a chip off the old block

One of C.S. Lewis' well known arguments for the existence of God is what is called the Argument of Desire. We read his reasoning in the Weight of Glory:

"A man’s physical hunger does not prove that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called “falling in love” occurred in a sexless world."

Now I've always found this argument unconvincing in that it does not offer an instrument to differentiate between legitimate and vain desire. Thus it seems  - even in its language of indication - to correlate the being of something with its desirability. The simple truth is that I cannot make things exist just because I desire them. Nor do things cease to exist when they are not desired by anyone. Yes, I desire only those that already exist - in my mind, at least - but they do not owe their existence to the fact that I desire them. The reality and legitimacy of their existence lies somewhere other than my desire. Otherwise I would have started a passionate campaign against desiring brussel sprouts and they would dissappear from the face of the earth - and that would be a very noble cause to pursue.

The other day I had a weird (spiritual, I guess) experience that reminded me of this argument of desire out of blue. You know, I hope think we all have these little and big desires in the deep corners of our being. Those desires that we do not tell lots of people and tend to keep to ourselves. Some are little really, and they do not ocuppy our minds too much. Others, however, are deeply felt and we think about them at least once every day. Or maybe more often. So I have a desire as such, that I tend to be reminded of from time to time. OK, let's be honest shall we, I feel this desire really deep in my heart, I long for it passionately and think about it at least once every day. And it is not God. Totally earthly. Not evil in itself, but earthly.

The weird spiritual experience that I had is about this desire. The other day as I was cycling in the cold wet streets something happened to me for a second, that I felt in the depths of my whole being as if that desire was fulfilled. I felt as if I was taken in time and place to another dimension where it was like that desire was already fulfilled, that thing I so want to happen had already had happened. I felt that deep, strong sense of fulfillmentfor a second or two. It was the weirdest moment! In that moment, alhough the feeling of fulfillment and the sense of finally! - sigh! was strongly there, I was still the same old person. In that state that I was transported to, my desire was fulfilled, the life that I was living was still the same life that had its goods and bads. I learned in that moment that the fulfillment of this desire is not as fundamental to my life as I always thought.

The economics of desire and fulfillment is counter-intuitive. When you're in the desiring state the object of your desire is everything that you want in life and more. You feel if only you had it, your life would be sorted for good. But then you have it, and really enjoy it for a day or two - or a month or two -, only to realise in the end that the object of the desire now fulfilled is not the answer to all your life's questions. Then you go on and find yourself a new desire, don't you... especially in this day and age of desire economy. Speaking of economy, the phenomena that I just described is actually termed "the law of diminishing marginal utility" in economy. Basically this law teaches that the satisfaction from a product starts decreasing after  a certain stage after each additional unit of a product consumed.

Coming from this (I know, extremely subjective and unreliable) experience, the Argument of Desire sounds all the more unconvincing to me. Because if my desire for God and/or eternal life is like any desire that I know, when I attain it, after a certain dose and period of time, the object of my desire will start fading in glory and importance. I can hear some saying "but this desire is not like any other desire", and then I would say, "how will I know that if my experience with desire proves the law of diminishing marginal utility?" What I'm saying has nothing to do with whether God exists or not; I'm just saying that the Argument of Desire sounds a bit too slippery a place to start building a case for the existence of God. 

On a final, personal note, the object of my deep desire that I mentioned above is still there, although its "image" is quite marred and bruised. As for my feelings about that desire, I should say I'm very, very confused now that I find myself in a state similar to the aftermath of a major adrenaline rush.

Two posts in one day is a rare thing to expect from me but I wanted to share with you  some of my  personal reading, on what Karl Barth has to say about wisdom. From Dogmatics in Outline, Chapter 3: Faith as Knowledge.

Faith is knowledge; it is related to God's Logos, and is therefore thoroughly a logical matter.The truth of Jesus Christ is also in the simplest sense a truth of facts. Its starting point, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, is a fact which occured in space and time, as the New Testament describes it. The apostles were not satisfied to hold on to an inward fact; they spoke of what they saw and heard and what they touched with their hands. And the truth of Jesus Christ is also a matter of thoroughly clear and, in itself, ordered human thinking; freeü precisely in its being bound. But - and the things must not be seperated - what is involved is living truth. The concept of knowledge, of scientia, is insufficient to describe what Christian knowledge is. We must rather go back to what in the Old Testament is called wisdom, what Greeks called sophia and the Latins sapientia, in order to grasp the knowledge of theology in its fulness. Sapientia is distinguished from the narrower concept of scientia, wisdom is distinguished from knowing, in that it not only contains knowledge in itself, but also that his concept speaks of a knowledge which is practical knowledge, embracing the entire existence of man. Wisdom is the knowledge by which we may actually and practically live; it is empiricism and it is the theory which is powerful in being directly practical, in being the knowledge which dominates our life, which is really a light upon our path.Not a light to wonder at and to observe, not a light to kindle all manner of fireworks at - not even the profoundest philosophical speculations - but the light on our road which may stand above our action and above our talk, the light on our healthy and on our sick days, in our poverty and in our wealth, the light which does not only lighten when we suppose ourselves to have moments of insight, but which accompanies us even into our folly, which is not quenched when all is quenched, when the goal of our life becomes visible in death. To live by this light, by this truth, is the meaning of Christian knowledge. Christian knowledge means living in the truth of Jesus Christ. In this light we live and move and have our being (Acts 17.28) in order that we may be of Him, and through Him and unto Him, as it says in Romans 11.36. So Christian knowledge, at its deepest, is one with what we termed man's trust in God's Word. 

