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Daniel Kern
950 Plays1 year ago
Daniel Kern means so much to me and my learning. We met at Marquette University and he is responsible for my deeper interest in quantum physics, cosmology, Jesus Christ, and deeply humane ways of looking at philosophical questions.
Dan and I chat and catch up on Episode 180 of Something (rather than nothing ) Podcast.
We talk about his excellent book ‘A Reasonable Christian Faith.’ I told Dan about the surreal aspect of hearing his ‘voice’ in his book and feeling like he was chatting with me as l read it. Isn’t that grand?
This podcast is in the top 5% of podcasts in the world. It is free and open. It is populist. It celebrates all creativity. It is liberationist and is arts-organizing in practice.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Philosophical Influences
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing, creator and host Ken Volante, editor and producer, Peter Bauer. This is Ken Volante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast and I have a
00:00:24
Speaker
a great friend of mine and philosopher and thinker, Daniel Kern. Dan, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Ken. It's great to be here. I'm excited. Yeah, it was I've been meaning to ask for quite some time. For the listeners, Dan, Dan and I know each other from time studying philosophy at Marquette University. And I just wanted to say right from the top,
Quantum Physics in Philosophy Education
00:00:54
Speaker
Dan's very influential as far as introducing me to science, something that he studied in the philosophy of science.
00:01:03
Speaker
at Indiana University and quantum mechanics and looking at big huge questions of philosophy and taking a look at the science and some of the amazing answers that are there according and also with his philosophy and theological training. So Dan, I don't know if you remember some of those many conversations we had and
00:01:27
Speaker
Just you know talking philosophy and in talking the the the big questions. I just wanted to express How much you helped me along and how much I still think of you in talking that philosophy?
Dan's Academic Background and Mentorship
00:01:40
Speaker
Thanks. I appreciate it. I use quantum physics a lot in our we have a philosophy club at my school and I have a Discussion of quantum physics that I go over every year with this philosophy club students is always fun Yeah, I
00:01:54
Speaker
I think when you introduced me some of the concept in a way that I could understand and showing some things, it really gave me a new insight into different approaches to questions of causality and philosophy of truth and knowledge. Not that I hadn't bumped into those, but as a way, as a deeper understanding and teaching. Just so listeners, Dan was born and raised in British Columbia.
00:02:23
Speaker
as I mentioned, studied, got a master's of philosophy and science at Indiana University, master of divinity from Regent College, and a PhD in philosophy from Marquette University, as I mentioned where Dan and I met. Dan, one thing I wanted to mention to you, I don't know if you know this, I've been a mentor for students at Marquette University for the last eight or nine years, and the
00:02:51
Speaker
Alumni mentoring program at Marquette is recognized as the tops in the country, actually. Well, I didn't know either of those things. That's good to hear. Yeah, it's been a unexpected and great experience to kind of help students navigate what to do next, right? So it's been a nice time with that.
Exploring 'A Reasonable Christian Faith'
00:03:19
Speaker
So we're going to be talking to Dan about really the big question, why is there something rather than nothing? But I wanted to just spend a little bit of time, Dan. I'll ask you to speak in just a bit. But I wanted to give the listeners a backdrop to Dan's book, A Reasonable Christian Faith. I just wanted to mention to Dan and to folks some pieces I found in going through this work.
