Chapter 5: The priest
"Despite his misery man wants to be happy. We want nothing else than this: to be happy, and we can't help but want it. But what do we do in order to become happy? We must secure immortality for ourselves. But since that is not possible, we decide not to think about it."
-Blaise Pascal
"For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again."
-Ecclesiastes
"The truth shall set you free - but it shall also make you very depressed."
-Daniel Suni
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Daria really didn't feel like going home just yet, and when she happened to pass a small cafeteria that had a few tables outside she decided that it would be the perfect place to just sit and think. She bought a soda and positioned herself in the shade of one of the sunshades thoughtfully provided by the owners. She had not been seated for more than maybe two minutes, when a voice suddenly distracted her: -"Excuse me? Is this seat taken?" Daria looked up and she immediately recognised the elderly white man she had seen at the funeral. She really wanted to tell him to take a hike. She wasn't in the mood for any pointless chitchat, and there was a perfectly good empty table just a few feet away. But she didn't really want to be rude either... -"I guess not." -"Excellent." The man said, removed his long black jacket, hung it over the back of the chair and took a seat. If you're hoping for a stimulating conversation, you're out of luck, Daria thought to herself and took a sip of her soda. -"Oh, it's you Lex." a voice from the inside exclaimed. "The usual I suppose?" -"What else?" The man obviously referred to as "Lex" replied. A few moments later a waiter came out with a cup of coffee and a large steaming hot bun. -"Aahh! Freshly baked?" Lex asked. -"As usual." The waiter replied and headed back in. -"You should really try their buns. They bake them themselves, and they're absolutely delicious." This was precisely what Daria didn't want - a pointless discussion about buns. -"Thanks." She replied dryly. "But I just came from a funeral, and I'm not in the mood for either eating or talking." -"Oh, yes of course. I'm sorry. In fact I saw you there. Were you a close friend of Jodie's?" His voice had quickly gone from "every-day" to "sincere". That was so typical, Daria thought, mention death and everyone suddenly gets serious - only to forget it five minutes afterward. And what was worse: He still wanted to talk. -"Well... pretty close, I guess." -"Please accept my condolences. But it's at least a relief for me to know that she had friends." Daria almost choked on her soda. Who was this man, and what exactly did he know about Jodie? -"Excuse me mister...?" -"Lexton. George Lexton. But you can call me Lex. I hate titles." -"Okay, Lex. I don't really know you, but I'm curious... How did you know Jodie?" -"Well I suppose to say I knew her would be a bit of an exaggeration." Daria just looked at him with surprise. -"But if you didn't know her then why...?" -"Why did I visit the funeral?" -"Yeah?" -"To pay my respects. To help myself remember how short life is. To get some perspective." -"You just went to a funeral without knowing the person, or what happened to her?" Daria was really surprised. What kind of weirdo was she talking to? Had he just escaped from some mental care institution? -"Well I did know what had happened to her. A real tragedy." -"But you just said that you were glad that she had had friends. How did you know about that?" -"Oh, it's usually easy to judge based on the behaviour of people at a funeral. There were some of her classmates present, sure - but you could see that they were classmates and nothing more." Daria was amazed. How could someone tell so much from so little? -"That teacher..." He continued "...really felt something for her. But on the other hand he seemed to be the kind of emotional type that would cry his eyes out if something happened to his teddy bear." Daria had to hold back a chuckle. That was such an accurate description of Mr. O'Neill that she almost didn't believe her ears. "You, I wasn't really certain with. You're the kind of person who doesn't exactly go around splashing emotions all over the place." -"Mmmph..." -"See what I mean?" He said with a smile. -"Okay, so you're a good judge of character. But why do you feel relieved by the fact that she had friends?" Daria felt slightly guilty saying this. She and Jodie still hadn't been that close. -"To die all alone is a terrible thing. I've seen it too many times." -"Umm... Yeah. But what I meant was: Why do you care about Jodie if you didn't even know her?" -"Old habit I guess?" -"Habit? What on Earth are you talking about?" -"I used to be a priest before I retired. If you're lucky, you may pick up the habit of compassion in that profession... I guess I was." Daria still didn't know what to make of this. The guy was obviously a weirdo - not that that was necessarily a bad thing, but there was something about him that she didn't like. She couldn't quite pinpoint the reason though. And that whole compassion business? Who did he think it was really going to help? -"You used to be a priest? That's it?" She finally replied incredulously. -"Yup. It was a small miracle that I became one, and an even bigger that I didn't get kicked out before retirement." -"Uh-huh?" Daria replied while bracing herself for the incredibly boring life story that she suspected she was about to hear. -"I was going to become a lawyer and I actually studied law for almost a year - that was when people started to call me 'Lex' by the way. But, then I had a change of heart." -"Yeah? Why?" Daria was already getting bored, but she thought there might be a small chance he might say something negative about lawyers - something she could use against her mother some time, so she kept listening. -"Started thinking. About what's important... The meaning of life. Stuff like that." -"Oh? What did you find