The IS/OUGHT Dichotomy
February 15th, 2007 by 
soulster
Up to this point on this blog, I have been cautious to be honest but not say too much about my experience as a follower of Jesus. The order of first importance was establishing a base we might call “trust,” as far as that is possible in the cyber world. To those outside of any religion, the theology and practice of the faith seems foolish. Even a great deal of what a Buddhist thinks escapes me, and more about how their practice has any real benefit to them or the world. Therefore, to speak too soon in any mixed crowd is to come off foolish. Now that we have engaged in several “conversations”, I hope that, even though not all would agree with me, most would not think me stupid in what I have to say. With that said, I am going to begin introducing more of my thoughts and experiences of faith open to the general friendly critique and questions of all.
There is a key way that I think I experience God. It might be termed “emergence,” but really I have no good terminology for it save the theological term “revelation”. Over the course of a day or several days or a week or more time, a pattern of experiences and thoughts will emerge that are interrelated. They seem to be saying something to me. Usually it is something of immediate relevance to my life and development. Often it will be needed in the next conversation or in engagement with an issue in coming hours or days. It is seldom anything I am thinking about before hand - before the first occurrence warms me to it. And then, while I am still pondering the first, more will occur in astounding frequency and clarity.
Now, of course, the skeptic will point out that many a good psychologist and neurologist has show that our brains are adept at picking patterns out of almost anything. Ink blots show that. Since I was a child, I remember picking cartoon characters out of my parents marbled bathroom tiles. So I know what they are saying, and I know that I experience this too and what this feels like. But even taking this self-consciously into account, I do not think this is merely picking out a pattern. Sure that neurological system is involved, but to me there seems a pattern intentionally laid out that could only be God speaking.
Let me give you an example of this that will also provide ample fodder for philosophical debate. Two weeks ago, a friend gave me an audio book of Leslie Newbigin’s Foolishness to the Greeks. Newbigin is a gifted philosopher and missiologist who does great deconstruction of the Western mind and worldview. His insights come from leaving the West of his childhood, spending many years in Hindu India, and returning to the West after it had changed much.
In Foolishness to the Greeks, Newbigin talks about a key problem in the Western world. It lies in the fact that teleology [wiki] is an extremely limited and censored enterprise, at least in public circles. Following our Newtonian assumptions about reality, we believe that nearly everything can be spoken of as an “is”. It has been our principle enterprise to find all the “is” of everything from the wiggly paths of sub-atomic particles to the origins and destiny of the human race.
The principle way of looking at the world before Newton, or what drunkentune might call “the village” in his last post, spoke primarily not of the “is” but of the “ought”. The universe was conceptualized along the lines of a grand story and it was seen as serving and tied to a particular purpose. When greater clarity of the “is” apart from any particular story began to surface, it clashed with certain specific details of the “ought” (I would argue that it was mainly details at stake at this point), so the proponents of the “ought” sought to suppress the “is”. After a long, hard (and sometimes bloody) struggle, the “is” triumphed, first in the Enlightenment, and then in the Newtonizing of all human experience in the Industrial Revolution (were even the human became more an agent of “is” than “ought”).
But it is Newbigin’s opinion, and I agree with him, that the pendulum swung too far and left us with a false dichotomy. There is both a “is” and “ought” to human experience. The currently fashionable idea that public truth is based on “fact” and private truth is based on “values” is just not true. Much of what we include in the mythical “facts” is highly influenced by assumed values and purposes. For example, it is considered a fact that democracy is the best form of rule. But this can only be true in an evaluative way. There is no “is” about it. Likewise, it is because of many “oughts” that humans are motivated to seek and understand the “is” in the first place. What we have is a society that has set up an unhealthy and artificial boundary based on the fear that the “ought” will attempt to overpower the “is” again. What we really need is a world that can hold both in conversation, checking each other.
Newbigin’s ideas were interesting to me, but they had little practical impact at first. Like most of what I would call emergence, I knew they were important, so I would let them stew, but I could not see yet the need.
A few days later, some friends invited me to a panel discussion at NYU on “race, violence, and reconciliation”. I had been pondering these issues since the topic surfaced on this blog, and I was perplexed as to what my response should be. I’ve invested a significant part of my life studying conflict resolution, trauma awareness and recovery, and related issues, but it seemed that none of it quite got to the roots of the issue. The panelists were Emmanuel Katongole, a Ugandan civil-war and genocide survivor, Catholic Priest, and director of Duke’s Peace-building Program; Yvonne Latty, a Harlemite, columnist, and journalistic professor at NYU; and Erwin McManus, author and founder of Mosaic, LA.
