JEFFERSON'S BIBLE PART I

The title of this entry is Jefferson’s Bible, and not The Jefferson Bible! This distinction is deliberate. We are talking about Thomas Jefferson’s religion. I am not insisting here that he was some conventional Christian theist (whatever this is supposed to mean, considering the multitude of “conventional” Christian denominations at odds with each other and loudly calling each other unpleasant names), but I am once again alerting the reader to one of my pet leitmotifs: definitions, definitions, definitions!

We know that from the fact that the authors of the so-called Humanist Manifesto were actual secularists and atheists, and never denied it, yet had the audacity to call themselves “humanists,” it must not follow that all humanists, and particularly Christian humanists, as defined, for instance, by the Roman Catholic Church, are a bunch of godless scoundrels, as commonly represented by modern-day Evangelical preachers.

By the same token, if Thomas Jefferson calls himself a deist, we ought not to jump to the conclusion that he is a deist in one of the rigid senses of this term set in opposition to all persons called theists. We must rather listen to Jefferson himself, and to the way he describes his understanding of the term “deism.’ Bearing this in mind, let us proceed with the present entry.

The Founding Fathers of the American Dream,--- what was their connection to the Christian foundations of our recently defunct Western Civilization?

They are called deists by religion, clearly meaning a different thing (see for instance the Webster’s Dictionary definition, quoted in my previous entry) from what they themselves understood as deism. Here is a line from Thomas Jefferson, already quoted in the Jefferson And The Jews entry in the Tikkun Olam section:

“Their system was deism; that is, belief of only one God. But their ideas of Him and of His attributes were degrading and injurious…” (From Thomas Jefferson’s An Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus Compared with Those of Others, 1803.)

It is demonstrably obvious, if I am allowed to use this double-whammy for an enhanced effect, that at least in this instance Jefferson uses the word deism indistinguishably from theism, which was historically a very common confusion, and, in this case, synonymously with monotheism,--- a very revealing situation!

So, whatever we find written anywhere about Jefferson’s religion, all labels must be consumed accordingly, with more than a grain of salt.

It is true that his contemporaries, primarily political rivals, raised doubts about Jefferson’s religious probity, but most of these attacks were standard election fare, and ought not to amount to more than that. During the presidential campaign of 1800, he was accused of being an “infidel,” attributing his admittedly unconventional religious views to the ill effects of the iconoclastic French Revolution which he was allegedly infected with, and thus disqualified from public office. Fortunately, Jefferson left us with a significant legacy of written works on religion, and of public deeds in matters religious, thus denying his enemies an exclusive opportunity to define him for us through their tainted opinions. Although the “deistic” tag has apparently stuck to him, it has been benignly modified, as several eminent authorities have subsequently described him as a “Christian deist.” Here is what the notable Jesuit theologian and Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church Avery Dulles says about Jefferson in his First Things: The Deist Minimum (2005):

“In summary, Jefferson was a deist because he believed in one God, in divine providence, in the divine moral law, and in rewards and punishments after death; but did not believe in supernatural revelation. He was a Christian deist, because he saw Christianity as the highest expression of natural religion, and Jesus, as an incomparably great moral teacher. He was not an orthodox Christian, as he rejected, among other things, the doctrines that Jesus was the promised Messiah and also the incarnate Son of God. Jefferson’s religion is fairly typical of the American form of deism in his day.” (I will discuss Jefferson’s “rejection” of Jesus as the promised Messiah, etc. in Part II, to be posted tomorrow.)

It is quite clear to me that Jefferson’s unorthodox Christian views can be easily attributed to his frequently expressed philosophical meditations on religion. Had he not expressed himself as a religious philosophizer so often and so distinctly, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish him from an orthodox Christian believer. Here is a short summary of his outward religious history, deliberately quoting the Wikipedia, to ensure the impression of objectivity, which I am eager to convey in this particular instance:

“Jefferson was raised in the Church of England, at the time when it was the established church in Virginia and the only denomination funded by Virginia tax money. Before the Revolution, he was a vestryman in a local church, a lay position which was part of political office at the time. He had friends among the clergy, and he supported some churches financially. During his Presidency, Jefferson attended the weekly church services held in the House of Representatives. Throughout his administration, he allowed church services in executive branch buildings, believing that Christianity was a prop for the government.”

It is perfectly easy to reconcile unorthodox religious opinions with orthodox cultural religiosity coexisting in the same person, as in all sincerity it could not be otherwise, as long as the person is not some miserable hypocrite, hiding his oftentimes blasphemous and perverted private inclinations under a mask of religious orthodoxy. We have countless examples of Roman Catholic priests privately engaging in pedophilia, or the Jimmy Swaggarts, Jim & Tammy Bakkers, and too many others to mention them all, who are going around under the cover of Christian propriety, yet committing heinous unforgivable crimes exposing them as dyed-in-the-wool non-believers and perverts… Under such circumstances, it must be a badge of honor to be called a “deist,” whatever it means, as long as one is moral and sincere…

(This is the end of Part I. Part II will be posted tomorrow.)

DEISM AS RELIGION PART II

The concept of deism covers a wide variety of positions on a wide variety of religious issues. Following Sir Leslie Stephen’s English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, two basic features make up its core:

The rejection of revealed religion, the negative or critical aspect of deism, and the belief that reason, rather than faith, leads us to certain basic religious truths, the positive or constructive aspect of deism.

What is most curious to me, however, is that deism does not seem to conflict with Christianity, in fact, such a thing as Christian deism is apparently widely recognized.

Here is an illuminating quote from a younger contemporary of John Locke, the consummate English deist Matthew Tindal, who sums up his own understanding of what was to identify him as a deist:

"If there were not some propositions which need not to be proved, it would be in vain for men to argue with one another [because there would be no basis for demonstrative reasoning] Those propositions which need no proof, we call self-evident; because by comparing the ideas, signified by the terms of such propositions, we immediately discern their agreement, or disagreement. This is what we call intuitive knowledge, which may, I think, be called divine inspiration as being immediately from God, and not acquired by any human deduction or drawing of consequences. This certainly is that divine, uniform light that shines in the minds of all men." (Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation II.)

Reading Tindal, I may start questioning myself, whether I am myself a fellow deist, by his definition? But then, I make no answer, by dismissing the question. Who cares for tags, so pointless and misleading! It is one thing to understand the meanings of the terms we are using in a particular context, but quite another, to incarcerate a person’s free spirit in the cage of a spurious label.

And one more thing. When I talk about the God of Philosophy, and about us ascending to the upper floor of the two-storied temple, how close is my understanding of this spiritual emancipation to what Tindal is calling a natural religion? Here is Tindal again:

By natural religion, I understand the belief in the existence of a God, and the sense and practice of duties, which result from the knowledge we, by our reason, have of Him and his perfections; and of ourselves, and our own imperfections, and of the relationship we stand in to Him, and to our fellow-creatures; so that the religion of nature takes in everything which is founded on the reason and nature of things... I suppose you will allow that it is evident by the light of nature that there is a God, or in other words, a being absolutely perfect, and infinitely happy in himself, who is the source of all other beings. (Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation II.)

