Why I Reject Augustinian Original Sin (and You Should, Too), Part I

Preface

This informal essay is not about theological constructs from the 16th century to the present. Rather, it's about the constructs from the Patristic Era upon which much else has been built. Thus, while there are certainly implications for many heavily debated contemporary issues, I would ask the reader to temporarily suspend judgment and approach this issue with an open mind. The common temptation is to quickly get off on rabbit trails, which avoids dealing with the issues that are actually being addressed. Please make an effort not to first think, 'Does this align with my theology?' and instead ask, 'Is this a position based upon sound biblical exegesis and reason?'

Introduction

The Catholic website newadvent.org describes Original Sin as the "hereditary stain contracted at our birth." In the vernacular, it's the belief that when Adam sinned both sin and guilt were immediately imputed to all his descendants. There are two other titles with which I like to describe this doctrine: Inherited Guilt and Mass Damnation. But regardless of the label, the importance of this doctrine can hardly be overstated. Indeed, for nearly all Western Christians it's a foundation for everything from justification to the incarnation. As I'm cognizant of this doctrine's weight, I don't write this essay causally. It's only after a year of steady contemplation that I've come to my tentative position. My two-fold intentions here are to explain why I don't affirm the Augustinian conception of Original Sin and then to propose an alternative view. The following is a provocative statement, but I hope my readers will read it in light of the humility with which it is written: What has driven me to study this issue so in-depth is my concern that Western Christians, including most Catholics and Protestants, have held to Augustinian Original Sin (AOS) for nearly 1,500 years despite its incongruity with biblical teaching. My intention here is not to shock or offend, but I am willing to rock the boat in my sincere pursuit of truth.

To understand AOS, one has to understand Augustine of Hippo within the context of history. Living from 354-430 CE, he witnessed the disintegration of the western half of the Roman Empire and many of the cultural norms within which Christianity had almost always been embedded. As such he was something of a transition figure. His life and work both marked the end of Roman imperial Christianity and served as a forerunner to Medieval Roman Catholicism. As both a philosopher and theologian, he was preeminent during his lifetime, especially his defense of the Church against two strong heresies: Donatism and Pelagianism. Considered a Latin Father, he has been a pillar of Western theology for a millennium and a half. For the purposes of this essay it's also important to recognize that his doctrine was in perpetual flux and was anything but monolithic or stagnant.

Augustine's theology was constantly in a process of evolution in response to both his own experiences and the pressing issues of the day. His conception of Original Sin, for example, was developed in direct response to the Pelagian heresy and has scant precedent in either Church history or Jewish tradition. While it is true that he appealed to the writing of 11 earlier Church fathers, none of them articulated the doctrine as he did. Like Theodore Beza did with the work of John Calvin, Augustine expanded the conceptions of his predecessors based upon supposed logical extensions. In this way his work didn't merely echo the beliefs of those who came before him but amplified and expanded their beliefs. As for the Jewish tradition, his view that people are born guilty differs with the historic Jewish view that people are born innocent. Yet there is one document by a first century Jewish writer to whom Catholics often appeal. This work, called Fourth Esdras by Catholics and contained within the Apocrypha, is often cited in much the same way that 2 Maccabees is used to substantiate purgatory. As will be shown, however, a careful reading of these texts don't support Augustinian Original Sin unless one already affirms that view and is willing read it back in, bending the text in order to justify the view. To cap it off, it's important to recognize that much of Augustine's theology marks a pronounced break between western Catholicism and eastern Orthodoxy. Much of his theology, including AOS, has never been affirmed by the Orthodox. In sum, this doctrine is questionable at the very least.

Before people start to level H-bomb charges again me, I would explicitly state that I disagree with Pelagius and also so-called Semi-Pelagianism. I don't hold that:

• People are born completely morally free and uncorrupted.
  
• People are capable of sinless lives.
  
• Adam merely set a bad example for his progeny.
  
• Jesus merely set a good example for the rest of humanity.
  

There are two essential facts that this discussion must resolve around. Something profound happened during the fall. There's a reason there's a 100% sinner rate. Moreover, whatever one's interpretation of Paul, there's no question that these joint propositions are inseparable. In some way, shape, or form, the former leads to the latter. The question is how they're related.

Amidst his defense of orthodoxy against Pelagius, I understand how and why Augustine tied those facts together. The problem, if I may be so candid, is that his work expanded orthodoxy beyond the historic foundations laid out by Irenaeus and other Ante-Nicene Fathers. Not only was Augustine's theology quite novel, but I would argue that in his well-intentioned defense he read meaning into the biblical text that just isn't there.

An Alternative View

Disclaimer: The following paragraphs present a view that I've not read or heard anywhere else and is still being developed and refined. This is why I used the term "tentative" in the opening paragraph. Accordingly, I reserve the right to alter my position as merited by new evidence... so don't stone me.

I tend to think that when Adam sinned, humanity was wrought with a grave defect. Through the first couple we all inherited an unavoidable propensity to sin; we're all so innately defective that we will sin. It's only a matter of time. But no individual is guilty until he or she actually sins. Perhaps a metaphor will help. When Adam sinned his house collapsed and the rest of our houses got termites. Like a house with severe termite infestation, our houses might stand for a while and superficially appear whole but they're going to come down. And almost inevitably it'll happen pretty quick. Yet the collapse of Adam's house and the consequent collapse of all of our houses at a later time shouldn't be misunderstood as meaning our houses were mere rubble from birth, or even conception. I believe that to be the chief point of Augustine's error.

