some thoughts on empathies/theodicy

So, I have been (once again) intellectually crushing on NT Wright. Found a great collection of his lectures online (here), and was listening to this one the other day, in which Tom's debate partner, Bart Ehrman (a Wheaton grad, interestingly) takes the familiar stance of 'look at all the suffering in the world: all the starving children, all the people killed by natural disasters, &c. There simply cannot be a God who is both all-loving and all-powerful, and so - since these qualities are essential to God qua God - it is doubtful that there is a God in any real sense at all.'

This problem of suffering - a derivative of the problem of evil (aka -theodicy) - is almost always posed by mentioning the large-scale sufferings around the world (hunger, disease, the holocaust &c.) - these are what cause so much upset to Dr. Ehrman, and I reckon have likewise pushed many people into agnosticism.

The trouble is - I don't buy it.

Their empathy I mean. Their sense of despair regarding all of the 'horrifying' 'tragedies' that befall so many others around the world. That is the reason they can't believe in God? No way.

I am dubious for two reasons:

1) No one cares that much about the suffering of others. I personally take pains to maintain a sensitivity to others around me. I don't watch violent or extreme movies, I read the news, I study history and I try and keep a tender heart towards the world. I have never received feedback from others that I am unusually callous toward my fellow human, In fact - the opposite. And yet when I hear about all these large-scale tragedies (and I have heard about them - I would be surprised if there exists a large-scale suffering in the world that I haven't heard of), I barely bat an eye-lid. On the contrary, when tragedy (which so far in life has primarily taken the form of untimely deaths) hits close to home, I am devastated emotionally. Crying and upset for weeks on end - often very angry and confused with God - but for some reason they have never pushed me to doubt God's presence, character and workings, and the agnostics in question likewise seem to use personal examples very seldomly. Now, with regards to empathy for global-scale pain, it very well may be the case that there is a degree of maturity that I have not yet reached, wherein a sense of the existence (and subsequently - the suffering) of others is deeper and more visceral. If this is so, then this post here is moot, but if not (and I am banking on it being 'not'), then i proffer the following explanation:

2) People who are fixated on the world's problems are projecting the anxiety they feel about their own inner-state onto the world at-large. Thus, their empathy is not genuine, and cannot be the ground for a real theodicy problem. Two objections to this idea raise themselves in my mind off the bat, but I think both can be fairly dismissed:

objection one: This is just pop-Freudian nonsense.

retort: I have seen this in several patients who admit to having mental health issues at the hospital i work at. They will identify that they have a lot of emotional tumult, and will also admit that they think about the atrocities of the world frequently throughout the day. I myself did this very thing when I was in an emotionally 'tough season' in college. In as much as 'logic' can be used when speaking of an unconscious mind, there is some 'logic' to such a projection: Like any defense mechanism, it allows the will to focus on something other than the pain at hand, while at the same time, since the issues relate by analogy, one can address one's own suffering indirectly by examining the suffering of others. Furthermore, unlike interior suffering, which is often very inarticulateable and shifting - the suffering of the world bears a more concrete and statistical character - rendering it more open to concrete helping-actions, unlike the hard-to-help crisis going on inside.

objection two: Even if it is the case that those who speak of global suffering are merely engaging in an act of psychological projection, so what? attention is still being brought to issues in the world that genuinely need help, and moreover - what external claim doesn't have it's roots in some internal pre-occupation?

retort: this objection is entirely valid. In and of itself the issue of presenting the World's suffering needs no psychological explanation, but in this argument I am examining the issue of the World's suffering as it serves in the role of a stumbling block to those who would have otherwise believed in a God. To the one who points it out as such, I think it is more worthwhile to dismiss the problem of Evil as not the person's real beef with God, but as an intellectual distraction, and instead look to more personal reasons for their reticence.

This idea of a more 'personal' hesitation as the real source for unbelief is grounded by the fact that the people who actually suffer in the great tragedies (who were around for the Rwandan genocide, who were there when the earthquake killed half the town, etc) seem to turn to religion in droves, not away from it. The developing world (which is structurally less immune to disease, disaster and tyrants) has the highest percentage of Christians and christian conversion on the planet.

