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the center for ethics in science and technology, based out of ucsd, has declared this week “neuroethics week.” each day, a high-profile speaker and expert panel discuss a subfield relevant to neuroscience and ethics. monday, hank greely, a law prof at stanford, gave a keynote lecture “A Revolution in Neuroscience: Challenges for Society.” below are some notes from the lecture… read at your own risk! (disclaimer: these don’t necessarily reflect the views of bosci).

if these are issues you’re interested in, come to a coffee hour i’m co-hosting this saturday afternoon; feel free to email me for details.

1. ethical issues in neuroscience research
• as many as 40% of participants in research fMRI scans (typically undergrads) have some abnormality. what should the researcher do?
• identification of anonymous research subjects (a problem similar to those in genetics)
• dual use problems. similar to biological warfare today, or nuclear physics of fifty years ago. e.g. monkey stimulation of thalamus can keep people awake. this could be used by our military, or others.
2. the neuroscience of ethics
• the trolley problem: flipping a switch to kill five instead of 20 people, throwing someone in the way to kill just one person instead of 20 people (researchers like josh greene).
• by extension, neuroeconomics and advertising
3. ethical, legal, social implications of neuro applications
• prediction. discrimination for insurance. examples:
• similar to the genetics diagnosis problem (e.g. huntington’s disease); amyloid plaques (indirectly visible by PET or MRI) to compute likelihood of dementia onset (long-term studies are underway).
• schizophrenia
• psychopaths, greater likelihood in crime (1-2% in general population, 30-70% of incarcerated population)
• mind-reading.
• currently, we can read whether someone is looking at a face or a house (fusiform face area).
• we can detect the feeling of pain by fMRI (useful for law and insurance purposes), and could examine the pain associated with lethal injection.
• lie detection. so far, 12 peer-reviewed papers. two companies are doing it: no-lie mri, based in san diego. the relevant research found 80% accuracy. much of this is funded by the intelligence community (darpa, cia, homeland security).
• competence, consciousness, and responsibility
• when a crime is committed, to what extent is he culpable. put differently, is there free will?
• is an elderly person in a capable state to sign a will?
• vegetative states. in one of 13 cases, a patient showed all the same brain activity patterns that a normal person would. what should be done in this case?
• treatment
• try to distinguish the good from the bad. we have a track record of mistakes (the inventor of the frontal lobotomy received a nobel prize long before the technique was discredited.
• a cocaine effects-blocker. should it be mandatory?
• enhancement
• making people “better than healthy”. improved memories.
• brain-computer interfaces (as for quadriplegics, or the cochlear implant, which has been around for 25 years. see michael chorost)
• beta blockers to prevent deep emotions following traumatic stress. it’s already being used in the military and for rape victims.

this neuroethics week is essential to educate the public not on the answers, or even the questions (which depend on the technology development), but on the class of questions we do and will face.

(and an important point during the discussion)
how good must a test be to use it (false positives and and negatives)? should this be administered by FDA?

the folks at richarddawkins.net have posted excerpts from the moderated four-hour exchange between atheist polemicist sam harris–whose books i don’t like, despite our shared intellectual heritage (he’s a fellow neuro phd student)–and large evangelist rick warren–whose sermons i don’t like (sorry there’s no link for that one. when i heard him at saddleback church, i decided it’d be too easy somewhere between the part in his sermon when the dancing cheerleaders came out and the part where he made fun of people in the back of the hall for leaving the service before the offering plate came around… i kid you not.).

Rick, if you had been born in India or in Iran, would you have different religious beliefs?

WARREN: There’s no doubt where you’re born influences your initial beliefs. Regardless of where you were born, there are some things you can know about God, even without the Bible. For instance, I look at the world and I say, “God likes variety.” I say, “God likes beauty.” I say, “God likes order,” and the more we understand ecology, the more we understand how sensitive that order is.

HARRIS: Then God also likes smallpox and tuberculosis.

WARREN: I would attribute a lot of the sins in the world to myself.