Another important element of this discussion is that Augustine tied Jesus' virgin birth to Original Sin. Augustine believed that the "sinful nature" is inherited biologically from the father. (Side note: As I understand it, this is another fine example of him reading his life experiences into his theology. Judging from his autobiography, if he were alive today he might be a diagnosed sex addict rockin' it with Tiger Woods. Augustine's views of sex appear to have been an overreaction against past experiences. He has been rightly criticized, then, for making sex sound wicked and Christianity prudish.) Therefore, Jesus didn't inherit a sinful nature because he didn't have a biological father, thus enabling Him not to sin and to be the perfect Lamb to be slain for our redemption. In other words, Augustine's view is that the purpose of the virgin birth is essentially to bypass AOS.

I see two problems with that doctrine. First, there's zero biblical support for it. To the best of my knowledge there's not even a single debated passage that says or implies that Jesus was born of a virgin so he wouldn't inherit a sinful nature. It's a seeming logical extension of the text premised upon a particular theological view. As supposed People of the Book, it's remarkable that more Protestants haven't pointed this out. Second, how does this square with Hebrews 4:15? How does it make any sense whatsoever that we have a great high priest who can sympathize with all our weaknesses and was tempted just like us if Jesus wasn't dealing with the same exact human condition we are? If he didn't inherit the same inclination toward sin that we all face, how is it, in fact, true empathy and understanding for our struggle? Consequently, while I also recognize that there's no direct biblical evidence to support this, I hold that the indirect evidence points toward Jesus inheriting the same corrupted nature but He alone in His divinity was able to resist its culmination into a sinful nature. I refuse to say that Jesus had a sinful nature while at the same time recognizing the fullness of the temptation He overcame--a theological tension AOS advocates fail to uphold.

Revising the Nomenclature

It's my contention that nomenclature not only reflects meaning and expectations but also contributes to creating them. Words are not just random. They should be chosen carefully to help us gain understanding. It follows then that imprecise or inaccurate nomenclature can distort our understanding of things. Therefore, if our label does not accurately reflect the reality, then the label that exists should be changed and/or revised regardless of how long it's been in use or its popularity. In that vein of thought, I would suggest that both the terms "Original Sin" and "sinful nature" need revision.

"Original Sin" contains within it the idea that the first sin, Adam's sin, not only causes all his descendants to eventually sin but actually is counted as sin against them. While I think that the original sin has infected everyone, I disagree with this contained notion of guilt. The term remains partially valuable, however, in that it was the original sin that caused all later sin and that the term has been around for so long. Therefore, I would incorporate the biblical language and concept from Romans 5:12 and suggest that this revised doctrine be called "Original Sin Spreading" to represent the idea of Original Sin as a continually unfolding process of sin and guilt rather than a singular instant.

As for the "sinful nature," it's unfortunate that the idea that we're not sinners until we actually sin is uncommon, but things are what they are. (Stupid Augustine.) In my estimate, the term "corrupted nature" more accurately reflects the human condition at birth of an unavoidable inclination toward sin than does "sinful nature." Like a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly, the corrupted nature is already there and will eventually become a sinful nature. But as a caterpillar isn't a butterfly until it emerges from the cocoon, so a corrupted nature isn't a sinful nature until each person sins.

Clarification of Position: What does "Original Sin Spreading" mean?

Since a few of the more systematic folks might still be a little fuzzy on what my exact views are, and there might also be lingering questions regarding whether or not I'm a Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian, I'll offer systematic bullet points posing and answering clear questions regarding my beliefs. A few of these points venture into classic Protestant theology debates, so please try not to get too caught up on them.

• Did Adam merely set a bad example for his progeny (Pelagianism)? No.
• Are people born completely morally free and uncorrupted (Pelagianism)? No.
• Are people are capable of living sinless lives (Pelagianism)? No.
• Did Jesus merely set a good example for the rest of humanity (Pelagianism)? No.
• Are people legitimately able to seek God by themselves (Semi-Pelagianism)? Yes, because while the Imagio Dei is completely marred it's still intact.
  
• Are people able to seek God unto the point of salvation without the gracious, direct intercession of the Holy Spirit (Semi-Pelagianism)? No, because while the Imagio Dei is still intact it's completely marred.
• Will Adam's progeny inevitably sin as a direct consequence of his sin or, put another way, did Adam's sin directly impact all his descendants (AOS)? Yes, as evidenced by our unavoidable propensity to sin.
  
• Was Adam's guilt transmitted to all his descendants (AOS)? No, and as I will show later I think there's no good evidence for this view in Scripture.
• Do I believe infants are born guilty? No.
• Do I believe infants will sin pretty dang soon after birth? You betcha.
• Did Jesus' atoning death on the cross immediately justify all people (Universalism)? No.
• Will all people be saved? Tragically, no.
• Do I think baptism nullifies Original Sin (Catholicism)? No.
  
• Do I think we were corrupted by sin but not completely so as to be able to choose to be good (Orthodoxy)? No... Have they studied Church history?
  
