Philosophy: Rescuing Bad Theology

On occasion, the tools that philosophy provides can be useful outside its normal practices; it can be not only intellectually satisfying, but edifying and far-reaching. Such an occasion arose this Sunday when a pastor at a church I attend (who has a Ph.D., by the way) made a very controversial claim: that Jesus made two inconsistent claims. He asserted that the following were inconsistent:

1. Whoever is not against us is for us (Mark 9:40)
2. He who is not with me is against me (Matthew 12:30)

The entire sermon was preached off the premise that these two were inconsistent; however, it struck me as incorrect, so I got to work. Let's simplify these things down a bit...

Let's call, "gender-neutral he who is against us", A, and "gender-neutral he who is for us/with us" F. We can simplify these premises to:

1. Whoever is not A is F.
2. Whoever is not F is A.
3. Not F and A at the same time.

Number 3 is a hidden premise here (but a noncontroversial one)that one cannot be A and F at the same time. Before get into the nitty gritty of how these are consistent, let's do one last bout of simplification. Let's call "negation", "not", and etcetera ~, like so:

1. If ~A then F
2. If ~F then A
3. ~(A and F)

Make sense? Good. Now let's show how they're consistent. With Premise 1, there are two possibilities: ~A is false (therefore A, Premise 1a) or F is true (Premise 1b). With Premise 2, there are two possibilities: ~F is false (therefore F, Premise 2a) or A is true (Premise 2b). So, we have four possible combinations of true values:

4. A (Premise 1a) and F (Premise 2a)
5. F (Premise 1b) and F (Premise 2a)
6. A (Premise 1a) and A (Premise 2b)
7. F (Premise 1b) and A (Premise 2b)

We are left with 4, 5, and 6 as consistent interpretations, but we still have to apply the hidden third premise: ~(A ^ F). It states that A and F cannot be true at the same time-- so, in each of those premises, either A is false or F is false (since they both can't be true at the same time).

4. A, F, and either [~A, contradiction] or [~F, contradiction]
5. F, F, and either [~A] or [~F, contradiction]
6. A, A, and either [~A, contradiction] or [~F]
7. F, A, and either [~A, contradiction] or [~F, contradiction]

What are we left with?

5. A is false, F is true
6. A is true, F is false.

Both of those are consistent. Lo and behold-- it is not inconsistent to say, "he who is not with us is against us" and "he who is not against us is with us"! I'm afraid to say that the pastor, here, built his argument on sand, and it took neither rain nor flood nor wind for it to fall down. I didn't tell him about the claims being consistent, but I certainly thought about it. At any rate, did the logic look sound? Anything confusing or need clarification? Disagree with my argument-- whether I properly assigned notation and whatnot?

The Immorality of Commonsensical Marriage

(v1.3, with updates)

It's a return to Kierkegaard's Either/Or for this post, where we talk about marriage and pragmatism. For various and sundry caveats on my arguments concerning Kierkegaard's work, please check out my post here. Let me know if you need any clarification on source materials. It's going to be quite a challenge to consolidate about 85 pages of argument, but I'll do my best. Let's see how this works.

Let's assume you are married and I asked you: "why did you marry"? Kierkegaard's character, Judge William, argues-- quite well, I think-- that "it is always an insult to a girl to want to marry her for any other reason than that one loves her" (EOII 67). While he notes that there is "a multiplicity of altogether puny objectives, because they are not even laughable... for example, marrying for money, or out of jealousy, or because of the prospects, because there the prospect that she will soon die... I do not care to bring up all such things" (EOII, 80). However, he does explicitly address some more commonly given reasons.

~If you responded that you married "in order to contribute to the propagation of the human race", your response might be "both a very objective and a very natural reason", and yet it misses the point-- "such a marriage is just as unnatural as it is arbitrary" and there is no question that a man who marries a woman to "contribute to the propagation of the human race" has married for the wrong reasons (EOII 64).

~Judge William also argues it would be wrong to marry "to acquire a home" (EOII 70), to have people around so one is not bored and devoid of contact with others. If he "has become bored at home, has taken a trip abroad and become bored, has come again and is bored", he might long for marriage "for the sake of company" (ibid). Such a person "feels the emptiness of everything around him-- nobody is waiting for him when he is gone" (ibid). The Judge replies that "I have not married in order to have a home, but I have a home, and this is a great blessing" (EOII, 74). Such a person "always pleads that there is no one who is waiting for them, no one who welcomes them, etc.", but this reveals that "they actually have a home only when they think of being outside it" (EOII, 75)-- that is, one has encountered the "pain, sadness, and humiliation" or being "a stranger and alien in the world" (EOII, 77). Such a person "could not stand to see you wife... in dishabille [a state of debilitation], unless this costume were finery designed to please you" (EOII, 78), indicative of an underlying problem: "you will always be a stranger and an alien" (ibid). You would be regarded as "a welcome guest... you would be inexhaustible in attentiveness, inventive in all ways of delighting the family... it would be very lovely, would it not" (ibid). However, in the end, "no matter how proud you are, there is a humiliation here", because you would still be "alone in one's boat, alone with one's sorrow, alone with one's despair-- which one is cowardly enough to prefer to keep rather than submit to the pain of healing" (EOII, 77).