Furthermore, the problem of Evil is so often presented by wealthy, white intellectuals, and I think part of the 'more personal' reasons that this is the case is the latent guilt we have inherited along with all of our money. Deep down, we realize that the nightmares that happen on an annual basis somewhere in the developing world are caused in part by the legacy of colonialism, from which our wallets are padded. When i imagine a professor like Bart Ehrman 'selling all he has and giving to the poor', for some reason I imagine his personal theodicy problems disappearing along with his Franklins. No?

Now - after having said all this about why I am dubious of the empathy of others (as I remember the Chesterton quote - 'it is one of the meanest things for a human to doubt the sentiment of another human', and this, in the Victorian era of puffery!) - two final thoughts on the still-very-real problem of Evil/Suffering:

Firstly - I think a helpful division can be made between suffering brought about by more natural causes (earthquakes, storms, etc) and suffering caused by more human institutions. By making this split I reckon a fair amount of suffering can be accounted for without having to blame God:

In the first - natural disasters - i think it is helpful to re-frame ourselves as fellow animals on this Earth. If a cow was caught in an unforeseen mud-slide and was killed, would there be a moral problem? no - it would merely be a part of how nature has always done it's thing. Likewise if we humans happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - why is God to blame? In the second - malicious rulers and oppressive societal structures - we can see the clear connection between one person's suffering and the oppressor who caused it. Thus, a bad human, or bad society is directly responsible, not God.

Of course there is and will always be a (larger or smaller) remainder of suffering yet unaccounted for, and like any honest human/Christian, in the face of such suffering I would not propound an explanation as a source of meaning, but would rather seek comfort and healing for the wounded. But this is a pastoral thought, separate from the intellectual contention I have maintained thus far.

Thoughts?

Endnote -

My favorite anecdote vis-a-vis the theodicy problem:

My friend Zac was riding in a car with some friends of his, late at night, and they were mockingly posing 'deep' questions to each other: "what is happiness?" etc. Zac threw into the mix "Why do bad things happen to good people?" with an air of faux-self-seriousness, and his friend Jesse, who had been driving and looking straight ahead looked right at him with a face flat and serious, obviously dropping all of the pretensions of the game and said sincerely: "what good people?" ...

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." - C.S. Lewis

Apparantly Auden found in the Wodehouse character of Jeeves (a la Wooster) the best literary representation of the Christian ideal - of graciousness, etc. Well, I think there's an even better version than that - to be found in the novels of James Herriot.

See, my dad has been reading to us from Herriot's 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' (you know the book even if you've never read it - they're at every rummage sale, and the not-that-great cover art always made it look like animals-can-talk fiction), and, oh man - It's amazing! Like, the most wonderful thing i've ever read (or heard read-aloud, as the case is). It's great for lots of reasons - a glimpse into what small-town life was like in my beloved England, a reminder of the wholesomeness of animal husbandry, a neat insight into the shift in farm-life that happened with the popularization of agricultural machines, etc.

But the main reason I love it, which makes the others pale in comparison, and is why i reckon it became so popular a few decades ago, is how Herriot paints the portraits of the people who inhabit his world (he is himself, the veterinarian, and narrator):

Each person he meets and interacts with is cast in such a way that they seem huge and magnificent. And amazingly, it's not at the expense of realism. there is no kitschy glossing-over of faults. Warts are clearly visible, and yet Herriot conveys what very few are able to see - and what I am referencing in the title of this post (which comes from one of the truest, most profound essays ever written) - namely, the glory of a person. As readers we are introduced to each character with such an admiring slant amidst such a frank assessment, that after just about every chapter I am bowled over by how wonderful it all is, how wonderful they all are. I would copy a selection here to show you what I mean, but a selection wouldn't do it justice (and I am too lazy). Partly because the setting (rural Yorkshire) is such an essential framing, and partly because it is strewn throughout the writing, in the adjectives preceding names and actions, that color the whole narrative. So, you'll just have to try it for yourself. But truly, his ability to capture glory, without any airs of solemnity of churchiness is incredible, and invigorating. I fear i have made it all sound too high-minded, for in actual fact - the marvelous part of the writing is how good-humored he is about everything, even his own lack of good-humor at times. It has such a sweet savor...

