I wish the Skunk well in his recovery.
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Sunday, June 27, 2010
One Man's Trial, and Gratitude for Life
I wish the Skunk well in his recovery.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Thoughts on Another Semester in Mythology
I'm completing my students' mythology final examination today, for them to take tomorrow.It was an ambitious class, taught mostly from a psychological and spiritual point of view. It was all about our struggle with darkness, and its power to transform. I think I either frightened or bored the students sometimes with this talk. I dwell on this mystery all the time.
It helps to know every civilization shared the same struggles, even as it puzzles about the ultimate source of being. That is what I take away from this class, in brighter hues each time. Science goes its own way, to greater and greater reductionism. But for humanity, myth illustrates the absolute mystery of existence.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Some Great Readings on the Problem of Evil
The New Atlantis has just posted a very interesting article from their latest issue about Charles Darwin's personal sensitivity to the problem of evil and suffering in nature, and how it influenced his views on evolution. It is entitled "Darwin's World of Pain and Wonder." Excellent. I recommend it highly.It calls to mind an excellent book I read on the same subject not long ago, entitled "Darwin's God" by Cornelius Hunter, about which I wrote some thoughts at the time.
Another very interesting article on evil I found via Wikipedia. It is by a Catholic theologian, explaining the theodicies, or defenses of God against evil and suffering, offered by Saints Augustine and Ireneaus. I found it interesting because it acknowledges how many puzzling issues remain for the believer even today. Of course, the author attempts to resolve some of those problems in his theory of "salvation." Which I will continue reading with interest.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Commentary on a Recent Viral Video Defense of Religion
Some of my Facebook friends are passing around the video below. It's an interesting defense of religious belief, going viral on the Internet. It's good to see that not only the atheists like social media.
The argument made by the young Albert Einstein in this video is one taken directly, although in less scientific form, from St. Augustine, its original author.
Simply put, evil is not "real" but rather the absence or "privation" of goodness.
Augustine made this argument against the Manicheans, who held that evil was an equal and opposing force to good. If so, Augustine reasoned, then man has no free will, being caught up simply in the war of two opposites. A convenient deterministic theory for escaping responsibility.
An elaboration of this argument is made in a modern context by author Jean Bethke Elshtain in a talk given at GooglePlex, entitled, "Harry Potter, St. Augustine and the Confrontation with Evil." In it, she elaborates on the idea of evil as a parasitic form of non-being, using the examples of the Nazis and Voldermort from Harry Potter." It's a very interesting talk, parts of which I show my philosophy students every year.
Interestingly in the first video, however, the young Einstein makes a "reductionist" argument against his instructor. He cites darkness as the absence of light, not a reality itself at the subatomic level. The same for cold, which is the absence of heat, which is subatomic activity.
However, if one were to rely on the subatomic level, what would we say about love? Is it a reality at that level, or something else?
There are risks to denying realities that man experiences at his own level. That is why Einstein's instructor is onto something, and why the argument for atheism persists. Because just like our experience of love, we experience cold, or darkness, or myriad other evils at our own, not the subatomic level.
I recently had a conversation with a friend about this very same point. And about my concerns with the limits of Augustine's argument.
I sometimes think Augustine's argument is stretched too far from its original purposes.
If one proposes that evil is a lack or privation, then it is merely a zero or non-being. There is nothing to see in it, only to ponder the mystery, as Ms. Elshtain does, of its parasitical nature.
But what if one looks at the myriad manifestations of evil in the world? The privations of so many goods, that yield so many different and disturbing forms of evil, at our human level, not the metaphysical or the subatomic.
This is the gist of the black comic points made in first video in the comic series "Mr. Deity," which I truly enjoy, even as it disturbs me greatly. The episode is entitled "Mr. Deity and the Evil."
God is questioned as to why he wants SO MANY evils. Now, one could argue that God simply wanted to create so many goods. And each good must, by God's own plan face its own potentially horrifying privation. Granted, privation is the absence of good. I've got that.
But at another level, you must consider the black comic point above. What the heck is the plan for history when there is so much evil that seems to be driving it? Just think of the Nazis, for example. Or child abuse. Or cancer. History is moved greatly by the reality of evil. Privation is everywhere. Pervasive.
Collectively, we are resilient in the face of it no doubt. But I do not believe, as I noted in a previous post, that one can dismiss an individual's being scandalized by the experience of it, as Michael Novak has done at times, as a "morose" concern with it.
I have no answer to the comic point raised above. Except to recall the point made by Aquinas in the Summa Theologica, which scandalized me in graduate school. (II-II, Q. 19, Article 11. "Whether Fear Remains in Heaven.")
Aquinas argued that even in a state of beatitude in Heaven, man would still feel fear of God. This entire passage is contained in a section on "The Gift of Fear" contained in a larger treatise on "Hope." (I think this section bears re-reading on my part, for sure.)