HARRIS: Are you responsible for smallpox?

the center for ethics in science and technology (CEST), based in san diego, is hosting a free public conference on stem cell ethics this friday at salk. it has some of the heavy hitters in the field (check the brochure). one has to wonder, though, why the organizers scheduled the event from 1-6pm on the most solemn and holy of days in the christian year… to wit, the very hours jesus hanged on the cross. they’ve insured that no practicing christian will attend the event; perhaps a more apt name for the organization would include the prefix “the in-group” (and thus, IN-CEST).

from the advertisement:

A free, public program for the San Diego Community in collaboration with the San Diego Research Ethics Consortium which includes the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, The Scripps Research Institute, and UCSD.

don wrote a book called blue like jazz. don says God loves me. and he’s right, because my soul says it’s true.

okay, that’s all the artifice i can handle… the rest will be a review of don miller’s blue like jazz, in the style of BoSci. i’ll make three points, one backhanded compliment and two forehanded criticisms.

first, his writing seems to be a reaction to the coopting of the christian soul by the american evangelical church of the late twentieth century. there’s no need to search for your soul when jesus has found and saved it. or, at least that’s a common perception. i’ll deal in a future post with the reformed christian reaction to this perceived hijacking of introspection from christian spirituality.

one reaction to this perception has been the emerging church, a movement that engages a wider range of spiritually-interested people by conversational christian witness, iconoclastic postmodernism, and occasional antinomianism. miller’s style sets him in this crowd, though his own theology isn’t given explicitly in the book. reacting to a texas upbringing presumably devoid of introspection, miller seems to be working through a deeply meaningful personal project to re-envision his own soul. for example, he writes extended sections that, kuyper aside*, have little to do with christianity, but everything to do with human nature. for example, he includes an extended discussion about loneliness. while the narrative has overtones of fulfillment through christ, he seems to couch it in a way that emphasizes his own soulful exploration of the human need for other humans. at times it gets too tuesdays-with-morey-esque, but i appreciate his attempt to come to terms with oppressive religiousity.

second, he writes in this trendy way of pretending to approach things as a passive observer, trying to make sense of the data of the world. but he already has such deep preconceptions about god that when he says something that superficially sounds so innocent–”tony says god loves me”–he comes off as part of the very authoritarian fundies he’s trying to undermine. decentralized sovereignty is still sovereignty. in the end, it almost seems that miller wants to dupe readers into seeing the consistency in his and others’ experiences as evidence for god. but he hasn’t bothered engaging the question of god’s existence.

third, the book is a narrative in every sense of the word… it makes kerouac sound like kant. to be sure, blue is the unfolding journey of miller’s spiritual life in community told through experience and revelation, but the problem he’s trying to solve is ill-posed. he may be using this ambiguity to parallel the confusion of any christian spiritual journey: sometimes it is about understanding grace and thus improving your relationship with christ (chapter 7). other times it is about recognizing personal hypocrisy while damning others (chapter 8). and even other times it is about discerning whether god exists (again, not covered, in my opinion). ultimately, his narrative style precludes him from any serious discussion of his dearest-held assumptions, and instead allows him to present a brand of christianity that serves as a social crutch for issues like love, guilt, groups, and the notion of right and wrong.

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* abraham kuyper: “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: mine!”

this morning i had a banana topped with peanut butter… so you can imagine my surprise when these two videos (viewed over at richarddawkins.net) demonstrated that the proof of creationism had been sitting right there under my nose!

one piece of advice. stop reading and position a cup below your chin: your brain will likely implode and ooze down through your nostrils midway through the video.

i generally stay away from the evolution-creation debate on this blog, but this story has more issues at stake than usual.

ny times offers up a strange dose of science-religion interaction today in its article Believing Scripture but Playing by Science’s Rules. it’s a discussion of a young-earth creationist who just received his phd from the university of rhode island in geology and now works at jerry falwell’s “liberty” university. while he apparently does first-rate science from an evolution/old-earth perspective, he holds a religious conviction that it’s false. the most interesting question to ask him, then, is how his position is intellectually honest… when asked, he replied, “‘I was working within a particular paradigm of earth history. I accepted that philosophy of science for the purpose of working with the people’ at Rhode Island,” according to nytimes.

the nytimes asks for readers’ comments on the question “Can a scientist produce intellectually honest work that contradicts deeply held religious beliefs?” there are really two questions here, and it looks from the over 200 comments that people are trying to answer both. first, can the science produced be sound? second, is the intellectual position of the scientist defensible?

