“Down to Earth”: an Anthropology

When I told my mom some of the classes I would be taking in my last few quarters at Fuller Seminary, she expressed her delight and then said, “And how are you going to stay down to earth?” I chuckled and jokingly said, “I cannot help but stay down to earth. Both my feet tread the earth every day.” In retrospect I think I should’ve added, “When we soar too close to the sun, our wings melt, so I will be sure to stay nearer to the ground.”

I have fond memories of growing up in rural South Carolina and being able to smell the soil as the dew evaporated in the morning. I miss that smell.

While we live, we may develop the desire to soar to the heights of human achievement, but as soon as we are born, gravity begins pulling us into the grave. This is not my attempt at seeming cynical, but I would like to remain well grounded in recognizing my own finitude, something of which teenagers are prone to be ignorant.

Quite a few folks point out similarities between humans and animals, and I think rightly so. It doesn’t take much imagination to note similarities between humans and animals. Other folks point out the vast differences between humans and animals, and again I think rightly so. Genesis may be considered to be too archaic for providing insights into anthropology, but I think Genesis paints a rather illuminating picture. It plants us firmly on the ground like many of the other animals, and it notes that humans are spirited: we are spirited dirt people. Now what this signifies precisely is the beginning of debate. Perhaps, along with Hamlet we will declare that humans are “the paragon of animals…and yet what is this quintessence of dust?” (2.2).

We Christians, especially in America, don’t know what the heck to do with apocalyptic literature most notably in the canonical witness. Our rather frightful incapacity for reading apocalyptic literature leaves us thinking that we are extraterrestrial creatures visiting the earth only for a short while. This couldn’t be farther from the canonical witness’ portrait of what it means to be human.

Our modern forefathers had a thing or two to say about what it means to be human. That great wizard Pascal spoke wisdom that will continue to echo in our ears for generations to come: “Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, a man would still be more noble than that which kills him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this. All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality” (347).

Recalling the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, Voltaire would probably not have been too far off from echoing Pascal’s conclusion that we are but feeble things, and in light of several recent major disasters, Pascal’s remarks about our frailty have been accentuated further.

Descartes is famous or infamous for declaring, “I think therefore I am.” However, some folks have facetiously pointed out that according to Descartes’ own rationale he cannot even say, “I think therefore I am,” only “thoughts are being thunk.” In any case, I sure hope I am more than merely a thinking thing. Descartes’ reflections, and for that matter Pascal’s, may have been of some worth; however, we would likely do ourselves a disservice by not moving beyond Descartes’ rather limited and dubious conclusions. His conclusions were not quite conversant with Genesis’ anthropological portrait nor were they trying to be.

Wittgenstein has greatly influenced contemporary theological conversations and rightly so. You might say that he has dusted away the cute homunculus from the alleged seat in our skull, and this spring-cleaning has not been to our detriment. In moral discourse, MacIntyre has made an assertion or two, and fortunately for us morality apparently has a body.

Unlike our animal friends, we humans are monomaniacs when it comes to telling stories about ourselves. It might be said that we are walking narratives more concrete, hilarious, grotesque, and subtle than any of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories.  

Whatever fancy descriptions we use for anthropology especially a theological anthropology, we should likely remember to keep things down to earth. After all, we are dirt people. 

Crumbs: Hamlet and Consciousness

The title to this blog involves two of my perennial interests, especially so when I was in college. Hamlet the Shakespearian play and Hamlet the character are each among my favorites in literature. Consciousness lists near the top of my curiosities in whatever field I happen to be reading at the moment, usually philosophy or theology or literature (I admit ignorance regarding psychology, which makes me an unequivocal layperson on the topic). Needless to say, Hamlet and consciousness overlap to a large degree.

Harold Bloom, a noted literary critic, regards Shakespeare as the inventor of the human (in literature) due to Shakespeare’s creation of Hamlet. Many people “see” consciousness in Hamlet, and this seems to be due to Hamlet’s soliloquies. Hamlet seems to demonstrate a keen self-awareness and disillusionment. It is little surprise then that many writers (Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Joyce, Sartre, etc.) of varying classes have been drawn to Hamlet, for Hamlet displays all the qualities of a self-aware individual. He is an excellent case study for phenomenology.

Consciousness is often proclaimed to be a mystery – Hamlet himself says so, and indeed it seems to be the case. It is elusive, and sometimes strikes me as a mere philosophical muddle that we are guilty of describing poorly and consequently consider it inscrutable.

There is a twist with Hamlet’s self-awareness. Walker Percy remarks on consciousness in general saying, “The paradox of consciousness is that the stranger we meet on the street and glance at for a second or two we see more clearly than we shall ever see ourselves” (“Is a Theory of Man Possible?”). Percy seems to be a bit facetious here, but there may also be some truth to his analysis. If Percy isn’t too far off the mark, then it is we the readers/hearers who see Hamlet more clearly than he could ever have seen himself; and yet we see him only with processes and patterns of thought that seem largely out of our control.

Hamlet is considered to be a self-aware individual, and yet he is mostly unaware. We see Hamlet, but we see him according to patterns of which we are unconscious. Are he and we interacting in an ambiguous Bermuda Triangle of the unconscious? But what am I saying?

When we “see” Hamlet’s consciousness and when we speak of consciousness in general, we should likely speak briefly of anthropology more generally, for what we are doing – when we are seeing Hamlet and speaking of our own consciousness – involves anthropological constitution. If it is accepted that humans are constituted by materials, then it might also be said that these materials working together create a synergy that produces what we often call “consciousness.” These materials are basically “unconscious.” This means that we humans, though you could say we are “conscious” beings, are largely “unconscious.” It is this immense “unconscious” side of us that paves the roads for consciousness and consequently has much to do with determining our patterns of thought, albeit not entirely because our contexts also seem to contribute to paving the roads for our patterns of thought but to this we indeed are also largely unconscious.

It may be the case in literature or philosophy that we consider the degree of a person’s self-awareness according the perspicacity of their phenomenology. And yet a portrait of a person’s phenomenology is only a single window into their dynamic being. And this single window only sees a product, and this product is seen only by a product. What is called “raw realism of subjectivity” is not raw (though “raw” may denote “less polished”); it is a polished product, polished by the seemingly unconscious materials that contribute to our constitution and by our context.

It is in part because we are largely unconscious beings that we need to practice habits, for it is with physical habits that have the potential to condition those “unconscious” aspects of who we are and consequently those conscious aspects of who we are that we contribute consciously to forming our unconsciousness. It is habits then that have the capacity to train us comprehensively. With habits we can train those tangible “unconscious” aspects of who we are, which contribute to that synergy that contributes to the rise of consciousness. It is difficult and elusive for “me” to discern the line between what is conscious and unconscious, for I find myself stumbling into habits of thought all the time, which seem random and largely unconsciously engendered. This would, I suppose, be an example of “slipping” into habits. However, I would contend that we need to learn to practice “intentional” habits of thought and behavior, lest we “slip” into detrimental habits, which have comprehensive ramifications.

This blog may seem as if I am going down a dead end road of materialism, which of course I am not. I have not said a word about God and God’s relation to humanity, which entails involvement of consciousness but does not require consciousness to be “immaterial.” Consequently, I have also not commented on the nature of spirituality, though spirituality also entails involvement with consciousness. Needless to say, speaking of consciousness as inadequately as I have done here does not insinuate nor necessitate a completely materialistic anthropology.

In this blog, I have spoken generally and as such rather vaguely, but I am merely emphasizing that we humans are indeed physical beings. This is obvious, but it is often (it seems) overlooked. We are quite physical, and as oxymoronic as it may seem, we need to become aware of just how unaware we actually are that we might use our infinitesimal consciousness to train our immense unconsciousness. If human consciousness is an ocean, then human unconsciousness is a galaxy.

