Murdering God

While more posts, after a long hiatus, will be developed soon, I thought I would share some of one of my favorite writer’s (Philip Goodchild’s) work, a spectacular moment of vulnerability which occurs in the preface of his magisterial volume, Capitalism and Religion: The Price of Piety.

This book emerged from the tension between four powerful insights – insights bringing problems, no solutions. The last insight to arrive was the contemporary truth of suffering: a growing awareness that current trends in globalization, trade and the spread of technology are not only leading towards a condition where the human habitat is unsustainable, but the urgency and responsibility announced by this preventable catastrophe mean that little else is worth thinking about. . . As a whole, however, my work is grounded in an ‘idea’ – or perhaps I should say ‘experience’ – of what I will call ‘God’. This ‘idea’ was so overwhelming and so distinct from our customary ways of thinking that, while intelligible in itself, it remains incommunicable until it has called into question and reformulated all existing categories of philosophy and theology. Finally, the work of the revaluation of values which may lead to the cessation of suffering was developed in the form of the ‘murder of God’ –  the actual work of calling into question the fundamental concepts and values of the European tradition. (xiii-xiv)

The provocative ‘murdering of God’ is a necessity, especially when it comes to overturning those ways of being, ways of relating to others, that are dominant but which bring forth suffering. Here, Goodchild is insistent on the immense importance of finding new ways to value. Or, perhaps, hearkening back to older traditions of value, lost ways of determining worth. Our dominant systems (of discourse, trade, sociality), while often gesturing toward ideas like ‘human rights’, ‘justice’, ‘the good’, ‘God’, are only superficially intertwined with various ways of thinking about them. Instead, what Goodchild realizes and explicates in his broader corpus, is the way that money is what determines the way in which those prior signifiers are thought. To the point that the dominant religion simply is money. Money is God now.

But, here, we see that this isn’t just a cold ‘just the facts’ sort of discourse. In fact, doing so would be mirroring the sort of mirage of the ‘fact/value’ distinction that many modern economists assert.

Goodchild continues, though:

Each of these insights  fractured my self-consciousness, exposing an abyss beneath my thoughts and relations to myself, to others and to the world. I became a stranger to those closest to me as well as to myself.  Each issue imposed itself as a dynamic force on thought, a problem of unlimited importance that I feel barely equipped to begin to address. Moreover, these are not personal but universal and global problems, imposing the responsibility on each person to find an appropriate way of addressing them. In the case of each problem, however, there is only a minority who feel the impact of its force. . . The public consensus is engaged in a vast enterprise of evasion, sheltering in a wicked and lethal complacency. . . Thinking is nearly as dangerous as complacency. (xiv)

Engaging in the problems of contemporary economy, then, is of the most immense importance, such that even thinking seriously about it causes immense pain and ignites crisis. As Goodchild mentions, while there is an importance, for him, in the issues of ‘liberal norms’ such as toleration, rights, and also post-structural notions of difference, alterity, and locality, these take a seat to the overwhelming insight of suffering, but not just any suffering. Here, we are talking about universal suffering found in the univocal policies which are bringing about ecological crises which may eliminate the human race in under two centuries.

Maybe it is only though investing ourselves in these problems, problems which hurt to think about, that we can turn back the tides of collapse.

And, this will undoubtedly call for murdering God, because the global God isn’t the God of natural theology, nor Christianity, nor Islam; effectively, in the practicality of every day life, our God is something else. And, it is killing us.

 

Being Enslaved to “Freedom”

As some may know Alyssa and I just moved to the UK. To Canterbury, specifically, which is where The Church of England’s Archbishop of Canterbury resides. Practically every corner turned in the city confronts the individual with the long history of England either by way of simply walking the cobblestone paths, or bucking up next to the rather overwhelming Canterbury Cathedral. The spires can be seen from nearly any part of the city and certainly makes for great scenery. I could go on, but I will leave the posts concerning Alyssa’s and my adventure to her. Her articulation of those subjects are much more defined than mine would be!