out?" The meaning of life, she thought. Perhaps this discussion wouldn't be a total waste after all? -"Basically I first went into a serious depression. It just seemed that everything was completely meaningless." -"But then you decided that it was better to just believe in God, and carry on. I get it." Daria sighed. Why had she thought that this would be an interesting discussion? After all what path of thoughts could there be that she had not already travelled, all the way in to all the different dead ends. She had read philosophy by different people. She had sighed at the hopeless demand of a leap of faith against better judgement that Kierkegaard proposed. She had laughed at the pathetic castles Bertrand Russell had built in the air while trying to defend his "free man's faith". Theists and atheists were really both alike - they took the hopelessness of the world, and tried to force it into a hope of some sort. The first by believing in something non-provable (which for all practical purposes was the same as non-existent), the second by believing in something stupid (usually mankind or an Übermensch). -"Not quite. I was too proud to just start believing in God because I thought the alternative was worse. I wanted evidence of some kind."-"But you can't prove the existence of God." -"Of course you can't. And for a long time I was just spending my time looking for an excuse to live through another day." He sighed deeply. "That was also part of the reason I wanted to attend the service today... This whole incident reminded me so much of my youth... Well... I think you understand." -"Better than you can possibly imagine." -"Oh?" He replied with genuine surprise. "Don't tell me that you too..." Damn! Why couldn't she keep her big mouth shut? When was she going to realise that this old man was a lot cleverer than he looked? What the hell would she answer now? Would he see through a lie? Would he take any action if he knew? DAMN! -"It's okay. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, but you have been thinking about these kinds of things, haven't you? You're that type." He continued, thus solving the problem. -"The meaning of life? Well... yeah." -"And have you reached any conclusions?" -"Nothing you'd like to hear - or anybody else either." -"Hmm... That bad?" -"Yeah." For some reason Daria felt she could almost trust this weird old man. If nothing else he at least appeared to understand her position - that was more than could be said about most people. -"Something tells me that God was not a part of your conclusion." -"Well I really don't see the point of introducing a completely non-provable, element into the equation. It still wouldn't make it any more solvable." -"Let me guess. You're an agnostic, right?" -"True." -"So you say that it's impossible to know whether God exists or not?" -"I believe that is the definition of and agnostic." -"Why is it impossible to know?" -"He can't be seen or experienced in any way." -"Radio waves can't be seen or experienced." -"Yes, but you can conduct scientific experiments with radio waves and with the help of science you can build a device that picks up radio waves and translates them to something we can experience with our senses - sound for instance. That of course is impossible with God. In order to prove the existence of something you would need to conduct scientific experimentation on whatever it is. Scientific experimentation on the other hand requires that you have power over the object you're studying. You must be able to manipulate the object, conduct experiments on it and observe the results. Since it's impossible for humans to ever have power over God - were such a thing possible he wouldn't be God - it is impossible to prove his existence." -"Very good. But you didn't quite answer the question." -"Excuse me?" -"You answered the question 'Why is it impossible to prove the existence of God?'. I asked the question 'Why is it impossible to know that God exists?'." -"Are you splitting hairs with me?" -"Absolutely not. Can you answer me why you assume that proving is the same thing as knowing?" Daria had already opened her mouth, and was going to say "But that's obvious." when she suddenly realised what he was getting at. Her self-certainties. Were there any she had overlooked? Was it in fact possible that true knowledge could be acquired in any other way that scientific experimentation and logical deduction? That could change a lot of things... -"Because... I've taken it for granted?" She finally admitted. -"You do catch on quickly, don't you" Lex replied with genuine surprise in his voice. "But don't be sad because you missed it at first. It took me almost a year to realise that this all too common assumption is nothing but a remain of a paradigm dating back to the renaissance. You see during medieval times people believed in authority, like the ancient Greeks, the church, God. You can still see it in the literature and the art of the time. Nobody questioned authority, it was a paradigm of the time. That all changed with the renaissance, now everything would have to be proven scientifically in order to be regarded as truth. The problem with science of course is that the only things it's really good at are physics, chemistry and mathematics, and the further away from these subjects you get, the more inaccurate the scientific method becomes, until it finally reaches a point where it becomes completely useless." -"O-o-okay... But what other methods could there be?" -"Well, in the case of God, it's always possible that He will give you the knowledge." -"Huh?" -"I know. That kind of knowledge is not nearly as much fun at all as the scientific knowledge. We human beings like to be in control. Knowledge acquired through science is knowledge we have taken. It's knowledge we are in control over. The knowledge God gives us is knowledge we can't control." -"Well why doesn't he give me the knowledge then, if he wants