I don't think Aquinas would be willing to call God "dark." But when one considers the prominent role of evil and suffering in the world, and even the scandalous and almost fetishistic obsession among Christians with evil and suffering, one can't help but feel disturbed. By them, and by God's apparent "plan" for "sacred history," so-called.
Is it in any way inefficient? If so, what does that say about the nature of God?
It certainly disturbs atheists, especially when they read the gleeful way in which Christians were willing to see them in a state of eternal damnation for their annoying lack of faith. Today, we have far more empathy and understanding of our fellow man, and should reject co-dependency with them, for their and our own sake. And recognize that their concerns are our own.
The argument made by the young Albert Einstein in this video is one taken directly, although in less scientific form, from St. Augustine, its original author.
Simply put, evil is not "real" but rather the absence or "privation" of goodness.
Augustine made this argument against the Manicheans, who held that evil was an equal and opposing force to good. If so, Augustine reasoned, then man has no free will, being caught up simply in the war of two opposites. A convenient deterministic theory for escaping responsibility.
An elaboration of this argument is made in a modern context by author Jean Bethke Elshtain in a talk given at GooglePlex, entitled, "Harry Potter, St. Augustine and the Confrontation with Evil." In it, she elaborates on the idea of evil as a parasitic form of non-being, using the examples of the Nazis and Voldermort from Harry Potter." It's a very interesting talk, parts of which I show my philosophy students every year.
Interestingly in the first video, however, the young Einstein makes a "reductionist" argument against his instructor. He cites darkness as the absence of light, not a reality itself at the subatomic level. The same for cold, which is the absence of heat, which is subatomic activity.
However, if one were to rely on the subatomic level, what would we say about love? Is it a reality at that level, or something else?
There are risks to denying realities that man experiences at his own level. That is why Einstein's instructor is onto something, and why the argument for atheism persists. Because just like our experience of love, we experience cold, or darkness, or myriad other evils at our own, not the subatomic level.
I recently had a conversation with a friend about this very same point. And about my concerns with the limits of Augustine's argument.
I sometimes think Augustine's argument is stretched too far from its original purposes.
If one proposes that evil is a lack or privation, then it is merely a zero or non-being. There is nothing to see in it, only to ponder the mystery, as Ms. Elshtain does, of its parasitical nature.
But what if one looks at the myriad manifestations of evil in the world? The privations of so many goods, that yield so many different and disturbing forms of evil, at our human level, not the metaphysical or the subatomic.
This is the gist of the black comic points made in first video in the comic series "Mr. Deity," which I truly enjoy, even as it disturbs me greatly. The episode is entitled "Mr. Deity and the Evil."
God is questioned as to why he wants SO MANY evils. Now, one could argue that God simply wanted to create so many goods. And each good must, by God's own plan face its own potentially horrifying privation. Granted, privation is the absence of good. I've got that.
But at another level, you must consider the black comic point above. What the heck is the plan for history when there is so much evil that seems to be driving it? Just think of the Nazis, for example. Or child abuse. Or cancer. History is moved greatly by the reality of evil. Privation is everywhere. Pervasive.
Collectively, we are resilient in the face of it no doubt. But I do not believe, as I noted in a previous post, that one can dismiss an individual's being scandalized by the experience of it, as Michael Novak has done at times, as a "morose" concern with it.
I have no answer to the comic point raised above. Except to recall the point made by Aquinas in the Summa Theologica, which scandalized me in graduate school. (II-II, Q. 19, Article 11. "Whether Fear Remains in Heaven.")
Aquinas argued that even in a state of beatitude in Heaven, man would still feel fear of God. This entire passage is contained in a section on "The Gift of Fear" contained in a larger treatise on "Hope." (I think this section bears re-reading on my part, for sure.)
I don't think Aquinas would be willing to call God "dark." But when one considers the prominent role of evil and suffering in the world, and even the scandalous and almost fetishistic obsession among Christians with evil and suffering, one can't help but feel disturbed. By them, and by God's apparent "plan" for "sacred history," so-called.
Is it in any way inefficient? If so, what does that say about the nature of God?
It certainly disturbs atheists, especially when they read the gleeful way in which Christians were willing to see them in a state of eternal damnation for their annoying lack of faith. Today, we have far more empathy and understanding of our fellow man, and should reject co-dependency with them, for their and our own sake. And recognize that their concerns are our own.
Monday, August 31, 2009
A Weekend with a Theme
I entered this past weekend with one thought. "This is the anniversary of my mother's death." I don't know what I expected of this anniversary. There is nothing about a 22nd anniversary that should mark it as special.What's more, as I have noted in other places in this blog, I believe I have long since outgrown the religious habit of seeking signs; a habit that bound me closely to my mother in my youth. So, why would I expect this kind of anniversary to yield any thoughts of significance?
