Peter Leithart has some great thoughts on why philosophy must become theological in order to truly fulfill its purpose (the link is here). His argument hinges on the givenness of reality: our lives depend on having received, as little children, things which neither earned nor could have ever provided for ourselves, including not just our physical being but also our language, culture, and ability to reason. For all of this, the fitting response is gratitude--and not only for what we received from our parents, but even for the world itself, for the existence of anything at all. And if gratitude is the fitting response, then to whom or what are we to be grateful?
But let's consider another question: how does one arrive at this realization (namely, that gratitude is the fitting response to our own existence)? As I observe little children, one thing I notice is decidedly lacking is gratitude. It is a tad ironic that during the time when we ought to be most grateful, because we are so helpless by ourselves, we are in fact least grateful. Indeed, gratitude in little children has to be taught; it almost never comes spontaneously.
When is it that spontaneous gratitude emerges? I submit that it is precisely when one experiences loss. This experience can either be personal, as when we endure suffering ourselves, or it can be vicarious, as when we see how others live in far worse circumstances than our own. It is only when we see that what we have cannot be taken for granted that we feel the spontaneous desire to express gratitude.
I would say that the experience of loss is the beginning of philosophy. To put it more starkly, I would say death is the impetus for true philosophy. To realize that we are mortal, that our very existence cannot be taken for granted, causes us to face the most fundamental struggle in human existence: the struggle between gratitude for the life we have and despair over its loss.
Which brings me to something I would add to Leithart's post. Philosophy can either be a eucharistic enterprise, or it can be a process of despair. It can either be a response of gratitude and longing, or it can be a response of defiance, sadness, cynicism, callousness--all of which are really different sides of despair. When philosophy fails to be theological, it is because despair has won out over gratitude.
The modern world, it seems to me, is largely a world shaped by a philosophy of despair, leading to a world of non-philosophers--that is, a world of children who take what they have for granted, and never bother to face their own mortality. It's hard to be philosophical when you're just so damn successful.
But that, of course, is just part of the story. Let's not act like modern philosophy begins with atheistic "presuppositions." No, the battle is not with presuppositions of the mind but with different sides of the human heart. We are all atheists, because we all know despair. And we are all believers, because we all know gratitude--transcendent gratitude, thankfulness just to be alive. The real enemy of philosophy is not atheism, but childishness, which is to say our unwillingness to confront death and to wrestle with gratitude and despair.
No one can remain a child forever. Even we modern people must eventually be theologians.
Showing posts with label Peter Leithart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peter Leithart. Show all posts
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Grace and Freedom
Peter Leithart's blog post today made me think to write some thoughts on a topic Christians rarely seem to sort out. On the one hand, we acknowledge that God is the source of everything we have, and that we can do nothing on our own. Fundamentally, everyone has to acknowledge this, including atheists: everything that we have to work with is in some sense inherited, whether biologically, culturally, or in some more abstract sense (e.g. all of us are composed of matter that came from stars billions of years ago). On the other hand, we work to earn a living in this world, to create things beautiful and/or useful, to discipline ourselves into moral people, to solve some great problem, or just to satisfy our own desires. Can we really claim credit for any of these accomplishments, given that everything we have to start with is a gift? If not, why do we bother?
This question could quickly become abstract theoretical, leading to a discussion about the famous free will problem in philosophy and theology. What we can't miss, however, is that this is an eminently political question. Many of today's biggest controversies are over the question of how a just society should distribute its resources among its members. In typical partisan terms that most people are familiar with, the "conservative" answer is that people should get to keep what they earn. The "liberal" answer is that the conservative answer is inadequate without some adjustments, because you can't deny that all of your success is built on things you didn't earn; so we should make some attempt to redistribute our wealth to make things a little more equitable.
To make my own position plain from the outset, I think both answers are wrong. I don't find them merely incomplete; I actually don't think either of them have any reasonable foundation on which to build a just society. So where to start?
Milton Friedman was not a Christian, nor was he a religious man at all. Yet I once heard him make a remarkably Christian statement. It was while he was addressing a question which someone asked him to the effect of, "Don't you think women deserve to make as much as men?" His response was, "It's not a question of desert. None of us deserve anything. Thank God we don't get what we deserve!"
Life is a gift: that is my starting point. Everything we have is also a gift. Many people will readily acknowledge this when it is pointed out to them. Where, then, do we get the concept of deserving, and why does it feature so prominently in our moral thinking?
