Schopenhaurian Pessimism

I sometimes wonder how other people cope with bouts of depressing Schopenhaurian pessimism. It’s not easy to bring this sort of stuff up in casual conversation. It’s even less easy to experience. But for my own therapeutic purposes, I’m going to point here to a few fundamentals of the condition I’m referring to. In the first place, I identified it with Schopenhauer because he was both a cosmic pessimist and a man who had high regard for the ‘will’, which I would narrow here to simply ‘my human will’. Like many Christian theologians and mystics – including, I’d venture, both Jesus himself and St. Paul – Schopenhauer came to the verdict that individual wills need to realise their true position within a wider totality of (cosmic) Will. Not an easy thing to do, we can safely say, if even Jesus found himself struggling to do it – recall his diligent praying and conversation with God before his renewed assurance to carry out his purpose (‘not my will, but thine’) was attained. Whereas the Will of Jesus’ father had as its end goodness/good – we must surely think so?! – the Will of Schopenhauer’s universe is a malevolent beast which runs ‘the show’ without recourse to any higher principle than the perpetration of evil, pure and cynical. Or at least that’s the rather scary conclusion I understand the old fellow to have come to. An interesting thing about this picture is that it links a – or even the – central analytical category of academic psychology, the Will, with a theological disposition. Of course, many philosophers have done precisely this, and in other ways, but it’s worth noting all the same that Schopenhauer makes this connection because he makes it more directly than most (as, of course, did Nietzsche).

The sense that it is appropriate to join Schopenhauer arises, I think, from the sense that Christianity’s own ways of coping with the questions at stake are found wanting by comparison. The sense, for example, that St. Paul’s realisation of his wretchedness, of the sorry and profound limitedness of his own will-power, does something apart from testify to us of our persistent and unending failure to live up to (or even fully to recognise) what we know to be true and good. What this wretchedness can instead speak of, perhaps, is a worldview which would find even unChristian Manichaeism optimistic: a dark, dark, evil place in which souls are interred, and in which they are blind even to the extent that they cannot so much as recognise what is truly good in order to feel deficient in relation to it. Whereas Paul can feel himself at least to ‘know’ good, albeit somewhat inexactly, any such knowledge in the Schopenhaurian universe would be mere delusion: true ‘goodness’ is not just unattainable, as Paul felt it to be: it is non-existent. In the darkness which instead predominates, all that is is evil, or, at least, we cannot be sure that it is not. In this world, it is St. Paul’s mistaken sense of truth, and not just his anguish, which testifies to his fraught, failed humanness which exists only in the context of gloom, gloom, gloom.

What might speak to us in this darkness to communicate the presence of truth, of good or goodness, of beauty and love, in such a way that we can feel confident to identify them? Schopenhauer answers ‘nothing’, as does the depressing pessimism I have named after him. Christianity answers ‘the body of Christ’ in its relation to his people, the people of ‘Israel’. And in reality, this answer ought to be recognised, I think, as something of a ‘shot in the dark’ – and I mean here the important double sense of this phrase, in its denoting a ‘shot of light’ as well as its more usual meaning of ‘a high stakes gamble’. This ‘shot’ is, perhaps, something – and, it might be admitted – something precious indeed in an often dismal, cruel, arbitrary world.

The best therapy I can think of for the Schopenhaurian affliction is of the simplest sort. It is to take an ever higher view of all in the universe which we can feel passionately to be beautiful, true, good, just and right. The key thing here is that the degree of our passion must depend upon the extent to which these characteristics can be thought truly to lie together in any given belief or practice. Which, I suppose, means I am saying that something will be all the more ‘just’ only if it is all the more true, all the more good, all the more right, all the more beautiful. And I am saying the same by extension of all of the concepts just mentioned in their relations to one another. The concepts are best regarded as working together, rather than in isolation, I think. The idea here is that they might serve mutually to strengthen one another and to move towards a harmony of relations, so that we have no justice which is not right and true and good. What ‘justice’ would it be if it were not these, after all?

