quid est veritas - reflections on spirituality (matt flaherty)

8/2/2019 Quid Est Veritas - Reflections on Spirituality (Matt Flaherty)

1/84

Quid Est Veritas? (Series Introduction)

Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a

king. I was born for this, and I came into the world for this: to testify to the

truth. Everyone who is committed to the truth listens to my voice." Pilate asked

him, "What is 'truth'?" After he said this, he went out to the Jews again and told

them, "I find no basis for a charge against him.

By telling Pilate that he came into the world to testify to the truth, Jesus implies the

possibility that world views are not all equally valid, incommensurable, irreducible.

Jesus words imply instead that life might express something more than mere

reputation, opinion, and power; his words suggest that a human lifea life that he

exemplifiedmight express something divine, something of eternal value.

Pilates own choice, however, was ultimately was to crucify Jesus. He agreed to execute

an innocent man in order to appease public opinion, to preserve his power. Perhaps,

then, Pilate was a cynic. Perhaps we should interpret Pilates question to Jesuswhat is

truth?as revealing his skepticism toward the idea that a human life might express

something greater or higher than mere prejudice, power, or opinion.

And yet, Pilate was conflicted. Before making his final decision, Pilate makes a rather

curious requesthe asks for a bowl of water in order that he might wash his hands. If

Pilate really believed that truth were entirely reducible to power and to public opinion, it

is difficult to explain this choice. If Pilate really knew that truth was an unrealizable

fantasy, a purely human construction, what explains the sense of guilt that he hoped to

wash away? For Pilate had power. And the decision to crucify Jesus appeased public

opinion. If Pilate believed that truth was nothing more than these things, nothing more

than an ideas employed by historically contingent people to serve their own interests,

all of the pieces should have fit. If Pilate really believed this, he would have simply

decided to crucify Jesus and been done with it. No hand-washing would have beennecessary.

And yet, staring into the eyes of Jesus, Pilate could not be sure of himself. Those eyes

made him stop. He could not help wondering to himself if Jesus was moved by

something more than mere opinion, more than mere power. Pilate could not help

wondering, in that moment, if Jesus was really moved by a will that was greater than


2/84

the merely finite whims of human preference and prejudice. Pilate could not help but

wonder if the will that moved Jesusa will that Jesus believed in so strongly to even be

led to accept death on a crosswas something real. Something that mattered. Because

of the conviction that Pilate saw in the eyes of Jesus, he could not help wondering if

this will that claimed Jesus was also a will that claimed him.

Pilates question is a question that we are all confronted with. The purpose of this series

is to try to shed light on this question.

What is truth?Many philosophers and intellectuals today view religion as a quaint

past time, something that is best left to peoples private lives in order that issues of real

substance might be pursued. Many non-intellectuals (and many intellectuals as well)

view philosophy as useless for different reasonsas trivial academic specialization,mired down in jargon, preoccupied with contesting questions irrelevant to real life.

Hegel is my favorite philosopher not least because he decisively rejects both of these

views. In this series of notes I attempt to articulate what I find to be some of the most

interesting points of Hegels philosophy in hopes of bringing out a contrast with the

evangelical understanding of religious faith that I grew up with.

Philosophy is defined as the love of wisdom. It is my hope that these notes are not

received as empty speculation but as a pathway for spiritual transformation intended to

make us wiser, more understanding, and more committed to the growth of ourselves

and our societies. In the words of Plato,

The true lover of knowledge is always striving after being -- that is his nature; he

will not rest in...appearance only, but will go on -- the keen edge will not be

blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of

the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power in the soul,

and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate withvery being, [he will] live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, will he cease

from his travail.

In keeping with this Platonic spirit, the goal of these notes is nothing less than to

suggest ways that our lives might come to be a better expression of spiritual truth than


3/84

they have been in the past. The purpose is growth, understanding, and wisdom for

their own sakes.

I: Truth and "Brickianity": Hegel, Rob Bell, and a

Critique of Revelation

To say that the purpose of this series is to try and make clear how our lives might be

better made into an expression of spiritual truth requires some clarification. First of all,

is important to realize that when philosophers like Hegel speaks of spiritual truth (Hegel

variously calls this the Rational, the Absolute, the summum bonum, or the divine

Logos), he has no interest in calling to mind doctrines that rest themselves wholly on

the reliability of the specific events and moral precepts narrated in any single religious

text. Hegel thinks, asI do,that there are good reasons for viewing the Bible, when readin a literal way, as an unreliable source of spiritual truth. Once a Lutheran seminary

student, Hegel carefully considers and ultimately rejects the idea that Christian scripture

provides a clear road map to Gods precise plan for humanity; he rejects the difficult

idea that mankind was all headed for hell until a particular person lived in history and

died in order to appease the wrath of an otherwise loving God.2 Hegel describes himself

as religious, but his religious convictions do not center around a specific set of doctrines

that make the whole structure of his religion rise or fall. For instance, Hegel does not

rest his religious convictions on whether or not the Israelites were really led around by

Moses in the desert for 40 years; whether an angel really gave Joseph Smith Golden

plates; whether or not Mary was really a virgin, etc. (In fact, there are some good

reasons for disbelieving all of these claims).3 Even so, doubting any of these particular

facts, according to Hegel, does not provide any good reason for ceasing to have

spiritual commitments altogether. If we reject the validity of these kinds of events, it

does not follow that religion as such should be rejected; it only follows that we need to

reject a certain kind of religion. Hegel calls this kind of religion that rises or falls

according to a rigid interpretation of historical facts or doctrines, positivism. Even

when such religion gets spiritual matters right through the form of pictures, Hegelthinks that religions traditional refusal to let go of positive dogma and its confusion of

the foundation of spiritual truth with historical fact have created obstacles to spiritual

progress.
http://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.html


4/84

Evangelical pastor and writer Rob Bell, unlike Hegel, accepts the Bible as true both

historically and morally. However, Bell actually agrees with Hegels skepticism toward

religious positivism in a qualified sense. In his bookThe Velvet Elvis, Bell suggests that

there are two ways to view ones faith. One way is to center it on doctrine. On this view

of Christianity, each belief (in the Trinity, the virgin birth, the resurrection, seven-day

creation, etc) is like a brick in a wall. The problem with this kind of ChristianityBell

calls it brickianityis that if one brick gets taken out the whole structure collapses.

For instance, if we would learn tomorrow that Jesus body had been found in the tomb

some peoples faiths would collapse completely; they would have no reason to continue

to strive for religious truth and they would view everything they stood for previously as

a lie.

But, we may wonder if we no longer believe that the Bible is free from error, do wereally believe in anything? Does all truth suddenly become up for grabs if we view the

Bible as a historical, human product that must always be interpreted by fallible humans

rather than as an inflexible imprint of uncontroversial divine authority? Bell doesnt think

so. He thinks that some truths would remain eternally regardless of whether or not our

supposed foundation for those truths were to be undercut. From Bell's perspective,

questions that pre-suppose that those who reject the Bibles authority no longer believe

in anything reflect the wrong kind of mindset: a belief in brickianity rather than

Christianity.