Analyzing Thomas Paine’s outrageously controversial Age of Reason, for which he was branded an atheist and a deist (in certain minds amounting to one and the same thing), we are obviously faced with the man’s firm belief in God, that is, in the Supreme Being, and the whole subject of hot controversy and objection boils down to Paine’s refusal to acknowledge organized religion, and, with it, any particular Church above any other Church or Creed, as a legitimate expression of one’s religious spirit or personal faith, as I am putting it, in distinction from the politically, socially, and particularly culturally pre-conditioned adherence to this or that given denomination...

It is quite obvious to me that, in the light of my religious philosophy, and its apparent connection, at least on the face of it, to the religious philosophy of deism, with its definition of natural religion, I ought to devote a considerable effort in the interrelated spheres of religion, philosophy, and history, to a further exploration of deism, and to my philosophical connection to it. After all, my culturally-fixed religion of Russian Orthodox Christianity (which I was born with, and I shall die with) cannot be affected by my philosophical curiosity in matters of knowledge, as opposed to matters of belief.

This mission of exploration has just started within this entry, and is certainly to be continued.

DEISM AS RELIGION PART I

Webster’s Dictionary provides two very different definitions of deism:

(1). The belief that God exists and created the world but thereafter assumed no control over it or the lives of people.

(2). In philosophy, the belief that reason is sufficient to prove the existence of God, with the consequent rejection of revelation and authority.

Whenever we use one word to describe different things we end up not knowing what we are talking about. Sometimes this confusion is part of a deliberate deception, like in the case of libertarianism, detailed by me in the Contradiction section. Whatever the reason is here, I suspect that much of the confusion is, perhaps, due to an innocent misunderstanding of the term deism (confusing it with theism, perhaps, or monotheism, as Thomas Jefferson seems to be doing, see my entry Jefferson’s Bible) by those who have used it, and the resulting imprecision then being taken as a conscientious effort by some smarter-than-thou interpreters of other people’s wisdom.

No matter what we think of it or how we define it, deism is an intriguing phenomenon, or, to put it more precisely, a fascinating word hiding something quite interesting behind its vague façade, and as such most worthy of a closer look. As a result, three entries have sprouted on its fertile ground: Deism As Religion in the Religion section, Deism As Philosophy in the Philosophy section, and Deism As History in the History section. Each of them raises a particular aspect of the same subject, which is deism of course, and together they are hopefully presenting a fuller picture of my own than a single entry in any one selected section can possibly provide.

This entry discusses Deism as a religious opinion.

Prior to the seventeenth century the terms deist and deism were used interchangeably with the terms theist and theism, and this is where the majority of later uses ought to belong, whenever people were to use these terms broadly, without a deliberate emphasis on the technical definition. Theologians and philosophers of the seventeenth century began to give a different signification to these words. According to their technical distinction, both theists and deists still asserted their belief in one supreme God, the Creator, agreeing that God is personal and distinct from the world. But the theist taught that God remained actively interested in, and operative in the world which He had made, whereas the deist maintained that God endowed the world at Creation with self-sustaining and self-acting powers, and then ‘relinquished’ it to the operation of these powers acting as second causes.

So far, I see nothing iconoclastic in the physical substance of such a claim. On the contrary, this claim has a convincing Biblical foundation:

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass…” (Genesis 1:11-12) It is quite clear to me that God’s command “Let the earth do this and that” explicitly delegates “self-sustaining and self-acting powers” to, from now on, second causes!

Perhaps the first use of the term deist is in Pierre Viret’s Instruction Chrestienne (1564). Being a staunch Calvinist, Viret regarded deism as a new form of Italian heresy. He wrote:

There are many who confess that while they believe, like the Turks and the Jews, that there is some sort of God and some sort of deity, yet with regard to Jesus Christ, and to the Doctrine, to which the Evangelists and the Apostles testify, they take all that to be fables and dreams. I hear that there are of this band those who call themselves Deists, an entirely new word, which they want to oppose to Atheist. For in that atheist signifies a person who is without God they want to make it understood that they are not at all without God since they certainly believe there is some sort of God, whom they even recognize as creator of heaven and earth, as do the Turks; but as for Jesus Christ, they only know that he is and hold nothing concerning him nor his doctrine.

I find this argument utterly untrustworthy, and biased. After all, we can find much harsher accusations of heresy, diabolic possession and calls for eternal damnation thrown between some of the most pious brands of Catholicism and Protestantism, both professing their undying faith in Jesus Christ wholeheartedly, and without any qualifications.

 

End of Part I. Part II will be posted tomorrow.

"THE RIGHT WAY TO GLORIFY GOD"

It is curious, how Russia has been trying to protect her religious “Third Rome” purity from any association with the excesses of all other branches of Christianity, condemned by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, by identifying herself as a nation of the “Orthodox” faith, or Pravoslavie, in Russian, as opposed to what is almost derisively branded as “Christianity” (literally, the Messiah-centered religion, presumably similar, but actually not similar at all!) of the world’s “Christian” churches.

One may argue, of course, that Pravoslavie, which is a translation from the Greek word Orthodoxa (that is, “the right way to glorify God”), means nothing that special, referring either to established belief in general, or to the Christian faith of the so-called Eastern Rite, as formulated in the first seven ecumenical councils, from the First Council of Nicaea in 325, to the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 AD. However, the spice is not in the staple fact, but in the manner of its application and interpretation, and the unique Russian word “Pravoslavie,” different from Orthodoxalnost and Orthodoxia, is significantly more restrictive in its usage than its transliterated Greek counterpart, which is also in use, but in broader contexts, reaching beyond religion. In fact, it is commonly recognized that the meaning of the word Pravoslavie among the Russian believers has its core in the specific Russian Orthodoxy, and extends to the other Churches of the Eastern rite only conditionally, almost reluctantly, in so far as the supremacy of the Russian Church is taken for granted, which technically is not supposed to be the case.

On the other hand, there is a lingering ambiguity as to precisely which world Churches are embraced by the term Pravoslavie. Different counts have been done in this respect by the different Churches of the Eastern rite. The Russian Church recognizes fifteen autocephalous Churches and four autonomous Churches. (The former are formally independent Churches, whereas the latter are canonically dependent on their mother Churches among the former.) The autocephalous Churches are those of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Russia, Georgia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Albania, Poland, Czech Lands and Slovakia, and America and Canada. The autonomous Churches are those of Sinai (Jerusalem), Finland (Constantinople), Japan (Russia), and China (Russia, nominally in existence and even recognized as such, but effectively defunct, at least at the time of this writing).

Both the autocephalous and the autonomous Churches are normally delineated according to the national borders of each, but a curious situation currently exists as regards the Russian Church, in particular. In the aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR and in the wake of a mass exodus of Russians going abroad, there is a global spread of the Russian Diaspora today, building countless churches in virtually every country of the world, in addition to the already existing ones in the post-Soviet space, where Russian Orthodox populations make up very sizable portions of the total populations there; and all these Russian expatriates with their churches are naturally covered by the authority of the Russian Church, all of a sudden having created a Russian Catholic (meaning worldwide) phenomenon, second only to the spread of Roman Catholicism, and making the Russian Patriarch second in international ecclesiastical importance only to the Pope. However, taking into consideration the Patriarch’s political clout in the Russian duumvirate of Church and State, his actual importance may have been seriously underestimated. I venture to say that indeed it is the Russian Orthodox Church which today exercises the most significant influence on world affairs, among all religious organizations, Christian or non-Christian. This fact may take a while to be recognized, because of its sheer novelty, but a couple of decades down the road it may well become common wisdom…

"IMPUDENT AND MISGUIDED SCHOLARS" PART II

And now back to the question of the proper subject of the present entry: what is atheism?

