Nietzsche Was Wrong

Nietzsche Converted me to Christianity

2012-02-06T21:42:00.000-08:00

And some other people too. For all of FN's brilliance, contrary can be done too well. As Giles Fraser puts it in The Guardian,

I had my defences down to his unusually intense religiosity and elliptical desire for salvation. Which, I suppose, is how the question of God crept under my intellectual radar.

Success at What Cost?

2011-12-31T11:27:00.000-08:00

I'm not opposed to success; I just think we should accept it only if it is a by-product of our fidelity.
-Fr. Greg Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart

When Torqued

2011-12-20T22:37:00.001-08:00

"I can't even remember how many times in high school my mom had to tell me to give my disappointments and losing to St. Augustine to the Lord. And also about losing to Alabama -- to give it to the Lord. And about not starting at quarterback, giving that to the Lord. Just giving it to the Lord emotionally and spiritually and saying, 'Lord, I'm giving it to You, and You're going to handle this stress, because You're the one who is plowing the field, and You take this yoke from me. You're going to be the one pulling this yoke, and therefore I don't have any of the pressure. I'm just trying to live as best I can, but all the weight is on You.'"
-Tim Tebow, Through My Eyes, pp. 567-8.

Not a Tweaker

2011-12-19T20:56:00.000-08:00

It is a good thing, when dealing with the brokenness of our fellow man, to remember that what is most needed on the human level is nothing other than acceptance. The strife and clamor of ego representations only enslave us, and take us progressively further away from that which fulfills. Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Ministries puts it beautifully:

Everybody is just looking to be told that who he or she is is right and true and wholly acceptable. No need to tinker and tweak. Exactly right. Fr. Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart, pg. 94

I like that, and I am becoming more and more convinced that the large part of our solution is just that simple.

What Freedom Is

2011-12-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

Freedom from evil means independence from fear, which leads to being oneself, which leads to true relationships, which leads to joy.
Why would anyone not want to be free from evil?

Responding to Violence

2011-12-14T21:48:00.000-08:00

"In the face of...violence, Jesus is recommending neither fighting back nor fleeing, but rather standing one's ground. To turn the other cheek is to prevent him from hitting you the sane way again. It is not to run or acquiesce, but rather to signal to the aggressor that you refuse to accept the set of assumptions that have made his aggression possible."
-Robert Barron, Catholicism, pp 130-31.

Can Extreme Sports Be Christian?

2011-10-14T10:25:00.007-07:00

Am I thumbing my nose at God by kayaking over a 30-foot waterfall? God doesn't want his people to put him to the test, etc.

In the sense that God desires his people to exhibit and cultivate certain virtues, outdoor extreme sports are Christian activities. There are very few forums in modern life in which man can explore his earth, cultivate courage, improve teamwork and comraderie, and become connected to his surroundings. And all of these virtues are decidedly Christian. The days of eco-exploration, the kind enjoyed by Columbus and Lewis and Clark, undertaken in the name of survival and colonization, are over. Thus, today, if man wants to cultivate himself in the ways listed above, he can partake of extreme sports, where the presence of danger brings teammates closer together, and the general demand that one overcome, present in the whole activity, adds flavor and gravity to the entire experience.

It is true, of course, that not all men possess the desires or passions necessary to undertake these activities in an interested fashion. They have other passions and interests that they should follow, and in so doing may cultivate themselves in other ways. But men who are so inclined should own the many redeeming values of these sports -- enjoy them and introduce more friends to their surpassing value.

The issue of safety is of course paramount. Adventure should always be under control, and climbers, kayakers, and others should always push themselves, but not overwhelm themselves. Extreme is a relative term. It only need push us in order for the good to be done.

Keep your faith to yourself

2011-10-04T07:33:00.003-07:00

"As long as you shut up, everything will be OK".

(Credit to the Anchoress)

A reminder of how we're needed

2011-10-03T22:06:00.001-07:00

They cry, and so should we.

Pure Subjectivity

2011-10-03T21:38:00.007-07:00

Husserl is not easy to understand, but for those desiring to break the deep fetters of atheism, the work required to read him pays dividends. This passage is a primer:

"The universal depriving of acceptance, this "inhibiting" or "putting out of play" of all positions taken toward the already-given Objective world and, in the first place, all existential positions (those concerning being, illusion, possible being, being likely, probable, etc.), -- or, as it is also called, this "phenomenological epoch" and "parenthesizing" of the Objective world -- therefore does not leave us confronting nothing. On the contrary we gain possession of something by it; and what we (or, to speak more precisely, what I, the one who is meditating) acquire by it is my pure living, with all the pure subjective processes making this up, and everything meant in them, purely as meant in them: the universe of "phenomena" in the (particular and also the wider) phenomenological sense".

Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, pp 20-21.

Last Night of the World

2011-09-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

What would you do it if it were the Last Night of the World?

The Blowout

2011-09-29T20:41:00.007-07:00

In this world of cocaine, overcompensation, and master manipulators, it is good to know that the pressure we all feel to be perfect and invulnerable is, in fact, felt by everyone. Absent a release, we are all bound to bust open at some point. Francis Schaeffer, the original mountain man-expatriate of the 1960s, gives us some insight:

If we carry what we cannot, the blowout will come and it will come at the place of our inherent weakness. The central, overwhelming pressure is that of needing to be the integration point of all things because we are not willing to be the creatures we are. We refuse to acknowledge the existence of God, or -- even though acknowledging his existence intellectually -- in practice we refuse to bow before him in the midst of our moment-by-moment lives.

-Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality, pg. 330.

The Good Life Isn't

2011-09-27T20:17:00.002-07:00

"But the true emperor, Luke is telling us, arrives vulnerable and exposed, because the good life is not about the protection of the ego, but rather about the willingness to become open to the other in love."

-Robert Barron, Catholicism. Crown Publishing, New York, NY. 2011. Pg. 39.

