On Art, Film, and "Aesthetic Cognitivism"

My Interview with the Templeton Religion Trust

In 2019, the Templeton Religion Trust gathered together a group of philosophers, artists, and scientists to hammer out the details of a new grant initiative on “aesthetic cognitivism,” the theory that art and aesthetics may be capable of offering insights into truths that would otherwise be inaccessible. I was part of the team they pulled together. In preparation for the gathering, they interviewed me about my work in philosophy, religion, and art for the consideration of the other participants. Below is the transcript of that interview. The PBS series, Closer to Truth, also interviewed the participants of this series. You can find their interviews with me on various topics here. For those readers who are unfamiliar with my background in art, you can view samples of my work here.

To all my subscribers, thank you for subscribing. To my paid subscribers, thank you for your support. And to any visitors, please consider subscribing and supporting my work. Enjoy!

Question: You have a remarkable range of interests and talents. You are a well-published scholar, an accomplished artist, and an active filmmaker. I don’t know very many people who have both published explications of Kant’s philosophy and directed a feature film that might be described as a college comedy. Could you speak a bit about your background and how you came to have such varied interests?

Anyone who knew me growing up would not be surprised by the art side of things. I was known as an “artist” from the time I was a kid. Everyone expected me to go into art, and I did. When I graduated high school, I had an impressive portfolio that won me a scholarship to the Maryland Institute College of Art, one of the top three art schools in the country. And, there, I majored in fine arts painting and drawing — no surprise to anyone. 

What would have surprised folks who knew me growing up is the academic side. Academics were, for me, something to be survived or avoided so that I could get back to what I love — art. But, in art school, I went into existential crisis. I became obsessive, if not downright neurotic, about questions concerning God, free will, the afterlife. That crisis led me to discover philosophy, systematic theology, and apologetics. I was amazed to find that people wrote entire books on my sort of questions! Who knew?

That prompted a major shift in my life. I began neglecting my art classes because I was preoccupied with books on philosophy and religion. After several years, I chose to leave art school and focus entirely on these subjects. 

I was completely unprepared for an academic institution, having neglected my studies all my life: neither of my parents went to college; my dad never graduated high school; my grandfather had something like a third-grade education. I was the epitome of a first-generation college student who was clueless about how higher education works. But, thankfully, I found mentors who recognized a good mind buried beneath my unpolished, artist’s exterior. They guided me, not so much through the program but through my obsessive studies alongside the program. They seemed to recognize that I was not trying to perform academically; I was just looking for answers to hard questions — period. So they helped facilitate the search.

That search lasted for years and stretched over several degrees. In addition to finishing out my art major, I earned degrees in philosophy, Church history, historical theology, and two in systematics. Along the way, I began speaking and publishing, but it was all eclectic — my talks, my degrees, my publications. I had zero concept of career building; the engine driving me was my questions. If I pulled on a thread that led to philosophy, great; if a thread required Church history, so be it. Those threads led me from Western medieval thought (Augustine and Aquinas) to its roots in ancient philosophy (Neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism); to critics of classical theology (process philosophy); to modern defenders of God (Leibniz), as well as critics of metaphysics (Kant); until landing where I ultimately ended up religiously — Eastern patristic thought. It’s not the best way to build an academic resume or set yourself up for a teaching post, but for better or worse, that was never my aim. 

During that journey, I never abandoned art. In fact, it was always my go-to for side income. I produced fine art for private collectors; I paid my way through my master’s program by doing concept art, storyboards, and CGI for video game companies. But one of the unexpected twists along the way was that I kept bumping into filmmakers. It first happened during my time at Calvin. A number of filmmakers descended on Grand Rapids to take advantage of the then-new tax incentives. I later met a documentarian while teaching at Trinity in Deerfield, as well as the founder of RAW Camera Company in Vancouver, who was from the Chicago area. What surprised me about all these folks was that none of them cared that I hadn’t studied film. — I mean, I had a bit at art school, but I didn’t have a degree in it. — They were drawn to my art and particularly impressed with my ability to pre-visualize a scene that would cut together correctly. (Apparently, that’s an uncommon skill, but it’s what I did for video games, and it always came quite naturally to me.)

