Pet Love as Idolatry?

Problems of attachment and grief.

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Comments

[Elliott]

Excellent post, Bill. You wrote: “Obviously, these two senses, which are often strong in one and the same person, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton for example, cannot both be veridical.”

You are quite right. Since I was young, I’ve had both senses and often find myself wondering how I can have these inconsistent senses. It seems neither sense is certain enough to defeat the other. I have a sense of the divine, and yet I’m very attuned to passages like the following from Section VI of Chekhov’s Ward No. 6 :

“Life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape. Indeed, he is summoned without his choice by fortuitous circumstances from non-existence into life . . . what for? He tries to find out the meaning and object of his existence; he is told nothing, or he is told absurdities; he knocks and it is not opened to him; death comes to him -- also without his choice.”

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ward_No._6

By the way, the passage from Chekhov seems to anticipate Heidegger’s thesis of thrownness and Sartre’s forlornness.

P.S. I’m sorry to hear about Caissa and Zeno. How are Manny K and Max?

[EG]

Bill,

This was a deep and moving post, as it has spoken to some of the issues that have vexed my mind of late. I remain indebted and grateful to the clarity, care and sensitivity that you pour into these posts, and I am heartened to know firmly that this sense of reality is not one that I possess alone. I sometimes struggle with this tension between attachment and nonattachment, and it is helpful and therapeutic in a consolatory fashion. Thank you.

[EG]

Elliot,

The reading, Ward No. 6 is captivating. Thanks for sharing.

[BV]

Elliot,

You are quite right about Chekhov anticipating both Heidegger and Sartre. To underscore what is obvious to you, but may not be to others: I am using 'absurd' to mean the existentially meaningless, the groundless, the brute-factual, the intrinsically unintelligible. The absurdity of existence in this sense of 'absurd' is what elicited Sartre's and Roquentin's nausea. The sheer, meaningless, disgusting, facticity of the chestnut tree referenced in the eponymous novel, for example, described by Sartre as *de trop* and as an unintelligible excrescence.

Max and Manny K are both doing well. Manny is the more 'spiritual.' He meditates with me in the morning. T. S. Eliot has a theory as to what cats meditate on. About that, later.

If a Calvinist tells me that the SENSUS DIVINITATIS proves the existence of God, I will ask why the SENSUS ABSURDITATIS does not prove the nonexistence of God. Both senses are widespread in people and in some cases to be found in one and the same person. They cannot both be revelatory of the way things are. Reality cannot be both intrinsically intelligible and also intrinsically unintelligible.

I would also insist that neither sense can be dismissed as delusional. Galen Strawson: "If someone claims to have a sensus divinitatis that picks up a Christian God, they are deluded." Pure bluster! See here: https://williamfvallicella.substack.com/p/galen-strawson-on-god

Just as bad would be a theist who claimed that the sense of absurdity is a byproduct of a rebellious refusal to accept divine authority, a noetic consequence of sin, or a suppression of what they, deep down, really know to be true.

In both cases, rank psychologizing.

[BV]

EG,

You're very welcome.

[Elliott]

EG,

You’re welcome. Several of the 19th Century Russian novelists and short-story writers had a good sense of existentialist themes.

[Elliott]

Bill,

Bluster indeed!

As you no doubt would agree, blustering and psychologizing are not philosophizing. To modify the Latin maxim quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur:

What is asserted by bluster is deniable with minimal muster.

>>If a Calvinist tells me that the SENSUS DIVINITATIS proves the existence of God, I will ask why the SENSUS ABSURDITATIS does not prove the nonexistence of God.<<

This hypothetical Calvinist seems to hold that the sensus divinitatis is sufficient for knowledge with objective certainty that God exists.

Consider a short argument against the Calvinist. Let’s assume the epistemic closure principle that knowledge is closed under known entailment (that is, if S knows that p, and S knows that p entails q, then S knows that q.) If one knows with objective certainty via the SD that God exists, then one knows with objective certainty that the thesis of absurdism is false, since the existence of God entails the falsity of absurdism (as we are using ‘absurd’). But, in my view, one does not know with objective certainty that absurdism is false. Thus, etc.

The Calvinist could reply that there are counterexamples to the principle that knowledge is closed under known entailment. But it seems there are ways to modify the principle to avoid the counterexamples. Something like this: if S knows that p, knows that p entails q, and properly combines these items of knowledge such that S forms the belief that q upon seeing that q is entailed by p, then S knows that q.

I don’t deny that the SD is evidence for God, but it is defeasible evidence, or so it seems to me. I don’t think the SD proves God’s existence.

[BV]

Elliot,

>>This hypothetical Calvinist seems to hold that the sensus divinitatis is sufficient for knowledge with objective certainty that God exists.<<

We need to consult the resident Calvinist, Brian Bosse, about what exactly Calvinists take the *sensus divinitatis* to show, but he is busy with his business as we speak. A relatively young guy, it will be a few years before he is freed up for *otium liberale.*

Your argument strikes me as correct in the second version if not in the first. Neither the SD nor the SA are probative. The SD does not prove the existence of God; the SA does not prove the nonexistence of God.