In my opinion, atheism is a frivolous system of values, which does not merit a serious philosophical study, but certainly deserves to be analyzed from other angles, such as historical, socio-political, psychological, etc. Considering that this section is devoted to Religion, the next question is whether atheism is a form of religion, or a contrariant expression of non-religion?

To me, there is no question here, as my definition of religion binds it with unbreakable historical, cultural, and traditional ties to its host nation, or an established ethnic or social group of unquestionable legitimacy. But this question does exist for all those taxonomists of world religions who are with flippant nonchalance awarding the three top spots in the worldwide religious “standings” to Christianity at number one, Islam at number two, and Secularism/Atheism/Agnosticism at number three. (A particular reference is made here to the respectable website adherents.com, which is also the source of the quotes below.)

The authors of such surveys, which bundle together all diverse forms of Christianity, despite the fact that, historically, the Christian-on-Christian strife has been bloodier and far more intolerant and vicious (at least in the last five hundred years) than Christianity’s crusades against other religions, allot the third spot to the secularist-atheist-agnostic-nonreligious bunch with the following caveat:

“This is a highly disparate group, not a single religion. Atheists are a small subset of this grouping. People who specify atheism as their religious preference actually make up less than one-half of one percent of the population in many countries where much large numbers claim no religious preference.

Of the people in this grouping, it is estimated that 40 to 50% have a stated traditionally “theistic” belief in God or Higher Powers. A country-by-country survey was done and in most countries only a tiny number of people will answer atheist when asked an open-ended question about their religious preference. A slightly larger number of people will say yes if asked pointedly if they are an atheist. A slightly larger number will answer no when asked if they believe in God, deities or Higher Power. A slightly larger number answer no when asked simply if they believe in God (omitting more nebulous, less anthropomorphic conceptions of divinity). Finally, a larger number of people answer none when asked about their religious preference. But at the same time, half of those who identify themselves as nonreligious answer yes when asked if they still believe in God or a Higher Power.”

But there is an even greater flaw in these statistical attempts to come up with any meaningful figure on the number of atheists in the world.

“Most current estimates of the world number of secular/nonreligious/agnostic/atheist/etc. are between eight hundred million and one billion. Estimates for atheism alone (as primary religious preference) range from 200 to 240 million. But these come primarily from China and the former Soviet Union nations, especially from Russia. Prior to Communist takeovers of these regions and government attempts to eradicate religion in both places, there were very high levels of affiliation with organized religions (especially, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Taoism), as well as high levels of participation and belief in local traditions, such as shamanism, ancestor ceremonies, spiritism, etc. Since the fall of Communism in the former Soviet nations and the relaxation of anti-religious policies in China, religious affiliation has increased dramatically.”

There is, perhaps, only one area of such statistical study where the figures have at least some meaning, even though they reveal the already obvious truth:

“In the Western world, Europe is by far the place with the most self-avowed atheists and agnostics, with the nonreligious proportion of the population particularly high in Scandinavia. The Encyclopedia Britannica reports approximately 41 million atheists in Europe. The self-described nonreligious segment of society in Australia and New Zealand is also high.

All those who profess religious belief are not necessarily registered members of a church or denomination, but in the United States the majority of professed Christians and adherents of other religions are officially affiliated with an organization.”

This is perhaps a reflection of the fact that in Western Europe, in particular, church attendance is no longer associated with social clout, power and prestige. There is another important consideration here as well. Socialist nations of the free world offer their populations a variety of alternative support systems, as opposed to the United States, for instance, where the capitalist system restricts people’s access to such support systems, making the church by far the most important of them, in so far as the middle class is concerned, and therefore, boosting the numbers of church attendance as well as those of personal religious identification. I think that American Protestant churches, especially the Evangelical community, are strongly anti-socialist precisely on this account: they see socialism as a rival to religion. Moreover, I suspect that their objection to socialism is not purely political, but paradoxically ethical. In my opinion, supported by experience, they sincerely believe that social services and welfare programs advanced by the government make people less interested in churches and religion, and therefore drive them away from God.

I am uncomfortable with such a treatment of socialism, but I confess that this argument has a valid point. Atheism and secular socialism may indeed have something in common, at the expense of religion.

"IMPUDENT AND MISGUIDED SCHOLARS" PART I

(See also my entry Atheism As Extreme Fear Of God posted on January 15, 2011, as part of the composite posting Religion And Culture.)

“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” (Psalms 1:14). I am now on the subject of atheism. The entry’s title is, curiously, a rather unexpected quote from Voltaire, and here it is in its fuller context:

“The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars, who reason badly, and who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the eternity of things and of inevitability.” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 1764).

I am not surprised at all by Voltaire’s devastating blow to his otherwise dedicated fan base. It Is one thing to scorn religion, with its inevitable hypocrisy and will to power (hence Voltaire’s famous "Ecrasez l’Infâme!"), but quite another, to deny the existence of a higher spiritual power, the mainstay of all philosophical thinking and the foundation of ethics. Such “impudence,” Voltaire, being an equal-opportunity critic, naturally, cannot tolerate.

For those of us who do not credit the great Voltaire with an adequate definition of the subject of our discussion, the first question to ask now is what exactly is atheism?

The following is an abbreviated summary of the Atheism entry in the BBC World Religions Project, which I have found interesting, accompanied by my immediate comments. The BBC material is in blue font, my comments are in regular font.

Atheism is defined as the absence of belief in Gods or spiritual beings. Atheists do not use God to explain the existence of the universe. They also insist that human beings can devise suitable moral codes to live by, without the aid of Gods or scriptures. In other words, they are forever reinventing the bicycle, yet declaring that the invention of the wheel had nothing to do with it!

The next paragraph is on the morality of atheists, and here I have a strong disagreement with its very first sentence. Atheists are as moral or immoral as religious people. Considering that personal morality is more of an inner attitude than an outward expression, the question of hypocrisy becomes the defining factor. An immoral religious person is always a hypocrite, who disguises his or her immorality under a façade of fake morality. An atheist is moral when his inner attitude is rooted in religious belief, even though his outward expression may be contrary to his inner attitude, and amoral (likelier than immoral) always as a matter of principle, which sharply distinguishes his immorality, or amorality from that of a religious person.

Returning to the second paragraph in full now, we come to the discussion of a moral attitude in an atheist.

Atheists are as moral or immoral as religious people. In practical terms, they often follow the same moral code as religious people, but they arrive at the decision of what is good or bad without help from the idea of God. (Which is already a self-deception, if they truly believe that the social moral codes, accepted by the societies they live in, have themselves come into existence without help from the idea of God, or an outright deception, if they just pretend that this is the case.)

The third paragraph already contains a basic flaw in addressing the issue of atheism. It is mixing up items of different quality and assumes facts not in evidence:

Many atheists are also secularists, hostile to special treatment given to organized religions. However, it is possible to be both atheist and religious. Most Buddhists are, as also adherents of other religions, such as Judaism and Christianity.

