Secular Sage

As pointed out by the French philosopher Luc Ferry, Christianity is too often skipped over in the history of philosophy, as if these ideas did not dominate the centres of western power for the best part of a millennium. There is an argument to be made in fact that the western ideals which form the building block of society today could be subsumed into Christian thinking. As the argument goes, any attempt to lay claim to such values as for example equality, human dignity, individualism, or work ethic, prompts the claim that one is trying to have Christianity without Christ. Though I would certainly not go this far as to imply Christianity has a monopoly on good ideas, it cannot be denied that the birth of such ideas, and their preservation, owes much to Judeo Christian thinking.

Of course there have also been excesses and errors along the way. The church in the days of the inquisition or crusades for example or even the totalitarian state the church became over much of the Middle Ages as its leaders ruled unchecked. Galileo, who was killed for his scientific beliefs, and his peers would testify to a deep neglect, on the part of the church, of these very same values we hold dear.

As far as I can see it was a combination of the two things, Christian ideas on the one hand and the critical challenge that humanism put to these ideas on the other, which ultimately gave birth to modern western thinking. This clash of ideas was seen most prominently in the Reformation and the Renaissance and later the Enlightenment period to which we owe much indeed. One of those sprang from within the church and the other from outside but both a result of the clash of ideas. I have little doubt that we would not be where we are now without these events and the men and woman who led them. In some sense, secularism preserved the very values that Judeo Christianity had birthed.

Looking closer at the premise that western democracy emanates out of the Judaeo Christian substrate, one most note that not every religious substrate gives rise to democracy. Russian orthodoxy, for example, which was founded on the same underlying principles, but from which democracy did not emerge. The same could be said about much of the west prior to these “revolutions”. This is why I say that the interplay between the two seems critical, that is between the creative myth or matanarritive on one hand and the rational on the other. This is not unlike the balance between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. It is no surprise such complex order might emerge from this fundamental union.

There is an attempt in our day to argue that we can and should move on from ancient religious ideas, progressing towards pure rationalism but this train of thought I find unconvincing. I would not want to be on such a train when it reached its destination. We tend to think that we are living in the results of pure rationalism but instinctively, culturally, our collective conscious is in fact Christian in values and ethics, no matter what ideas we might spout. We have no idea what would happen to a culture which adopted habits associated with pure rationalism.

Rationalism on it’s own is not in my view capable of producing such grand ideas and values as is required to hold a human being together, never mind a civilisation, nor indeed of sustaining these over time. If one is a rationalist then one is almost certainly an evolutionary biologist in thought if not profession. There is simply no link to ideas such as equality or human dignity, nor the corollary social justice, there is simply no way these could be argued from an underlying principle of the survival of the fittest whereby the strong eat the weak to survive. Furthermore, such a rationalism lacks the power to motivate beings that are fundamentally inspired by myth, narrative, art and love. Without myth, story, mystery, we simply can’t get at the depth of man, and what drives human civilisation forward, in any meaningful way. The result is nihilism in every human soul who has attempted to wonder down this path.

Bloodshed in the name of religion throughout history is often thrown up in opposition to religion and there is certainly nowhere to hide from these blunders. However, the same is true of most of the 20th century crimes which were brought about in complete absence of religion. In these cases God was not watching the perpetrators. The point is that if we are going to use bloodshed to argue against religion we must at very least grant the same strength to the argument against atheism. Both the presence of God in religion and the absence of God in atheism can produce these results and have. There are dangers everywhere. It could just as easily be the case that an atheist king is restrained by a realisation of his precocious position on top of an unstable hierarchy but this is often not the case. There are just as many religious examples of where Gods watching eye has led to restraint.

It has also been argued that the religious problem is linked explicitly to religious texts, in the case of Christianity to the narrative of the Old Testament, whereas the atheistic acting malevolently is inconsistent with his or her philosophy. In fact the reverse is true, the teachings of the bible are the dignity and worth of man as the image of God the creator. It is atheistic evolutionary biology that leads one towards such violence philosophically (again, even they continue to act like christians).

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The scientific Revolution of the 17th century was shortly followed by what is affectionately known as the enlightenment. Amidst a world dominated by Christian ideas which had, rightly or wrongly, come to encompass the divine right of kings, a monopoly on knowledge of just about everything, including the natural world, the enlightenment pushed back. By no means were all or even most of the enlightenment thinkers atheists, in fact, the enlightenment could easily be seen within the context of the age old christian idea of prophetic or critical spirit. Much of the “progress” resulting from this area can truly be called reform from within. This is in many ways beside the point though so I will leave this idea here. What is evident is that deism was the predominant result, that is something like a continued belief in God but also a high view of science and reason for understanding the world around us and our relation to it. This can be an extreme mechanical idea that tags God in at risk of losing him, but can also take the form of a view of God that allows him to create and maintain a world through forces of nature largely speaking which is by no means inconsistent with biblical ideas. Even in the Gospels which might be considered the least naturalistic part of the bible has Jesus answering the superstitious question from his disciples about who had sinned to result in the random death of people resulting from what was an architectural failure or an act of nature, by  sharply challenging their ignorance to effetely say that anything can happen so make sure you do not take life for granted.