Instead, I wanted to draw out, to delineate really, some thoughts that have been brewing for a few days. The thoughts were brought about through reading Philip Goodchild’s recent book Theology of Money. A further catalyst would be the strange housing situation we have found ourselves in. I won’t bother you with the aesthetic details (though, here we encountered problems). The real difficulty has been our downstairs neighbor, a young, loud, and promiscuous female of quite salty character (from what I can gather). Alyssa and I have generally had great, quiet, and orderly neighbors. This is a first for us, being in such strange territory.

Last night I settled in next to the window to read some of Goodchild’s book. Around 1 in the morning I was interrupted with the loud howling of several inebriated people. Several incidents proceeded after this one, but the actions that occurred last night (which I will not detail for reasons of decency) really brought to the forefront some of the implicit issues Goodchild hammers home.

I find myself often thinking about issues of common good, ultimate concern, and supposed universal appeals to foundational issues in justice and the “good”. Despite what chatty television-hosts and witty, rhetorical bloggers may write there really isn’t an easy answer to the question of where one can pin-point the proper foundation to these issues. Perhaps the most appeal is put toward “freedom” or “individuality,” as if these terms, these oscillating and nebulous signifiers, really have a stable or definite meaning. Democracy is the safe-guard of freedom, and the credit that guarantees the political significance of the individual (as long as said individual is within the common boundary of a majority that discerns what is “good” for all). Of course, there is the easy criticism that truth is not what a majority makes! Or would we want to unearth a pre-Socratic notion that “might makes right” (though we would not be the first to resurrect the idea…)?

More can be said about democracy and it’s failure, its absurdity as an actualizable political ideal (questions of will come up, and questions of autonomy of will and thought; the public will of the people is dictatorship. Moreover, in the clash of opinions found in liberal democracy the ground upon which decision is made is not through the articulation of truth as truth, but through the articulation of truth through competition and advertisement; only that which is appealing will win, and that which has universalizable appeal comes down to wealth-building) , but those will have to be dissected later, even though they run right up against my main point.

What I find most pointed and interesting in this moment is the conception of freedom that our culture (Western culture) has become so enamored with. “Freedom” doesn’t usually mean too much, though it’s appeal is rather ubiquitous. As Goodchild suggests it usually refers to freedom from (negative freedom, as opposed to a Thomistic account) “public representations of divine command or sacred good”; “to determine one’s will through entering into contracts in the marketplace”; and “to master a portion of nature or dispose of one’s property as one pleases.”

This is all well and good, but as Goodchild goes on to point out, “Lacking public representations or manifestations of a common good, free and open debate must necessarily settle on such individual freedom as its lowest common denominator.” This can open up all sorts of manipulation, allowing the tool of governance to appeal to such common good for the use of force or defense in emergency.

When a person appeals to freedom they usually don’t think of freedom in quite the same way, or rather they wouldn’t word it in such a fashion. But, basically, there is a “universal appeal to the immediate interests” of property and negative and some positive freedoms. Such desires are utopian, ultimately, because as Goodchild points out a public representation of truth and justice are only found through manipulation and persuasion. Then, “freedom of expression is dependent on the constraint on others to be persuaded.” There can’t be ultimate or universal freedom because someone is always constrained in some way; ultimate, universalizable freedom is an illusion, an “impossible ideal born of representation and abstraction, projections of an idealized condition in which humanity cannot survive or flourish.”

Going much further, this utopianism is certainly theological because it deals with emancipation in such a universalizable way. And this secular theology aspires “for a condition of atheism where one is finally unconditioned by God or nature.”

