Image and Incarnation (an orthodox rebel's continued defense of art)

A stir has been raised about this seemingly innocuous cartoon that is meant to contrast the difference between really "following" Jesus and our society's weak understanding of "following". 

What has caused an uproar is not the message of the cartoon but rather the cartoon itself. Christians who read the 2nd commandment as forbidding all representations of Jesus/God are calling foul over the cartoon's apparent graveness. The blokes at Pyromaniacs (being sensible fellows) have decided to weigh in, giving a very common sense response to the whole mess. Unfortunately, they only succeeded in bringing the firestorm to their doorstep. I offered my own two-cents in the ensuing meta-tussle. Whether it is engaged with or not is outside my control. I have decided, however, to copy it here since it sums up (in admittedly negative form) my own thoughts on the nature of art and communication in regards to God's revelation to humanity.

Anyone who says that all representational art depicting Jesus/God is blasphemy are in fact committing blasphemy by espousing logic that is fundamentally anti-revelatory and (consequently) anti-Incarnational.

The primary modes of God's revelation to man (both general and special) are fundamentally imageic:

(1) His word is imageic.

It is completely wrong to say that there is some sort of chasmic distinction between the "verbal" and the "visual" when it comes to Scripture (or any form of literature, for that matter).

Ask yourself something: When you read the very imageic description of Christ in Revelation, does not an image form in your very mind that matches (or attempts to match) those words? What about the imagery of OT prophecies? Or the Psalms? Or the OT historical narratives? Or the Gospel stories about Jesus? Does not your mind form images by the very reading of the words? Of course it does; that his how our minds work: they are image making machines, especially when it reads the imagery that is inherent in language. The Bible is full of imagery, imagery that produces images in our own minds.

Using your logic in regards to images, however, that would make the Bible itself an occasion to sin, since its very words serve to produce images in our very minds. (Remember: the 2nd commandment does not just say "graven images"; it also condemns any "likeness".) Is the word of God now a matter of idolatry, since its very nature as literature leads us to create images in our own minds? According to your logic, it is.

(2) Creation is imageic.

How does your logic about the 2nd commandment square with Romans 1:19-20, which basically says that all of creation is one giant representation of God, "even His eternal power and Godhead"? Is all of creation (from every bird in a tree to every sunset in the sky) now an idol and an occasion to sin? According to your logic, it is.

(3) The Word is imageic.

Jesus is imageic in two ways: First, as a teacher of parables. Parables are basically stories, which involves using imagery, which involves creating images in the minds of the listeners. Was Jesus an idolater, then, giving his listeners an occasion to sin, when he taught his lessons about the Kingdom of God? According to your logic, he was.

Second, in being the "Word made flesh," Jesus is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). The Incarnation itself demonstrates (amongst other things) that God Himself is not adverse to physical representation in that He became His own physical representation in Jesus. According to your logic, however, Jesus (in being an "image of the invisible God") is himself an idol and abomination to God.

That is why your logic is blasphemous: it denies revelation on all counts including Jesus himself.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

A Minor Moment Against Spurgeon (an orthodox rebel's defense of art)

The following is a comment I made in response to this blog post at Pyromaniacs. I love reading the Pyros because of there staunch orthodoxy against all the lunacies of both secular and Christian post-modernism. However, on this rare occasion, I find reason to disagree with them; or more specifically, to disagree with one of their heroes: Charles Spurgeon. Every weekend, the Pyros post an excerpt from one of Mr. Spurgeon's excellent sermons. This time, however, his sermon wasn't so excellent. I suggest that you read it (it isn't long) before reading my response below.

Phil [the Pyro who posted the sermon]:

I have to say, as an artist myself (though not a catholic), I completely disagree with what Mr. Spurgeon has said here in regards to the material and the spiritual (except for that last part about God not despising "the tear that drops from a repentant eye"; that was awesome).

