This seems well put to me. Thanks. We know so much of how various substances (from sevoflurane and propofol, general anesthetic and sedatives), to specific injuries to the brain, especially the frontal lobe, affect us, that I would really have a hard time holding out an argument that there is something likely not explained by neurobiology. It’s not to say that God can’t make a miracle that can recreate consciousness of some sort after death.
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David Meece–was one of my favorite singers :). Thanks.
What clicked for me was experiencing anesthesia. It wasn’t like sleep. It was a really disturbing void in my memory with no perception of the passing of time. If a chemical can apparently shut my mind off in that way . . . well, what you said. At the same time, I can see how people can leave room for faith and God given the mysteries of existence and the mind, but I’m not expecting any shocking discoveries in the future.
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I agree, Marx’s conclusion is not reasonable, but in the particular essay the arguing itself was done reasonably (in contrast to, e.g., another political science essay that basically claimed “good guys from history are examples of our side”). He built his argument on the premises without ranting. Marx’s flawed and invented premises get a mention in How to Lie with Statistics, a classic cautionary text.
Meursault has no explanation for many his actions, but he is trapped by his circumstances. The title of Sartre’s No Exit emphasizes such trapping, and it is a common theme in both Sartre and Camus. Like Sisyphus, a defiant attitude is the only “hope” given. But at the same time, Camus and Sartre acted as though things could be changed and assumed that there was right and wrong, not merely choices.
In contrast, the Bible calls us to acting wisely within the reality that we experience. Of course, that can include working to change things that aren’t right, but kicking against the goads is unfruitful.
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I also find the match of “wretched man that I am” to my experience a strong argument for Christianity’s accuracy.
The NT emphasis on bodily resurrection may suggest some connection between the physical and mind/spirit component, though it would be hard to justify any more definite assertion from the passages.
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I think it has to do with rejecting the Gnostic teaching that our minds are divine sparks trapped in an evil body, and thus adapting Christian ideas to equate their idea of liberating the mind from the body with the Christian one of resurrection. So Paul refutes this to say resurrection is nothing of the kind. It is bodily resurrection. It may not be a resurrection to the same kind of body but it is not just a liberation of the mind from the body. And the difference has nothing to do with the physical body being evil. Weak? Yes. Perishable? Sure and made from the dust of the earth. In this the resurrected spiritual body is different: powerful, imperishable, and of heaven – everything we need in order to be with God forever.
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Thanks. I’m curious as to why.
I suspect this is from a misunderstanding on my part, and my own experiences.
Respectfully, Randy
There’s potential confusion from my rather brief statement. I am thinking somewhat along the lines of the Calvinist definition of total depravity - not that we are as bad as we could be, but that nothing of ourselves is entirely free of the taint of sin. I am not always doing everything that I do not want to do, but I certainly find the impulse to do what I shouldn’t, even when there is no apparent advantage. Augustine’s pear-snatching would be a well-known example. Poe’s short story The Imp of the Perverse imagines one extreme.
Chesterton once wrote to a publication running the question “What’s wrong with the world?” the reply: “Dear Sir: I am.” As Pogo put it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” There’s something stubbornly and annoyingly wrong with my impulses, which I can’t fix myself.
Perhaps I worked some clarification into that rather eccentrically eclectic reply.
The emphasis on bodily resurrection certainly counters the popular Greek thought of matter being bad; that is a more important reason than the possible hint that extreme dualistic separation of body and mind/spirit may be incorrect.
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Good catch – I missed that even on my re-read before posting!
Yes, it’s supposed to be “not qualified”. And I was concentrating on trying to get the double negative right, too!
I’ll attribute it to lingering kidney stone pain and foot pain.
“Of heaven” is what we were meant to be – that’s the message of much of the garden and mountain imagery in the Old Testament.
But we can’t get ourselves back to the Garden, we have to be brought there.
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Just the other day I was chatting with one of the church trustees as he took a break from digging weeds from the church lawn. After a few minutes he stated that it was time to get back to work, adding “No rest for the wicked”. Without thinking, I responded, “Well, that covers everyone”.
Chesterton’s statement is true of every human “I”.
At a family reunion back in my grad school days this idea came up. One cousin said he wanted a computer chip to connect to his brain so he could re-program himself to do better. My older brother commented “You wouldn’t even get that right”.