To get us out of that mind set, Bell tries to persuade us to see Christianity not as a

system of positive facts, but as a way of life. He compares Christianity to jumping on a

trampoline. We dont try to give people a list of facts in order to persuade them to

experience our joy. We just tell them to jump. Doctrines, on Bells view, should never

be the center, the foundation. They are only springs that better enable us to jump. In

other words, doctrines are only tools intended to help us better find words in which to

put our commitment to a certain way of lifea way that we believe to be right and

true, a reflection of Gods will. According to Bell, doctrines are means to an end ratherthan ends in themselves; a doctrine does its job if it has brought a fuller deeper, richer

understanding to the mysterious being who is God. However, according to Bells view,

any one claim to have figured it all out, to have affixed religious truth for all time, brick

by brick into a rigid system, is foolishness: The moment God is figured out with nice

neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with

somebody we made up (Velvet Elvis, 25).


5/84

Hegels criticisms of the spirit of religious positivism are more radical version of Rob

Bells criticisms of brickianity. In contrast to Bell (who affirms all of the tenets of the

traditional Christian faith), Hegel thinks it is intellectually dishonest to view the Bible as

a reliable source of historical fact and moral doctrine. Even so, Hegel does not fall into

the camp that one would normally associate with people who are confidently irreligious.

This is because Hegel is not only dissatisfied with positive doctrinal Christianity. He is

also dissatisfied with the world-view often taken by those who reject religion for

atheistic naturalism. In particular, Hegel rejects the claim that self-conscious human

beings can be completely understood by an objectifying science; he rejects the idea

that our final goal in life is simply to go about fulfilling our instincts and pursuing what

brings us pleasure. Hegel, like his most influential disciple and critic, 4 in one sense

actually greatly prefers the religious standpoint over the kind of reductive atheism thatwould interpret human beings to be purposeless machines at the whim of arbitrary

natural forces.

However, we may rightly wonder what Hegel means by religion when it is divorced

from so much that we associate with the term. Does religion have any meaning if it

cannot be understood in terms of doctrine, facts, or fanciful interactions with a being

that we imagine listens to us worry about the details of our lives?5

Hegel is interested in religion much in the way that Ralph Waldo Emerson articulates it

below:

For the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul,

is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one

with them, and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and

being also proceed. We share the life by which things exist. . Here is the

fountain of action and of thought. Here are the lungs of that inspiration which

giveth man wisdom, and which cannot be denied without impiety and atheism.We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth

and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do

nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this

comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. 6


6/84

Like Emerson, Hegel believes that justice and truth do not lie wholly within human

beings; he rather believes that such principles are the symbol of something divine

beyond us. In other words, Hegel believes that we do not just employ ideals such as

justice and truth to meet our given desires, but that we are drawn to them by a divine

spark within our souls. According to Emerson, in the moments that we seek truth and

justice we are a channel, a conduit to the fountain of all life and being; in committing

ourselves to realize such ideals, we become the instruments of God.

Though Hegel would sympathize greatly with Emersons ability to take a divine or

transcendent perspective with regard to human purposes, he would disagree

emphatically with Emersons claim that all philosophy is at fault for trying to articulate

this source of being, this first cause to which our souls are drawn. In contrast to

Emerson, Hegel thinks that we can understand the divine with our minds. Hegelcritiques Romantic philosophers like Emerson,7 because he places great value in the

universality that philosophy, or rational critique, can provide. The argument here (which

has its source in Platonism) is that we need a rational approach in order to have the

tools to describe a good which is not just good for me but one which meets impartial

and objective standards accessible to all. Without such standards the concern is that

that we will end up with a spirituality that turns out only to be shallow, arbitrary

subjectivism. Hegels concern is that a society that pursues this form of spirituality

would not become united in pursuit of a shared truth, but fragmented into a plethora of

individually-tailored religions.8

Even though Hegel dismisses the validity of religion based on positive doctrine

(tradition) or on relationship (subjective feeling), Hegel supposes that religious truth

does not then simply become a function of our current desires. In other words, Hegel

rejects the idea that truth, that the highest good, exists only locally as a function of

peoples given interests and needs. Hegel is religious foremost because he believes that

divine truth, a divine way of being, exists beyond people and calls mankind to realize

and express it.

However, the major concern of the Christian is precisely that Reason alone is

insufficient to uncover the will of God. The believer sees confidence in reason not as

liberation but as unjustified arrogance. According to the believer, revelation must fill the

void created by rational thought entirely divorced from faith. Former Pope John Paul II,

for instance, has argued that the objectifying stance of reason is insufficient and self-


7/84

defeating, that it cannot capture the eternal aspect of the human soul.9 Hegel would

agree entirely. 10 However, assume with me against the grain of John Paul IIs thought

for a moment that a purely objectifying, detached, form of critical reason is not the only

alternative to an uncritical faith in a particular religious tradition. Keeping the possibility

of a balance between critical reason and blind commitment may be necessary after we

fully face up to the difficulties of claiming that revelation can be a legitimate source of

spiritual truth.

The Revelation Model of Truth

My beliefs about the dangers of revelation go hand in hand with my view of human

nature. I have come to suspect that it is the nature of humanity to think that our first

intuitions are the best and most truthful ones and that everyone else is deceived.

However, the genuine pursuit of truth, Ive come to think, is more likely to disrupt yourspontaneous convictions, to make them seem oddly strange and limited, rather than to

give you progressively more confirmation and certainty that you have been right all

along. The position of the moral philosopher Iris Murdoch expresses this insight well:

When you are actually seeking the good rather than deluding yourself and serving

your egothe good unsettles and potentially transforms who you are.11

This view of the good comes close to Hegels view of spiritual truth. For Hegel, finding

truth demands actively making sense of the sincere claims of others. In order to do this

properly, to get a clear perspective, Hegel supposes that you must actually distance

yourself from your own current beliefs and values. For Hegel, being unsettled is thus a

necessary part of genuinely seeking (though not of living and applying) the truth. In

short, Hegels formula for finding truth demands a charitable and humble examination

of the arguments that others make, a suspension of judgment until all the evidence has

been weighed, and a good-faith working assumption that ones own view might be

changed by the results of the inquiry.

J.S. Mill articulates this Hegelian perspective he claims that the way in which a humanbeing can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what

can be said about it by of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it

looked at by every character of mind. The steady habit of correcting and completing

his own opinion by collating it with those of others is the only stable foundation for a

just reliance on it. As Mill sees it, the man whose judgment deserves confidence must

be cognizant of all that can be said against him; he must know that he has sought


8/84

for objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out no light which

can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter.12

However, many Christians feel differently about truth. Christians who believe in

revelation tend to see truth not as a matter of charitable investigation within competing

human interpretations, but as a matter of getting in touch with an authority wholly

external to mankind. According to a certain kind of religious view, mankinds powers of

reasoning have been corrupted by sin and are thus not trustworthy instruments for

finding spiritual truth. Thus, some Christians assume that truth should be a passive

matter of receiving revelation from a powerful external source rather than an active

matter of searching out the claims of others.

Though certainly many people who call themselves Christians today are sympathetic tothe model of truth articulated by Mill and Hegel, there is not very much support in the

Bible for such a view. Passages like Isaiah 55:8-9 or Psalm 131 instead emphasize

themes like obedience, acceptance, and a resignation to the will of Goda will which it

is useless to try to criticize since it cannot be fully understood through human minds.

Such passages can have the side effect of discouraging an active search through the

views of others that would challenge one's intuitions about what is of utmost value in

life.

Unfortunately such themes are not isolated to the Old Testament. In 1 Timothy 6, for

instance, Paul's advice to Timothy emphasizes passivity and obedience instead of critical

judgment and independent thought:

If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our

Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand

nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about

words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant

friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called

knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the

faith.