My disagreement is a matter of concern and not condemnation. I am concerned b/c Mr. Spurgeon's seemingly complete dismissal of the "material" sounds oddly gnostic in its implications.

I am glad that he enjoys (as we all should) "to hear the swell of organs, the harmony of sweet voices, the Gregorian chant" and to see "the choristers and priests, and the whole show of a grand ceremonial," but his thunderous dismissal of them and all "architecture," "music," and "fine arts" as "vanity" is dangerous. If the material world is so utterly useless in worshiping God, then why have church at all? Why those pulpits and pews? Why those buildings with their lofts and crosses? Why those hymnals and sermons written and spoken in language, a construction of man? Are they too not all equally "material" and thus equally "vain"? What of our bodies? Are they too not grossly "material"? In light of all this, should we not all become aesthetes in desert caves again, contemplating God in a complete spiritual way devoid of any vain and distracting physicality?

Of course, Spurgeon doesn't say that here (or anywhere for all I know), but my point is that I see no reason (given his view of the "material") why he shouldn't think that. That is my concern. His logic seems to lead us to a slippery slope.

I agree with Spurgeon that John 4:21-24 is saying that real worship is a spiritual affair (and thus the time will come when it won't matter which "mountain" that you worship in; vs. 21), but I don't see how Jesus is saying that all material forms of worship are now "vanity". I don't think the text says that. If I may speak a tad boldly about one of my betters, I think Mr. Spurgeon is making it say that for anti-Catholic reasons rather than for reasons of sound biblical exposition.

If all that Mr. Spurgeon is saying is that all our best efforts are filthy rags before God, then that is fine. But that is not all that he is saying (as far as I can tell): he is also saying that efforts in the artistic realm not only pale in comparison to God (something any sane artist would admit) but also that their very existence is a "mockery" to God as well as "vanity". That is where I disagree. As creatures made in God's image, we too are creators (though of a lesser sort); and whenever we create something that rings of truth and beauty, we are reflecting (however imperfectly) the image of God in that creation, truth, and beauty. Such a reflection brings Him glory. I wholly agree that such reflections are nothing when compared with the real thing (i.e., God Himself), but I completely disagree that God regards them as mockeries and vanities. The same God that is supposedly against the artistic flair of "popish ritual" is the same God who adorned His own house with gold and priests. The same God who does not despise the tear of the repentant eye neither despises the painting of the repentant hand.

I'm willing to be wrong about my understanding of Spurgeon's sermon, though it won't rock my world either way. Spurgeon is just a man. A great man, and a great Christian, but still a man all the same. As such, it's no crime to disagree with him, something I know that you know.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

 

Homily 9: On the Similarity of Christianity and Nihilism (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"O God, the nations are come into thy inheritance. They have defiled thy holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps. They have given the dead bodies of thy servants as meat to the fowls of heaven, the flesh of thy saints to the beasts of the earth. They have shed their blood like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them." Ps. 79:1-3

There is something strong and solid about the Christian Faith. It looks boldly into every fact and facet of reality, including the presence and power of evil. To put it perhaps controversially, there is something manly about the Christian take on evil, something more manly than all the other philosophies and religions of the world, manly in this way: it acknowledges the fact of evil as well as the fact of its defeat. Starting from such grounds, evil is a matter of neither surprise nor despair. The Christian can face any evil with equal parts gravity and levity, furiously engaging evil as a thing to be fought and yet joyously acknowledging that ultimate victory is in the hands of another who has already triumphed (Col. 2:13-15). In that sense, Christianity is not like the childish optimism of some that either spiritualizes evil away as a mere product of the mind or marginalizes it away as a mere bad habit to be kicked rather than an active principle that must be fought. The philosophy of "We are the world" and the religion of "The world is I" are both soft faiths; they regularly shatter against the ragged rocks of our broken world.