Worth the Wait

2011-09-25T16:07:00.003-07:00

As someone who has struggled mightily with depression, who at times would rather have a root canal than face the prospect of getting out of bed and looking another person in the face, it is incredible to come face to face with true joy.

Today that happened, when after years of thinking about giving the Catholic Church a try, I sat in a pew (without my family--who could not attend), and simply witnessed the graces of the church that has been standing since Saint Peter was given the keys by Jesus Christ. The sheer longevity and patient strength of this institution is enough to make one weep. Which is what I did. It is as though there is finally something in this world that is worthy of respect.

Clouds of depression, longing, and inadequacy may always haunt me--in this life, anyway. But there is something on the earth in which I can place my spiritual trust. Not mere men, not mere doctrines, but Christ embodied (to the best of man's ability) in the structures, literature, and memories of a church that will never die.

The exhale has not ended, seven hours later.

Art or the Self

2011-09-20T22:10:00.002-07:00

"Every poet or musician or artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn't stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower--become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations."

-C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce. Macmillan. New York, NY, 1946. Pg. 81.

The Passions

2011-09-16T23:04:00.007-07:00

"The church fights passion with excision in every sense: its practice, it's 'cure,' is castratism."
-Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Section 1

"Passions are morally good when they contribute to a good action, evil in the opposite case. The upright will orders the movements of the senses it appropriates to the good and to beatitude; an evil will succumbs to disordered passions and exacerbates them. Emotions and feelings can be taken up into the virtues or perverted by the vices."
-1768 of the Catholic Catechism

I Was Wrong

2011-09-14T22:45:00.004-07:00

I err, therefore I am.

Lay Down Your Will: It's Naturalism

2011-09-14T22:29:00.007-07:00

"From a naturalistic perspective, behavior arises out of the interaction between individuals and their environment, not from a freely willing self that produces behavior independently of causal connections. Therefore individuals don't bear ultimate originative responsibility for their actions, in the sense of being their first cause. Given the circumstances both inside and outside the body, they couldn't have done other than what they did."

-Brian Leiter

One Thing About Truth

2011-06-26T09:06:00.009-07:00

Principles, unlike feelings, transcend circumstances. We know in all situations, for example, that to cheat is wrong--even though we may wish it were right to do so. This means that principles transcend us. They are greater than our human experience.

Since principles are so potent, it is our duty to seek out the best principles by which to live. All we will achieve by assenting to unsound principles is a bad life well lived!

Loving for Others

2011-02-12T13:42:00.003-08:00

When we love other people for them, rather than for ourselves, it ceases to matter whether we are loved in return - or whether the person deserves it. We will be able to "love our enemies, and pray for those who use us" (Matthew 5:44).

Beyond Truth With Ted Bundy

2011-01-20T21:13:00.007-08:00

"Then I learned that all moral judgments are 'value judgments,' that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved either right or wrong. I even read somewhere that the Chief Justice of the United States had written that the American Constitution expressed nothing more than collective value judgments. Believe it or not, I figured it out for myself - what apparently the chief justice couldn’t figure out for himself - that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any 'reason' to obey the law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring - the strength of character - to throw off shackles….I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable 'value judgment' that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these 'others'? Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig, or a sheep, or a steer? Is your life more to you that a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as 'moral' or 'good' and others as 'immoral' or 'bad'? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham, and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me - after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self."

-Ted Bundy, paraphrased and rewritten by Harry V. Jaffa, Homosexuality and the Natural Law (Claremont, CA: The Claremont Institute of the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, 1990), 3-4.

How to Become a Christian

2011-01-16T16:42:00.008-08:00

There are certainly many ways to come to faith in Christ - and the faith itself will always be a winding road. But for a beginner, the following is a good start:

1. Acknowledge your sin. Sin is a multifaceted phenomenon. Anything one has made an idol out of - other than God himself - comprises sin. For example if a sport, hobby, relationship, habit, addiction, or an ungodly view of oneself or ambition is what occupies your mind when you wake up or when you go to sleep, then it's an idol (a false version of God), and represents sin. That thing is your God. Additionally, we all fall short of God's standard for behavior in many ways every day, and this too is sin. This is why "all fall short of the Glory of God".

2. Acknowledge that God died for your sins. Jesus radically completed a covenant between God and the 12 nations of Israel, and created a new covenant between God and all the nations of the earth. By voluntarily violating his union with the trinity of God, Jesus died alone and rejected on the cross. Thus, God himself suffered immense pain that day - as a payment for our sins. Accept this and realize that any and all of the guilt of mankind has been removed; we need only accept it.

3. Give your heart and life to Him. Assent to the central tenets of the faith, which are summed up in the Apostle's Creed. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. Learn his ways, discipline yourself as Jesus disciplined himself, and learn how to become a true Christian. This will require effort, restraint, and many changes in your life. You will be repaid with incredible peace and freedom.

Jared Lee Loughner

2011-01-10T13:11:00.005-08:00

When truth is viewed as impossible, and the meaning of words relegated to mere personal opinion, something crucial to the human experience is left lacking. Time and again, the people taken in by these ideas wind up mentally injured, morally bankrupt, and in a disturbing number of cases ready and willing to prove out their moral-less worldview.

From a story in Mother Jones on the recent Arizona mass murder: "As Loughner and Tierney [Loughner's friend] grew closer, Tierney got used to spending the first ten minutes or so of every day together arguing with Loughner's "nihilist" view of the world. "By the time he was 19 or 20, he was really fascinated with semantics and how the world is really nothing—illusion."

Nietzsche, nihilism, relativism, anti-realism. They should all be thought about very carefully before one begins walking around in their world.

A Tall Order

2010-11-30T23:14:00.010-08:00

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

-Philippians 4:8, NASB

Authenticity

2010-06-16T21:59:00.021-07:00

When we are authentic, what comes out of our mouths is what really exists in our heart. Our thoughts, feelings, and responses are not premeditated; they come forth naturally and automatically. Such a life is exceedingly free, and requires relatively little effort.

