Doce Me Veritatem
Friday, March 1, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Valentine's Day: Discovering the Meaning of Love
We are a
people who are infatuated with love. We love everything about love…whatever
those things might be. We write and sing love
songs. We devour romantic comedies and stories. We even have a national holiday,
which is in essence, a celebration of love. It
is safe to say, we are in love with the idea of
being in love. It is much less safe to say that
we have any idea what we mean when we use, over-use, and abuse this all
important four letter word.
Some
2,500 years ago (It would be so symmetrical if it had been on February 14th)
in ancient Greece, the world witnessed what would be the epic precursor to all
Lifetime movie marathons. In one of the greatest pieces of historic literature
ever penned, Plato tells the story of a great dinner party. This was more than
just an average party; it was a grandiose celebration of love! It was a festival, a feast, a Symposium that gave the great minds of the
day a chance to individually honor what mankind loves
so much: namely, Love.
The keynote speaker was Socrates of
Athens, and the raucous room fell silent as he stood to give his address. It
may do us good, especially at this time of year, to follow suit and quiet
ourselves so as to hear afresh the words of a man who truly sought to
understand what it means to LOVE.
Socrates begins in a way which was almost
unimaginable given his place in time. He asserts that the entirety of what he
knows of love he has learned from a woman, Diotima. As most men can attest,
Socrates was surely on the mark in realizing that the fairer sex is much to be
thanked for helping us to understand what love truly is. In this regard a debt
of gratitude must be paid to my beautiful wife J.
Socrates goes on to prove that Love
must always be the lover of something rather than of nothing. Just as a father
must always be the father of someone. If a father was the father of no one, he
would not be a father at all. This may seem innocuous enough, but the
ramifications of such a truth are far-reaching.
Socrates then asks if Love longs
for what it is in love with. The answer to which is clearly yes. But we only
long for things that we do not already have. So is it true that once we have
the thing or the one we love that we no longer love it or them? Certainly not. Once we
have the thing we love, love consists in desiring, in scrapping and crawling,
in battling to secure that thing to ourselves forever! This is why marriage is
one of the only true expressions of love. It is an open commitment and acceptance
of what love is: a securing of something to ourselves forever. This securing to
ourselves of something can only be considered love depending on the thing that
is secured, but more on that latter.
So we have two points so far:
1.)
Love must always be the love of something
2.)
That thing is something that we lack
Goodness however, is certainly
beautiful, but that means that love CAN NOT be good!
So
love is neither beautiful nor good. Would we dare call it ugly and bad?God is certainly both beautiful and good. So love CAN NOT be divine!
So if love is not divine, can we say that it is human? Socrates would, and did, say, certainly not! Love is something that intercedes between the finite and the infinite. Love connects man with the divine. Love is a longing for the beautiful and the good which are eternal and divine.
But this begs the question: Why do we long for the beautiful and the good? We do so because what is ACTUALLY GOOD and ACTUALLY BEAUTIFUL (see my essay “Fatherly Love”) will make us happy!
Love then, in essence, is a longing for happiness. Love is a longing for every kind of happiness. The type happiness signified by teddy bears, chocolates, roses and hearts is just one small aspect of TRUE LOVE. When one makes you dinner, cleans your clothes, watches what you want on TV, reads with you, joins you in your favorite activities, THIS IS LOVE, as it is a desire to make you happy! Once again I am indebted to my wife for her unceasing display of daily love.
As much as Hallmark may have skewed our sensibilities, love IS NOT a searching for our “other half.” Love is a perpetual searching and longing for the Good. Love is wanting the Good and wanting to secure it forever!
Since goodness is divine, love is our ticket to the divine. It is our gateway. Once again we see the power of love as expressed in marriage. Love’s longing to secure the good forever, is always thwarted by death, yet through procreation, the ultimate expression of human love, death is put at bay (at least temporarily). The birth of a child symbolically defeats death as love has expelled death and momentarily brought a glimpse of immortality to the beloved.