What really enticed me was that these filmmakers were willing to work with me. I say this enticed me because I’ve always been a lover of movies. In fact, my childhood dream job was to be a Disney animator. But I never seriously considered movie-making as a career because, well, who does that?! Long story short, I decided to roll the dice with a short film that brought together professionals I had met from Michigan, Chicago, and Vancouver. After that, the head of RAW told me that if I could pull together a feature, he would work with me on it. Doing so took several years, especially since it was all on the side while teaching full-time. But in the summer of 2015, it all came together, and I directed my first movie, Killing Poe. It was a college comedy meant to be commercially viable — nothing terribly deep. After all, I wanted to make a second movie someday! 

Despite the brutality of finishing a low-budget movie alongside a full-time teaching load and publishing commitments, the end result paid off. It opened the door to a second project. The Antiochian Archdiocese of the Eastern Orthodox Church was having internal conversations about cultural outreach. One of their consultants brought my name up — he’s trained in philosophy and theology; he’s an artist and filmmaker; he’s recently become Orthodox. So, they approached me about doing something aimed at engaging the growing number of religiously unaffiliated folks in the U.S. (also known as “Nones”). Given their goals — which were varied — I proposed a somewhat experimental documentary. They approved and funded it. So, I took a year off of teaching to make the film, and one year turned into two years since they later asked me to promote it. That was my second feature, Becoming Truly Human. 

The unexpected twist in all that, though, was that when I showed the film to Metropolitan Joseph, the Antiochian Metropolitan, he asked me to not return to teaching but to continue with filmmaking! I agreed to consider it, which led to a variety of proposed models, from non-profit filmmaking to innovative for-profit strategies. The long and short is that I eventually found investors who were favorable enough toward me and my vision that we launched a company. I still publish; I continue to speak, though now to popular audiences more than academic audiences, and I occasionally pick up a philosophy or religion class to keep those skills sharp, but filmmaking is now my full-time job. 

Question: What motivated your move into filmmaking? Did your skills as a visual artist figure into your start in filmmaking? 

Well, as I said, it was art that opened the door to things like concept art, storyboarding, CGI, and those things, in turn, caught the attention of filmmakers, opening that door. Ideally, a movie director is someone who offers oversight and direction on every aspect of a film — cinematography, production design, editing, coloring, score, etc., etc. The fact that I had not only classical training in 2D art, color theory, and so on but also the ability to craft my own concept art, to pre-visualize scenes, to pick up quickly on more technical areas, like CGI and (later) editing, well, it meant I was the right sort to be a director. 

But putting aside technical qualifications, there was a more personal reason I was drawn to film. I always felt like there were two halves of myself that I could never reconcile with each other. When I focused on academics, it felt as if I was neglecting my artistic half, which began to die on the vine. But, when I would attend to my artistic half, the academic half of myself felt like it was wilting. I tried my hand at the academic discipline of aesthetics, writing on the role of metaphysical realism in art. But that never really did the trick as far as uniting these disparate halves. After all, I’m a practitioner, not a theorist. 

When I worked in film, however, that was the first time I got a glimpse of what it might look like to reconcile the artistic practitioner within with the lover of ideas. I got a small taste of that in the making of Killing Poe, but it became especially evident to me during Becoming Truly Human since that project required me to approach film the way I would an essay or a book. That opened my mind to new and more ambitious ways of using film to engage and convey ideas, ways that formed the vision for my current work.

There is another aspect of film that draws me to it, though. My training was in classical art, and my main influences early on were Renaissance and Baroque artists. I was drawn to such artists by their tremendous skill, as well as their love for anatomy and human form — a love I shared. But I was also drawn to the fact that these artists — as well as medieval artists — often worked as contributors to something much larger than themselves. What they created wasn’t for galleries but for something grandiose in size and purpose — a cathedral, for example. Their art was one small piece of a much greater artistic achievement, which displayed artistic excellence from top to bottom. It was a symphony, not a solo. I’ve always been drawn to things that transcend the capacities of a single person, bringing together innumerable artists to create something greater than any one of them. 