the answer to the first question is a resounding yes. science is never done by omniscient people. instead, it’s usually done by people wanting to know how the natural world works, or more accurately, how far we can extend a physical explanation of the world based on certain logical assumptions, like measure theory, and a conviction that the scientific method actually works. successful science doesn’t require a belief in the underlying absolute truth of conclusions based on evidence. in fact, i imagine (and hope) that most scientists acknowledge that they have no reasoned account for demonstrating the absolute truth of even the most fundamental and general scientific results. with a nod to postmodernists, i’d submit that there are a set of assumptions required to do scientific work and that in principle such work can be done by anyone willing to use those assumptions when making measurements and synthesizing data into a coherent framework. this can include people with extremely bizarre convictions.

as for the second question, there are two answers. first, his position doesn’t seem to be intellectually honest. to the extent that the phd student, marcus ross, believes the inherently contradictory accounts of a young-earth creationism and an old-earth evolution/geology, his framework is fragmented. of course, he probably doesn’t believe both simultaneously. in order to be intellectually honest, though, it seems that his understanding of creation must satisfactorily account for the findings that he himself has made in geology. he probably has an account for this, but i don’t know it. but second, i’d argue that most scientists’ positions are intellectually dishonest! i disagree with michael dini, a texas tech prof cited in the article for refusing to give letters of recommendation to “anyone who would not offer ‘a scientific answer’ to questions about how the human species originated”:

Scientists “ought to make certain the people they are conferring advanced degrees on understand the philosophy of science and are indeed philosophers of science,” he said. “That’s what Ph.D. stands for.”

if that’s the case, virtually every science phd program fails. philosophy of science is a subtle business: most scientists i know hold convictions they deem scientific that are simply false. i agree with dini that, pedagogically, science phds should understand the major issues in philosophy of science. however, few do, and there’s no means of weeding them out. in the end, it would be unjust to deny a science phd to a student on a particular point in philosophy of science when his peers are guilty of other misunderstandings.

thanks to SL for pointing out the article.

i just read sam harris’s letter to a christian nation, and i wish i could get back the hour he stole from my life. the book’s not deserving of critical review (or even any more than one or two cheap jokes).

i can’t help mentioning two serious weaknesses though. for background, his thesis is that fundamentalist religion is driving the world towards imminent destruction, and the only way to stop it is to drive out fundamentalism.

1. does he really believe that removing religion from the human experience will stop organized destruction?

2. even if he thinks he’s on to something big, he really misread his audience. this is surprising, since the name of his audience shows up in the title of his book. but with around 85-90%* of americans claiming to have some kind of faith, his unmitigated anger toward people of faith won’t help his readers see his point.

i guess harris was trying for a quick-and-dirty argument for why we should be less religious. but his arguments are so shallow that, while they of course hold no weight with fundamentalists, they must strike moderates as juvenile as well. really, the only reason this book could possibly have been published is because of the success of his first book, which i’m now quite anxious to avoid… for your benefit, it will go unplugged here.

if he thinks of himself as an intellectual (instead of the angst-ridden teen he writes as), he really ought to be ashamed.

_____
* this stat is from a quick google search. see here and, if you can afford it, here. if you have a more accurate estimate, feel free to comment.

the christian coalition has (again) appointed and removed a president, this time because he wanted to expand the mission of the organization to include tackling hiv/aids and poverty. tsk tsk… did he even bother reading kuo’s tempting faith? wash post reports:

“My position is, unless we are caring as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb, we’re not carrying out the full message of Jesus,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday. “They began to think this might threaten their base or evaporate some of their support, and they said they just couldn’t go there.”

nytimes has a sweet video whose 6-min ‘first chapter’ is on black leadership, political protest, social power, and effective activism. it focuses on the reverand calvin butts, the pastor of abyssinian baptist church in harlem. he’s prophetic.

“materialism is the unconscious missionary faith of the west… people prostrating themselves before an altar of gold and going to the church of unlimited credit.” (ch 2)

there are a few pieces of music in the history of mankind that have moved me to tears. one that i often return to is brahms’ german requiem. the whole thing lasts an hour… every minute extraordinary. it’s the kind of piece that makes atheist choir directors say, “i’m an atheist, but i believe in god when i conduct.”* listen to the second movement here.

the text is phenomenal. below is the german and a brutalized english translation (with references) of the second movement. see also classical music pages, where you can find the whole text.

(german)
Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras
und alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen wie des Grases Blumen.
Das Gras ist verdorret und die Blume abgefallen.

So seid nun geduldig, lieben Bruder,
bis auf die Zukunft des Herrn.
Siehe, ein Ackermann wartet
auf die kostliche Frucht der Erde
und ist geduldig daruber,
bis er empfahe den Morgenregen und Abendregen.