To be sure, an important principle for effective leadership is steering clear of trivial or

petty disputes. Andas part two and three of this series suggestit is important to


9/84

recognize that even avoiding legitimate disputes can sometimes be a necessary evil in

order to bring the clarity needed for spiritual commitment to take shape in concrete

action. However, Pauls perspective which attributes all departures from godly teaching

as the work of arrogant and deceitful men could be seen as producing an undesirable

effect on the mindset of many Christians toward spiritual truth.

An evangelical blogger provides an example of a popular Pauline stance toward spiritual

truth as she reacts to the views of Rob Bell:

The Bible is not a product of Divine fiat, Rob Bell says, its a human product.

The end result? We become God in our own minds. We can make things up as

we go. Where does it all end? Rob Bell ends up promoting doctrines of demons

that we are co-creators with God, or rejecting the existence of hell, or theatonement ...Thats where it all ends. When you abandon a high view of Holy

Scripture, your rebellion will take you places you never dreamed you would go.

At some point, God blinds those who willingly believe a lie.13

These comments suggest that this woman believes that truth is a function of revelation.

On her view, truth is a matter of getting in touch with the right authority (here, a high

view of Holy Scripture) and of rejecting anything that falls outside the bounds of this

authority. One must reject views that contradict authority (such as Rob Bells doctrines

ofdemons) because such views lead to idolatry (We become God in our own minds)

and to rebellion. According to this woman, all deviations from her current

understanding of the truth are not interpretations that should be carefully investigated;

rather, they are dangerous perversions that should be fought.

This womans view may initially sound somewhat arrogant. It may seem like she hasnt

even given Bells arguments a fair shot, but that she has simply dismissed them from

the outset since they disagree with the authority of her tradition. Bell would probably

say that he was not intending to disagree with Gods authority, but only with thiswomans rigid and narrow interpretation of God.14 And it seems like Bell has a case. If

none of us are God or have unmediated access to his views, it does not seem any more

or less arrogant / demonic on the face of it to advance a fuzzy and open-ended

understanding of God over a rigid and traditional understanding of God. Upon closer

inspection, it may not be so obvious on which side of the debate lie arrogance and

blindness.


10/84

However, this womans reaction to Bell has not been formed just because she is

arrogant or because she cares about her own opinions more than about finding truth. I

think it more likely that this womans response to Bell is a natural outflow of her

understanding of how truth is found. Specifically, this woman has probably been taught

a particular method for finding truth within the church she participates in.

Typically, churches teach that truth is a function of divine authority. This woman thus

probably learned in church that any attempt assess a view such as Bells depends on

her ability to get in touch with a power not her own. For her to find spiritual truth she

has probably been taught that she should not rely upon the reason of her mind (what

Martin Luther once called the devils bride), but the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

The typical Christian practice of revelation as I understand it involves three pillars that

each support and balance the othersprayer, scripture, and community. In no

particular order, one prays and listens to God in private, compares and judges the

results of prayerful meditation according to scripture, and then further shares and

compares the results of private study within ones community of believers. For purposes

of clarity, I will call this process the revelation model of truth.

This particular woman ended up coming to a judgment about the merit of Bells spiritual

views which opposed her own. I want to now consider the process that she may have

gone through in order to reach this conclusion.

To answer the spiritual questions raised by Bell this woman would probably begin by

praying about Bells views from a position of repentance in her inner room. In this

process she intends to empty herself of all of her worldly opinions and knowledge in

order to be better able to hear what God tells her directly about the issues at stake.

Whereas a philosophical approach to truth would foremost prescribe that this woman

should go make sure that she has thoroughly read and understood Bells arguments, adivine-revelation view of truth effectively suggests that this woman should instead shut

herself off from outside influences. This is intended in order that can hear a personal

God speak directly to her heart.

A different woman describes something like this stage of truth-seeking when she

describes an experience which led to her conversion:


11/84

After months of reading, talking with people, and a lot of soul searching, ... I

was standing in my sons room trying to pray To this day, I believe it was God

talking to me-that is how powerful the feeling and voice inside my head was.

What did I have to fear?? At that moment, I started crying and crying. It was

what I needed to hear. I knew at that time that I had to convert It felt right

and nothing else mattered.

The kind of experience this second woman describes is not uncommon. Prayerful

meditation and soul-searching based on a powerful feeling and voice heard in ones

heart have led many people to develop or reinforce life-defining religious views.

However, the claim that nothing else mattered but what felt right creates a

particular difficulty if we are seeking spiritual truth that is relevant to all people. Thedifficulty is that this same process, this same attempt to seek God can lead to

contradictory results in different circumstances. To be sure, many people, including

myself, have had similarly powerful experiences which were interpreted as validating

the Christian faith. However, this particular womans experience did not lead her to

Jesus, but to Mohammed. (Her complete testimony is

here:http://www.islamfortoday.com/lynette.htm)

In this case, even though this woman had previously been a Christian, she was reading

an Islamic prayer guide when her experience occurred. In other words, she was

deliberately pursuing an experience with God from an Islamic perspective. No surprise,

her ultimate conclusions ended up reinforcing (or in this case, creating) a belief in

Islam. In the same way, we might expect our evangelical blogger when praying in her

inner room to have an emotional experience that would validate only the beliefs that

she was already willing to believe. If our evangelical has an emotional experience at all,

we would probably not expect it to validate a doctrine like Bells to which she had

previously had a strongly negative emotional reaction. The concern from a Hegelian

position, of course, is that recourse to passive feeling and intuition rather than activethought and charitable critical judgment will tend, as a rule, to reinforce what one

already believes before any prayerful meditation occurs.

However, let us suppose for the sake of argument that an intense and deeply emotional

experience ends up leading our evangelical blogger to take Bells views (say, about the

metaphorical nature of hell) more seriously rather than less seriously. Suppose that
http://www.islamfortoday.com/lynette.htmhttp://www.islamfortoday.com/lynette.htmhttp://www.islamfortoday.com/lynette.htmhttp://www.islamfortoday.com/lynette.htm


12/84

after solitary reflection this woman comes away unsettled rather than reaffirming what

she previously believed. The next step in the revelation model would be for this woman

to submit the content of her revelation to the authority of scripture.

To do this, the woman would likely open to the passages in the Bible that she has

previously found relevant with respect to the doctrine of hell. Sure, she will probably

only read scriptures that she has previously interpreted as consistent with her literal

interpretation of hellthe lake of fire, Lazarus and the rich man, etc. One would thus

expect that this process would then likely to provide another barrier to her willingness

to change her opinion. But again, let us suppose for the sake of argument that in the

process of reading, this woman questions her previous interpretation of scripture rather

than reinforces it. Let us suppose that after reading that this woman is suddenly struck

by a dramatically different interpretation of, for example, Revelation 14:11this womanthus concludes that the smoke from the lake of fire rises forever as a symbol of Gods

justice but that eternal smoke does not necessarily entail that people are actively

tortured forever in hell.

There is a final step in the process of revelation, however. After praying and reading

this woman would then ideally submit her personal struggle with Bells arguments in

humility to the authority of the spiritual community of which she is a part (her pastor,

her Bible study, etc). As J.S. Mill puts it, most people who hear their opinions disputed

are likely place the unbounded reliance only on such of their opinions as are shared by

who surround them, or to whom they habitually defer. This seems logical enough

when an individuals opinion is called into question, he tends to lookbeyond himself to

the leading opinions of others in his social or spiritual world, to his party, his sect, his

church, his class society. For the believer, then, this usually entails submitting ones

views to the authority of the spiritual community in which he participates.