Hamlet said, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” and I might add, “there are many things in heaven and earth, Hamlet, that give you dreams of philosophy.”

On Story: our world

No matter your trade, station, vocation, or hobby, at one point or another you will likely come across the opportunity to tell a tale or two, be it about the size of the fish you didn’t catch or the distance of the marathon you didn’t run. We all tell a tale or two given the occasion.

Our lives are storied lives; we live stories, and we live within stories. Stories make for us a symbolic world within which we may reside. Given this, I think not of stories to read “before I die” but of stories to read in order that I might live richly. Some stories are like an entire house, while other stories are like the furniture inside a house. I tend to think of my own life as a story similar to the latter and the biblical story as a story similar to the former. My story resides within the biblical story. The biblical story then creates a symbolic world within which I may reside. Sitting in a single room of the house will not, of course, divulge all the happenings in the rest of the house. Discovering other rooms then is half the fun, and discovering other rooms in the house provides more symbols with which I might engage life.

Needless to say, the bible is not the only story. There are myriads of other stories. Whether we realize it or not, we are furnishing our houses with the stories we watch, hear, and read. If this is the case, then we will surely be careful what sort of stories we involve in our furnishings. I doubt if anyone desperately desires to put a mud puddle in the middle of the living room. However, some stories are not pleasant, but they are important. Therefore, I do not suggest that anyone should furnish the house with only pillows. We need more than pillows, lest we make for ourselves a padded room – and those are for crazy people. Also, it might be said that it is quite easy to decorate your house without spending so much as a bead of sweat and a dollar. But those who are unwilling to do the work may find themselves in a house without windows, a house resembling a coffin.

Regarding stories in such a manner, it is then less about reading particular stories “before you die” and more about reading particular stories in order that you might live with them. Whether we like it or not, we live storied lives, and the stories we invite into the house will most certainly set the trajectory for the sorts of lives we will live and the sorts of stories we tell.

Personal Continuity: Obvious yet Elusive?

I shall begin with a question and shall end without answering it. “Whence is personal continuity?” It might be said I am little more than this physical body. When I die and become compost and am eventually recreated perhaps the recreated version of me is the same me by virtue of my being preserved in the mind of God. In contrast, it might be said that I am physical with a sort of soul in which case my personal continuity lies with the soul. Either option, among many others, may offer a degree of solace. However, I find them each to be a bit inadequate regarding personal continuity in narrative (in response it might be said that the narrative is the personal continuity, but this is rather unhelpful when seeking to build personal continuity inside the narrative).

At what point does a reader or hearer meet a person in a narrative? Is it the learning of a name? Is it physical description? Is it the peculiar vernacular in a dialogue? Is it repetitive behaviors? Is it a combination? Perhaps, a reader or hearer never feels that he or she has “met” the person. Then in that case at what point does a reader or hearer feel as though there is someone to continue meeting over the course of the narrative? And if the reader or hearer continues meeting this person, what is “holding” that fictive person together so that it is the same fictive person that a reader or hearer is meeting?

Though it may be said that over the course of a narrative a person/protagonist “evolves” or matures, that hardly solves the problem. That is the problem. Of course, someone like Natasha in War and Peace perhaps matures into a fine young lady far from the terribly immature young girl in the beginning of the story, but it seems as though the Natasha at the end of the story is still the same Natasha from the beginning of the story, however matured she may be by the end. It is the immature Natasha who matured. And yet who or what is maturing? What, in a sense, is preserved? What is the “material” (that which is Sonya) that matures but is still the same “material”? I fear words such as “essence”, yet is that what I am pretending is necessary?

Again, speaking of essence and nature and soul and the like may provide some solace for some folks in some cases, but that sort of talk seems rather unhelpful for maintaining personal continuity in a narrative, especially when endeavoring to write a narrative. I care not if such diction is in vogue or not. What matters here is simply the retention of a person throughout an entire narrative while maintaining a development of the person that coincides with the dénouement of the narrative.

On the other hand, how might there be personal continuity, if the chronology is scrambled? In this case the development of the person does not coincide with the dénouement of the narrative in any straightforward way. If the chronology is scrambled, then it is up to the reader or hearer to piece together jagged fragments. I recently read Absalom, Absalom! and this was the case. I must say piecing together vague and unreliable fragments of Thomas Sutpen did not offer much hope that I would end with a clear portrait of Sutpen. But I suppose that even with an “ordered” chronology I may not end with a clear portrait of this person named Natasha. However, that I am supposing there is a Sutpen to piece together is precisely my problem. No matter if the chronology is scrambled, I am still supposing there is a person to unscramble, and that seems to insinuate that there is some sort of obvious and elusive personal continuity.

Am I merely seeking to discern an arcane shroud that lies behind the name? Is there not a shroud to be discerned? Well, that there is the story would seem to suggest that there is a shroud to be discerned. Of course, there are innumerable variables and philosophies at play in each of these narratives, so I do not mean to suppose that they are basically the same. Furthermore, I do not mean to ignore the various philosophies at play. However, I do wish to begin to discern how personal continuity might be established when writing a narrative. At the end of a story, a writer will surely ask, “Is this protagonist one or twenty persons?”

“Whence is personal continuity?” Perhaps, my question is much ado about nothing or is simply barking up the wrong tree. But even so, Flannery O’Connor still sat down in front of her typewriter for two hours each morning and wrote stories about people who by the end seemed to have become our acquaintances.

The South is...

Sine moving to California, the South seems to have a different hue. I now see the South from a distance but as an insider. There are many other ways to perceive the South, but now I think the South is a fairyland teeming with magic and fairies.

At the beginning of the story there was a bad fairy who deceived some other fairies. Since then, there have been swarms of trouble, and there are legions of dangerous fairies and fairies who pretend not to be fairies at all. Some fairies have cut off their wings and explain fairyland according to “natural processes.” They reside in what is called the University. There was an ongoing battle between fairies even in the University. But nowadays the battle is different. It is different because the Universities have pervaded with a keen magic and so now most folks don’t even believe in fairies and magic anymore.

But everybody knows that fairies are still fairies and magic is still magic no matter what you call it.

It seems that folks in the South may not notice they live in a fairyland but that is not because they deny it (though they may deny the language but not the reality of it as indicated by their behavior). They may not notice because they are so accustom to living in it. They assume it. The aforementioned fairy stories are all a part of the Southern consciousness, often subconscious. “God willin’ and the creek don’t rise I’ll make it to work on time.” Some might interpret this to bespeak an imbued sense of the tragic in the Southern consciousness, but there is another way of understanding this. “‘God willin’ and the creek don’t rise I will get to work on time’ cause everybody knows you never know what might happen next in a fairyland.”

Folks living in New England and on the West coast seem to have been playing the pretend game that fairies and magic do not exist. And now they have begun to believe their game is actually true. When they were children the game was pretend, but since becoming adults they say it is actually the way things are. There is no magician, and so there cannot be any such magic. They assert that there is no magic and there are no fairies. So they say. But even the folks who say such things are merely under the influence of bad fairies or fairies who have since cut off their wings.

Growing up involves a lot of things. Sometimes it involves forgetting. When I was a child, I preferred fairy stories (I even wrote a few), but when I grew up something happened. I grew into a “greater appreciation for ‘realism.’” I forgot about the fairy stories. I didn’t want them anymore, so I pretended they weren’t true. And then my pretend game seemed to grow more and more true, until finally I was convinced that yes indeed it was true. There is no magician, no magic, nor fairies. All this while I still lived in the last (admittedly so) fairyland in the United States. Then one day, I moved away from fairyland, to a place where people said there wasn’t such a thing as fairyland or a magician. I thought without them life was real, but this was still part of my pretend game, though I lacked the acumen to realize it. And then I saw it, the magician, the magic, and the fairies: all before me doing what they always do, continuing to soar through the air and continuing to do what they were meant to do in the first place.