• Do I affirm Total Depravity (Calvinism)? Sort of.
• Do I affirm the conception of Prevenient Grace (Arminianism)? No, I see it as a doctrine that is built up and essentially nullifies AOS instead of just rejecting the thing in the first place. It's a giant theological loop to say we can't seek God at all because of AOS but then we can seek/accept God because Prevenient Grace overrides AOS. It's like a hamster--expending an awful lot of energy on the wheel to go no where.
  

They say that people remember most the first and last thing they read or hear. Please, please pretty please fight that tendency and don't get caught up on those Protestant theology debates I just briefly referenced at the very end. If someone brings up Calvinism or Arminianism in a comment, I will delete your comment. That's not the purpose of this essay. Those sorts of issues are built upon Augustian Original Sin. Jumping straight to them is a bit like a medical student wanting to performing open heart surgery before spending much time studying the cardiovascular system... Alright, I don't want to end on a down note à la Bob Bummer, so thanks to all who will read this and carefully, openly take the time to consider my view.

Part II dealing with specific passages coming soon.

Addendum

Since posting this last week a few friends and former professors have graciously pointed out a number of pretty significant errors and unexplained assertions within this essay. Instead of re-writing the whole thing, I wanted to add an addendum acknowledging these problems and directing readers to Part II, which will document exactly what those errors are and clarify those ambiguous issues. Here's the link.

Irony from the Week

Ironic things I've observed this week:

Not only did Ted Kennedy's strong liberalism create a lot of impassioned conservative independents in Massachusetts during his life, but his final legacy may well be that those same independents prevented his dream of healthcare reform after his death.

Conservatives (claim to) hate when companies use sex to sale their product. Conservative love Fox News. Yet conservatives say nothing about the ever-present use of blatantly slutty images to attract visitors to foxnews.com.

Keith Olbermann criticizing conservative news outlets for ratcheting up the rhetoric and cultivating a hostile political environment.

A morbidly obese man who was having trouble walking scolded me for not eating more, informing me that being skinny can cause all sorts of health problems.

I saw a fundamentalist woman tell a male student that the Bible teaches that he needs to get a haircut so as not to go against nature before turning to his girlfriend complimenting her short haircut.

Someone forwarded me an article published in the religious section of a small town newspaper. Written by a pastor, the article was entitled "Turning from Tradition to Scripture." It concluded by saying that he's pastor of Trinity Baptist Church.

Have you seen all these posts by moderate to liberal Christians all over the blogosphere and facebook condemning Pat Robertson for his lack of grace and love?

NBC is getting rid of Conan O'Brien, whose face appears to be the profile pic of about every 1 in 30 facebook users, in order to bring back popularity and ratings to the Tonight Show.

I love when former baseball players who are known adulterers come out critiquing Mark McGwire for his lack of ethics and morality. One even said, "Whatever happened to the sanctity of the game?"

As a dyslexic, I've been writing a series of blog posts about how I can't read.

Can Someone Recommend a Book Advocating Pro-Gay Christianity?

Alright, here's the sitseeation...

Wondering if someone could recommend a book on homosexuality and Christianity. I've been recommended authors like Joe Dallas, but just from an Amazon search his perspective seems to already align with my own to a greater or lesser degree. Honestly, I have zero interest in reading something that reaffirms what I already think. What I'm looking to do is to engage the opposite perspective openly and honestly. Not from the sort of "know thy enemy" philosophy that both conservatives and liberals tend to practice where they read things that disagree with for the sole purpose of disproving the other view, but in the sense of openly and (hopefully) with great discernment engaging the alternative view and seeing if there's any legitimacy to it. In this situation, I want to read the work of a pro-gay advocate who professes to:

1. be a sincere Christian,
2. see the Bible as the authoritative standard, or norming norm, for authentic Christianity,
3. affirm historic orthodoxy,
4. have maintained fidelity to the biblical text, and
5. present a sound, humble position based upon Scripture and plain reason.
   

Let me be clear. The ad hominem arguments and fear tactics exhibited by both extremes of the ideological spectrum irritate me to no end. Just as I have no interest in reading a book by someone who will tell me what I already think, so I have no interest in reading the rantings and ravings of some arrogant, pissed off theologian whose primary purpose in writing is to say that organizations like Focus on the Family are hate-filled, intolerant homophobes and if you have the audacity to think homosexuality is wrong you're a bigot. I want to read the work of someone who intelligently and graciously presents a pro-gay interpretation of Scripture--the Queer Hermeneutic, I think they call it.

As I have dyslexia, I read wickedly slow and don't have the time to read eight books on this. I need a single, stellar work.

Can anyone recommend a book that meets all the above criteria?

Thanks.

So... I don't know how to read, Part IV

Let's keep this short and sweet.

There's good news and bad news. The good news is that if my wife and I ever have kids and those kids have dyslexia, I'm golden. The middle third of the book focuses primarily on children, giving particular attention to practically helping parents. It describes the symptoms parents should look to identify, explains how really smart dyslexics have fallen through the cracks, provides data demonstrating the importance of early testing, encourages parents (moms especially) on the necessity of being the child's advocate throughout the educational system, and gives practical starters for how to help dyslexic children begin to build the connection between symbols and sounds. The bad news is that very little of this information is pertinent to my situation. I'm already diagnosed. It took until I was 23, but I was officially tested. I'm quite aware of the fact that I have to be my own advocate in the education system. And I'm way too far down the path for the earliest phonics techniques to really be applicable. It was comforting to learn how people like me fall through the cracks--already knew it, but it was good to see that it wasn't for anyone's neglect--and how many of us are out there, but that still doesn't change the realities that I presently face. I can't fault a general book such as this for not emphasizing my minority circumstances, but I hope the final third of the book will be as helpful as the initial third.