When I was old enough to realize that, for the most part, no one builds cathedrals of the kind that I marveled at growing up, a sadness set in. I saw such works as the proper telos of artistic skill, and, to me, the modern gallery and the art it housed looked more like an island for misfit toys than something worthy of the arts. Nonetheless, as I came to understand what goes into making a movie, I started to see that movies are the modern cathedrals. They’re the products of innumerable artists — writers, designers, actors, cinematographers, editors, composers — all contributing to something that far outstrips what any would be capable of doing alone. (Of course, that’s more true of some films than others; the feat of making The Lord of the Rings far exceeds that of the average rom-com, but nonetheless.) And the fact that movies bring together the arts with ideas, well, count me in.

Question: Is there something about the potential or capacities of the film medium that attracts you to it? How does it differ from painting or drawing? 

Of course there are those things I’ve already mentioned — the way film brings together art and ideas, its symphonic gathering of artists, the way it reconciles the two halves of myself. But a few other things come to mind, especially when considering the difference between film and painting, for example.

I remember talking with a painter, who I respected, and he said to me that paintings are one-liners. The remark surprised me, but as I thought about it, I realized there’s something true about that. I don’t mean to diminish painting, nor do I deny that paintings can be packed with layers upon layers of meaning. But I think his point was that paintings face a real limitation. Paintings typically freeze a moment in time or a single idea or message. Of course, the artist can push the image toward increasing intricacy, try to capture multiple events in a single image, build layers of detail, and so on. But the medium — like every medium — has limitations. 

Film certainly has its own limitations, but it also expands the possibilities well beyond those available in drawing or painting. Film permits a narrative structure; it allows the viewer to engage ideas amidst “real” situations and embodied characters; it facilitates a wrestling with ideas that goes beyond the didactic; it brings together the visual, the auditory, the emotional, and the cerebral. Now, I realize that theater has been around for a long time, and much of the same could be said for plays or musicals. But theater has limitations that film defies. Film is able to explore the intimate in ways theater can’t, looking close at a detail or listening to a whisper; it frees the actor in ways that theater does not, since theater requires actors to “play to the cheap seats”; film can quite literally transport the viewer to the sublime or the sweeping; film can jump from location to location, scene to scene in a much more aggressive way than theater can; film can use editing as its own affecting device. And none of this is to mention the advances in visual fx that open up our ability to explore the fantastical and the abstract in ways that would’ve previously been unthinkable in cinema. As I said, film has its own limitations. It tends to resist the didactic, for example, which limits how deep one might go on certain topics. But whatever limitations it might face, film has the great merit of bringing together some of the best of the arts and combining them in a way that permits a serious grappling with big questions. 

Another aspect of film that I find particularly unique is its ability to hold a viewer. Anyone who has lectured or taught knows that it is extremely difficult to retain the attention of an audience over the course of hours. But film is uniquely capable of drawing in a viewer and holding his attention for two hours or more. And the episodic content that is now being produced for streaming platforms draws people in for even longer — hence the phenomenon of binge-watching. Now, of course, such indulgence can be a form of gluttony or mindless entertainment. Just because film can bring together the best of the arts and ideas does not mean that’s how it’s always used. But the best of cinema — and now, of episodic content — can bring together the best of the arts, all while engaging the viewer on meaningful issues. 

One last thought. The current trend in entertainment is to talk about the “universe” that a movie franchise creates — the Marvel universe or The Conjuring universe. Something I find particularly interesting and useful about film is that the viewer accepts that he is stepping into a world with its own rules. That world may contain magic, ghosts, superheroes, multiple dimensions, time travel — whatever its creators imagine. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the universe the filmmaker creates is persuasive. Some cinematic universes are convincing; others seem plastic, or hollow, or ridiculous. So, with film, there emerges this innate plausibility test for the world of the filmmaker. And when the film deals with a topic or issue that is real — by which I mean it offers an interpretation of our own world — the plausibility of the world of the film becomes its own litmus test for the filmmaker’s worldview. This makes film an extremely unique mode of conversation. A person who wants to present a position on philosophy, or religion, or politics doesn’t need to state the position directly or didactically; the film allows the viewer to step into the worldview and try it on to see if it rings true. If it does, it persuades. But if it feels plastic, or shallow, or false, the viewer quickly dismisses it — often with contempt. This, I think, is the most unique feature of the film medium, its ability to facilitate the “test drive” of a worldview. And it’s this aspect of film that really animates my current work and what I want to do cinematically going forward.