During my mother's illness, I sought signs more than ever, and thought I found them. I saw them everywhere. My mother would be OK. I only felt betrayed when they did not bear out.
In the years that have followed, my advanced education and teaching of critical thinking has taught me too much about confirmation biases and other quirks of the mind to allow myself to get so carried way again. Better to wander with no "signs" at all, I have thought, and see what happens. Reality has other ways to hit you in the head.
But perhaps this weekend, I still wanted something. Perhaps I am still a child who wants something from his mother. Perhaps also, the lingering effects of baptism are not so easily washed away. And the foolishness of religious sign-seeking is permanently embedded in me.
As I awoke this morning, one thought occurred to me. Whatever I thought I sought from this anniversary, I may have received. More on that after this necessary explanation.
My mother died 22 years ago from a brain tumor. Her death was traumatic to our family. She was the center of it. A source of strength. In the days that followed my father did not do very well, and things looked very shaky for all of us. Somehow, though, we managed to survive.
Her death also seriously shook my religious faith for the first time. In way that never recovered, thanks also to reinforcement from the events of 9/11 and a few years of natural disasters that followed, and other, deeper personal crises.
All of which revolved around hopes and dreams being snuffed out. My mother had just turned 48 when she died. The last of her children would soon go to school. And my mother would be free, finally, to pursue dreams she had put on hold for many years.
Her potential would go unfulfilled.
When I saw the infamous photo of the man falling to his death on 9/11, upside down, I meditated on what his hopes for the future were that morning, before he found himself in that nightmare. The same could be said for the water-swept dead bodies in the photos of "The Tsunami" and Hurricane Katrina.
I have always been an actualization person. I want very much to grow. I value the desire to grow in others highly. It inspires me and attracts me.
I have suffered as an idealist in Fortune 1000 to Fortune 100 corporations for 7 years now. I have learned many things about growth there, and grown enormously during that time. But I found those places did not really create the cultures they preached about. And it frustrated me terribly.
I despise statism for many reasons, but perhaps most importantly, because it shackles the natural growth potential of human beings.
I have come to learn over the course of my life that personal growth is highly important to me. And I continue to think about how it is frustrated quite often in life. And I wonder how a God can make that part of his plan, for his inherently forward-looking creatures.
***
I find myself in perhaps the toughest situation of my professional career. Out of work for now seven months, I have struggled like never before to understand my marketability, and myself. I have made unprecedented, expensive investments of time and energy in myself and my own career. And I am, for whatever reason, struggling to show for it.
Not in personal growth. I have learned a great deal about myself. I have valuable clarity about a number of important issues.
But in more tangible ways, things are very tough now. I won't be able to get by much longer at all. Things could become very bad, as winter approaches. And that will affect the "growth" of possibilities for the four shining stars of my life, my beloved children. Thoughts of their suffering, and restricted possibilities in life have haunted me in recent weeks.
***
My weekend began on Friday night with an unexpected phone call from my sister Susan. She had a baby just a few weeks ago. We don't often talk on the phone. Now would seem to be even less opportune for her. And yet, she just wanted to say hello, and to offer encouragement, and financial help if necessary. I was deeply touched by her call. It carried me for hours and hours after with a bit of hope.
On Saturday, I had many plans to continue my networking, my job search, and the daunting plans to build my own business. But I felt exhausted. The thought of continuing with all this effort for yet another, fruitless day, where there was only I and no RO on the I was not appealing.
My two sons roped me into the "Rocky Marathon." I would watch one with them perhaps. I didn't think they would watch the first Rocky movie for long. Too much Paulie and Adrian and not enough slugging in the ring. But, to my great surprise, they did watch. Along with Rocky II, III and even part of IV. With me right along with them. My plans would go to hell for Saturday, and I felt better. I also appreciated Sylvester Stallone's screenwriting like I had not before. Recognizing adult themes of suffering, and hope, and redemption like I had not as a kid, when I saw these movies for the first time.
Sunday morning, I returned from church, which I left earlier than ever in my life, to find the boys ponying up their own money to watch "Rocky Balboa" on demand. OK, another Rocky movie. I'll bite again. And more admiration for Stallone, especially when he, playing a "has been" in the movie, lectures his son about the importance of getting up again after being knocked down.
Sunday afternoon we took the kids to Sunken Meadow State Park, where the kids just swam. I took their pictures along the rocky beach, confident that some day we would all look back on those photos fondly. And I forgot nearly all of my worries.
And then, Sunday evening, when everyone was asleep, I read a small pamphlet from the Five O'clock Club, which talked about the daunting challenges of the new economy, as well as the great rewards that would follow if workers would only take charge of their own careers. New growth, new flexibility and constant change in response. But all built around a vision that comes from deep inside, which, when acted upon, can be deeply satisfying.