Christians, Please Give to Help Haiti!

An hour or so after the second tower went down on 9/11 several of my friends were complaining about boredom. Over a game of Chinese Football one guy, a Christian, suggested, "If we're not gonna have class we might as well just sneak outta here and go fishin'. All the best stuffs already happened." The others around him voiced their agreement. I became enraged and confronted them. I asked them how they could not care that thousands of people had just died. The guy who'd made the first comment dismissively offered, "They're not here, are they? What do I care? If something happens in Minnesota, let me know." Then he got up, walked out to the parking lot, and drove away. The next day I heard him talking about a fish he'd caught. Ever since then it has been my practice to be intentional about quickly getting to the nearest TV or computer and find out what was going on after hearing about such tragedies in the world. It has nothing to do with fear mongering or some morbid fascination with catastrophe. Rather, I was shocked by the callousness of my friends' hearts and vowed that day to never allow myself to become like that. Today I broke that vow.

I'm usually so on top of world news that a friend recently knighted me "C-Span Clark." When I heard a couple women at work talking about the massive earthquake in Haiti, however, I regret that I hardly gave it a second thought. It took another six hours before I finally looked at some news websites and the only reason I did that was out of habit. When the CNN homepage loaded the first thing I saw was dead bodies strewn about on a street. My heart dropped. I quickly clicked around and found out that the death toll is probably well over 100,000. Millions of people, up to 1/3 of the country's population, have been displaced. Haiti has been absolutely ravaged and I didn't know it. Worse yet, I didn't care. I had become so caught up in the monotonous busyness of my life that I had completely ignored it. I began to weep in the office. That was 45 minutes ago.

I cannot believe how insensitive I've become; how calloused I've allowed my heart to grow. I've been wallowing in self-pity about my stupid cold. Dwelling all day on how how it was zapping my energy and making my little projects seem overwhelming. I believe it was the Holy Spirit who brought to mind that scene from Hotel Rwanda in which Don Cheadle's character says, "How can they not intervene when they see such atrocities?" to which Joaquin Phoenix's character grimly suggests, "I don't know. I think if people see this footage they'll say, 'Oh my God, that's horrible.' And then go on eating their dinners." I have become one of those dinner table Americans. Oh Lord, please forgive me. Please give me a heart of compassion and help me to always keep the stupid crap of my life in proper perspective.

I prayed for a few minutes in the office. When I opened my eyes and wiped away the tears I found that the website had been refreshed and a video of President Clinton had been posted. He was explaining the desperate situation in Haiti. There is a real danger of millions dying of exposure, dehydration, and injuries. The next 10 to 14 days are the most important. He said that right now they don't need people to send items. What the humanitarian aid organizations like the Red Cross do need is straightforward money to buy essential items like food, water, clothing, tents, and medicine.

I've written this blog post to repent of my calloused heart, to perhaps reawaken the compassion in some of you, and to plead for Christians to please generously give of your financial resources. I have heard it said from pastors that prayer is the single most important thing that anyone can do. I disagree. James 2:14-17 says, "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." The importance of prayer cannot be overstated, but, in this situation, neither can the importance of tangible monetary gifts that quite possibly will be the difference between life and death. Yes, God will provide but He uses people to do it. Please, in a spirit of loving compassion, send them money.

One last thought. It is absolutely reprehensible when Christians in this country glance over the newspapers or websites looking for figures on how many Americans have died, and after they see that the figure is low they stop caring. It's pulling a Hotel Rwanda, if you will. I would exhort you to love all people equally regardless of whether they're U.S. citizens. They're members of humanity who are made in God's image. That is truly all that we should care about in times such as these.

Here are a few ways you can give:

• Text 'Haiti' to 90999 to send a $10 donation
  
• Call the Red Cross at (800) REDCROSS
• Click here to give at Clinton's website
  
• Click here to give to a government agency specifically helping the children
• Click here to give to World Vision (the explicitly christian option)

Thank you! Now please pray.

So... I don't know how to read, Part III

Top 10 Things Most People Don't Know About Dyslexia

The following information comes from Sally Shaywitz's Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level. She is Professor of Pediatrics at Yale University School of Medicine. She and her husband are codirectors of the Yale Center for the Study of Learning and Attention, which is one of only four such institutes in the country. Thus, she is one of the foremost experts in this field.

1. Dyslexia is a medical condition. Until the 1980s there was no physical proof like an X-ray of a broken bone, so educators were skeptical of its validity. Since then MRIs and fMRIs have been used to document the differences in brain structural and areas of usage between those of regular persons and those with dyslexia. While this technology is still unavailable for most dyslexics, it does mean that there is undeniable, empirical evidence verifying this condition. Unfortunately, because this technology is still relatively unknown many educators, especially older ones who are of the "suck it up and try harder" persuasion, tend to dismiss the legitimacy of dyslexia and assume the dyslexic student is either perfectly fine or just plain stupid.
   