I’m any event, the enlightenment of the 17th and 18th century encapsulated two key ideas. Firstly freedom from blindly following authority by the means of reason as the great leveller. Secondly, science and technology as a means of bringing more comfort and happiness, not least through the mastery of man over the natural world.

The problem as always is unintended consequences. The idea of happiness sounds good but doesn’t always prove out as easily as one might think. Whose happiness is in question and is there a limit (Never mind the question of how one might even define it)? Globalisation for example has sought to expand these ideas of reason and happiness throughout the world, but as we are seeing in the US and EU in particular, the “happiness” of those in China and other third worlds may have come at the cost of happiness to those in our own countries. Now one might try and argue that they are not less well off absolutely speaking but only relatively, but this does not hold up. If my happiness is dependant on my relative position to those around me then it is fair to say I am less happy, as I said before, it is a poor benchmark. If developing nations are generally happier as a result of globalisation and capitalism, the upshot is that many people in developed countries are wealthier and “happier” for it. Those who have not benefited from these ideas however are now relatively poorer and unhappier than ever. 

It doesn’t end there, there are other bi-products of progress. For one, greed has taken mastery over the world for the purpose of human flourishing to mastery over the world for mastery sake and selfish gain, that is my own happiness pushed to the limits at all costs with devastating consequences. 

Equality has equally lost its roots and its sense of purpose, it begun to ensure opportunity for all whatever they may choose but has become a tyrant, an end in itself. 

Technology, though a means not an end in itself has become a master in its own right. We are unhinged and technology helps to drive competition forward to fill the void. We think we have democracy but we do not, the game has hanged, we all vote but we are all under the influence. Democracy is again in the hands of a few and through technology the few are the powerful that control the many. 

It is possible that enlightenment roots did not run very deep or at least those values like democracy, equality, human dignity, etc. As the governing ideas. If I look at Brexit, a number of very odd facts emerge. My liberal, socialist friends seem supportive of the beautocratic, elitist system that is the EU which is making slaves out of southern Europe for instance. What’s worse still is that they are the ones that Propose that’s we should ignore the vote in the same way that the Swiss, the French and the Dutch have, this is a preposterous position to hold as a true democrat. Whatever you make of Cameron and the inconcience of the fallout, the majority (but even if it was a late minority) are not happy, democracy means their voice must be heard. I am proud of the fact that the UK, the originator of modern democracy and its leader in the world today is willing to struggle awkwardly with the issue but not ignore it.

Rationalism everywhere but in this area

Just because it got us here doesn’t mean we needed it to get here and that we need to retain it. 

Freedom is in some sense an illusion, wether it is love or democracy or social well-being, all of these require incessant restriction and denial. The question is not if but what the ideal that you pursue at the expectation of desires. For the sake of the wellbeing of all, I do not overpower and fuck every pretty girl I see, even if I though I could get away with it. 

Regarding Christianity, many are aware that there are problems and failures though few have been able to identify and articulate these failures explicitly. Even fewer have been able to speak to or demonstrate what ideas and actions will play the role of antidote. This is what I intend to do with my life. 

The so called hermeneutic of suspicion is the deliberate attempt to expose the self deceptions involved in hiding our operative motives from ourselves, individually or corporately, in order not not to notice how and to what extent our behaviour and beliefs are shaped by values we profess to disown. This is in stark contrast to the evidential atheism best summarised in Bertrand Russell’s quib that he would hypothetically defend himself before God by claiming that there was not enough evidence.

Yet both of these are a problem for us today and both contrast the philosophical context of the early church which was either religious or pagan in the case of Jews and Greeks or even the missionary movements of the 19 and 20th centuries. The same is also true of the modern third world which provides an evangelical comfort zone for us. 

Christianity has little experience or skill at refuting or paying attention to the challenges of atheism in its sceptical or suspicious forms. 

The need for basic things that flood the heart, inspire a sense of the divine, peer through the meaninglessness of our lives into ultimate meaning; these things are needed just as much in a busy 21st century urban life amidst materialism, fake news, peak stuff, endless entertainment. Sometimes the should needs to rest, to escape, i need to find these spaces to encounter the divine, on the heath, in flickering fires, warm sunlight, a beautiful home, children in all their glory, a woman’s body, sex, a glass or port or Pinot noir or a good habanos.

In search of the good life

The Cosmos

Man has been on this quest since the earliest sign of recorded consolidated thought. In the West this begins with the ancient Greeks who located the meaning of life in the principle of cosmological harmony, the love of the present or “amor fati” as Nietzsche would later term the concept. In finding our place in the natural order we must leave behind the tyrannies of nostalgia and hope, along with all ideals. There is no rule by which we must live or value that trumps them, we must seize the day “Carpe Diem”, and live with life’s trajedy along the road from chasi to cosmological order. This was probably most famously analogised by Homer and survived in modified versions in Stoicism.