And then, oddly, a chance encounter with Joel Osteen on my television. A man who combines religious preaching with a gospel of self-help and success. I respect his conviction, but I don't accept uncritically his assertions. To me, they often lack evidence.
By strange coincidence however, this night, I found him repeating the same theme I heard from Rocky Balboa earlier in the day. When life knocks you down, he said with his trademark squint and a smile, you have to keep getting up. He cited his friend stricken three times with cancer, and other anecdotes. What can you say to that? It's not an argument. To me it simply seemed self-evident. What else can you do, unless you want to lay down and die?
In the silence of Sunday evening, I found myself wondering why some people choose to look at the good anecdote, the hopeful one, and not the bad one, as I often do. Why is our world half beautiful and half horrible? Which makes you more of a fool? Despair? Or hope?
As I awoke this morning, I realized that my entire weekend, which went nothing as planned, was filled with themes of hope. From start to finish.
An anniversary gift from my mother? Perhaps.
Confirmation bias? Perhaps.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Out of Suffering Comes Beauty: Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
Tonight, due to the sadness of a long-suffering friend, I find myself reflecting very much on the troubles of this life.
To console myself somewhat, I turn to one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard, inspired by great human suffering.
This classical music video is taken from the second movement of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3. The vocals are sung with incredible passion by Dawn Upshaw.
Górecki has maintained that the overall work is about the ties between mother and child. (One might add to that the qualifier "broken by war.")
However, the second movement particularly was inspired by a prayer to the Virgin Mary scribbled by an 18-year old girl, Helena Wanda Blazusiakowna, on a Gestapo cell wall in the Polish town of Zakopane. She would later die there.
This particular piece of the symphony is often associated with Holocaust memorials, and was even performed at Auschwitz for a documentary film.
It is still one of my favorite pieces of music.
As I listen to it, I wonder what is it about suffering that draws beauty, even sometimes incredible, ethereal beauty such as this, into this world. And, why does it have to be that way?
To console myself somewhat, I turn to one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard, inspired by great human suffering.
This classical music video is taken from the second movement of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3. The vocals are sung with incredible passion by Dawn Upshaw.
Górecki has maintained that the overall work is about the ties between mother and child. (One might add to that the qualifier "broken by war.")
However, the second movement particularly was inspired by a prayer to the Virgin Mary scribbled by an 18-year old girl, Helena Wanda Blazusiakowna, on a Gestapo cell wall in the Polish town of Zakopane. She would later die there.
This particular piece of the symphony is often associated with Holocaust memorials, and was even performed at Auschwitz for a documentary film.
It is still one of my favorite pieces of music.
As I listen to it, I wonder what is it about suffering that draws beauty, even sometimes incredible, ethereal beauty such as this, into this world. And, why does it have to be that way?
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Adding a Dark Layer to Prayer?
I can't explain exactly why, but I have had a hard time praying for quite some time. It's because my view of God is so much darker than before.I still hang on to the belief going back to the Book of Job that God's ways are not my ways. There seems no other way to explain it all, short of atheism.
But in the past I would have thought of God as an unknowing bull in the china shop of my life. He just goes about his business, never mind the damage. (That's a theologically unsound view by the way, even if it seems to explain life. Because God is supposed to be all knowing.)
Okay then. Add in my life experience (and inner doubts) and there is new dark context to this belief about God's ways. God's ways seem to do more than just ignore my ways. The all knowing being, I think now, must also surely know that He adds pain to my way. That "His ways" frustrate me sometimes. The he makes a mockery of my projecting myself into the future, simply because of what He "allows."
* * *
Lately, a thought has occurred to me about a new dimension that should be part of my prayer. I don't know why, since it seems masochistic. But, it seems when I pray for something in my life, I should meditate on all the people in the world suffering similar experiences to my own. And acknowledge that it would be manifestly unfair of me to expect any kind of relief when God allows, and has allowed for centuries, so many others to experience the same pains and losses without relief.
(Is God making this obvious to me, or is it Satan whispering it in my ear?)
The act of asking, considered in this light, is ridiculous. Why should I expect any help? I shouldn't.
And yet, I always do. Why?
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Reflections on Powerlessness
I often think about the fragility of life, and how truly powerless we are. This is the result of several events in my life, and the larger events of 9/11, Katrina, etc., which have completely altered my psyche in this regard. I think about economic powerlessness, powerlessness over the fate of my children, and much more.
Several videos I have come across on YouTube recently, about the temptation of Christ in the desert, have spurred me to think about my concerns with control and fear of powerlessness.
The video embedded below is a bit over stylized and interpretive, but it is a provocative presentation of Christ's choice to eschew power over the world.
