Last week I wrote about being compelled by Jesus because of his propensity to subvert dominant ideologies, and I think a very disarming way into that conversation is the work of John MacMurray, one of the best philosophers you’ve never heard of.1
MacMurray’s work has had a tremendous influence on me and my thinking since I encountered it over 20 years ago.2 I have no way to prove MacMurray’s larger influence because he is very rarely quoted but I see his thinking in all sorts of places: everything from Dallas Willard and Eugene Peterson to Lisa Harper and Rachel Held Evans.
Here’s how one commentator summarizes MacMurray: “At the heart of his work was his attempt to reverse modern philosophy’s commitment to an ‘egocentric’ starting point…he tried to recast [philosophy’s] role in the service of more fulfilling and more basic personal communion with others, with the world, and, ultimately, with God.”3
In his own words John4 writes: “God’s purposes, through all God’s acts, has been the creation of a loving human fellowship. This fellowship is the fulfillment of all that God intended in the creation of life itself.”5
If you’ve read my stuff or heard me speak at all in the last 15 years this should ring some bells.
Now, I want to get into one of my favorite MacMurray bits (and yes, it is helpful, for me, to think about philosophy and philosophers through the lens of bits and stand up comedians, otherwise it’s just too stuffy and serious.)
In this bit, MacMurray proposes three philosophical modes. One of these modes is “positive” and the other two are “negative.” The negative modes are “egocentric” while the positive mode is “heterocentric.”6 With that background, let’s do a quick overview of the the negative modes.
Negative Modes
Before we define these two modes, here’s MacMurray’s overview: “Egocentric views create dualism. For the negative modes of apperception the world divides into two worlds; an actual world which does not answer to our demands, and refuses to satisfy us, and another world, an ideal world which we can imagine, which does.”7
This is fascinating because here we see the roots of polarization, Us vs. Them thinking, and even conspiracy theories. He wrote this in the early 1950’s. There is nothing new under the sun.
The first negative mode comes from a posture of withdrawal or reflection. The real world is not the physical world but the spiritual world. The physical world can be (should be) transcended, and that transcendence occurs through knowledge which is then performed in the real world.
MacMurray writes of this mode: “Its standard is, in the broad sense, an aesthetic standard. It is not a standard that can easily be formulated, it has to be felt. It is a matter of style…displaying a knowledge of how to behave.”
Wooooo! And there you have a perfect summary of the digital age 50 years before the digital age. #vibes
MacMurray concludes by naming this mode Greek and pointing to Plato’s Republic as the platonic ideal.8
Allow me a brief tangent. A lot of modern Christianity (I’m talking the last 20 years) is a reflection of this mode. For my theology nerds this is where the Charismatic and Neo-Reformed movements become odd brothers-in-Christ. While coming at this from very different places, both are all about knowing special truth and performing that truth in very specific ways.9
The second negative mode comes from a posture of engagement and pragmatism. The real world is the physical world and it is a place of conflict and struggle for power. The goal is not to transcend (cough, cough: escape), the goal is to get-in-the-mix and accrue power and shape the world into a place of order, structure, and law.
The top down imposition of a code of morality on a group of people is the logical conclusion of this mode, and, again, very timely and real in our current environment. You can see the struggle with this mode coming from various angles: the right’s reaction to “woke,” or the left’s demand that “issue X” is the only important thing in the world right now and to ignore it is to oppress.
MacMurray concludes by naming this mode Roman and pointing to the work of Immanuel Kant as the example par excellence.
So we have two negative modes: Greek and Roman. (Please keep in mind that MacMurray is writing from a squarely Western perspective, which does make some of his references dated; at the same time he foresaw many of the coming issues in the Western world.)
Then he gets to the positive mode; the heterocentric mode focused on the personal Other. “The center of reference for the agent, when he seeks to act rightly, is always the personal Other. To act rightly is then to act for the sake of the Other and not of oneself.”
He goes on to write that this mode: “demands the transformation of motives by the overcoming of fear. ‘Thou shalt love your neighbor as thyslef,’ or ‘Love your enemies’ is then a normal expression of communal morality.”
He names this mode Hebrew and says (and I love this!): “We should avoid calling this ‘Christian’ morality, though that would be correct, because what is usually identified as ‘Christian’ morality is misunderstood in one of the negative modes.” Preach John, preach.
I’m going to keep hammering these third way examples, because I believe they are in line with the way of Jesus. But I love MacMurray’s framework because it is not a common point of reference and can diffuse some of the contentious/obvious divisions in our cultural moment.
I believe MacMurray was on to something; that the “Hebrew way” is the Jesus way. One of the central theses of Orthokrisis is a resisting of the marriage of the Jesus way with Greek and Roman “modes.” We are forsaking the egocentric/negative modes for the positive/others oriented mode.
Or, as a wise man once told me: “Steve, the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of right relationships.”
He’s a Scottish dude, which is more interesting than your typical German dude, right?
Why does every post remind me of how old I am? Oof.
This is from the intro to Persons in Relation
We are definitely on a first name basis.
This is from the actual Persons in Relation
I recognize this is a complicated term now due to the conversation around sexuality, but MacMurray uses the classic definition of the word: “to be focused on others, as opposed to the self.”
This is all still Persons in Relation!
See what I did there 😉?
We’ll get to more of this in future posts