During the discussion, all the panelists agreed on one thing: reconciliation lay in a bold surge toward the future, not another redress of what lay behind. There was a great deal of talk about “dreaming” and “creativity” in imagining a new world where race-based conflict would be much less the norm.
During this line of thinking, Katongole was asked why Africa had such extraordinary stories of reconciliation in its short history that had few parallels around the world. Katongole said, “the problem is that from the time you are children in the West, you are only educated on what ‘is’. This is this, and that is that.” He went on to say that no one gives us permission to dream about what should be (or “ought” to be). In fact, dreaming is discouraged as immature and unrealistic in our world. In order for us to have a new future, we must have an “ought” of disciplined but creative dreaming. Simply disecting the “is” of racism and violence may enlighten the darkness of ignorance, but it will not enlighten the darkness of our hearts. Only a story and vision of a new future could call us into that light.
Now I would even admit that this is just two similar thoughts presented in the space of a few days - nothing particularly incredible about that. But it was the context in which this was happening that seemed incredible to me:
After listening to Newbigin’s work days earlier I had a flash of inspiration. I thought about all the books children read on their bodies and how they all tell the “is” of the story, but none tell the “ought”. I thought, “gee, it would be interesting to tell the story with an “ought” to it. Why do we have two legs instead of four like the other animals? Evolutionary biologists tell us walking on two legs is incredibly efficient for moving over large distances. The teleology: we are built for journey. Walking on two legs leaves our hands free. The implication: it is a journey of getting our hands dirty - creativity. Etc..”
I mentioned this idea in conversation to a friend in my grassroots faith community on that Sunday. He’s an artist who frequently does collages. He loved the idea and before long we were talking about using his collage work to make a short stop-motion film for children. We got together a few days later to begin story boarding.
Fast forward to the night of the panel discussion (approximately a week later). After the discussion, I had my friends drop me off in Tribecca (downtown Manhattan) so I could catch a train back to Jersey. The PATH train departs from the pit of the old World Trade Center, popularly referred to as “Ground Zero” of 9-11 fame. There was to me an urgency hanging in the air of what Katongole and the other panelists were saying. As I rode back home, suddenly it dawned on me. The artist I spoke about told me months ago he wanted to start a faith community in his home. It was located in one of the worst neighborhoods in Jersey City - notorious Greenville, full of racial tension and urban decay. He wanted to address these issues among his new neighbors, but didn’t quite know how. It was too big, and the roots where so deep, he couldn’t even see what they were.
And then it finally came together in my mind >> Newbigin’s is/ought dichotomy — Katongole’s warning that a purely “is” world could never change the current violence — unintentionally starting a film project about the “is” and “ought” in the worst neighborhood in my city — my original problem on this blog. Bingo!
(Of course, there is much more detail to this whole thing which I could share, but I’ve already taken too much space here.)
Posted in belief, current issues, philosophical issues, why believers believe | 
February 15th, 2007 at 11:21 am
soulster,
Wonderful ideas! While I fundamentally dissagree with your assumptions, it’s great to hear them and understand where you’re coming from.
February 15th, 2007 at 11:27 am
The group may remember my interest in the reports of people who’ve had near-death experiences. ( http://www.nderf.org )
One of the most common reports by such people is a strong resistence to returning to their bodies on earth, but they seem always to be told they must to fulfill a purpose they are meant to fulfill. I also want to point out another teleological statement, that on its surface seems secular, but some of its contents (Justice,Welfare,Tranquility) seem derived from a religious worldview:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
It seems to me the teleological basis of our laws derives from more than recognition of what “is” but also a recognition of what “ought” to be. By the way, I’ll agree that soulster’s relational experience of the divine seems like the description I’ve heard from other believers, and is like my own, but likely better.
February 15th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Sounds like the is/ought meme wants you to propagate it.
Whoops, guess you already did. =)
February 15th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Ed:
One of the things that concerns me is the way such teleological statements as the preamble to the Constitution are not really seen as value-oriented in popular thought. We treat them as a great “is” or history and a “is” of the laws which govern our world, not an “ought” in many senses. Or, in the cases were they are seen as values by critics of the Constitution, they are not scene as belonging to any category of truth. I think we should see the Constitution as a conversation between the “is” of the historical condition of Colonial America, and the “ought” response of the founders. Then we should continue their “ought” project in light of what “is” as a society. I would not like a existence or a religion concerned exclusively with either “is” or “ought” or falsely limiting the conversation to one category or the other while not allow the two to talk.