Neither is Christianity like the cowardly pessimism of others. We do not blow the trumpet for the triumph of evil, nor do we believe in the ultimacy of impersonal brutality that we are helpless before. We are incredulous towards nihilism. We do not believe that all is lost or meaningless, nor that it is better to be at the right hand of the Devil than in his path. It is exactly in his path that Christianity stands like a rock undaunted. Surrender is not an option; that point must be stressed. Christianity's acknowledgment of evil's reality can make us seem like just another pessimism, which is near the truth (e.g., Original Sin is highly pessimistic) but not quite. There is a difference that needs to be noted. Christianity is similar to nihilism/pessimism on this point: they both stared open-faced into the dark abyss. The difference is, when the abyss stared back, Christianity didn't blink.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

A Philosophy of Potatoes (the musings of an orthodox rebel)

"Beware of the man whose god is in the skies." -George Bernard Shaw

Philosophies of the world and worldly philosophies drive me insane. Whether it be the narrow-minded bigotry of scientism or the epistemological bottomless pit of post-modernism, I find them all equally vacuous and (perhaps what is worse) ugly. Of course, there is something awry about a philosophy that is aesthetically neutral (i.e., dull), but there is something incredibly insidious about any philosophy whose aesthetic principles create and encourage an outrageous and offensive ugliness to inflict upon others. Surrealism, with its "art," is a good example of this. When any philosophy makes horror and insanity the standards of aesthetic perfection, you can be sure that it is a divinity of hell.

This is not to discount the equally sinister quality inherent in a philosophy being vacuous. Any philosophy that (while perhaps logically coherent) finds no anchor points in the practical world of existential experience is worse than dead: it is a lie. A philosophy (being an ultimate view of things) is meant to be as practical as potatoes. It is not meant to be isolated abstract reasoning, but rather beliefs about the actual world that affect how you behave in and relate to that actual world. Any philosophy that exists in an isolated, abstracted bubble is deadly; it is of the worst kind of spiritualism (both eastern and western) that views the actual world as (at best) a distraction or (at worst) a cheat. If taken seriously, it creates the hell of solipsism, i.e., the hell of the isolated self. Of course, no one takes such philosophies seriously in the real world. That is the point: they are vacuous and therefore useless.

As a philosopher (which is just another way of saying, "As a human being"), I find that I cannot keep pace with the ridiculous academic gymnastics that passes for modern scholarship these days. I do believe that the lunacies of such men as Foucault and Derrida (and perhaps we could even add Nietzsche and Schopenhauer) are dying out, but it is a slow and messy death; like most empty doctrines, they die hard. Their cheerleaders (those faithful few) will continue to sing their praises while the disillusioned will look elsewhere. I am thankful that I was disillusioned with nonsense long before I every read the philosophers of nonsense, for as a Christian I am always incredulous towards madmen. There is something cowardly and lazy about any philosophy that gives in to despair or ignorance, cowardly and lazy in this way: they are completely impractical and thus of no use to living, breathing men and women of the actual world.

I do not understand how someone can live in the actual world (under the burning blue sky, walking on the tangled green grass) and buy into either extreme notion that human inquiry can figure out everything (the lunacy of scientism) or nothing (the lunacy of post-modernism). Real existence (with actual existential data) cries out in anger at such nonsense, and no philosophy summed up real existence better than the Christian philosophy when its much marginalized philosopher St. Paul said, "For we know in part and prophesy in part" (I. Cor. 13:9). Immediately with that statement we are confronted with two facts: we have knowledge, but it is incomplete. We can know but only partly. Here we avoid the pitfalls of both arrogance and despair; here we are confronted by both the joy that we can know and the humility that we are not all-knowing. We are given truth and mystery, reason and romance, security and adventure. Here, then, is a practical philosophy, probably the only practical philosophy left to men and women.

