Friday, September 21, 2012

Foucault VS Sayers (with apologies to G.K. Chesterton)

Foucault: I thought that I hated everything more than common men hate anything. But I find that I do not hate everything as much as I hate God.

Sayers: God never hated you.

Foucault: He never hated because He never lived! I know what He is, all of Him, from first to last: He is the people in power! He is the police, the great fat, smiling men in blue and buttons! He is the Law, and He has never been broken. But is there not a free soul alive that does not long to break Him, for no other reason than that He has never been broken? We who are in revolt talk all kind of nonsense about this or that crime of Government. It is all folly! The only crime of Government is that it governs. The unpardonable sin of the supreme power is that it is supreme. I do not curse Him for being cruel. I do not curse Him (though I might) for being kind. I curse Him for being safe! He sits in His chair of stone and has never come down from it. He is the Lord of angel armies, the one who knows the dwelling place of light and has seen the gates of deep darkness, and He has had no troubles. Oh, I could forgive You for everything, You who rule mankind, if I could feel for once that You have suffered for one hour of real agony like I have!

Sayers: I see everything now, including your error and your pain. It is good that you give glory to smallness, to the individual threads of the tapestry. But to say that the tapestry is ignorant of the threads and therefore the two are at odds? It is all a lie! Greatness knows all, including smallness; that is what makes it great. It has touched the heavens and the dirt. It has bent the knee. It has felt the plow and the whip and the horrible boot of the oppressor upon its back. That is the great truth of the Incarnation, which is not just a pious commonplace. It is not commonplace at all. What it means (among other things) is that for whatever reasons God chose to make man as he is---limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death---He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace, and He thought it all worthwhile, if for no other reason than that the real lie of Satan may be thrown back in your face! God has earned the right to say, "You lie!" For it is not true that He has never been broken; He was broken on the cross. It is not true that He has never descended from His throne; He has descended into hell. He too has suffered, beyond any man alive, for none have nor ever can drink of the cup that He drank for us all.

-Jon Vowell, et. al. (c) 2012


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