Atheists deny the existence of God, but secularists are people with a political agenda, which is to abolish the privileged status of religion in society. If this is not a classic case of apples and oranges, nothing is. To put atheists and secularists into the same category obfuscates the issue. Once you start accusing atheists of secularism, or secularists of atheism, the separate meanings of both are lost, and so is the challenge.

As for the possibility of being both atheist and religious, this is, again, an issue of hypocrisy, but this time, much more than that. Three religions are mentioned here. It is clear with Christianity, which implies faith in God and His Son Jesus Christ, that any person who is an atheist inside, yet wishes to perpetuate religious ties to his community and culture, and thus keeps his church attendance and religious identification, ought to be counted as religious, and not an atheist, for all statistical purposes, except for psychoanalysis. Within my own distinction between faith and religion, there is no discrepancy here, and no difficulty in resolving a little problem like this.

With regard to Judaism, most adherents to Reform, Constructionist, and even Conservative Judaism are in principle atheistic. Their rituals are not a tribute to God, but to Israel, that is, to their ethnic, cultural identity as Jews.

In so far as Buddhism is concerned, whether or not it is, like Hinduism, a “Godless” religion, is a matter of definition. If God is perceived personally, as in the three great monotheistic religions, the Hinduist idea of Brahma will not be accepted as an idea of God. If, in Buddhism, the Dharma can be perceived as the Law without the Lawgiver, and Satori as an Enlightenment without the Enlightener, while Nirvana is nothing more than a transcendence into the total void, which is both physical and metaphysical nonsense, then we can only understand it as a resignation to the mysterious unknowability of God, but not a denial of God, by any stretch of imagination…

(This is the end of Part I. Part II will be posted tomorrow.)

ATHEISM AND RATIONALITY

It can be said that atheism is an expression of extreme rationality, as well as a denial of irrationality. While it is true that religion is based on the irrational element of human consciousness, and thus atheism does indeed fit the above description, I disagree with the part that religion is totally devoid of rationality. As I have said on several occasions, there is a strong positive link between religion and culture, and to me, clearly, that link is quite rational. Thus, a person’s adherence to a specific religion can be perfectly rationalized by the sense of belonging to a culture, or at least to a religion-based social group, in which case atheism plays the role of a spoiler, a saboteur of that social connection, which underscores the rational wisdom of that great Biblical adage: “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” (Psalms 1:14.)

THEOCRACY AND ITS REPUDIATION BY THE BIBLE

Whoever says that theocracy can be a legitimate form of government, has the Bible to wrestle with. It was not Aaron the Priest, but Moses the Leader, who was determined by God and the Bible to have supremacy in this relationship. Curiously, it was the Priest, and not the Leader, who went terribly astray in that infamous incident of the Golden Calf…

THEOLOGY AS PHILOSOPHY AND AS RELIGION

“…but the wise shall understand.” (Daniel 12: 10)

Theology presents a problem for placement, wherever there is a choice between Religion and Philosophy. I cannot easily divide it into dogmatic theology, which belongs to Religion, and speculative theology, which belongs to philosophy, because the line is not all that clearly drawn. It is only obvious when we are looking at homiletic theology versus religion criticism, but such a distinction between the extremes gives us nothing toward the distinction of the basics.

A theoretical way to make this distinction would be to say that whenever we consider theology from inside its religion, we are dealing with religion, but whenever we do it from the outside, it is philosophy. Yet, this does not work either. A Christian philosopher studying Christian theology as “philosophy” is disingenuous of necessity, as he is patently incapable of making such a separation, removing him entirely from his own religion.

Besides, there is a similar problem in trying to place philosophy of religion, for instance, in either of these sections. Encyclopaedia Britannica “solves” this problem of placement by placing it in both, which is only proving, with reference to my case, that tautology and confusion here are unavoidable.

There is no sense for me either, to try to draw a sharp line of distinction where there is no borderline, but a diffused and ambiguous overlap over a common, but little-disputed territory. My placement decisions then (Philosophy or Religion?!) are to be guided by instinct, rather than by definition. Yet, this is by no means a loss for formal, “rational” study, as long as we shift that study’s focus from a search for some objectivity to a bemused retrospection, going case by case to determine where exactly our theological bus swerves off the road of religion to the adjacent road of philosophy and back, and how the bus driver reacts to such swerves.

To generalize this somewhat, one can learn a lot about a country, its general philosophical direction, and its future, by studying its prominent figures speaking or writing on matters specifically involving theology and ethics. It is great fun to watch brainwashers getting brainwashed themselves in the process of brainwashing others, as only through such instances can we discern with the greatest ease what the brainwashing is really about, and where it is leading both the leaders and the followers…

A fascinating subject of study, a bonanza for political psychologists!

DEUS MAXIMUS

In my earlier commentary on Section 19 of this 2^nd Essay, I already stated some of my reasons for holding back the critics of Nietzsche’s attack on the Christian God. Here is yet another pertinent passage from his Section 20, with my annotations within and following the text itself (From Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals; 2^nd Essay [20]):

“The advent of the Christian God, as the maximum god obtained so far (this thesis is questionable enough already to require a stop right here. Let us consider the great religion of Islam, which in its origin postdates Christianity and considers itself the highest of the three steps, the first (and lowest!) being God’s revelation to the Jews in Judaism. The Moslems insist on Jesus being a Prophet of God, whereas Mohammed was the Prophet of the last Revelation, and therefore, in a sense, the greatest of all Prophets. Needless to say, when we talk of the Jewish God, the Christian God and Allah, the God of Islam, He is the same God; in Christian theology He is God the Father, but our distinction refers to the differences in specific religions, rather than in the nature of God. Of course, we might immediately object, insisting that the Trinity of the Christians is an entirely different quality of God, and therefore the previous argument is not valid, however even according to the strictest interpreters of the Christian dogma, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, in addition to God The Father, do not splinter the Oneness of God, they are merely different manifestations of One God, making Him more comprehensible to the believers; and, again, One God is the same in the three great religions. My point however is that even if this may indeed seem so to us Christians, the idea that our God is the maximum god, even though it is undoubtedly the most intricate of all ideas of the Deity, is more representative of our religious Credo, than a universally established fact. On the other hand, if we are simply stating here that the maximum god represents the maximum culture, known as the Western Civilization, that would be a totally different story, but, even then, it would fail to qualify as a universally established fact!), was accompanied by the maximum feeling of guilty indebtedness on earth. Presuming we have gradually entered upon the reverse course, there is no small probability that with the irresistible decline of faith in the Christian God (history may already have proved to us that the decline of faith, which Nietzsche is referring to, and quite correctly, may have been a temporary phenomenon, the ebb of a tide!) there is now also a considerable decline in mankind’s feeling of guilt, indeed, the prospect cannot be dismissed that the complete victory of atheism might free mankind of this whole feeling of indebtedness toward its origin, its causa prima. (In every instance of using the word mankind, I wonder what Nietzsche actually means. Europe, or, perhaps, Nietzsche’s familiar, explored world, may be a more appropriate way of saying it. The age of colonialism may have created in Europe such a sense of European superiority over the rest of the world that the word mankind must be taken with this caveat, even when Nietzsche ipse uses it.) Atheism and a kind of second innocence belong together.”