2. Speaking is natural, but reading isn't. All but mentally handicapped people can speak. Not all can read. Whether one thinks the world is a billion years old or merely 10,000, all can agree that written language has only been around for roughly 5,000 years. There's a reason it was such a late development. To put it crudely, a person basically has to jury rig the brain's language module in order to read, utilizing it for a purpose for which it was never designed. By the way, this plays into a pet theory of mine. Historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists have noted that written language suddenly appeared all over the world at virtually the same time. One author I was reading referred to it as an "unexplained linguistic explosion." As a Christian I believe God chose to communicate with humanity primarily through the written text of the Bible. Now, that would've been a bit of a challenge if people were unable to read or write. So is it possible that God inspired, if not directly caused, a worldwide invention of written language in order to achieve His goal of restoring communication with us? Again, just a pet theory.
   
3. Dyslexia is far more common than people think. According to the most recent scientific studies conducted by Yale University, 1 in every 5 Americans has difficulty learning to read and may have some form of dyslexia.
4. Neither gender is more prone to dyslexia. While boys are diagnosed three to four times more often, this is because they are more prone to act out in school when confronted with tasks they cannot perform, e.g. reading aloud or memorizing dates. As a result they basically annoy their teachers into getting help. Girls, on the other hand, tend to suffer silently and never draw the attention necessary to receive help. Moral of the story: Girls need to misbehave more.
   
5. Dyslexia has nothing to do with overall intelligence. In fact, dyslexics tend to have above average intelligence and form a disproportionately large percentage of the movers and shakers in society. Experts speculate that this is because their minds have overdeveloped certain areas of the brain in order to compensate for weaknesses in others. Thus, not all dyslexics struggle academically. Many have become prolific scholars, writers, lawyers, politicians, and so forth because they've developed creative, alternative ways to learn and present information.
6. The commonly held belief that dyslexics visually switch letters around is simply bogus. That was the medical opinion of late 19th century doctors who couldn't understand why otherwise smart people couldn't read. They were doing the best they could given their lack of resources and understanding of the brain and assumed the problem was visual. Unfortunately, this erroneous myth keeps being passed down, kind of like the belief that the appendix has no purpose... Oh, one more thing. People with dyslexia quite often are bad spellers and do tend to switch letters around, but that's because they're trying to recreate the shape of the word, not a visual impairment when they first read it.
   
7. As opposed to folklore, true symptoms of dyslexia include (Note: Not all of the following apply to all dyslexics): difficulty equating shapes with sounds; trouble breaking down words into small phonemes (frog = fu-ru-ah-gu); inability to tell if words rhyme; difficulty recalling words; excruciatingly slow reading rate; apprehension about reading aloud; problems reading new words; great fatigue caused by reading; difficulty memorizing random facts (Pearl Harbor: 12/7/1941) while having a mastery of the "big picture" (knowing just about everything about the attack and its place within WWII) (A perfect time for another clip from Billy Madison); being unable to read amidst noise; poor results on standardized tests due to a lack of time; strong preference for auditory learning; unusual degree of reliance upon mnemonic devices for rote memorization; common misuse or mispronunciation of words while possessing a thorough understanding of the concepts; unusual difficulty in understanding persons with strong accents; general belief that foreign languages are of the devil.
   
8. Out of necessity our educational system has attempted to create these nice, neat categories of "normal" and "dyslexic" where, in fact, it is actually more of a continuum. Say, for example, state law requires that school districts provide learning support assistance to those in the tenth percentile in terms of their reading rate. What that means is that the student in the 9th percentile gets help but not the student in the 12th. So quite often the student who is "more dyslexic" actually ends up better off because he's identified and treated whereas the student whose skills are just a bit better falls through the cracks. This also means that people like me who are gifted and stubborn enough to press through get the shaft because we don't get identified.
9. Dyslexia is quite often genetic. Whole family trees of dyslexics have been identified after a single person in the family was diagnosed. Apparently they all just thought they were stupid and/or their struggles were normal. Quite often the family then develops its own culture of aversion to formal education.
   
10. The medical advances made in the study and treatment of dyslexia have been nothing short of extraordinary. The condition was first recognized a little more than a century ago, but today almost all people can retrain their brain to function properly with the right learning program. Also, the symptoms do not naturally improve over time. A person who is dyslexic as a child will be dyslexic as an adult, so the ol' ignore method isn't a good route.
    

So... I don't know how to read, Part II

Warning: Emotions that have been long suppressed are quickly surfacing.

My whole freaking life I've been telling people about all these symptoms, trying to voice my struggles and get help, but no one would listen. Even after I'd being diagnosed a year ago I had a couple professors who I was really close to exhibit a complete lack of compassion. One told me, "You can't go around having excuses made for everything. We all have weaknesses. Some things just don't come as easy for some of us as other people. That's life. When you hit one of those difficult areas, you just have to put your nose to the grindstone and work that much harder to get through." Thanks for the motivational pep talk, Danny Tanner. While I'm at it I'll focus my eyes harder so I won't need glasses. Another dismissively stated, "Honestly, I really don't really care what this psychiatrist says. I've seen your work and you don't have a learning disability. If you have a learning disability, then who doesn't?" before going to say, "You keep telling me that you have these troubles, but I see no evidence of that in your coursework. Now, be honest with me Carson. What's really going on? Is there something going on where you don't have time to do your homework or something? Work? This conference? Something with your marriage? It's either that of you're just being lazy, not putting and energy you need to be into your studies. Which is it?" Talk about tough love backfiring. Even after the diagnosis they refused to acknowledge not only my medical condition but how hard I was having to work to overcome it. You can imagine how much worse the comments were before the diagnosis.