00:03:45
Speaker
I really, and how I felt it was different from other books as well, is one piece, Dan, I really loved the practical approach, kind of pragmatism and kind of a working out of solutions within the work. I felt through my contact with it, thinking about American pragmatism,
00:04:09
Speaker
William James. There's always been something endearing to me about practical solutions or practical answers to problems. In writing the book, how much did your approach take from that? Taking a look at complicated problems
00:04:31
Speaker
and saying, how do we sort this out and how do we find truth and meaning in
Worthy Worship and Historical Context of Teachings
00:04:36
Speaker
this? Did you approach this in a very pragmatic, practical way, your work? Well, the section that I called applications of a reasonable Christian faith was definitely an
00:04:47
Speaker
pragmatic approach trying to say, if we look at this one particular problem, how would the things I say about Christianity looking at what Jesus said and did, how would they apply to this one particular problem? So that was a very practical focus there. One of the things in the book that I wanted to ask you about is
00:05:14
Speaker
One of the points that you make early on in the consideration of God that surprised me, and I'm away from the Academy, and I don't always deal with these deeper questions, but in your reading that God must be worthy of worship,
00:05:34
Speaker
That and that that that reading that it made a lot of sense to me, but I hadn't really Read that as part of the approach. Could you talk a little bit more about? about that statement that that that the God must be a God must be worthy of worship Yeah, that was that was kind of I think a new idea for me too it kind of came to me in the writing of the book and
00:05:59
Speaker
And it traces back to Aristotle primarily who said that when people make decisions about what to do, ultimately their objective ultimately is to be happy. And so when I had established that there must be a God, at least reasonably must be, I was thinking about the characteristics this God must have. And if God created people and people's ultimate objective is to be happy, whatever they do,
00:06:28
Speaker
then it would follow reasonably that God made people with that desire, that motivation, and so that one would think that God would have provided a way to
00:06:43
Speaker
satisfy that desire. So, I say in the book, it's not necessary that God, maybe God just likes to see people, likes to frustrate people and punish them and stuff, but if there were such a God, since we do everything in order to be happy, we couldn't really worship that God because worshipping that God would be leading us away from happiness.
00:07:04
Speaker
So since we do everything we do in order to become more happy, then if God is worthy of worship, then God must be leading us toward more happiness or more satisfaction or something like that.
Comparing Philosophical Teachings Across Cultures
00:07:22
Speaker
I was surprised in the book in a few different ways. That was one place that I was, and it was very fertile for me to think about. The other piece was, which I really got into your analysis again, which I wasn't really familiar with or hadn't read an exposition, which was Jesus's actions within the historical context that they occurred. You spend time within the work,
00:07:51
Speaker
again, with things that feel like trying to show the shock or the radical nature of what Jesus was talking about. And I knew that theoretically in my head that, yes, this was a big shift. I understand that. But what I had an experience was kind of reading
00:08:11
Speaker
more close readings in understanding the true nature or the true shock of the preaching or the moral system there. So I thought that was very successful in reaching me and me to have a deeper understanding of that. And I'm asking this in a very naive way.
00:08:38
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Is that an area that's been of a decent amount of focus, whether it's linguistically or academically? Where did you come in contact with that? It was so helpful for me. Yeah, that's a pretty common theme. The prodigal son story is my favorite story from the scripture, and it's because of how radical that father acted in that culture. But there's a number of writers who talk about Jesus' parables,
00:09:08
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and how his parables always take something that's normal and every day and flip it on its head. There's actually a book that was written probably 30 or 40 years ago now called The Upside Down Kingdom and the focus there is how Jesus really flipped everything socially and culturally on its head with his teachings and his actions. I started to think because
00:09:33
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As you know, I've read a good deal of Eastern philosophy. I was thinking about like Zen Coans do, right? They trip you up. It's that riddle. It's that shock. And you're like, yeah, this isn't supposed to happen. That's not supposed to be said. That's nonsensical. And right. I ran across a book at least somewhere along the way that talked about Jesus and Buddhism and how they're similar in that way, that flipping of things on their head. Yeah, yeah. That's definitely that's definitely something I want to
00:10:01
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I want to dig in more.
Balancing Empirical and Non-Empirical Truths
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Another piece, Dan, and I know you studied as a philosopher, you can go deeper into language itself. Another point which was very helpful for me, and I thought subtle, was your discussion about
00:10:19
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language and what language makes possible. The language that we use makes possible in certain limits to it or different ways of expressing it. And I felt when you made that point and you were talking about that point in the book, it was very easy to connect
00:10:40
Speaker
some universals to that, that people could be talking about in different languages in different ways about the same thing. And one point that you made, it said, the existence of non-empirical or spiritual knowledge is accepted by followers of every major religion. And it was just a simple point that was
00:11:01
Speaker
just needed to be just needed to be stated. But I was very intrigued by that, or where our skepticism shows up. And of course, you deal with, you know, things of miracles. And I believe when I read how you wrote about them, it was like, there was this piece where it was like,
00:11:21
Speaker
There's a lot of unexplained things, folks. There's a lot. And we seem hung up on this. I thought that was a very useful reminder. Do you have to remind the folks a lot about that, that a lot of the things that are the strongest beliefs might be spiritual or other?