The Christian philosophy is practical on this point (and all points, if we had time to discuss them) because it speaks to the realities of real people: their desires and circumstances. If we seriously thought about it, we could only conclude that everyone wants to know something, but no one wants to know everything. We want to move forward with both confidence and excitement, with limitless open sky over our heads and limitless solid ground beneath our feet, a paradox only possible if we "know in part." Take away that truth, and mankind loses something precious. If we know everything, then there is no excitement; life and existence are a bore, a tale already told and memorized without the possibility of alteration or the freedom of the unexpected. It is a paralysis of predetermination: there is no movement because there is nowhere left to go. If, however, we know nothing, then there is no confidence; life and existence are a terror, a swirling shadow of meaningless and menacing variables that stalk in the perpetual night. It is a paralysis of chaos: there is no movement because there is no direction. Both of these philosophies of men are untenable and intolerable. They do not satisfy holistically; they leave something out, something of real existence, something whose absence brings the whole edifice crashing to the ground.

Perhaps it is the height of irony (and tragedy) that the majority of worldly philosophies are just no earthly good. They either give a man too much or too little, and in either case they take everything from him. Christianity (with its core doctrine of Incarnation) gives God to men, which is to say that it gives us everything, including the practical necessity of knowing "in part."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

The Apologetics of Philippians 4:8 (as explained by a Current Orthodox Rebel)

The following is an excerpt (pp. 14-15) from Joseph Pearce's book  Literary Giants, Literary Catholics. Here Mr. Pearce explains the different kinds of Christian apologetics. Specifically, he focuses on the evangelizing power of Beauty.

Truth is trinitarian. It consist of the interconnected and mystically unified power of Reason, Love, and Beauty. As with the Trinity itself, the three, though truly distinct, are one. Reason, properly understood, is Beauty; Beauty, properly apprehended, is Reason; both are transcended by, and are expressions of, Love. And, of course, Reason, Love and Beauty are enshrined in, and are encapsulated by, the Godhead. Indeed, they have their raison d'etre [i.e., reason for being] and their consummation in the Godhead. Remove Love and Reason from the sphere of aesthetics and you remove Beauty also. You get ugliness instead. Even a cursory glance at most modern "art" will illustrate the negation of Beauty in most of today's "culture".

Once the theological understanding of the trinitarian nature of Truth is perceived, it follows that the whole science of apologetics can be seen in this light. Most mainstream apologetics can be seen as the apologetics of Reason: the defense of the Faith and the winning of converts through the means of a dialogue with the "rational" and its sundry manifestations. On the other hand, the lives of saints, such as the witness of Mother Teresa [or any missionary for that matter], can be seen as the apologetics of Love: the defense of the Faith and the winning of converts through the living example of a life lived in Love. Finally, the defense of the Faith and the winning of converts through the power of the beautiful can be called cultural apologetics or the apologetics of Beauty.

Throughout history, the Faith has been sustained by, and has built upon, each of these pillars. Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas and other giants of the Church have laid the philosophical and theological foundations upon which Christendom has towered above superstition and heresy, creating an edifice of Reason in a world of error. Numerous other saints have lived lives of heroic virtue and self-sacrificial love, showing that there is a living, loving alternative to all the vice and hatred with which humanity has inflicted itself. Similarly, numerous writers, artists, architects and composers have created works of beauty as a reflection of their love for God--and, through the gift they have been given, God's love for them.

Mr. Pearce's final thought sums up my desire as well:

It is in the last of these three spheres of apologetics, the apologetics of Beauty, that I have found my own vocation, and it has become my aim, indeed my passion, to evangelize the culture through the power [i.e., elements and artifacts] of culture itself.

