Thought Wars

I was recently challenged to defend the legitimacy of Faith in light of the challenges of the modern science and the secular world. While making a series of arguments, a disconnect seemed to form. Those querying me began retorting using arguments which I thought I had just finished talking about, and I quickly realized I was obfuscating the matter more than illuminating it. As such, I felt the best course of action would be to attempt to put it down in writing. What follows may appear to be a jumbled conglomeration of thoughts, but I feel it may be of value to flatly state a number of my thoughts so that future (or past) posts may be clearer. I may choose to elaborate on each of these later, but for now, I will try to keep my comments concise.

I presuppose the existence of a reality outside of my own being. Many post-modern conceptions of epistemology (how we know what we know, what is knowledge) border on solipsism, which essentially means that since we can only view things from our own perspective, and can only truly prove our own personal existence, that only I am real. This is the most extreme expression of Protagoras' assertion that "man is the measure of all things." Not only is humanity the starting point, but I as an individual human am the central point of reality. In my view, any given person is relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of existence: the universe existed before me, it will exist after me, and no part of it is dependent on me for existence.

Second, while imperfect, our senses are essentially accurate means by which we may learn about the universe we live in. Many would argue that even if there is a reality, our ability to comprehend it is so limited that any attempt to understand actual existence is futile. While I would be willing to concede that our understanding is somewhat limited, and we should be willing to admit that our knowledge is virtually never absolute, it seems to be senseless to abandon all hope of intelligent interaction with reality. A second corollary to this assertion is that our experiences may at times be as legitimate as the rules we assume to govern reality. The ancient Greeks generated general, consistent understandings of reality and then tried to fit all of their experience into that neat little pre-determined package. I would argue that experiences which do not fit within our understanding of reality should not be discarded as illusions, but instead used as potentially valuable information to re-evaluate our understanding of the world.

I acknowledge that faith and reason are different, though I do not believe they are incompatible or extensively contradictory. As reason is traditionally described, utilized and understood, I believe a fairly relevant graph of their implications would look something like this. Human reason can only run tangent to the leap of faith. Much of Greek philosophy gets to this point: acknowledging the existence of some ultimate concept which could be called god. However, the closest reason can come is the notion that there must be something greater than what we see around us. Only the Divine revealing the nature of the Divine to us allows us to pass into the realm of faith. I would like to note that this graph, and my explanation of it, is based on a common understanding of what constitutes reason that I do not necessarily consider entirely accurate. I consider the binary logic of the West, based on early Greek thought, painfully limiting. From my own personal experience, as someone who can claim a real conversion story, reason changes when synthesized with faith. Religious experiences, when millions of people around the world share them, are no less meaningful than experiences of what we consider traditional 'natural' phenomena.

On this topic of synthesis, I wholly embrace the dialectical synthesis of understanding. By this, I mean that most of the binary conflicts we encounter (i.e. reason versus faith, creativity versus law, etc.) can be melded together into a cogent concept which includes the essential components of both. This is not a mechanical process which simply takes half an half, resulting in a completely erratic and self-contradictory concept, but a wholly reconstructive event, fundamentally altering the entire argument. Kierkegaard discusses this in terms of human development, splitting our mentality into three stages, representing the dominant ideologies of the time. The first stage, the aesthetic, was the mid 19th century European romantic mentality, wherein life was a sensate activity. The Aesthetic stage focuses on individualism, creativity, autonomy and intense emotionalism. Stage two, called the Ethical, was applied to the more conservative legalism of the bourgeoisie. This stage emphasizes community, order, law and rationalism. Synthesizing these very distinct ideologies produces what Kierkegaard labeled the Religious. The icon of the Religious stage is Abraham, the accepted pinnacle of faith of all three major monotheistic religions of the world. When ordered to sacrifice his son Isaac, he brings his son to the appointed locations and prepares to kill the heir to his legacy. At the last moment, when he is about to strike the killing blow, God stops him, commands him to release his son and in place sacrifice a nearby ram. The question at hand: Did Abraham sin in his willingness to sacrifice his son? According to the aesthetic, there really is no such thing as sin, and while it may have been a painful experience which should not have been done, ultimate judgment would amount entirely to the suffering incurred on himself. The ethical would claim that the call to sacrifice the son was entirely sin, and at no point could be justified. Neither seems to describe the situation. Instead, the result seems to be much more complex than either. Murder is wrong, as is child sacrifice, but what is wrong is wrong at God's behest, and following God comes first. What is wrong is therefore a much more fluid concept, not fitting into either earlier scope. The fundamental problem with this type of synthesis is that the final product cannot be understood by anyone who does not hold the synthesis as their own outlook. Because the synthesis produces something that is fundamentally different than either original doctrine, it is generally incomprehensible to those who are trapped in the preceding dichotomy. Kierkegaard himself admitted that he did not feel he had made it to the Religious stage, instead remaining trapped in the Ethical. While the idea of dialectical synthesis is inherently elitist, this is not the intention of the system, but rather an unfortunate side effect.

I'll hopefully post a few more of these disjointed components shortly. Until then, God bless.