The most a human can be
Humanism is often today associated with atheism, perhaps in part because it rejects practices typical of many religions and part because many non-religious individuals adhere to its principles. Humanistic psychology is even at odds with other branches of psychology, claiming a special spot for mankind as purpose-driven creatures that are (usually) distinct from animals. I associate Carl Rogers, and most humanistic psychology, with restoration because of the optimistic views of humankind he held as self-actualizing beings.
The concept of the restoration in Christianity branches into a few different beliefs. Some believe it will be done almost entirely by God, and that we will be snatched away by a Rapture when the time comes. Other believe that it will be done primarily by humans on God’s behalf, with varying degrees of help. Humanistic psychology would tend, of course, to get along more with the later view. However, while Rogers might see an individual quest for each person, the Christian metanarrative sees a more broad, communal effort toward a final goal. Heaven, or a restored Earth, is something that we will reap together, rather than each entering a personal heaven.
Humanistic psychologists were also often existentialists, and therefore put a lot of emphasis on confronting death. Many of them would say that the Christian promise of eternal life is nothing more than denial and refusal to accept death as an inevitable consequence. For some individuals, this may be true. Some very difficult questions like the purpose of suffering are disregarded by some, who say things like “Well, I’ll just have to ask God when I get to heaven!” Even Jesus had to confront his own death, however. An atheist friend of mine once brought up a point that stuck with me for years. “What kind of sacrifice,” he asked, “is it to give your live when you know you’re going to come back from the dead 2 days later?” And he’s not wrong. Most people disregard Jesus’ intense prayer and fear at Gethsemane as his anticipation of the pain, not death. Perhaps, however, somewhere in the head of Jesus, who was both 100% man and 100% God, he only mostly, or only intellectually knew that he was going to die.
After all, for the claim that Jesus was entirely human to be true, he had to have experienced the fear of a permanent death. If this is true, than the existentialist claim that we must all confront death does not threaten our Christian faith, but rather gives us a new way to think about our fragile humanity. Fear need not be entirely rational. Sometimes it simply “is.”
Levi Ritchie on Kant's Categorical Imperative
9:21 pm, 10.06.13
It’s funny how Kant’s categorical imperative feels similar to wearing a WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelet. It implies, at least on the surface, that the right thing to do is consistent across all situations, cultures, and times. Most people, from my experience, disagree with this view, even if it takes a bit of conversation before they realize it.
When I first heard about these ideas, it seemed to me like every popular system of ethics was just a roundabout way of being utilitarian. “Whatever is eventually best for the most people is the right thing to do, BUT X or Y is the best way to go about doing that.” Now I understand there is an important ideological difference between the two. One strives to something strictly human, and ideas like that of Kant reach beyond raw pleasure and into an ideological future, even though it’s one that he can’t prove will ever happen.
Levi Ritchie on First we Fall, then we Soren
9:13 pm, 10.06.13
I also have to say, great title.
I think it’s worth looking at the difference, in his view, between faith as a means of knowing and faith as a substitute for knowing. There’s a theologian named Barth whose idea of “Personal Revelation” has seeped into nearly every crack of popular western Christianity. His idea was that your way of knowing things was reading scripture and praying to trust God, and through personal revelation God would help you understand and know truth.
On the surface, it looks like Kierkegaard was saying the same thing, but what he mentions in that quote is very much the opposite. Rather than seeking understanding from God, we show faith by acknowledging that we cannot understand.
Levi Ritchie on Kierkegaard's Redemption
7:30 pm, 10.05.13
I’ve wondered whether, in putting religion above the other stages of development, Kierkegaard was taking something he felt was important and generalizing it to be the highest level of thought for all people. In some ways, I feel like this contradicts the original gospel, which is a message of good news for people in all walks of life. Especially looking to Luke’s gospel, which has an emphasis on people who are very poor (often, like many homeless today, because they suffered from major mental disabilities), it seems like a personal relationship with God is too complicated to put on a scale like this.
Still, I think this is an accurate comparison of Kierkegaard’s ideals with the Christian theological narrative.
Levi Ritchie on Free Will
11:13 pm, 09.23.13
Like you say, it’s painful to think about God allowing people to make actions that would damn them to hell. But it’s also painful to think about God effectively FORCING that to happen. The issue of free will is pretty central to the debate about the nature of hell. If free will doesn’t exist, how can those sent to hell arbitrarily be justified? If it does, what about those people who never had a chance to know the right decisions and make them? Do they not suffer an injustice equal to those in a deterministic world?
Levi Ritchie on "To be is the be perceived" -- Berkeley and Creation
11:10 pm, 09.23.13
This would be a very abnormal viewpoint for a Christian to take, so I like your discussion and explanation for it. Such an explanation would completely change the debate over a created universe versus one that came to be on its own.
Furthermore, the counterpoint to “life is just matter in motion” is normally “No, life is more.” Opposing that sort of argument with “No, life is either less or immeasurably different in type” is worth thinking about, even if we don’t come to agree with it.
Levi Ritchie on Francis Bacon and Redemption
11:04 pm, 09.23.13
Yes! This kind of thinking is especially important in psychological research, where self-fulfilling prophesies, researcher bias, and all kinds of other confounds can (and do) wreck an experiment. Connecting this to fallen nature seems appropriate, since this mostly has to due with purely human error. This seems like a creative way of looking at the fall that doesn’t necessarily have to do with sin.
Levi Ritchie on Pythagorus and Redemption
10:51 pm, 09.09.13
As someone who once thought philosophy was useless and fake, Pythagoras must be the one who changed my mind the most. One of the most revealing things about his views is their practical application. There are no true shapes in the physical world, but a perfect triangle, circle, cube, etc. can be comprehended and studied. We can learn from them because they are meaningful in the present.
I like associating this idea of present truth with redemption. It’s so often seen as something that will come, or, as many people believe, will happen after the rapture, tribulation, or death. In the same way that Pythagoras identified these non-physical yet absolutely true concepts in the real world, we can understand the Kingdom of God as something that’s not just “coming” but that we’re already able to shape and bring to earth as it is in heaven.
Levi Ritchie on Plato, Creation, and The Fall
3:39 pm, 09.08.13
Plato definitely had a more “fallen” view of mankind than many philosophers. The idea that we were once perfect but then lost that perfection is reflected in the reminiscence theory of knowledge, but it’s even more specific to the individual, whereas the traditional Christian view of the fall instead focuses on mankind as a community. Plato’s thoughts feel both complementary to and at odds with the concept of original sin, because one who believes in original sin might think that no one born after Adam and Eve was ever in this “pure” state of being.
Levi Ritchie on Plato's Allegory and Redemption
3:31 pm, 09.08.13
I always felt a connection between Plato’s allegory and getting out of “the cave” in heaven/at the resurrection. This perspective makes a lot of sense, too, though, that we’re free not just by dying, but by being born again on earth. Still, I can’t help but wonder how close to literal the allegory of the cave might be one day, when we can really see everything.