00:11:51
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That would be part of what I was doing in my book, I think, trying to remind people of that, because we've become such a rational scientific community, the Western world at least, that there's very little space for anything other than empirical truth, I think, in our culture. So that was one of the ideas I had in the book, was trying to remind people that
00:12:16
Speaker
It's hard to establish non empirical truth. I'm straightforward about that. And empirical truth is pretty easy to establish, but that doesn't mean there isn't any non empirical truth.
Existence and Nothingness in Philosophy
00:12:26
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And so we have to be careful about that. Yeah, I liked a lot of the, you know, your, your analysis kind of, you know, taken apart.
00:12:40
Speaker
You know, false dichotomies and getting out of some intellectual traps as far as ways of framing issues. All right, Deanne, I want to go back to the beginning of it all. The podcast is something rather than nothing. And as I've done it over time, I've stumbled around even how to ask the question because I end up getting
00:13:09
Speaker
Should it be how is there something rather than nothing? Some folks want to pose it that way or the why. But one of the big reasons I brought you on in connection to your book was to talk about the something rather than nothing question.
00:13:33
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The reason why I ask you is because of your approach, because of your knowledge of other thought systems, and because of your scientific background, your study of the philosophy of science. How do we go about this question?
00:13:59
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My first response may be somewhat disappointing, I'm sorry, but I don't think we can answer why or how there is something rather than nothing. The philosophers I'm primarily interested in wonder about
00:14:13
Speaker
What if there's any conclusions or any further stuff? We can draw from the fact that there is something rather than nothing right and there are some interesting Discussions about what we can what we can know about the world or the universe or whatever word we use for it Given that there is something rather than nothing And with that framing let's proceed
00:14:37
Speaker
All right, well i'd go all the way back to the ancient greek philosopher parmenides And actually the modern philosopher john lock both had similar arguments that Given that there there is something now. It must be the case that there's always been something because If there was ever a time when there was nothing then nothing would ever come from it So if there is something then there must always have been something there can't be a time when there isn't something so
00:15:07
Speaker
That's a pretty remarkable conclusion to draw right there. And go ahead. No, no, go ahead, Dan. To go a little bit further, this argument's been carried all the way through Plato and Augustine and Aquinas and everyone, but the world that we experience in philosophy is called contingent. It means that it can either exist or not. It doesn't have to exist.
00:15:37
Speaker
But if everything were always contingent, then there must have been some time in the past where nothing existed. But that can't be the case, as we've already established. So we can further establish that there's something that must be non-contingent. That means something that must exist in an absolute sense, that it's not possible for it not to exist. And that's what leads many philosophers to the idea of there being a God outside of this world that created it.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah. One of the pieces I wanted to ask you about, and of course you're close in particular about language, is one of the difficulties I found sometimes in having the conversation, let's say,
00:16:27
Speaker
between the Buddhist or a Christian approach can sometimes be around the terminology that, you know, some of the analysis that you do within the book. So one of the, one of the difficulties, I think, for a general Western thinker is that the term, you know, emptiness or nothingness or no heron existence within Eastern context is
00:16:56
Speaker
you know, deemed to see as some sort of nihilism, you know, and it's a reasonable conclusion. I mean, the way those terms are used, that there's no thing. Where are things? Are things real? And one of the things I found in studying Buddhism is that there's a reclamation of the nothing as general realization of the way things are.
00:17:23
Speaker
within the nothing, I hate to use this for shorthand, but there's something, that there is everything else. And the exercises and the philosophy in that tradition is all soteriological in the sense we're thinking about salvation through philosophy and through our thinking. Do you believe part of
00:17:53
Speaker
Part of the issues, if we look at the question I try to ask and I based the show on in a strange type of way, is what nothing actually means and is there some kind of ways to kind of cut through that? Yeah, if I could just give you a couple of reflections that you made me think of. I think you and I studied Kant together and talked about Kant and Buddhism a few times. We sure did, yeah.
00:18:21
Speaker
It's also similar with Taoism, I think, this idea that we carve the world up into language, and language is based on concepts which we have formed based on our experience of the world. But the question is, what if you go beyond that? What if you go beyond the language that we're using or the concepts that we're using and ask what's there?