The South seems to be one of the few places in the United States that still remains content with living in the world of the text, in the world of Scripture’s story, a world filled with real magic and real fairies. It may seem strange to speak of a magician, magic, and fairies, but I can think of nothing more germane. We have a propensity to be so modern, so enlightened that we begin describing everything according to sterile laws and banal philosophies. For those of us who often refrain from living in the magical world of the text, fairy stories are just what the doctor ordered, for “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in [our] philosophy.”

Narrative, Reduction, and Recovery

Complex systems theory suggests that a whole is more than the sum of its parts (or something of the like). Perhaps similarly, a narrative is more than the sum of its parts. A narrative may be “more” in so far as the narrative is distinct from being merely a grouping of its parts, distinct from being merely an unwoven string of people and events. Like an intricately woven tapestry being something other than threads lain side by side on a table, a narrative is “more.” This may be close to the truth, but the past two hundred years of critical hermeneutics suggests otherwise.

Operating in accord with an atomistic perception of language, the past few hundred years of critical method have considered the meaning of a given text to depend upon individual parts. The meaning of a text relies entirely on individual words and the grammar, syntax, etc. Thus, the synergy of the narrative is ignored and is reduced to individual parts. This ignores the possibility that the whole may “more” or something other than a mere disconnected grouping of its parts. This sort of reduction of a narrative is tantamount to the vivisection of what I have previously referred to as “synthetic philosophy.”

Hans Frei does more to explain the effects pre-critical and critical methods have had on narrative than I suspect I will ever do. But I shall offer an egregiously brief summary here. Pre-critical methods accepted the narrative and its world, and critical methods judged the narrative and its world according to how we presently perceive the world. This change in method raised as many new questions as it answered previous questions. To answer the new questions, a sort of polarization ensued. Some asserted that the language in Scripture referred to actual historical objects (and the actual meaning of referents could be determined according to grammar, as mentioned above), while others asserted that the religious language found in Scripture narrative is merely time-conditioned consciousness which does not necessarily refer to historical objects, people and events and geographical places. This polarization disregarded the nature of narrative and its world. In both cases, narrative was lost.

How might narrative and for that matter its meaning be recovered? This is a loaded question, which requires thorough attention. For now just a tidbit will do. First, narrative’s distinctiveness from its parts must be acknowledged. Perhaps, an example will offer some further assistance. If we consider, the opening sentence of Flannery O’Connor’s “Green Leaf,” we might see the synergy of parts forming a narrative distinct from its parts. “Mrs. May’s bedroom window was low and faced on the east and the bull, silvered in the moonlight, stood under it, his head raised as if he listened – like some patient god come down to woo her – for a stir inside the room.” For the sake of brief analogy (and omitting the philosophy of language in which she is operating), let us pretend that each word represents a sentence or even a paragraph in a larger narrative. “Bedroom window,” floating apart from the whole may be interpreted to mean a myriad of different of things. Ah, but it is “Mrs. May’s bedroom window,” etc. In conjunction with its narrative, “bedroom window” has a specific meaning or use. This may seem to be a rather rudimentary observation, but this observation is distinct from saying only it has a referent or time conditioned consciousness. Allowing the narrative to shape and provide its own meaning is something rather different, and it is not simply giving preference to context (for that would atomistic). Letting the narrative retain its own world of meaning requires that we consider the narrative to be its own complex system, which has its own particular uses and meanings of words but also whose uses and meanings of words must be considered in light of the synthetic whole instead of its parts lest the meaning of the whole be lost. But alas this is only the beginning. However, at least, acknowledging narrative and its distinctiveness from its parts is a start. More of this later.

Many Books on Doubt and Ambiguity

Needless to say much ink has been spilt for thousands of years regarding the issues of doubt and ambiguity. Job curses the day of his birth. The psalmist says his bones are in agony. Hamlet’s many soliloquies bespeak the gnawing inside of him. Raskolnikov grows physically sick toiling over matters of murder and meaning. As Prince Andrei lies mortally wounded on the battlefield, he stares up at the sky and contemplates existence and thoughts of home flood his consciousness. Roquentin is surrounded by people yet he feels sick with loneliness among other things. There are numerous other fictional people to add to the list, but what do all these fictional people indicate about the nonfictional world of people? Of course, a glance at historical contexts and myriads of reasons and causes will surface. It might be said that books grieving over existential doubt and ambiguity are induced by a trifling interest. It might be said that many people continue reading such books out of curiosity. However, generally speaking, I think there are other reasons.

These fictional people were squeezed out of their authors as if squeezed out of grapes in a wine press. The grapes endured great suffering but for great result. Stanley Hauerwas said that we would lose something if Dostoevsky had lived today and we made him a psychologically “well adjusted person.” So perhaps doubt and ambiguity are not thoroughly evil.

A rudimentary observation will likely note that doubt and ambiguity are described with rather vague metaphors. This seems true and with good reason. Metaphors seem to capture what plain language cannot. Dark-grey clouds hang low overhead, and they suggest an imminent storm. The air grows thick and bursts of light flash through the sky. With a smile and a nod, the trapdoor falls and the rope grows taunt. Choking and kicking of feet. Then calm. The feeling of existential doubt may be vague, but it is certain. This is a reason for the use of metaphor. The metaphor may be slippery and difficult to pinpoint, but it is apt.

Again, why the fascination with such existential wallowing as doubt and ambiguity? As of yet, I have only mentioned these issues as expounded by the ink on innumerable pages. It may be that many have tasted the bitterness and then read Dostoevsky, and said, “Is it true? I am not the only one who has tasted this fruit?” I will wager a guess that so much ink has been spilt on the same issues because these issues are not merely interesting but they are unshakable and intrinsic. For these reasons, at least in part, much ink has been spilt and will continue to be spilt. As long as we humans continue to live outside the garden, we will continue to spill ink and to wallow and to groan and to read the ink that has been spilt.

A Grateful Heart and a Careful Eye

As I have experienced more of life bit by bit, I have realized that yes indeed I am my parents’ son. My inadvertent habits and mannerisms seem to fall not from the tree. I speak about important and unimportant matters as indirectly as possible. I mince words when I have the chance almost as if I am an Ent in the bloodline of the great Treebeard. This often ironic tendency seems akin to my dad, who has a way of making requests and assertions in a rather indirect way. One particular day in my teenage years, my dad called the house from his office.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Sam.”
“Hey, Dad.”
From this point I do not remember much save the following nugget of hilarity.
“Sam, do you think you could get someone to mow the lawn? The grass is starting to look a bit high.”
“Okay,” quickly looking around the house I had an epiphany, “but Dad I’m the only one here.”
“Yeah, okay, well if you could just get someone to do it that’d be great.”
And thus my dad has a tendency for the indirect, which I have unashamedly inherited and employ on a regular basis, though I like to think that I appreciate directness. My wife, Esther, can attest to this point. However, she has caught on, and now she likes to do it too. “Sam, could you get someone to take out the trash?” Of course, no one else is living with us.