February 15th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Yes, very much a problem in popular thought, but in reality it can be seen that America over time, has done the “ought”, albeit reluctantly. I see people as on a spectrum of “is” and “ought”, perhaps conservative/liberal, mundane/innovative. This is even true in the church. Even the most calcified, institutional, tradition-bound cadre (Roman Catholic Church) has its Vatican II. Some other groups (like some charismatic groups) are in my opinion on the other extreme. Another evidence of the divinely inspired nature of Christianity, it seems able to bridge the need for dialog and application of “is” and “ought”, in my opinion in a way far more universally and effectually to the advancement of our pathetic species than the US Constitution. Of course, I expect our skeptic friends don’t agree, but that’s the way I perceive things.
February 15th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
I see people and human systems on that spectrum as well. When I talk about “The Facts” myth, I’m talking about the fictional concept that some “is” is not touched or influenced in any way by “ought”. In intellectual circles (and some non-intellectual ones) sometimes someone will say things like “that’s just the facts”, meaning it is truth that must be universally accepted. However, I think there is also an implication that “The Facts” does not include personal values in any way. That is what I disagree with. Is/ought is a spectrum, not a dichotomy, and few people if any live exclusively at one pole or the other.
I think an interesting point could be made concerning the is/ought of religion. Some have pointed out that Buddhism and Hinduism, and the Eastern religions at large are more compatable with modern science and culture than Christianity, Judaism, and Islam because they present no final teleology (Leslie Newbigin makes this point). All purposes are personal in such faiths. The universal is simply the “is”.
In the Abrahamic religions, on the other hand, there is both a profound sense of is and ought, including an escatology (outlining the final purposes of everything). This grates against a strictly Newtonian view of the world and much of modern culture that denies, when it comes to humans, any universal or final purpose.
One of rational reasons I find Christianity attractive is that I think it represents (at least in the story of Jesus) a very real play between is and ought. It is simply more realistic from my prespective in this dynamic interaction, especially in consideration of the missional-incarnational impulses of Jesus and Paul. I do not find the Eastern view attractive, nor do I find attractive Christian positions embedded in certain “oughts” that cannot dialogue with reality as we experience it.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:25 am
soulster,
Actually, that’s what I find most interesting about Eastern religions (Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism). There is no set objective or conclusion to the human race (besides Mahayana Buddhism); I see them more as philosophies focused on the natural world, trying (and sometimes failing) to give a meta-picture of everything. Really, in what Western religion do we find such a profound notion that we cannot be certain the world is real - it may be an illusion (a several thousand-year-old concept of induction and the limits of experience)?
Where else is the poety so good? Take this:
To Chang Hsu after Drinking
(Kao Shih)
The world is full of fickle people
you old friend aren’t one
inspired you write like a god
drunk you’re crazier still
enjoying white hair and idle days
blue clouds now rise before you
how many times will you still sleep
with a jug of wine by your bed
(Poems of the Masters: China’s Classic Anthology of T’ang and Sung Dynasty Verse, translated by Red Pine, 129)
or
On Mister Yuan’s Country Retreat
(Ho Chih-Chang)
We’ve never met good sir
I stopped because of the woods and stream
don’t worry about buying wine
I have some coins in my purse
(ibid., 29)
or even shorter:
Written on Climbing the Small Terrace of Pei Di
(Wang Wei)
The setting sun goes down beside a bird
(An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911, translated by Stephen Owen, 385)
I don’t know what it is about that kind of poetry, but it is so minimal and universal that I feel that I am there. It’s an amazing feeling, and while I recognize my response to the poetry is chemical, it can still have a profound effect on me emotionally. It’s the kind of thing where you choke up inside a bit, or maybe shudder or sigh.
On the other hand, the Western religions with their focus on a fantastic ever-moving goal that’s always out of reach saddens me. Life can never be enjoyed now, as I understand it in Western religions, because this life is not what matters; it is the afterlife, and what we do in this life to reach either a good or bad end.
February 16th, 2007 at 6:32 am
The “living for death” is what strikes me most about the Abrahamic religions.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
It seems that there are two big aspects to the Christian faith: God calling a people for himself (this world, missional) and the effect of the passion/resurrection (afterlife, reconciliation). In both aspects, there are strong “is” and “ought” concepts/dialogs. For example, God is often described as calling his people in an idealized way on earth, like in 1 Pet 2:9 “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” This is an “ought”. Then there are the “is” statements, like, 1 Pet 4:12 “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.” It seems there is a linkage in the teleology of the limitations (sufferings) of this life with the lasting/eternal teleology of humanity. It seems the Eastern religions do much the same, albeit in a more cyclical model than linear as in the West. Perhaps there is a greater element of fatalism in Eastern religions, which might resonate better with the atheist.
February 17th, 2007 at 3:13 am
Ed,
Well, there’s the Way in Taoism and Confucianism, although Confucius’ Analects is primarily about the past and ritual, while Taoism is about the present and experience. Buddhism is about the illusionary world and attaining higher states of being. I wouldn’t go too far with claiming what Eastern religions say: there’s so many different ones with conflicting messages; none of us practice any of them.