00:18:46
Speaker
And in one sense, the answer is we can't know. But in another sense, the answer is nothing because everything that we all the things that we think are already conceptualized and put into language by us. So if you could see reality, un-conceptualized or un-linguistically, it must seem like nothing. It must be some connection to nothing because something is always a perception that we have.
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah. You had another point that you said a couple of reflections. I didn't want to cut you off. Well, I think it was Kant and Taoism or the two things I was bringing together there. Yeah. Well, and I remember because around the same time of studying Kant, and of course, I'm thinking about numinal and phenomenal, these kind of ways of describing reality, the easiest way to describe it, and then
00:19:44
Speaker
within Buddhism there were even like analogies in the way that you talked about thing was kind of like you would have a Buddhist practitioner and saying yeah like I know the thing is like really there you can touch it and all the stuff but there's no inherent existence behind it and don't get attached to it because the further your attachment the further your suffering so it's like kind of like super practical about it or realize that all these some things kind of unlayer them or what's doing them which is
00:20:12
Speaker
I don't know, it feels like what philosophy does. One of the other observations, and I just wanted to give me a little bit of feedback, I appreciated in your analysis
00:20:35
Speaker
other philosophers in other traditions, including Averroes, a 12th century Islamic philosopher, studying the, covering Plato, Aristotle.
00:20:52
Speaker
Aquinas. But your use of Taoism in other traditions seems to be very much kind of what I would call within Buddhism, kind of like skillful means of using devices and ways of showing the same reality.
00:21:12
Speaker
Did you find, did you use that deliberately as kind of like a way to kind of just approach maybe the same thing from a different angle? I appreciated the different ways that you approached the question. Yeah, I think so. I think I was trying to show that these same problems have been answered by people in different cultures and different religions.
00:21:39
Speaker
very similarly.
Changes in Student Interest in Philosophy
00:21:40
Speaker
So I wanted to bring in a non-Western, non-Christian thinker to show that these ideas have been around not just in the Western world, but in the more Eastern religions as well.
00:21:57
Speaker
I wanted to ask you as a professor, Dan, you've taught for quite some time. Is proper pronunciation Chafee College? Chafee, yes. Yeah, Chafee College.
00:22:16
Speaker
Do you find the differences in interest in philosophy over your time with students coming in? Or does it feel the same? I ask this question in art sometimes, like what is the role of art? Is it different now? But I was just wondering, with regards to why somebody might study philosophy, it's 2023 now. Do you see something different?
00:22:45
Speaker
No, the way I see it is there are certain students whom philosophy just seems to take hold of and it's never predictable and you're never quite sure and a lot of students come into my classes and say I didn't even know what philosophy was but having had this class and started reading philosophy I find that I just I love it and I can't get away from these questions and these problems.
00:23:08
Speaker
So in that term I in that sense, I think philosophy is really a universal kind of thing and it it has this way of just capturing certain people And drawing them into itself and I I find that's very similar over the whole time that i've been teaching and learning Yeah, I I i've been like I said i've been away from the the academy um
00:23:33
Speaker
a bit, and it's a place where I spent quite some time. I was able to teach at the University of Rhode Island and teach philosophy, so I found many blessings over time to come back in contact with the university and college, and I've always been close to
00:23:52
Speaker
colleges and universities and places where I lived. I lived in Madison, Wisconsin, of course, and out in Milwaukee. And of course, being from the East Coast, a lot of colleges and universities out that way.
Art as Expression Beyond Language
00:24:06
Speaker
I just want to say, Dan, it's always great when I think and because I think about you often and thinking about you teaching down that way. I know those students get a lot from you. Dan, I wanted to take the conversation on a little bit of a different angle. There's an art and philosophy podcast.
00:24:29
Speaker
And I just wanted to see musings from you about that question. What is art? Yeah, I've been thinking about that since we've been talking about this, and I'm not an art philosopher by any means, but I'll give you my general responses. The philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote a book called The View from Nowhere,
00:24:52
Speaker
And in this book, he was talking about the view in science and rationality to try to view the world, see what the world would look like without any perspective. And he said that that's impossible. It's impossible to step outside of your own perspective to view the world.