In sum - my life has been permanently enriched by reading Herriot. My vision of the good life, my understanding of hospitality and greatness of soul, and my love for the things and the people of this world, have now all been re-cast in the shapes of his many wonderful characters.

When i meet people, I want to see them for all the glory of who they are in their peculiarity, the way Herriot was able to.

I am so very grateful for this vision, and feel compelled to share so on this-here blog, to you three or four friends who still read on occasion.

Thanks, Pa.

No joke, this was my waking thought -

That Dietrich Bonhoeffer's tirade against 'cheap' grace, and love of 'costly' grace, is more a reflection on Bonhoeffer's typically german character than it is an insight into the truth of Christianity. I mean, come on, Germans love order, discipline and sacrifice so much. Bonhoeffer just directed these desires towards his religion.

So, you can keep all that Diets, cause the truth is, grace is kind of cheap. free even.

My Visit to Mecca

So, i experienced what i reckon to be the quintessential experience of hipster-disorientation.

Two weekends ago I was visiting my brother in Grand Rapids, MI and had the chance to go to Mars Hill on Sunday (Rob Bell's church - the Mecca of cool, new-evangelicalism). It actually was awesome, and that was the disorienting part. There i was, in a room full of 2000 people whose style, opinions and ideas were seemingly very in line with my own, participating in a church service where every element was exactly how i would have done it. The interior design was thrifty and mininalist, the screens with the words for the songs were plain black and white, and the text was set in my favorite font. The theology of the songs was solid, the preaching was enlightening and entertaining both, and we all sat there in the congregation, relaxed, with our (free to us) fair-trade coffee in our hands. For the first time in my life, there was no need to define myself by being different from the group. At conservative churches i propound my identity in my liberalism, among pagans or the very-liberal, I define myself by being a dogmatic, orthodox Christian. But there, with the other Mars Hillers (?), my identity was in accord with the group's. And my ego was stuttering - if i went here regularly, how would i ever stick out??? maybe by being MORE badass than others? by being the conservative guy? I had no idea. I realized that this is how hipsters must feel walking in to a hipster party, although - rather than try and engage in a silly game of one-up-manship, i realized that in church - my identity could be found in how invested i was IN the group: In how much i served the church and the community, in how loving i was to others, etc. And in this way I think i realized the christian paradox of losing an identity (a life) to gain it.

I wish i lived closer to Grand Rapids!

although not really, since i have an inherent distrust of the American-Dutch.

Shady, skinny buggers.

Two Vicarious Guest Posts

From a conversation with my brother, Tim:

re: the 'Slug-Bug' (or 'Punch-Buggy') phenomenon -

It must be funny to be the owner of a VW Bug, knowing that everywhere you drive, there follows a wake of people hitting each other in the arm.

From a conversation with a Gentleman at church coffee-hour:

re: people's general dislike and distrust of the police -

The speeding-ticket is to blame for the current public view of the Police. Prior to automobiles (and the speeding tickets which arrived very shortly after their invention) the generally law-abiding citizen had nothing to fear from the police, and so cops were honored and venerated for keeping the peace in the neighborhood. However, now that any average-joe is a possible culprit for doing his 10 over on the freeway, the police have become a source of universal contempt.

also - Teaser Trailer: I am ruminating on and formulating some thoughts on mental illness after observing it first hand for these several months at my current job. Hopefully there will be some good fruit here on this blog.

Buddhism

I hate Buddhism.

Well, to be more precise - western converts to Buddhism*.

For two reasons:

1) The vast, vast majority of people I hear say this are actually saying nothing more than, "I don't like paying attention to all the evils in the world, and i LOVE doing breathing-exercises that help relax me. Oh, and wouldn't it be nice if things didn't die but got to keep being re-incarnated?"

This is not a problematic statement, in itself. However, it doesn't even come close to qualifying as a religious belief, the way adhering to a theistic religion would, and yet it is the retort to, "are you religious?". It might vaguely describe a worldview, but not a religion. It is not asking for any particular devotion, it is not asking for any specific behavior, etc.