me to have it?" -"Have you ever asked for it?" -"No. But I can do it right now - not that it's going to do any good." Daria replied. She could quickly disprove Lex' little theory if she wanted. And in the odd chance she did get an answer, well that would also solve the problem. -"Wrong attitude. You can't treat God like a lab rat. You're still trying to take the knowledge." "Darn." She thought. He had sneaked out the back door, so to speak. This was in fact a trail of thought she hadn't been down before, and she kind of looked forward to cornering this priest with his annoying logic against the wall she was certain would be further down the trail. -"Then how am I supposed to ask?" She replied sarcastically. "Dressed in sackcloth and ashes?" -"Nope. You just have to decide to let God be God in your life once you get the knowledge." Daria didn't like the way this conversation was going. It was somehow getting too... personal. And this whole "let God be God" business seemed pretty suspicious to her. She decided to play what she considered the ultimate trumpcard, when debating against theists. -"Well that's another thing. I'm not sure I would trust this God, considering the way things are going in this world..." -"Ah. The good old theodicy problem. You mean how it's possible for God to be good and almighty when there is so much evil in the world?" -"Yeah." Daria wondered what was going to come up next. She had gone over the argument so many times she was positive it was watertight, but Lex had seemed strangely calm - and he was intelligent, there was no doubt about it. -"I assume you have thought through the consequences of atheism? Especially the consequences on meaning and moral." -"Oh, yes." Daria answered truthfully. -"And what were your conclusions?" -"That without God, they're both dead." -"I see. But if all moral is dead, then how can you claim there is evil in the world?" Daria felt her jaw drop so far she feared it would hit the table. The argumentation she had used actually required the existence of the very thing it was meant to disprove in order to work. How could she have missed something so obvious? Actually she knew the answer to that. Even though she had questioned her self-certainty of morale and found it obsolete, it had still returned from the grave and interfered with her thinking. She felt ridiculous and humiliated. Why did she have to have these emotions? Her mind told her that everything was meaningless, and if that were the case then losing a debate was meaningless too, and she would have no reason to feel this way. And now she was sitting here telling herself how much she hated her emotions - what a paradox. -"Okay." She finally admitted with a deep sigh. "I admit I missed that one... but it still doesn't explain why an almighty and good God would allow the world to be such a place."-"True. Basically the church has answered this question in two different ways - one acceptable, and one moronic. The most common explanation is that, God wants to rid all the evil from this world, but unfortunately there is a Devil, as well and he does everything he can to sabotage this. This explanation, of course, is the moronic one because it actually turns the Devil into a god and explains that God does not in fact have all power - he has maybe 51% of it. I believe this explanation has become so common because it doesn't allow one to doubt God's good intentions." He paused and cleared his throat. "The other explanation states that God can rid this planet of evil any day he wants to, but for some reason he hasn't done it yet. This of course raises the question: 'What could possibly be good enough a reason to allow all that is happening in the world to happen?' I think we have to look at the whole thing this way: The reason is that God wants to allow goodness to exist." Daria wasn't quite sure she understood what Lex meant, but with the recent humiliation fresh in mind (which she had no one to blame for but herself) and the fact that she was slowly gaining respect for this old man she answered cautiously: -"I'm not sure I get your meaning. I don't see how murder, rape and genocide can promote goodness." -"They can't. But if the possibility to do evil does not exist, then the possibility to do good does not exist either. If you place a man on a deserted island and let him stay there for thirty years, is he a good person just because he has never lied, cheated, raped, murdered or stolen in all that time?" Now Daria finally realised what he was getting at. Whatever she had thought about this man previously she was ready to take it back. She wasn't sure that he was right about anything, but he definitely made some serious points, and that alone was enough for her. -"No, of course not. He might very well have wanted to do all those things, he just never had a chance." -"Very good." -"But I'm still not sure I see why God can't use his power, to... say at least keep the possibility of evil down to a minimum." -"Because it would limit the possibility of goodness to a minimum, perhaps? Wait. Don't say anything... Let me tell you a little fairytale that might help shed a little more light on this. It may be a little naive, but I hope you won't feel embarrassed... You see, once upon a time there was this king who lived in a country far away from here. This king was a very powerful one and not much happened in the kingdom without him knowing about it. One day he fell in love with a woman whom he also married. Their marriage seemed perfect and the king was not only an excellent regent, but an excellent and faithful husband as well. One day he received the shocking news, though: His wife was having an affair with another man. The king of course was outraged, and he ordered her lover to be decapitated. His wife he locked up in the attic where she was never to see other men... Now I've got a question for you: Does this story end with the words '...and they lived happily ever