Question: You’ve made two films now, the first—Killing Poe—a fiction film and the second, Becoming Truly Human, a documentary. Could you describe those films?

Okay, well, Killing Poe is a quirky college comedy. Think John Hughes ensemble comedy, like The Breakfast Club, modernized and placed in a college context, with a little Wes Anderson thrown in. I guess we might also toss in a little Easy A, with its life-imitating-art theme. The movie stars Matt Bush from The Goldbergs; Osric Chau from Supernatural; Julianna Guill from Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce; Cyrina Fiallo from Gosnell; and Sunkrish Bala from Castle. 

The basic idea is that you have five college students—all very different—who find themselves in a class on Edgar Allan Poe. The class is taught by a burnt-out, disgruntled professor, Dr. Lynch, who is genuinely deplorable. Early in the film, everyone drops out of the class except the five students we follow, who end up sharing in this fellowship of suffering. Once Lynch pushes the students to their breaking point, they hatch a plan to teach him a lesson. Unfortunately for them—and for him, I guess—the plan goes horribly wrong, and Dr. Lynch ends up dead. The students engage in a coverup; paranoia ensues, and, well, you’ll have to watch the movie to see what happens. 

The film is packed with tips of the hat to a variety of influences. Poe is the most obvious one. Structurally, the film follows a pattern that runs through several Poe stories, especially the “Tell-Tale Heart.” Wes Anderson, as mentioned, is another influence. But there are also quite a few pop culture references, everything from Looney Tunes to The Simpsons. 

Thematically, the film is about the way death brings a certain sobriety; we begin to look at life, our decisions, and our values very differently when we come face-to-face with our own mortality. For the students in the film, they face a death of sorts. Having killed their professor and fearing they’ll get caught, they face the very real possibility that their lives are over. This thrusts them into self-examination, forcing them to take a fresh look at themselves and their choices. 

In many ways, it’s a nicely layered film, but it certainly isn’t the best example of using film to its utmost to engage profound questions. Like I said, it was intended for commercial consumption. Whatever nuances and layers are there, they are buried beneath juvenile and sometimes crude humor, quirky caricatures, and drug use. The movie is meant to entertain. 

Becoming Truly Human is a little different, to say the least! As I said, this film was commissioned by the Antiochian Archdiocese of the Eastern Orthodox Church. They wanted me to look at the decline of religion in the U.S., specifically at the group now known as the “Nones,” who comprise roughly 25% of the population. In particular, they wanted me, as an Orthodox Christian, to engage this group. So, I proposed a film that attempts to accomplish three things. 

First, I thought it was important to humanize the Nones. The best way to do this, to my mind, was to allow them to tell their own stories about how and why they abandoned religion. So, I suggested sympathetic, one-on-one portraits in which the chosen Nones talk about their upbringing; their religious background; when they first questioned religion; why they abandoned religion; and where they’re at now in terms of belief in God, the afterlife, and other “religious” questions. In other words, let them say who they are and what they’ve experienced without judgment or rebuttal. 

The second thing I wanted to accomplish was to open up a conversation. And I thought the best way to do that with Nones was to place them in conversation with one another. In other words, I expected that defenses would go up if religious people were around. But place Nones amongst other Nones, and there would be a certain ease—these are peers, folks who understand my movement away from religion and won’t judge me for it. I wanted to use that dialogue not only to show the spectrum of beliefs amongst this demographic but also to prime the pump, so to speak, for revisiting religious questions. 