00:25:13
Speaker
So as an aside, that's really what Kant said, I think, too. I think all these problems trace back to Kant. That Kant said you have, as we were just talking, your concepts in your language, that you are a way to view the world.
00:25:26
Speaker
And also as an aside, I almost thought about making as a subtitle of my book, The View from Somewhere, just to use Kant's idea. But I didn't think anyone would know what I meant by that. I would have loved it. I might not have known, but yeah, I would have loved it. The other thing is, I just heard an NPR episode today about a documentary called The Art of Grief.
00:25:52
Speaker
And it's about a guy who lost someone, maybe his father, and did a lot of processing of the grief through art, through drawing and painting. And he's reflecting on how his drawing and painting stuff was different during his period of grieving than it was otherwise. And then they talked to an art therapist. And the art therapist said, art is a way to get beyond language and to address and express ideas and perspectives that can't be captured linguistically
00:26:22
Speaker
So I thought that was a good analogy or a good explanation of art in general. It's people who can somehow step outside of language and use a different medium to express their perspective. They have a unique perspective on the world. And they're expressing that perspective without language, without traditional, irrational concepts, but with a different medium.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:26:43
Speaker
And so that really all struck me and kind of came together as a way of looking at art. And I now find it quite as a helpful way.
00:26:52
Speaker
that's that's that i was responding uh responding to to what you had to say it was very uh very just very powerful and um no i appreciate you mentioning the um the art of grief um i remember encountering i believe the the name of the um
00:27:12
Speaker
artist was Preston Zeller. I haven't seen that film yet, but I was very intrigued because one of the things in this podcast that I've gotten into was what art process is for us. And I think when you talk about your definition of art, of what is art, it's about how do we speak? How do we speak and communicate about things in other ways? That's why I found that to be powerful.
00:27:42
Speaker
I do have to watch that film and you found it to be quite the film, didn't you? Yeah, I haven't seen the film. I just heard the discussion about it on NPR. I want to see it when it comes out. It sounds very good. Well, we'll make a point to both watch it. I believe it's available on Amazon.
00:28:08
Speaker
Hey, Dan, I wanted to make sure that listeners to the podcast have the opportunity to read some more about things that you've written or what you'd like to share about philosophy or ways to contact you and things like that.
00:28:32
Speaker
Sure. The book is published on Wipf and Stock and can be found on their website wipfandstock.com. It's also accessible through Amazon and Barnes and Noble as everything is nowadays. I'm not sure.
00:28:51
Speaker
I guess you could contact me at kerndan1 at yahoo.com. K-E-R-N-D-A-N 1 at yahoo.com. That's an email you can use to contact me if you want. Hey, Dan. Thanks so much for coming on to the podcast. As you know, it's a great pleasure to see you and to chat with you.
00:29:23
Speaker
hearing your voice in, in, in your book, particularly one that taught me a lot. Uh, and not just, not just some books, but taught me a lot. Uh, I just, that's what writing can do. That's what communication can do. I just wanted to let you know, uh, I really appreciate you and coming onto the show and writing and, uh, teaching the way that you do. Well, thank you for the kind words about my book. That's why I wrote it. So I really appreciate the feedback.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah, and I felt it reflected a lot of conversations we've had that helped me be more compassionate, more open, more understanding. And I think the nub of it for me, Dan, is about how we treat each other no matter where we're polarized or things around that. How do we interact and honor
00:30:22
Speaker
other. I love the pension day on that word in this book. As a centering concept, I'll go with that one. I'll go with that. Yeah, I tried to work that into my definition or idea of love that Jesus talks about is wanting and pursuing the good of the other, not just our own good and
00:30:47
Speaker
And one place I said, you have to think about the good of the other and make sure you understand what is there, what is the good for the other. Otherwise, you're claiming to want the good of the other is kind of hollow. And it feels and sounds like, you know, like another radical inflection just of how you think about how you think about love. So, Dan, great to see you. Thanks for coming on to something rather than nothing. And like, you know,
00:31:16
Speaker
helping me frame this question. I've been trying to get out from a million different directions, but great to see you and thanks from the bottom of my heart. Thanks Ken, it's been a pleasure. Hope to do it again sometime. Take care. Take care. This is something rather than nothing.