But both provide evidence of a sort for their respective theses. What sort? Not demonstrative evidence. Inductive? Abductive (in the sense of an inference to the best explanation)? Our Calvinist might claim that the best explanation of why so many experience the SD is that God exists. God 'implants' it in them! Our absurdist (the Camusian if you will) might reply that the best explanation of why so many experience the SA is that God does not exist. This leads to a standoff.

Calvinist counterreply: the absurdist suppresses the veridical SD, being the rebellious sinner that he is, and this partially conscious or unconscious suppression is what generates the SA.

But then our Calvinist is back to his rank psychologizing.

[BV]

Elliot,

We take a further step if we ask about this 'rank psychologizing' that I want to pin on Calvinists, presuppers, and even St Paul. (Romans 1: 18-20) One man's fallacy is another man's legitimate philosophical procedure!

A presupper (Van Til, Bahnsen, Flood, James N Anderson, et al.) -- are you reading this James? I am trying to seduce you into my C-box -- might claim that Elliot and I are presupposing that there is some point of view (POV) that is neutral and independent of any cognizer's psyche, including the divine psyche. God is an unembodied mind, right? (Let's not bring in the Incarnation lest we muddy already troubled waters.)

But aren't the presuppers presupposing that there is no such POV? Another standoff?

How break the impasse?

More later. We should pursue this . . .

[Elliott]

According to McAllister and Dougherty, the SD is a cognitive faculty by which one may acquire the non-inferential justified belief that God exists. https://philarchive.org/archive/MCARRE

[Elliott]

I support Brian’s efforts to get free for the otium liberale. Now that’s a liberal life I can get behind. Go, Bosse!

>>The SD does not prove the existence of God; the SA does not prove the nonexistence of God.<<

I agree. Neither sense is probative, but each provides some evidence for its respective thesis.

>>God 'implants' it in them!<<

I’m thinking quickly and somewhat off-the-cuff here. I’m reminded of Descartes’ argument (Meditations) that God caused the human idea ‘God.’

If I recall, the arguments goes something like this. (I haven’t yet referred back to Meditations to confirm if this is his argument.)

If one has the idea ‘God,’ there must be a cause of that idea (assuming that the idea is an effect). Humans have the idea ‘God.’ Thus, there must be a cause of that idea. A cause must be greater than or equal to its effect. Hence, the cause of the idea ‘God’ must be greater than or equal to that idea. But no human is sufficiently great to cause the idea ‘God.’ Therefore, the cause of ‘God’ must be greater than humans. The only cause greater than humans which is great enough for ‘God’ is God. Thus, God is the cause of ‘God’ in human minds. So, God exists.

Now, the idea ‘God’ seems different from the SD. The idea ‘God’ is an idea. The SD seems to be a cognitive faculty, as McAllister and Dougherty note. But it seems that the Calvinist could modify Descartes’ argument by replacing the idea ‘God’ with the SD.

I hold Descartes in high regard, but I have doubts about the claim that no human is sufficient to cause the idea ‘God.’ Suppose a human who is (a) aware of himself as a person, and thus has the idea ‘person,’ (b) aware of axiological relations such as ‘greater than,’ and (c) understands the concepts of infinity and supremeness. Why couldn’t such a human come up with the idea ‘God’ by reflecting on ‘human person,’ ‘greater than,’ 'supremeness,' and ‘infinity’? Why can't an Anselm come up with the idea of the greatest conceivable being? Why can't a Plato come up with the idea of a perfect being (Republic, Book II)?

Similarly, why couldn’t human doxastic customs generate the SD? Maybe some kids raised in theistic homes develop SD at a very young age, and the cause of that development is the theistic worldview in the home, church, etc. which settles into the young mind as a non-inferential sense before that mind reaches the age of intellectual maturity and begins to think critically and inferentially?

[BV]

Elliot,

Thanks for McAllister and Dougherty. I know Trent: smart guy. The paper is 37 pp long! Have you read it? A summary would be very useful, assuming you have time to produce one. But I know you are busy with teaching, family, etc.

[Elliott]

You’re welcome, Bill. I haven’t read the whole paper. I read the abstract and skimmed the intro section.

I’d be glad to do a summary, but unfortunately don’t have time now. I’m busy w/ four articles: one set to be published in April (I recently confirmed the page proofs); another submitted for review a few days ago; a third is almost finished; a fourth still in outline form.

One of my challenges is that all topics in philosophy interest me – not to mention topics outside of philosophy. I have to postpone pursuits of some interests to complete others. Otherwise, I won’t finish anything!

[BV]

Elliot,

You are hereby absolved from even the suggestion that you summarize such a long paper.

Like me, you suffer under the curse of Too Many Interests.

On the other hand, as Robert Heinlein once said, "Specialization is for insects."

[Elliott]

I wasn't aware of that line from Heinlein. It's a good one!

The challenge is to find a reasonable balance between depth and breadth, between intellectual spelunking and traveling widely to understand how it all hangs together.

Sellars: "The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term."

http://www.ditext.com/sellars/psim.html

I like that line from Sellars. But is broad understanding the only aim of philosophy?