Aber des Herrn Wort bleibet in Ewigkeit

Die Erloseten des Herrn werden wieder kommen,
und gen Zion kommen mit Jauchzen;
ewige Freude wird uber ihrem Haupte sein;
Freude und Wonne werden sie ergreifen
und Schmerz und Seufzen wird weg mussen.

(english)

For all flesh is as grass,
and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.
The grass withers and the flower falls away. (1 Peter 1:24)

Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming.
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth,
and has long patience for it, until he receives the early and latter rains. (James 5:7)

But the word of the Lord endures forever. (1 Peter 1:25)

And the ransomed of the Lord will return,
and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads:
they will obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. (Isaiah 35:10)

*in searching for that reference, i came across a nytimes article on belief in god, bach, and japanese conductor masaaki suzuki… check it out. also note that brahms may not have believed in God.

september gallup polls indicate, according to dailykos, that evangelical support of the gop is waning. the most surprising stat i read was that:

the percentage of evangelicals who think that Republicans govern “in a more honest and ethical way” than Democrats has plunged to 42 percent, from 55 percent at the start of the year.

42% of any group believes that!? yikes. i guess bertrand russell said it best (this once): “Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.”

(thanks to sam wang for the heads-up on dailykos)

msnbc just posted a great article discussing conservative christian david kuo’s new book tempting faith. he’s the former second-in-command of bush’s office of faith-based and community initiatives, which in principle is a good office, i say. but i also agree with the many people who have accused bush of using the office to secure the evangelical vote without actually making good in his promises.

i’ll let kuo speak for himself, since i haven’t read his book yet (quoted from msnbc):

He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.

More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan” events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

…he discovered “we were actually spending about $20 million a year less on them than before he had taken office.”

is this an october surprise, or any surprise at all?

imrational posted a 5 minute video on youtube recently on why he thinks religion is important. included are tired references to the ‘non-christian founding father’ argument (our country wasn’t founded as a christian nation). on the whole, it’s all old, and not very compelling, news. but there was a reference to the treaty of tripoli that i wasn’t familiar with, so here’s a brief run-down:

• it was written by joel barlow in 1796, unanimously approved by senate in 1797, and signed by then president john adams.
• article 11 states: “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”

while initially interesting, the treaty, in the greater historical context, doesn’t seem to be knock-down evidence that the founding fathers were a pack of atheists. first, several more important and earlier documents clearly make christian (or at least deistic) claims, including the articles of confederation, declaration of independence, u.s. constitution, and the 1783 treaty with great britain. second, the treaty of tripoli was made with non-christians; political savvy may have suggested the need for article 11 in that historical context.

in poking around, i found (and edited) the wikipedia page on the treaty. it’s informative. i also found this informative essay on the treaty. these days, though, my history is pretty shabby, so if anybody has some ideas or good references on this issue, do tell.

ucsd’s guardian just ran an article on religion profs who strive and struggle to maintain objectivity in teaching. in response i wrote the following letter to the editor (link added when published, Oct 12).

**********

Dear Editor,

I enjoyed Ms. Buchanan’s carefully written Teacher Don’t Preach in Monday’s Guardian; I’d like to encourage more articles on the topic by pointing out two areas to explore. First, the author assumed that objectivity is possible in academics. In reality, this proposition has been actively debated among philosophers for a while. Rutgers philosopher Roy Clouser, in his lively book The Myth of Religious Neutrality (U Notre Dame Press, 2001), finds ‘religious beliefs’ in mathematics and the natural sciences after rigorously defining that phrase. UCSD Prof. Rahimi’s comment on the diversity of his religious beliefs affirms Clouser’s definition: “my religious beliefs range from a humanistic conception of moral conduct to ritually watching ‘Real Time’[…] I never separate my beliefs from my lectures.” Second, and in keeping with this broad understanding of religious conviction, Ms. Buchanan did not explore the extent to which religious beliefs permeate the science and philosophy lecture halls. To put it bluntly, if Daniel Dennett and UCSD Prof. Patricia Churchland don’t have strong religious convictions that influence their lectures and their work, no one does.