after'?" -"Somehow I seriously doubt that." -"Oh? And why is that?" -"You can't force someone to love you. It simply doesn't work that way. His wife will probably resent him for the rest of their miserable lives." -"Absolutely right. And this is God's dilemma. God wants our love, but the problem is that we tend to love the temptations of the Devil more than we love God. Now the Devil is not the problem. God could kill him off any day. The things we do are not the problem either. God could easily restrain us, and force us to do things his way. The problem is that that would still have no effect on our hearts, because power is a completely useless instrument when it comes to love." Daria thought about this. The whole conversation had suddenly taken a very unexpected turn. These were thoughts that were completely new to her and she wasn't quite sure how to relate to them... -"You can also look at it from another perspective." Lex continued. "Although God has all power in the universe, he is also all-wise and that means knowing what power is good for and what it's not - a perspective we humans all too often lack. Therefore in the kingdom of God there is something of a 'backward' logic that applies to everything that has to do with power. Earthly kingdoms spread by conquering nearby kingdoms slaying the people living there. The kingdom of God spreads when its own 'citizens' are slain as martyrs by others. There is no more perverted form of Christianity than a church with earthly power undertaking crusades." He sighed deeply and slowly shook his head. This was apparently a subject he had gone over in his mind countless times over the years. "Do you celebrate Christmas?" He unexpectedly asked. -"Well if you call spending even more time than usual with your family celebrating..." Lex chuckled at this quip. -"Have you ever thought about what it represents?" -"The ultimate triumph of the greeting card industry?" At this he actually laughed out loud for several seconds. Despite his profession he seemed to have an understanding for cynical humour. -"Funny, but I was thinking more along the lines of that God lets himself be born into this world as a helpless child, and then thirty-something years later lets himself be tortured to death. Why would someone with all the power in the universe go through something like that if power could actually be used to solve the problem?" -"Okay. I get your point. Provided your assumptions regarding God are correct, I guess it's theoretically possible for him to be good and almighty, but there is one thing I still don't get." -"What's that?" -"Well, this whole thing about meaning and moral still seems a bit vague to me..." -"Vague? In what way?" -"Well... Like what's it all about?" -"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." -"Was that the meaning or the moral?" -"Both, actually." -"So you're saying the meaning of life is about... love?" Daria asked incredulously. She wasn't really sure how what to make of all this. The conversation had started out so strictly intellectual, and now it seemed to get very sappy very fast - she wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not... -"If you really want to make a distinction I guess you could say that the meaning is about relations and the moral is about love." Daria stared into her now empty bottle of soda without saying anything. After the anxiety she had been through she actually had nothing against the possibility of a God... especially not if there was a possibility that the theodicy problem wasn't unsolvable. When she didn't say anything Lex kept talking. -"It's really not that hard to understand. You've probably realised that in order for something to be meaningful, it must always be meaningful?" -"Yes?" -"So you can always put the question this way: 'What can you take with you from here?' " -"Uh... I was always under the impression that you couldn't take anything with you." -"Absolutely true, but there is always the chance that other people will be there. People you knew over here." -"So you can take relations with you?" -"That's at least the way I see it: Everything you do for other people, because you care about them is meaningful. Everything you do for the sake of yourself is not." -"You emphasised 'because you care about them'. Is that a condition?" -"Yup. Everything else is just dead works. Even if I donated everything I owned to the poor or let myself be burned alive for the sake of others, but did it without charity - it would all add up to nothing." -"How come?" -"Because one can become moral only in passing." -"Huh?" -"It's really quite simple. A person who has charity is moral by default. You don't need to educate him with, say the Ten Commandments. He will follow them without thinking about it. On the other hand a person who lacks charity is almost completely incapable of being moral. Such a person can force himself to act moral through an act of will, but in reality he won't be moral." -"Could you explain the difference between acting and being moral?" -"Simple. The person who only acts moral does so out of his own egotistical motivation. He does it because of fear of retribution, or because he hopes for a reward." -"A reward in Heaven?" -"Heaven is usually a little to 'far away' to actually cause any motivation of this kind. More often it's about the reward of being regarded a moral person by others. Sometimes it's even about being able to regard oneself as a moral person - to put one's conscience to rest. I guess you could say that acting moral and being moral relate to each other much in the same way prostitution relates to love." -"But if God wants people to be moral and not only act moral then what is stuff like the Ten Commandments doing in the Bible? It's not like they seem very conditional, or anything." -"You're absolutely right. The law is merely knowledge of sin. This means: It gives me the chance to live up to its demands. It even comes with