Funny then, after seeing videos of this type, I watched just this week a PBS special about the creation of the Hebrew Bible.
Touching on the question of power, this series noted that the great book was completed during the Babylonian Captivity, at the lowest ebb and most powerless time of the Jewish people. And yet, it would unite the people of Israel, and eventually the Western World.
Is there anything more that we (I) can derive from these experiences of Israel's captive powerlessness and Jesus's chosen powerlessness? And, is it any different from other myths of renunciation and redemptive suffering?
My immediate temptation is to think that just the "right" embrace of one's powerlessness might actually empower you. But, how might one "embrace" that, and what kind of empowerment does it bring? Would it be the same experience as having no metaphysical anxiety at all? I sincerely doubt it.
Yet, beyond that, I don't know the answers. I just thought I would capture the questions. More to think on for another time.
Several videos I have come across on YouTube recently, about the temptation of Christ in the desert, have spurred me to think about my concerns with control and fear of powerlessness.
The video embedded below is a bit over stylized and interpretive, but it is a provocative presentation of Christ's choice to eschew power over the world.
Funny then, after seeing videos of this type, I watched just this week a PBS special about the creation of the Hebrew Bible.
Touching on the question of power, this series noted that the great book was completed during the Babylonian Captivity, at the lowest ebb and most powerless time of the Jewish people. And yet, it would unite the people of Israel, and eventually the Western World.
Is there anything more that we (I) can derive from these experiences of Israel's captive powerlessness and Jesus's chosen powerlessness? And, is it any different from other myths of renunciation and redemptive suffering?
My immediate temptation is to think that just the "right" embrace of one's powerlessness might actually empower you. But, how might one "embrace" that, and what kind of empowerment does it bring? Would it be the same experience as having no metaphysical anxiety at all? I sincerely doubt it.
Yet, beyond that, I don't know the answers. I just thought I would capture the questions. More to think on for another time.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Another One Page Refutation of Unbelief (Yawn)
I like the publication First Things. I respect the life's work of the theologian and philosopher Michael Novak. But, damn, and yawn, if I don't see simplistic, dismissive, curriculum vitae-padding arguments against unbelievers, like Novak's latest, too often in First Things and elsewhere on the Christian Right.
In a drive-by article, majestically titled "Atheism and Evil," Novak engages a friendly audience of First Things readers to quickly dismiss atheists and agnostics for their struggles with belief.
A good percentage of these unbelievers, according to a recent poll, have allowed the problem of evil to drive them away from the notion of a personal God. But, surprisingly, many of them cling to some notion of an ultimate force.
In the most insulting statement of the entire piece, Novak accuses all of them of possessing a "morose delectation" for the reality of evil. In other words, they should just get over their perverse hang-up with suffering. (Now break out the brandy.)
Novak reminds us, yawn, that Thomas Aquinas posited that evil was not a co-equal reality with good. Evil tends toward non-being rather than being. (Ah, how did millions of human beings miss that? It's all explained now!)
And, without the possibility of moral evil, the world could never reach its current heights of goodness.
Excuse me if I yawn, again. These arguments are repeated endlessly against modern unbelief like a Thomistic spell. And yet, unbelief doesn't seem to go away. Curious.
Of course, the reality of physical evil (hurricanes, cancers, etc.) is not addressed here. That would have required at least another page of strenuous quoting of the Church Fathers.
Or perhaps it is, encrusted within Novak's brief, metaphorical reference to the world as a "tapestry of human experience." Or in his sweeping notion that "[a]ll the stuff of a good story depends on creation being not just a world of iron logic and inflexible arithmetic, but also a world of immense crisscrossing variation and 'blooming, buzzing profusion.'”
There you have it. The whole thing, from Krakatoa to Katrina, is just another "good story," and "blooming, buzzing profusion." What?
I know that Michael Novak means better. Perhaps Christopher Hitchens' delectations have gotten too much under his skin.
But I think that if one were actually concerned with these issues, in a spirit of genuine solidarity with non-First Things subscribers, it might help to acknowledge the serious concerns of "unbelievers" -- and perhaps more "believers" than one might care to acknowledge -- with moral evil, physical evil, and even metaphysical evil -- where one grinds daily against the limits of one's own being.
In a media-mad world in which human beings are buffeted daily by images of untold suffering and cruelty, and even levels of human success and honor that they will never achieve, it will require more than a series of dusty syllogisms to ease the suffering and dissension caused by the "immense crisscrossing" within the human spirit of the problems of moral, natural and metaphysical evil.
In a drive-by article, majestically titled "Atheism and Evil," Novak engages a friendly audience of First Things readers to quickly dismiss atheists and agnostics for their struggles with belief.
A good percentage of these unbelievers, according to a recent poll, have allowed the problem of evil to drive them away from the notion of a personal God. But, surprisingly, many of them cling to some notion of an ultimate force.
