intellectual patience. what a great question to ask, when is it right to interrupt? Had i not interrupted him yesterday he would still be sitting in my living room talking!
ReplyDeleteHa. Well, a 'font connoisseur' is one who appreciates, observes, critiques fonts (styles of letters typed or written). For instance, most school papers are done in Times New Roman, which looks traditional, official, safe. On this post I've used a different font Trebuchet that is a lot cleaner, modern, and simple. Also, I really like the funky 'g' in that font (look for a g in the post, not in the comments here because the comments have a similar but different font).
Delete"Font connoisseurs" are also called "people who have too much time on their hands" or "people who need to use their time more wisely." JK. Its all about design and art that is functional and pervades our daily lives.
I only know four or five "font connoisseurs," but if you're ever stuck listening to one of these types going on and on about letters, I think we would all agree its morally permissible to interrupt.
I love the 'g' in Trebuchet! Nice! I have never known that you were a font connoisseur...when I read your post I thought maybe you meant to write food instead of font lol. Glad to know I have a resource when I am font hunting...which I do often :)
DeleteI especially like the point you make about reading a book twice. My Dad always said that a book worth reading is worth reading twice. Al Mohler stated last week that preachers often read a passage and then preach the passage going straight to the "point" of what they believe their congregation needs. The beauty of scripture and good literature is the loveliness of the context. Even in a position we do not agree with we can find beauty in the argument, the linguistics, the timing, or even the humor. I agree: patience is a virtue I need to develop. I think I will read this blog again.
ReplyDeleteWhen Mom and I were talking this morning about your blog (that's right, Mom and I were talking this morning! About your blog!), I told her I was excited about it because, well, you exhibit pretty much the 5 bullet points that you list under "Patient enough to:" above. The thing is, I hadn't yet read this post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kate. It seems to be something I have to remind myself about. I thought about something we'd talked about before: how patience is required in analytical thinking in general. It takes patience to thoroughly examine, consider and test an idea from several different perspectives and contexts. Maybe the bigger factor to that problem is mental laziness. Where do you see the need for more intellectual patience?
DeleteThis so well written, and an area God is constantly having to work on me. I am so quick to jump to conclusions without reading or listening to the entire argument.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: How have you trained your mind to hold on to your talking points, while still paying attention the speaker? I think that is why I jump ahead sometimes, because I feel like I will "lose my place" in my mind of the points I want to clarify/debate. (To be fair,I haven't had a lot of sleep the past 10 years). Seriously, how do you listen intently and still keep track of the important points you want to go back to without always taking notes during a conversation (something I find people find disconcerting, for some strange reason!). Also, sometimes I feel like I have not done an adequate job explaining my stance and so I want to interrupt to save us time going down the wrong path. How do you handle this? I agree with Kate, you really are very good at this character trait.
Thats a tough question Chelle. Morally, there are a few things I need to remind myself when I have that 'gotta get my point in before you finish' urge: a) usually Im overestimating my contribution to the conversation, b) its okay if I dont speak my every thought on a given subject, and c) I ask myself whats motivating this conversation? Am i trying to prove how smart, insightful, educated I am or am I really trying to understand the truth better by using someone else's view/perspective as a means to reveal some possible weaknesses in my own views.
DeleteIntellectually, keeping track of someone else's views while trying to organize your own thoughts is a tough task. This will only get easier with deliberate practice. I would encourage you to just try to keep track of and mentally summarize what another is saying while you're listening then its easier to organize your own response/thoughts.
The other day Brandy met a newly elected State Representative and afterwards commented on how it was very evident that the Rep paused every time before she spoke. Brandy said it was very clear she was really thinking about what she said before answering a question, which could be awkward (because its so uncommon). However, a lot would be different if more of our politicians actually thought before they spoke. Amirite?
Your reply is an excellent blog post in its own right. Realizing the need to challenge myself with these three questions (a, b, and c above) in every interaction reveals an ongoing struggle with pride. Humility necessarily precedes patience.
DeleteThis was a great post. Julian and I were just talking yesterday about me and my lack of desire to read and how much he wants me to work on that, specifically so I can form my own opinions about important matters.
ReplyDeletePatience is definitely one reason that I avoid reading...especially the things I really should read that address politics and philosophy. It takes a lot of patience and focus for me to get through topics like that, but it should be done.
I also struggle with forgetting my thoughts, which sometimes leads me to interrupt like Chelle was referring to. How do you avoid that?
Thanks for posting this John! Gave me a lot to think about/work on.
Does my response to Chelle's comment make sense?
Delete