Yet Mill points out the problem with this mode of validationdeference to an authority

figure, to a community of judgment, even to the opinion of an entire world epochdoesnot guarantee the acquisition of truth. In Mills words, the person who places their faith

in the judgment of the community in which they participate fails to realize that mere

accident has decided which of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance, and

that the same causes which make him a Churchman in London, would have made him a

Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin. The numerous theological differences within sects of

even the same religion suggest the implausibility of viewing ones particular religious


13/84

community as the one true repository of divine authority. Furthermore, since people

often choose their own religious communities based on existing beliefs there would

logically be a tendency for ones spiritual community to merely echo, rather than

independently confirm, such beliefs.15

In summary, the truth-as-revelation method suggests that this womans final judgment

of Bells arguments will take shape after:

1) she has (prayerfully) listened to convictions about those arguments impressed upon

her emotions in private

2) after she has compared her private convictions with passages of scripture that she

has previously interpreted as being consistent with her own views, and

3) after she has submitted her views to a community with theological positions

convergent with her previous beliefs.

Additionally, this entire process could only have been started because this woman read

Rob Bell in the first place. If she also regularly abides by the Apostle Pauls injunction to

flee ungodly teaching, this woman was arguablywrong to read Bell in the first place.

On her view, reading Bell was an accident, a trap, brought on because Bell spoke with

slippery words that initially sounded like sound doctrine. If this woman interprets whatPaul means by godly teaching to be only teaching that already agrees with my

current understanding of God, this woman will rarely have a chance to encounter

spiritually views substantially different from her own. Furthermore, when she does, she

will be likely to confront them with hostility.

I have claimed that a philosophical method for discovering divine truth suggests that

ones previous beliefs should be violently shaken in order that what is pure within them

can be sifted out from what is just tradition. However, from these examples it would

seem that following the revelation model of truth would rarely, if ever, cause my

previous convictions to be shaken up. In fact, it would seem that adhering to the

revelation model of truth would only tend to systematically support and reinforce my

current convictions. As we have seen, the revelation model of truth not only fails to

incorporate a role for the importance of being unsettled in our deepest convictionsin

many cases it actually entails the opposite.


14/84

To say that the revelation model of truth fails to provide a means to distinguish the

discovery of spiritual truth from the reinforcement of prejudice, tradition, and emotion

is not to say that it has no value. The deeply held intuitions and passionate convictions

that are impressed upon a prayerful persons heart through prayer and reflection within

ones spiritual community do reveal something important. Both in the case of the

evangelical woman and the woman who converted Islam, their experiences in

meditation reveal what deeply matters to them, their deepest spiritual commitments. It

is the same for all of us. I, for instance, am only who I am even today because of the

love for the person and teachings of Jesus that I grew up with. When I reflect in private

or with my spiritual community I will probably thus tend to affirm largely Christian

values and lifestyle. Even so, I have come to think that my private intuitions do not

show what matters to everyone for all time. I would now hesitate to think that theintuitions of my heart, my sense that I am being spoke to by a voice beyond me, could

ever be relied upon to reveal responsibilities of universal validity applicable to all

people. Though I used to accept the revelation model of truth, I have come to think

that my intuitions do not in themselves provide a reason or justification for the defining

commitments of my religious life or of my religious community. They are simply

evidence of what I currently care about, of my current spiritual identity.

Any practicing Christian who believes in revelation knows full well that their moral

identity formed through prayer and Bible reading is not identical with their ego or their

self-interest. Though I have suggested that the revelation model of truth can reinforce

our previous prejudice, in a certain sense, the voice that we hear in prayer can actually

be quite unsettling since it calls us to reject apathy and to rise above selfishness.

Anyone who has seriously lived a lifestyle of prayer knows that the process of revelation

does not always make you feel comfortable and merely reinforce your self-satisfied

views. Because of this, I think that a commitment to live a lifestyle that seeks truth

through revelation is noble and admirable in many ways. It reflects a commitment to be

transformed, to be renewed, by something beyond our merely selfish instincts.

All I am suggesting here is that the precise content ofhowwe should be renewed,

ofhowwe should direct our efforts cannot be validated merely by following those

convictions to which we are led to in our inner room. The experience and practice of

revelation, then, is ethically noble but is not necessarily ethically true. A commitment to

live ones life according to divine revelation is ethically noble because it expresses a


15/84

persons ongoing commitment to transform themselves into a reflection of a will that is

above their own. Nevertheless, the practice of revelation provides no guarantee that

following the intuitions of ones traditional religious community will lead us to actions

that truly express the highest good, the pure Logos, free from the accidents of

prejudice and tradition.

(Part two is here:http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=269219669868)

Notes

1. Charles Taylor (philosopher and political theorist), Robert Bellah (sociologist),Jose Casanova (sociologist), Abdullah An Naim (political theorist), and Alisdair

MacIntyre (philosopher), are some of my favorite modern thinkers who treat the truth

claims of religion with intellectual seriousness.

2. It is an odd thing, some have thought, to suppose that the uncreated cause of

the Universe whose essence is Truth and Justice would require something as antiquated

and barbaric as a sacrifice in order to appease his wrath towards a human race.

3. As far as Moses goes, it seems unlikely that it would take the children of Israel

40 years to cross a desert that takes about two weeks to cross on foot. Also I seem to

remember reading something that suggested that Egyptian history doesnt do a good

job matching up with the Jewish history of Exodus. The gist of that article was that the

sorts of Pharaohs that had civilizations powerful enough to enslave the Jews and set

them to work werent around at the time that the Jewish story is believed to have taken

place. A final difficulty is that Mosesthe alleged author of the Pentateuchdies in his

own book. When it comes to Mary being a virgin, see Geza Vermes' excellent book,

Jesus the Jew, chapter 8.http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Jew-Geza-

Vermes/dp/0800614437. Rob Bell similarly believes in the virgin birth, but he is not

afraid to raise his own doubts on the score: what if as you study the origin of theword virgin, you discover that the word virgin in the gospel of Matthew actually comes

from the book of Isaiah, and then you found out thatin the first century being born of

a virgin also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had

intercourse? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? (Velvet

Elvis, 26). For a more comprehensive take on the relationship of the Bible to truth,

seehttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.html
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=269219669868http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=269219669868http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=269219669868http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Jew-Geza-Vermes/dp/0800614437http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Jew-Geza-Vermes/dp/0800614437http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Jew-Geza-Vermes/dp/0800614437http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Jew-Geza-Vermes/dp/0800614437http://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Jew-Geza-Vermes/dp/0800614437http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Jew-Geza-Vermes/dp/0800614437http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=269219669868


16/84

4. It is worth remembering that Karl Marx describes religion not just as the opium of

the people, but as "the heart in a heartless world." He articulates the problem with 19th

century German society, in "The Communist Manifesto" in similar terms when he claims

that

The bourgeoisie ...has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked

self-interest, than callous cash payment. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies

of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy

water of egotistical calculation. everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the

bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of

ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones

become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy

is profaned.