 

Homily 8: On Worship and Faith as Products of Poverty (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"Let the people praise thee, O God. Let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our God, shall bless us." Ps. 67:5-6

This is not a matter of pettiness. God is not waiting for flattery before He offers help. Worship is not a matter of flattery; it is a matter of faith. Worship is (at bottom) the acknowledgment of and accounting for the presence, power, and promises of God in the immediate circumstances of your life. To have faith is to recognize God's place as the everlasting variable in the formula of existence, and worship is the same kind of recognition. This is why worship/faith produces blessings: not because they are the magic words that get God on your side; but because God's goodness is always available to His children, but only those who ask will receive (Matthew 7:7). I ask you: what can you receive from one whom you do not acknowledge? What gifts or grace can you accept from one whom you actively ignore? If you are walking along in your despondency, and a compassionate passerby offers you a gift, but you ignore him and subsequently his gift, then who is to blame? The question is never whether or not God is willing to be good to us. God is always willing. The real question is whether we want His help or not.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). Only the poor can receive, because they are completely aware of their need. Only the poor can believe, because they have no hope in themselves. The Christian life begins with an acknowledgment of our poverty and God's riches, and it continues along that same vein. Every household god or arm of flesh that we erect in place of God's bounty will be allowed to proceed so that it may collapse and reveal its impotence, reveal that there is no other rock except our God (Ps. 18:31). Only when we acknowledge our poverty outside of Him will we reach for the riches that He freely gives. Worship is faith. Faith is worship; and both are poverty. In both we acknowledge the utter weakness and crippling depravity of ourselves and the absolute strength and all-sufficient grace of God. May we believe so that we may receive what is always ours for the taking.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

Post-modernism and Revelation in regards to Knowledge (a lecture from an orthodox rebel)

Post-modernism is (at bottom) an epistemological negation: it says that we cannot know or know that we know. The reason that we cannot "know," the reason that we cannot have true and objective knowledge, is because as individual subjects we are bound within our own subjectivity. That subjectivity has been shaped by many forces and contexts: family and friends, society and culture, tragedies and triumphs. Consequently, our subjectivity serves as a pair of lenses (more cynical souls would say blinders) that filters everything that we encounter.

That it filters everything must be stressed. We are predisposed towards certain bents whether we are reading a certain text or seeing a certain terrain. We are always bringing something to the table that shapes and/or skews the way we view things. To put it in religious terminology: we make everything in our own image. To put it in secular terminology: everyone comes with a bias. This is why (to use post-modern terminology) we can only produce stories rather than a Story: our predispositions prevent us from ever knowing and/or successfully communicating any over-arching objectivity.

Christianity, of course, disagrees. It holds that true and objective knowledge is possible and communicable. Post-modernism does not, holding instead to a complete subjectivism, i.e., we are bound within our subjectivity, within the maze of our own mind. Any real communication with the "outside" (if there even is an outside) is impossible as all such communication would be lost in translation. Exactly how Christianity disagrees with this can be stated in three propositions.

(1) God is there. The first is to affirm the existence of God, i.e., that there is an "outside" that contains an "outsider" who stands "outside" of our subjectivity and thus can view it objectively. This assertion is very basic, but it is also very vital to countering the fundamental assertion of post-modernity that there is no "outside" at all.

(2) God is not silent. The second is to affirm the reality of revelation, i.e., that this "outsider" has communicated with us in a comprehensible way. Even if there is an "outside," the post-modernist could retort (quite correctly) that we can never know if this is so unless the "outside" communicates with us. Thus, the Christian must put forward the reality of revelation, viz., that God has communicated with us by way of revelation (both general and special), revelation that is comprehensible because it has come to us in native (rather than alien) forms: nature, conscience, text, and flesh (see Romans 1:18-20; 2:14-15; Hebrews 1:1-2). Note: The form of "conscience" is important because it demonstrates that the communication is not separate from and outside of us. It is a part of us; as beings made in the image of God, we are still capable of sensing the objective viewpoint.

(3) The Holy Spirit is our helper. This third one is often overlooked, and yet it is on this point that the conversation between orthodox Christianity and post-modernism goes awry today. Even if there is an "outside" with an "outsider," and even if that "outsider" has communicated to us in comprehensible way, the post-modernist could retort that we can never truly comprehend this communication because it is we who have to read it, i.e., we filter it through our subjective lenses and skew the meaning our own way. Everything becomes personal "interpretation," and thus everything (once again) gets lost in translation; the original authorial intent is impossible (or at least mind-bendingly difficult) to discern.