In the most insulting statement of the entire piece, Novak accuses all of them of possessing a "morose delectation" for the reality of evil. In other words, they should just get over their perverse hang-up with suffering. (Now break out the brandy.)
Novak reminds us, yawn, that Thomas Aquinas posited that evil was not a co-equal reality with good. Evil tends toward non-being rather than being. (Ah, how did millions of human beings miss that? It's all explained now!)
And, without the possibility of moral evil, the world could never reach its current heights of goodness.
Excuse me if I yawn, again. These arguments are repeated endlessly against modern unbelief like a Thomistic spell. And yet, unbelief doesn't seem to go away. Curious.
Of course, the reality of physical evil (hurricanes, cancers, etc.) is not addressed here. That would have required at least another page of strenuous quoting of the Church Fathers.
Or perhaps it is, encrusted within Novak's brief, metaphorical reference to the world as a "tapestry of human experience." Or in his sweeping notion that "[a]ll the stuff of a good story depends on creation being not just a world of iron logic and inflexible arithmetic, but also a world of immense crisscrossing variation and 'blooming, buzzing profusion.'”
There you have it. The whole thing, from Krakatoa to Katrina, is just another "good story," and "blooming, buzzing profusion." What?
I know that Michael Novak means better. Perhaps Christopher Hitchens' delectations have gotten too much under his skin.
But I think that if one were actually concerned with these issues, in a spirit of genuine solidarity with non-First Things subscribers, it might help to acknowledge the serious concerns of "unbelievers" -- and perhaps more "believers" than one might care to acknowledge -- with moral evil, physical evil, and even metaphysical evil -- where one grinds daily against the limits of one's own being.
In a media-mad world in which human beings are buffeted daily by images of untold suffering and cruelty, and even levels of human success and honor that they will never achieve, it will require more than a series of dusty syllogisms to ease the suffering and dissension caused by the "immense crisscrossing" within the human spirit of the problems of moral, natural and metaphysical evil.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Remembering September 11th
As I drove into work this morning, with a light rain falling, I listened to a live radio broadcast of the memorial service at Ground Zero.
There was something almost defiant in the sound of the bagpipes and drums. As if to say, "the dead are laughing at you today Osama bin Laden, and so are we the living."
September 11th marked a turning point in my thinking. The senseless death and destruction, the snuffing out of so many good people and their hopes and dreams, the bizarre photograph of one unknown man falling upside down to his death, inverted my sentimental Catholic spirituality and my life.
September 11th reawakened within me the suppressed memories of my mother's grim death from a cancerous brain tumor at 48; the first time that "God's plan" created personal problems for me. Before that, the banality of evil was other people's problem, and just an abstraction for me.
Like the victims of 9/11, my mother had hopes and dreams. She struggled to find the time to do creative, intellectually stimulating things, despite the crushing responsibilities of her life with eight children. It seemed to me that she was on the verge of breaking out in that direction when she died. Did God care? I don't know for sure, but to a mere foolish mortal, it seemed not.
Since 9/11, I have meditated heavily on the apparent futility of human aspiration. Does death make all human striving mere self-deception and vanity? I think it keeps me from composing half the great pieces of music I have in my head, and writing and shooting the screenplays that dance around in this imagination I inherited from my mother.
I have imagined God not caring about my mother's aspirations, or the victims of 9/11, or the victims of the Tsunami, or Katrina, or the countless people who die silently, too young, in hospitals each day. I am guarded about enjoying my life too much, for fear that just when I truly relish the beauty of my own four children, I will be made the ultimate cosmic fool and struck down. Or worse, that they will be struck down.
When my father, a former New York City firefighter, died at 60, of a sudden, massive stroke, we sat vigil outside of his room at Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. The Yankees were on the television. I could see the faces of people at the game, enjoying themselves. They were unaware of the terrible thing that was taking place. It takes place thousands of times every day, all around us. Just miles from the ballpark, or the restaurant, in the hospital, or at the nursing home up the hill.
My parents' children today are writers, musicians, painters, scientists and teachers. They take after my creative, cerebral mother that way. They take after their father in revering the New York City fire department. Our father taught us firsthand about the courage the job requires. He worked with the first responders of 9/11 for many years in Brooklyn. He also represented them in the firefighters' union. I shudder to think what he would have felt had he lived to see that dark Tuesday in September.
I wish I could be at Ground Zero today. People there are likely feeling a connection with the transcendent. I have often thought that I should take one day off from work to go look for such a sacred place, where I might find a key to sorting out the things that began to trouble me so deeply, just six years ago.
There was something almost defiant in the sound of the bagpipes and drums. As if to say, "the dead are laughing at you today Osama bin Laden, and so are we the living."