But if to live authentically is so pleasing, why do so many live so inauthentically? Why do so many of us live lives that are inaccessible, distant, and insulated? It is because we do not want to reveal who we are.

Why is that? Mistrust of others and fear of rejection lie at the core of the problem. These fears are a constant temptation in a world full of sin. So, to protect ourselves, we resort to callousness, sarcasm, or anger. We inevitably try to hide these negative realities, but this only removes us further from the authentic life we were meant to enjoy.

A new focus on Christ is a wonderful solution. In this view, the soul is guided and formed such that fear of rejection loses its power; and we learn to trust God and leave the results of our lives up to Him. Through sustained discipline, we lose our penchant for insulating ourselves, and can attain the authenticity for which we were designed.

A Great Will is a Dependent Will

2009-11-22T11:23:00.021-08:00

For Nietzsche, all conformity results in a truncated spirit, and eventually nihilism (a life without meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value). This is because once the will has been subjugated to an outside force (e.g., God), it loses its ability to act purely and authentically.

Conformity can certainly be harmful. But is this the case? Does conformity really preclude an intact will?

It turns out we need to be very careful about eschewing conformity in general, for a great will actually requires some form of it. And this is due to the fact that we must (at least) make peace with the importance of consistency to the healthy functioning will. If the will is to be great, it must be able to rely on consistent opinions and emotions about things, and be able to rely on consistent standards about what the good life really is. In short, a consistency must be conformed to.

To elaborate, consistency cannot come from ourselves. Mere human experience cannot produce the kinds of emotions or desires needed to guide the will through the maelstrom of life. To succeed, the will must have access to an outside source of consistency; consistency must come from something else. Our relationship with those external standards creates, from us to them, a relationship of conformity. In effect this means that, contra Nietzsche, in order for the will to operate well, it must conform.

Certainly, conformity alone is not our goal, and we must be very careful about what we conform to. But the specific kind of conformity outlined by Christianity orders our hearts and minds such that the will operates properly. It thus lifts up the will to heights unattainable by the unguided. This is a land far away from nihilism.

We need to see, then, that bowing before a system or power greater than ourselves is not de facto weakness. It can be a path to strength in the face of great odds--no matter what those odds might ever be.

Nihilism...due to an organized worldview

2009-10-27T20:52:00.007-07:00

"Nihilism as a psychological state is reached when one has posited a totality, a systematization, indeed any organization in all events, and underneath all events, and a soul that longs to admire and revere has wallowed in the idea of some supreme form of domination and administration."

-Nietzsche, The Will to Power

Our Motive for Love

2009-05-31T08:37:00.037-07:00

Our concept of love plays a vital role in our approach to life. Every relationship (and even the concept of self that we carry into all experience) is thoroughly pervaded by our definition of love.

Of particular importance is why we love--love's motive. If I have a strong, consistent, and permanent motive for loving, then my love for others will tend to be strong, consistent, and permanent. If by contrast my motive for loving is weak and inconsistent, then my love will take on those lower qualities. It should thus be obvious why a strong motive is preferable.

In Nietzsche's view, love is given in order to acquire something from others, or to elicit from them a response one deems desirable:

We benefit and show benevolence to those who are already dependent on us in some way (which means that they are used to thinking of us as causes); we want to increase their power because in that way we increase ours, or we want to show them how advantageous it is to be in our power (Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Sec. 13).

The central point here is that love's motive is centered on something inherently unstable. After all, in a given relationship, one's power may not be increased. People may realize that it is not advantageous to be in our power. Thus, for Nietzsche, the desire to love is based on something inconsistent and unstable; and the inevitable result will be that love is unstable.

The Christian view has the opposite approach. To it, love's motive is based on a fixed and permanent reality. We love others because God has transformed our will, and because our orientation toward Him overflows into our affairs with other people. This lends to Christian love an exceeding level of stability and commitment. Interestingly, this orientation toward God also engenders a certain authenticity in the Christian personality. No longer do we love (or act) in order to be seen by others, with a hunger to be noticed by them. Now the primary interest is in being seen and reacted to by God alone. Of course our love may be known and appreciated by others (and this is a great joy of life), but that is not why we love. Our heart and will are oriented toward an audience of one, no matter who is watching, and no matter what the promises of recognition may be.

Be sure not to do your righteousness before human beings, with the intent of being seen by them. Otherwise your Father, the one in the heavens, will have nothing to do with it (Matthew 6:1).

We are now free to love fully, permanently, and without consideration for consequences. All we must do is turn our hearts toward Him.

*This commentary owes heavily to Dallas Willard's wonderful work The Divine Conspiracy, which I highly recommend.

The Darkened Soul

2009-04-14T07:37:00.009-07:00

"Benefiting and hurting others are ways of exercising one's power upon others; that is all one desires in such cases. One hurts those whom one wants to feel one's power, for pain is a much more efficient means to that end than pleasure; pain always raises the question about its origin while pleasure is inclined to stop with itself without looking back. We benefit and show benevolence to those who are already dependent on us in some way (which means that they are used to thinking of us as causes); we want to increase their power because in that way we increase ours, or we want to show them how advantageous it is to be in our power; that way they will become more satisfied with their condition and more hostile to and willing to fight against the enemies of our power" (Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Sec. 13).

This statement by Nietzsche is a sad testament to how far afield the human heart will roam if it purposes to live without borders. The world of sin becomes the standard. Nietzsche here coldly assesses the "true" nature of human relations, but how great must his pain have been in order to believe such things to be true about people?

"Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body is full of light. But when they are bad, your whole body is also full of darkness" (Luke 11:34).