In fact, the idea of deserving comes from situations in which there is a clear hierarchy of people, with one person in charge of deciding who gets what. For instance, if you work for a company and have a boss, you expect to get paid what you deserve--not in some ultimate sense but in the sense that there is some reasonable standard by which you can measure a given employee's performance and give out pay accordingly. In somewhat similar fashion, parents often set up a system of rewards and punishments to shape their children's behavior. Thus the idea of deserving mainly serves to form cooperative groups of people by forming clear behavioral expectations.
The reward/punishment system is very intuitive, and for that reason it is hard not to want it extended to the society at large. However, the system depends on having a leader to distribute rewards and punishments. As a consequence, the reward/punishment destroys both freedom and equality, since someone will have to be placed in authority over us (thus making society unequal) and this authority will have to be used to shape our behavior toward some preconceived ideal (thus destroying freedom).
I suppose any system could work if we had Jesus Christ himself in charge of all economic distribution. But as we read in the gospels, Jesus rejected that responsibility.
A just and free society cannot decide the question of economic distribution based on the concept of deserving. Instead, I suggest that society be built on the concept of grace, which is the radical notion that we do not get anything from merit, but from the freedom of giving. As Jesus says in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?"
For the present I'm going to hedge the question of property rights and how they should be defined. Suffice it to say, without any concept of property (implicit or explicit), members of a society have no way to understand gift. If I cannot own anything, then I cannot give or receive anything. Ownership is not the ultimate value in a society, but it is a necessary feature.
(Note well that I have concentrated on gift and have not even mentioned exchange. Gift is always prior to exchange, since if we had never been given anything (at the very least our own lives) we would have nothing to exchange. About exchange free market economists have many things to say, but perhaps it bears repeating that a free society is based on more than economics!)
Once we accept this principle of grace, there remains a lot of work to be done concerning the nature of property rights and defining the limitations of government. However, my concern is that most people do not seem to accept this principle, because the principle of deserving is so much more intuitive. Surely no one deserves to have "so much money"--a hundred thousand dollars? a million dollars? a billion dollars?--and surely the poor deserve something from those who have more than they need. So might a liberal say. On the other hand, surely people deserve to keep the money they make, and surely lazy people don't deserve anything from those of us who work hard. So might a conservative say. I don't say either one of these things, because I know that none of us--not even the best of us--really deserve anything. I don't say that people shouldn't be praised for their accomplishments; but even this praise is a gift, freely given by those who rightly enjoy seeing good things accomplished in the world.
Yet in spite of our undeserving (or, more properly, in spite of the fact that "deserving" isn't the right category to be applied), we do have an abundance of good things. Should we reject them just because we do not deserve them? On the contrary, the best way to appreciate a good gift is to enjoy it, and to give to others as a response. But when you convince people that everything is a matter of deserving, it is remarkable how stingy they become. Or do you call it generosity when a man gives everything he has at gunpoint? Only a free society can foster true generosity.
On first examination, it looked as if grace and freedom were somehow opposed. It turns out quite the opposite: the one cannot exist without the other.
This question could quickly become abstract theoretical, leading to a discussion about the famous free will problem in philosophy and theology. What we can't miss, however, is that this is an eminently political question. Many of today's biggest controversies are over the question of how a just society should distribute its resources among its members. In typical partisan terms that most people are familiar with, the "conservative" answer is that people should get to keep what they earn. The "liberal" answer is that the conservative answer is inadequate without some adjustments, because you can't deny that all of your success is built on things you didn't earn; so we should make some attempt to redistribute our wealth to make things a little more equitable.
To make my own position plain from the outset, I think both answers are wrong. I don't find them merely incomplete; I actually don't think either of them have any reasonable foundation on which to build a just society. So where to start?
Milton Friedman was not a Christian, nor was he a religious man at all. Yet I once heard him make a remarkably Christian statement. It was while he was addressing a question which someone asked him to the effect of, "Don't you think women deserve to make as much as men?" His response was, "It's not a question of desert. None of us deserve anything. Thank God we don't get what we deserve!"
Life is a gift: that is my starting point. Everything we have is also a gift. Many people will readily acknowledge this when it is pointed out to them. Where, then, do we get the concept of deserving, and why does it feature so prominently in our moral thinking?
In fact, the idea of deserving comes from situations in which there is a clear hierarchy of people, with one person in charge of deciding who gets what. For instance, if you work for a company and have a boss, you expect to get paid what you deserve--not in some ultimate sense but in the sense that there is some reasonable standard by which you can measure a given employee's performance and give out pay accordingly. In somewhat similar fashion, parents often set up a system of rewards and punishments to shape their children's behavior. Thus the idea of deserving mainly serves to form cooperative groups of people by forming clear behavioral expectations.