~Similarly, marriage for happiness or for sensuousness is problematic because it "seeks momentary satisfaction" (EOII, 20), and it causes one to think "that one can probably stand living together for some time, but it wants to keep an escape open if a happier choice comes along. It makes marriage into a civil arrangement; one needs only to inform the proper authority that this marriage is over and a new one has been contracted" (EOII, 22). This view of romantic love and marriage asserts, "I do not ask for so much, I am satisfied with less; far be it from me to demand that you go on loving me forever if you will just love me in the moment I desire it" (EOII, 21).

A person who "marries for this and that" reason is acting inappropriately; "commonsensical calculating" cannot determine whether two individuals ought to marry (EOII, 60). One might say that they have good intentions, but "the goodness of his [or her] objective [meaning, intention] is of no use, for the mistake is precisely that he had an objective" (EOII, 60). He asserts that "nothing else ever belongs to marriage but marriage's own 'why', which is infinite" (EOII, 58), for it is "sensuous but also spiritual, free but also necessary, absolute in itself and also within itself points beyond itself" (EOII, 57). Marriage's teleology (for the sake of simplicity, its destiny or goal) is in itself, internally.

What justifies, then, getting married, if not common sense rationality? Judge William (Kierkegaard's character, here) does not dispute the presence of many "hows"-- "how they are going to manage, how they are going to take care of the children" (EOII, 58) and etcetera. However, while he does not discredit these or downplay their importance, they are insufficient for justifying a marriage. He claims that "marriage can [justly] be undertaken with only one intention, whereby it is just as ethical as aesthetic, but this intention is immanent" (EOII, 66). The inwardness required by marital love has as its first principle" frankness, uprightness, openness on the largest scale possible", and "secretiveness here is its death" (EOII, 96). This is the first principle of love (ibid), and also the "life principle in marriage" (EOII, 106). A marriage is not justified by the "whats" of how well one can procreate, or be happy, or have a home. Rather, a marriage is justified for a man (and for his wife, if the appropriate pronouns are switched) when he says, "The primary question is not one of where I am going to find the money and at what percent but first and foremost is of my love, whether I have kept a pure and faithful covenant of love with her to whom I am united" (EOII, 113). Such a person "has the proper conception of who he is and what he can do, and only marriage gives the historical faithfulness that is every bit as beautiful as the knightly kind" (ibid). One who is in a justified marriage has an eternal love-- "the married man has not killed time but has rescued it and preserved it in eternity.... he solves the great riddle, to live in eternity and yet to hear the cabinet clock strike in such a way that its striking does not shorten but lengthens its eternity" (EOII, 126).

I want to close with a quote from the conclusion of the essay from which these sources are from-- "On the Aesthetic Validity of Marriage". He states, "Accept now, in well-prepared anticipation what is here offered to you as well tested. If you find it far too trivial to satisfy you, then see if it is not possible to prepare yourself better, see if you have not forgotten some precautionary measure" (EOII, 139). This topic is more difficult than romantic love to depict artistically or even through arguments, but "let your consolation be, as it is mine, that we are not to [merely] read about or listen to or look at what is the highest and the most beautiful in life, but are, if you please, to live it" (EOII, 126).