I have too much respect for Nietzsche to suspect him of ignorance in certain matters, but especially, of his inadvertent confusion of religion and philosophy. However, I need to point to the bigger picture, where the socio-philosophical imperative of establishing the authority of One God overrules the ‘atheistic’ alternative. Atheism is not about to happen any time soon, which means never, because the historical development of great cultures, their conflicts, the decline of some and the ascent of others, leads to a continual renewal of the God concept, a renewal of God, coming from the ascending ambitious new cultures, rooted in the God of their religions, and all passionately eager to demonstrate to the rest of the world the ascendancy not of some sexless, neutered, non-cultural mutated form called atheism, but of a vigorous, youthful, nationalistic God of the newcomer, or possibly, a rejuvenated, reinvigorated returner on the world stage, now coming into his own. Atheism cannot triumph in the world any time soon because it is, in effect, a Globalist, Internationalist (in the sense of being anti-nationalist) weapon of disarming the nations by destroying their peculiar cultures, their peculiar worship of God, in accordance with their nationalistic tradition, so that they can all reassemble “under a new ownership,” a new management, a new, superimposed acultural identity of a new Globalist Universe, at the expense, and to the detriment, of individual cultural identities, and to the advantage of the capable managerial minority, who would rather sacrifice their own culture by destroying all culture, so that they can win their snug room at the top, than allow any majority culture to prosper and keep them politically always reduced to a subservient minority status.

I can thus only sympathize with Nietzsche’s self-evident frustration: not with God, but with the degeneration of established religion, the same frustration which before him motivated Kierkegaard, in his denunciation of Christianity as being corrupted by its own political power, and then later the Russians who were so determined, and in retrospect so successful in their experiment of religious purification known as their national history in the twentieth century.

TALENT FOR RELIGION

Considering that there is a definite strong link between a national culture and its religion, and considering that a connection has been noted between religious and social characteristics, such as by Max Weber, who relates the entrepreneurial capitalist spirit to the special qualities of Protestantism, the following question is of more than curiosity value: Are some nations more predisposed toward religious belief than others? It is only logical to wonder if there exists a cultural divide in this case too. Here is what Nietzsche has to say about it in Jenseits [48]:“It seems that Catholicism is much more intimately related to the Latin races than all of Christianity in general is to us northerners, and unbelief means something different in Catholic and Protestant countries. Among them, a kind of rebellion against the spirit of the race, among us, a return to the spirit of the race. We, descendants of barbarians, have little talent for religion.”

In my view, this could be more a question of national politics than of religious peculiarity. Germany, as a single national entity, holds a multi-religious historical identity, with traditional Catholicism in the South (prominently including Austria, in addition to the Erden of the German South), and Protestantism in the Northern parts. The ‘Einig, Einig, Einig!’ slogan, reflecting her Gross-Deutsches national aspirations (“Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer!), turns all religious denominational differences into a great inconvenience, in the context of national unity, which, in my opinion, is the chief factor responsible for these “descendants of barbarians having little talent for religion.” But Nietzsche’s argument keeps holding its ground no matter how many convincing counterarguments might be presented in its refutation. After all, the supreme value of philosophy is in posing good questions, not in answering them to everybody’s satisfaction.

Once again, he makes an intriguing observation, leading me to thinking about similar considerations in the matter of other religions, particularly, Russian Orthodox Christianity. But non-Christian religions are also extremely interesting, and the specific psychological connection between the culture and its religion is the most captivating question here, with Nietzsche right in the middle of it, as always… Incidentally, leaving the Catholics aside, who else has a “talent” for religion?…

(To be sure, with all his prophetic vision, boldness of ideas, and great insight into the nature of things, Nietzsche could hardly foresee that our new brand of post-religious, and in America post-post-religious society would take a notably different course than his prophesied liberation from all religion toward a neo-barbaric self-affirmation of people and nations. In the era of an erosion of national identities via uncontrolled and by now probably uncontrollable multiculturalism, a resurgence of religiosity as a statement of reaffirmation of one’s beleaguered national/cultural identity, Nietzsche’s scenario appears likely to be refuted… But on the other hand, is it possible that the time for his prophecy’s fulfillment has not come yet? I don’t think so, but I can be mistaken…)

Now, before leaving this entry for the time being, until it is to be further developed in the next stage of my work, a short postscriptum may be in order here. Bearing in mind how very little ‘talent for religion’ most people in our modern times have, even, and maybe, especially those, who, for political or social reasons, are compelled to identify themselves as members of specific religious denominations, where do these get their cultural-ethical sensibilities (or sensitivities, if that works better) from? It is no revelation that quite a few of those who identify themselves as “non-religious” are yet proud of their ‘ethical atavism,’ little realizing that their “ethics” are an inheritance, they may not always be aware of, of their cultural past, always rooted in that same religion which they are now so eager to repudiate. In other words, my search for the Absolute standard might be conducted along those general religious-humanistic lines, which have bestowed the title of humanist on Erasmus, a man of religion, yet, these days, courtesy of Tim LaHaye and his ilk, have made this word a synonym of secularist and anti-religious prejudice, quite unfairly I might add, and without any grounds, except for these wretched bigots’ ignorance and conspicuous lack of elementary erudition.

GODS VERSUS GOD

Returning to the question of religious monotheism, as opposed to all polytheistic mythology, let us examine one particular example of Nietzsche’s “Theogony,” which has undoubtedly raised a lot of brows:

“Within the original tribal community, the living generation always recognized a duty toward the earlier generations. The fear of the ancestor and his power increases in exactly the same measure as the power of the tribe itself. This logic carried to its conclusion, the ancestors of the most powerful tribes grow to monstrous dimensions. In the end, the ancestor must necessarily be transfigured into a god. Perhaps this is even the origin of gods, an origin out of fear! And whoever should feel obliged to add, but out of piety also! would hardly be right for the greater part of the existence of man, his prehistory. He would be right for the intermediate age, in which the noble tribes developed, who paid back their ancestors (heroes, gods) with interest all the qualities that had become palpable in themselves, the noble qualities. ‘Ennoblement’ here should not be confused with their becoming holy.” (From his Genealogy of Morals; 2^nd Essay, #19, but notice his significant use of plural in the phrase: “Perhaps, this is even the origin of gods, an origin out of fear!”)

I have no problem with Nietzsche’s theogony here. There can certainly be some confusion in the minds of those who would have us believe that the philosophical concept of God has somehow emerged out of those polytheistic mythologies, which have survived the test of time not as religions, but as folklore. These gods and God are, in fact, so dissimilar, that Greek philosophers always disregarded polytheism in their thinking, and would turn out to be strongly monotheistic when talking of the Deity. There is not much difference, in principle, between the gods and heroes of Greek mythology, except that the former are more powerful and live longer than the latter. But the heroes are mostly born of gods, and often become gods themselves, after they die in their human capacity, so the whole kitchen of god-making is exposed here, and it has nothing to do with the philosophical nature of the Deity referred to by the philosophers, except that occasionally, perhaps, some Cleanthes or other might refer to God as Zeus,--- not that Zeus thus becomes identified as the Deity, but only as a matter of using a traditional proper noun metaphorically. Intentional or not, but still a matter of some significant confusion, if taken at its face value. (Another good example is the portrayal of Zeus in Hesiod’s poems Theogony and Works and Days, where, unlike in Homer, Zeus appears very much like the all-powerful, moral and just God of the great monotheistic religions, even though he, Hesiod, may not be going far enough for the great pre-Socratic philosopher Xenophanes, who was the first Greek to explicitly formulate the basic principles of monotheism: “One God, neither in form like unto mortals, nor in thought. He sees all over, thinks all over, and hears all over. Without toil, he sways all things by the thought of his mind.”)