The reward/punishment system is very intuitive, and for that reason it is hard not to want it extended to the society at large. However, the system depends on having a leader to distribute rewards and punishments. As a consequence, the reward/punishment destroys both freedom and equality, since someone will have to be placed in authority over us (thus making society unequal) and this authority will have to be used to shape our behavior toward some preconceived ideal (thus destroying freedom).
I suppose any system could work if we had Jesus Christ himself in charge of all economic distribution. But as we read in the gospels, Jesus rejected that responsibility.
A just and free society cannot decide the question of economic distribution based on the concept of deserving. Instead, I suggest that society be built on the concept of grace, which is the radical notion that we do not get anything from merit, but from the freedom of giving. As Jesus says in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?"
For the present I'm going to hedge the question of property rights and how they should be defined. Suffice it to say, without any concept of property (implicit or explicit), members of a society have no way to understand gift. If I cannot own anything, then I cannot give or receive anything. Ownership is not the ultimate value in a society, but it is a necessary feature.
(Note well that I have concentrated on gift and have not even mentioned exchange. Gift is always prior to exchange, since if we had never been given anything (at the very least our own lives) we would have nothing to exchange. About exchange free market economists have many things to say, but perhaps it bears repeating that a free society is based on more than economics!)
Once we accept this principle of grace, there remains a lot of work to be done concerning the nature of property rights and defining the limitations of government. However, my concern is that most people do not seem to accept this principle, because the principle of deserving is so much more intuitive. Surely no one deserves to have "so much money"--a hundred thousand dollars? a million dollars? a billion dollars?--and surely the poor deserve something from those who have more than they need. So might a liberal say. On the other hand, surely people deserve to keep the money they make, and surely lazy people don't deserve anything from those of us who work hard. So might a conservative say. I don't say either one of these things, because I know that none of us--not even the best of us--really deserve anything. I don't say that people shouldn't be praised for their accomplishments; but even this praise is a gift, freely given by those who rightly enjoy seeing good things accomplished in the world.
Yet in spite of our undeserving (or, more properly, in spite of the fact that "deserving" isn't the right category to be applied), we do have an abundance of good things. Should we reject them just because we do not deserve them? On the contrary, the best way to appreciate a good gift is to enjoy it, and to give to others as a response. But when you convince people that everything is a matter of deserving, it is remarkable how stingy they become. Or do you call it generosity when a man gives everything he has at gunpoint? Only a free society can foster true generosity.
On first examination, it looked as if grace and freedom were somehow opposed. It turns out quite the opposite: the one cannot exist without the other.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Christianity and Public Life: Theory vs Practice
I just got through reading an article in First Things by Peter Leithart, whose blog I follow regularly. Leithart seems to be one of those Christian thinkers who fits a trend I've discovered recently, which is to react against modern assumptions about religion and the public square. I think it best to summarize this reaction in his own words:
Thinkers like Leithart get their inspiration from deeply held theological convictions, based on a thorough understanding of Scripture and ancient history. I appreciate much of what they're saying, but I'm afraid I don't think they've been able to bring their ideas effectively into a modern context. Worse, I'm not sure they ever can while still following the same train of thought.
My basic complaint about Leithart's thesis is that he can't explain how it would work. He argues his way into a trap, it seems. Either we really ought to implement the practical applications of his theological points, which seems to me to establish theocracy in America, or we have to back off from those practical applications and stick to saying very abstract things about the relationship between God and public life. If the latter is true, we're no better off than where we started. If the former is true, well, even he would probably admit the pitfalls of theocracy in this world.
Theologians who insist on reminding us that God must have sway over the public sphere have completely failed to illustrate what that looks like. I'm not sure which is more tragic: when theologians stay very vague and abstract and make God look like a vaporous nothing, or when they get very specific, thus reminding us how many different Gods--even Christian Gods--there really are. The sheer amount of disagreement among theologians over what God really demands of us should be enough to make the necessary point, namely that God and society will always have a very tricky relationship.
If one understands the New Testament very well and believes that it is absolutely true, then I can see how one would be inspired to make a whole-hearted effort to say to the world, "Jesus is Lord!" I respect that, and I can only hope that my life is somehow an expression of that reality. And yet both when I read the New Testament and when I simply look at the world around me, I am faced with a rather unfortunate fact: Jesus is not here. The eyes of faith, it is true, can see the Holy Spirit at work in this world; and yet this takes a great deal of faith precisely because of the undeniable fact that Jesus is not with us. We wouldn't be waiting for anything called a Second Coming if he were, in fact, here right now.
