This will be the third and last article written in response to secular humanism, at least the last one for a little while. I've been thinking a lot about this issue and I still consider those attempts to be laudable. However, I can't claim to be very convinced by the philosophy, and in many ways, I often express that, for all its faults, religion offers a better alternative in the sense that it maintains and almost asserts the problem of evil but still promises that evil will be overcome in the end. You might rightly consider such a thing to be wishful thinking and you have a strong case for it, but the reason why I'm a pessimist is because neither of these solutions to the problem of evil convince me. I'm not convinced by the truth claims of religion, neither am I convinced by the virtues of secular humanism. Ironically, I almost wanna say that it's atheists who refuse to acknowledge the problem of evil... And as far as christianity in particular goes, I have to say that, from a philosophical standpoint, it seems to be the only system of ethics that takes pessimism seriously. It does so all throughout the New Testament, but for the sake of this article, and without further ado, I will focus on John 16.
These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. – verses 1-4
That is how the chapter, which is almost entirely comprised of red-letter text, begins. It opens with one short sentence of comfort and then in the very next verse, Jesus goes right for the jugular. Things will be tough, being a disciple will not be an easy job, and if that saying can be called a prophecy, which it seems to be, regardless of one's religious beliefs, then it would mean that Jesus is right away addressing pessimism. Life will indeed suck, there will be a lot of torment and suffering, everyone will have to carry his or her own cross, something that, in my personal view, is greatly lacking in our modern day, myself included. This lack of a cross seems like a good thing though, but it really isn't, because what derives from that, almost logically, is that a life without suffering will be a life without meaning. I suppose that would be the natural birth of nihilism.
Instead of vain words, instead of saying that everything will be okay if the disciples do this or do that, Jesus promises them that they will be persecuted and that their lives will not get any easier, in fact, they will get much worse. Jesus claims he has not told them about such unpleasant things because he was in their midst, the disciples didn't need those words because the Word itself was with them. But now the crucifixion draws near, and though the chapter seems quite pessimistic in tone, Jesus offers it almost as a pep talk...
But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. – verses 5-7
This is perhaps a good example of the christian idea of finding meaning through suffering. Indeed, the world cannot be without suffering, but maybe that makes you dislike how God created the world. If so then maybe you'd rather live in a world without suffering. In response to that, the religious often claim that free will has to exist so that we can choose God freely, and for that reason, evil is allowed to exist. I have heard atheists, such as myself, swiftly deny that argument by saying instead that he'd much rather be a happy mindless robot than a sad thinking human. In many ways I still hold to that idea, but I have also heard the new and improved version of the free will defense from the late Ravi Zacharias, which, being paraphrased, essentially holds that this world, in which we have the freedom to choose good and evil, is the only world in which love is possible. Ravi continues – God, in giving us freedom, gave us the greatest possible gift we could ever have, with the greatest possible vulnerability at the same time.
So love has to be freely given and freely taken, and somewhere in between, judgment and mercy fight their eternal battle. Jesus' death is an act of justice in the sense that he is judged and rightly condemned, though not for his own sins, but for the sins of the world. Perhaps sin is a thing that can't simply go away, there can be no redemption without atonement, a sacrifice simply has to be made. And to pay for the sins of the world, one mere lamb wouldn't quite cut it, hence, it had to be the Lamb of God. Through his sacrifice we witness all the wicked forms that judgment can take, all the pain and anguish and blood. It's almost as if the crucifixion itself is the Old Testament reborn... But then comes mercy. Jesus goes through the suffering that, in his human nature, he prayed would be taken away from him. One might say his prayer wasn't answered, after all, the Father didn't bail him out. Jesus had to willingly accept the cross, otherwise the Comforter would not have been sent unto us. It's almost as if, for good or bad, nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing in this world is ever free. It all comes at a cost, and sooner or later the taxman comes knocking.
A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. – verse 16
Jesus ends the first half of the speech with that cryptic line that the disciples try to decipher amongst themselves. I suppose because we know the ending of the book the meaning of the line is made fairly simple – Jesus will be taken, condemned, crucified and killed, however, he will return after what, though a great torment for the disciples, is described by himself as no more than a little while. I suppose compared to eternity itself, our lives are indeed a mere blip... But for the disciples none of that made any sense, namely this idea that their prophet, the Messiah who would tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days, would actually be taken and killed way before his time, leaving behind all that wasted potential. But that is yet another instance in which christianity doesn't shy away from pessimism. Like Jesus says in Matthew 26:53-54, if he wanted he could have changed the course of everything, if he wanted, instead of an unjust trial, a wicked torture and a hideous death, he could have snapped his fingers and avoided all that. And isn't that the atheist's dream? That things in this world would just magically become absolutely perfect? Well, christianity doesn't promise that. Jesus asserts pessimism in the sense that, some things, for a little while, will have to be painful. But it's not all bad because...
Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. – verses 20-24
Now is the moment when Jesus reverses his rhetoric style. Yes, things will be terrible, the disciples will weep and lament, they will cry and wonder why things are the way they are, but Jesus promises that one day all that sorrow will be worth it, and even better, it will be turned to joy. The birthing analogy thus fits exceedingly well regarding human nature. We spend our lives doing all kinds of difficult things when we could instead do the absolute minimum and spend as much time as possible just lying in bed, or even worse, we could do whatever we feel like, regardless of other people and their well-being... So why don't we? Why does lying in bed all day feel so bad? Why do we covet sins like sloth and yet, when we freely indulge in them they don't bring us any joy, at least not for any longer than a little while? Why do we strive towards doing something that we willingly accept is tough, that we willingly accept will hurt and cost a great deal and take a whole lot of effort and blood? Because we are absolutely convinced that, in the end, it will all be worth it. All that pain will be worth it, that we just know. And with the same strength we also know, or at least some of us believe, that those sins will one day have to be accounted for.
