Infinite in Relation to the Finite

Kari Martin: Outside Reading
September 27, 2016

In Martin Heidegger's essay, "What is Metaphysics?" he discusses the necessity of irruption, particularly anxiety as a form of irruption. He first distinguishes fear from anxiety. Fear or stress is in relationships to something, namely circumstances. But anxiety displays itself in a calm, "one feels ill at ease," the realization that we have no control over the world around us, and the world, existence, everything we know to be true could simply fade away or intensify or drift and we have no say over any of it. Heidegger write that anxiety "robs us of speech...the nothing crowds round" (101). Anxiety is what reveals what is nothing and, through nothing, transcendence. Thus, anxiety is key to this transcendence.

Heidegger's explanation of anxiety seems to be the natural reaction to a finite being coming into contact with an infinite being. As long as man (as a finite being) stays within the finite world, comparing himself to other finite beings, he can never experience this anxiety - and perhaps he does not want to. But when man attempts to grasp the infinite, he understands the nothingness of the finite world around him. It shakes the very foundation of understanding, turns everything solid into crumbling ground. And yet, it is this very understanding of anxiety that man can transcend.

As Lewis uses the Chronicles of Narnia to develop this character of Aslan, a tangible, visible image of the infinite, he creates situations in which the infinite and the finite come into contact each other. Each character understands him differently and at different time they experience different facets of him. Even those who claim to not believe in him, are "ill at ease" by his the idea of his presence. They are scared of the sea where he said to have come, scared of the woods his followers used to rule in. And at many times this anxiety shakes us out of stupor and into being.

Martyrs

Danielle Benedict: Outside Reading (1)

Tertullian-To the Martyrs

Prison is typically for wrongdoers, Tertullian calls it the “devil’s house." However martyrs were imprisoned unjustly these good people were in jail because of their belief systems. Tertullian asserts that one’s physical location does not determine one’s actions or quality of thought. Yes, it is a major influencer but not the ultimate deciding factor, which is more likely the human will. Abraham Lincoln said it best when he stated “folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” People in war zones can reach spiritual epiphanies and others who live in the lap of luxury are depressed. The mental and spiritual states are more powerful than the physical state of being. He believes that his fellow Christians are no longer children of this world but children of God therefore “it is of no consequence where you are in the world—you who are not of it.”

The point of prison is to restrict and prevent a person from enjoying worldly pleasures. The martyrs never wanted those pleasures to begin with because most of them are sins. Prison guarded martyrs from physical temptation in many ways and he put it eloquently when he wrote that “the spirit does not gain more in the prison than the flesh loses.” Real battle in prison is a spiritual one, of not losing hope. This “noble struggle,” of preserving through imprisonment, is likened to a soldier going to war for a significance cause. Our earthly life is a training ground where we may be tested by hardships which develop us into improved moral beings. Trials are not the point of an epic story, but rather the personal outcome that stems from that original conflict show us the resistance of the human spirit. Does losing a loved one or having your rights taken away lead you to rely on something greater than yourself or crumble into despair? These philosophers we are reading tell stories about characters overcoming unsurpassable odds and I would argue that this is possible. The real fight is in our hearts and minds.

Interacting with Nature

Chronicles of Narnia:

The creation of a new world offers a fresh perspective on the notion of progress. When Uncle Andrew interacts with Narnia, he is uncomfortable and transactional. He views this new land as a place for him to profit, a place for him to take and not give. In the modern world, land and creation is viewed similarly. It produces resources, creates power, provides spaces for humanity to live, interact, build, work, raise a family. As America began to spread westward,  land became a commodity to be given away, something that produced money. Progress became an attempt to control nature, control what existed long before humans stepped foot on it.

The change of the creation song as Narnia forms is important because it highlights the foreign, "other" aspect of nature which is not meant to be controlled and understood by man. The song evoked passion, adventure, running, jumping, fighting and ultimately paradox. It evoked a feeling that Digory could not understand in himself and was not rational. This world was not built for man. Narnia was formed by Aslan, a character inconceivable to everyone else and yet still in close relationship. Perhaps the relationship the characters have to Aslan is similar to the relationship they should have with Narnia. Narnia (and nature by extension) should be inconceivable, leaving man in awe of its greatness, terrified of its power, overwhelmed by its beauty. But that does not mean man has no relationship with nature. Narnia becomes a place that Digory fights to protect. The Cabby and his wife become the king and queen over the land. And in it, one becomes a better person or a truer version of ones' self.

Progress relies on man controlling and understanding nature. However, nature was not made for man and its sole purpose is not to serve man. To believe so would be to discredit the maker.

Poetically Man Dwells

Poetically Man Dwells

Outside Reading: Martin Heidegger/Language, Poetry, Thought

September 20, 2016

  An authentic response is always a poetic response. If we are to look at what it spoken we must look to what is spoken most purely. Martin Heidegger turns to poetry as the most pure form of speech. Taken from a Holderlin poem, Heidegger further extrapolates language through the phrase, “poetically man dwells.” Poetry is not a more advanced mode of speech, detached from everyday speech, rather it is everyday speech. As Henry David Thoreau says, “ Poetry discloses the obvious.” It is not a fantasy-driven impulse to escape this world but is the very thing that grounds us in this world. “Poetically man dwells” because he is always engaged in measuring himself against the dimensions between the skies above and earth below. Poetry, then, is a kind of measuring, not against the sky itself but the unknown God, for whom the sky is merely an image. The unknown God’s presence is simultaneously guarded and made manifest in the sky. In speaking about what is, poetry uses images of what is familiar to speak of that which is unknown. 