Why does this matter? Well, it means that if Jesus is Lord, he is surely not the kind of Lord the world is used to. If, as Leithart says, he makes demands of "Caesar" (i.e. the American government) then he's not making them the way most lords would. If Jesus wanted to be like other lords, he could have made his demands abundantly clear, and backed up those demands with an army of weapons. What does he do instead? He speaks in parables, tells his disciples to put away their swords, and submits to the punishment of crucifixion. And then--here's the best part--just when he has been vindicated through his resurrection, he leaves! This is no ordinary lord, indeed.
Far from considering this any fault of Christ's, I personally view this as the tension that all Christians must embrace in faith. God's style of government has never been what we wanted it to be. God said no idols, but the people constantly wanted something to look at. God alone was to be King in Israel, but the people wanted a king just like everyone else. The people wanted a military ruler to defeat the Romans for them, but God became man in order to die on a cross.
And I think now there are a lot of Christians just repeating the same old mistakes. Dare I call it idolatry, when it's coming from such brilliant and dedicated theologians? I don't know what to call it, other than "wrong." What I mean is, it doesn't work. If our government must be subject to Christ, then what does that mean? Should we demand an increased Welfare State out of concern for the poor, or should we diminish it out of concern for good stewardship and a productive workforce? Should we demand state-run health insurance, or not? Should we enact strict environmental controls, or not? What should be done about immigration? And how about the war in Afghanistan?
None of these questions can be answered by appealing to the authority of Christ, because Christ has not made his voice clearly heard on any of these issues. Does he speak through Scripture? The troubling thing about Scripture is the number of careful and insightful interpretations there are--for they are all mutually inconsistent. Does he speak through the Church? Which one? Who gets to call themselves the Church? Do people who disagree with each other get to be called one Church?
The fact is, no matter what source of authority you choose--papal authority or Sola Scriptura or whatever--none of these authorities actually is the authority of Christ. Christ, in his strange unworldly wisdom, has chosen to exercise his authority by not lording it over us, "as the Gentiles do." Perhaps that is the main clue for how government ought to behave. Indeed, I think the most intolerable thing in the world is for the government to act as if it had instructions from God on how the country ought to live--which is an attitude I associate with the Secular Left as much as the Religious Right.
And as for this whole issue of the "National Day of Prayer" being "unconstitutional," if that's really all Leithart's article was about, then frankly, that's just silly. I don't even know when National Day of Prayer is, and I certainly don't pray more fervently on that day than on any other. It would feel a little idolatrous if I did.
To sum up my main point, theologians will never get any credibility with the general public if they don't grapple with the troubling realities of the real world. As much as all of us Christians define our lives by the words, "Jesus is Lord," it is simply not possible to say those words without a hint of sadness and perhaps uneasiness. Why has it been this long, anyway? When will he return? And what is it exactly that we're supposed to be doing in the meantime? If any Christian thinks he knows the precise answers to these questions, I would kindly recommend he go dunk his head in a bucket of water.
I say this not as someone who wishes to tear down the faith, but as someone who is sensitive to the political and social challenges we face. These challenges are very closely related to our theology. We hurt ourselves by disconnecting our theology from our lives, and we do even worse by reconnecting our lives with our theology only to disconnect our lives from reality. The best we can do is enter into the public arena with patience and restraint. Patience, because God is going to redeem the world in his own power. Restraint, because we are not God. This is perhaps the most important rule of good government.
This is the possibility that Meacham cannot allow himself to contemplate. He can imagine government sponsorship of religion and the religious coercion that frequently has followed, and he recoils. He can imagine religion standing prissily to the side, going to the garden alone, and his heart is strangely warmed. What he cannot imagine is the possibility that Christ might lay demands on Caesar. Yet it’s that third, unthinkable prospect that is inherent to the Christian gospel; it’s that third, unthinkable prospect that marked the political difference between Christianity and paganism.
Thinkers like Leithart get their inspiration from deeply held theological convictions, based on a thorough understanding of Scripture and ancient history. I appreciate much of what they're saying, but I'm afraid I don't think they've been able to bring their ideas effectively into a modern context. Worse, I'm not sure they ever can while still following the same train of thought.
My basic complaint about Leithart's thesis is that he can't explain how it would work. He argues his way into a trap, it seems. Either we really ought to implement the practical applications of his theological points, which seems to me to establish theocracy in America, or we have to back off from those practical applications and stick to saying very abstract things about the relationship between God and public life. If the latter is true, we're no better off than where we started. If the former is true, well, even he would probably admit the pitfalls of theocracy in this world.