This is a point where it’s clear that sin is not “just a choice”. It is evident that we are broken, unable to live up even to our own limited standards. It is why many, many theologians have regarded sin as an infection, something in us that results in us not doing what we know we should and doing things we know we shouldn’t.
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Yeah, but I don’t buy into this (usually creationist) idea that the fall changed everything. The physical body and world with its natural law (including physical death and perishable body) had a good purpose and is not all just a product of sin. I think in that original plan physical death was more like a second birth (simply a transition to a much greater world of heaven with a more powerful body like the angels) and that is why we have all this talk of a second birth in Christianity. We were always meant to be born again of the spirit. But sin meant that spiritual body was dead and thus it became a real death rather than a second birth. So the need for resurrection does come from sin and the fall.
And as an aside… if we just get the body like what the angels already have then why the whole deal with the weak physical body and the earth. It is because there remains a fundamental difference. Angels are created by design beings while we are participants in our own creation, growing and learning for ourselves. Thus we are only less than the angels for “a little while” (Hebrews 2). We are made for an eternal parent-child relationship where there is no end to what God can give to us and no end to what we can receive from Him. The angels simply have what God already gave them when He created them.
And as a second aside… Since I am usually so grounded in science and physical reality with an aversion to magic and supernatural explanations of miracles, then why do I believe in the angels at all? It is because to me they look like such a logical first step in God’s creation of others like Himself. And as someone very steeped in the computer age as a programmer and all, it also seems like a logical first step in any big creative project. Why attend to endless routine details yourself when it is simple enough to create something like a computer to do all that for you. Sure God is infinitely powerful, but why is that an excuse to think He is stupid.
I’ve encountered that idea before and entertained it. It’s extrapolation from the text, such that I can’t affirm it, but I can almost believe it.
That I agree with. It’s still extrapolation, but I think is on firmer ground.
Someone in second-Temple Judaism expressed this very thought (I want to say Philo but have a really low confidence level on that). Indeed it has been tied to speculation about why Lucifer became a rebel, that he was envious of beings who could grow into closer relationship with the Creator.
The more common specification of the difference is that angels are primarily of the spirit/heavenly world (cf. elohim) with the ability to function in the ‘material’ world while we are the reverse, primarily in the ‘material’ but (intended to be) capable of functioning in the spirit world.
Interesting! That fits with the concept of the elohim realm, spiritual beings (cherubim, seraphim, “sons of God”, etc.) of the same kind of substance God has (“spirit”), which is only a little removed from Him, then the earthly (adamah) realm where we are of another realm entirely while still linked – a step further removed (yet with the potential to become closer).
Or a total klutz, as YEC portrays Him, blundering about changing the laws of nature for no real purpose.
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I asked @Mervin_Bitikofer to reopen this thread, hoping there might be more to discuss. Thanks, Mervin!
When I listened to Barron’s intro to Sartre, I thought about our discussion regarding what “essence” could mean, and if it had any real meaning to us today.
I don’t think we talked about the idea that comes up many times in the NT many times:
something is known by its fruit.
This strikes me as different from “essence.” And not entirely strict “existence” with all the unbounded freedom or absurdity Satre seems to have seen.
What a person does, the way she choses to live out her existence, conforms to one sort of “template” or another. There is no guarantee that she will chose any “template” or succeed in conforming to it. So, the template the person attempts to conform to isn’t identical to the person’s essence - at least if that is something fixed or determined. This seems different from the concept of essence to me.
Regarding the NT “fruit tests,” though, they don’t seem to fit the “existence” category entirely either. A person is actually choosing to conform to some sort of norm (template), but one that she chooses, because she either finds value in it (sincerity), or thinks there is value in attempting to appear to value it (duplicity).
The sincere person, I think, could confound the idea of the existential hero that Barron mentioned, or the failed hero, who conforms to social norms because that’s what she should do.
While we talked about some variations on “essence” and “existence” I don’t think we talked about being known by our fruit.
Is there anything here to discuss?
In the existentialist maxim “existence precedes essence,” by essence it means who and what we really are. The conflict with the classical way of thinking is who and what we are is something we choose for ourselves and not something which is already decided for us and which we must conform ourselves to. This does alter Christianity a little but does not preclude it. Just because we choose what we are doesn’t mean all choices are equal. Though it does imply that if all choices are not equal then there are rational reasons why we might make better choices and it is not just a matter of conforming ourselves to some pre-existing design.