The Will to Nothing

2009-02-22T11:13:00.015-08:00

Nietzsche's view of the human will is very unique. To him, the will should be allowed to operate without the constraints of objective truth. His philosophy was one of going beyond limits, and Nietzsche saw it as the road to freedom; the path to strong and pure expression of oneself.

But to promote the will while forbidding truth is very problematic. For this requires an inconsistency. Consider the following requirements of Nietzsche's argument: (1) the assumption that humans have a "will" with an identity; and (2) the position that all strict definitions of the "will" are false. This is not a minor inconsistency: the thing in life most worthy of reverence and preservation--the will--does not, in truth, even exist.

Christianity has a saner road to follow. To it, the will has an ontological base: desires and drives are woven into the person at conception; and humans, made in the image of the Creator, are designed to exert their will on creation. Moreover, the human will is given an identity--definition, direction, and healthy compulsion--based on moral and natural truths that exist for all to see.

Humanity cannot understand itself without truth about itself. When will we humble ourselves enough to see?

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it (Matthew 16:25).

The Pain of Estrangement

2009-01-23T23:09:00.004-08:00

"...the most painful, the most heartbreaking question, that of the heart which asks itself, where can I feel at home?"

-Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I, 11, in The Portable Nietzsche.

Human Violence: Two Views

2008-11-28T22:17:00.020-08:00

In the Christian worldview, the human being in all its facets is inviolable. Personality, reputation, image, security, drives, aspirations, and character are to be preserved, cultivated, and celebrated. Any attack on these aspects amounts to violence (see Os Guinness, The Dust of Death, p. 173-194).

Nietzsche's view of violence is very different. To him, personality and character (and the other categories of personhood) do not exist; they are social constructs. There is thus nothing in the human to be protected, and people should feel free to violate one another whenever it is useful to do so.

Consider which of these two views--the Christian or the Nietzschean--is more conducive to human flourishing. Nietzsche's denial of personality, security, and aspirations results in a darkened life experience and a shallow view of oneself. Christianity, on the other hand, promotes the individual--in all its great potentiality--over against the dark tendencies of life.

Nietzsche: Madness Granted

2008-11-12T20:33:00.021-08:00

For those Nietzscheans who believe it was not philosophy that drove Nietzsche insane--but rather the neurological effects of syphilis--consider the following words from his own pen:

"Alas, grant me madness...By being above the law I am the most outcast of outcasts" (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I, 11, in The Portable Nietzsche, p. 160).

Nietzsche did not drift unknowingly into insanity. He knew a deeper level of alienation--self alienation--was on the horizon; and he knew this was a consequence of his philosophical tenets. By casting aside all objective truth, he subverted the ground for his own thoughts, and went insane.

So: Is the freedom he advocated worth it? Each must answer for herself.

Obama: It Doesn't Matter Who I Am

2008-10-29T20:01:00.031-07:00

Consider:

1) Foundational values define human thought and behavior; therefore, foundational values define who a person is.

2) Barack Obama believes inquiry into his foundational values is irrelevant.

3) Therefore, Barack Obama believes who he is is irrelevant.

This should trouble us to no end.

Equality According to Secularists

2008-10-25T23:34:00.036-07:00

If humans are to flourish, they must live in a society that reveres equality. One cannot live strong and free if she believes herself to be inferior to others. But if equality is essential, how do we ensure it?

Today's secular society has its view. If one possesses the same material goods, enjoys similar power, and has equal access to education as another, then she is said to be equal with the other. Equality is not inherent in the human; it is something conferred to the human by rights, possessions, etc.

This view is wrong. For if equality is achieved via externalities such as rights and possessions, who is to say which externalities are relevant? If material wealth is evenly distributed, some other metric (access to home ownership) will emerge according to which people can be deemed unequal all over again. Such perpetual inequality makes true human flourishing impossible.

Christian societies have a sounder road to equality. In their view, all people are created by God, which establishes an objective and permanent fact of equality. Equality can thus never be taken away--or given. This is the kind of equality--permanent equality--that humans need in order to flourish.

This political season, if politicians promise to establish equality (via affordable housing or redistributing wealth), don't be duped. True equality cannot be bestowed. It can come only from an objective, irrevocable law giver. It can only come from God.

Identity for Nietzsche: Less Than Powerful

2008-10-16T10:44:00.048-07:00

Nietzsche exhibits an antiphilosophy on the topic of the self, as we have seen previously. The self is random, predetermined, and without any a priori legitimacy.

But this concept is not without consequences. Consider: If humans lack inherent legitimacy, legitimacy is something that must be achieved. Nietzsche maintains that the path to such achievement is will to power. But what is the right kind of power to will? How does one know when it's enough? Nietzsche's program offers no real answers to what power even is, having already dismissed questions of real truth as futile. These are staggering questions, which Nietzsche is content to leave unanswered.

Nietzsche was lost in his strategy, but there is an alternative: Christianity. On the Christian view, we needn't take one step on our own toward legitimacy. God has already infused irrevocable dignity in us based solely on his love for us. We are singularly free, independent, and self-actualizing on that basis. Moreover, the self is not random. It is a created, unique, unsurpassably important entity distinct from any other self, from nature, and from God. Legitimate indeed! In order to live well, men and women need only to celebrate this remarkable dynamic in thought and deed.

There are two philosophies here. And they are not created equal.

Fannie and Freddie

2008-09-19T08:11:00.018-07:00

With the precipitous fall this week of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it is a good time to take stock of how the catastrophe came to pass.

During the Clinton years, following Carter, democrats purposed to open home ownership to the disenfranchised, poor, and racially diverse populations of the U.S. This is certainly an apt goal. Christ asked us to care "for the least of these"--and those groups certainly deserve our effort.

But are mortgage loans what Christ was talking about when he spoke of care? Care requires love, and love, in turn, requires one's time (rather than money) be invested in individuals--so as to help them gain victory in their struggles. Changes in housing, while externally convenient, seem somewhat beside the point. It is clear, at least, that the mortgage strategy was inadequate. The "least of these" whom Clinton desired to help have now been booted from their homes and, due to lapsed loans, have even worse credit scores than before. Put simply, these people were worse off after they received help.

