Objective Reality is Rather Important

I haven’t engaged Bobby Grow in a long time (for good reason) but he, in his encapsulation of Karl Barth, Thomas Torrence, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham et.al., makes the following statement:

At a purely superficial level, does the reader see how what Barth and Torrance are doing sound a lot like the characteristics present in the thought of both Scotus and Ockham, respectively? Do you see how theologians like Barth and Torrance might be read as modern-day adherents of what also became known as Nominalism (i.e., what we see, loosely, in the thought-life of both Scotus and Ockham, respectively)? Indeed, some would attempt to argue that Immanuel Kant himself, and the dualism he proposed, was very much so akin to the nominalism developed by someone like Ockham. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of all of that, let it simply be noted that while someone like Barth was indeed conditioned by the impact of Kant on the modern Germanic ideational landscape, what Barth was doing, by way of the analogy of the incarnation (and thus faith), was to flip any sort of Kantian or Nominalistic dualism on its head by bringing the heavenlies into the earthlies as that obtained and concretized in the incarnate Son of God, the Man from Nazareth, the Theanthropos, Jesus Christ.

What he and many others overlook is the fact that large swaths of Christian thought–and this is especially true the closer we get to our own day–don’t make a particularly good case that a) they are objectively real or b) have a meaningful relationship to the creation in general. It was this lacuna (among other things) that drove me out of the Episcopal Church and to Roman Catholicism and Thomism. The fact that the latter church couldn’t bring itself to have a pastoral system to match its theology was something I could not anticipate going in. I don’t see how anyone with scientific training can avoid this issue. For someone who came out of a very secularised background, it was likewise unavoidable.

But such it is…I also think it’s a pity that he’s decided to pass up a PhD for another Master’s degree. There’s probably a dissertation in his blog (assuming he could find an institution and academics to go along with his idea) and his erudition and ability to handle the jargon would certainly keep him in good stead. But it is his decision…although I should point out that he is from Oregon…