Death must always be central to a rigorous conception of love. That is why the ultimate demonstration of love was God laying down his life for man. But why? So that man, through this love, can have the good secured to himself FOREVER!
Because this is the culmination of love, all acts of earthly love are miniature crucifixions. Every act of love is a sign to the world of the fact that God, in Christ, has reconciled the world to himself in absolute, unadulterated love! Any supposed act of “love” is no such thing if it fails to recognize this central truth (“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”- 1 Corinthians 13:3).
The one that you love, the one that loves you, in their love, is a daily reminder of the cross, and that is something worth celebrating.
I love you Julia.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
For Torture
For Torture
If we believe that man is nothing
but matter, which is the logical consequent of the materialism of the day, I
see no problem with torturing known terrorists.
If we do
not hold that man is a supreme being, made imago Dei, then man only becomes a
human being based on the arbitrary standards that other human beings have
decided upon.
Given the
pro-abortion stance of this country, the “rights of humanity” are not conferred
to a first trimester fetus, or for that matter a second or third trimester
fetus. In some cases, the rights of humanity are not even conferred to a
fetus/child/baby/infant/half-person/ bundle of matter, whatever we wish to call
“it”, when it has partially emerged from its mother. Even further, some, like Princeton ’s celebrity ethicist Peter Singer, have argued
that we should, in certain cases, delay declaring these balls of atoms “humans”
until they have lived for a full month outside of their mothers.
Whatever
standard is chosen, being that it is man made, will be in essence arbitrary and
susceptible not to the slippery slope fallacy but certainly to the runaway
train fallacy. A first trimester fetus does not have the cognitive ability of a
one month old. On the same token a one month old does not have the cognitive
faculties of a five year old…etc, etc.
Mankind is
now in the business of deciding when a thing becomes a human. When we grant
this molecular mass the “rights of humanity” we are endowing them with both
positive and negative rights. They have the right not be killed or raped, but
they also lose the right to kill or rape others. They are, without their
consent, entered into a pre-determined social contract. They have rules they
must follow that they did not have a part in designing or implementing. This is
all wildly arbitrary, but these are the rules to the game we are playing.
Under the
current pretenses of this game, what is the problem with torturing terrorists?
Why not, for utilitarian purposes, make an amendment to the made up rules to
the game? If we are the arbiters and can confer the rights of humanity on
things, why can’t we take those rights back? If you are involved in terrorist
activities you have violated the made up rules and are henceforth removed from
the game. You, the terrorist, no longer being a human, can be tortured and
abused in any imaginable way with out any “moral” (whatever this word even
means in a world post mortem Dei) repercussions for the torturer.
It seems to
me, that one who is pro-abortion has no basis to be anti-torture.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Family Love
The most important and primal social unit is the family. The human condition is intrinsically familial; hence the greatest variety and degree of human emotions are experienced in and through the family. It is for this reason that the breakdown of society is always coterminous with the breakdown of the nuclear family.
In once sense it is odd, given the importance of the family, that it would be so denigrated by the secular world. But on a closer look, the roots of this hatred begin to surface. The family is deeply and uniquely Trinitarian; with its three constituents: father, mother, and child. The Trinity is the foundation for not only the family, but love—it is the cornerstone of all romance. It is the first and only real love story.
The world hates the Trinity, and as a byproduct begins to hate the family. Yet they are smitten with the idea of love and romance, all the while failing to understand that the only true love and true romance is found within the family. “Falling in love has often been regarded as the supreme adventure, the supreme romantic accident.” Adventure however is something that happens to us, it finds us. The man that goes out looking for an adventure is acting against the very spirit of adventure. It is neither spontaneous nor adventurous to back up one’s belongings and head to Africa in search of a great adventure. It is more adventurous to stay at home and deal with the things that happen to you.