A Taoist parable:
Zhuang-zi and Hui-zi were strolling on a bridge over the Hao River. Zhuang-zi said, ‘The minnows are out swimming around. This is a fish’s delight.’
Hui-zi replied, ‘You’re no fish - on what grounds do you know what a fish’s delight is?’
Zhuang-zi answered, ‘You’re not me, so how do you know that I don’t know what a fish’s delight is?’
Hui-zi: ‘I’m not you, so I clearly don’t know what you know. By the same token you’re clearly no fish, so the case is made that you don’t know what a fish’s delight is!’
Zhuang-zi, ‘Let’s go back to the beginning. What you said was: On what grounds do you know what a fish’s delight is? You already knew that I knew it in asking the question. I know it right here by the Hao River.’ …
(Zhuang-zi)
This can be seen as a bit of Jewish humor, coupled with a message about experience.
A Confucian parable:
It was the twelth month. Bei-gong Wen-zi was serving as Adviser to Duke Xiang of Wei on a journey to Chu. It was in consequence of the oath at Song. As they passed the city of Zheng, Yin Duan lodged them in North Forest to offer consolation for the hardships of their journey. He treated them with the ceremonies for recieving foreign visitors and spoke gracious words to them. Then Bei-gong Wen-zi entered the city of Zheng as foreign ambassador, with Zi-yu serving as his herald. Feng Jian-zi and Zi-tai-shu met him as a guest. When matters were concluded, he went forth again and said to the Count of Wei, ‘Ceremony is preserved in Zheng, and it will bring them several generations of good fortune. I am sure that they will be free from assault by the great domains. As the Poem says:
Who can take hold of something hot?-
does he not first wet his hands?
The relation to ceremony to governing is that of water to something hot.
(The Zuo Tradition, an entry for the 31st year of Duke Xiang)
This parable shows the ceremony as something that insulates from the conflicts that arise in human relations.
At least, that’s what I read. They’re each fairly open-ended.
February 17th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
That Taoist parable seems to be prophetic for many of the threads on Philaletheia…. maybe I really do need to investigate the Tao.
Actually, soulster, I wanted to comment on the concept of emergence. There are many examples of such coincidence and pattern recognition in diverse aspects of life, as you point out. Even here in our discussions, it seems that whether atheist or theist, we hold to our beliefs about ourselves and our world very strongly. For the most part, it seems the participants agree on empirically derived, reproducible or at least convergently determined truths from science. The big difference is in the emergent beliefs. Perhaps the difference is the extent to which the Paraclete is heard. So, I’m not sure your point about the need for greater interplay between “is-ought” (i.e. the process) being as critical as the participants (self and Holy Spirit), in recognition of relationship with the Trancendent. It is in the ongoing discovery of our individual purpose, however dimly perceived, and the corresponding community discovery of purpose within the church that we confirm the experience of the divine. At least, that for me has been the greatest evidence, especially all the surprises. That is why I’ve affirmed that in its origins as well as its development, true Christianity is surprising/unlikely/incongruent with usual human experience. And that makes it more likely to be divinely inspired.
February 17th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Ed,
You might like this: Lao-Tzu’s Tao: Plain English Adaptation
There’s also The Dymanic Tao and Its Manifestation, trans. by Wayne L. Wang
March 15th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I discovered an interesting discourse by philosopher Patricia Smith Churchland in which she argues that the seperation of “is” and “ought” is artificial [watch video here at 1:22 to 1:40]. Churchland points out that some values, upon which oughts are based are inherent in the “is” of how a being is structured. She does so using mammilian family behavior and agrues that ought comes for a matrix of biology, enculturation, and inference. Her conclusion is that religion is not needed to jump the gap from is and ought and the motivation of a punishing God is archane.
I think her point is well taken in disolving the modernistic is/ought dichotomy in science, and I also agree that the “ought” acutally comes from a complicated matrix (and so any theology of morality must be contextualized and is in this respect “missional”, and is not in a classic sense absolute). I would however disagree with her understanding of Biblical morality as presented and in her optimism that such process can be non-religious (as if humans could dualistically isolate reason to bring it to bear on the topic). She seems to understand a popular Catholic understanding of morality not a New Testament Biblical one (for example, love, not punishment, in the highest motivator for Jesus mentioned over and over again). While her point is well taken, I do not think we can say what the moral ought is exclusively in terms of biology either, which some might do but she avoids. Such a simple naturalistic morality would could degrade to egotism, or could be detrimentally based on an incomplete understanding of biology (i.e. just because some people might have brain anatomies that promote agression or genocide does not mean that agression or genocide is right).