September 11th marked a turning point in my thinking. The senseless death and destruction, the snuffing out of so many good people and their hopes and dreams, the bizarre photograph of one unknown man falling upside down to his death, inverted my sentimental Catholic spirituality and my life.
September 11th reawakened within me the suppressed memories of my mother's grim death from a cancerous brain tumor at 48; the first time that "God's plan" created personal problems for me. Before that, the banality of evil was other people's problem, and just an abstraction for me.
Like the victims of 9/11, my mother had hopes and dreams. She struggled to find the time to do creative, intellectually stimulating things, despite the crushing responsibilities of her life with eight children. It seemed to me that she was on the verge of breaking out in that direction when she died. Did God care? I don't know for sure, but to a mere foolish mortal, it seemed not.
Since 9/11, I have meditated heavily on the apparent futility of human aspiration. Does death make all human striving mere self-deception and vanity? I think it keeps me from composing half the great pieces of music I have in my head, and writing and shooting the screenplays that dance around in this imagination I inherited from my mother.
I have imagined God not caring about my mother's aspirations, or the victims of 9/11, or the victims of the Tsunami, or Katrina, or the countless people who die silently, too young, in hospitals each day. I am guarded about enjoying my life too much, for fear that just when I truly relish the beauty of my own four children, I will be made the ultimate cosmic fool and struck down. Or worse, that they will be struck down.
When my father, a former New York City firefighter, died at 60, of a sudden, massive stroke, we sat vigil outside of his room at Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. The Yankees were on the television. I could see the faces of people at the game, enjoying themselves. They were unaware of the terrible thing that was taking place. It takes place thousands of times every day, all around us. Just miles from the ballpark, or the restaurant, in the hospital, or at the nursing home up the hill.
My parents' children today are writers, musicians, painters, scientists and teachers. They take after my creative, cerebral mother that way. They take after their father in revering the New York City fire department. Our father taught us firsthand about the courage the job requires. He worked with the first responders of 9/11 for many years in Brooklyn. He also represented them in the firefighters' union. I shudder to think what he would have felt had he lived to see that dark Tuesday in September.
I wish I could be at Ground Zero today. People there are likely feeling a connection with the transcendent. I have often thought that I should take one day off from work to go look for such a sacred place, where I might find a key to sorting out the things that began to trouble me so deeply, just six years ago.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
"Darwin's God" Raises Troubling Questions for All
Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil
I have finally completed Darwin's God by Cornelius Hunter. A very interesting read. Basically, quoting from the writings of Darwin and his disciples, Hunter argues that Darwinism is a kind of theodicy. The reason: nature is too violent and wasteful to attribute to God, so the scientists and other thinkers of the Victorian age attributed such imperfection to the workings of secondary causes.
Hunter identifies this as a kind of gnosticism, because of its dualistic overtones. The imperfections of the material order must remain separated from the perfection of the spiritual.
Such labelling sounds ominous, as if a great heresy has resurfaced, but it simply underscores the point that Christianity, in whatever age, must struggle with how the problem of evil affects the credibility of its claims about the benevolence of the Creator.
(People today are powerfully aware of evil in all its forms, from natural evil to the evil sometimes manifested in the workings of the church. See this interesting article from Christianity Today on Starbucks Spirituality, which highlights the level of distrust Christians face from historically conscious, cosmopolitan coffee lovers.)
Anyway, getting back to the book, quoting from "The Descent of Man," Hunter notes that Darwin's stated primary objective was to disprove the theory of "special creation" of each and every species by God. Secondarily he was out to prove the theory of natural selection.
Read or listen to any number of Darwinists, such as Richard Dawkins, and you will find repeated references to God, and attempts to discredit theories of special divine creation. Abstain from references to God, Hunter argues, all of the guesswork and speculation about vestigial organs, homologies, etc. would be glaring, and would never be accepted as "scientific."
Indeed, when many Darwinists argue that the theory is a "fact," what they mean is their interpretation of certain pieces of the physical record apparently falsify a particular account of creation. This despite the fact, as Hunter points out amply, that almost nothing in the physical record can falsify Darwinism. What Karl Popper would say is the mark of pseudo-science.
Indeed, the handwriting was on the wall when Darwin said about the complexity of the human eye that all he needed was to be able to conceive of a possible way, rather than show actual proof for, an evolution from less complex structures, and you see evidence of something other than science taking place here.
(My interpretation of this is that once "supernaturalism" is discarded as falsified by any one of millions of potential physical phenomena, a gestalt shift takes place and there is no choice but to interpret all physical phenomena through the lens of naturalism.)
This is exactly what I noted was troubling to me in a comment by eminent physicist Leonard Susskind's on Fora.tv, who blithely accepted such a speculative approach in response to questions about Paley's Watchmaker analogy and the "irreducible complexity" argument put forward by the "Intelligent Design" camp.