On the same token, falling in love has something to do with us. As much as we may “fall in love”, do we not also jump? “In so far as to some extent we choose…falling in love is not truly romantic…The supreme adventure is not falling in love, it is being born.” This greatest of all adventures, breeds true love and true romance. We do not have the slightest choice in picking our families, just as we have no choice in picking our neighbors. Yet Christ commanded us to love our neighbors. That is because there is a deeper love, a deeper romance formed when our choice is taken out of the equation.
One does not get to choose their R&B singing sister. One does not choose to have a sister with a strange obsession with Asian children. One does not choose a sister who has a deep-rooted psychological obsession with Glen Beck that manifests itself by framing her husband with having a strong hankering for Nancy Grace. One does not choose a sister who fails to see the intrinsic likeability of Taylor Swift or a brother who eats 40 hotdogs in a sitting. Yet with this lack of choice comes Christ-like Trinitarian love.
In heaven there will be no husbands and wives but there will be a family of believers. Maybe this is because there is nothing greater, nothing more romantic, nothing more fundamental than the love of family.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Scientific Detachment and Anthropology
Science is predicated on detachment. The scientist must
remove himself from the equation in order to see facts and data as they are—in
and of themselves. Science, like math, searches for indubitable certainty. Two
plus two equals four.
One of the
greatest defects of modernity stems from Descartes’ attempt at a philosophical
mathematics. Descartes told modernity—and like sheep we followed—that all
fields of study could be known in the same way things are known in math or
science. Hence we no longer study history; rather we study “social science.” We
know longer study politics; rather “political science.” We now teach courses on
the “science of religion.” This is a strange phenomenon indeed.
“For the
study of primitive race and religion stand apart in one important respect from
all, or nearly all, the ordinary scientific studies. A man can understand
astronomy only by being an astronomer; he can understand entomology only by
being an entomologist; but he can understand a great deal about anthropology
merely by being a man. He is himself the animal which he studies.” (GKC)
The
detachment that is necessary and helpful in the “hard” sciences can be a great
detriment to the so called “soft” sciences. It is as if the anthropologist
believes he must detach himself from humanity, or make himself inhuman in order
to understand humanity. The saddest part of all is that we tend to believe what
the anthropologists say.
For
example:
“The
natives of MumboJumbo
Land believe that the
dead man can eat, and will require food upon his journey to the other world.
This is attested by the fact that they put food in the grave.” (GKC)
For the
anthropologist, having detached himself from his humanity, this makes great
sense. To the lay person, the ones who are still acquainted with what it is
like to be a human this comes across as madness.
This is
similar to saying:
“The
21st century Americans believed that a dead man could smell. This is
attested by the fact that they always covered his grave with lilies, violets,
or other flowers.”
Now it
might be the case that ancient men believed the dead could eat, but that is no
more a fact than stating that we believe the dead can smell. Mankind does
certain things because it is natural for them to do so. It is hard to explain
the emotion that brings us to the conclusion that it is natural, but that does
not mean it is not so. Most human emotions are irrational and hence can not be
explained in scientific terminology.
Kant showed
us that we are restricted to the world of phenomena—we can not get to the
noumena or the thing in itself because when we encounter reality it must always
be filtered through categories (time, space, the human mind). We take this is a
fact, yet we fail to apply its principles to field of anthropology. As soon as matter
is perceived and passed through the human mind it is forever irreparably
altered. It is spoiled. It is changed and now lacks a sort of objectivity and
detachment which is needed for it to be studied as purely scientific data.
Human
emotions, many times being irrational by nature, can not be rationally or
scientifically quantified. Maybe those in MumboJumbo land put food in the grave
because food is one of the great joys of life. Maybe they did it to attract
animals to the bodies in order that the souls of the deceased may live on in
another creature. But maybe they did it because it just felt like the proper
thing to do. It was natural—and what is natural to man is not the business of
science.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
The Cowardice Of Nihilism
G. K. Chesterton wrote, “It is foolish, generally speaking,
for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield market
because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very
frequently in the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But
there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning
a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does
not matter. And this is done universally in the twentieth century.”