5. Here is Ralph Waldo Emerson on prayer: Prayer is the contemplation of the

facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant

soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect

a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and

consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see

prayer in all action. (Self-Reliance)

6. From Emersons essay, Self-Reliance.

7. Hegel writes in The Phenomenology of Spirit:

The force of spirit is only as great as its expression, At the same time, if this

substantial knowledge pretends to have immersed the very ownness of the self in the

essence and to philosophize in all holiness and truth, instead of devoting itself to

God, it has, by spurning all moderation and determinateness, to a greater degree

simply given itself free rein to its own arbitrariness. When the proponents of that view

abandon themselves to the unbounded fermentation of the substance, they suppose

that, by throwing a blanket over self-consciousness and by surrendering allunderstanding, they are Gods very own, that they are those to whom God imparts

wisdom in their sleep. What they in fact receive and what they give birth to in their

sleep are also for that reason merely dreams. (Paragraph 10, trans. Terry

Pinkard:http://web.mac.com/titpaul/Site/Phenomenology_of_Spirit_page.html)
http://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://mattflaherty.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-and-bible.htmlhttp://web.mac.com/titpaul/Site/Phenomenology_of_Spirit_page.htmlhttp://web.mac.com/titpaul/Site/Phenomenology_of_Spirit_page.htmlhttp://web.mac.com/titpaul/Site/Phenomenology_of_Spirit_page.htmlhttp://web.mac.com/titpaul/Site/Phenomenology_of_Spirit_page.html


17/84

8. In The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel describes how a certain theological

perspective leads to the result of fragmentation and alienation. On Hegels view, the

theologian believes that individual heart can validly express what is good for all

peoplehe believes that ones intuitions, sentiments, can reveal or illuminate revelation

of the Holy Spirit. This belief is based on the assumption that every heart must take

cognizance of itself within the law. In other words, the theologian assumes that God

has drawn all men unto him with prevenient grace, that God has impressed the

consciousness of his will on every heart which the individual can choose to accept.

However, Hegel suggests that genuine spiritual truth can be missed through this

process; he supposes that the process of introspection into ones deepest convictions

impressed upon the heart does not express the universal, what is good for all, but only

being-for-itselfor only the feeling of personal pride and pleasure that comes frombelieving oneself to be committed to high ideals. When one follows this law of the

heart, then, the danger is that the merely particular content of ones heritage,

prejudices, emotions, personal history, etc. are falsely taken to be what is good for all

people; the concern is that action which follows the law of the heart merely has the

form of universality and in reality is actually just something particular.

As Hegel sees it, the problem with a society of people committed to the laws of their

hearts, to the mere form of universality, is that it gives rise to misunderstanding,

misjudgment, and self-righteousness. For when one takes action based merely on an

emotional intuition (rather than in response to a process of self-conscious critical

dialogue) the result is that others do not find the law of their hearts in this content;

rather, they find to an even greater degree that it is the law of anothers heart which

has been put into practice. Hegel describes the unpleasant results of the individuals

commitment to the law of the heart: others equally turn themselves against the

actuality which his heart put forward, just as he had turned against what their hearts

had put forward. Therefore the individualnow he finds that the hearts of people

are opposed to his admirable intentions, and they are thus themselves to be loathed.(SeePhenomenology of Spirit, paragraph 373).

9. John Paul II writes:

Reason, in its one-sided concern to investigate human subjectivity, seems to have

forgotten that men and women are always called to direct their steps towards a truth


18/84

which transcends them. Sundered from that truth, individuals are at the mercy of

caprice, and their state as person ends up being judged by pragmatic criteria based

essentially upon experimental data, in the mistaken belief that technology must

dominate all. It has happened therefore that reason, rather than voicing the human

orientation towards truth, has wilted under the weight of so much knowledge and little

by little has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth

of

being.(Fromhttp://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_j

p-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html.)

10. Very much in the spirit of John Paul II's comments above, Hegel polemically

claims that the naturalistic science of his own day results only in a report clear as

noonday on the universe as an organism, viz. a synoptic table like a skeleton withscraps of paper stuck all over it, or like the rows of closed and labeled boxes in a

grocers stall (Phenomenology of Spirit, 31). According to Hegel, a purely critical,

detached form of reason fails to capture the depths of the human spirit. He claims that

Spirit has not only lost its essential life; it is also conscious of this loss, and of the

finitude that is its own content. Turning away from the empty husks, and confessing

that it lies in wickedness, it reviles itself for so doing, and now demands from

philosophy not so much knowledge of what it is, as the recovery through its agency of

that lost sense of solid and substantial being (PS, p. 4).

11. Conversely, for Murdoch, the good is betrayed or lost from sight when we

transform it into a substance to which a particular group or identity can lay claim.

(From Melissa Orlie, Taylor and Feminism: From Recognition of Identity to a Politics of

the Good In Charles Taylor: Contemporary Philosophy in Focus, p. 150)

12. All quotes in this essay are from On Liberty. The famous essay is available online,


19/84

rule, this communitybecause of the people that have chosen to attend itwill likely

have a strong tendency toward convergent interpretations of many major concerns of

the faith. I say this because religious communities almost always fulfill one of two

criteria:

A) the religious community is the source of ones theological views (if one has grown up

within this particular community); or

B) ones views were a major reason for associating with that community in the first

place (i.e., I go church-shopping for a Bible-believing church after I leave my

formative church).

If either A or B is the case, when this woman brings her private theological

investigations to her Bible study or to her pastor there will be a systematic tendency for

the discussion to result in the dismissal of competing views and the endorsement of theviews already held by the members of the flock.

II: The Dialectic of Tradition and the Ideal

Introduction

In part one

of this series on spirituality, I used Hegels method of finding religious truth to criticize a

generalized model of seeking revelation. The question I want to ask in this second part

of the paper, is if the process of divine revelation applied in practice turns out to seem

very suspiciously like simply the practice of Our Tradition, what is the alternative?

Hegel thinks that Scientific Thinking alone won't cut it for us as a replacement for God

even if such thinking rightly debunks some of the claims of revelation. The problem with

mere science (a problem that I expand upon in part four of this

series) is that it gives us a universe full of facts but without meanings. Neither the

uncritical practice of revelation I critique in part one of this

series, nor the purely demythologized atheism I critique in part four strike

me as an adequate response to the realities of the human spirit. Hegel's deeply spiritual

philosophy strikes me as a welcome alternative both to barren rationalism and to

mystical traditionalism.


20/84

Like most religious people, Hegel views religious truth as equivalent with expressing the

will of God. For Hegel, realizing the kind of freedom that truly expresses of our divine

nature involves remaking our lives over from chaotic instinct into lives that express an

Idea (the will of God, the summum bonum) that is beyond us. According to Hegel, noone particular religious tradition has a skeleton key to unlock the content of this Idea, of

Gods plan for humanity. Another way of putting this is to say that Hegels critique of

positivity does away with the notion that religion is about getting lucky. He rejects the

notion that divine truth is a matter about getting knocked off of your horse by a voice

from heaven, or of striking it rich by finding the road-map to all truth dropped by God

into history. Hegel doesnt suppose that finding the tradition that happened to have been

built up around the true God (e.g., the Jewish one) provides insurance that you have

found the truth. Hegel rather sees all of the forms of life as articulated in art, religion,

politics, and philosophy throughout human history as fair game for discovering thecontent of the divine will. Hegel thinks that all of the self-understandings of these

traditions should be played off of each other in order that the best one might emerge.

Truth for Hegel thus does not involve the passive acceptance of a single tradition, but

an active search within all traditions to find what is best within them.