It is, in any case, to the extent that these phenomena can be thought to strengthen one another in an ever progressing unity that they can (perhaps) more effectively combat the threat of Schopenhaurian affliction, when it comes around – and it will continue to come around, I suspect, until their unification is full and complete. If, moreover, true love is characterised by the total and complete and full unity of these phenomena, then it is right for the Christian to speak of his longing for the eventual, complete realisation of true love. And he must be emboldened to hope for the truth of his gospel – namely, that this true love has already been made known to him as a ‘shot in the dark’, during the course of its being made complete. And this, finally, brings me back to something I said right at the beginning: that it is not easy talking with other people about one’s bouts of Schopenhaurian pessimism. I think, though, that when it seems appropriate, it is necessary to try. For pessimism struggles to remain pessimistic, perhaps, if it can open itself in communication. For if communication in its very nature implies the presumption that the apprehension of greater truths is possible through its agency, then one can perhaps hope that along with the greater truths it might yield may come also greater justice, greater beauty and greater good. One can only but hope. I wonder what Schopenhauer would say.

Anne Frankishness

A confession: before going to sleep for the past few nights, I have been enjoying my newly purchased copy of Anne Frank's diary. I've been really enjoying it. The blurb on the dustjacket says it all when it champions Anne as a humanist of the first order, and it accurately describes her as fully displaying both an innocence and an uncanny perspicuity in her descriptions of human relationships. I haven't got to the end of the diary yet, but I know what's coming. A picture of the grave of Anne and her sister on the back of the book says it all. In spite of this the book has been an uplifting read: I am amazed that Anne was happy to expose some of her most intimate thoughts and feelings to a wide audience of readers. (She planned to submit the diary to a publishing company who had advertised an interest in disseminating memoirs of the war). In our age of 'reality' entertainment and 'confessional' TV and radio broadcasting, I've yet to encounter anything approaching the sensitivity, honesty and genuineness of Anne in her diary. People of her time period may have been 'repressed' in ways we now aren't (for better or worse), but I feel certain that our culture promotes new and different kinds of 'repression', which come with their own drawbacks and frustrations. Which means there's all the more reason to read Anne's diary.

The Church of Violence

As I was sitting today in the local church in London, talking with a friend, I heard a shout and a bang from outside the church door, where a man and a woman had been sitting, arguing. Clearly, someone had been hit. The woman - she was about 40 - rushed in to the church, crying. No one followed. My friend and I wondered what to do. We walked over and she said she had been hit and that she was afraid. I asked if she wanted help: did she want me to check if he had gone, or if he was still outside. Did he have a weapon? No, apparently. I went out to look, and as I did, the man came in. The couple began arguing with one another. It was a desperate, pitiful scene. She accused him of hitting her and of being prone to violence. He was accusing her of abusing his children. She was saying she didnt want to be with him any more. He was saying that she had to stay with him. The conversation was heated.

With the threat of more violence in mind, my friend called the police. It seemed the right thing to do. I went over to the couple and offered them two chairs at the back of the church to sit down in. This was partly a strategy to stop him from getting her against the wall, and talking right into her face. It half-worked. Soon enough, the police arrived. They asked us what had happened and we told them. If we hadn't seen the violence, nothing could be done, we were told. We hadn't seen it, but we'd heard it. But that wasn't enough.

From what I could tell, the police did an admirable job of calming things down. They parted the man and the woman from one another, and sent each went away from the church in separate directions after about 10 minutes of discussion. What more could the police do? The officer who talked to us impressed me. He was courteous and understanding and somewhere in conversation he slipped in the sage remark that 'we all have our domestic issues'. True enough. But it's still sad that physical violence so easily appeals to us as a useful means of communication: it helps us get our stubborn point across, when all else fails. And I can't think that it really does the job we want it to. Not really.

Of course, 'violence' - loosely conceived - is a fact of all human relationships. We do violence to each other's wills and inclinations when we come into contact with one another and attempt to do anything other than gratify. We strive to bend and shape others around our own agendas and presuppositions. Forms of 'violence' are enacted on humans around us in the world, all of the time, with our complicity. Some are pernicious; some are not. Most of us don't stick out our own necks out to stop what is pernicious. We are inclined not to. Such neglect of the needs of others is perhaps the grossest, and most tragic, example of what might be called 'indirect' violence. Everyone is complicit in it - some more than others.