One of the great benefits of following an orderly reading of the Scriptures round the Church Calendar is that it brings to our attention those parts of the Scriptures that we're not necessarily familiar with. I think highlighting a limited portion also helps one focus on that particular portion and thus improve understanding. Since becoming part of an Anglican church community here in Oxford that's exactly how I feel like many Sundays. This past Sunday was no exception.

The reading (for Candlemas) from Luke 2.22-38 reminded me of the place of the elderly in our communities. The text talks about Simeon and Anna, who have both been expecting the arrival of the Savour in the world. Luke tells us Simeon was a righteous and devout man who enjoyed a vibrant relationship with God in this old age. Anna also lived in the Temple daily worshipping in His presence.

The passage made me think of the important place and role of the elderly in our communities. To be honest when I think of them I usually see them as a "fragile" group of people who need to be cared for, treated with special kindness etc. With this mindset they're the ones who do moreof the taking from the church and the rest of the community do more of the giving. ...almost as if they need the church community more than the community need them. In a sense this might be true - we do need to show a special concern and care for the elderly.

However this is not the whole picture. They need not be the takers only, they do have a lot to give to the community. Simeon and Anna gave shared with the world words of faith, the value of faithful expectation from God and recognition of God's work in their midst. They lived as witnesses to God's faithfulness and God used their committment for long years as instruments of his grace and wisdom. Anna may have easily been seen as a public nuisance by many at the Temple. "This old woman who doesn't do anything but just talk!" I'm almost sure she didn't look as pretty as the Christian films and iconography's depiction her either. Yet both her and Simeon fulfilled an important role in and for the Jerusalem community.

It's a pity that we do not have a significant group of elderly in our churches in Turkey. The church is very young and many of even the oldest members are Christians for a few decades. Yet the church needs its own elderly today as signs of God's faithfulness and instruments of his wisdom. They give the church her recent history, which is actually God's history and milestones to remember and celebrate (or sometimes mourn) in the community. This also reminds me that God is still in the very early stages of forming his community of believers in Turkey. The church is not "complete" yet in the demographic sense. It is still not at that stage where there are significant faithful elderly who can contribute and point to God in a way that us younger one's can't. I should hope (and pray!) that it will most probably come to that stage in the next two to three decades. It will be interesting to see how the church will be blessed from their existence. It will definitely be a wiser and more balanced community, don't you think?

Therefore I pray a weird prayer today and say "God, mature us, give an increase to our days, age your church and make it a place that welcomes the contribution of the elderly. Amen."

Are you one of those who couldn't resist the hype around Avatar and ended up going to the cinema to see it? I am... And I can't say I found much in it besides the 3D aspect. The story has been worked many times before, don't you think? The whole 3 hours (or was it 5?) I felt like I was just watching a coloured up re-take of Dances with the Wolves. The good old evil-white-men-need-to-be-stopped-by-the-good-white-man story.

I did find one aspect of the movie very interesting though, and that is the theological message of Avatar. The alternative and unspoiled world (eden?) of Pandora (a touch of mythology always works) has this weird network of all-encompassing energy, which is researched by Grace Augustine (a touch of Christianity always works). Every creature is connected to this higher energy/spirit called Eywa through their various bodily extensions. It's more than being connected really, I think the idea is that all beings are actually parts of the bigger Eywa. The Na'vi (the blue people with the tails) go to a sacred tree (of souls, we are told) to connect with the rest of their world (Eywa, ancestors, etc.). They plug their tails into the tree and get advice from it. So far what's pictured (although not explicitly told) is a pantheistic world.

As you already know pantheism is the view that the nature and God are identical. It Pantheism promotes the idea that God is better understood as way of looking at nature and everything we see around us (the sum total of all that was, is and shall be), rather than as a transcendent and especially anthromophic entity. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal or creator god. This becomes very visible in the movie, especially in the scene where Jake "prays" in front of the tree. He's encouraged by one of the blue people not to pray, because "Eywa never takes sides, she only watches the balance of everything!" This spirit/energy is totally impersonal and therefore cannot have a personal relationship with the rest of the beings. People are on their own!

Or so you'd think - because the movie takes the opposite turn in the end. Eywa decides to get involved in the business. "Eywa does hear Jake" and mobilizes the beings of Pandora to fight against evil. Quite a dramatic turn, isn't it? We are tempted to ignore the significance of this u-turn while getting our appetites satisfied with the following war scenes, however this was the gist of the whole deal for me. This was the moment where in my opinion the story writers shot themselves in the foot. Because here Pandora's pantheism shatters at this point and gives way to a supreme being who is first personal (hears and answers prayer), and then makes a distinction between good and evil (it's not about the balance, mate).

The end that satisfies us always has to admit that there is good and there is evil and they are distinct from one another, and more important, behind the story of it all there is a Supreme Personal Power who has the first and last say in things. We just can't escape from admitting it because this is the only end that makes sense of the story.

So... I know that some out there are livid about Avatar and see it as yet another subtle attack on the Christian worldview. In my opinion - if it really is - it is but be a poor attempt, because all it does is to prove to me that the pantheistic view is not sustainable and there is more to the universe than that old woman called Eywa.