Anger.

I've been blessed to basically have been surrounded by people who care about me all my life. Even among all those people who dismissed my cries for help and tried to attribute my struggles to other things, few if any of them harbored malicious intentions. They just didn't understand. They saw me as a bright student who excelled academically in most areas, so they couldn't fathom the degree to which I was struggling in certain areas. I get all that. Still, it's almost harder when over my whole life some of the most well-intentioned people ever made me feel lazy and stupid if not simply a liar. I couldn't just dismiss 'em, because I knew they weren't simply jerks. (Well, there was that one basketball coach. He definitely was an A-hole. But with the exception of him...) At the same time neither could I accept what they told me because I knew it wasn't truth.

Frustration.

I need to be honest about my feelings and vent my emotions: I'm hurt and livid. Pardon my French, but I'm so damn tired of people:

• Telling me that my struggles are normal. Everyone goes through these things. It's simply a part of regular human nature. Very few of us are super geniuses, ya know... How many times have I been told that the real problem is that I have an inaccurate perception of what's normal? I'm quite aware of the world around me. Probably more so than 99% of the people who tell me I don't.
• Encouraging me to work harder to overcome. "Things might not come easy, but if you put your mind to it and really try hard you can accomplish anything!"... Determination, work ethic, and a refusal to give up have never been a problem, thank you very much. Side note: This philosophy that anyone can accomplish anything if they'll just work hard enough is sheer absurdity. As a buddy of mine once pointed out, he loves the sport but no matter how hard he practiced he was only going to be a mediocre swimmer. He simply didn't have the genes to be Michael Phelps. I think it shouldn't be about what one accomplishes in general, but what one accomplishes given the hand he or she has been dealt.
  
• Doubting the truthfulness of my experiences and telling me that I'm exaggerating the extent of my struggles... After 16 years of struggling with "asthma," that's the same sort of shit the doctor at Mayo pulled just before they found out I have Cystic Fibrosis. Yes, sir, the problem is that I'm a hypochondriac. I daydreamed of repeatedly throwing a large, rubber ball at that man's face as hard as possible, which brings us to another scene from Billy Madison.
• Chiding me for not working hard enough... It's unreal how many Sunday School teachers, Royal Ranger/AWANA leaders, school teachers, professors, pastors, and even basketball coaches have lectured me on the need to be more disciplined and spend more time studying. This after I was already putting in far more time and energy than anyone else. Can't tell you how many times I've wanted to tell these people to screw off.
  
• Attempting to put a positive spin on it, making this out to be a blessing in disguise. Being able to skip the process of sounding things out is actually a good thing! As is reading slow!.. If you're able to sound words out when you need to, sure, just plain memorizing might be better. But I can't. As for the blessing of reading slow, try not being able to speed up when you need to. Try being unable read with any noise whatsoever. You remember how long it took you to read The Fellowship of the Ring? Multiply that by four and tell me how much of a blessing it really is. Though they meant well, there are times when the eternal optimists have been the most irritating people on earth. People need to understand that sometimes the best, most encouraging thing you can do is say, "Sorry, man. That really sucks."
  

Getting it out of my system. Blood pressure dropping.

Anger isn't the only emotion I'm experiencing, though. It's strange. I've known for a while that I was learning disabled, but I didn't know that I was dyslexic. Maybe it shouldn't seem like that much of a difference, but to me dyslexia sounds considerably worse. It's almost like when I went from having asthma to CF. It's this strange mixture of emotions. On the one hand, I almost feel like I'm going through the process of mourning as I'm slowly coming to accept that I really, really have something wrong with my brain. On the other hand, there's this simultaneous sense of comfort and peace in it. Again, the switch from asthma to CT is a good parallel. Life-long frustrations are being validated and I'm feeling like I'm no longer insane or a liar. That doesn't tangibly make life easier, but at least I'm coming to an understanding of what I'm up against.

Fear is gone. Worry isn't, but I'm feeling this growing sense of calm.

So... I don't know how to read, Part I

During the fall of '08 I was taking French to meet my major's language requirement. I poured hours upon hours into the material but was unable to even learn the basics. Long story short, that semester a psychiatrist at the University of Georgia diagnosed me as being a "twice-exceptional learner," meaning I'm simultaneously "learning disabled" and "gifted." (I like to say I'm a "retard-genius," but my uncle prefers "pseudo idiot savant.") I was told that I have a profound learning disability in four areas: phonological awareness, rapid naming, listening comprehension, and processing speed. Just in the past couple of months, however, I've come to realize that my strength areas were so strong that I have unknowingly concealed the severity of my disability from not only my parents, teachers, professors, and even the psychiatrist, but also from myself. Only now am I coming to realize the extent of my challenge. Specifically, I found out late last night that I basically cannot read. No, this isn't another piece of satire. I really cannot read.