Some traditions, of course, do better than others in this examination. For example,

Hegel thinks that the Ancient Roman tradition of the rule of law and rights for individual

citizens is better than a barbarian society that subordinates the goals of the common

people to the whims of the warlord or chief; Hegel thinks that the identification of the

Ancient Greeks with their earthly community as their purpose and calling is better than

the ascetic Christian who believes that her only home is heaven; Hegel thinks that the

freedom of individual conscience characteristic of Protestantism is better than

authoritarian strains characteristic of 19th century Catholic and Jewish

practices. Regardless of which traditions end up faring better than others after

examination, however, the major insight is that Hegels conception of truth changes

from a Chosen People clinging to their positivist traditions and merely hoping that they

will get lucky (and their One Way will turn out to have been the plan all along) to an

active search within all traditions for the truest and best forms of life. To put Hegels

position broadly, he supposes that someone expresses the divine will when they commit

themselves to living according to traditions of a historical community that deserve their

adherence.


21/84

But how do we know which traditions deserve our adherence? Hegel doesnt think that

there is any simple tie-breaker that we can use to choose between traditions. However,

Hegels unique conception of freedom provides an archetype, a kind of ideal model of

spiritual life. In what follows I want to share with you my understanding of Hegels

conception of spiritual freedom.

A Brief Note on Dialectics

Hegels is (in)famous for his use of a philosophical term called dialectics. To think

dialectically is (among other things) to consider the necessary interaction between two

concepts that have aspects that are in permanent tension. Thus, these are concepts

which may thus appear initially to be contradictory. From the perspective of the

dialectician, common sense usually falls into the trap of painting one side of a conflict as

good/true and rejecting the other side as evil/erroneous. Like pathbreaking artist who

tries to catch you in the spirit of her vision, the dialectical philosopher's task is to createa new way of thinking that can enable these divisions to be overcome.

John Stuart Mill suggests in On Liberty, that conflicting doctrines usually are not either

wholly true or wholly false; more often conflicting ideologiese.g., evangelicalism and

Catholicism, or conservativism and liberalismeach have a part of the truth,

exaggerated, distorted, and disjointed from the truths by which they ought to be

accompanied and limited.[i] Mill describes the perspective of the dialectical philosopher

when he claims that it is the tension between opposed modes of thinking that keeps

each within the limits of reason and sanity in matters of spiritual commitment. Mill

effectively suggests that one needs a dialectical analysis for knowing and

distinguishing what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away from pairs

of competing ideals that guide our practical ethical choices. Mill gives some examples:

Unless opinions favourable to democracy and to aristocracy, to property and to equality,

to cooperation and to competition, to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and

individuality, to liberty and discipline, and an the other standing antagonisms of practical

life, are expressed with equal freedom, and enforced and defended with equal talent

and energy, there is no chance of both elements obtaining their due; one scale is sure

to go up, and the other down. Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a

question of the reconciling and combining of opposites it has to be made by the

rough process of a struggle between combatants fighting under hostile banners.


22/84

Hegels own conception of freedom is found in a dialectical analysis of two concepts

thatlike cooperation and competition or liberty and disciplineare in permanent

tension but which are nevertheless both vital to spiritual life. He calls the two concepts

universality and particularity.

Hegels Dialectic of Freedom: Universality and Particularity

According to the moment of universality, a free person must have the power of self-

awareness, the capacity to abstract from all specific situations and to be aware of itself

apart from them; it must have the ability to stand back from all courses of actions, to

reflect on different options and their consequences.[ii] This moment of universality thus

essentially involves consideration, speculation, the withholding of a final judgment. The

moment of the universal is akin to Iris Murdochs definition of what it feels like to seek

the gooda moment that is unsettling, critical, self aware, rather than a moment that

reinforces your previous convictions. The speculation of the universal part of thedialectic is necessary to assure oneself that one is not merely pursuing instinct and

tradition, but is rather pursuing what is actually good for all people.[iii]

In contrast to the reflective nature of universality, the moment of particularity essentially

involves commitment and action. Generally speaking, taking action requires that one

choice be preferred over another enough for a person to be comfortable enough to

make a decision and to be willing to abide by its consequences. Hegels sphere of

particularity thus involves emotions, habits, and traditions which aid in decision-making.

These dispositions learned through acculturation within particular cultural groups serve

the vital function of privileging some ways of life over others.

Without the dispositions and habits characteristic of the dialectical moment of

particularity, no decisions would ever be made and society would revert to chaos. For

instance, imagine if every time you went to the grocery store you engaged in the

moment of universality. Imagine in other words, if every time you went shopping that

you actively considered whether or not it would reflect the highest good if you paid for

the bag of apples in your cart. (After all, the apples will go bad anyway in a couple of

days, you could give the apples to a homeless person, you could give the money you

save by stealing the apples to charity--but then again would it be good for society as a

whole if everyone stole apples? etc, etc.) Without dispositions formed through tradition

that privilege some specific kinds of actions over otherssuch as paying for groceries

Hegel supposes that society would not really be free so much as it would simply grind to

a halt. Universality is about weighing options, consideration, reflectionbut this process


23/84

is fundamentally in tension with the certainty that human beings need in order to make

decisions in their daily lives. The dialectical moment of particularity is intended to

balance the deficiency of the moment of universality. An evangelist I grew up listening to

captured the shortcoming of universality memorably with one of his signature catch-

phrasesthe paralysis of analysis. (My other favorite was, When theres a new level,theres a new devil). The unreflective habits and dispositions characteristic of the

dialectical moment of particularity are necessary in ordered to move people past

paralyzing reflection to action. According to the moment of particularity, to be free, a

person must choose a particular option and act in a particular situation. Without

choosing and without acting a person cannot be free; and to choose and to act they

must choose something specific and do something specific.[iv]

Hegels resolution, or synthesis, between universality and particularity he calls

individuality. According to the moment of individuality a person must, afterdetaching themselves from and reflecting on all options, eventually commit themselves

to, and ultimately identify themselves with, one option; in other words, they must accept

one situation as worthy of their effort and commitment. Hegel describes this moment of

individuality as one of self-limitation: one limits oneself because, rather than fleeing all

commitments, one accepts one situation in life; and yet one self-limits oneself because

one chooses the situation as a result of reflection and deliberation.[v]

Roughly put, the goal of this model is that a commitment to active consideration of all

possible choices (universality) will help us choose the dispositions (particularity) that

enable individuals to express the best form of life possible. These traditionswhen we

have chosen them carefully and interrogated them thoroughlyHegel supposes are not

simply good for us, but express something beyond us. The particular actions, identities,

and habits of Hegels ideal society do not just serve the given individual interests of a

societys members. The identification with the values of Hegels ideal community rather

provides a goal, a calling that draws the individual members of society to it and gives

them a sense of purpose. Hegels dialectic of freedom thus emphasizes the importance

of deliberation while not discounting the vital role that specific traditions must play in

order to give life to the ideals that are discovered through deliberation. From this

perspective, traditions are essentially forms of life that privilege specific values and

practices within communities; it is only through the presence of traditions that Hegel

supposes that abstract ideals are able to take shape into action.[vi]


24/84

The ultimate goal for Hegel, then, is not to reject tradition in favor of some pure and

abstract vision of truth. Nor does Hegel hope, as do apologists for positivist religion, to

uncritically vindicate one existing tradition as containing all relevant truth imaginable for

now and for all time. Hegel simply gives us an ideal picture that he thinks expresses the

content of our divine nature, of our religious calling. For Hegel, we our nature is to bejoined to others within a community that expresses specific traditions and habits.