2) The few (i have only met one) persons who rigorously investigate and apply the teachings of (for sake of argument) chinese buddhism, are swallowing a pill that, to me, is impossible to swallow. Buddhism asks the seeker to believe ideas about reality that contradict every aspect of lived experience. The denial of differentiation, the negating of the idea of 'real' and 'self', etc. Now, maybe I could believe these things if they were purportedly handed down from some divine being in control of the universe, but in Buddhism, there is no such thing, so we are just supposed to swallow it as an enlightened philosophy. Well, ok, Buddhist philosophy, can you show me how this is THE truth about existence, inductively? Oh, you can't? you can only offer a few vague anecdotes? oh, that's ok, I'll believe it anyways... NOT! It would be just as, if not more sensible to devote one's mind entirely to the teachings of Zeno. A novel idea, but it doesn't satisfy the religious question.

Rant over.

I don't actually get riled up by this very frequently, I just wish people would be a little more self-aware and critical when they are doing the preposterous act many are forced to do in the west: shopping for a Religion.

*from what i understand, in the Orient buddhism is so deeply ingrained in the fabric of the various cultures with which it overlaps, that there is a situation akin to Orthodoxy in Greece or Russia, or Catholicism in Latin America: the people are buddhists regardless of the degree they practice or adhere to dogma. This sort of cultural buddhism i have no beef with, for the mere fact that I have no beef with a particular person being from China, etc.

Quote of the week

How small of all that human hearts endure
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.

-Samuel Johnson

Seriously, Dr. J, how is it that we are not better acquainted?

These lines are two of ten Johnson contributed to his friend Oliver Goldsmith's poem "The Traveller."* I think it reflects well on the literary culture of the age, or perhaps (more likely) on Johnson and Goldsmith's friendship, that something like that could happen. That a literary behemoth like Johnson would give away some pretty classic lines (though it's not like there was any great dearth of them with SJ), or that Goldsmith would let--no, request him to do so, and then use them to end the poem, is kind of bewildering to me. Certainly it's not uncommon for poets to ask each other for advice, but they're also a vain bunch and it's hard to imagine, say, T.S. Eliot asking Ezra Pound to pitch him a few lines to help finish "Preludes." I'd be curious to know how common such a thing was, or even is now.

*Thanks, Project Gutenberg!

In Praise of Great Men, part III

"He was so commanding a presence, so curious and inquiring, so responsive and expansive, and so generous and reckless of himself and of his own, that every one said of him, 'Here is no musty savant, but a man, a great man, a man on the heroic scale, not to serve whom is avarice and sin.' "

- William James of his teacher Agassiz.

The description has also been applied to James himself.

also, 4 posts in one day! That has to be a record around here. (i've been saving them up for a while)

In Praise of Great Men, part II

"[Henley is] a great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch; jovial, astoundingly clever, and with a laugh that rolled like music; he had an unimaginable fire and vitality; he swept one off one's feet"

- Lloyd Osbourne, Robert Louis Stevenson's stepson, on William Ernest Henley, author of the poem Invictus

The Manly Ideal -

"A young soldier in an English regiment had been promoted from the ranks and given a commission in another regiment. Before joining his new command he was, according to custom, invited to a farewell dinner by the officers of his old regiment, placed, as the guest of the evening, on the right of the colonel, and helped to all the dishes first. He was a fine young fellow, but little used to the ways of the polite world and the manners of other dining-tables than the humble mess of those days in the ranks. The colonel, one of the truest types of gentlemen, did his best to put his guest at ease.

The soup was served, and then came a servant to the guest's side, holding a large bowl which contained simply lumps of ice. The weather was hot, for this happened in India, and cold drinks were an unspeakable boon. The new made officer started at the bowl. The servant asked: 'Ice, sir?' The colonel chatted merrily to him on his left. Others of the party began to see the dilemma.

'Ice, sir?' again asked the waiter.

The guest, in ignorant desperation, took a portion of the ice and put it in his soup. A smile played lightly on the faces of some of the younger officers, when the bowl was offered to the colonel, who went on chatting with the guest, and without moving a muscle of his face also dropped a piece of ice into his soup. Those who came afterward however took their cue from their colonel or let the bowl pass; and the young man breathed a sigh of relief as he thought that after all he had done the right thing."

-Abram Smythe Palmer The Ideal of a Gentleman, 1892.

