Monthly Archives: July 2009

I was hoping to get a bit more feedback on my original post in this series; likely, I was too vague to make comment worthwhile.

I will thus be more direct. I am involved regularly in discussions about what is right and reverent in worship. I have participated in such discussions often enough to have learned several things. First, very rarely is either party intending to listen. Second, I believe that what a person finds plausible in such discussions in based almost entirely on his experiences. This is true especially when one person is attempting to point to distinctions that the other person cannot see.

A commenter on the first post understood this correctly. How would you explain “what it is like to see red” to someone who is colorblind? Or, to make things more challenging, how would you explain how “what it is like to see red” differs from “what it is like to see green”? I think it is possible that we could employ analogies that my be helpful; the reality is, however, that the person will not truly grasp the distinction between these “what it is likes” until he actually experiences the difference himself.

This means, of course, that if our colorblind friend is stubbornly incredulous about the very existence of color (and therefore of color distinctions), there is almost nothing that we can offer him that he would accept as evidence for that distinction.

I suggest, then, that often, those who refuse to understand a distinction between various types of loves, or between the affections and the passions, are not being stubborn when they deny the conservative position on these topics. Instead, they are accurately reporting their understanding: they don’t see the difference.

Can they be made to see the difference? We shall continue this discussion (or monologue).

I am, as yet, incapable of writing fiction; any attempt by me to write dialogue would sound cheap. Perhaps, post-dissertation, I will practice this art.

With that disclaimer, then, I want to offer you a story. Let us picture two couples: one couple is older, perhaps approaching their golden anniversary. The other couple has been dating for two weeks—they’re both in eighth grade.

The older couple says (as older couples sometimes do): “As the years have passed, our love for one another has grown deeper and richer.”

The junior highers reply immediately, “Oh, we know exactly what you mean! We feel the same way about one another!”

I think we would all agree that what the junior highers are experiencing—particularly in their feelings for one another—bears little relation to what the older couple is experiencing. Here’s my question (and I’ll tip my hand, for those not picking up on this: it’s a loaded question that has implications for other discussions): how (specifically) do you go about convincing the junior highers that their experience isn’t the same as the older couple?