I have inherited of few of my mom’s foibles too. She is what most people would consider a perfectionist. I think in that case “most people” are in the right. She has a propensity for reading, rereading, and rerereading etc. what she has been writing, be it a play, a paper, or a book. After rereading whatever it is for the umpteenth time, she remains dissatisfied, for she knows something is out of place or needs some subtle adjusting. I have inherited this proclivity with unmitigated enthusiasm. Whatever it is that I so happen to be working on, I check and recheck until I am seeing double. I know Esther laughs to herself about this. I often let my mom read what I have been writing (though she does not read these silly blogs, for then I would likely never get around to posting a blog!). One particular instance I let her read a piece of fiction I had been crafting, and the following ensued.
“Wow, Sam, this is great!”
“Thanks, Mom. So what’s wrong with it?”
She listed a whole host of things. I chuckled to myself knowing that I would have it no other way. After completing her laundry list, I showed it to her again.
“Is it ready do you think?”
“Well, Sam, I don’t know if I would say it’s finished yet. Just let it sit awhile, and then after you have developed some more as a writer perhaps you can go back to it and finish it.”

This could be taken poorly, but I enjoy her keen eye and perfectionism, knowing that I have indubitably partly inherited it, though I would not flatter myself to think that I have her same perspicacious eye. There are numerous other habits and mannerisms my parents have passed on to me, more than I care to mention here.

With these thoughts, I have come to realize that I am unavoidably not self-made. I have been and am shaped by others, most notably my parents. This reality has brought to my attention the fact that I will be doing something analogous to my children. It’s a scary thought. My goodness! To think that there will be a few little human beings walking around in the wide world having inherited some of my silly foibles. Fortunately, they will have inherited some of Esther’s too. Parents have the potential to bless the world or to curse it. And which they choose the world will see on display through their children.

A Few Recommendations

Jesus and the Victory of God. This book was placed in my hands, and before that moment I had not seriously considered reading it though I had heard of it. I am very thankful for “accidentally” reading this book. It’s long, but it’s quite readable. Whether or not you have an interest in any of the quests for the historical Jesus, this is an edifying book. If you are interested in Jesus academically, this is a good book. If you desire most of all to meet Jesus again for the first time, this is a good book. A lot of attention is aptly paid to Jesus' death and resurrection. But what about his life? Wright’s discussion is thorough, keen, and speaks on a variety of levels.










The Resurrection of the Son of God. I was spurred on to read this book after finishing Jesus and the Victory of God. I was not disappointed. This is a rather exhaustive discussion of resurrection language, its uses, and significance in the pagan world, the Jewish world, and especially in the early Christian communities. It was absolutely exhilarating to consider the early Christians' valuing of Jesus' resurrection and of their own future resurrection. I hope this book contributes to altering many of the current interpretations of resurrection language.







The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. After having heard professors from different fields refer to this book as illuminating, I decided it was likely a good idea to read through it. I have not read anything that comes close to this book regarding hermeneutics. As indicated by the subtitle, this book is an overview of critical methods over the past few hundred years. Again and again, I located myself in the discussion and realized why I naturally make certain inferences. This is a valuable book, if for no other reason than engendering a reevaluation of critical method.










Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism. I read this for a class, and I am glad I did. For Christians and non-Christians this neat little book offers some insights into what on earth theological liberals and conservatives are fussing about. It turns out that the two camps may be merely in two separate spheres of reasoning and argumentation necessitated largely by modernity. Something’s gotta give. This is a rather brief book, but it is quite focused and offers some clarity regarding the water-and-oil relationship of liberals and conservatives.









Evangelism in the Early Church. This was an unlikely book to make this list. However, I think this is an important book to read for anyone who is involved in church. Green says, “evangelism was the lifeblood of the early church.” That may have been the case, but what does that mean anyway? And if that was the case, how does that compare to the contemporary church?

Ontological Quibbles: Postscript

The last entry was quite fragmented, as my entries are usually. As of late, I have felt unable to think to the contrary. However, I thought it would be appropriate to give the previous entry a postscript aimed at the issue of ontological distinction and development. But this will be no more thorough than any other entry, in fact less so.

Picking up where I left off…

If relationship has ontological significance and epistemology is a grammar for ontological nexuses, then the ontological difference between the pastor and the Hindu is with whom they each have relationship. The pastor allegedly has relationship with God. This relationship has profound ontological significance, and this may or may not be physically indicated by the community in which the pastor participates. Something analogous may be said of the Hindu, though I imagine it would look and sound much different. And in the pastor’s terms, the Hindu’s ontology would be without relationship with God, thus ontologically in the negative, which then ontologically distinguishes the pastor from the Hindu.

As a side note, which cannot and should not be omitted, praxis is a consequence of ontology. A nonreligious person may have certain practices, which seem rather similar to those of someone with a particular religious ontology. However, this nonreligious person, though he or she has certain practices, lacks the particular religious relationship which alters ontology (a horse may walk on its two back legs, but it is no more a human than when it walks on all four legs (a flippant example)). On the other hand, the person, whose ontology has been altered in accord with a relationship with God, shall begin a certain practice as evidence and as a consequence of the new relationship. Henceforth, this person’s ontology and praxis shall mutually inform each other as the person grows more fluent in relationship and proper praxis.

It may be said, for example, that the church is full of terrible people. This is a sound observation. Then it may be said, “how can it be that such a people have been ontologically altered due to their alleged relationship with God and consequent new praxis? If this is so, then God is a terrible one.” The last inference goes astray, for though the people may be a ragged group of deceitful egoists this is not evidence of God’s not existing or of God’s being a rather nasty brat. The last inference should be inverted. Instead of concluding that God must not exist or that God is nasty because God’s people are so. It may be concluded that God is one of mercy and grace that God should bestow such gifts upon even these such sordid people. Perhaps, God does so with the hope that the ontological alteration due to relationship will not be stagnant but will continue along with praxis to mold the people into something less ragged and nasty. Thus, ontological alteration due to relationship with God may be a reality, though socially it may seem as if nothing much has happened.

Fragments: Ontological Quibbles in Theology and Literature

What does theology have to say about ontology? What does literature have to say about ontology? Can they be mutually informative regarding this issue?

Over the course of a few years, I asked, “what is the essential ontological difference between the Hindu and the Methodist pastor?” (this inquiry could be ventured in a variety of ways, and there are many answers in theology, though I felt generally dissatisfied). They are after all right across the street from each other, not even two hundred feet. I erroneously began this inquiry with belief asking, “what is the ontological significance of belief?” I was gravely disappointed (belief has epistemological implications though not direct ontological implications).

Since then I have directed my inquiry in a different direction, and I have concluded that, though epistemology is a grammar for ontological nexuses, relationship not belief has (direct) ontological significance.

The importance of community for the sake of identity among other things is currently emphasized by many. (This correlates to the much discussed apparent contradiction that though we seem to be “knowers” we do not know ourselves but must rely on others knowing us to know ourselves - we see ourselves and have certain notions of ourselves, but are these notions accurate or fabricated or at least partial truths? We need other people to identify us, and we need other people inform who we are.) However, I think more often than not this hackneyed emphasis lacks clarity in so far as it inadequately shows the concrete reality of identity (it is limited by its expressiveness and lack of referent).

Often community is offered as a way of ratifying identity but these attempts seem to fall short in showing concretely what this means or what this terminology (“community”) is doing to indicate resolution regarding the issue of ontology. I suggest that, with the imaginative powers of literary theory and narrative, we may begin to grasp the concrete reality of what it is to identify and thereby validate ontology within the context of community (to validate ontology, a person must be capable of identifying what it is one is validating; thus, identity is crucial for ontology).