But in secular humanism how do we really know that it will be worth it in the end when there is no end? Why should I continue in my ancestor's footsteps? Why should I care about my descendants with no ontological density? Why should I care about my neighbor? Regardless of my contingent quality of life, what is it that binds us together and gives meaning to suffering? Life as we know it becomes a series of spirals, a series of ever-shifting paradigms. We think we are correct one day only to be proven wrong the next. There is no revelation, no one is afforded a road to Damascus moment. It's all uncertain and made up as we go along.
Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. – verses 32-33
Lastly, the verses that end the chapter, and the verses that inspired me to write this article. Jesus announces that the time for the cross draws near, the time when all he worked to build will be struck, all his disciples will be scattered like lost sheep, too afraid and too powerless to prevent their shepherd's death. So Jesus is being thrown into his worst moment, the worst time of his life, but he knows he will not go alone, he knows the Father will always be with him. Thus he will have the Comforter's comfort wherever he goes and whatever happens. Again, this may be wishful thinking, it may be a fantasy, but how can secular humanism live without a similar faith? It can't truly live, secular humanism can only survive, contingently as everything else. If it isn't a fantasy though, then christianity offers a constant guidance and the assurance that, even in the worst of times, you are not alone.
Then Jesus ends his speech by claiming that in his words, and more importantly, in him, their followers can have peace. Yet in the world they will always have suffering. Jesus is completely opposed to the world because, as he so often said, he is not of this world. The world will always be as it is, suffering appears to be built into the very essence of the world. To build a world without it seems impossible. As Dostoyevsky said, even if we did live in a perfect utopia we'd eventually ruin it because of how boring a utopia becomes. It's that sloth thing again, we can never be truly happy for too long. You are sad because you want something, whatever that something may be, and when you do achieve it, you get all happy. But before you know it, and though you still have that something, you discover that your happiness has faded from you. How can you claim to be miserable because you're not a millionaire when, in all likelihood, you are far richer than most people? How confident are you that if you were given all that you need right now, with no effort, you'd be absolutely happy forever?
The very last verse then holds the key to the whole chapter, and maybe to all christianity. The idea here isn't to fix the world forever, that might as well be a fool's errand. The idea is that a world in which everything is perfect isn't the world, it would be heaven. And the world wasn't made to fix, not quite like that... it was made to overcome. It's just easy to forget such a thing when times are good. And in many ways, the whole Bible is no more than that – it's the story of how human beings plead for God when they are suffering but forget God when they are happy. If you have a nice, cozy house, if you live surrounded by like-minded neighbors, if you go to college with easy-going friends, if, all things considered, your life has no major problems, if you own the world, or at least your own bit of the world, then what need do you have for God?... I think atheism was born at perhaps the tail-end of some good times and as such, we concluded God was useless. But what if all of the good stuff is taken away from us as it happened to Job? What reason will we then have to rebuild? Maybe that's the worst-case scenario but is it that apocalyptic to bring up the worst-case scenario in a discussion about morality and meaning? Christianity not only affirms how painful the world can be but it also affirms how wicked people can be. And I think that modern-day atheists are either forgetful of that or they attribute all the wicked things in the world to religion.
If the problem is the world itself, as I see it, then christianity doesn't aim to fix it, for that is a hopeless cause. What christianity seeks is to overcome it. It echoes the old “life is just a test” idea which is often refuted in its weakest form, appealing to a kind of laissez-faire attitude of christians, something that, if it is an accurate criticism of christians themselves, isn't an accurate criticism of the doctrine of christianity. Secular humanists would obviously then deny that the world can be overcome, so their view is instead to fix the world while we're here... And in this fight I'm left as a man without a country. I agree with this idea that christianity is built on the pessimistic notion that the world is fallen but we have to overcome it, but I still can't believe in christianity as a whole. On the other hand, I can believe in secular humanism as a whole but I can't buy into their idea that the world, unable to be overcome, can ever be fixed. Hell, at times I don't think we even stand a chance.
In simple terms, I don't have enough faith to join either of these camps. All I know is that if the world is as I think it is, then something akin to the teachings of the Gospel has to be the answer. Pessimism in the world can never be cured by making the world a little bit better. Good and bad fluctuate, with every new solution comes a new problem, people themselves are as fickle as a reed shaking in the wind. The world is already gone. To fix the world is therefore a constant chase. In christianity, one would still have to go on that chase, but the finish line is at least guaranteed. There is a higher meaning that cannot be refuted by the wickedness of the world, indeed, that wickedness is an inherent part of christianity. If christianity is true but one can't believe in it, then one is logically forced to become a pessimist. It's almost as if, funnily enough, both atheism and christianity trap me within pessimism.
“And I disappeared. But I could still feel her love there. Even more than before. Nothing... Nothing but that love...”
And now I say, in my very limited knowledge, not being a philosopher, let alone a theologian, that though I have no clue what it truly means to overcome the world, either as a stoic or a christian, I strongly suspect it to be the only answer to pessimism, if there even is one.
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