Theologians who insist on reminding us that God must have sway over the public sphere have completely failed to illustrate what that looks like. I'm not sure which is more tragic: when theologians stay very vague and abstract and make God look like a vaporous nothing, or when they get very specific, thus reminding us how many different Gods--even Christian Gods--there really are. The sheer amount of disagreement among theologians over what God really demands of us should be enough to make the necessary point, namely that God and society will always have a very tricky relationship.
If one understands the New Testament very well and believes that it is absolutely true, then I can see how one would be inspired to make a whole-hearted effort to say to the world, "Jesus is Lord!" I respect that, and I can only hope that my life is somehow an expression of that reality. And yet both when I read the New Testament and when I simply look at the world around me, I am faced with a rather unfortunate fact: Jesus is not here. The eyes of faith, it is true, can see the Holy Spirit at work in this world; and yet this takes a great deal of faith precisely because of the undeniable fact that Jesus is not with us. We wouldn't be waiting for anything called a Second Coming if he were, in fact, here right now.
Why does this matter? Well, it means that if Jesus is Lord, he is surely not the kind of Lord the world is used to. If, as Leithart says, he makes demands of "Caesar" (i.e. the American government) then he's not making them the way most lords would. If Jesus wanted to be like other lords, he could have made his demands abundantly clear, and backed up those demands with an army of weapons. What does he do instead? He speaks in parables, tells his disciples to put away their swords, and submits to the punishment of crucifixion. And then--here's the best part--just when he has been vindicated through his resurrection, he leaves! This is no ordinary lord, indeed.
Far from considering this any fault of Christ's, I personally view this as the tension that all Christians must embrace in faith. God's style of government has never been what we wanted it to be. God said no idols, but the people constantly wanted something to look at. God alone was to be King in Israel, but the people wanted a king just like everyone else. The people wanted a military ruler to defeat the Romans for them, but God became man in order to die on a cross.
And I think now there are a lot of Christians just repeating the same old mistakes. Dare I call it idolatry, when it's coming from such brilliant and dedicated theologians? I don't know what to call it, other than "wrong." What I mean is, it doesn't work. If our government must be subject to Christ, then what does that mean? Should we demand an increased Welfare State out of concern for the poor, or should we diminish it out of concern for good stewardship and a productive workforce? Should we demand state-run health insurance, or not? Should we enact strict environmental controls, or not? What should be done about immigration? And how about the war in Afghanistan?
None of these questions can be answered by appealing to the authority of Christ, because Christ has not made his voice clearly heard on any of these issues. Does he speak through Scripture? The troubling thing about Scripture is the number of careful and insightful interpretations there are--for they are all mutually inconsistent. Does he speak through the Church? Which one? Who gets to call themselves the Church? Do people who disagree with each other get to be called one Church?
The fact is, no matter what source of authority you choose--papal authority or Sola Scriptura or whatever--none of these authorities actually is the authority of Christ. Christ, in his strange unworldly wisdom, has chosen to exercise his authority by not lording it over us, "as the Gentiles do." Perhaps that is the main clue for how government ought to behave. Indeed, I think the most intolerable thing in the world is for the government to act as if it had instructions from God on how the country ought to live--which is an attitude I associate with the Secular Left as much as the Religious Right.
And as for this whole issue of the "National Day of Prayer" being "unconstitutional," if that's really all Leithart's article was about, then frankly, that's just silly. I don't even know when National Day of Prayer is, and I certainly don't pray more fervently on that day than on any other. It would feel a little idolatrous if I did.
To sum up my main point, theologians will never get any credibility with the general public if they don't grapple with the troubling realities of the real world. As much as all of us Christians define our lives by the words, "Jesus is Lord," it is simply not possible to say those words without a hint of sadness and perhaps uneasiness. Why has it been this long, anyway? When will he return? And what is it exactly that we're supposed to be doing in the meantime? If any Christian thinks he knows the precise answers to these questions, I would kindly recommend he go dunk his head in a bucket of water.
I say this not as someone who wishes to tear down the faith, but as someone who is sensitive to the political and social challenges we face. These challenges are very closely related to our theology. We hurt ourselves by disconnecting our theology from our lives, and we do even worse by reconnecting our lives with our theology only to disconnect our lives from reality. The best we can do is enter into the public arena with patience and restraint. Patience, because God is going to redeem the world in his own power. Restraint, because we are not God. This is perhaps the most important rule of good government.
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