Furthermore, the habits of this community are to be those that, after careful reflection

characteristic of the dialectical moment of universality, could be said to deserve our

adherence.

Going through this process of reflection ourselves, Hegel thinks, is necessary to

overcome our sense of alienation, our sense that human life lacks a clear purpose. It is

only after a dialectical journey where we piece together the essential features of the

ideal communityonly after we have understood outline of the community whosehabits, culture and form of life express commitments worthy of adherencethat we can

find ourselves at home in the world, assured that a given lifestyle deserves our

allegiance.[vii]

The Christian view of freedom as conformity to the will of God mirrors Hegels

conception of freedom quite closely. However, Hegels conception of freedom is quite

different from our common sense understanding of freedom. We tend to think of

freedom simply as the ability to do what we want. In other words, we think of freedom in

terms of the dialectical moment of particularitythe ability to act on our impulses.

However, Hegel follows Kant in thinking that freedom cannot just be about the moment

of particularity. Hedonists (as well as many liberals, in theory, though not in practice)[viii]

consider this kind of freedom to follow impulse as the only version of freedom worth

aspiring to realize. While the hedonist is right to think that the moment of particularity is

free in some sense, Hegel would claim that the freedom of a hedonist is only the

freedom of a feather being blown by the wind. Hegel, following Kant, supposes that a

freedom consisting only of the spontaneous fulfillment of whatever habits and

dispositions we happen to have would not be true freedom at all. Such freedom would

really only mean that we have allowed our lives and our choices to be determined

arbitrarily by our emotionsemotions which arise from brute mechanical causes

(endorphins, etc) and contingent life circumstances (e.g., habits we have happened to

inherit from others). The kind of freedom that Kant and Hegel seek is something

substantially different from the freedom of a feather being blown on a breeze. Kant and


25/84

Hegel rather seek something closer to the freedom of a captain who carefully directs his

ship across an open sea towards a land that is his destiny.

The Ideal

In contrast to a freedom of pure particularity, Hegel supposes that the Christian faithrightly expresses an element that rises above a directionless play of instinct to

something divine, something unconditionally worthy. Christianity does this through

attention to the dialectical moment of universality.[ix] Again, the dialectical moment of

universality is the moment where we abstract away from merely particular choices and

commit to choosing the most valid, the most beautiful, the most worthy of all choices. To

use the analogy of the captain, the moment of universality is where we step back and

look through the telescope at distant shorelines and decide which direction shall be our

destiny. We look to see not just which land looks most pleasant, but which land calls us

to it; we seek to bring ourselves in harmony with the land that claims the allegiance ofwhat is highest within us. Emerson describes something like the moment of universality

when he states The soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation,

perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right.[x]

When I read the beatitudes I feel something like the moment that Emerson describes.

When I read that those who are most blessed are the poor in spirit; when I read that

those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled, I feel like Emersons soul

that beholds the self-existence of Truth and Right. In other words, I feel like the values

expressed in the Sermon on the Mount draw me not merely because they are a function

of my current desires, but because these ways of being deserve adherence for reasons

apart from what I merely happen to desire. Of course, some particular emotions and

instincts within me might actually make me cringe at the painful thought of humility and

self-sacrifice. However, in a different part of mein my soul, in the divine part of my

nature, perhapsI know that I am called to realize these virtues regardless of what I

currently feel. When I read the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, I feel this

calling particularly strongly. Jesus, in washing the feet of his disciples, overturns the

idea that greatness should be expressed terms of hierarchy and power and models a

vision of greatness constituted by the purity of soula soul that does more than

express its own will, but by emptying itself, becomes a channel for active, life-

transforming love. Such a vision seems to express more than the mere play of

mechanical forces in an arbitrary universe. The kind of life articulated within great

religious traditions like Christianity rather seems to express something that is genuinely


26/84

great, that is genuinely meaningful. Such a life seems not to just have my loyalty, but to

actually be worthy of my loyalty.

The universal moment of the dialectic entails the necessity of abstracting from all

possible choices and taking time to consider which paths of life deserve adherence. Itinvolves deliberately unsettling oneself from the beliefs and preferences that one has

inherited in order that one might engage in radical reflection about which choices and

lifestyles are truly right. Such abstraction is Hegels way for making space for the

possibility that human beings might direct their lives according to what is worthy rather

than simply what they have happened to inherit through tradition.

The Particular

However, if the ideals set forth in the gospels seem self-evidently right even after close

examination, we might wonder, why not just focus on them completely and ignore whatHegel calls particularity? Why, in other words, should we not simply pursue the

universal, the purest, highest ideals and be done with it?

The problem with a one-sided view of divine truth arises as soon as we ask ourselves

what being poor in spirit, hungering for righteousness, becoming a servant, or

demonstrating agapelove should really entail in practice.

For instance, say that a man on the street asks you for money. We might think that it is

good to give the man money because it would be the loving thing to do. However, we

might also understandably assume that love also requires accountability and

responsibility. Yet, if we think about it further, if I give money to the man on the street I

dont really have any guarantee that this man will not use my gift to do something

irresponsible. In fact, more reflection may lead me to wonder if my gift creates a

situation of dependency that prevents this man from really taking the responsibility for

his life that would come with attempting to work at a job. And finally, even if I do decide

that love requires giving, the third difficulty I am faced with is the question of how much

money I should give him. When the rich young ruler asked Jesus how much of his

wealth he should give away, Jesus did not respond with a practical answer that would

neatly translate to a universally workable model of society. Instead, Jesus changed the

subject; he responded by radically challenging the state of the rich young rulers heart.

Jesus answer suggested that true spirituality does not consist in fulfilling a list of

obligations, but rather demands a complete transformation the basic desires in a

persons life. It is not enough to merely give some money to the poor in order to meet


27/84

the minimum standards necessary of being a decent person. True spiritual

enlightenment rather entails that you must be willing to count your possessions as

nothing, as completely meaningless, in comparison with ones commitment to live a life

that expresses the truth.

However spiritually sublime this answer is, Jesus advice is obviously not intended to be

a straightforward answer to how charitable donation should work for all time; it is hardly

a workable model for how a real societyChristian or notshould run. For if every

Christian convert immediately gave all of their money away to the poor, human nature

suggests that the other half of society would probably quit their jobs and start taking

handouts. In a world where everyone took Jesus advice to the rich young ruler literally,

evangelism would be the only work anyone did and the rest of society would grind to a

halt. It is because of instances like these that J.S. Mill rightly claimed that the Gospel

expresses itself in terms most general, often impossible to be interpreted literallypossessing rather the impressiveness of poetry or eloquence than the precision of

legislation.

The difficulty with a divine principle such as agapelove is that it is only a principle.

However, a true spiritual life cannot just consist of abstract ideals; it cannot only consist

of an ever-receding goal, of a distant horizon that is always beyond us. Answering the

question What would Jesus do? is not enough to tell us how to live every aspect of our

life. In fact, that question cannot even answer questions as basic as whether or not we

should go to work tomorrow morning. To deal with the kinds of decisions demanded of

us every day we need the dialectical moment of particularity. In other words, we need

specific traditions and habits learned within a community; we need our abstract

commitments to become integrated into a particular self-definition that characterizes us

as a member of specific spiritual communities.