We should take the Fannie and Freddie mess as a reminder: We can't give money only. Rather we must be personally invested in our communities; with our neighbors; with our families. Others can only grow with our help.

As for Thought

2008-07-25T21:45:00.013-07:00

Philosophy is the ultimate commission. It cuts our deepest questions to the marrow, and so it cuts humanity to the marrow as well. The philosopher can't just believe something; she must know exactly why she believes, and what the belief requires of her, and what it feels like to have the belief down in the deepest reaches of her heart. To her, beliefs and thoughts are life's most basic expression.

Philosophy, then, should never be seen as an irrelevant "theoretical" pursuit. Rather, since all humans must know and think deeply, all should embrace Philosophy as essential to who they are.

As Chistians, we must remember that God created the human intellect so that the human presence--culture, stewardship, and personality--could shine light into Creation. When we refuse to think deeply and seriously, we impede this process and deny God's desires. We tell him we would rather have been monkeys.

If we embrace our humanity, and our duty to God, we must think.

Nietzscheans' Disbelief in Themselves

2008-07-19T23:21:00.010-07:00

Nietzsche denied that anything exists outside of the scientific realm. If something could not be described by biology, chemistry, or psychology, then it could not be said to exist. But where does this leave the self? The self is something very different from all of that: illusory, spiritual, experiential. So for Nietzsche, the basic answer is: There is no self within the human being.

This should not surprise us, as leading Nietzsche scholars have been admitting this for years. Brian Leiter, for example, is an advisor of The Center for Naturalism, a group that advocates naturalism (the philosophy that nothing exists outside the explanations of science). On their web page they put it down like this:

As strictly physical beings, we don't exist as immaterial selves, either mental or spiritual, that control behavior...It may strongly seem as if there is a self sitting behind experience, witnessing it, and behind behavior, controlling it, but this impression is strongly disconfirmed by a scientific understanding of human behavior.

My question to Nietzscheans, then, is this: How can anyone with any respect for humanity honestly take up the position that there is no individual, no self? There is no rational answer to this question. And there is no greater tragedy than to believe that one is nothing more than chemical interactions. It is the ultimate form of genocide; it is suicide for all.

FN's Slavery to Psychology

2008-07-09T08:49:00.032-07:00

Nietzsche often judged others by what he saw as their psychology. For him philosophy was not about a legitimate search for truth, but was more about a personal reaction to one's psychological past:

[Philosophers] pose as having discovered and attained their real opinions through the self-evolution of a cold, pure, divinely unperturbed dialectic: while what happens at bottom is that a prejudice, a notion, an ‘inspiration,’ generally a desire of the heart sifted and made abstract, is defended by them with reasons sought after the event” (Beyond Good and Evil, I.5)

But why this focus on psychology? Why is philosophy all about "motive"? Clearly, on Nietzsche's view, there is no knowledge outside of psychological motive, nothing below the level of motive, that can be expressed.

Nietzsche was not wrong to believe that we do conform our views and philosophies to our experiences; but there is a problem of excess here. When we are exclusivists on the point of psychology, a gargantuan problem emerges in the view of the self. Even the view of oneself is a product of motive and psychology. Importantly, this is why Nietzsche could never share an exposition about the human self that was either clear, honest, or liveable. In his writings on the subject, we instead have Darwinian accounts of struggles for power. This was the self, the "scientific, reasoned self" to Nietzsche.

With his Darwinian insistence, he couldn't achieve the only liveable kind of self: the self that is a home to the human being. What is a home? First of all it is good, peaceful, and true; a place where one can be at rest, protected from the weather and evil acts of life. Such a home was, for Nietzsche, fake. He preferred to believe such categories fake, and as a result he went insane.

It is for this reason that life and philosophy will forever be about so much more than science. Life and philosophy are about living, deeply and richly, with innocence and freedom. To enclose one's life inside the labels of science and Darwinism amounts to a life sentence of self-imprisonment.

Solitude and Nature

2008-07-08T16:14:00.016-07:00

We live in a world that has lost respect for solitude. Cars roar, t.v.'s quack, people blather emptily to one another. There is scarcely a place left where one can simply be, free of the cacophony. Also, more and more it is not only sound that overwhelms us, it is the ambitions, power plays, and impersonal urgency, which permeate the atmosphere and assault the mind. Not only can one not sit in silence, she cannot sit in sanity.

Escape may be hard to find, but for the authentic inner man, a quiet harbor is a prerequisite. One cannot cultivate consistency and truth in oneself without one. This is why a man's relationship with nature is so crucial. When one is a good distance out in nature, where natural harmony is the rule, she can break free from "the competing world we have identified with"*.

We Christians, we dreamers and strugglers, would do well to find our correct place in this sense, and work harder to protect nature, the wellspring of quiet.

See: Dr. Dallas Willard interview in Radix Magazine

What To Do With Truth

2008-07-02T18:50:00.013-07:00

A wise man has said, "One is not really an intellectual unless one can say: for me, to live is truth".*

Truth about the world, about the world we know, must be integrated into the fiber of how we think. It must be, in some sense, what we are. Truth cannot be only on the outside, or something known about. When we know about, there is no sense in which truth is something internal or, therefore, something we can act out of. Of course our conscience will beg us to act rightly, but if truth is pushed outside, we don't have the base within us. We are alienated from authenticity. Dallas Willard draws it up like this:

That way lies paralysis, futility, and, as Jesus knew, hypocrisy. He warned of the "leaven of the Pharisees," and the reason for that is because when you try to conform at the outward level you fail, but because you're so driven you begin to fake it.

If we aspire at all to authenticity, let's allow that last statement to humble us.