Few of us really think about this on a technical level, but the premise of written language is the transference of spoken language into a written format that accurately reflects the original concepts. Symbols are used to represent ideas. Since there's almost an infinite number of ideas, it essentially became impossible to come up with a unique character for everything. So what happened instead is that people developed 25 or so letters that represent all the sounds we make while speaking languages. Those letters are then arranged in meaningful patterns that are meant to phonologically reconstruct the audible language. So, for example, the green, amphibian creature known as a "frog" is spelled f (fu), r (ru), o (ah), g (gu) in English. When a literate English speaker reads the four letters f-r-o-g in isolation from left to wrong, he or she mentally or audibly hears the word and thus understand its meaning. So letters form words, words forms sentences, and sentences form paragraphs. It all seems so simple, right? Minor problem: I can't do that.

Do you remember that scene in Billy Madison where he rips on the kid for not being able to read? The kid is slowly trying to sound out words and Billy has this look of utter annoyance. After only a few seconds Billy blurts out, "T-t-to-day, junior!" It's one of my favorite scenes in movie history. No, not because I'm evil incarnate but because that's exactly what I was like in the second grade. I never learned how to sound out words (lack of phonological awareness). When a kid couldn't read a word I'd always think to myself, 'Will someone please just tell the kid what the word is?! Hear it. Memorize it. You're good.' That year I remember telling one of my friends who was struggling to stop trying to sound everything out and just remember what sound goes with what word. That's basically what I still do.

When I "read" a word, I don't phonologically pronounce it in my head. (It's even worse for new words, which have zero mental pronunciation in my head. For example, I read the Star Wars book Heir to the Empire in 1995. The name of the capital planet of the New Republic was Coruscant. Every time I came across that word the notion "capital planet of the New Republic" came to mind rather than a pronunciation. I knew what that shape of letters meant, but not how to pronounce the word. It wasn't until Phantom Menace came out four years later that I learned how to pronounce it.) When I see f-r-o-g I don't think fu-ru-ah-gu. I think "frog" because that's the sound that's associated with that pattern. I don't even look at the actual letters left to right. I look at the words in sentences left to right, but as I'm going along looking at individual words in order I actually look at the middle of the word so as to be able to see each word's overall shape formed by the letters. That is, it has little to do with the letters' sounds and everything to do with the actual, visual shape of the word jogging a memory of the corresponding phonics and meaning. This is one of the reasons why my reading rate is about one-third the rate of my peers. I literally stop at every single word and have to think, 'What's this word?', 'What's this word?', 'What's this word?' It's also why I have a deep fear of reading out loud. I'm continually butchering words and saying the wrong words because I'm not decoding the words. Instead, I'm seeing the shapes and trying to anticipate the corresponding sounds. (This is also the reason why reading is so mentally exhausting, I suck at Wheel of Fortune, and I completely lack any sense of poetic rhythm in poetry and literature). It's the same process when I write, only inverted. When I write "frog" I'm not thinking about the phonetics of f-r-o-g; I'm thinking, 'How do I created that same shape that I know corresponds to the sound "frog."' Reading is like seeing a movie scene in your head and then remembering the dialogue that goes with it, not the decoding of words into sounds and meaning. Writing is like painting shapes that have meaning, not the encoding of letters that form words that have meaning. I've just gotten so good at cheating in this way that it all but completely concealed that I was doing it. I just thought it was normal. The only times people really seem to notice is when it takes me three times as long to read something or when they're reading all the typos in my writing (and then they usually just think I was being too lazy to proof-read).

The problem is that I have aspirations of graduate work, scholarship, and eventually becoming a writer, all of which will be impossible if I can't figure out how to fix this. My inability to learn new languages would preclude me from studying two of the fields I love most: history and theology. And while I can stick with anyone I've ever met in terms of sheer cognitive ability--understanding, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, and creating--there's no way my sloth-like reading rate would be able to keep up with the breakneck speed of graduate-level coursework. Thankfully a buddy of mine just recommended a book that I think might help, Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level by Sally Shaywitz, M.D. All the stuff I wrote above about not being able to read comes from things I'm reading in this book. I'm truly optimistic that there's still hope.

As I read the book I've decided to blog about the experience. Not only will it help me as I'm wrestling through the ideas and getting my mind around this thing, but I thought it might be interesting for people to hear about how a 24-year-old with aspirations of being an author is just now truly learning to read. A lot of you guys have been following what I write since I started this blog over the summer. Now you can follow as I write about learning to read.

Final thought: I hope this also helps y'all understand why I get soooooo irritated when people say I'm an intellectual snob and that I don't understand what it's like to not have learning come naturally. I read, study, and think not because it comes easy, but because I value worshiping God with my mind.

On the Authority of "The Authorities"

I'm overall quite glad I transferred from Moody to TFC. Whereas Moody requires that all of its professors affirm a rigid doctrinal statement consisting of Calvinism, Dispensationalism, and Cessationism, TFC allows its professors to hold much greater variety of views and perspectives. Sometimes these views are so disparate, however, that it becomes comical. I remember staying after class one day to ask my professor a question. We disagreed on an issue and it quickly turned into an intense, though respectful, discourse. Time got away from us and I was late to my next class. In one of those strange coincidences that I have to think was orchestrated by the Holy Spirit, the same issue came up in the next class--albeit in a completely different way. Again I stayed after. Again I disagreed with my prof. The funny part is that these professors' views were polar opposites and I disagreed with them both. The issue we were discussing that day was the role of "the authorities" in academics from an explicitly christian perspective.

