Monday, January 26, 2009

Why one should go to bed early

It’s 3.30 am, and I smoke a final cigarette as a bookend to the day. But like all good late night smokes it does not silence thought but encourages it. The day I sought to finalize refuses to die, and difficult questions bombard my mind in a frenzied whirl. My mind is not centered on the specific—tired thoughts do not tend towards the finely grained. They have a habit of calling forth in large sweeping stokes a bigger picture. No monster in the closet, but in its place stands the monstrous thoughts that are hidden from view by the minutia of the day. When all the specific concerns fade, holding no bearing this late, I see the looming giants on the horizon of the mind.

We seek to live our lives authentically and truthfully. No sane person holds on to an obviously wrong opinion or belief. The search for truth demands this evaluation and disposal. Here lies the basic call, to live by truth and reject what is false, but how. If there be an objective truth, an unequivocal right and wrong; one that stands whole and complete even if the world around it collapse and only the cockroaches are let to bear witness, we sit in dire straits. None of us hold truth in it completeness; none of us may stand before the rest and claim that they bear no single falsehood. In that lies the unsettling thing, we are all wrong in some sense. What remains is to identify and purge that falsehood. Who am I to judge? By what right do I declare what is right and wrong? If this were even possible then how could I be ignorant of my own falsehoods? No, by myself there can be no progress. So then I must turn to a standard, a guide. Let it then be my Christian faith, in her lies a path to enumerating what is false, and the wisdom to purge it. So I have stepped back from myself, into a larger perspective in which to judge. But, what of another step back? Doesn’t the very path I choose to let judge me, stem from just that, my choice? I believe that this Faith is correct, I do not know it. Some would say that yes we do know! If so it is a different ‘know’ then required. I do not ‘know’ it to be true, like I know that chair to be there, or like 2x2 is 4, or even like I know my thoughts are troubled. I know through faith, through belief. Don’t I come to that belief in the same way the Hindu or Muslim came to theirs? Not in the practical sense of course, for each life is different, but in the sense that the same epistemic facilities bestowed my belief that gave the other theirs.

Objective truth is hard. Not because it is held fast through existence, but because I am not equipped with the tools to grasp it in pure clarity. I am always preaching of the solid ground from a raft afloat. Objective truth is black and white, but we can only ever with any certainty say that something is grey. Every time I go to declare that finally I have black. I must, if I am honest, recoil by the fact that my reasons can stand on the same grounds as my doubt! I don’t think relativism is appealing because it saves me the discomfort of saying someone else is wrong. It is not appealing because of anything I may say of others, but what it saves me from saying about myself. Objective truth demands a deep pride of me, which proclaims, “I AM RIGHT!” if I cannot proclaim that, then I must say that I am wrong, and dispose of the belief. What way but of arrogance lets me say that? When every belief I have is tainted by subjectivity how am I supposed to apprehend the objective, and so truthfully and without pride claim “I am right!” It is not enough to be convinced, to be persauded, but that is all we seem capable of. I do not want to be convinced, I want to be right.

Friday, January 23, 2009

“He will give you the desires of your heart:” Is God tricking me?

I always took/take courage in Psalm 37’s proclamation: “Trust in the LORD and do good…Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart” (3-4). If I trust God, delight in Him, and do good, He will give me what I desire.

Then one day I reread the sentence differently. [Of course, not knowing the original language and words in Hebrew is problematic here; arguing semantics via translation isn’t too scholarly. But I think that my point remains.] If I trust God, will He give me the object of my desire, or will He give me simply the desire? To make a silly example, if I desired a car, would God give me the car, or would He give me the desire to want a bike instead of a car?

I know this may sound like a silly discussion, but I think it has consequences for how we view ourselves as Christians and humans. When Basil and I were talking one bright day, we came up with a potential answer; but I’m interested in what other people think before I blab on about my own ideas.

Friday, January 16, 2009

It's Easier Just to be Calvinist

Last year, the recently deceased Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ wrote an interesting survey of the evolving Catholic understanding of the possibility of salvation for non-Christians.

Fun quote: Augustine’s disciple Fulgentius of Ruspe exhorted his readers to “firmly hold and by no means doubt that not only all pagans, but also all Jews, and all heretics and schismatics who are outside the Catholic Church, will go to the eternal fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Monday, January 12, 2009

Call me Ignorant and a Heretic, And I'll call you a Pessimist

Well it's been awhile and it's time to get this blog rollin again. I've been thinking and talking alot about a certain issue which has been convicting me more and more, and I think its time for me to write it down and face the critics. I promise not to get upset if you poke fun at my idea; I'll just stop talking to you...nothing personal. So without further ado, here is my first shot at writing down my idea. I will try to be concise and unambiguious with my choice of words, though we all know how hard that is, especially to the philosophically ignorant, i.e. me.