Reflecting on some of these things a little later, I reminded myself that the Christian church was an appropriate setting for the events I witnessed: acts of human violence are never out of place in churches. Violence in the church has a strange and perhaps awkward double aspect. On the one hand, it has tended to be condemned - although perhaps not to the extent and frequency that we would like. Christians campaign for peace, mercy, love and forgiveness. Can these things truly be pursued through the use of violence, in any sense of the word? (Contextual factors have tended to decide the matter). On the other hand, it is well remembered that acts of violence give life - they are truly vital - both to the church and its congregations. The taking of the apple; the crucifixion, spearing and abandonment of Jesus; the acts of the martyrs. And, according to some theologies, the destruction of the Temple of Solomon. We can look out more broadly too: what kind of beauty, what kind of joy, what kind of pleasure would there be without violence? Theologies of the Cross, however morbid and offensive some of them are, also make this point clear.

The most fundamental truth about Christian conceptions of violence, of course, is its recognition of the bare necessity of taking violence onto oneself for the sake of others. Only then can we respond adequately to violence: in the most difficult way. Maximilian Kolbe understood this. Jesus knew it too. As did Mahatma Gandhi. be the proponents of penal substitutionary models of the atonement seem to know it: but the challenge to them is to make good on their insights, rather than simply to (try to) enshrine them in crypto-Pauline dogmas about divine wrath and - bizarrely - in foundationalist epistemic principles.

What needs to be recognised above all is that for Jesus, the overriding concern was to plug a hole in the system of violence we all inhabit. He stood in the eye of the storm and took the consequences of worldly violence onto himself. He refused to shy away from it, and refused to respond to it in kind. He refused to avenge it. He tried instead to overcome it - by serving as a revolutionary exponent of a different kind of 'violence'. This violence would be restorative and constructive. It would be concerned with building up and seeking out, not breaking down and hiding away.

The tragedy is that only Jesus and a few other humans have ever shown themselves capable of such acts of constructive, restorative violence. The decision truly to suffer in place of others, for their sake and out of the desire to address the destructive violence the world wreaks on them, is a rare decision indeed. But it is the hallmark of true, full love to engage in constructive violence. Constructive violence in self sacrifice for others is the Christian calling. And its perpetrator is the holy spirit, whose divine fruit is forgiveness and the power truly to forgive. For those of us who have only a tiny taste of the fruit of this spirit - for those of us, that is, who can't think to give of ourselves enough to taste more - we can be comforted in our measure by the saving knowledge that our Lord knows and pities our weakness and has worked and is working - both in himself and in us - to address it.

Dawkinsian Philosophy

Richard Dawkins is a scientist, a scientist who is better qualified than any 'theologian' - so he says - to unlock 'the truth' about the universe. When it comes to 'philosophers', as opposed to 'theologians', he's not quite so dismissive. The views of 'philosophers' are deferred to in Dawkins' recent book, The God Delusion - for example, the (atheistic) philosophers A.C. Grayling and Daniel Dennett. These are authorities whose arguments Dawkins feels he can rely upon. Richard Swinburne, for example, is classed as a 'theologian' and criticised as a representative of 'theology', as is Keith Ward, and, from the more distant past, Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm and others.

Dawkinsian 'philosophers' have to be atheists, and his 'theologians' have to be theists. There have certainly been many theistic philosophers, however, and it's pretty clear (at least to me) that many of the 'theologians' Dawkins scorns are in fact as 'philosophical' as the atheists he calls 'philosophers'. Meanwhile, there have been many atheistic theologians. What, after all, is 'theology'? A minimal definition would be that it is 'God-talk' or 'reasoning about God' and is done by theists and atheists alike. So, according to this definition, Dawkins is a theologian too, although, perhaps, he is a theologian who disagrees with the views of other theologians who hold different opinions. What's certain is that most theologians try to be 'philosophical' - and claim to be thinking 'philosophically' in their theology to greater or lesser extents.