Do modern novels have the potential to help us begin grasping the concrete reality of what it is to identify and thereby validate ontology within the context of community? Maybe. Some can answer this only in the negative, for their writers had a much different agenda - showing the protagonists in isolation to reveal the true “nature” of the person (but in seeking to truly reveal the identity of the person the person was lost in phenomenological wallowings (isolation is an ontological vacuum-like relational inversion; the ontology is evanescent in this circumstance)). However, novels such as The Brothers Karamazov, a novel way ahead of its time, may be helpful in this area, for much of the identity and thus the ontology of the brothers (as even the title suggests) relies heavily on relationships. The immediate and also the extended communities of the brothers give tacit remarks and validations regarding identity and thereby ontology. We “know” Dmitri, Ivan, Alyosha, and Smerdyakov, according to their mutually informative communities. I began to realize the potential of The Brothers Karamazov regarding ontology, when Esther exclaimed after reading a disturbing passage seemingly focused on Dmitri, “where is Alyosha in all of this!” Then I realized, “yes, Alyosha is there! Dmitri is the brother Alyosha wishes with all his heart to save!” It in this unsettling passage that we see a snippet of Alyosha’s enduring mercy. He would wish to save even this mongrel (this could and should be explained further, but this is at least a start).

Should theology and literature be divided? With the example of the bible, we see that it is best not. In terms of identity and consequently ontology, the bible is easily (apart from its canonization) the highest quality theological treatise, if for no other reason than it captures the imaginative powers of literature and thereby shows concretely the reality of what it is to identify and thereby validate ontology within the context of community (think of Genesis and 2 Samuel as examples). To this end, theology should rightly appropriate the powers of good literature and find its home in narrative.

Literary theory, on the other hand, may do well to learn from theology in learning how identity and consequently ontology is validated (in community) and thus develop new means of crafting the identity and ontology of a given protagonist(s).

Narrative Voice

It’s a curious thing that often when we begin to describe or retell a story we begin describing not the story but our own creation that may or may not have analogs to the story that we are intending to retell. This is an issue for students, novelists, pastors, historians, and anyone holding a casual conversation on the street corner. It’s likely a helpful practice then to be aware of what we are doing when we retell a story.

There are some stories reported by a named or anonymous persona. This persona may be loquacious or laconic. The common denominator is the persona’s conspicuous presence in the telling of the story. Though the persona may not be directly involved in the story, the persona is involved in so far as the persona engages on occasion with the reader and the characters’ thoughts and actions. The persona in a sense commentates on the story while telling the story. Perhaps, at times, the persona budges into the front and center of the stage so that the people, places, and events of the story are a backdrop to the persona’s commentating. The story may then be pages and pages of commentary and less actual action by the given people in the story. This sort of narrative voice is often simplistically referred to as telling.

In contrast, there may not be a persona telling the story. You may begin reading or for that matter listening without any inclination that there is someone telling the story other than the fact that portions of narrative are included and excluded in the telling of the story. The people, places, and events are front and center throughout the entirety of the story. There is not a persona commentating on the story’s happenings. There are merely people doing and saying things. This sort of narrative voice may be referred to as showing (similar to telling, this form of narrative may take on numerous forms such as implied third person, first person reflective, first person stream of consciousness, etc, so there is not one single form of showing).

However, the distinction between telling and showing is naïve, for never is one form present and the other form absent. The difference then is that one form may be more present than the other. There are innumerable combinations. Gogol and Dickens come to mind as two novelists who do commentate but restrainedly, while there are some earlier novelists who find themselves most interesting and thus chat more than their characters. This lies in stark contrast with Sartre’s protagonist in Nausea. Antoine Roquentin journals about the world around him and within him. Sartre or Sartre’s possible persona is not commentating on Antoine. The reader encounters Antoine filtered only by the implied narration of the narrator, implied because some happenings are included while others are excluded, and even then it would seem that Antoine is his own narrator. Other examples of this sort of extreme showing are As I Lay Dying and The Sound and The Fury. However, showing may also be merely people doing and saying things without a chatty persona. An example of this sort of middle of the road type showing is seen in O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away or McCarthy’s Sutree. Telling and showing a story are both intermingled processes of telling a story and thereby including and excluding many people, places, and events. Though some stories may exclude a lot of events, no story is exhaustive, even for that matter War and Peace.

It seems nearly impossible then to retell a story that already formally tells (thus furthering the filtration of the events in the story) or to retell a story that accentuates the form of showing events as they happen. In either case retelling a story seems to subtract and add to the original story thereby creating something different (there are a few cases when a story can be precisely reduplicated but even those cases seem suspect). This seems to be the case even with stories told the first time around; the people, places, and events are filtered through a narrator. No matter which form of narration is employed, the narrator is a present filtration at least by implication. Thus, awareness of the form and limitation of narrative is indispensable no matter what telling or writing is at hand.

The student may find that self-awareness in the writing process heightens the accuracy and efficiency of his essays, for he may then begin to locate which narrative voice he naturally uses (fortunately or unfortunately), which he may then alter accordingly. The novelist may appropriate certain methods in writing that may enhance the fabric of the narrative and thereby avoid certain clunky foibles. The pastor may employ certain restraints while sharing a story thereby revealing a story that is vital in and of itself without distracting impositions. The historian may find that thinning the filter (fewer fabricated inferences) may prove to be much more exciting and informative for readers. And the person on the street corner retelling the comical happenings at work may find himself giving a much more lively account with more or less commentary. Thus, a crucial element in narrative voice is the awareness of the narrator, that he or she realize what he or she is and is not doing.

synthetic philosophy

My earliest childhood memories are of my parents reading me fiction. Since then I have explored fiction relentlessly, only to find that yes indeed, “the reading of books is endless.” What began with The Hobbit continues with Dickens and Dostoevsky and Percy. Somewhere along the way self-awareness struck, and I had to ask myself the questions, “what is this I am reading and why do I like it so much?” These are two questions with which I continue to wrestle.

For the first question, I haven’t the knowledge to give an accurate history of the novel, but I am willing to wager a guess that many modern novelists seem to have a desire, an urge, to capture that which C.S. Lewis indicates cannot be captured, the enjoyed, life as life is actually lived. What else is raw realism of subjectivity but an endeavor to do just this, capture life as it is? Portions of The Sound and the Fury show what I mean. Perhaps, Faulkner pined to capture it, life, but alas he captured what C.S. Lewis called not the enjoyed but the contemplated. Faulkner strove, perhaps subconsciously, in vain to display the enjoyed, but as soon as he began to write the enjoyed was but an imprint, the contemplated version of the enjoyed. But this does not reduce the novel to triviality.

The novel’s capacity to literally multitask astounds me (naturally, for this discussion I will assume the novel to be written by a good novelist opposed to a poor one. Other more derogatory discussions may be saved for the cheap novelists and their fast-food-fiction). An anthropology, theology, psychology, etc., may be discoursed with no more than a wink, nod, and a scream. For this reason, the novel is synthetic philosophy, capturing in a single dialogue or description or gesture a treatise of life. But a novel is more than a single dialogue or gesture; it is an ocean of dialogues and gestures. Thus, the novel, in a mere hundred well used pages, is ten volumes of anthropology, theology, and psychology. A novel may be a contemplated version of the enjoyed, but with a mere sentence a mirror is set in front of nature to divulge her virtue. A page-long dialogue in a novel has the capacity to possess more meaning than a classroom full of textbooks.

The second question (“why do I like it so much?” ) baffles me because in part it is a complex question, a question involving more than one question. The “I” must be considered, and the “it” must be considered. What is it about me that draws me toward the novel? How does “it” relate to that aspect of me that so desires it?

With the aforementioned considerations regarding novels, it comes as little surprise that throughout history traditions have been preserved with stories. Furthermore, it seems to make rather good sense that the Scriptures involve myriads of stories. It must be true then that I am drawn to stories and more particularly to novels for a multiplicity of reasons. For one, stories are integral to my faith, and second I have a certain fondness for stories due to a host of childhood memories. Furthermore, stories do what nothing else can do, recount life. And life is something worth recounting; we humans live and die for our memories.