This is
a strange age indeed. The world has been turned on its head. The logical man is
seen as unprogressive. The man of firm beliefs is seen as narrow minded. The orthodox
man is seen as a bigot. Now is the age of feelings. Beliefs have been sacrificed
at the altar of inclinations and proclivities. The weeds of Nihilism are overrunning
the garden of thought, and the decay of past fruit weighs thick on the air.
All too
often I will hear someone say, “Oh, he is really religious”; as if there was
another way to truly be one thing or another. A phrase such as this carries an
obvious negative connotation. It is as if they are saying, “I don’t mind if
somebody believes something, so long as they don’t actually believe it.” What
nonsense. They might as well say “Pink is a running hammer.” We are a
generation so removed from truth our language begins to resemble an extended
MadLib.
Nihilism
is nothing more than a closet in which cowards hide. We are too scared to stand
firm in orthodoxy. It takes guts. It takes grit. It takes real man, of which we
are currently running a shortage. The orthodox man, the man who is “really this”
or “really that” will always seem absurd in the eyes of the world. That is
because he stands firm while the world whips by him, foolishly following
trends, only to abandon them for the next trend and the next fad. The orthodox
man has “based all his brilliancy and solidity upon the hackneyed, but yet forgotten,
fact that truth is stranger than fiction.”
Truth,
by necessity, must be stranger than fiction. For fiction, lies, deceit are made
by the hands of men, but truth is divine. Man always knows his own ways better
than he knows the way of the Divine. As Aquinas wrote, “God is an infinitely knowable.”
In this
age, men say that another man’s philosophy does not matter. It does not matter
if he is an Aristotelian or a Hegelian or a Nietzschean. But is this how we
live? A man’s philosophy may state that “Life is not worth living.” But we take
this statement in the same way we would react to him saying he prefers coffee to
tea. “And yet if that utterance were believed, the world would stand on its
head. Murderers would be given medals for saving men from life; firemen would
be denounced for keeping men from death; poison would be used as medicine;
doctors would be called in when people were well…” One might profess to be a
Nihilist, but their every action bellies their espoused belief.
George
Bernard Shaw described this condition by saying, “That the golden rule is that
there is no golden rule.” Besides the fact that such a statement is
pragmatically unrealistic (as shown above) it is devastating to the artistic
and cultural progress of humanity. When nothing can be believed for certain, anything
goes. And when ANYTHING goes NOTHING is shocking.
For
something to be shocking it must violate a rule or a standard that one holds to
be true. When nothing is true, art can no longer be shocking. We have tried to
make it shocking. We have placed toilets in museums and called it art, but does
that carry nearly the same thunder as the shockwaves felt when we contemplate
the hand of God reaching out to touch that of mans? Can we find in Andy Warhol
or Picasso anything more shocking or defiant than Satan’s rejection of God? Or
Peter’s denial of Christ? Or the grandure of the incarnation and resurrection?
Modern art has the seemingly unlimited freedom because of its nihilism, but
this freedom has also defanged the artist. The artist is left with no bite.
Defiance is pathetic and lonely when there is no one to defy.
This
nihilistic generation is like Alice, forever trapped in wonderland. We speak a
language that was designed to convey truth but now blathers out pure nonsense.
The modern, progressive man says, “Let us leave all these arbitrary standards
and embrace liberty.” This is logically rendered, “Let us not decide what is
good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.” (Chesterton) He says, “Neither
in religion or morality my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education.”
This clearly expressed, means, “We cannot decide what is good, but let us give
it to our children.”
I give
in. They are correct. Pink is a running hammer.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Fatherly Love
When
Christ taught us how to pray in Matthew 6, he started, the now titled: Lord’s
Prayer with the words: “Our Father.” These opening words have become somewhat
of a rallying cry for a juvenilized generation of Christians. This generation
has promulgated and perfected the personalization of a deeply communal
religion: Christianity.