The third thing I wanted to do was to offer the story of a former None who eventually found religion. When I first floated the project, I didn’t realize I was offering up my own story, but that’s how things panned out. I’m a former None who discovered Eastern Orthodoxy. And as a former None, I think it’s misguided to see Nones through the lens of what they are not — I was Baptist, and I’m no longer Baptist; I was Catholic, and I’m no longer Catholic. As I see it, Nones are largely people who are on a journey with an unknown destination. A disconnect has taken place between them and the religion they were raised in, and that disconnect was significant enough that they eventually abandoned that religion. But, from my interviews with roughly fifty Nones and from stats I’ve seen that confirm my findings, most Nones are not atheists. They tend to be agnostic with leanings toward belief in God or a Higher power; most believe the world is meaningful; many believe in karma or fate. In other words, they have “religious beliefs,” but their present religious instincts are at odds with religion as they know it — which really means whatever religion they were raised in. Many Nones are looking for something, spiritually speaking; they just don’t know what it is. For myself, that journey led me to Eastern Orthodoxy. I think many Nones would be happy in Eastern Orthodoxy, especially those who have Christian leanings but chafe at aspects of Western Christianity. But regardless of whether a None’s journey ends in Orthodoxy or something else, my point is that the label “None” treats this demographic as a static group whose identity is rooted in what they’ve abandoned. By offering the long view of one None who finds faith, it becomes possible to see the Nones differently—and for them to see themselves differently. 

So that’s exactly what Becoming Truly Human does. It weaves those three elements together — one-on-one interviews with seven Nones, a roundtable discussion with those same Nones, and one journey (my journey) from religious non-affiliation to affiliation. Each component is presented in vignette form, weaving together the three aspects of the film. It’s very carefully crafted. The film has a chiastic structure; the order of the interviews and the discussions are carefully chosen based on that structure. There are also some very important visual elements in the film. There is a running metaphor throughout, involving a collage, and the closing scene, which is completely without dialogue, visually encapsulates the message of the film.

I admit that the movie is peculiar. It’s certainly not a traditional documentary. My cinematographer told me during production that this is not a documentary; it’s an experimental narrative feature. I don’t know if that’s quite right. I think the best label for it is “post-secular,” a label I get from Paul Schrader. In one of his interviews, he discusses post-secular films, which he describes as slow films that are thoughtful and deal heavily with religious questions. They tend away from atheism, having found the materialist-atheist worldview incapable of satisfying humanity’s existential struggles. Hence, the post-secular label signals a return to religious questions, following a disillusionment with a purely secular view of the world. Yet, post-secular films tend to leave their questions largely unanswered. They wrestle with the questions, offer certain perspectives on those questions, but never tell the audience what to think in the end. The audience must decide for themselves what it all means. I think this is an excellent description of Becoming Truly Human. It is slow and thoughtful; it tackles religious questions head-on; but it allows a variety of perspectives to speak without rebuttal; and in the end, the viewer is never told what to think. 

Question: Did Becoming Truly Human confirm anything for you about the potential for the medium?

BTH certainly convinced me that it is possible to deal with hard questions and big ideas in a cinematic format. I must admit that when I started work on Killing Poe, I was not convinced of that. I rather cynically thought that film’s resistance to the didactic was a definitive hindrance to its ability to deal adequately with hard questions. I mean, I’m a metaphysician, and I don’t see many films doing metaphysics! Films are great at capturing existential crises, the sorts of things that frame hard questions — like the problem of evil or the problem of pain — but actually dealing with those questions? That seemed less likely to me. 

Nonetheless, BTH forced me to try and deal with serious worldview issues in the context of film. Now, I certainly don’t think that BTH is some example par excellence of how to grapple cinematically with questions. But it nonetheless forced me to try to deal with big questions via film. While I continue to see the limitations of the medium — which is why I continue to write and speak — I have also come to see the very real potential in film. And that is largely thanks to BTH.

Some of this came through to me when observing audience reactions. I saw that there were things I could accomplish with film that I could not do in print. Thinking about Aristotle’s three areas of rhetoric, I saw significant advantages for the pathos and ethos side of things, even if the logos side felt limited. I also saw the very real impact that film can make. I’ve heard far more stories of people changed or challenged by BTH than I’ve heard stories of impact from my books or articles. That was perhaps the most transformative realization, seeing what the medium can accomplish, its potential for reach and affectation. I realized that whatever limitations the medium may face, the gains might be worth the trade. And the more I head down the cinematic road, the more I see the expansive possibilities. It took some time for me to shift my thinking from how I write an essay to how I craft a cinematic case. But once that shift happened, I started to see more opportunities than limits.

Question: One claim of “aesthetic cognitivism” is that the arts can contribute to what we can call, very loosely, “understanding.” Do you think that the visual arts can make that kind of contribution, and if so, how? How does this relate to your current film projects?