There are two answers to this, and both support each other. The first is simply to assert the doctrine of the imago dei and thereby vehemently deny the assertion that nothing is communicable to us. However imperfectly, we still know what is true and false, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly. Any statements to the contrary are trapped in an intellectual vacuum that neither has been nor can be applied to the real, practical world where actual people live and breath.

The second answer is where the final proposition comes into play. It is perhaps by today's standards (both within and without the church) highly controversial, but it is nonetheless doctrinal and scriptural. We must assert that not only is God there, and not only has He communicated to us in a comprehensible/native way, but He has also provided for us a translator for His communication: the Holy Spirit, which (as the third member of the Trinity) is God of very God, and thus also exists "outside" as an "outsider". Therefore, it is He who correctly translates the communication for us, being immediately and intimately with us (I Cor. 6:19) so as to teach us the "deep things of God" (I Cor. 2:6-16). Therein is the answer: (1) God exists, (2) God has communicated to us, and (3) God has given us a translator for His communication. The Holy Spirit is there as translator and teacher to help us discern the original authorial intent and properly apply it to our lives.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010
 

Freedom through Absolutes (as explained by an Original Orthodox Rebel)

The following is another excerpt (pp. 21-22) from Dale Ahlquist's Common Sense 101: Lessons from G.K. Chesterton. Ahlquist quotes Chesterton as he explains one of his key beliefs: the necessity of absolute truth for freedom and action.

The modern mind wants to do away with such quaint ideas as right and wrong. The modern mind thinks that freedom somehow means breaking the rules. But here is where tradition is, as it generally is, on the side of truth. Tradition tells us that the rules are right. We cannot really prove them to be right, except perhaps when we see the consequences of trying to do away with them. The Ten Commandments, for instance. Throughout history, men have certainly failed to live up to them. But in modern times, men have more disastrously failed in trying to live without them. But it is only in establishing and obeying certain rules that freedom is possible. If we break the big laws we do not get freedom. We do not even get anarchy. We get the small laws. [...]

There are some who would argue that we should have no absolutes, that evolution tends to rub out absolute lines [viz., because everything "changes"]. I say, we must have definite lines; but it is not because definite lines are things which restrain humanity. It is because definite lines are the things which distinguish humanity. Our black lines are not the bars of the tiger's cage. They are the stripes of the tiger's skin: they are what makes him a tiger. If you think I want rules merely to restrain some inferior mob, you are quite wrong. It is true that bridles and blinders keep a great part of the human race out of the ditch, but this is not what I am urging. I am not urging anything so profoundly undemocratic. I do not mean that there are some people stupid enough to require general rules. I mean that there are no people wise enough to do without them.

Our need for rules does not arise from the smallness of our intellects, but from the greatness of our task. Discipline is not necessary for things that are slow and safe; but discipline is necessary for things that are swift and dangerous. We do not need a map for a stroll; but we do need a map for a raid. And that is what Western Democracy is now engaged in: a raid. A raid on the New Jerusalem. It is a crusade of justice. We are trying to do right; one of the wildest perils. We are trying to bring political equity on the earth; to materialize an almost incredible justice. We cannot be vague about what we believe in, what we are willing to fight for, and to die for. There are twenty ways to criticize a battle, but only one way of winning it. The ordinary man does not obey special rules because he is too stupid to see the alternatives; he obeys them because he feels, though he cannot express the fact, that they are the only way of having a rapid and reasonable human activity.

Dogmatic democracy as much as dogmatic ethics are our own special creation. There are some who will be annoyed by my calling it a creation of Christianity or a creation of Europe, but certainly it is one or the other. And as the wolf dies fighting, we shall die doctrinal, and Democracy as well as Christianity will die with us. For Democracy is always difficult, and we alone have the fixed principles which face difficulties. If our raid fails no other raid will succeed, and no men, perhaps, will ever come again so near to bringing justice on the earth!