Because of this, I wonder if there isn’t some latent theology, a sort of idol, of the self that can be seen through the night-life of teenagers and 20 somethings. This isn’t just a United Kingdom problem. It is just as pervasive in the US; ours is secretive, though, and our progeny hide their promiscuity through the make-up of Sunday morning services. Freedom is the autonomy of the self, it is the ability to “dispose of one’s property” as he or she pleases. In a culture that finds commodification a way of life it comes naturally to view the subject as property. Freedom serves wealth, as wealth is the obvious universalizable. Wealth opens up possibility; and when our theology is defined as aspiring to be “unconditioned by God or nature” the possibilities serve the gods of pleasure.

I feel sad when I hear the promiscuous tales my neighbor regales her friends with. Not sad for myself because I need sleep, but sad for her because she serves representation, and representation (what the mind desires and articulates but is always decontextualized and therefore illusion) is a cruel mistress. Freedom only comes through direction, and direction through truth and justice, ideas that cannot be attained through freedom as understood by the majority.

God Does Not Exist.

Broaching the question of God’s existence is a large task, and one that many have done previously, and will continue to do for a long time to come. Too often it is peppered with ad hominems, straw men, and other fallacies; also too often there is an ungraciousness characterized by the usual Youtube comment section.

But, I must confess, this blog post has little to do with questions of whether theism or atheism sketch a proper view of reality (or whether certain theisms or atheisms come closer than others). Really, I want to provocatively state that God does not exist  following then with an importance nuance to the statement, showing that our use of terms and our conceptions can often be rather reductionist, and thereby lead to fruitless discussions or improper conceptions of God.

 

So, the statement: God does not exist. There, I said it.

But what does that really mean? In fact, what does it mean to say a thing exists or does not exist? And, can we create a close analogy between a mere thing, which we say “exists” and God, which can be described variously as the “fullness of existence” or “pure actuality” or some other philosophically/theologically rich  turn of phrase?

To quote from David Bentley Hart,

“the most pervasive error one encounters in contemporary arguments about the belief in God– especially, but not exclusively, on the atheist side– is the habit of conceiving of God simply as some very large object or agency within the universe, or perhaps alongside the universe, a being among beings, who differs from all others beings in magnitude, power, and duration, but not ontologically, and who is related to the world more or less as a craftsman is related to an artifact.” (The Experience of God, pp. 32-33)

In too much contemporary discourse people speak of God as if there is no conceptual difference between  ontological distinctives, between the metaphysical description of God (something that is shared between Christians, Jews, Muslims, certain Hinduisms, and certain Buddhisms) and a description of the category of gods, demi-gods, and the like. What is that famous phrase?

“I believe in neither God nor in the fairies at the bottom of my garden.”

But, here we have a brushing away of a serious topic, and the rather crude and incoherent parallel of fairies and God. Maybe fairies and Zeus, but God as an ontologically distinct being, the grounding of existence, is another thing altogether. This is precisely why arguments by some like Dawkins and Krauss and others just fail; there is an error at the outset because they are arguing against some sort of demiurgic being, not God.

But, the problem is also that many defenders of God, reduce God to some being that merely exists in the universe along with all other contingent realities. He is the Intelligent Designer, and this moniker is the premier description of who God is. But, here too often the theist fails by primarily noting God through description as merely the demiurge who has fashioned reality, not as the distinct grounding of being.

The sharp point is that many on any side of the religious divisions (whether theist, atheist, or apatheist) do not realize that God occupies a different ontological realm than all other beings, he is distinct in modality. When we speak of the existence, then, of God, we need to realize that existence carries with it certain baggage and we must to step beyond the simple use of the term and realize that there are different modalities of existence. Some things are contingent, and some things are absolute (though, that isn’t to say that some think these categories are mistaken; I disagree, obviously).

So, through semantical wrangling, it is certainly true that God does not exist, well, God does not exist in the same way that contingent realities exist. On the other hand God is the grounding of existence, or fullness of existence as well, that which upholds contingent realities upon the vertical plane of reality.

 

(Yeah, I know. The post name was a sort of bait and switch. Did you really think I was coming out of the closet as an atheist??)