Terrence Malick, And What they Didn't Teach About Epistemology in Sunday School

There is something I want to say here that is really important, but I don't know if I can be clear about it.  The problem isn't with the "listener" but with me, the speaker.  I want to talk deeply about philosophical matters. The bottle-neck of getting my ideas from my head into your head is my limited ability to use language.  I don't have a degree in Philosophy. My vocabulary of expression is limited. It reminds me of going shopping in Cairo (for a lot of different things) and having an Arabic vocabulary of just a couple hundred words.

First I will state my premises and define my terms. Next I will describe how I got here (talking about this topic) and then dive into the actual discussion.

My premises are; 1) That epistemology is a very important topic, 2) We (Christians) make many wrong assumptions about knowing and we minimize it as a subject and 3) We do a very poor job of teaching our kids about epistemology.  Now if you will patient while I talk in theoretical terms, I will get down to the nuts and bolts of the practical in the end.

I must start by defining "epistemology" in the way I'm using it here.  I am using it as strictly a philosophical term, not a theological term.  Epistemology is of course the study or science of knowing.  When it is used in theological settings, it usually means the science of knowing what the Bible is really saying. That isn't what I'm talking about here.  What I'm talking about is the fundamental philosophical study of knowing the very basics about reality and how we know or the process of searching for truth.

Okay, why am I talking about this?  It has to do with my movie club.  I've started a movie club and my new church, enthusiastically, signed on to "sponsor" it. That's a good thing. My old Evangelical church was very doubtful about my movies clubs . . . seemed secular to the pastor at least. Our first movie, last month, was The Adjustment Bureau.  Our film this Friday is The Tree of Life.

Before I show a movie I spend some time researching the writers and director.  For The Tree of Life, it is one in the same, Terrence Malick (pictured above).  As I was just starting to do my homework I came across this article by R. Greg Grooms (an old LAbri guy whom I had met years ago) about the movie.  At my club, we always have a time of discussion about the movie afterwards and that is the whole point, to understand it at a very deep level.

The thing that caught my attention in the Grooms article was the statement about the writer/director Terrence Malick, "He is a philosopher who makes movies."  That was profound . . . and it sent me on a journey to find out more about the man. I'm not going to waste a lot of time here discussing Malick, but, I do want to explain how he is related to how I started thinking about this topic of knowing.

The other reason I want to take on this topic in my blog, is that I want to get away from talking about Evangelicals misbehaving in a sexual context. I know that Trevor was asking me why I see so much misbehaving and he hasn't (my words not his).  I don't know.  I think it is common.  If you google "Pastor arrested" you come upon page after page of either A. Christian pastors arrested in the Muslim world for proselytizing or B. An American pastor arrested for sexual crimes. But it starts to seem like I want to continuously beat up on Evangelicals for being frauds. So I want to talk about something else for a while.

Malick is a brilliant man. He graduated (per Wikipedia) summa cum laude from Harvard in Philosophy in 1965.  He went on t study philosophy at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.  However he never finished his PhD because he had a strong disagreement with his professors at Oxford over their understanding of the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein.

I know it sounds a bit strange that you couldn't finish your PhD because you didn't agree with the dean or professor.  But I know it is true. I studied psychology before I moved into medicine. My psychology program has greatly influenced by B. F Skinner.  There was (ironically) tremendous social coercion to agree with Skinner.  I know that I was Bs instead of As at times simply because I didn't agree with Skinner.  So I can see how Malick could have been limited by his personal views.

So I'm almost at my point.  You see, as Greg Grooms describes, Wittgenstein was a Logical Positivist. My simple definition of this philosophical movement is taking epistemology and putting it under the same rules as natural sciences (empirical science). So, you end up with a situation that it is complete nonsense to ask any question about reality that can not be answered definitively with empirical data. So they would see the old, basic philosophical questions such as; 1) What is reality? 2) What is the meaning of life? 3) Does God exist? 4) What is right or wrong? as complete silliness.

Malick, while raised as an Orthodox Christian,  certainly has no claims of being a Christian now. But his view was that these non-answerable questions were worthwhile to ask.  To to arrive at definitive answers but asking them, contemplating them and living by what you think the answers are, does add significance to life.

Now I must add in closing, that I read somewhere that Malick saw this process of asking and answering as cyclic.  He would work through, say a ethical question, and arrive at an answer. But years later, he may cycle through that same question and arrive at a totally different answer.

So now you know, how I got on this topic of knowing. But here is where I want to go next time.  I want to talk about this whole issue as it applies to the Christian.  We are taught that we can know with certainty all the basic Christian truths.  I oppose that view. My point will be, that if you teach that you must know with certainty,  but in reality you can not, then it because a farce.  You learn to smile and say the cliches about how "I've never doubted God for a second, because He revealed Himself to me, " while, in the middle of the night, when you wake up a lone in your bed . . . you know in your most secret places, you do doubt.  I just think it is much healthier to be honest about it.

I'm at the coffee shop and I was just told that I have to go. So, once again, no proof reading. Sorry about the typos.