the promise that those who live by the law shall gain eternal life through it. I can read through the law, and I'll realise that this is all very good, and although some of these things seem a bit hard, none of them should be impossible. Then I can try to live up to the law - and fail miserably. It doesn't look all that hard in theory, and it is completely impossible in reality. That's my chance to gain some valuable knowledge about myself. I can ask myself why I do the things I hate, and why the things I want to do seem so impossible to do. The answer is as simple as it is uncomfortable: I am not what one could call 'A good person'. I'm not capable of goodness even when I try." -"O-o-okay." Daria wasn't quite sure what to make of this theological exposition. -"If you didn't get all of it, don't take it too hard. In fact most Christians don't seem to be able to grasp the purpose of the law either, but the bottom line is: I have got to realise that I'm a jerk." -"You're just being polite when you talk about yourself, aren't you? You're really talking about me, right?" -"Me, you, all mankind." Lex replied with a shrug. -"And you're convinced that things are really that bad?" -"If righteousness come by the law - in other words: If we could be moral in our own power. - then Christ is dead in vain. But if you're suspicious toward the Scriptures, we can always make a little thought experiment... How many people would become unemployed if man was righteous?" -"Pardon?" -"What jobs, what professions would become unnecessary if man was righteous?" -"Um..." Daria started to think about this. She had never thought about moral from that perspective before, but it seemed to be a rather interesing one. "Well I suppose we wouldn't need any police, since there wouldn't be any crime... And I guess most lawyers would have to go too, if people were able to settle their differences amicably." -"Good start. What else?" -"Everyone in the military, and industries depending on the military would probably have to go - not much use for that if there would be no wars." -"What about guards, locksmithts, manufacturers of burglar alarms?" -"They'd be out of a job too." -"People working at paydesks? Meter maids?" -"Gone. The shops could be of the self-service kind and people would pay anyway, and no one would park illegally." -"Politicians?" -"Well, normally different parties are needed to watch each other. This prevents power abuse, but if man was righteous... I suppose it would be possible to have a one-party system that would actually work, so... a lot of politicians would have to go." -"And it doesn't stop there I promise you... but I think you see my point. If people would suddenly become righteous we would get an unemployment such as we haven't seen since the crash on Wall Street 1929. This, simply because so many of our jobs exist for the single purpose of keeping other people's inrighteousness in check." -"I must admit it would explain a thing or two..." -"What kind of things did you have in mind?" -"Well... For instance how we never seem able to create a well functioning society. If your theory is correct then there can never be a really decent society, because the fault lies in man himself." -"Oh, my! The good Lord has really equipped you with a first class brain, hasn't he? You're absolutely right, of course. If the concrete is watery, the reinforcement iron rusty and the timber is decayed there is no way you can build a good house, even if you hired the finest architects. No matter what kind of system you build people will always try to exploit it for their own benefits." Daria wasn't easily flattered, but the comment about her brain caused her to blush, ever so slightly. -"Nobody likes a flatterer." She said, half kidding. -"On the contrary - There are very few people who don't like flatterers and suck-ups." -"Yeah, I know, I know. I was just kidding." -"Have you ever thought about why it is that way?" -"Umm... Not really, I've always thought it to be obvious that people like to recieve praise." -"Do you recall what the most original sin was in the Bible?" -"Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit?" -"Yes, but what was their motivation? What was the argument the snake used to convince them to eat?" -"To tell you the truth, I don't remember." -"For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil... The temptation was as irresistible as it was simple - You can become like God! Ever since that day man has been obsessed with receiving power, glory and praise, because all these things are part of the divine. Ever since that day people have constantly been competing against each other in order to receive praise. Where do you suppose athletes get their motivation to practice day in and day out? Why do you think people keep pushing, trying to advance their career, even though they have more than enough money? Different people have different ambitions, but they all have the same goal - to receive praise and glory. Even a guy bragging to his classmates over his abilities to 'pick up chicks' is just a primitive form of the very same phenomenon applied by someone who lacks other talents." -"I'm afraid to even ask what people with no talent whatsoever do..." -"Write Internet fan fiction with the hope that someone will actually bother to read it, maybe even send feedback - or praise, whatever. After receiving positive feedback they feel good about themselves for ten minutes or so, and this causes them to write more..." -"That's really pathetic." -"I know." -"Okay, these are some interesting implications, I must admit - but it's still only implications..." Daria said, wondering where this discussion would go next. -"You're absolutely right. That's because we are talking about the connection between the physical reality, and the metaphysical reality. True knowledge of the metaphysical reality can, as I explained, only be received from God. When working on these problems