The first Person of the Trinity, the
author, and upholder of the universe, the Lord who the Jews so revered that
they dared not even write his name (electing rather to call him Yahweh), is now
called “Dad” or “Daddy.” This generation of Christians loves their “Daddy” and
their “Daddy” loves them back. This soft and cuddly love affair between the
Creator and his creatures is great for selling books and mass marketing a
religion, but this misguided and childish theology can leave its adherents in
the muck of a real existential crisis when pain and suffering crash their love-
fest.
A theology rooted in the belief that
God is our buddy, our Daddy who loves us, can not withstand the deep
philosophical issue of the problem of pain, hurt, and suffering.
Part of the problem lies in our
current conception of Fatherhood. In today’s culture it is all too common to
hear a father say, “I love my son. I do not care about the morality he chooses,
as long as it makes him happy.” This is certainly not the type of father Christ
was talking about when he taught us to pray.
The ancient conception of father was
far different from the one most of us hold today. C.S. Lewis wrote, “Love
between father and son, in this symbol (Father to Christ), means essentially
authoritative love on the one side, and obedient love on the other. The father
uses his authority to make the son into the sort of human being he, rightly,
and in his superior wisdom, wants him to be.”
Love is not utilitarian in nature.
Love does not intrinsically and primarily care about your comfort or misguided
conception of happiness. True love, the love that God has for his creatures is
a demanding love. It demands the perfecting of the beloved. The “kindness” of a
Daddy which tolerates anything except suffering in its child is the furthest
thing from the biblical conception of love.
God is love. All Christians believe
it. All Christians have said it. It makes a nice bumper sticker and cute
picture to hang above your toilet, but what does it mean? Plato rightly taught
us that virtue is one. Someone can not be truly kind or loving unless they are
courageous, temperate and just. “Even a good emotion, pity, if not controlled by charity
and justice, leads through anger to cruelty.” God is love. God is also justice
and goodness. Love therefore must conform to the justice and goodness that is
God.
True love, the love of God, may
forgive all infirmities and wrongdoings and love in spite of them: but he can never
cease to will their removal. The love of a father must grind on the son to
change him, not into the person the son wants to be, but into the person that
the father knows that the son should be. This grinding, this true, deep, all
encompassing love can bring about great suffering and pain. The Bible reminds
us that we must die unto Christ. He loves us so much that he can not accept us
as we are. He is not Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin. He is not a senile
benevolence that kicks back in the clouds and wishes for you to choose your own
path, find your own happiness, or just be yourself. “His is not the love of a
host who feels responsible for his guests, but the consuming fire himself the
love that made the worlds.”
Much of the suffering and pain we
experience here on earth is the sanctificatory process leading to true
happiness. ‘What we would hear and now call our happiness is not the end God chiefly
has in view: but when we are such as he can love without impediment, we shall
in fact be happy.”
God is Goodness. He wills the
goodness of his creatures, and our goodness is to fully love him. To experience
the true and eternal love of God is to surrender to his commands. We are
commanded to become Christ-like, to put on Christ. That is to say we are to
become like God. Whether we like it or not we are to become goodness. For God
so loved the world that he wants to make us into himself, to make us love.
With that being said we should do
what we like. We should do what makes us happy. Kant gave us the misguided notion
that we should not admire a man for doing a good act if he enjoyed it. The very
saying, “but he likes it”, implies that the action has no worth or merit. This
modern notion, ushered in largely by Kant, has gained credence due to the
rejection of the truth of Aristotelianism. Aristotle taught that a virtuous man
will delight in virtue. The more virtuous we are the more we will revel in
goodness, justice and truth.
The love of God and the love of a
good earthly father may hurt at first. It may hurt way more for some than
other. Why? Read the book of Job. The answer being—We don’t know. But true love
can not accept evil. It must demand change. It demands change so that we can be
happy--truly happy—happy because we are fulfilling our telos. God is love.
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