A very Wheatonite thought on Freud, but still -

Despite Freud's lack of popularity amongst praciticing clinicians today, his ideas still have real currency in the popular mind. I am specifically recalling the frequency with which people reference the so-called oedipus complex whenever romance and mothers come remotely close in a conversation. And here is something I was thinking: The general form of this idea - which is Freud par excellance - that what we seek in our adult life are merely shadows and approximations of our true, real childhood yearnings, is deeply atheistic. That's sort of an boring statement; what is exciting is the converse: what we experience in childhood merely sets the stage for the adult experience, which is MORE true, more real; the love I receive from my mother opens up my world to connect romantically with a woman in the future. The foreknowledge that such a set-up requires is none other than the christian idea that there is something of a plan to the piece of work that a human is. Put another way - it is the scientific notion of causes always precedes effects that governs Freud's way of thinking. Throw some authorial (God's) intent in there, and all of the sudden there can be a narrative where incident # 1 is just a set up for Incident # 2. I like this idea, because it reifies the world we experience as adults, rather than demeans it the way Freud seems to.

agreed.

I believe in clear-cut positions. I think that the most arrogant position is this apparent, multidisciplinary modesty of "what I am saying now is not unconditional, it is just a hypothesis," and so on. It really is a most arrogant position. I think that the only way to be honest and expose yourself to criticism is to state clearly and dogmatically where you are. You must take the risk and have a position.

-Slavoj Žižek

hear, hear

Masters of suspicion

What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions; they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins."

-Nietzsche, "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense"

Ricoeur names Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud the 'masters of suspicion', thinkers who abandoned the idea of truth, or saw it as plastic and not absolute and dominating. They are suspicious of truth claims in part because the use of truth is so tied up with the use of power, and rightly so. (EDIT: I'm not totally sure how to phrase this, what I wrote makes it seem like they think truth is still a "thing," is still out there in some form. Which, as that Nietzsche bit above will tell you, they most certainly did not.) From what little I've read of Nietzsche and Marx, that seems pretty accurate. What I question is Ricoeur's inclusion of Freud with these other two. Psychoanalysis abandons truth on a micro scale, saying that we lie to ourselves all the time, but from a macro perspective it has a surprisingly barefaced and even naive faith in truth. Truth not only exists but is codified, "fixed, canonical, and binding," particularly when we head in the direction Jung took Freud's ideas (not that that's Sigmund's doing, or fault). It's a sophisticated, modernist version of phrenology: we no longer believe that physical features correlate to the truth, but the revelatory medium has been shifted to feelings, actions, dreams. Those things, while complex, still correspond to some truth, one so bedrock we don't even know it's there—they only need to be prodded and questioned in just the right way to reveal themselves. Freud still believed in a nature that could be read like a book, only this book is dense and convoluted to all but the sharpest, most skilled interpreter. (I don't know how connected Freud was to his Jewish roots, but it's interesting to think about the similarities between his method and Talmudic interpretation and tradition.)

Which is maybe the reason I don't really care for Freud. It's one thing to say there is no absolute truth—that at least levels the playing field—but it's quite another to make yourself its gatekeeper. There is in Freud the tang of elitism, of knowledge-as-password, knowledge-as-phallus, which is one of my biggest academic pet peeves. And it seems that that's exactly what Ricoeur's other "masters" were calling out.

Ben, I know you're on a Freud kick and have read much more than I, what do you think? Am I right here?

Captured

Auden sums up precisely my unease about photography:

"Normally, when one passes someone on the street who is in pain, one either tries to help him, or one simply looks the other way. With a photo there's no human decision; you're not there; you can't turn away; you simply gape. It's a form of voyeurism. "

Paris Review "Writers at Work" interviews, 1972

In Praise of Great Men, part I

For some time now I have relished finding articulate praise of great men. I love the humility it takes to praise another, and the sporting nature of it. And it is such a more difficult task to be articulate in praise; articulate detraction is much easier. The other day i thought it would be good to gather the quotes that i have found over the years, and thought that here might be a good place to do so. So I shall try and find some of them again. To begin this recurring theme, a quote by Robert Whittington (1520) on Saint/Sir Thomas More:

"More is a man of an angel's wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons."

Yes.