Loving (a very wobbly approximation) Part Two

Loving (a very wobbly approximation) Part 2

I am very slowly working through the book, Determined to Believe, by John Lennox. It is a remarkable book and for my part hugely challenging. Below are some thoughts relevant to what I wrote previously in part one of this meditation.

Quote: “Cambridge neuroscientist Harvey McMahon writes:
Free-will also underpins ethics, where choices are made in the light of moral principles. In fact free-will underpins all choices. Furthermore, free-will underpins the role of intentionality and guilt in the judicial system… The very idea of rules or laws implies that we have a choice or ability to obey. How can the law command us to do certain things if we do not have the ability to do them? Thus, even the concept of obedience implies we have a choice.” Excerpt From, Determined to Believe, Lennox, John C.

Our desire for fairness which I discussed in part one points to human concern about suffering. Law in this light is not a cold scientific utilitarianism, we love people and are concerned for their well-being.

Quote: “Jean-Paul Sartre captured this idea well:
The man who wants to be loved does not desire the enslavement of the beloved. He is not bent on becoming the object of passion which flows forth mechanically. He does not want to possess an automaton, and if we want to humiliate him, we need try to only persuade him that the beloved’s passion is the result of a psychological determinism. The lover will then feel that both his love and his being are cheapened… If the beloved is transformed into an automaton, the lover finds himself alone.” [Lennox]

Quote: “John Polkinghorne, physicist and Christian, explains:
In the opinion of many thinkers, human freedom is closely connected with human rationality. If we were deterministic beings, what would validate the claim that our utterance constituted rational discourse? Would not the sounds issuing from mouths, or the marks we made on paper, be simply the actions of automata? All proponents of deterministic theories, whether social and economic (Marx), or sexual (Freud), or genetic (Dawkins and E. O. Wilson), need a covert disclaimer on their own behalf, exempting their own contribution from reductive dismissal”  [Lennox]

It is at this point that we return to the powerful offense that has people give up before even considering God.

Quote: in the context of atheism “...in seeking to escape from oppressive, legalistic, superstitious and opiate religion, he rejects God, who himself denounces such religion. Far from increasing human freedom, it is the rejection of God that actually diminishes it and leads to a pseudo-religious anthropocentric ideology, whereby each individual man and woman becomes a prisoner of non-rational forces that will eventually destroy them in complete disregard of their humanity.” [Lennox]

In the book 1984 by George Orwell, the two main protagonists, Winston and Julia, escape, for a brief moment, from the view of the draconian surveillance of the seemingly all powerful Big Brother (Secular State). In this encounter, Orwell captures the rebellion against the oppression (puritanical in this case at minimum) in a powerfully descriptive way in this sexual encounter. 

Quote: Winston:  ‘I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.’
Julia: ‘Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I’m corrupt to the bones.’
Winston: ‘You like doing this? I don’t mean simply me: I mean the thing in itself?’
Julia: ‘I adore it.’
Winston thinking about this encounter the next day: ‘Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act…’

Both Winston and Julia go on to experience each other in significantly more intimate terms as they put distance between themselves and the cold utilitarian ideas on procreation enforced by Big Brother, that is, subsequent to this political encounter — which does adds significant nuance to this moment. This reactionary approach to opposition can be seen in the harrowing pages of Brave New World, framed in the reverse, that is, when the method of control is hedonistic. Dostoyevsky who predates Huxley’s dystopian writing on the subject, brings us to the problem.

Quote: “Man likes to make roads and to create, that is a fact beyond dispute. But why has he such a passionate love for destruction and chaos also?” “What man wants is simply INDEPENDENT choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.”

But surely this particular propensity in human nature is addressed in typical theology? The major theological streams that commit to metaphysical determinism describe God as the author of sin and hence people as disconnect from moral responsibility. The key premise, it seems to me, stems from a mistaken notion pertaining to God's sovereignty. When God sovereignly decrees that man can — name things, make moral choices and exercise authority etc (we see this happening from Genesis till today), it does not undermine His sovereign will but fulfills it. The grace to decide and the freedom to decide - albeit limited freedom on our part, is distinct from what we decide. 

I often think of the story of a man who builds his house on sand. We do well when we consider the soundness of our thinking in the context of the actual world. Sand and rock are not the same thing in this very practical illustration (albeit with some very important metaphysical context). Even in our everyday practical ethical choices, our view of life must fit with Reality. 

So with all this said, what is the way forward? The symbol of the bull plays an important role in scripture. The horns of the wild ox, are used both as a symbol of danger and strength. In my research on human nature I often Meditate on the account of the calf (or bull) that was used as an idolatrous image, cast by human hands to represent a god or something like a mediator between god and man.  Indeed, exactly what Aaron intended with the image is unclear, that is, we are not sure if it was Egyption or Canaanites mythology that influenced his choice of animal. Whatever was the case, this powerful symbol, around which Israel played, tells us something of how our ancestors got it wrong when thinking about God. It also seems to me to connect to Orwell’s insights, in the above excerpt describing Winston and Julia’s act of political sexual rebellion. 

The outrage in our modern era against violence and abuse may well be explained by a variety of mistaken ideas regarding human dignity as pertains to God's image in mankind. In Psalm 22:12 we read, ‘Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.’ Jesus in his suffering is depicted, surrounded by unrestrained dangerous bulls, a fitting picture of the mob who condemned him and a realm of darkness absent from naturalistic accounts of what is the case. Indeed, this perspective on spiritual malevolence is connected with deception and cannot be overlooked. At the same time we see the power of Divine redeeming love in Jesus suffering, death and resurrection. Side by side they provide much by way of content to reflect on with respect to the challenge to apprehend manhood and our choices which include freedom and genuine love by an act of grace.

Quote: “Paul had been discussing the Christian faith with the crowds in the market place when he was approached by representatives of the two leading philosophical schools, Stoics and Epicureans. These philosophers were initially confused about Paul’s teaching and wished to know more, so they gave Paul the opportunity to address them in the formal setting of the Areopagus.

Greek philosophers were interested in the nature of ultimate reality and the relationship of human beings to whatever that ultimate reality might turn out to be. The Stoics, whose philosophy was popular among the intellectual élite, had come to the view that there was a rational principle, a universal reason or logos that ruled the universe by an inexorable fate, and that man’s best wisdom was to cooperate with that fate. The Epicureans, on the other hand, were materialists who believed that the gods (who were made of atoms like everything else) were distant and took no interest in the world. Man’s best wisdom was to seek ataraxia – tranquillity. Human thought was in their view, like everything else, a chance process, in the last analysis nothing but the random swerving of atoms in the void of empty space.”  [Lennox]

Not that anyone is actually reading this… still, in the next thought for the day I will look at some of the biblical puzzles that pose difficulties to the notions of freedom and love.

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