on our own, we're limited to the implications we can derive from what we see in the physical reality." -"I realise this - I just wish it wasn't so." -"Well it's not as bad as it sounds. You can tell a lot from mere implications. You see a religion that only makes statements about the metaphysical reality is practically impossible to make an acid test on, but I have yet to see such a religion. In order for the religion to be relevant in any way it must connect its metaphysical reality to the physical reality we experience. Religions do not only make statements about God, they also makes statements about man. These statements are a lot easier to check out, and in this case Christianity is unique." -"In what way?" -"It's the only religion that is thoroughly pessimistic about man and his prospects. In fact it's so pessimistic that it states that the only way you can be moral enough to come up to the mark, is to let someone else do it for you." -"Okay, okay. I see what you're getting at... But can you answer me one thing...?" -"Shoot." -"How come that even God isn't able to create a moral that works?" -"Good question. The main problem with moral as such is that it's not a private matter. In order for moral to achieve the desired effect it must be agreed on and followed by, at least the major part of the population." -"I can see that. But why is that a problem?" -"Well, picture it this way: You have come to the conclusion that a certain level of moral is required if society is going to be able to function properly. For the sake of this thought experiment we'll also assume that you're in a position of power, and you're actually able to influence the decision making process. What do you do?" -"I suppose I'd do the same thing they're doing now. Legislate." -"Legislation? It wouldn't be enough just to inform people of this?" -"Well if it's not law, then it really doesn't count in the eyes of most people." -"Okay, and if people chose to break those laws?" -"Again - I would have to do the same thing they're doing now." -"Put them through a trial? Convict them?" -"Exactly." -"Is that good moral?" -"Huh?" -"Is that good moral? To force people to live up to your moral standards?" -"But you just said that this was about a moral code that was required in order for society to function properly." -"Yes, but that wasn't the question. The question was whether it's good moral to force your moral standards onto people who don't want to have anything to do with them." Daria was just about to answer that it was indeed a morally sound thing to do if it truly was required for the functionality of society, when she was cut off. -"Wait, don't answer yet. I want to you to picture another situation first. Let's say that there would suddenly be an Islamic revolution in this country - I know how likely it is, this is just another thought experiment. Anyway, when you wake up tomorrow morning you'll unexpectedly be notified that the constitution is now based upon Islamic religious law. This, according to the rebels who are now in power, will result in ultimate happiness for all the people of the United Islamic States of America. You quickly familiarise yourself with the new constitution, but you decide that the dress code for women is just plain stupid and you choose to ignore it. Later that afternoon you're arrested for breaking the law. Now, if this was to happen: Would the rebels be doing a morally sound thing? If not, then why would your actions from the first thought experiment be morally sound?" This was a point of view Daria hadn't expected... The easiest thing would of course have been to answer yes, but she honestly didn't think anyone had the right to tell her how to dress. She suddenly began to see how complex and problematic the situation really was when it came to moral. People didn't necessarily agree on what was good moral, and what wasn't. It was the same problem that she had spoken with Jane about. Who had the right to define the moral? Why was one person's moral better than the other's? This still didn't quite answer her question about why God wasn't able to create a perfect moral, but she suspected Lex wasn't finished with his explanation just yet. -"Okay. I see your point. It's difficult to motivate why my moral is so much better than everybody else's is, that it would allow me to force my moral views onto them."-"Exactly. The entire process of forcing one's moral onto others introduces an element of poor moral in itself. Defining a moral that works well, should all people chose to live up to it is not very hard - it doesn't take a god, even people can do that. The problem lies in the words 'should all people'. Well what if they don't? The problem of moral is that those who have the highest moral ambitions always define it in theory, and those who have the lowest define it in practice." -"I think I get what you're saying. You mean that if I have a high moral standard, and see a person with a low such, I can do one of two things: I can ignore him - in which case he will continue to exercise his low moral, or I can fight him - in which case I have lowered myself to his level." -"Right. In both cases the poor moral will have triumphed over the good one, and in the light of this, it's really quite easy to see where all religious conflicts come from. If moral is to work as it's supposed to everyone has to believe in more or less the same way. It's been said that, in himself man is neither angel nor devil, but when he tries to become an angel he becomes a devil. This has a grain of truth in it. Man never becomes so evil as when he tries to create a paradise on earth. That was the goal of the Spanish inquisition. That was the goal of the third Reich. That was the goal of communist revolution. They all made the same mistake - they let the cause justify the means. The cause after all was so noble that a couple of millions of lives would be well worth it, right?" -"I guess this would