 

God and Gerunds (the monumental task of the orthodox rebel)

As an instructor at a Christian university, I am required by my superiors to explain how I "integrate faith in the classroom." By "faith," I assume that they do not mean the earnest hope and expectation of my students to receive a good grade. At least I hope that this is not what they mean. At the risk of being a living pun, I will trust that what they actually mean is trusting in God (both His presence and promises) specifically and the Faith (the whole of Christian thinking and practice) in general.

This is a monumental task for the precise reason that my classroom subject is so utterly minuscule. Every Thursday I teach basic grammar and writing skills, a tedious band of practical minutia not found in any dogma or liturgy. Exactly how the great truth of God's trustworthiness, or the other great truths of the Fall, Incarnation, Redemption, etc., applies to gerunds and subordinating conjunctions is a Brobdingnagian task even for the most schooled theologian. Fortunately, God is a grand theologian, and a bit of a trickster. While I was walking to my car, ardently asserting the impossibility of the task at hand, an answer fell into my mind like a thunderbolt. I am uncertain if this is a new revelation or merely a friendly aid to a rather foolish child. Regardless, I present it to you, as I find it worth sharing:

English Grammar and Writing is about communication, viz., successful communication. Such a notion has absolutely everything to do with our Faith. The root of communication is communion, and the very essence of God (being a Trinity) is communion, i.e., successful connectivity with another. Perhaps the most basic way that we can reflect the image of God successfully is to learn how to communicate successfully. Successful communication is the very essence of God because God is communion. A lack of communication is the very essence of Hell because Hell is separation.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

The Humility of Agnosticism (and other follies of the time)

The majority of the modern West is under the sway (in varying degrees) of the cult of agnosticism, and it is being vigorously intoxicated by its most ridiculous tenet: that the agnostic is the humble man while the dogmatist is the height of arrogance. What makes this tenet ridiculous is that it is an absolute lie. It is the man who makes dogmas, who makes assertions, who comes to conclusions and certainties, that is the humble man; for he sees his dogma and assertions as something that not only binds the world but also himself, being a part of the world. The agnostic, however, may not burden humanity with their beliefs, but neither do they burden themselves, being a part of the world.

I will never understand the utter saturation and infatuation of our culture with the notion that agnosticism equals humility when the reverse is so obviously the truth. Even an atheist, with their own arrogance in tow, is not the least bit arrogant towards their materialism. That is something to which they bow in humble reverence and religious faith as a truth outside of themselves, a truth that is true regardless of how or what they (or any one else) feel, think, or will. The same is true of the believer in regards to God. The agnostic, however, will be bound to nothing except their own will. Theirs is a religion of the exalted self, the deification of subjectivity. There is no law or authority other than themselves, a position that serves as the very definition of arrogance. Humility, however, recognizes and submits to a law and authority outside of itself. If you would be a person of humility, then you must be a person of credulity.

Of course, when I speak of "agnosticism," I am not speaking of honest people with honest doubts and honest questions that need honest answers. Those people are (perhaps whether they know it or not) searching for a truth to bind themselves to; they are mystics seeking to become believers, and thus they exude humility. Thus, when I speak of "agnosticism," I am not referring to those noble souls; rather, I am referring to the professional agnostic, the intellectual prig who sneers at people of faith (both the atheist and theist) and calls that sneer a mark of humility. The truth is that this professional agnosticism is merely a matter of arrogance, an arrogance produced by either (at best) philosophical laziness or (at worse) philosophical cowardice. In either case, they refuse to come to conclusions because the consequences are too costly. If you really believe that something is truth (universally, objectively true), then it has an actual bearing on your life, a bearing that the professional agnostic refuses to bear.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

(posters provided by Po-Motivators, from your friends at PyroManiacs)