Some pre-SPC Thoughts on Value

Just to get the proverbial ball rolling, here is a little bit on the nature of “value” for your consideration. If you like this and totally agree, or hate it and want to argue, or if it even sparks the merest passing interest, I invite you, dear reader, to join Philosophia Religioque one week from now, next Thursday night, February 11 for the Student Philosophy Colloquium!
So just to be fun, I want to present something perhaps extreme here. Many may think that, if presented the questions “What is ‘value’? What makes something ‘valuable’?” an answer like, “I think the concept of value is purely subjective,” would be a little controversial to say, that most people really believe and put great stock in, say, the value of their savings account. That to say that it is just a figment of your imagination, and that money is just green paper, would be a novel concept –– maybe not for us educated folk, but the others out there, wouldn’t they have some qualm with the notion that all value is subjective? I do not believe that it is necessarily the case. I think there are not a large amount of people who truly believe otherwise. Most will work within the system in any case, but relatively few have deluded themselves into thinking the numbers comprising their brokerage account translate into “real,” objectively quantifiable value. In our long and glorified American tradition, individualism and liberty (and plurality) of thought and belief is nothing new to us. Personalization, distinctiveness, and independence is common to our very nature. It is not surprising then that we think that “value” is as subjective a notion as religion, truth, and beauty, etc. It is not surprising for one to consider that “value” is what I make of it, or what society makes of it. “Man is the measure of all things” and we can say what is valuable and how much; it is also common to hear something analogous to a quote from Hamlet: “There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.” There is nothing valuable but thinking makes it so; value is in the eye of the beholder. Opinions make up the value of an object–– it’s all subjective.
Well, I want to shy away from that, for I think it’s much more exciting to do something less common and widely accepted. Instead of going the “value is objective” route, however, I will argue that “value” is non-existent, and hopefully you’ll see how this is different from it’s being considered subjective. Saying the proposition that “value is purely subjective” is not enough; I would deny inherent value entirely. That phrase itself, “inherent value,” doesn’t, in my opinion, even make sense. Nothing is valuable in and of itself –– there is nothing intrinsic to something called “value” that would exist in the fabric or quintessence of the thing. If we think of everything as having a platonic form, what is essential to that form, what is its essence, has nothing to do with some quantifiable “value.” That is completely apart from an object, like the form of a bottle of water, or from a concept, like the form of justice. “Value” is an empty idea that doesn’t really refer to anything. It is not something revealed or recognized, because it is not there to begin with.
This is different than saying that value is subjective, that we assign a value to some thing, or person, or idea, or action based on context and circumstance, based on its scarcity or our wants or needs. When we’re thirsty and then drink some water, someone might say that the water was very “valuable” to me then, because I was thirsty and I needed it. And because it was valued that specific amount at that specific time, but will surely not be the same for someone who is not thirsty, or even to you after your thirst is satisfied, value must be subjective or relative. And indeed we could say that even people could have a sort of quantifiable value – You value your best friend more than a complete stranger. What you mean is that you value what they mean to you, what they do for you and your life, and how they’ve influenced you or provided for you. People can make us happy, make life a better place, and some, will mean more than others. Does that mean that, because your value is subjective to my feelings or proximity to you, that you, maybe my enemy, as a person actually have less value based on my perception, that your value has more to do with others than with you yourself?
Making “value” subjective is like putting everything on a scale or, better, on a number line, so that it is a continuous measurement that could be positive, negative, or zero. I could say that, to me, this apple is z amount, whereas the color blue is this, and playing a game of tennis is that. But I cannot conceive of things having this idea of “value,” so that even if z amount is zero, it still by some strange way “has” this strange thing called “value.” In what way does it “have” it? Value is instead better thought of as nonexistent and neutral, which is not to say a numerical zero. There is again no thing we call “value” in the essence of something; it is just used in such a way in our language as to give the appearance that all things in space and time, and including space and time (“time is money,” right?), “have” it and that we can assign it to objects, actions, and ideas, like some other adjective like “dark,” “big,” or “just.” It is used as to give the appearance of what is in reality nonexistent, but still, this is a useful illusion we use. We can make normative claims as to what should be valued, and to what extent. It may be a needed term for society to function expediently and well, within a single society itself or in relation to others.
If a car x is worth a cost y to me, we’re using the idea of “value” primarily in reference to a monetary number, but can keep in mind the worth of transportation or good feelings of independence and whatnot, too, and add that in the calculation. What does that ultimate price represent? Maybe a sum of cash. And what is that? I’m no economist, but I guess money is supposed to be representative of other, concrete precious things. And what are they? A bar of gold is so valued not because of its color or use as a paper weight, but for its scarcity on the earth. It is rare; and so is each individual person, so we say they’re “invaluable.” But let’s say we really bought into the idea that gold was very valuable. Well, just for a quaint example, for believers of the Christian faith, in heaven gold is the new asphalt, that’s what the streets are paved with. And you can ask Midas or Silas Marner (major cool points to you if you actually know that allusion) what the real “value” of gold is. It seems an endless series of “valuables” to quantify everything: from an object to a person’s opinion to dollar sign to an amount of gold or some other resource to… what?
There is, ultimately, nothing inherent in something that makes it valuable. The idea of “value” does not refer to anything in existence that is anything more than an appearance we assign to things, actions, ideas, and people in our language and thought. If I am in some other universe where I experience the essence of a thing, and I do not see it per say, so that it is not beautiful or ugly, and I do not have any sense of feeling, so that it is not pleasant or painful, there just is the essence of the object by itself without any other use or context for it, there would simple not be a “value” that I’d experience (or give it), because value does not exist. If you were to experience a tree, say, in its essential form, apart from your own senses, and I asked you, “What is the inherent darkness of the tree?” You couldn’t answer. So too do things lack some notion of “inherent value,” if I asked you the “value” of that tree, because it does not exist. There is neither darkness nor value to it. That sole essence of an object does not even have a “value” of zero, but no value whatsoever.
What do you think? If this has been at all enjoyable or thought-provoking, I invite you to let those thoughts marinate for the next week, and then come and join us for the SPC on Thursday, February 11. Hope to see you!