be a good point to bring up tolerance?" -"Oh, yes tolerance. Voltaire's choice. You know what tolerance and warfare have in common?" -"No." -"The first victim of both is truth." -"How's that?" -"Well tolerance basically means that you make a compromise - and don't get me wrong - that's a lot better than people killing each other over religious disputes. It's no co-incidence that the concept of tolerance was born when the religious wars were raging at their worst. The problem is: Can you compromise with moral and still expect it to be good moral?" -"I guess it would be stupid to answer yes..." -"Right. And besides tolerance as a moral standard is still plagued with the exact same problems as all other forms of moral. What I'm saying is: What are you going to do if someone is intolerant? The answer, of course is that you still only have the same options as previously. You can either be tolerant towards his intolerance, or you can treat him with intolerance yourself, thus breaking your own moral. In our society we have chosen the latter and also chosen not to see it" -"What do you mean?" -"Have you ever noticed how we treat, for instance racists, in a racist manner yet still (and in fact because of that) consider ourselves morally superior?" -"Oh." Daria could in fact see that. She wondered why she hadn't seen it before. This day hadn't turned out so bad after all. It wasn't every day one had the benefit of a discussion this interesting. One thing was also certain. She had definitely not thought everything through as thoroughly as she thought she had, and she would have a lot of thinking to do once she got home... -"Okay." She finally said. "So if we have this 'damned if you do, damned if you don't'-situation, what's the best possible take on all of this? The 'charity'-moral?" -"Basically yes, but there are some serious pitfalls with that one as well - the most obvious one is the question of 'Who is thy neighbour?'." -"Yes?" -"This moral declares that you should love thy neighbour, and that the meaning of life is about relations - now the problem is: Relations with whom? You can't possibly be friends with every person on this Earth, and the problem really becomes obvious when you're in a position where your actions will benefit one part and hurt another, or vice versa." -"You mean like Sartre's question about the youngster who could either go into war and help his fellow countrymen or stay home with his old mother, being a support for her?" -"Precisely. Answer the question 'Who is thy neighbour?' and you've also defined the moral. Nietzsche answered the question by saying the man's neighbour was the Übermensch - the superhuman, presumably the next step in our evolution. For this reason all nonsense you had ever heard about empathy, compassion, helping the weak and so forth, was to be tossed out the window. This was poor moral, because it hindered man's evolution. Only the strong were supposed to survive! And the question on abortion: Who is thy neighbour - the mother or the child? Answer the question, and you've decided the moral. It's no co-incidence the anti-abortionists talk so much about the fetus, and ask provoking questions about what it means to be human, while the supporters talk about poor social conditions et cetera." -"So... you're saying that one can actually choose one's own moral depending on who one considers one's neighbour?" -"That's the bottom line, more or less. And don't get me wrong - sometimes you have to make a choice with nothing more to go on than that. The problem appears when people start to use the 'charity' for their own purposes. Take the husband - for instance. He has suddenly decided that 'he no longer loves his wife' and that it probably couldn't 'be considered love' to continue such a relationship - instead the 'truly Christian thing to do' would be to run off with the young supermodel 'he really loves'. After all - it's all about love, isn't it?" Lex' voice was dripping with irony as he said this, and his mimics through this last monologue were so intense, that Daria had to stifle her laughter. The old man really looked quite funny when he got absorbed by the subject. -"So your point is: One can use this kind of moral for one's own purposes? If one can find a way to do something in the name of love, it's all okay - how loathsome the result may ever be?" -"Right again. It's just a smaller scale version of the 'the cause justifies the means'-moral. If you can surround the cause with glamorous enough rethorics, you have (at least in your own opinion) justified your actions. This is the reason why I would never accept any moral that is in direct violation of the Scripture." He paused and looked at his empty coffee cup. "This has been a long discussion. I think I'm going to need another cup. Excuse me, waiter." He ordered another cup, which arrived quickly. Service appeared to be fast here - that was something Daria thought might be worth remembering. She hated places where you were covered in cobwebs before the first course arrived. After taking a sip he continued. -"I would say that a good morale is like a human body - it has both skeleton and softer tissue. An overly rigid moral code will make people hard and inflexible, crushing other people mercilessly - and that of course is bad moral, not good. That was the problem with the Pharisees, and that was the reason Jesus was in almost constant conflict with them. An overly flexible morale is just as bad, because it's so easy to find loopholes in it. You only have to find a way to claim that you're doing what you're doing out of love and you can justify anything." -"So how can one tell true moral from false?" -"Measure the sacrifice." -"Excuse me?" -"True moral is based on true love. As I already said - one can become moral only in passing. True love on the other hand is prepared to make sacrifices. It doesn't look out for it's own interests - it looks out for the interests of