What do I take away from this work? An interesting, historically rich overview of Darwinism as attempted falsification of another theory, and/or a theodicy, full of insights into how the problem of evil vexed the Victorians.
But more importantly, Hunter's book, by its omission, painfully underscores the most pressing issue of modern Christianity. For if, as Hunter argues, Darwinism simply attempts to "falsify" one particular account of creation popular in a particular time, what is the alternative, more rational theory of creation, which can overcome the link between creation's irrationality and the Creator, without drifting into heretical dualism? Hunter doesn't answer that question.
Can anyone?
I have finally completed Darwin's God by Cornelius Hunter. A very interesting read. Basically, quoting from the writings of Darwin and his disciples, Hunter argues that Darwinism is a kind of theodicy. The reason: nature is too violent and wasteful to attribute to God, so the scientists and other thinkers of the Victorian age attributed such imperfection to the workings of secondary causes.
Hunter identifies this as a kind of gnosticism, because of its dualistic overtones. The imperfections of the material order must remain separated from the perfection of the spiritual.
Such labelling sounds ominous, as if a great heresy has resurfaced, but it simply underscores the point that Christianity, in whatever age, must struggle with how the problem of evil affects the credibility of its claims about the benevolence of the Creator.
(People today are powerfully aware of evil in all its forms, from natural evil to the evil sometimes manifested in the workings of the church. See this interesting article from Christianity Today on Starbucks Spirituality, which highlights the level of distrust Christians face from historically conscious, cosmopolitan coffee lovers.)
Anyway, getting back to the book, quoting from "The Descent of Man," Hunter notes that Darwin's stated primary objective was to disprove the theory of "special creation" of each and every species by God. Secondarily he was out to prove the theory of natural selection.
Read or listen to any number of Darwinists, such as Richard Dawkins, and you will find repeated references to God, and attempts to discredit theories of special divine creation. Abstain from references to God, Hunter argues, all of the guesswork and speculation about vestigial organs, homologies, etc. would be glaring, and would never be accepted as "scientific."
Indeed, when many Darwinists argue that the theory is a "fact," what they mean is their interpretation of certain pieces of the physical record apparently falsify a particular account of creation. This despite the fact, as Hunter points out amply, that almost nothing in the physical record can falsify Darwinism. What Karl Popper would say is the mark of pseudo-science.
Indeed, the handwriting was on the wall when Darwin said about the complexity of the human eye that all he needed was to be able to conceive of a possible way, rather than show actual proof for, an evolution from less complex structures, and you see evidence of something other than science taking place here.
(My interpretation of this is that once "supernaturalism" is discarded as falsified by any one of millions of potential physical phenomena, a gestalt shift takes place and there is no choice but to interpret all physical phenomena through the lens of naturalism.)
This is exactly what I noted was troubling to me in a comment by eminent physicist Leonard Susskind's on Fora.tv, who blithely accepted such a speculative approach in response to questions about Paley's Watchmaker analogy and the "irreducible complexity" argument put forward by the "Intelligent Design" camp.
What do I take away from this work? An interesting, historically rich overview of Darwinism as attempted falsification of another theory, and/or a theodicy, full of insights into how the problem of evil vexed the Victorians.
But more importantly, Hunter's book, by its omission, painfully underscores the most pressing issue of modern Christianity. For if, as Hunter argues, Darwinism simply attempts to "falsify" one particular account of creation popular in a particular time, what is the alternative, more rational theory of creation, which can overcome the link between creation's irrationality and the Creator, without drifting into heretical dualism? Hunter doesn't answer that question.
Can anyone?
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Thoughts on Gary Numan
British industrial rocker Gary Numan fascinates me. Not only do I love his deeply engaging and original sound, but some of his works are thought-provoking and powerful.
His "Prayer for the Unborn" (below) is a remarkable statement of dissatisfaction with God, who didn't intervene in the death by miscarriage of Numan's unborn child. Whether you are an atheist (as he is) or not, you can understand the frustration he expresses here. In fact, as this song demonstrates, Numan's atheism seems to be directed at a God who is hearing, but not answering him.
Critics note that Numan, who in his early career struggled with some very derivative work, has finally discovered a unique voice and vision as he wrestles with darker themes.
Gary Numan's official website
His "Prayer for the Unborn" (below) is a remarkable statement of dissatisfaction with God, who didn't intervene in the death by miscarriage of Numan's unborn child. Whether you are an atheist (as he is) or not, you can understand the frustration he expresses here. In fact, as this song demonstrates, Numan's atheism seems to be directed at a God who is hearing, but not answering him.
Critics note that Numan, who in his early career struggled with some very derivative work, has finally discovered a unique voice and vision as he wrestles with darker themes.
Gary Numan's official website
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