I certainly do think the visual arts can make that kind of a contribution, and it definitely ties into my current projects. As for how, perhaps I should back into the question this way. I noticed a trend in the public reactions to the statistics about the Nones when I was working on Becoming Truly Human. It seemed to me that both conservative evangelicals and new-atheist types interpreted the statistics about the Nones the same way. They both seemed to think that the decline in religion was a movement toward atheism,and thus tended to read the trend as an indication that the atheists are winning the debate. But I don’t think that’s right.

In my survey of Nones, I found that only 10% identified as atheists. The other 90% leaned toward, if not outward affirmed, belief in God or a Higher Power. And I found that Pew reported similar numbers. — I think they had 13% of Nones as atheists. — My read of the Nones is not that the atheists are winning the God debate. Instead, I think both atheists and theists have lost the audience. And here’s why I think that is.

Some time back, I did an article on divine revelation, and I surveyed the discussions on the topic from John Locke through Fichte. One of the things I found remarkable was that the discussions about revelation are the same discussions had today. The debates about proofs for the existence of God, historical evidences, and arguments for and against miracles are the same debates you find between Christian apologists and new atheists. With very few exceptions, there’s not much new in the atheist-theist apologetic rigmarole. So, in many ways, your average new atheist or evangelical apologist is a child of the Enlightenment. But here’s the problem: the Nones are not. 

The Nones are part of a generation that no longer forms beliefs on purely analytic or rational principles. They tend to form beliefs based on intuitions — moral intuitions (we ought to be kind and help others), aesthetic intuitions (the beauty of the sunset is meaningful), and religious intuitions (things happen for a reason). And as a result, a debate that is purely analytic leaves them cold; they don’t connect with it. Hence, they disconnect from the debate and become ships at sea, spiritually speaking, following vague intuitions about the world. 

Now, I think there is something good and right about the instinct to take seriously our intuitions — assuming I’m right in my diagnosis of the Nones. We are more than a mind. And I think there is a strong “properly functioning faculties” argument to be made in defense of these intuitions. We only believe in color because of the deliverances of our eyes; we believe in sound because of the deliverances of our ears, and so on. And while I think there are underlying structures to morality, for example, which can be discerned and analyzed, the force of these structures is that they come to us through conscience and moral intuition. In like manner, I think that there is an argument to be made in favor of our spiritual intuitions. Lewis, in fact, makes this argument. His point at each stage of his genealogy of religion is that the phenomenon he mentions — in stage one, the phenomenon of the numinous; in stage two, the phenomenon of moral intuition; and then the merger of these in stage three — he suggests that there is no analytic explanation for the movement from the predicates of the situation to the intuitional experience that follows. Hence, each stage is either a malfunction of our faculties or it is revelation. Obviously, he thinks it’s revelation. I think this is an argument worth exploring. I, for one, am very sympathetic to it. And I think a similar case can be made for aesthetic intuitions.

I think this is something that is already at work and formative in the worldview of many Nones. Their belief that the world is spiritual or that it is meaningful is based partly on the reality of beauty and the deliverances of their aesthetic intuitions. Speaking from my own experience, I find that there is a close connection between aesthetics and religion. Before I was Orthodox, I found myself laid low by the aesthetics of a properly Byzantine space — its architecture, iconography, chants, and aromas. The beauty it conveyed was something to be contended with, no less than any argument I had ever faced. Its aesthetic was its own argument. And on the flip side, I’ve been repelled by many a worldview simply by its aesthetics and what these say about the worldview. (This is why I think bad Christian art is dangerous!) So, I certainly think there’s something to the epistemological project of suggesting that there are aesthetic intuitions about the world and about truths and, given that, that there are “arguments” to be made aesthetically through the arts. To be sure, I think intuitions unhinged from reason are dangerous, just as reason unhinged from intuitions is dangerous. But that there are such intuitions and that they can contribute significantly to our understanding of the world is fundamentally correct.

That conviction is absolutely central to my current endeavors. The goal of my current projects is less about communicating theological or philosophical ideas in a didactic fashion and much more about creating a cinematic universe in which the viewer can step into the worldview and try it on. The success or failure of the project hangs less on carefully crafted premises and far more on building a world that feels believable. The aesthetics are the argument.