Nihilism vs Mysticism (revisited)

This piece probably should have been written in September or October at the latest. Two months ago, a 35 year-old man dressed in all white on Yom Kippur, walked up the stairs of Harvard Memorial Church shot himself in the temple with a silver revolver in front of a group of tourists. This, however, was not some sort of spectacle or art piece. It was, in fact, a statement, but it was a statement that concluded his 1905 page Magnum Opus, a book he entitled Suicide Note. Essentially, the piece is a Nihilistic anthem, an explanation of why the world is absurd and why life is not worth living.
I find myself resonating with his words. I feel he found a truth. In that, I admire him. However, what I find tragic is not that he felt this way, but that while he found a truth, he did not find the truth.
The truth he found was follows thusly. He argued that if all value systems (moral theories, philosophies and religions) are equally plausible, than none have precedence. If none have precedence, then all are equally right, and just as equally wrong. If all have equal value to them, then there is no single truth and every attempt to explain life worth is just as wrong as any other. If this is the case, then life has no real inherent value. Thus, there is no value in actually living and the only truth comes in not living.
I find his reasoning and his logic completely valid. However, where he and I would differ is that I reject his first claim. I don't think all value systems are equal. As a Catholic and as a Theologian, I think that some (particularly Christian theologies) have more precedence over others. Thus, my argument for the value of human life stems from a Christian understanding of life, salvation, faith, hope, the eschaton and God's Providence.
Both his position and mine are very controversial positions to take today. Very few people today would agree with him in saying that human life is devoid of intrinsic value, but similarly, the upper echelon of society would also reject my premise that human value lies in our relation to God. The sister of Mitchell Heisman, the suicide, said that had she known her brother was intending to commit suicide, she would have tried to convince him otherwise. She would have tried to convince him to make his own value for life. This is a position I find that many people take up today. She went on to admit, however, that he probably knew she would do that and thus never told her. Heisman's choice was not made because nobody had tried to convince him to make value of his life. Rather, it was the ultimate realization that making value for oneself is lying. This would be well for many, but his goal was to find truth, and accepting a lie for truth would not have satisfied him. He had come to the critical Nihilism vs Mysticism moment, and found that the competition of differing mysticisms left him with only the choice of abject Nihilism.
At this point, I would like to try to reconstruct how it is that a position like Heisman's becomes possible in our modern culture as well as how his sister's position becomes socially acceptable though logically absurd.
Heisman noted the pluralism of value systems. In our post-Reformation, post-Enlightenment, globalized society, there is almost no end to the value systems appropriated by people around us. In Medieval Europe, all were Catholics, with the exception of the Jews who were relegated to a lower status in society. Even post-Reformation, regions generally remained homogenous with a sect rather than accepting multiple religions in the region. Today, in large cities like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles we often encounter on a daily basis people who are Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and even Taoist. People follow Kant's Universal Law or Utilitarianism. There is no end to the systems one can follow, including agnosticism and atheism, arguably non-systems (which, in itself, makes them systems, though not very systematic).
Furthermore, our society has lost the original sense of value. In place of quality, quantity has become the norm. Rather than speaking of inherency or universality, we have changed our view point to an emphasis on quantity and empiricism. Post-Enlightenment thought has led us to value not only what can be empirically proven, but what is popular. This Age of Democracy that we live in insists that something is right because we say it is. While I have decried the risk in place in this thinking in the last couple pieces, it should suffice to say that today we often think that something can only actually said to be right if there is unanimity, or at least something close to that.
At this point, we have enough to understand the situation. With value pluralism being a reality in our culture as well as the divergence of opinion and adherence to different systems, we wind up in a relativistic culture. The relativistic culture makes the following claim: "There are many ways that people follow for understanding value in their life. A definitive acceptance or rejection of a system would show that it is wrong. Very few systems are widely rejected (such as Satanism or extreme fundamentalism) and very few systems are widely accepted (such as patriotism and rights-based morality), thus most cannot be shown to be either resoundingly right nor resoundingly wrong. Thus, most have equal plausibility and their acceptance or rejection is a matter of mere personal preference."
Many people today live by a credo that mimics or mirrors the previously set out philosophy. Generally, it is the excuse adhered to for doing whatever somebody wishes to do. The excuse is that he or she did not see the act as wrong and the fact that someone else does is merely a matter of the value systems they both accept and reject. This eliminates universal right and wrong except in extreme cases (such as rape, and murder). However, this is a bad ethic. No good (not in the sense of morally good but in the sense of reasonable or rational) ethicist has ever taken a relativist stance, not even the antichristian Friedrich Nietzsche. "Pure relativism" is a sham, a cop-out for hedonism. It is the new opiate of the people--an seemingly rational philosophy that allows people to do what they please with no dire consequence.
Heisman realized that relativism is a sham. Perhaps we might declare him one of the few pure relativists. He plainly saw that if all systems have equally viable claims to truth, then there is no real truth and life has no real value except for a lie. The tragedy of Mitchell Hesiman was not that he did not understand the value of life as much as it was that he understood what few other relativists have the courage to admit--that if all is equal, then all is valueless.
This, then, is where I assert the value of Christianity. Though this is deserving of an entire apologetic, suffice it to say for now that even this claim is a difficult one to make. The Catholic Church, since Vatican II, has tried to acknowledge the inherent value of other value systems, but at the same time it has always maintained that it solely has claim to predominance. One might ask, "What gives you the right?" The simple answer to that is that someone NEEDS to claim that right. A look at apologetics, including Ss Thomas Aquinas and Augustine and Blessed John Cardinal Newman, will answer this question better than I can or will, but the point is that IF no one does claim the right, then, rationally, logically, we are forced to make the same tragic conclusion that Mitchell Heisman made.