Well the maxim is “existence precedes essence” not “existence creates essence.” The point is that first we exist and then we choose and it is by our choices which our essence comes into being.
This is certainly compatible with “something is known by its fruit.” Of course it is saying a bit more than that. It is not that our fruits simply reveal an essence which God gave us but that our essence actually comes from our fruits (i.e. our actions/choices).
Well yes… but there is the possibility that the sincere person can chose the norms of a previous age (i.e. the Christian norms) in a world where the norms have changed rather far from these. In that case, he would be an existential hero, defying the norms of this new world in order to be himself according to his own choices. (obviously this is how I see myself)
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Thanks, @mitchellmckain, for taking this back up again.
I certainly hope it doesn’t preclude Christianity!
As I type I wonder if there is a connection between the concept of “the elect” and a classical understanding of “essence.” And if so, what the history of that connection has been.
I think such questions relate to logical challenges created by theology that ignores human choice in relation to God and salvation, yet insists on human culpability for something they had no choice in. Which is probably a different conversation. Maybe it would fit here.
Sorry. My thougths are wandering.
If nothing else, we may be chosing to follow an existing design or pattern that we value. But even that process also involves exploring the pattern as we attempt to conform to it. Even how we go about attempting to conform to a pattern can be a matter of choice and experimentation.
Agreed, the maxim doesn’t say “creates.” But by reversing the order of operation, I think the concept of “essence” must be different in the two versions, which I think is part of the point of the reversal. You mentioned that it is by our choices which our essence comes into being. So choices do have some effect on essence, even if they don’t create it.
This existentialist view of essence strikes me as quite different from the classical view, where essence is something fixed and established externally. If I understand correctly, choices, in that view, don’t affect essence. They reveal it.
I hadn’t thought of it quite in that way, but I think you make a good point.
Well, yes and no.
We can chose to live a Christians. Certainly. And much that goes with that life is out of step with our contemporary culture and norms.
As Christians today, however, there is no way we could fit exactly into the Christian norms of a previous age. As the 21st century woman that I am, I certainly couldn’t. We know differently and different things. We have values that would not be understood in the 1st century. Even if there is much overlap there would be profound differences as well.
I would say it doesn’t really make sense to interpret “conformed to the image of His Son” in this way. It is not our goal to become billions of identical copies of Jesus. For sure, there are ways in which we would want to be like Jesus, but surely not to cease being ourselves. We would would like to be free of the self-destructive habits of sin, and we would like to have that personal relationship with God which Jesus displays. The real purpose of free will is to choose between all the infinite possibilities of goodness, and this choice between good and evil is just a small side effect of making that greater freedom possible.
So I think it is wrong to describe this as conforming to a pattern or design. I think the point is having the greatest freedom to become more which sin and a lack of relationship with God gets in the way of – without which our possibilities narrow and vanish to one of mere destruction.
The only election I believe in is an election to accomplish tasks or missions which God chooses people to do in order to accomplish his providence for all mankind. I don’t believe in an election to our own salvation. Salvation is offered to all which we can accept or refuse.
I don’t think our choosing is of fundamental importance. I’d say the world is the vale of soul making and that we are here in relationship to world, each other and to God. We discover who we are in the process but that is not like discovering the recipe for a meal. What we discover only goes so deep but the world and our souls go deeper than we can know or say.
I don’t attach the same importance to choosing a template for our lives. It will be what it is but that will never be something I have decided based on my always incomplete, always still becoming understanding. Staying open to discovering allows us to grow more deeply into the soul we are and at no point is it important that we write an account of what that is. Our practical mind should stick to the tasks for which it has evolved and allow our sympathetic minds to feel the way forward toward who and what we are in my opinion.
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We are talking about existentialism, where choosing is central. All its talk about existential crises, angst, courage, and freedom is all founded upon our essential responsibility in the choices we make.
The existentialist will likely say that many will dodge and escape these problems by simply denying they have any choice. But to them this is cowardice and being inauthentic.
Choice isn’t about choosing a template for our lives. Most of the things in life are not a matter of choice – but these are just circumstances. They pose the questions to which we have to give our own answer.