If there's one thing I cannot stand about theologians, it's how removed they often are from ordinary life. On one level, it's easy to see that the priest, who is taken care of financially by the diocese, who is not married, who spends all day studying theology and whose every move is checked and instructed by the Church, cannot truly relate to most of his parish on many levels. But this is a topic for another day and, perhaps another rant (as a theology student, it can be extremely frustrating knowing that there's no money to be made in theology, so while I put myself in debt there's no financial pay-off while people in religious orders often get tuition and living expenses covered).
What I mean to say is that often the things we talk about in theology classrooms are so far removed from both comprehensibility and practicality that it seems like we're talking for our own benefits. I've had plenty of professors who seem to just enjoy the sound of their voices. So the problem is, I think, twofold. First, I think there's a problem of actually seeing how what we're studying has any real application. Luckily, since I study at the School of Theology and MINISTRY, there are a lot of ministers in my classes who make the professors aware of this problem. Additionally, in moral theology classes, at least, the very subject matter is of such a nature that it is supposed to be directly applicable. While there is a lot of talk of theory and formulae, moral theology is really where the aetherial musings of theologians materialize. Abortion, gay marriage, suicide, euthanasia, politics, work and wages, the plight of the poor--essentially the actual happenings in the lives of the faithful--are the real topics of moral debate.
The second problem, however, is much harder to address and fix. Theologians often like to use and incorporate language that is often confusing and usually unnecessary. Then, they often use the terms as if they're obvious when, in fact, they often mean different things depending on the person.
Take, for example, objectivity and subjectivity, two terms which, I believe, were started by the ever-so-confusing German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Objectivity, in one usage, means what is actually the case. Subjectivity, on the other hand, is "just your opinion." However, another usage of objectivity is looking towards the object, in other words "your perspective" and another usage of subjectivity is looking towards oneself, in other words "introspection." However, rather than using terms that are much easier to remember and follow, theologians often opt to interchange objectivity and subjectivity in such a way that one finds himself reading the same passage multiple times to tease out the meaning only to realize at the end that the solution was simple and just confusingly worded.
One of my roommates, in her zeal to show her enthusiasm for Systematic Theology purchased a fridge magnet with one of those quotes on it, the kind that normally are supposed to either inspire, comfort or amuse. On the magnet was a quote from Bernard Lonnergan, a Jesuit theologian, and the quote said, "Objectivity is the genuine fruit of subjectivity." While I would first rather have something like a quote about teamwork posted on my fridge rather than some out of context quote that means nothing to the average person, I decided to actually ponder the meaning. It seems to me that what is meant by this quote is that objectivity, according to my first definition, is the result of subjectivity, according to the second definition. In other words, seeing the way something is happens when we practice introspection. I don't know about the other readers out there, but I would rather read something like that as an inspirational quote over "Objectivity is the genuine fruit of subjectivity" any day.
but those borrowed philosophical terms aren't even the extent of it. Within theology, especially "systematics" (already NOT a self-apparent term) there are several smaller branches whose meanings are just as cryptic or non-apparent. There's ecclesiology, or the way the Church runs, soteriology, or how we're saved, christology, or Jesus and the Trinity, apologetics, or defending the faith, eschatology, or the end times, exegesis, or interpreting Scripture, and others. Most of the terms are fanciful but unnecessary. It's almost as if theologians feel the need to come up with specific terms for anything that they might find interesting just in order to give it more credibility as a discipline. The problem, of course, comes when one tries to actually relate it to anybody who hasn't studied theology for years.
Then, of course, the terms get put into buzz-word formulas. In business meetings one might hear, "We need to actuate more synergy by cooperative endeavors" but in theology it's even more confusing. One of my professors this week made a joke about St Paul and stated, "His christology is his soteriology." Would it not be much easier to simply say, "He believed our salvation was only through Christ?" Another professor of mine gave a homily today in which he stated we need to make the subjunctive into the indicative. Not only was that a reference that only a theologian would understand, but he would also have to be grammatically familiar with a language that has both subjunctive and indicative like Latin. It occurred to me that the priest, God bless him, was trying more to impress with his knowledge of grammar and the liturgy than he was trying to give an actual lesson.
Alasdair MacIntyre, no small name in his own right, once said in a class that one should not pretend to have mastered a concept until he can explain it to his grandmother who only has a third grade education. This seems quite applicable, as I can't even understand some of what these elite professors are talking about, even with a grad student's level of understanding.
The cultured despisers of the world often criticize theists for being ignorant and uneducated. Truth be told, most of the theologians I have met have been legions more intelligent than the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Charles Dawkins, Samuel Dennet et al. How, though, is anybody in the world supposed to know this when we theologians use overinflated language and tend to confuse rather than explain. I'm not saying the content needs to be watered down or lightened, heaven forbid, but rather that rather than using bombastic terms like "objectivity" or "soteriology," why is it that we cannot actually say what we mean?
Showing posts with label Kant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kant. Show all posts
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Ethos (parvae animae II ex III)
The appeal to the Ethos is partly one of the most shameful tactics that is widely used today, but also one of the most popular. I, myself, have appealed to the Ethos in some of my blog pieces.
The Ethos is the part of us that is who we are. It is our character, our morals, ethics, what we identify ourselves with and as. The word ethics is derived from Ethos. And our Ethos is called upon every day when we make decisions that demonstrate our loyalties and the groups with whom we associate.
Radio talk show hosts are some of the most Ethos oriented rhetoricians around. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage all call on their listeners to adopt certain beliefs and attitudes based on their political standing. Their particular brand of conservatism is recommended to all conservatives based on their identification as conservatives.
