by L J Hick
through the texts and the dictionary. Then he thought of the internet, and he got out his seldom used laptop, set it beside the books on the floor and began searching the internet for answers. He found them. The trouble was he found too many, and he kept getting drawn into deeper and deeper confusion as the search for a comprehensible definition of one term which he understood poorly only led him to another he understood even less.
In the midst of this academic chaos a gentle knock came at his apartment door. His immediate response was one of irritation. He was having a hard enough time trying to keep track of all these ambiguous abstract philosophical terms without the distraction of someone inviting him to a bridge tournament or some other of the endless social activities people at the retirement community were continually dreaming up in their mutual efforts to keep boredom from hastening the ends of their existences. Carl got to his feet and pulled open the door with a rather irritated "Yes?"
"Hello! Dr. Frieder? I'm Christine Heuber." She was a middle aged woman who spoke with the tiniest trace of a German accent. "Dr. Ralph Goodkin told me you were someone I'd be glad to know, so I came right over. But it looks like I should have called first. I seem to be interrupting something."
Reverend Heuber is a woman of ordinary height but somewhat less than ordinary body size, a slenderness accentuating her body's femininity. Her general appearance, her conservative dress and coiffure, made her seem to most observers to be a woman in her fifties. Carl's first impression agreed. However, his second impression told him better. He has a lifetime of experience comparing the objective signs of biological aging against a person's actual age. It is a principal tool physicians use to judge a patient's general state of health. And when he looked at her carefully with his clinician's eye he could see her biological age was much younger than her clothing and manner made her appear to be. He placed her probable age at forty, maybe a couple years less.
She was dressed in a tailored conservative gray tweed lady's suit with a skirt hem completely below the knee. Carl immediately recognized her hair arrangement for it was identical to one Simone had often worn. It involves two long braids, one on either side of the head, which are wound in opposite directions around the top of the head and pinned in place. Simone had used it when working in her garden because it kept her long hair, of which she had been immensely proud, out of her way and out of the garden dirt. Reverend Heuber probably wore it from motives of reserve in self display proper to her calling. It was appropriate for a lady minister to dress and make herself up so as to obscure her attractiveness, and it probably mislead most observers. But Carl realized her appearance would be highly arousing to any man to whom she might ever choose to reveal her full femininity.
"Would you prefer for me to call some other time?" she asked.
"No, no!" Carl assured her. "Please come in. If I sounded irritated it is not because of you. I'm trying to learn something about a topic I have a complete ignorance of, and I'm a bit frustrated by the task."
"That happens to us all, doesn't it?" she observed as she stepped into his apartment. Then noticing the computer and array of books on the floor she continued, "It looks like you are delving quite deeply into your problematic topic. Is it a private matter or something you're willing to disclose?" she asked.
"Oh no! It's not private. I've decided late in life to try to finally learn something about philosophy. But it looks like I waited too long to try!" he concluded with a wry chuckle.
"Dr. Frieder, I am either the answer to your prayers or your worst nightmare come true. I once was a philosophy professor, a stern, Teutonic, nit-picking, hard grading philosophy professor. When I completed seminary I was lucky enough to be able to continue my studies. After I got my doctorate in philosophy I was invited to this country from Germany to teach the topic at seminary." Then, as if imparting a sinful secret, she added "I think they thought only a German Lutheran could properly understand philosophy, and I needed the job too much to tell them the truth."
And indeed, for the first two years of her professional life the Reverend Christine Heuber had been Dr. C. Heuber, Assistant Professor of Philosophy. And although she had loved her job almost with a passion, when the Hospice had solicited her to become chaplain she immediately accepted, believing it would be a greater service to God’s humanity.
"What, specifically, is hanging you up?" she asked.
"It's this criticism of reasoning by Kant. What's wrong with reason? Or, what did he think was wrong with it?"
"Ach so!" she acknowledged a familiar philosophy problem with a familiar German expression, and was immediately transposed back into her professorial alter ego. "Let us sit down and reason together about reason." She stepped over to a spot near the array of books on the floor and sat down beside them. Carl watched her in awe. It was unusual if not completely unheard-of for anyone on a first visit to a home, especially a minister, especially a lady minister, to sit on the floor. But that's where the books were and where Carl had obviously been seated while he worked with them, so that's where she sat too. And the way she did it was so natural and graceful she made it seem the most appropriate and normal action anyone could possibly have taken. In particular Carl was struck by how, without any fuss with her skirt, which came well below her knees, she easily sat down in a way that completely preserved both her modesty as a lady and her dignity as a minister and professor.
"Won't you join my class?" she asked, patting the floor beside her with the palm of her hand. "You're very lucky, you know. I won't be giving you one of my infamously difficult final exams." She looked up at him with a warm smile that somehow managed to be completely appropriate for a lady minister yet arrestingly inviting at the same time.
"Well as long as I can skip the final" Carl answered with a smile and a laugh, "I guess I can join your class without worrying about any adverse effect on my grade point average." And he sat down beside her.
"Kant didn't have anything against reason" she began. "The essence of his thesis is not that reason is defective, but rather that it is limited. Earlier philosophers, especially Leibniz, held reason alone to be sufficient to discover indisputable knowledge. But Kant, following Hume, disagreed. It is my thesis that people in general disagree. Certainly those of us whose religions are based on revelation do. We think reason must start from divine revelation. Scientists and practitioners of science-based disciplines, including medical doctors such as yourself, also disagree. You think reason must begin with evidence, or in other words, with experience. And even the mathematicians, practitioners of the most exquisite reason, base their reasoning on so-called self evident axioms whose truth, although intuitively appealing, all modern mathematicians agree is beyond proof."
And with these words Professor Heuber began Carl's philosophy education. She allowed him to lead their investigations, seeing her role only as a guide to help him through the particular unfamiliar issues of interest to him. Her method was to provide a general answer to each question he raised, then to illustrate her explanation with some of the original writings of the philosopher involved. She got these illustrations from the books Carl had selected from the residents' library. All were annotated collections of philosophical writings intended for beginning university students. She was completely familiar with one, partly so with a second, and unfamiliar with the third. Nevertheless, within a matter of minutes she was able to find relevant quotes in any of them. But skilled as she was at finding material in these books, she had even greater facility in finding it on the internet. She won Carl's admiration by her easy use of this most modern technology in teaching a subject which stretched back to antiquity. He, on the other hand, found the internet to be unfamiliar and uncongenial.
After she had made a point then illustrated it she would draw out Carl's opinions about the issue. He was amazed how she helped him formulate opinions he himself was having difficulty articulating. But especially he was impressed with her tolerance. After all, she i
s a Christian minister and he a nonbeliever, and in helping him get his opinions into words she often helped him express ideas he knew she would not agree with. Yet she never disputed not contradicted him. The Reverend Dr. Christine Heuber immediately impressed him as a gifted and generous teacher who helps others unravel their thinking without imposing her own.
The minister and the physician soon became so fully involved in their discussions they completely lost track of time. When Carl asked a question about Leibniz she reached for the textbook most familiar to her. "There's an excellent quote on that in here" she said. Then as she started to turn the pages she realized that twilight had descended. "We've been relying on the internet with the computer's illuminated screen so much we haven't noticed it getting dark."
Carl got up and stepped to the light switch. "I've been selfishly relying on you to provide all the illumination for our discussions. It's time I provide a little light" he jokingly said as he threw the switch. Since they had lost track of time he didn't expect it to be dark yet, so he checked his watch.
"Good heavens, Dr. Heuber! It's way after mealtime! Your family will