**********
hopefully, churchland won’t blacklist me. (picture credit, kedar reddy/guardian)

a good friend of mine, an intellectual disciple of durkheim and a fellow electrophysiologist, recently posed to me the following question: if the bible really is the word of God, why isn’t it written like wittgenstein? in other words, why isn’t the bible a series of explicit propositions, conditionals, and conclusions?

i think there are lots of decent answers to this question: stylistically, not everybody likes Wittgenstein, and historically, the narrative tradition hadn’t developed the mid-1900s minimalist, strunk&white, expositional style during the eras when the bible was written. but three other reasons are much more important.

1. there is power in the biblical narrative because it communicates truth historically, not propositionally. our problem is not ignorance (if you’ve read any of the bible, you probably know the law); it is hardness of heart. (nod to james lee)

2. christianity is education-independent; so are stories. to appreciate wittgenstein requires some degree of intelligence, or at the very least, rich parents to send you to a decent college. but historical narrative transcends intellectual and educational boundaries. stories are universal.

3. propositional logic, when applied to a moral framework, can still be twisted (nod to darren hsiung). for evidence, though it doesn’t quite fit the bill, consider the american constitution, which despite its original minimalist clarity, is probably among the most argued documents of all time.

a close friend* brought up yesterday how the news of christian love has been propogating through the media like wildfire since the shooting of ten amish schoolgirls last week. a quick google search suggests the same thing: the atrocity has been written about continuously since it happened, and the message of love has been very visible throughout the ordeal.

“As we were standing next to the body of this 13-year-old girl, the grandfather was tutoring the young boys, he was making a point, just saying to the family, ‘We must not think evil of this man,’ ” the Rev. Robert Schenck told CNN.

in a time when christian doctrine is exploited and maligned for duplicitous and–if you believe Chavez–diabolical ends, it is incredibly refreshing to see the genuine spirit of Christ in love practiced by the amish during the response to this incident. and somehow, the media hasn’t entirely buried the message of forgiveness.

*he is one of three people to whom i refer by title. the other two are his wife and jesus christ

that last post got me thinking about the way in which ‘the prayer’ is divinely ordained. it reminds me of a painting, now destroyed, of matthew writing his gospel. commissioned by a roman church in 1602 for caravaggio, it scandalized the church for its apparent lack of respect for the saint. but it captures the strain of communicating God’s word, both in the angel’s expectant gaze and patiently-guiding hand, and in the old writer’s awkward stance at receiving and writing the word. the Lord’s prayer came with great care and meaning.

elie wiesel, a jewish scholar and holocaust survivor, tells us why we should pray. he starts off with a very human-centric account: we need to pray “because it does something to us”, and “we must teach each other how to pray”. but, after ruminating on the tension between our debt to God and our expectation of life, he, at times beautifully, describes the resonance, the power, the meaning of prayer: “prayer means being alive, moving toward life [… it] is in the fullest sense and act of faith.”

we part ways for a little while when he downplays God’s influence on our words: “in matters of Torah [law], everything has already been said by Moses or said to Moses — but not the prayer. as we repeat a certain prayer, we identify with its altar and recreate it over and over, and everyone can and must give birth to his or her own prayer.” in the christian tradition, the power of the Christ came in his providing that prayer: “this, then, is how you should pray” (matthew 6:9). to recast wiesel’s words, then: ‘as we repeat that prayer, we identify with the one who gave himself up on the altar… prayer means being alive, moving toward Christ.’ reminding myself of his sacrifice is a mainstay of a healthy christian walk.

parted ways aside, though, the article helped me to appreciate the legitimacy of human need — and not only divine desire — in the importance of prayer. of course, for the christian and the jew, the Lord is deserving of all praise and glory. the westminster shorter catechism instructed me of this as a 5 year old — “man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever” — and revelations 4:11 reminds that “you are worthy, o Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for you have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created.” but, why does he have us pray, where we struggle and squirm, lose focus, regain it, lose it again, finish tired and frustrated? it seems so trite (and its connotations so wrong) in a megalomaniacal culture, but prayer really does help us! in God’s provision, he’s provided prayer as a means of understanding, of humbling, and of providing peace (i’ll save the list of physiological benefits and studies of health benefits of prayer for another post).

what was supposed to be a week away from blogging turned into a healthy month; i’ll be making up lost time in the next few days.