Stories aim at uncategorized life, nearly the enjoyed; if nothing more, stories are a way of preserving a version of especially important enjoyed moments. It’s the critics who vivisect stories and make them what they’re not, themes and caricatures. If my parents had read only critics’ reviews of stories to me when I was I child, I suspect I would never have mustered the motivation to read a story. Fortunately, they introduced me to sprawling adventures wrapped in paper and ink. I am in their debt.

Who Am I?

Identity is curious and elusive. I do not claim to have a handle on it. We all want to say we have identity and know who we ourselves are, but how many of us can indicate our own identity and how might we go about doing so? Last night I went to a lecture by Stanley Hauerwas. He explained more eloquently than I shall attempt here: we get to know him through other people’s narratives about him; we learn who he is by discovering other people’s relationships with him. Conversely, we likely learn less about who he really is by hearing himself talk about himself. This may be an analog to the issue of identity. A person’s identity may be located by discovering a person’s relationships. Nietzsche furthers this point: “we are unknown, we knowers, to ourselves…of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in ourselves we are bound to be mistaken, for each of us holds good to all eternity the motto ‘each is the farthest away from himself,’ as far as ourselves are concerned we are not knowers.”

This may become clearer (or muddled further) with an example. Who is Raskolnikov? This question may be answered by saying, “he’s a muderer in one of Dostoevsky’s novels.” But who is it who is the muderer? And who was he before he murdered? And was he who was previous to murdering altered by murdering? (These questions may be answered in part by his dream in the first tenth of the story) Setting aside these such questions, we may then ask, as many people have done, “why did he murder?” This question strikes me as hilarious because so much ink has been spilled on that question, when actually it cannot be answered even by Dostoevsky. He explained definitively in a letter to his publisher why the student killed the old lady, and in a letter to a friend he said he is not sure why Raskolnikov killed the old “louse.” I assume Dostoevsky’s letter to his friend was a bit more honest. What does this have to do with identity? In relation to the aforementioned process of discerning identity in Hauerwas’ lecture, it has quite a lot to do with identity. Perhaps, one reason even Dostoevsky did not know why precisely Raskolnikov killed the old lady is because we meet Raskolnikov not long before he commits the crime and thereby have little resources for discerning who Raskolnikov is via relationships with other people. All we have is a rather isolated person who mumbles to himself and remains distant from other people even in conversations. This of course is indicative, but it is not what we need to acquire who he is exactly other than an isolated maunderer who is tortured by his economic situation among other things - Raskolnikov’s solitary entry may be modernity’s influence on Dostoevsky.

We have the Narrator’s narrative in relationship to Raskolnikov, which I originally thought might be needed in this conversation due to Raskolnikov’s origin being in the Narrator, which I thought might be analogous to God’s relationship to Augustine as indicated in Augustine’s Confessions. However, the Narrator does not posses an ultimate perspective on Raskolnikov as does God in relation to Augustine, for the Narrator (or creator of the Narrator, Dostoevsky) confesses ignorance as indicated in his letter to a friend. So as Hauerwas indicated last night, we are ultimately understood according to and within God’s narrative about us, but this is not analogous to the Narrator in relationship to Raskolnikov. Therefore, though the Narrator may be included in the many relationships with Raskolnikov, it is not required, so the Narrator need not be included in this discussion.

Ironically, there are many relationships throughout the story, though Raskolnikov is radically isolated. Two crucial relationships in the story, which may give insight into the identity of Raskolnikov, are Raskolnikov’s relationships with Razumikhin and Sonya. Razumikhin’s relationship with Raskolnikov is primary in the first portion of the story. Razumikhin is a voice of reason and mostly a good influence on Raskolnikov. Razumikhin is a faithful friend but to a narcissistic axe murderer. Did Razumikhin go wrong? Probably not because Razumikhin does not come into relationship with Raskolnikov in any prominent way until after the murder, and even when Razumikhin is prominent Raskolnikov remains rather distant from Razumikhin, especially considering Razumikhin is one of Raskolnikov’s only real friends at the time. This relationship may not be as helpful in identifying Raskolnikov, for Raskolnikov insulates himself in this relationship - though that’s a start.

It’s difficult to determine when precisely (good job Dostoevsky) Razumikhin drifts from primary to secondary friend, and somewhere along the way Sonya drifts into being a primary friend to Raskolnikov. This is crucial, for though Razumikhin is a portrayed as a mostly good person Sonya does something more. She is a prostitute that her family might not starve to death after her father died and left her mother with several children to feed. Thus, Sonya is at the bottom of the social latter, but she is somehow simultaneously a selfless saint who serves her family relentlessly. When she drifts into becoming a primary friend and confidant to Raskolnikov, we find her to be a penetrating voice of mercy and truth. She immediately empathizes with Raskolnikov’s burden when he confesses his crime to her, but she requires that he confess to the publicly. He refuses at first. Thus, we see need for confession, and his denial of that fact. Raskolnikov is thoroughly insulated, but then he melts and falls to Sonya’s feet. A murderer forgiven by a prostitute. A prostitute who urges confession and repentance. A dead man resurrected through confession and repentance. These snippets are merely snippets, but they may at least suggest the potential for discovering the identity of Raskolnikov by way of relationships with other people.

Unfortunately for us, we may never really see a clear picture of Raskolnikov because the narrator of Raskolnikov focused so exclusively on Raskolnikov - a rather individualistic, modern, way of seeking to thoroughly show who he is, which ironically does the opposite. But the isolation seems to be a correct diagnostic; the isolation should be expected to intensify after Raskolnikov murders. We know lots of what Raskolnikov thinks and does, but we know little of who is the one who is thinking and doing. When he confesses at the end, we get a glimmer of hope that maybe he will one day enter into vital relationships, vital relationships which may then reveal who this Raskolnikov fellow is. But the epilogue only suggests such a thing.

It seems then that, when we social creatures drift away from relationships, we may in fact lose ourselves. We may drift into evanescence, practically invisible to others and thereby to ourselves. “Who is Raskolnikov?” may be answered in the negative. We do not precisely know who he is. He thinks and does things, but we do not know who is doing the thinking and the doing. But this negative answer may provide at least some indication in favor of the converse. Relationships, other people’s narratives about “me,” may in fact provide a glimpse of “who” I am.

From Death to Life

If I were a cat and had nine lives, I would spend one of those lives studying Dostoevsky’s corpus. In the past few years I have merely begun reading his monstrous corpus. The more I read the more I realize just how much there is to read - though I must confess in advance that I have never read his first novel, Poor Folk (I’ve tried three times but alas the few pages I’ve read were ghastly). And then at the end of the day when the reading is done, I realize my understanding has barely touched the surface. Touché, Dostoevsky. From House of the Dead and Notes From Underground to Demons and The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky touches on some of the most vital and sensitive areas of life. In fact, I actually know Raskolnikov, though mostly as just an acquaintance. What makes all these novels so good? To answer in Flannery O’Connor’s manner, I might say that Dostoevsky introduces us to people, and it’s a mystery what will happen next. Before we know it we’ve been swept away into disaster, comedy, and pining. From what I can tell, it’s rather impossible to indicate by bullet points or litany reasons why Dostoevsky is so good - in fact Kierkegaard asserted that if “you can list reasons why you love her, you do not love her; you only love those aspects about her.” So maybe it’s better not to list reasons why Dostoevsky is worth reading and perhaps studying extensively.