The Christian Ideal

Socrates could not live with this tragic view of life. For him virtue and happiness were one and the same. The good life took on a different dimension since beyond the “goods” that make up human life, e.g. beauty, pleasure, friendship, life itself, there is Good that surpasses them all. This morality, this ideal was trumpeted by Plato and ultimately absorbed into the medieval Christian tradition where the cosmological principle is personified in God/Jesus and harmony sought with his nature, separate from the cosmos, in the personification of the divine and along with it personal relationship and salvation and personal, even physical salvation. Some may want to describe this as harmony with the divine commandments or law but this is perhaps too rigid, personification is enough to demand the necessary restriction demanded by any relationship without having to make the seemingly arbitrary use of law though even law should be viewed positively as an effort to bring human flourishing just as it is in most of political philosophy today.

The Humanistic Ideal

In large part due to Christianity deviating from this fundamental personal idea to a works/obedience based ideology that served the powerful to the extent that it sought to manipulate and control people into the image of man not God, it lost hold. It’s greatest proponents such as Descartes, Aquinas, Kant were the ones that opened the door to the philosophical break as they tried to make room for the advances in science. The enlightenment took the idea of a personal God saving us personally and put us on center stage, the humanist revolution extended from the renaissance to the enlightenment and defined the good life by way of human progress, taking out New found value, the result of Christianity which gives man primary value in the cosmos as divine image bearers, to the limit. Meaning is defined not by finding ones place in the cosmic order, nor by conforming to some divine ideal through obedience to commandments but rather through taking part in human history and progress that we are saved.

Deconstruction

For the deconstructionist, any ideal that places itself above life impoverishes that life, wether the cosmos, God or humanistic values. All of these prescribe to the detriment of all life’s inherent potentialities. There is no transedeance in the cosmos, heaven or through any vague ideal of human progress. The good life is one completely unrestrained, the good life is thereby equated to the the chosen life. It is no surprise that the result of this new ideology is unfettered capitalism, consumerism and competition. There is not transcendent guiding light from any source whatsoever. All of these things are for there own sake alone with no goal in sight.

But where to from Here? 

Deconstruction has an end by definition and has very quickly left us in a mess that is acknowledged by most, less than 100years after it begun.

Love

All of this could be argued as being a progression towards the personal and for that reason some would move onto love as the ultimate ideal and associate the move from marriages of convenience to the post war marriage of love as well as recent trends from vast swathes of the public to care tremendously about the freedom, happiness and equality of those on the other end of the globe. Love is profoundly restrictive in some of the best ways. However, in my mind this is all a bit vague and one can quite easily argue that this idea is encapsulated in the true Christian ideal in any event so would really just be love without definition, again unguided by anything other than some form of subjective romanticism.

Humanism 2.0

Some want to keep going on the humanistic train, patching up the disasters of the 20th century and doing it better next time. Marxism has never been achieved some say, we should try again, this time we will do better but I would argue that its results were exactly predictable and were predicted by Nietzsche many years ago. 

Christianity Reconfigured

But perhaps we need to go back and rediscover what was common to all of these and what lessons were learned by each transition. Perhaps we should postulate that some divine guidance can be perceived all along and see what sense we can make of this.

For instance if some divine force created the cosmos and us in it in his image then to be sure we should look to live in harmony with it, willing to live with both beauty and tragedy without trying to control every moment. Christianity actually teaches that the downs of tragedy are often our way up in the truest sense.

Christianity itself lost its way by succumbing to entirely unchristian influences from within. It’s denial of the scientific method and human progress in general was a travesty since our cultural mandate to wisely populate and order to world towards flouring is central to Christianity. It is easy to formulate an argument around how Christianity’s worst problems stem from substantial deviance from a core Christian ideal.

Even deconstruction has been emensly valuable in refocusing on true virtue of the heart which speaks to motives and intentions that often deviously underly religious observance. Any Christian ideal put forward today must necessarily deal with the challenges of how it has been used in the past, we cannot shrug this off. Broadly speaking, this would include personal weakness seeking revenge (Freud), social power seeking legitimisation (Marx) and social weakness seeking revenge (Nietzsche)

Christianity has always had this prophetic voice which has come from within and outside to correct and challenge. It has always been profoundly self critiquing, the prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament were undoubtedly Christianity’s greatest critics though on occasion outside force was required too and welcomed. If God really is the personification of the cosmological ideal and in that sense a progression from the ancients and if through humanism we can recapture the cultural mandate to understand and transform our world and if through deconstruction we can take a good hard look at ourselves and be reformed more closely into the divine image then perhaps we are indeed a step closer to some sort of post agricultural, scientific and industrial revolution Eden. Perhaps then from the divine preview this is indeed “progress” in some divine sense towards some divine end.