Individual Will and Christian Self-Denial

Though I have accused Christian epistemology of being too traditional, when it comes to

moral identity Christians actually sometimes forget the importance of tradition, habit,

and emotion. There is a strain of Christian thought which downplays the noble idea that

our particular selves can be continually transformed by the renewing of our minds, and

rather seems to want us to get rid of our particular selves all together. J.S. Mill

describes this thread of Christian spirituality:


28/84

Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction it is, in great part, a

protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than

active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic

Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) thou shalt not predominates

unduly over thou shalt. In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism.

The essentially critical tendencies of Christian idealism are what motivated Nietzsche to

form his alternative spiritual systema philosophy of affirmation, power, and vitality, in

contrast to the Christian ideals of renunciation, meekness, and humility. J.S. Mill

accuses Christian morality of the same essential problem as Nietzsche: Christianity

teaches us to ignore wrong to ourselves, by which he means wrongs to our individual

will, to our contingent passions and aspirations. The wrong that abstract idealism works

upon individuals is that it can turn spiritual life into a continuing exercise in futility. The

continual impossibility of fully measuring up to any ideal makes it difficult to view oneslife triumphantly. If we let it, idealism can thus steal the very joy from our existence. We

can always be better, we can always master our passion more. To be sure, there is

great truth and value in the originally Stoic practice of mastering emotions such as fear

of the future, regret over the past, and a longing for pleasure in the present mastering

such emotions allows us to have a sense of control and purpose and replaces anxiety

with the peace that comes from self-control. However, completely mastering other

emotions such as anger, ambition and pride in exchange for gentleness, meekness, and

humility, is not desirable in the same way. For these particular emotionsthe emotions

that are connected to our individual will and to our passionare the very means by

which all action is motivated.

It is not that Jesus is wrong to tell us that we cannot even harbor lustful thoughts for our

neighbors wife or anger at our brother without being guilty of adultery and murder;

Jesus dramatic and poetic phrasings capture the spiritual truth that it is indeed noble to

cultivate our emotions so that we master them and they do not unjustly master us or

others. The concern is just that a continual policing of our feelings, a learned habit of

mistrust for all fallen instincts, can erodes our ability to affirm our lives. What concerns

thinkers like Mill and Nietzsche about Christian societies is not that their instincts will run

wild, but that the moralism of the dominant class will draw everyone to the middle. The

risk is that being taught to value negative virtues like meekness, humility, and

selflessness above all things will turn civilization into a place where people become

afraid to trust their hearts, afraid to stand out for fear of criticism, afraid to aspire to great

things. Jesus own fiery passion, his independent and heretical spirit, could hardly be


29/84

interpreted as a model for the humble Christian morality that Mill and Nietzsche critique.

Nevertheless, they are right to suggest that the way in which Christian morality has

been historically interpreted occasionally suggests that the world would really be a

better place if all merely individual ambition and pleasure-seeking were to be completely

replaced for a commitment to serve God and others.

Strong individual impulses are not always the temptations of the sin nature, however. If

Jesus had mastered his ability to feel anger, he would not have taken a whip to the

changing tables in the temple. Sometimes a commitment to the truth instead of

hypocrisy requires anger in order to be realized. However, certain versions of

Christianity have ignored the importance of individual emotions. J.S. Mill summarizes

his view of Calvinism:

According to that, the one great offence of man is self-will. All the good of whichhumanity is capable, is comprised in obedience. You have no choice; thus you must do,

and no otherwise: "whatever is not a duty is a sin." Human nature being radically

corrupt, there is no redemption for any one until human nature is killed within him. To

one holding this theory of life, crushing out any of the human faculties, capacities, and

susceptibilities, is no evil: man needs no capacity, but that of surrendering himself to the

will of God: and if he uses any of his faculties for any other purpose but to do that

supposed will more effectually, he is better without them. This is the theory of Calvinism;

and it is held, in a mitigated form, by many who do not consider themselves Calvinists;

the mitigation consisting in giving a less ascetic interpretation to the alleged will of God;

asserting it to be his will that mankind should gratify some of their inclinations; of course

not in the manner they themselves prefer, but in the way of obedience, that is, in a way

prescribed to them by authority; and, therefore, by the necessary conditions of the case,

the same for all. In some such insidious form there is at present a strong tendency to

this narrow theory of life, and to the pinched and hidebound type of human character

which it patronizes. Many persons, no doubt, sincerely think that human beings thus

cramped and dwarfed, are as their Maker designed them to be; just as many have

thought that trees are a much finer thing when clipped into pollards, or cut out into

figures of animals, than as nature made them.

In contrast to this Calvinistic view of human nature that views all strong impulse as

something corrupt that needs to be mastered, J.S. Mill holds that Pagan self-assertion

is one of the elements of human worth, as well as Christian self-denial. He elaborates:


30/84

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their

consciences are weak. There is no natural connection between strong impulses and a

weak conscience. The natural connection is the other way. To say that one person's

desires and feelings are stronger and more various than those of another, is merely to

say that he has more of the raw material of human nature, and is therefore capable,perhaps of more evil, but certainly of more good. Strong impulses are but another name

for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more good may always be made of

an energetic nature, than of an indolent and impassive one. Those who have most

natural feeling, are always those whose cultivated feelings may be made the strongest.

The same strong susceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and powerful,

are also the source from whence are generated the most passionate love of virtue, and

the sternest self-control. It is through the cultivation of these, that society both does its

duty and protects its interests: not by rejecting the stuff of which heroes are made.

The Beautiful Soul

One unfortunate legacy of Christian spirituality is to have erred too often on the side of

conformity and asceticism; in a noble but misguided attempt to seek purity to promote

self-transformation, Christian spirituality has often cramped the free and natural

development of individual passion and aspiration. This error is not limited to Calvinism.

It can also be seen in certain kinds of fundamentalist thinking inspired throughout the

20th century by preachers such as D.L. Moody and Jerry Falwell.[xi] Sociologist Jose

Casanova summarizes:

In a sermon Moody once said I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel. God has

given me a lifeboat and said to me, Moody, save all you can. In a later sermon he

added that a line should be drawn between the church and the world, and every

Christian should get both feet out of the world. Looking up at urban America from the

vantage point of his Illinois Street Church in Chicago, Moody no longer saw a City upon

the Hill but Sodom.[xii]

The brand of fundamentalism practiced here by D.L. Moody sees ones particular self as

irremediably corrupt and fallensomething that needs to be entirely rejected. In

contrast to other traditions within Christianity that emphasize the possibilities of

sanctified reason and spiritual perfectibility (such as the post-millennial optimism of

Charles Finney[xiii]) Moody implicitly suggests in the passage quoted above that

Christianity should foremost be about maintaining an entirely inward purity of soul.

Moody suggests in short, that Christians should have no concern with interacting with


31/84

the various individual aspirations that give life to projects within diverse societies.

Moody seems to see no value in engaging seriously with the values, politics, cultures,

and practices of individuals and social groups who are motivated by distinct conceptions

of what is valuable in the world; he seems to have no time for traditions and institutions

that are given life through following merely individual passions (e.g., coaching a sport,improving a school, developing a business). It seems that Moody cannot be bothered

with the merely contingent traditions that give life to the day-to-day practices and

projects of existing social communities. Instead, Moody promotes the idea that

Christians should withdraw altogether from traditions which do not subscribe to his

particular conception of what is

quid est veritas - reflections on spirituality (matt flaherty)

Documents