The rhetorical tactic of dressing wolves in sheep's clothing - deferring to people whose arguments are deemed attractive as 'philosophers' and dismissing those whose arguments are deemed unattractive as 'theologians' - is not obviously a charitable one. And I do believe it is a consciously adopted rhetorical tactic. It shows Dawkins neglecting the 'principle of charity' in argument - and this isn't the only example of his doing so. How, though, does flouting this principle, which might be thought to constitute an important building block in any 'Reasoned Discourse' (a nice idea and his own darling), contribute to the advancement of his own case in rational terms? It surely doesn't (unless the sophists had it right), but it certainly makes for a decent put-down - and, hence, for a decent claim to power over those who can't detect the spin in his rhetoric. I have to say, in fairness to Dawkins, that I'd rather inhabit a world in which his argumentative assumptions - rather than those of young earth creationists - call the rhetorical shots. Still, it'd be nice if neither were being deployed: a hollow dream, I know.

This Blog

The title of this blog is borrowed from a wonderful book on the scriptural exegesis of the 3rd century Christian thinker, Origen of Alexandria, by Henri de Lubac. It is intended in its present context to refer to attempts to speak about spiritual meaning in the context of human history. These attempts can take on a variety of guises, as de Lubac himself knew well. They can be strictly historicizing in character, which is to say that they can seek merely to explain the ways in which past people understood the meaning of past happenings in light of their spiritual ideas. Or they can take on a more presentist philosophico-theological tenor and begin to speak of how people in our own world might understand the past - either as a whole, or in respect of single events or experiences. Each of these areas of thought will be mentioned in entries to this page, which will touch upon the ideas of a range of thinkers, past and present. Both areas of thought matter. They might even relate to each other in an important way.

Even if one is not a historian or a philosopher of history or a theologian, everybody adopts ways of thinking about matters pertaining to history and spirit, whether as a result of reflection or not. Although there is no reason to suppose that reflection alone is conducive to the accurate portrayal of the past or to the accessing of correct modes of thinking about it, I don't think it can hurt in either case. My own feeling is that without reflection, historical thinking rapidly becomes unfaithful to its past objects and presentist in character. Some people don't think the potential for such infidelity and (naive?) presentism to be a problem. But I am inclined to suppose that it must be. Why should I remain unopposed to the loss of information and perspective on our ancestors and on the world which shaped ours? I can foresee that good answers to this question could be conceived. What, for example, if moving away from more strictly historicizing modes of thinking about the past could lead in our present-day society to greater levels of equality, welfare and value in people's lives? It's a good question, and if we could be sure that a positive answer to it were possible, a genuine case could be made of its strength. In the absence of relevant or sufficient information, however, there is no reason to let it win the matter. I trust that there remains, then, a moral case - or, at least, moral potential - for historical thinking, at least, that is, of a certain kind. I am not at all arguing for the validity of Hegelian historicism or any other such philosophy of history, although I certainly don't dissent from the view that (forms of) such philosophies of history are possible (and perhaps even worthwhile).

As for spiritual thinking, this is a kind of thinking which tends to speak positively of reflection. Certainly, most 'spiritual' thought has wanted to privilege certain kinds of reflection and to abandon others. Against this, my own view is that 'spiritual' thinking - and it is a good question what exactly might be said to characterise 'spiritual' thinking - must be open to honest reflection on all things. Maybe the posts of this blog will bear that view out and go some way to support it. For I certainly cannot speak from my own experience of the kind of prayer, the kind of worship and the kind of 'spiritual' life which in principle refuses to meditate on certain issues, no matter how difficult or arcane they might seem to some (or even to myself). Everything in my experience has to be left open to reflection and this is almost itself an article of faith, I suppose. No corner of the universe can be ciphered off and dismissed as irrelevant. Radical openness, and the potential for continuing questioning about truth and meaning on all fronts. Answers are important too, of course. I will end this first post by confessing my own dedication to the idea that a lowly crucified rabbi offers more of those than an educated Platonism. Cause, then, for further reflection - at least for me.