So much for Nietzsche’s discussion of the origins of polytheistic “religions.” Another way of saying this, it becomes clear that polytheism always tends to be the pseudo-religion of the uneducated masses whereas the philosophically-inclined mind is unfalteringly and necessarily monotheistic. The Jewish monotheism of the Bible is thus not a new discovery but its first installation as the religion of the masses, which the masses are not too happy to adopt, as the incident with the Golden Calf demonstrates.

No wonder, then, that popular religion, even in monotheistic societies, pushes toward polytheistic elements through excessive cults of saints and superstition, and even the difficult Christian concept of the Trinity of One God is quite often unconsciously polytheized…

To sum it up, we are not looking at a straightforward evolution of religion from polytheism to monotheism, but at an early parallelism of the popular polytheism and philosophical monotheism, followed by regression to polytheism in established monotheistic societies.

Returning to Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, we are moving on to the next passage in Second Essay #20, where he talks of “the advent of the Christian God, as the maximum god attained so far,… accompanied by the maximum feeling of guilty indebtedness on earth.” Then he proceeds with the following:

“Presuming we have gradually entered upon the reverse course, there is no small probability that with the irresistible decline of faith in the Christian God there is now also a considerable decline in mankind’s feeling of guilt; indeed, the prospect cannot be dismissed that the complete and definitive victory of atheism might free mankind of this whole feeling of guilty indebtedness toward its origin, its causa prima. Atheism and a kind of second innocence belong together…”

I do grant Nietzsche his justification in observing a “reverse” trend in his contemporary society, suggesting the coming of a post-religious society and its establishment as a world without God. This trend is obviously noticeable in the free nations of Europe but to generalize it on the basis of Europe alone would be incorrect. There are at least two important reasons why a post-religious world is an impossibility. One is the cultural connection of religion. Each specific culture is too closely connected to religion to erode its own identity. It is no longer a popular belief in God per se, as it is a belief in one’s own culture. Only where that culture has been disintegrating is that kind of loss of religion possible. Conversely, a reaffirmation of one’s religion has the power to reenergize one’s disintegrating culture, and effectively save it from degeneration.

The second reason is the already mentioned fact that the history of religion isn’t a straightforward evolution from polytheism to monotheism to atheism, but a parallel run of all three, answerable to a very different set of factors than evolution. I have no doubt that the philosophical idea of God is impervious to all historical-religious perturbations.

Now, combining these two reasons, we can say that Nietzsche is wrong. There is no such thing as Christian God! There is Russian God (do not believe the idiotic polls suggesting that Russia is not religious enough!), there is Polish God, Brazilian God, etc. Departing from the Christian religions we find many other national and cultural non-Christian manifestations of God. Meanwhile, they are all manifestations of only One God, the God of the philosophers, a “God without borders,” to whom the Torah refers as “Adonai Ehad,” whose Oneness is faithfully observed by the religion of Islam, albeit culturally fractured by its internecine conflicts.

The very concept of some Christian God, as opposed to a Jewish God, or as opposed to other Gods of other religions, is, on the philosophical level, a blasphemy against that Oneness of God. There is only one way to overcome the splintering of One God into the multitude of Gods of religions. It is to regard the religions of all great world cultures only as different forms of worship of the same One God who is also the Deity of Greek Philosophers, the monistic vision of Thales, etc. One must be very careful, however, with freedom of religion and all, not to give any legitimacy to the frivolous “gods” of frivolous sects and cults, which go under the name of religions, but whose objects of worship do not organically correspond to the philosophical idea of the Deity. Thus, the latter becomes the only valid criterion that legitimizes the freedom of worship, where the great cultures easily pass the test, but most of the sects and cults, and other excesses of religious freedom, do not.

GREEK CYNICS AND CHRISTIAN ASCETICS

…In my last posted entry The Dogs Of Virtue, I pointed out that it is most unfortunate that the modern usage of the word “cynic” is so misleading toward the original meaning of the word. With regard to modern usage, the great “cynic” Oscar Wilde describes a cynic as “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” (Lady Windermere’s Fan, Act ii.) It is toward the same kind of cynic as described above that Bertrand Russell writes: “Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West results from the combination of comfort with powerlessness.” (From the Conquest of Happiness, x, 1930.) Obviously, this type of cynic is entirely different (although I wouldn’t say irreconcilably different!) from the original practitioner of the trade.

It is also obvious that Russell chooses not to take notice of the multitudes of the proverbial cynical politicians, or those wealthy and openly unscrupulous get-rich-quick wheeler-dealers, and the rest of their far-from-powerless cynical crowd. Granted, though, that this yet another modern meaning of “cynical” does not necessarily a “cynic” make, in Russell’s understanding.

Here is how Bertrand Russell summarizes the “old” cynics’ doctrine, and puts it in the context of some later trends that carry traces of similarity with it: “The teaching of Diogenes was by no means what we now call “cynical,” but quite the contrary. He had an ardent passion for virtue, in comparison with which he held the worldly goods of no account. He sought virtue and moral freedom in the liberation from desire: be indifferent to the goods that fortune has to bestow, and you will be emancipated from fear. In this respect, his doctrine was taken up by the Stoics, but the Stoics did not follow him in rejecting the amenities of civilization. He considered that Prometheus was justly punished for bringing to man the arts, which have produced the complications and artificialities of modern life. In this he resembled the Taoists, and Rousseau and Tolstoy, but he was more consistent than they were.” And further still, he says this: “Diogenes personally was a man full of vigor, but his doctrine appealed to weary men in whom disappointment had destroyed natural zest. And it was certainly not a doctrine calculated to promote art or science or statesmanship or any other useful activity, except one of protest against powerful evil.” (The History of Western Philosophy, Chapter xxiv.)

I like and respect Bertrand Russell, whether I agree or disagree with him. With regard to that last paragraph about Diogenes’ appeal to “weary men,” I find him very wrong. Weary men are hardly moved by any kind of philosophy, or by a novel way of life, which implies the need to upset their own weary inertia. Besides, Diogenes was by no means some run-of-the-mill cynic. He was an exceptional man, reputedly appealing to such colossi of his age as Alexander the Great and Plato, who do not qualify as “weary men” by any stretch of imagination. But otherwise, Russell is right about the cynics. Even the greatest of them were not creators or contributors to culture, and there was little more about them than personal charisma and a few spuriously quotable gems bequeathed to posterity.

Yet, there is also that peculiar collective philosophy which characterizes them as a “school,” rather than as a constellation of individuals. In the absence of their own writings, we have learned about them secondhand, and, frankly, that knowledge is not specific enough. It is probably the experience of their more successful Christian kin, which may help us shed some extra “inner” light on the mystery of their experience.