*A.G. Sertillanges

Husserl: Privatizing the Private

2008-06-29T21:16:00.011-07:00

Since Descartes, ethical and theological issues have increasingly been privatized.* Now the only propositions taken for "objective knowledge" are those coming from science.

Even though Christians may be spiritual, the anointing of the sciences applies a seductive pressure even to them. At times, they question whether such a thing as spiritual truth really exists. As concerns truth, it is the ones 'out there' on the Antarctic Ice Sheets, in the Amazon, in the Rat Labs--with their statistics and their funding and their NBC quotes--that have authority.

There are many dangers in this. The most outrageous is that we no longer think enough of ourselves to gain any true perspective on ourselves. The subjective world is deemed impotent. We cease to know how and why knowledge about the world can be lived with, etc.

Humanity needs to take back ownership of subjectivity. The sciences, in all their valor, are insistently, vacuously self-referential; never personal. And if given the head seat at the table, their otherness will kill every ethic we have left.

If I am right, what, precisely, do we have to gain? In the words of Husserl,

What we'll aquire is pure living, with all the pure subjective processes making this up, and everything meant in them, purely as meant in them: the universe of "phenomena"' that are all around us.

We need to see the subjective world, and the valid phenomena that occur therein, as true once again.

*See Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations;
Francis Schaeffer, The God Who is There;
J.P. Moreland, The Kingdom Triangle (Part 1)

Ministry and Respect for the Self

2008-06-24T17:15:00.004-07:00

There has been much written lately about the different types of apologetic strategies. I believe when we begin to speak of a "strategy", however, we have already passed over into fakeness. Each believer is remarkably individual, with tastes, talents, and background that cannot be duplicated.

"Strategy" speaks to cookie-cutter mentality. Instead of strategy I believe we would do well to speak of learning, of experience, of seriousness in the Christian pursuit. We must take the plank out of our own eye, and in so doing, become a better knower of God's truth inwardly. The inward truth is the only kind that is able to meet real people in real places of need. This is the kind that respects our talents and background and, therefore, has the capacity to respect the same in others.

Think Edmund Husserl; think Jurgen Moltmann. We must think in and of ourselves, we must know what we know before we can hope to offer it personally to others. Mathematical theories about faith must be internalized and digested so that others can internalize them, and make them a real part of their lives.

Eternal Recurrence: A Fancy Confusion

2008-06-23T22:56:00.005-07:00

Nietzsche's eternal recurrence is the closest thing we get in his philosophy to an ontological claim. Nowhere else does he offer us clear categories according to which we might organize or understand that which exists in the world. That is not his business. He sides with the social polemic; the philosophy with a hammer.

Yet, in a break with his antipathy for truth, he does spell out the doctrine of the eternal recurrence. Why is this? We know that he finds truth claims repugnant, as is evidenced here:

What then is truth? a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms--in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are (Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in Their Extramoral Sense).

Yet he firmly advocates the ontological reality of eternal recurrence:

Now I did and vanish...the soul is as immortal as the body. But the know of causes in which I am entangled recurs and will create me again. I myself belong to the causes of eternal recurrence. I come again, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent - not to a new life or a better life or a similar life: I come back eternally to this same, selfsame life, in what is greatest as in what is smallest, to teach again the eternal recurrence of all things... (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, III, 13).

I challenge any Nietzsche scholar to answer me this question: If Nietzsche denies the existence of objective truth, how does he have the intellectual right to make ontological claims?

My guess: in the dark of night, when all alone, even the man who proclaimed God to be dead needed truth. The human mind cannot operate without it.

Environmental Pragmatism: Weak Sauce Philosophy

2008-06-23T12:53:00.012-07:00

Andrew Light, and some other philosophers, believe that environmental ethics should be founded on the idea that environmental entities (e.g., plants and animals) possess some kind of inherent value. On the basis of this value, these entities warrant some degree of "moral consideration", and they proceed from here to offer their theory of environmental pragmatism.

The whole argument hinges on the idea of value. So where does this inherent value come from? Does a particularly reverent emotion bestow inherent value on these entities? Does a mandate come from conscience? Both are very problematic. Basing an ethical proposition on "inherent value" without firmly establishing where the value comes from is begging the question. An object's inherent value cannot come from our placing the label "inherently valuable" on it. Such standards can only ever hold via objectively true, transcendent standards of valuation. Any other kind of "inherent value" is ultimately doomed to the realm of mere opinion.

In order for environmentalism to be consistent, it must be founded on something immovable, i.e., an objective value. Objective values can only ever come from objective truth, i.e., truth that exists independent of man. Thus, while environmental pragmatism may seem apt to those who love the outdoors, it will never stand up to industrial pragmatism, or strip mall development pragmatism, or any other pragmatism that opposes it.

Brian Leiter's False "Therapeutic Objective"

2008-06-23T11:03:00.009-07:00

I have not yet read much Brian Leiter. But at first blush, his ideas about Nietzsche's "therapeutic objective" seem deeply inconsistent.

To start with, Nietzsche's philosophical work was centrally concerned with abolishing morality. Yet Leiter seems to want to sneak moral standards in the back door in his reading of Nietzsche. By positing a "therapeutic objective", Leiter pushes ethical, moral language. This is because "therapy" always implies progress toward something better; it implies a should. But in order to talk of should, we must already possess some definition of "good", that is, we must already possess some ethical standard. Since Nietzsche explicitly precludes ethical standards throughout his writings, this is an untenable position.

Admittedly, Nietzsche did have (many) shoulds in his writings. (This is incredibly self-contradictory). But two wrongs don't make a right. Leiter cannot found any sort of moral project on Nietzsche's writings any more than I can look for Oregon Duck fans in the Oregon State University cafeteria. Nietzsche always already precludes the possibility of ethical standards, and scholars who study him should know better. Vis-a-vis Nietzsche, Leiter promotes a reductio ad absurdum. There can be no ethics in Nietzsche.

