do synthetic arguments exist? i don't know. i used to firmly believe that, if two people had opposing or alternate systems of belief, there was a peaceful common ground, but right now i'm hesitant to assert that. until, of course, God convicts me.
see, i'm not used to being outraged. neither am i wholly used to people exploding for reasons i can't or don't know. i come from a world (the philosophy/intellectual world) where people reason fairly soundly, without skipping argumentative steps and who aren't rash or use coarse language. i come from a world of much war, but little man-on-man combat. i once thought that to be a world of peace, but it is not.
jean-paul sartre once said, 'hell is other people.' i disagree. whoever believes that does not yet know hell. he who believes that has not known a godless life. i was reading this morning a piece from nietzsche's 'Mad man'. it was one of his most epic works as far as i'm concerned...but not epic for how it affected me, but how epically true it is, especially now that i am a christ follower.
here is the parable:
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" -- As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -- Thus they yelled and laughed.
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -- for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars -- and yet they have done it themselves.
It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"
what's particularly scary is that, even though i look at the 'mad man' and pity him, i was once the same man. i remember the sheer confusion i had, because truth disappeared somewhere a few years prior...and i related much to the mad man when he said, 'how did we [(lose) God], How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves...?"
i will tell you how i comforted myself: alcoholism and anorexia. alcoholism was my crutch; i drank until i couldn't drink any longer, i would go to bed, and be glad that i didn't have an appetite the next morning. why? i had no reason to eat. my entire work's discipline (scholasticism, philosophy, creating meaning, love) were all dead, because i considered knowledge to be dead, and i realized that the only logical mode of existence of anything would be for God to hold it together. if he existed. but i couldn't reason his existence to myself then, because i was too busy comforting myself, really, comforting myself and trying to tell myself that this is how normal people survived in life, this is how we don't lie to ourselves: to recognize that we need comfort in a cold dark world such as ours.
i remember the sense of power i first felt when i looked in the mirror and saw a change in my body weight. how proud of myself i was! i mean, i worked hard (and by the way: it is hard not eating, but it's empowering when you know why you stopped eating). i worked too hard to get myself where i was to not not have two things in this world i could call my own, like alcohol and anorexia. i could buy alcohol, and i was in total control of what was being put in my body. nobody could force me to eat, and it's not like i had or wanted accountability anyway. and i liked the prospect being sneaky, so when i would eat with someone i would only pretend eat.
i remember thinking once, when i came home from college because my body had been through too much (i was sick all the time, consistently hung over, and malnourished), when i looked in the mirror one evening without a shirt, damn white boy, you've got it going ON! and i recall how good i thought i looked, especially compared to the 'fatty matty' of a year ago. i also remember thinking, 'what one man has built, let no other man destroy'...but soon later i realized that i built nothing. i accomplished nothing in college. i was still just as much without a degree as i was before, and actually slightly worse off for having gone to college in the first place.
'so what do i do now,' i asked myself, 'now that i have deconstructed deconstructionism?' well, can you deconstruct deconstructionism? is that not what the 'mad man' was asking when he said, 'what was i doing when...But how did i do this? How could i drink up the sea? Who gave me the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What was i doing when i unchained this earth from its sun?' i will tell you what i was doing: i was relying on my own understanding while destroying Jesus' temple with alcohol and not eating, and there is no limit to what that can do to a person's soul.
the mad man recognized that he was not mad but that, in fact, everyone else was mad for being so coy about atheism. the mad man presents himself as ridiculous...until he speaks more truth than i have ever heard: that we are in a constant mirror-play man-as-God theology until we run out of options except that which we are uninclined to be. for me, it stopped being an option to not eat, because i wanted to be bigger again but not fat like i used to be, more muscular. and the i realized this: my standard for myself keeps changing. it tended to not have a choice but to change, because i didn't have a coherent system of belief. plus, i felt like i was dying all the time because of stress and panic attacks, and i knew that food would help that, so i started working out...and getting proud.
and then the sweetest, most memorable thing happened to me: as i was seeking death-bed counseling (in the case that it was not panic attacks that i was experiencing), i was brought to God through logic, in a way. i was told by my counselor that 1.) God disciplines those he loves, 2.) that Nebuchadnezzar was disciplined for his pride, was made to eat grass with the beasts of the field, and was brought to repentance finally when he acknowledged that he could not build anything. that God built it all and that there was no pride to be had in all his glorious kingdoms, 3.) that all people have a natural inclination to lean on our own understanding, and 4.) that i could ease my pride by acknowledging that i am proud through psalm 131 that reads:
Lord, my heart is not proud
My eyes are not haughty,
i do not concern myself with matters too great or awesome for me.
but i have stilled and quiteted myself like a small child.
yes, like a small child is my soul within me...
i wanted that so badly. so i asked for it...and got it. do i still tend to pride? yes, but that will likelier than not ever go away, and i really don't want it to, because God's discipline comforts me. when i am proud, i know it. people around me may not, but i do. it tends to seethe within me how i was right and [enter x-variable person] was completely unjustified in what they said or did. it usually presents itself to me as repeating thoughts that are me ruminating over how i should have retaliated and defending my argument against the argument of the other person. what is that, if it is not pride? nothing. just like the sandcastles of logic i tend to build that get wiped away every so often when i am proud and when i want something more than i want God...or want something more than i want to do God's will, which is essentially to love. unconditionally. without moments of rage.
so, the synthetic argument does exist...and it exists in acknowledging that all people, yourself or otherwise, are inclined to anger, will continue to be inclined to sin, and we will be at least a little bit that way until we die, and that we will consider other people hell as long as we don't remember hell: knowledge of our separation from God.
we should, however, progressively become less messed up as time goes on. luckily, alcoholism and anorexia, through my proud will, were broken before conversion. i often wonder how much harder it would have been to quit drinking and start eating after i had converted...after my will was broken for God's? i don't know, it sounds like it would be easier but i'm not completely sure, although it is pretty hard to quit smoking. that is all i know. perhaps the one with whom i have a disagreement is not so far from where i was a year ago. if they are, i am glad because there is a light in the distance. seemingly very far off, but the light is there and it is the best thing to happen to me. if my atheology can be deconstructed, then, believe me, anyone's can. besides, who can i judge?
consider me convicted. that is all.