first up, e.o. wilson’s new book The Creation: A Meeting of Science and Religion came out this past month and was just reviewed in the magazine
first things by particle physicist
stephen barr. he compliments wilson’s engaging prose on the intricacies of nature and the debt we owe it, but ultimately recognizes wilson’s insistence on naturalism for what it is–idolatry. wilson’s commitment to the “ancient, autonomous creative force” of nature has been unabashedly prevalent in all of his books on religion and science, including one i reviewed (consilience: the unity of knowledge) for the journal revisions: a journal of christian perspective (see pdf or html).

while he emphasizes that we should take care of the environment, he accuses Christians of being anti-green because of their belief in an afterlife. this misrepresentation of the christian camp has continued for far too long, despite pleas and arguments to the contrary (briefly, one quick-and-dirty argument for pro-green christianity is that God has created this world for His glory and has created us to be stewards of it… so, we should be).

one nice point that barr brings up is wilson’s poor understanding of Christianity: “he plays with the word creation, even choosing it as the title of his book, while evincing no grasp of whati it means. in its traditional and profounder meaning, creation is that timeless act whereby God holds all things in existence. it is not an alternative to natural theories of origin or natural explanations of change […] did this insect evolve or is it created by God? to ask that is as silly as to ask whether polonius died because hamlet stabbed him or because shakespeare wrote the play that way.”

in response to a friend’s claim that the traditional conception of the trinity (God the father, son, and holy spirit) can be exchanged for any other instructive “metaphor”, i write this:

i appreciate your desire to be inclusive and open-minded… demonstrating the very spirit of Christ. i do think, though, that we need to be careful and consistent with our terms. the labels–father, son, and holy spirit–of the trinity aren’t metaphors–what is the metaphor of a holy spirit? while our understanding of the persons of the trinity might be sullied by our flawed fathers or sinful sons, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

the trinity represents an organic relationship that is simultaneously unitary and trinary (electrical engineers, stop cringing). the mystery of the trinity has been mulled over since tertullian, and it culminated in unitarians and others who found the idea of an ontological trinity unintelligible (moses stuart and w.a. brown, for example). but, we find reference to a trinity of these particular three persons throughout the Bible (the father and son in both testaments, and the spirit first explicitly manifested in acts).

karl barth revived the trinity with some 220 pages on its doctrine in his dogmatics, and presents the three persons in terms of God’s speaking: He is Revealer (father), Revelation (son), and Revealedness (holy spirit). (your guess is as good as mine on the office of the spirit..he says the spirit is the very content of the revelation). barth explains their offices in terms of truth revealed (john 1), but doesn’t reject or recast the persons of the trinity: they are still father, son, and holy spirit.

at best, there might be room for didactic analogies to the trinity, in light of man’s weakness, where analogy refers to an aspectual comparison to reality whereas a metaphor is a wholistic comparison (where the former is meant to explain a relationship in part, the latter in full). historically, people have used analogies such as mist, cloud, rain; intellect, affections, will, (augustine); thesis, antithesis, synthesis, (hegel); subject, object, and subject-object, (olshausen). all of these lack the divine personality inherent in the father-son-spirit relationship. and while mother-child-womb might have value for describing a specific personal relationship in the mystery of the Godhead, it can’t replace the specific biblical relationships (see matthew 3.16, 4.1; and all of john, especially 1.18, 3.16, 5.20-22, 14.26, 15.26, and 16.13-15). i really appreciate this explanation, from berkhof’s systematic theology (which has a good general discussion of the doctrine of God, and specifically the trinity, pp 82-99) :

The communicable attributes of God stress His personality, since they reveal Him as a rational and moral Being. His life stands out clearly before us in Scripture as a personal life; and it is, of course, of the greatest importance to maintain the personality of God, for without it there can be no religion in the real sense of the word: no prayer, no personal communion, no trustful reliance and no confident hope. Since man is created in the image of God, we learn to understand something of the personal life of God from the contemplation of personality as we know it in man.

in the end, the nature of the trinity is a grand mystery beyond our capacities, but praise God that we can even meditate on Him! in mystery is opportunity, enabling us to share in love the joy of the gospel with others, and to appreciate the personal struggles of others as they wrestle with divine truth: ” to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.” (i cor 9)

let’s remember both the unfathomably perfect and the intimately personal nature of the Godhead, and our responsibility to share His love!

(also, thanks [other friend] for making the important distinction between pca and pcusa [which the article somewhat blurred]… the pca def has a rich, biblical, and necessarily Christ-centered theological tradition. i’d wholeheartedly recommend the small pca congregation i’ve joined in downtown LJ:new life mission church of la jolla.)