The Wrong Kind of Humility

2008-06-21T16:54:00.010-07:00

The attribute of humility has been perverted. This topic has been taken up on many blogs lately, cf. Sarah Scott's "The Pursuit of That Which is True". But it remains worth discussing.

The strict definition of "humility" remains, I think, well understood. It speaks generally to gentleness (deriv. Greek prayatheia) or a willingness to forego one’s rights (epieikes). But while meekness and self-deprecation are certainly a necessary part of humility, that is not the end of the discussion.

The problem begins when we place those qualities in areas where they don't belong. Consider how "humility" is now applied to the human orientation toward truth claims. A popular philosophy today has it that to side with truth claims is judgmental, reductionist, and limiting, and it demonstrates subjective preference, over against everyone else. To espouse truth is simply arrogant, that is, it is not humble.

But this application is, it seems to me, incorrect.

Since we inherit much of our language and moral precepts from Judeo-Christian traditions, let us consider humility as conceived by Jesus. While he was humble, Christ was also very particular in how he applied humility. He did not see the concept "humility" as grounds on which to debase generally. While he did debase himself, never did he debase the possibility or legitimacy of truth claims. This least of all. He held the truth so high that he died for it.

Therefore, humility (if we side with a Christian definition of it) must be made to refer to the correct thing. We misapply it when we let it weasel its way into truth claims, philosophy, or matters of the intellect. (We have come a long way on account of our wonderful minds - let's not debase them!) We should think about how to best apply humility. We can't let postmodern "manners" dictate its placement. To apply humility is to apply correctly. And I believe this means to apply it first, foremost, and perhaps only, to our fallen, selfish, ambitious, hypocritical selves.

Response to my critique of "Altar Boyz"

2008-04-24T07:47:00.007-07:00

I won't include the full text of the letter by Jim Giancarlo of the Cabaret Theater. Instead, I'll take a few points and comment on them.

"I am the Artistic Director of Oregon Cabaret Theatre and the director of the production "Altar Boyz" which was the subject of a letter from Aaron Beitler in Wednesday's Daily Tidings, the headline of which was "Altar Boyz deliberately mischaracterizes Christianity." I must dispute this statement as well as others in his letter.

I do not feel that our production is in any way negative on the subject of religion. On the contrary, I feel it is very positive on the subject. The characters have formed a "boy band" (a la N-Sync) to "spread His glorious word."

Giancarlo obviously confuses the subject. He may well be positive toward religion in general while being clueless about Christianity. Indeed, being "positive" toward religion in general is usually codespeak for subterfuging all faiths into a single meaningless ball--a view that results in every religion meaning nothing. This is where Giancarlo plants his flag.

"The writer implies that the Cabaret has been deliberately misleading in our advertisements of the show. On our website we have a suitability page. This is what it says about Altar Boyz...

"This is a show about a Catholic boy band on a mission to save souls. It is a comedy but it does not make fun of religion. These are young guys of today expressing their spiritual faith in contemporary terms through the medium of pop music.

"Though there is a lot of humor resulting from their enthusiasm and their naiveté, the boys are very sincere in their faith and the message is all about love and acceptance, belief in the Divine, and the need to 'work on your soul.' Those who feel that humor is inappropriate when combined with the subject of religion may find this show objectionable."

I stand by that description."

Giancarlo here sweeps all the aggressive and deluded misrepresentations of true faith under the rug of "humor". Because this play is a comedy, Christianity can be homosexualized and avoid matters propositional truth. But, Altar Boyz is only a comedy insofar as it seeks irony, and there is no irony in this presentation. Christians don't operate with homosexuality or meaninglessness. Rather, they believe in heterosexuality only, and seek meaning and purpose in every aspect of life and culture. If Giancarlo were a Marxist, he could conjure a picture of a John F. Kennedy wearing Fidel Castro fatigues, and call that humor. Of course, that is not humor, and it is not irony--it is meaningless cognitive dissidence.

I don't believe Giancarlo or the OCT intentionally engaged in false advertising. They are simply negligently ignorant.

Cobwebs

2008-04-24T07:36:00.003-07:00

Cobwebs can be thick
as rebar
twisting across old rooms
where no one dares to tread

People peak in the dark windows
and slake away like rats
No one goes in those rooms anymore;
Why should I bother, they say

But windows are for looking
and rooms for living
and where flowers once sat on tables
they can be placed once again

There are exactly three reasons
You won't need a flashlight
The next time you see
My face

Altar Boyz: Theater Without Character

2008-04-01T07:45:00.009-07:00

Below is a letter I wrote to the editor of the Ashland Daily Tidings of Ashland, Oregon. It regards the play I attended there last week entitled "Altar Boyz". My thoughts on that backward play should (hopefully) be clear by the text of the letter. Remember to write the local editor. Keep discourse alive.

Dear Editor,

The Oregon Cabaret Theater’s production of Altar Boyz presents a creative and energetic view of modern Christianity. It takes place in the pleasant setting in the hills above Ashland, and could, if it were directed differently, perhaps be enjoyable.

But Altar Boyz has a problem. The problem is that the OCT advertises the play as a “sincere” Christian production, which, for at least two reasons, it absolutely is not. First, Altar Boyz thumbs its nose at the church by suggesting a theatrical and fake core in the heart of the believer. In the story, the band urges the audience to accept Christ, but nowhere are sound reasons given. Rather, the five boys giddily defer to the abilities of the “Sony Soul Saver”, a digital device with the ability to “sense” the presence of unsaved souls. As the Altar Boyz gyrate around the stage singing about nothing but attempting to be cute, souls of the audience supposedly come to Christ. It is the perfect postmodern caricature of the faith: bereft of content and unashamedly reliant on gimmicks.