The first prof held that the great minds of Western society should be seen more or less as an authoritative standard, correct until proven otherwise. "Having been tested and approved over the centuries, we should maintain their positions lest we forsake the wisdom of the authorities." Of his many points, he was particularly insistent that undergraduates were in no position to dismiss historically held positions because of their lack of academic credentials. While he obviously encouraged undergraduates to think about issues, he felt that people should only be taken seriously after they'd earned graduate degrees.

The second professor saw those same great minds as something of an arbitrary canon for Western society. "First of all, almost all of these guys have been dead for many, many centuries. Plus, as Christians, we don't think they're inspired so we best not treat them as such... Not to mention nearly all of these figures were male, which demonstrates the culturally relative nature of their views." This professor enjoyed pointing out that he has read very few of the supposed pillars of Western society, but that most all of his views came from him simply thinking about issues. Furthermore, not only does he think undergraduates can question those figures, he believes they should. For example, during a discussion about christian ethics he told me, "Augustian Just War Theory? OK, but who is Augustine that he should be an authority? Just another guy who lived a long time ago."

Fast forward to the present. I don't know what the deal is, but I'm constantly having different people try to pin me down in completely opposite categories back to back. Around the last election I was called a "[expletive] liberal" and a "right-wing [expletive]" within an hour of one another. The same has happened with my being described as an extrovert and an introvert, procrastinator extraordinaire and rigidly disciplined, arrogant and humble, narrow-minded and relativistic, etc. A while back I received a set of completely conflicting emails from the aforementioned professors. The first one chided me for naively denying that I can avoid the academic authorities. If I want to express ideas diverging from currently accepted views I must start by discrediting and/or disproving the status quo before proposing alternatives. Such discussion must start and revolve around the giants. This is especially necessary as one with only an undergraduate degree. The second expressed frustration with my submission to said authorities. He told me to stop obsessing with what the big shooters of Western thought and just develop my own ideas. Stop regurgitating their thoughts and start exhibiting original thought.

Crikey! Ya just can't win... Rather than play either of their little games, I figured I'd just explain my views on academic and theological authorities.

Quite often times I already have a general idea about something, but only later do I read it in a book or hear it in a lecture and thus become familiar the fancy terminology. For example, I believed in the distinction between orthodoxy (essential doctrine) and adiaphora (secondary doctrine) long before Dr. Juncker taught me the nomenclature in class. Most of my thoughts are original. By this I don't mean to imply that they're completely unprecedented, but that I came up with them on my own long before I encountered them formally. All throughout my time at TFC I described myself as a realistic idealist, but only yesterday did I learn that Reinhold Niebuhr had already coined a term for that 60 years earlier: Christian Realism. Likewise, this summer someone told me, "You were a postfoundationalist long before you'd heard the term." I'm more than happy to use terms like Christian Realism or postfoundationalism once I've come across them. As a general rule, if there's a concise term that adequately articulates my view, I tentatively embrace it. I use these words not to foster personal identity or a standard to which I adhere, but as descriptors of where I'm at. It's the same general way I use "evangelical." Point being this: I'll use these terms after I've learned them, but they don't come from my dependence on others' ideas.

One of the major reasons I have a hard time buying into "the authorities" as an authority is that, in my estimate, the tasks of history, theology, philosophy, anthropology, literature, math, science, and so forth are never complete. There's always more information to consider, more perspectives to integrate, new contexts to address. The rabbit hole always goes deeper. After my professor made that comment critiquing the relevancy of Augustine, I thought, 'Yeah, I don't think he's an authority as such, but neither is he unimportant.' I see all these theological systems and academic methodologies as intellectual constructs that are cultural and historical developments. Like the Orthodox, I'm quick to point out that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Unlike the Orthodox, I don't look at those giants as some sort of authoritative standard by which all successive persons must submit. Accordingly, I don't look to the likes of Augustine, C.S. Lewis, or even Mark Noll as "the authorities." While I do slowly get around to reading these guys, it's not for the purpose of finding the correct view on something.

I try to keep my views balanced on this issue. On the one hand, I don't believe in tabula rasa espistemology. My view is that "the authorities" have profoundly influenced the creation and adaptation of Western culture, which in turn has profoundly influenced everyone in their wake even if the typical person isn't cognizant of their contributions. On the other hand, I read their writings not to submit to them or to become a follower, but for the same reason Dr. J had us read all those primary source documents in his classes: to become aware of the past, grow in one's perspectives, and refine one's thinking.

My view is that the pursuit of absolute truth is ultimately futile. I'll never get there. It's impossible. While I can know things, I'll never know anything fully or exhaustively. I've come to a point where the process of learning isn't so much about the destination anymore as it is the journey. I read the giants of thought and faith not as a sailor who must submit to his captain, but as a fellow traveler hoping to learn from his more experienced companions.

Last thought: My inability and/or unwillingness to accept "the authorities" is the same reason I cannot hold to the Westminster Confession, the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy, any length Lutheran catechism, or papal infallibility as authoritative standards. I can agree with something, but the only definitive authority to which I submit is the Bible. Guess it's the Anabaptist in me.