Too Pious?

I attended a Protestant service today. It was a departure from the way Mass is celebrated.
Rather than genuflecting, we just sat down. There was no holy water to cross ourselves and no one bowed at the altar. We began, not with a blessing or a song, but with a rockin' rendition of some hymn I'd never heard before.
I was reminded just how different Catholicism was practically from Mormonism. Mormons show up for meetings and just sit down. and talk to people around them. They don't really stand up or sit down a whole lot and there are no responses during the service. There really are no readings to speak of, and the communion, though lauded as being the central focus of the meeting, is carried out in so quick a manner that nobody really pays attention. Two to three lay people will be asked to deliver sermons, and they will, usually to the best of their ability (or with only five minutes of prep time before the meeting). All manner of church business will be conducted before communion, usually distracting people. Kids will be crying, old men will be snoring, children will be drawing or texting or some other activity, and everybody will be hot because the AC doesn't work. Any music numbers consist of an organ, or possibly a piano or choir number between speakers.
Catholicism, however, is very big into its ceremony and sacramentals. We cross ourselves walking into the church. We genuflect before sitting down at the altar. We stand and sit and give responses. The readings are often read by lay people while the gospel and homily are done by the priest or deacon. The Eucharist is done at the end of the service with fully half of Mass devoted to the mystery of the Flesh and Blood of Christ. People are less likely to doze off because of all the constant position changing, though a few will snooze during the homily. Mass is only an hour, as opposed to Mormon's three hours of church meetings, making it more endurable for the unwilling attenders. Music is usually more traditional, with either a piano or organ, or possibly a small band, though with only accoustic instruments.
Even the more traditional Protestant churches I've attended place much less emphasis on ceremony and tradition. People just walk in, talking and sharing with each other. There are no procedures for bowing or sitting, but people do rise for readings and sermons are usually done by the minister. But the minister is not a priest, and the Communion is not viewed with the same reverence and respect as the Eucharist. Usually there's a full band, including electric guitars and basses and keyboards. Where the crossing and genuflecting is absent, however, other forms of worship are present. People stand during songs, hands outstretched and eyes closed in worship. People shout glorious alleluias and amens during sermons.
So I wonder what it is to be pious and reverent in worship. Is it dancing in the aisle? Is it Gregorian chanting? Is it abject silence as a peer reads a pre-written sermon? In my mind, worship needs to be somehow disconnected from the mundane world we live in. Our individual actions and habits we associate with worship need to be seperated from what we do at parties.
Do we talk too loudly at our services? Do we distract ourselves with the gossip of our friends and neighbors? Does the worship music distract us? Are we conducting ourselves in such a manner that we know we are in a worship service?
I find it quite fascinating to see the ways in which worship has changed over the last 2000 years. In the early days, as detailed by writers like Egeria, services would last hours, sometimes all day long. While I seriously doubt that many people today have the patience to sit through such a long liturgy, it is interesting to note that they did back then. However, we can also infer that aside from strict worship, the service also sought to entertain. We also read from Paul that when members got together for the Lord's Supper, they often gorged themselves as if they were strictly there for the food (1 Corinthians 11:21-22).
Over time, the Church moved from lengthy, entertaining services to shorter, worship focused liturgy. With developing theology, Mass shortened to focus more on the liturgical, worshipful aspects rather than the grandiose rhetoric and theater.
Then, during the Reformation an interesting thing happened. The Roman Church changed its liturgy to a more Baroque style with ornate art and gothic architecture. Many of the Protestant Churches, the Reformers and Anglicans especially, traded the ornamentation for simplistic, bare-walled worship, often with no music. The Protestants sought simplistic worship, with the scripture being the beginning and end. The Catholics, with their tradition and Tradition, held onto the images of saints and the writings and songs of the doctors and theologians.
As time went on, Catholicism made few changes, until Vatican II. Then, the liturgy was changed to vernacular, the priest faced the congregation for Eucharist and hymns were modernized. However, even these changes couldn't parallel the radical changes American Protestantism. In exchange for the melancholy tones of yesteryear, Christian rock bands take the stage. Where hellfire and damnation were once preached from the pulpit, today it's love for Jesus. Shame has been traded for ambition and the angry preacher for the happy-go-lucky minister.
It can be hard to decide what form of worship to adhere to. Do we stick to the old ways of yesteryear, full of bowing, crossing, genuflecting and chanting? Do we get with today's contemporary worship with rock bands, bible study, youth ministers, and interactive sermons? Or do we go with the silent adoration with no signals, no prostrations or ornamentation? Whatever way we decide to worship, the most important aspect of it is our understanding it as worship and our utilizing it as such.