Patriotism too, is definitely an area of great Ethical appeal. We watch movies and read books about how great being America is. We justify our belacose actions by stating that those who don't like war are un-American. We have bumper stickers that tell us to support our wars and our corrupt politicians. Country artists tell us that putting "a boot up [terrorists' (or possibly just Middle Easterners')] ass is the American way."
Rhetoricians of ancient days did the same thing. King Leonidas appealed to the Spartans as Spartans to stand against the Persians. The Crusades appealed to Christians' sense of Christianity to wage war against the Muslims. Cicero himself often started his speeches with the phrase "Friends, Romans, country men" appealing to their national identity to attract their attention and sway their opinions.
Preachers and ministers today use Ethos as well. We rally upon people's sense of Christianity (which I myself have done), and ask them to do things unquestioningly because of this (which I try to avoid). When the phrase "as Christians" is used in a sermon or homily, we automatically feel duty-bound towards it.
But, this, of course, can have many negative implications. Last night, as I was speaking with Alexa on the phone, we discussed Evangelism and the many implications that have arisen with it. Many are the Christians who view themselves as Evangelicals and who unquestioningly follow the commands of their pastors. Jerry Falwell will say something like "as Christians we must prepare for the final days by preparing Jerusalem," and his congregation will send money to extremist militant Zionist factions for this exact purpose. Other congregations will protest anything that aids in the homosexual rights campaign because they're leaders tell them to "as Christians."
Truly, the worst part of Ethos is that it is mindless devotion. Pathos is served by our instincts and feelings, but Ethos is only defined by who we think that we are. As an American I might think that it is most important to support our battles. Even though it may not make sense to say that our soldiers who are in a completely foreign, far off country are fighting for our freedom, as an American I am appealed to in order to garner my support. My sense of Americanism is greater than my sense of logic.
Similarly, the question of ethics arose during the Englightenment. When Christianity lost its control of some peoples (the French most specifically), then on what authority should we follow the morals and ethics we have been taught to follow? Our sense of Christianity no longer applies, so why should we love our neighbor or do good to them who abuse us?
I think, as many philosophers, including Kierkegaard, Hume and Kant, that our sense of morals is not rooted in our belief, but in something greater.
Similarly, I think that we should not let ourselves be told to follow certain idealogies because of with whom we associate, but rather that we should apply more logic to our decisions and actions. If we truly identify ourselves as Christians, we should, in fact, follow the teachings of Jesus, but not without logical discussion and inquiry. Otherwise, we are liable to be swayed by any man or woman who claims to be an authority on Christian duty.
The Ethos is the part of us that is who we are. It is our character, our morals, ethics, what we identify ourselves with and as. The word ethics is derived from Ethos. And our Ethos is called upon every day when we make decisions that demonstrate our loyalties and the groups with whom we associate.
Radio talk show hosts are some of the most Ethos oriented rhetoricians around. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage all call on their listeners to adopt certain beliefs and attitudes based on their political standing. Their particular brand of conservatism is recommended to all conservatives based on their identification as conservatives.
Patriotism too, is definitely an area of great Ethical appeal. We watch movies and read books about how great being America is. We justify our belacose actions by stating that those who don't like war are un-American. We have bumper stickers that tell us to support our wars and our corrupt politicians. Country artists tell us that putting "a boot up [terrorists' (or possibly just Middle Easterners')] ass is the American way."
Rhetoricians of ancient days did the same thing. King Leonidas appealed to the Spartans as Spartans to stand against the Persians. The Crusades appealed to Christians' sense of Christianity to wage war against the Muslims. Cicero himself often started his speeches with the phrase "Friends, Romans, country men" appealing to their national identity to attract their attention and sway their opinions.
Preachers and ministers today use Ethos as well. We rally upon people's sense of Christianity (which I myself have done), and ask them to do things unquestioningly because of this (which I try to avoid). When the phrase "as Christians" is used in a sermon or homily, we automatically feel duty-bound towards it.
But, this, of course, can have many negative implications. Last night, as I was speaking with Alexa on the phone, we discussed Evangelism and the many implications that have arisen with it. Many are the Christians who view themselves as Evangelicals and who unquestioningly follow the commands of their pastors. Jerry Falwell will say something like "as Christians we must prepare for the final days by preparing Jerusalem," and his congregation will send money to extremist militant Zionist factions for this exact purpose. Other congregations will protest anything that aids in the homosexual rights campaign because they're leaders tell them to "as Christians."
Truly, the worst part of Ethos is that it is mindless devotion. Pathos is served by our instincts and feelings, but Ethos is only defined by who we think that we are. As an American I might think that it is most important to support our battles. Even though it may not make sense to say that our soldiers who are in a completely foreign, far off country are fighting for our freedom, as an American I am appealed to in order to garner my support. My sense of Americanism is greater than my sense of logic.
Similarly, the question of ethics arose during the Englightenment. When Christianity lost its control of some peoples (the French most specifically), then on what authority should we follow the morals and ethics we have been taught to follow? Our sense of Christianity no longer applies, so why should we love our neighbor or do good to them who abuse us?
I think, as many philosophers, including Kierkegaard, Hume and Kant, that our sense of morals is not rooted in our belief, but in something greater.
Similarly, I think that we should not let ourselves be told to follow certain idealogies because of with whom we associate, but rather that we should apply more logic to our decisions and actions. If we truly identify ourselves as Christians, we should, in fact, follow the teachings of Jesus, but not without logical discussion and inquiry. Otherwise, we are liable to be swayed by any man or woman who claims to be an authority on Christian duty.
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