If I had to give my idea a thesis statement, it would be this: Man can follow almost any religion and find salvation. Note: I am not saying that "Man through almost any religion can find salvation." I don't believe that. And for the sake of brevity, I will just say that I don't believe that because I don't think one finds salvation due to the inherent truths of most religions; that would be a hard position to justify. Rather, it may be by the nature of the person's search for truth in which they find salvation, and there are alot of people out there with a lot of different beliefs. And yes, they can all find happiness together somewhere upon the clouds in the afterlife, together; peace and love.


So the first thing I need to address is Truth. I believe in objective truth, that is, there is an absolute right and God is probably the only one who knows it. Man, as subjects, live as moral agents, therefore follow subjective truths. (I'll find better wording for that later). But to make it all clear, I will rely on my proven artistic talents. I've supplied you with a stunning, elaberate visual which will hopefully help as I move along.

1. Indicated by the finely detailed column in the middle (shame the shrunk size makes it only look like a slightly thicker black line...oh well), that is Objective Truth, the foundation of our moral existence.

2. All the other smaller lines represent man's attempt to capture this truth, some closer and some farther (which ones contain 'more' truth is not really the point)

3. There are some hell-in-a-handbasket religions out there where those who follow it never really come close to finding objective truth being that the religion is such an overwhelming hinderance, like the followers of Stephanie Meyer. Twilight is retarded and if you're reading this blog, I pity your soul.

4. For all you Shintoists reading this, my sincerist apologies. You can hang out with Steph, there's some room over there.


Now that we've efficiently and thoroughly defined objective and subjective truth, let's move on. The one thing I believe with my whole heart is that we must follow our our conscience first and formost above all else. The Catechism agrees with me so I don't feel too alone way out in left field. However, this freedom comes with the great responsibility of forming our conscience as best we can; maybe the greatest burden we as humans endure. Incidentally, this is why the Church believes that those who are not believers can be saved. How unfair would God be if he expected an isolated human to figure out the mysteries of the Church all by his lonesome, never even hearing of Christ.


Lastly, I would like to use my faith (Catholicism) as an example, but for the sake of argument, you can simply use your own (if your religion allows for that), and now I will come across really narrow-minded to prove a point. I believe that Roman Catholic Church is synonomous with objective truth, that is Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Therefore, I as a subject, am in a position to discover much of the this Truth since I am on the truest path, giving me the best chance of doing what's right, and achieving salvation. However, even as a Catholic (assuming it really is objective truth), I am still prone to doing wrong, and consequenatially, my will could never perfectly be God's will. Therefore, me as a person, and just because I am human, have already slipped off the afore mentioned finely detailed column. Damn. But we as limited moral agents will never fully discover and understand everything, and even the holiest of people have done wrong, however miniscule it may be. So the main point here is that what matters most (though not exclusively) is how much we try to find truth. (PS: I'm sorry if I've way over-simplified the Church's process of salvation. My bad.)


Now given what I've written, I am following Catholicism because I believe it is Truth, but I will be judged not by necessarily what I believe in, but rather that fact that I believe it is Truth! This means that the faithful Hindu could be better off than I am (and I admit from personal experience this may be true...). Because in the end, if one seeks Truth with their whole heart, I believe God will certainly reward them no matter how much they got right. And for those who seek truth, in the end, one will strip themselves of any pride and will see and accept Truth itself in whatever Objective Form it really is. So if the real Truth turns out to be Buddha, than my search for Truth even in the Catholic faith will have prepared me and formed my subjective conscience enough to know the objective Truth when I see it when the veil is pulled back, i.e., when I'm dead.


By the way, I'm not taking credit for the this idea and think it's original lol. I just don't know who exactly has written something like this. I'm told Kierkegaard has written something similar....

Anyway, I'm sure you have an objection here or there, but I would like to pose the first. Given what I have said, and I admit it could be explained better, an objection can be made regarding sincerity of seeking truth. In other words, it seems plausible to say that if someone truly is seeking Truth (let's assume the Church is still #1 ...not that I'm biased or anything) and came across the Church and her teachings, how could they not see it at some point in their lifetime? It seems odd to say a genuine truth seeker could stand right in front of what he's looking for, turn away from it, but still find salvation and reconcile later. Hmm, good question. I have my opinion, but I'd rather here yours.