I wish I could say that my first encounter with Dostoevsky was sublime, but alas it’s not. On one of the many book shelves in my parents’ house sat a row of comic books. I was young then, perhaps six or seven years old. I liked pictures as much as stories, so naturally I frequented this shelf stocked with comic books. The comic books had neat pictures, but they were black and white - now those books are antiques, and my brother Philip would very much like to pinch them from me (I snuck them out of my parents’ house when I moved to California). I scanned the pictures not certain about the details of the stories but at least learning the generalities of the stories beginnings, middles, and endings. There was one particular book; it had a whale on the front, so I knew it was Moby Dick, a rather boring story about a guy who gets on a boat to stab whales with spears. I returned to this book often mostly because I thought the funny looking Indian, Queequeg, who smoked a funny looking pipe was interesting. There was also another book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I really liked this one, and in fact I read the actual full length story not long after because I like the pictures so much. Roving in caves and digging for buried treasure sounded like a lot of fun. There were numerous other such black and white comic books, too many to count at the time. It seemed like hundreds. Now I know it was more like twenty. The Invisible Man was another one of my favorites; I’m not certain why. And then there was another book I remember vividly, though I didn’t like it much. But it was so boring and irksome that I returned to it more than twice. It started with a guy walking and talking to himself. Then all of a sudden he pulled out an axe and killed an old lady for no apparent reason! Why would he do something like that? And then all he did was walk around and talk to people. For a six or seven year old boy, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, even as a comic book, was rather boring, but I remember it; something about it struck me even as a young boy who thought it was boring.
In college I rediscovered Dostoevsky. I heard someone mention “The Brothers Karamazov written by Dostoevsky,” and then in an instant childhood memories of that really boring comic book, Crime and Punishment, flooded my mind. Almost simultaneously I had the insatiable desire to read the Brothers Karamazov, and I did. Much to my surprise, it was not as boring as I remembered Crime and Punishment to be. The Karamazov brothers are a lot of things, but they are certainly not boring. The oldest brother Dmitri is in love with the same woman as his father. Ivan writes theological treatises to be ironic, for he is an atheist. And poor Alyosha, the youngest brother, is a monk in training; he is a beacon of purity. In the shadowy corners and cobwebs lurks Smerdyakov, the schemer, the illegitimate son. While reflecting on the Brothers Karamazov, it is sometimes difficult to think of these brothers, their relationships with each other and with others as something fictional. It’s all so vivid and vital.


Dostoevsky’s other novels, though not quite as masterful as The Brothers Karamazov, are nonetheless memorable. The twenty-six year old Prince Myshkin’s, Dostoevsky’s Christ figure (the idiot), relationship with the debauched world is startling and tragic. I am absent minded, and I forget a lot of things. But I will never forget Kirillov’s final scene with Stepanovich in Demons - I am reminded of O’Connor’s wisdom for fiction, “violence is not an end in itself but is an extreme situation that reveals what we are essentially.” There are many memorable people and events in Dostoevsky’s novels. Things happen that won’t soon be forgotten.

My junior year in college I hadn’t a clue what lay on a book shelf somewhere waiting to ambush me. Rediscovering Crime and Punishment in college was something analogous to meeting an old disliked acquaintance who turns out to be a rather formidable foe and indispensable friend. It didn’t take long for me to learn that the first page in the comic book and the first page in Volokhonsky’s translation are two different things. There is discontinuity between the pictures and the words. Perhaps, the pictures weren’t very good, but I think it’s because the world of the words can’t be copied with something other than words without adding and subtracting and thereby creating something different. Raskolnikov, Sonya, Svidrigailov, Porfiry, Razumikhin, and Marmeladov’s story can be told only, it seems, with words.

Unfortunately, I have never read any of Dostoevsky’s novels in Russian, perhaps one day. But even through translations, I think I know Dostoevsky had a way with words, introducing people, recounting tragedies as if they had happened, and drawing truth in crayon for anyone to see, even a young boy who only had the pictures.

Thus far, Dostoevsky has given me much. These are a few such reflections: a person strives to live in a coffin, in the chambers of death, in a prison, in addiction, underground, in rebellion. Trapped by self-imposed death the man underground can’t do anything; addicted to the “next time,” the gambler can’t let go and live; the rebel deceives himself into thinking death is better than life. And yet a person can truly live, only if he dies to death and rebellion. The murderer makes for himself a coffin and convinces himself that it's better to be in the coffin than outside of it. But a person must die to living in death. A person must relinquish death through confession in order to live, to resurrect into new life. The life after death to death is fraught with struggle, but it is truly life. Here is an ironic truth. We feeble humans strive to live according to our own deathly wishes, and yet life awaits to vitalize us if only we would die to death first.

Postmodernism III: an Alternative?

What have I done? By denying Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus as proponents of postmodernism, have I gone off the deep end? Perhaps, though I do not think so. I mentioned before truncated explanations for this. If these folks are not genuinely postmodern but are criticizers of modernism, then who is genuinely postmodern? For modernism to be felled, someone must offer an alternative and then operate according to the assumptions within that alternative. Folks such as Kierkegaard and company have been associated with postmodernism previously, but I suggest that Kierkegaard and company did not offer an alternative to modernism, and they continued to operate according to certain modern assumptions. Furthermore, postmodernism itself had still not fully emerged and taken shape - though it continues to do so even now. If it had not yet taken shape and they never offered a genuine alternative, then how could any of them be associated with postmodernism? They were associated in generality because they critiqued and indicated the need for something other than modernism. But saying somebody is sick and writing a prescription are two different things.

I suppose we could say that postmodernism is merely a critique of modernism and therefore include the aforementioned folks. However, I think when we all use the term postmodernism we are referring to something other than modernism, thereby excluding the aforementioned folks.

Who then is postmodern? Is anyone? I think there are some folks who genuinely are.

Again, this inquiry is motivated by clarity seeking to answer the question, “what is postmodernism anyway?” It seems in fashion to refer to anything disliked or especially liked, off kilter or especially keen, hip or fancy, culturally alternative or muddled as postmodern. Just about any new shiny or unconventional thing is considered postmodern. But that seems rather silly. Thus, there’s a need to do some dusting. I shall trace briefly a few seemingly genuine postmoderns - I will be brief and be forced to use generalities, unfortunately making me a bit of a hypocrite. But, perhaps, sketching a few genuine postmoderns will distinguish postmodernism from Kierkegaard and company and common generalities.

Again, modernism is characterized by preference to reason, universality, individualism, autonomy, and foundationalism, among other things. These tenets involve all areas of thought in the optimistic modern era.

Nearly three hundred years after Descartes made his fateful declaration, there emerged a few folks who genuinely departed from the Cartesian tradition. To merely namedrop and not fall into thorough explanation ( I recently wrote a “school paper” involving some of these chaps, so I have little desire to recapitulate), Quine, Lakatos, and MacIntyre, among many others, give thorough and clear departure from the modern project - Wittgenstein may be grouped with these folks though he was nearly sixty years ahead of his time perhaps even a hundred years ahead of his time. They go beyond mere critique and reconsider previously held assumptions. Nancey Murphy indicates in several of her books the tectonic shift from modernism to postmodernism, involving changes in language and epistemology and “metaphysics.” More than critique is at play here. Epistemology (entrapment within the vague throne of "mind"), for example, is not “first philosophy” for postmoderns as it was for moderns (halleluiah!).

Postmodernism is not merely a critique but an alternative, a new canvas. Murphy regards epistemological, linguistic, and “metaphysical” holism as a postmodern alternative. For example, the epistemological holism requires not that we determine what is certain but what is “unsurpassable” so far and that we consequently appropriate whatever it is that is currently “unsurpassable” as part of our system.