others. This is what makes love so wonderful. Someone who loves you looks out for you and cares about you, just because you're you. You don't have to earn love - in fact you can't. Love can't be bought, bribed or persuaded. This makes it all so restful. You don't continuously have to prove yourself to a person who loves you, that person will accept you anyway. This is also the reason relations are such a wonderful foundation for a meaning with life. If the meaning of life was based on function then we'd constantly have to prove ourselves, and we would still always know that we're replaceable. If you dropped dead today someone could always take your place and do the things you used to do. But now that the meaning is based on relations this is not possible, because no one could ever take your place since no one could ever be you. If you died today it would matter to all the people around you, and it would cause a wound that would take a long time to heal, and still leave a permanent scar." Daria sighed deeply. This discussion really felt like finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel - but she wasn't really convinced yet that it wasn't just the train coming toward her. -"But if morale is constituted in this manner, why is man so poorly adapted to it? Couldn't God do a little better job with his creation? Wait! Don't say anything yet. I know you're going to talk about the tree of knowledge and man's free will, but my point is: Couldn't God have created a man that would have made a better choice?" -"Not without compromising man's free will. You see, you overestimate the meaning of the word 'almighty'. God can do anything that is within the range of the thinkable, but there is one category of things that are truly impossible and that is the category where the impossibility is built into the system - or logical impossibilities. A logical impossibility is the philosopher's answer to an M.C. Escher painting. It looks like it is something - but it isn't. For instance it would be impossible for God to create a circular triangle. The whole thing is a contradiction in terms. Maybe you've heard the old trick question: 'Can God create a rock so big that he can't lift it?' The answer, of course is no. God can create a rock of any size he wants, and he'll always be powerful enough to lift it. The same thing with man - it's impossible to create a being that on the one hand has a free will, and on the other is incapable of making the wrong decision - even for God." -"But is really man's free will that important?" -"Yes, it is - otherwise all the world would be a stage and all the men and women, merely puppets. None of your actions would have any meaning if you weren't able to mean anything with them. The entire history of man would be useless if everything was predestined to happen, not to mention that it would also sabotage the whole idea about love. Love after all wouldn't have the effect it has if you knew that everyone who loved you did it because they had no choice." -"Okay, but that raises another question: If history is not predestined, then how do you explain the concept of prophecy?" -"Just because God knows the future, it doesn't mean that history is predestined - not in the way we think about predestination anyway. You see God exists outside of time. He created time and is not dependent of it the same way we are. From his point of view history is already finished, and hasn't even started yet, at the same... uh...? time? If we try to think through what this means... well let's just say that I've tried and haven't got much more than a headache for my trouble. From our point of view, however everything we do causes some sort of effect, and we're responsible for those effects." He picked up his cup and held it up in the air. "Now I've got a choice. I can drop this cup against the pavement, causing it to shatter, or I can just place it back on the saucer." He placed the cup back on the saucer and made a gesture with his hand toward it. "The fact that God knew that I would do that even before I did, doesn't mean that my free will has been compromised or that I had to do that. I could very well have dropped it... -"You'd better believe him." The waiter who happened to be nearby chipped in. "We've lost two cups that way." -"Hey, I paid for those." Lex answered, then he turned back to Daria. "I could just as well have dropped it, and God would have known that beforehand too. Just because someone knows how history will end doesn't mean that we have no influence. Just because someone is smart enough to figure out how I'm going to act, doesn't mean I can't act any way I want, or that I wouldn't be responsible for my actions. I know some people have argued that 'It doesn't really matter what you do, because God already knows whether you're going to heaven or hell, and if you're destined to be in hell there's nothing you can do about it.' Those people have, however seriously mixed up cause and effect. That person isn't going to hell because God sees him there. God sees him there because his actions are taking him there. It's not like gravity exists because the apple falls to the ground. The apple, of course, falls to the ground because the of the existence of gravity." -"Okay, I get that last part, but I'm still not quite sure I see the difference between God's omniscience and the 'billiard table'-theory..." Daria cautiously admitted. -"The main difference is that in the case of the billiard table the predestination is an active force within the system, whereas God's omniscience is a passive knowledge outside the system. That of course doesn't eliminate the possibility that God can interact with the system, should he wish to do so." -"Okay, that makes sense... Then I guess there is just one more thing I'd like to ask." -"No problem." -"The question about hell. I'm sure you've heard it." -"How a loving God can sentence anyone to eternal damnation?" -"Yeah." Go to Part 6 |