Language Speaks

Language Speaks

Outside Reading: Martin Heidegger/Language, Poetry, Thought

September 20, 2016

One of the most trivializing and intriguing philosophers of the 20th century, often associated with the existential movement, Martin Heidegger was obsessed with the issue of Being. Throughout the history of western philosophy Heidegger observed how Being was either addressed indirectly, improperly, or missed altogether. He believed the notion of Being to be so fundamentally and intimately part of a thing that it is nearly always missed and obscured. Finding no adequate grounds upon which to base his arguments in the history of philosophy, Heidegger was forced to come up with his own language for the issue.  His writings are riddled with etymological analysis and new terms that bring new and refreshing light to the hiddenness of Being. Heidegger’s persistence to plumb the depths of Being led him to brilliantly create language for things that had never before been articulated. 

According to Heidegger, language is an essential existential category of humanity. We live in an articulated world that becomes open and revealed to us through language. “Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.”(144) This is a broad reaching statement that gives ascendency to the power of language. 

In his essay, Language, Heidegger seeks to understand the essence of language by phenomenologically observing how language manifests itself as language. He does not seek to ground language in anything nor is he attempting to prove language as the grounds of something else. The goal of the essay is to understand “language as language.” Heidegger critiques traditional approaches to language not by proving them wrong but by proving them insufficient to account for language as language in it’s most essential, primordial form. Throughout history philosophers have merely attributed language to the phenomena of expression rather than looking at language on it’s own terms.

When looking at language as it is, on its own terms, we find that language speaks. So what then does it mean to speak? Speaking is a human activity that externalizes an inward thought through expression and presents and represents the real and unreal. The speaking of language must be sought in what is spoken. Words call forth, disclosing what was previously concealed and giving presence to the thing being spoken of. Speaking does not divide world and things into a subject-object dialect but illuminates the process on penetration between world and things as inseparably one. If language speaks then human speech is a twofold response of receiving and replying to language. By anticipatory hearing, in the “peal of stillness,” man hears language speaking and responds. 

Theology Through Story

Theology Through Story

Outside Reading: Thomas Merton/The Seven Storey Mountain

September 20, 2016

The 20th century mystic, Thomas Merton, became a prophetic voice for restoring contemplative practice in the modern church. Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, follows the course of his spiritual journey, from unbelief to his “four walls of freedom,” as a Trappist monk. In Merton’s story we find a theology of sin and grace that emerges through a coherent plot. Story shows itself to be a highly effective mode of theological disclosure that includes the all the complexities of lived experience so often missed in a strictly philosophical approach. Through presenting a theology of sin and grace in Merton’s story, my aim is to show how narrative provides a more engaging, comprehensive way of dealing with theology.

By taking the form of story, theology does not become less itself but more itself. Likewise, by including theology, story does not drift away from story but comes closer to story. Theology, when understood as themes in a story, takes on a new life that can speak to the imagination as well as the intellect. Story, when it includes theology, becomes more substantial and able to speak to the soul as well as the emotions. In Merton’s story, we find the theological themes of sin and grace as the guiding structure that proves meaning and coherence to the narrative.

It is one thing to simply state that Merton holds sin to be the deliberate rejection of disinterested love; that sin is an arbitrary, autonomous attitude that places self at the center. It is quite another thing to paint the image of a little five year old boy who stands off in the distance, hands by his side, with fraternal longing in his eyes. His very nature tells him he should join in the fun of building a hut with his older brother; yet the hurling stones and insults keep him at bay, confused and heartbroken by a cruelty that defies all understanding. Of all he does not understand, he knows a great injustice has been committed; he feels the full weight of wrongdoing; some terrible break in relationship has occurred that seems to go far beyond “me and my older bother.” The particular experience leads us to a universal pattern of sin. 

Recapturing Story

Recapturing Story 

Personal Choice

September 18, 2016

The Enlightenment was a time of intellectual awakening in Europe in which certainty was sought through science and reason. Finding itself under attack from these developments, the church needed to respond to the spirit of the age. In their response, the church disowned her true identity as the mystical body of Christ, using the same rational methods of the philosophers to defend themselves. By adopting the rational approach as their own, the church undermined the very cause it sought to defend and put the nail in it’s own coffin! It’s no surprise that since the Enlightenment the church gradually lost it’s place in culture and society. In adopting the rational approach, the church began to demystify faith. God became a concept and faith in him became a matter of certainty. The Bible became a textbook to be defended and upheld rather than a story. The essence of Christianity was lost and the gospel became small and unimpressive. 

Today we live in the wake of these failures. There is just as much to be hopeful about as there is to shake your head about. Recapturing story is what I believe it will take to transform the church and make it culturally relevant once again. What are all the major religions but grand stories? And yet we have lost the power of story by presenting the gospel as a set of facts, making faith left-brained and antagonistic. When I read the Bible as story, I have no need to defend the historical or scientific soundness of it because thats not the point of story! These things become small. What truly matters is the significance that story has on my lived experience. A scientist could disprove all of Christianity tomorrow and I would still hold fast in faith because my faith is not grounded in scientific soundness but in story. 

Every story contains three parts: structure, style, and content. Since the Enlightenment, the church has over-emphasized content. Often, it’s all we care about. Thats why you see people bringing their Bibles to church to fact check the pastor. All contemporary worship songs sound the same because all they focus on is having the right content. Has the church become an institution that restricts the artist rather than empowering him? I’m afraid so. No longer do the stories of Scripture shape and inform our culture. It’s now the movies of Hollywood. Why? Because Hollywood understands story. They are far better at incorporating beautiful style and structure into their stories than the church is. Until the church comes to see this, they will continuously remain irrelevant and insubstantial.