To show the stark difference between modernism and postmodernism, a series of hypocritically general contrasts may give clarity. The moderns give preference to reason, and the postmoderns give credence to tradition/community. The moderns sought universality, and the postmoderns acknowledge locality. The moderns fell to individualism, and the postmoderns are communal - e.g. relationships are crucial for identity and social conventions are the determinate for language. If moderns’ theory of knowledge was something like a layer cake, postmoderns’ theory of knowledge is something like a fruitcake. I tend to like layer cakes but...

It seems that the modern foibles have lasted long enough and have been supplanted. I wonder if humans merely found themselves weary of Cartesian nonsense and decided to play a different game, one involving common sense, one in which we are able to affirm things such as interaction in the “external” world.

Postmodernism II: Another Thread, a Step Towards Something Else

Previously I mentioned Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche as three Davids who seemed to begin toppling the Goliath of modernism. However, this is only partly accurate, for they did less to topple him and more to indicate that he should be toppled, though they may have thought that they were toppling him. Sartre and Camus were similar to them in this sense. They also indicated the dilapidation of the modern project, but they did little to actually topple it. Indicating something as problematic and proffering a viable alternative to the problem are two different things. King Saul and David’s brothers knew that Goliath was a problem. In fact any ole bloke could have told you that. Sartre and Camus were in a similar situation. They expressed the results of the modern project, the dark mood pervading western culture. They were beacons that somewhere along the way something went wrong. Not to mention the severe tragedies of the World Wars were substantial evidence to indicate the guiltiness and incompleteness of the modern project. In fact Percy says that if he had to pinpoint the complete downfall of modernism, it would be the summer of 1914, “the year we began destroying ourselves.”

There grew a cloud of angst in the 20^th century. This angst is in part a modern germ. Sartre’s Nausea comments on this, though his short novel is, in my opinion, only a recapitulation of “Silhouettes” and various other passages from Either/Or volume one – “…this reflective sorrow…I call silhouettes, partly to suggest at once by the name that I draw them from the dark side of life and partly because, like silhouettes, they are not immediately visible.” In a similar vein, Camus’ The Stranger involves a disillusioned fellow who gets rapped up in an absurd murder and while in prison waits night and day for execution, for death. Individuals have been separated as parts of whole, isolated parts, estranged into the recesses of bewildered and lost autonomy. Sartre and Camus indicated, in part, the problem, the germ, the angst. But they offered little, if anything, as a distinct alternative.

Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche rebuked and scoffed at the modern notion of humanity. Sartre and Camus showed what the modern project left for humanity, estrangement and emptiness. None of these folks offered a completely different way forward apart from the modern project, for they each carried with them heavy modern baggage. Kierkegaard carried Descartes in his back pocket. Dostoevsky faithfully critiqued but did not formulate an alternative to modernism – his novel Demons (also translated The Possessed and Devils) epitomizes his critique of the modern isms sweeping across Russia. Nietzsche’s morality seems to have been an extreme example of conflated modern individualism – as a side note Tolstoy said Nietzsche’s claim regarding morality was analogous to someone standing up and with a serious expression on his face declaring to the world, “water is not wet.” Sartre remained bedfellows with Kant and Hume, among others. And Camus’ reaction to modern certainty and truth was that if there is truth to be known a person can probably not know it.

Thus, these brilliant philosophers indicated a problem; they showed contempt for the modern project, but they were only indicative. However, that’s not a bad thing. As Kierkegaard said, “it is an infinite merit to be able to despair,” for being conscious of the despair is to be onto something. And that is a step.

Postmodernism I: a Thread and a Dent

If you have asked yourself once before, “what is postmodernism,” you are in the same boat as the rest of us. The term “postmodern” is thrown around a lot these days often without qualifiers. It is assumed that you know what it means or perhaps that nobody really knows what it means – in that case it’s a rather useless term. For some reason, I thought we used words to convey meaning to another person – hence intersubjectivity, but I suppose with the term “postmodern” that does not apply. I have heard postmodern used, or seemingly so, to refer to a particular worldview, a historical current or era, and even used synonymously with relativity – another term that needs certain qualifications. In short it is used to refer to something that is other than and after modernism. So it seems that for postmodernism to be understood, what ever it is that immediately preceded it must be clarified first. Modernism is more or less generally understood, though I doubt if I could summarize it here in a few words. To decipher the meaning of postmodernism, it might be easiest to examine the tapestry thread by thread. But postmodern threads were once modern in color and must be considered accordingly.

Let’s think of modernism as a philosophical project and cultural attitude involving both certain optimisms and severe criticisms of the way things were. There was an optimistic press toward universal understanding and a critical reevaluation of religion, among other things. They sang their philosophic tunes with relish. “We can know what actually is! And we shall leave the archaic superstitions by the wayside at last!” Before I digress into sounding similar to an introduction to the history of philosophy, let’s leave modernism with these thoughts: modernism made certain assumptions – as do we all no matter when we are living – that were treated as essential. Their optimism perhaps clouded their already cloudy vision, and their arbitrary scrutiny of religion regarded religion as the dusty underpinnings of the uncivilized, uneducated, superstitious person. Perhaps, modern folks supposed that by exposing religion for what it is they might proceed past the impediment that is religion. “Religion has shackled people for long enough.” Thus, the moderns recreated. A person possesses reason; a person is good, and a person is autonomous. What then is stopping us from acquisitioning truth?

Though modernism – the ism that lives in the hearts of people and most notably the ideas of people that infect other people long after the original people have died – would not loosen its clutches on western civilization without a fight. But history has a way of being rather interesting, and just when a Goliath begins to seem unstoppable a little David comes along with a few pebbles and a sling. Only this time there were multiple Davids. I shall mention three.

The Melancholy Dane, Kierkegaard, wrote many things most of which I do not understand. He ridiculed cultural Christianity and nominalism. But what I find myself most interesting is his seemingly undying desire to sort out what it is “to be a person in the nineteenth century.” He indicated three spheres of existence and the pandemic of despair. A person is sick, and a person cannot be rid of it; this sickness only intensifies when a person tries to play doctor on himself and eradicate it.

Across the globe in the long winters of Russia, another David emerged, Dostoevsky. His writing career was marked and inspired by his cruel and cold exile in Siberia. Something happened there, and he was never the same. Resurrecting from the depths of exile, he showed a person to be a ghastly creature capable of the worst if given the opportunity; these images of sick humanity are in all of his novels. But in contrast, humanity is somehow also capable of some good – Raskolnikov is somehow a murderer and a charitable giver; Dmitri is a sensualist but he can see his own depravity. Oh but a person not only has the capacity for good and evil, but a person is more than a rational animal. “2+2 may equal 4” but “reason only satisfies the rational side of man’s nature.” A person is not a mechanism that needs only the proper modern oil; he is something else, something more, with the capacity for utmost corruption and good.

A fermenting devil who felt victory over the modern remnants was just a few pen scratches away, Nietzsche, steamed and scoffed at the world for its moral tomfoolery. I can imagine him saying, though more eloquently, “Those peons who speak of moral this and moral that are but picking their noses and winking at each other. That morality is the fabricated way of the weak. I shall rise above their inverted morality that was esteemed by their dead god. I am destiny...I am superman.”

I would not attribute the fall of modernism and the rise of postmodernism to any one of these fellows, though they each played their own part in their own way. These formidable revolutionaries, though revolutionaries they were, remained within certain modern assumptions. But they did dent or bruise certain modern anthropological assumptions. Humanity is more than rational; humanity is not ultimately good, and what is good anyway? What then is stopping humanity from acquisitioning truth?

So what is man? The paragon of animals? A freak? Something else?

This is a feeble description of an anthropological thread that ran through modernism and was countered by three Davids of the nineteenth century. But this is merely one thread. There are many others in the tapestry, but those are for another time.