Second, the play is even more anti-Christian in its use of homosexual innuendo. In a scene depicting how the band originally formed, the character Mark, “the sensitive one”, makes a long, tongue-wagging pass at his bandmate Matthew. In another scene, the song “God Put the Rhythm in Me” degenerates into the musical mantra “God put it in me’. In this scene the young men protrude their backsides toward one another, thrust their pelves in response, and repeat “God put it in me” over and over again.

Essentially, the play is wrong in its premises, which are that the religion is superficial and welcomes any lifestyle. The reverse is true. Christianity is the only consistent way I’ve found to meet man’s deepest needs; but in order for the Christian worldview to be any good, it must make demands. One of those demands is that men not love men sexually. The director is lost on this point. He must believe there are no demands because the stuff of faith is unknown, and the god who we worship is just one narrative among many. No wonder he sees faith as superficial.

One qualification. I do not wish to silence the playwright or the director. They have the right to say what wish. But they don’t have the intellectual right to advertise Altar Boyz as “sincerely” Christian, or “fiercely” on the side of true faith. Oregon Cabaret’s advertisements make these claims. So, either people at the Cabaret are lying, or they are inept. It speaks to the religious illiteracy of our age when a performance such as this can pass as Christian and the public says so little about it.

Aaron Beitler
Littleton, Colorado

Cowardice and Courage

2007-10-10T21:23:00.002-07:00

It is the greatest question; not just in the life of Nietzsche, but in the life of each of us. Do I, when it matters, know how and why to be courageous?

In order to answer the question, we must first define courage. For example, if I stand up for a murderer as he is committing his atrocities--stand up for him even against shouting crowds or physical threats--then I'm not courageous, I am an idiot. So when we say courage we do not mean merely the ability to resist.

Some believe that we don't need to set standards in order to address this question. We can safely leave the "when and why" of courage up to our conscience. But this is problematic. Consciousness is too duplicitous and confusing for us to know when to act, and be motivated to do so. If we rely on unguided conscience, then we often wind up merely acting against a certain person, or certain social conventions, or even against ourselves. Therefore conscience is not enough. Transcendent principles are necessary to provide structure to the mandates of true courage. To put it another way, Truth is what is needed to provide definition here.

True right and wrong--Truth--is the only way to know when and how to act courageously. We cannot, as Nietzsche believed, leave the issue to our "animal instincts". If we go that route, we will indeed slip into confusion, and then, whether we like it or not, Nihilism.

C.S. Lewis Society Meetings

2007-10-03T01:18:00.002-07:00

The meeting begins this Friday night (Oct 5) and continues all day Saturday. Go fill your mind!! And while you're there, ask the bookstore if they carry anything by the original mountain thinker himself, Francis Schaeffer.

Link: http://www.cslewis.org/programs/ff/2007/index.html

Looking at Gift Horses

2007-09-10T06:37:00.001-07:00

What is with our antipathy toward the metanarrative? Yes, so we have found through the years that institutions are flawed. The church goofed up with Galileo. Foucault found that there are such things as power structures in the words of the "holy". Derrida discovered that readers bring their own experiences into their interpretations of literature. But should we, on account of these imperfections, throw out the possibility that life makes sense? Because there are holes in what has passed as truth, should we now believe that it is futile to try to find a true viewpoint?

Would we not be better served to correct the viewpoints we have inherited; to flesh them out and refine them? But we have thrown out even the possibility of truth! What a bunch of ingrates we are! How poorly we've treated the Truth that has been passed down to us! We looked the gift horse in the mouth and called the tallow company, never bothering to think that every man needs his steed.

When, my friend, will we grow weary of walking?

He just forgot

2007-09-08T16:12:00.002-07:00

"What then is truth? a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms--in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins." --Nietzsche

What I would say back to Nietzsche, is Why should I listen to your mobile army of metaphors? Or if I were more kind, I would repeat what Mindy Smith says so well on Long Island Shores, "You just forgot". You just forgot, my brother. You just forgot that words have wonderful meaning, and they correspond to reality; you forgot that deification of yourself is a poor counterfeit of the real thing, and you forgot, innocently enough, so many other things. Ah but for a chance to sit down with the man, up there beneath the Swiss glaciers of Gimmelwald, back in 1885.

Who's at the Helm?

2007-09-07T11:50:00.000-07:00

We debate these days, as old Mr. Nietzsche did, whether anyone has the intellectual right to advocate foundations. Who am I to say there is a correct sexual orientation; true interpretations of the differing religious worldviews; or a balanced approach to the environment? "No one has such authority", they tell me. Well, consider the alternative. If there are no foundations, then culturally speaking, we are at sea in a boat with no rudder. Nietzsche himself seemed to like this idea, as he was fond of saying we are, by our very nature, vessels in a raging sea; and our strength is validated only in such storms. Our individuality is revealed this way and in no other. But he left out the rudder, so, what of navigation and direction? Are we only boats isolated in the waves, perhaps teathered to the sea floor? How lonely and purposeless a journey! Here is the essential error in Nietzsche: the True Human needs a purpose beyond himself. Dedication, volunteerism, and brotherhood are part of what it means to live. These CANNOT emanate from an enclosed self. So, far be it from us! Give me a boat with a map, and a brother to save! How much more enjoyable is THAT kind of life!

Armor, or something less?

2007-08-31T21:52:00.003-07:00

If there is one thing we know about Nietzsche, it is that the man could write and think. His words dance accross the page like few other writers. To wrestle with him is a challenge, and a necessary one, for anyone who wants to see the height and breadth of humanity.

However, this blog is dedicated not to Nietzshe's greatness, but to his baseness. I want to discuss not how much of life Nietzsche's thought overcame, but rather the crucial small spots in which the man avoided his responsibility to engage reality. I am motivated to do this because his small missteps do not remain small; they grow and grow, and come to color his philosophy, and even our current culture, such that degredation, rather than greatness results from an honest adherence to his philosophy.