From what we have just read about the Greek Cynics in Russell, an immediate comparison to the Christian Ascetics is only natural. They, too, had an ardent passion for virtue, in comparison with which they would hold worldly goods of no account. They, too, sought virtue and moral freedom in the liberation from desire: By being indifferent to the goods that fortune has to bestow, they hoped to be emancipated from the sin and corruption of the ‘evil’ world around them. Of course, they rationalized their “cynical” lifestyle in Christian terminology and teleology, but the striking similarities between their two lifestyles allow us to draw certain interesting moral parallels, which will be great fun to bring to light and analyze later on.

Are we then to assume that the Christian Ascetics are Greek Cynics in Christian clothing, that is, in simpler terms, Christianized Cynics? Not only that: this example allows us to follow the most interesting process of what I would call theologization of philosophy. The same intellectual disposition of an individual that has produced the cynic, when compelled to bring such philosophy onto sacred ground does exactly that, helped by the fact that both the original cynics and the resulting Christian ascetics are dogmatic thinkers, making the theologizing transition easy and painless. Ironically, by the same token as Jewish Christians would look down on unconverted Jews, non-Jewish Christians would look down on untheologized philosophers, allowing, say, St. Augustine, a pillar of Christian Asceticism, to refer to the cynics derogatorily as “those canine philosophers” (De Civitate Dei, xiv), deliberately refusing to acknowledge his own kindred spirits. I bet had these “dogs” of his time chosen to become Christians, Augustine would have been all over them with glowing praise, and invited them with open arms to his ascetic Christian community. But having been exceedingly disappointed in their lack of enthusiasm for the Christian religion, he just struck back at them with scorn and disdain… I wish he had been more God-like in his attitudes, to better deserve his Sainthood, especially since the Christian Church of his time was already all-powerful enough to afford some tolerance and patience toward her by then powerless intellectual opponents.

Yet, this kind of enmity does not deny, but even reinforces their close spiritual affinity. Apparently, both the cynics and the Christian ascetics have a great fear of the external world, and they only feel empowered by a total separation from it, and by becoming impervious to it. Whether this reveals a sense of inferiority within them, or, perhaps, an even greater sense of superiority, I suspect that these two complexes somehow always go together, not unlike the sadistic-masochistic duo, which may also be related to the group of two, forming a group of four.

The present inquiry into the common nature of cynicism and asceticism requires a much more thorough and comprehensive treatment than I can allow myself at the moment, but the purpose of this entry at this stage is not the writing of a scholarly essay on this subject, but setting for myself a reminder to take up this topic as soon as I can do it, which makes the present entry in its current shape little more than a memo to myself. I am, however, still posting it, as an indication of a work in progress.

THE DOGS OF VIRTUE. PART II

There is a good reason why I am giving so much room to Nietzsche in this entry on Cynicism. Nietzsche is fascinated with this subject, and on several occasions he fuses the original meaning of Cynicism as dog-like simplicity with the modern meaning as wicked sophistication. At one point, reminding me of Glenn Gould, on a dare, fusing the British and American national anthems into one, Nietzsche comes up with the following immortal line: “Of what is great one must either be silent or speak with greatness. With greatness: that means cynically and with innocence.” (Wille Zur Macht, Preface, #1. See also my eponymous entry posted on February 26^th, 2012.) Go figure which meaning of cynicism is employed here! In Nietzsche’s treatment, they have become indistinguishable…

There is yet another reference to Diogenes in Nietzsche’s writings, this time explicit, in Menschliches 457, under the heading Slaves and Workers:

“That we lay more value on satisfying our vanity than on other comforts (such as security, shelter, pleasure of all kinds) is revealed to a ludicrous degree by the fact that (except for political reasons) everyone desires the abolition of slavery and utterly abhors bringing men into this state, although each of us ought to admit that slaves live more securely and happily than the modern worker in every regard, and that slave labor is very little labor, compared to that of the worker. One protests in the name of human dignity, but, expressed plainly, this is the good old vanity which experiences not-being-equal-to or publicly-being-esteemed-lower as the harshest fate. The Cynic thinks differently about this matter, because he scorns honor; and so, for a time, Diogenes was a slave and a tutor.”

The last passage referred to an alleged fact in Diogenes’ life, to the effect that, having been once captured by pirates, he was sold into slavery in Corinth, and when asked by his master what he could do, he replied “Govern men,” for which answer he was placed in charge of his master’s sons, who learned to follow their tutor’s ascetic example. The rest of the story differs from version to version: he was either released by his master later or died as a highly honored slave in Corinth, but its moral remains the same in every account. This is of course an allegory: Diogenes the slave becomes the master, and the master submits to him…

…The freedom of the slave and the slavery of the free--- how cynical and how modern!!!

Some accounts identify Diogenes of Sinope (our Diogenes) as the father of cynicism, which in its authentic form significantly differs from our impression of it, as I have already mentioned. Let us therefore say a few words about Cynicism proper.

No writings of the Cynics are extant, and probably there haven’t been any, since cynicism was a way of life, rather than a specially articulated doctrine. According to Diogenes Laertius, their life was seen by them as a “shortcut to virtue.” There were three cornerstones of such dog’s life, namely: eleutheria, freedom, or liberty; autarkeia, self-sufficiency; and finally parrhēsia, freedom of speech. The first concept is well illustrated by the story of Diogenes’ formal enslavement in Corinth, where he turned the tables on his rich owner. The second condition required a well-disciplined life of minimal needs and inurement to hardship, which was achieved through “training,” askesis, in Greek, from which comes our familiar term asceticism. Such life was called by the cynics “living according to nature.” (If this phrase, later picked up by the Stoics and appropriated by them as their own, since the cynics left no writings after them,  has not rung an instant bell, find it in my posted entry of November 8^th, 2011.)

The third condition requires a deliberate effort to speak truth to power, and as such, may have caused a lot of trouble for the cynics who practiced it, although in several examples of parrhesia provided by Diogenes Laertius, the powerful are enlightened and sympathetic enough, for the cynic’s courage to be rewarded (by the absence of a reprisal). One legend reports a meeting between Alexander the Great and Diogenes. “I am Alexander the Great,” says the king. “I am Diogenes the Dog,” responds the cynic. Very much impressed, Alexander tells Diogenes to ask of him whatever he wants. “Stand out of my sunlight,” asks the cynic.

Another legend points out the fact that great philosophers of antiquity liked to associate with rulers of states. (Plato with the tyrant Dionysius II, Aristotle with the Macedonian kings, etc.). Now, Diogenes Laertius has a story of how “Plato saw [Diogenes] washing lettuces, came up to him and told him, ‘Had you paid court to Dionysius, you wouldn’t now be washing lettuces,’ to which [Diogenes] with equal calmness replied, ‘If you had washed lettuces, you wouldn’t have paid court to Dionysius.’”

Diogenes lived between 412 and 323 BC, dying a very old man. In his young years, he had to flee from his native Sinope because either his father alone, or he together with his father, were involved in defrauding the local mint. Soon finding himself in Athens, he became a follower of one of the students of Socrates, the philosopher Antisthenes, who, allegedly, did not want to have students, but was worn out by Diogenes’ persistence, as the latter stuck by him, despite being badly beaten by Antisthenes’ stick. Antisthenes lived between 446 and 366 BC and, according to some sources, was the founder of Cynicism, the teaching that attracted Diogenes to him. He is mentioned both by Plato and Xenophon as one of Socrates’ companions, and even if he was not the founder of cynicism, although Diogenes Laertius alleges he was, he must have been its close spiritual forerunner. Several signature traits of the Cynics (such as doubling one’s cloak, in order to sleep in it, or always carrying a wallet and a staff with him) are attributed in equal measure to Antisthenes and Diogenes. Antisthenes’ favorite dictum used to be May the sons of your enemies live in luxury! As for yet another one of the Diogenes legends, here is the last one for the road, told again by Diogenes Laertius:

…When Plato was asked, what sort of man Diogenes was, Plato responded: “A Socrates gone mad!”

On this delightful note I am presently concluding this already oversized entry, which does not do justice to either Diogenes or Antisthenes, or to the subject of Cynicism, for that matter. I shall return to this subject again, as promised, in my entry The Greek Cynics And The Christian Ascetics, which is coming next.

DOGS OF VIRTUE PART I

(Besides its direct reference to the Greek word Cynic/Dog self-describing men leading a simple and blessed “dog’s” life, this entry’s title is also alluding to the popular nickname of the monks of the Dominican Order ---Dogs of God [Domini Canes], pointing to the peculiar connection between Greek Cynicism and Christian Asceticism.)

Generally speaking, the Cynics of Ancient Greece belong to the margins of the history of philosophy. Why, then, should we care about them on these pages, where even mainstream philosophy has been only partially represented? There are several reasons for this. One answer has already been suggested above, as the bridge between Cynicism and Christianity. Another one is the persona of Diogenes, the strange man who lived in a tub (or in a barrel, by some accounts), who was respectfully placed by Dante, along with such luminaries as Plato and Aristotle, according to his La Comedὶa, in the First Circle of Hell. (Where only the righteous, but non-Christian persons dwelled, with no other punishment exerted on them, except the sorrow of not having known Jesus in their lifetime.) Having been thus mentioned by Dante by name is an extraordinary mark of recognition and distinction, which certainly exceeds the historical merits of Cynicism, but also elevates it to a level where failing to consider it in a substantial fashion would have been a serious oversight.

And then, of course, Diogenes is the man who proclaims, in Nietzsche’s fable, that God is dead…

As if Dante alone would not have been enough, we also have this singular reverence for Diogenes exhibited by Nietzsche. In his undoubtedly most momentous fable, Nietzsche unmistakably points to the well-known tale of Diogenes with his lantern in daytime, looking for virtue, told by his namesake Diogenes Laertius.

Now, most readers about Nietzsche are familiar with just three words from this fable: “God is dead!” There is a terrible bias against Nietzsche among the Christians on account of this catchy out-of-context phrase. Its origin in Nietzsche’s book Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft, awkwardly translated into English as Gay Science, does not endear his work to the modern Christian ear, either. No wonder most English-speaking Christians consider Nietzsche a blasphemous atheist, and, using his own title an “Antichrist.” (Curiously, the Russian Orthodox Church has a much better opinion of Nietzsche. Dozens of doctoral theological dissertations have been written positively about Nietzsche in Russia, and his books are recommended by the Church as indispensable reading. See my many Nietzsche entries, such as, say, Russia’s Nietzsche, posted on this blog on March 1, 2012.) Bearing this in mind, the reader will definitely benefit by reading Nietzsche’s fable in toto, even if the text below is fairly long.----

The Madman. Have you ever heard of the madman, who, on a bright morning, lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: “I seek God! I seek God!!!” As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why? is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea voyage? Has he emigrated? the people cried out laughingly all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. “Where is God gone?” he called out. “I mean to tell you! We have killed him,-- you and I! We are all his murderers!… But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move, away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as if through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction?--- for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife -- who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event, and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!…” Here the madman was silent, and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last, he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. “I come too early,” he then said. “I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is traveling --- it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star -- and yet they have done it themselves!” It is further stated that the madman made his way into different churches on the same day, and there he intoned his Requiem aeternam deo. When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: “What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?” (#125-- Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft.)

In order to give my reader a chance to think over this fable, and over the in-context significance of the three notorious words, I am making a break here between Parts I and II, with the second part to be posted tomorrow.

OF DOGS AND CHICKENHAWKS

Human communication is a wonderful thing, supposedly putting us above the animals in this respect, at least in its sophistication, if not in precision. But surely this awful problem of imprecision, which often precludes us from staying on the same page with our interlocutors, must really make us envy the animals, who always seem to know what they are “talking” about, among themselves.

The ‘animals’ of this entry’s title provide two examples of such imprecision, leading us into a discussion of the Cynics (Dogs), which belongs to the next two items.

Only yesterday, in my posted piece Neoconservatism, Marxism, And Hitler, I was addressing the subject of American neoconservatism. Now, what does” neoconservatism” have to do with the American conservatives? Nothing! In fact, the neoconservative credo is contrary to all traditional conservative values, and the authentic American conservatives, like Patrick Buchanan, have been indignant about such an unwholesome linguistic misappropriation, but cannot do much about it. Why has this terribly misleading word been used in this particular association? Apparently, so that the chickenhawks, as they’ve been more properly called, could wrap themselves in a good word, in order to pass themselves off as something which they are not, in an effort to confuse and deceive.

By the same token, every authentic American liberal ought to have long been up in arms about the parallel misappropriation of his own self-identification, to signify all sorts of unsavory things. In a soon-to-be-posted entry, I am going to discuss yet another stolen and misappropriated word libertarian, but that will be another, separate story.

The examples of such confusion and deception are many, fuelled by media-encouraged, and often induced, public ignorance. The terrible misuse of the good word humanism, started by the conniving authors of the Humanist Manifesto, and thereafter carried on by the Christian Right, duped into declaring a war on that very core of Christian ethic,--- falls into the same category… Live and never learn!

…The great Epictetus had this humble request of mankind: “First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.” Obviously, that was too much to ask…

Previously, we were talking about the more recent linguistic misidentifications, resulting from mischievous intent, coupled with public ignorance. There are other kinds of misidentifications, courtesy of essentially the same culprits, plus certain inadvertent, probably innocent mistakes. But, unlike the recent ones, these have been “sanctified” by ages of historical misuse. Greek philosophy in particular suffered greatly at the hands of its early Christian detractors, who regrettably saw all philosophy as a threat to Christian theology, hence the subsequent “Dark Ages.” To them we owe our perverted understanding of “Epicureanism” as some kind of gluttonous orgy, which has nothing to do with Epicure’s philosophy, and was conceived as an especially cruel post-mortem joke toward the poor man whose severe gastric ailment prevented him from ever enjoying a meal.

A similar fate has befallen the word Cynic, whose evolution, particularly through the nineteenth century, has led to its total divergence from the original meaning. Very ironic, though, since in my treatment of Christian asceticism I describe it as Christianized Cynicism… But here I run before my horse to market. The entry on this subject will be posted in a couple of days, right after The Dogs Of Virtue, which is coming next.