Anselm & the Times

The New York Times today had an interesting front-page blog post, The Self-Thinking Thought. Considering St Anselm’s recent popularity in my own conversations (and his concurrent ascendence of personal interest), it was apropos that Nathan Schneider (the post’s author, who also writes a blog entitled Killing the Buddha, which I haven’t explored at all) would discuss the ontological argument (or at least his experience in trudging his way through Anselm’s work).

I especially enjoyed this included illustration, also courtesy of Mr. Schneider:

I personally have little to offer, intellectually, in relationship to Anselm (and even less in critique of Schneider’s post). I do, however, remember the ontological argument as being something of a curiosity (put mildly; maybe it’s more accurately the ‘brunt of all religious/theistic absurdity’) to the atheists and agnostics I worked with at the Institute for Humist Studies (IHS). I haven’t read any of Anselm’s works, though I have a rudimentary familiarity with them, nor have I read any sort of response or criticism (other than the generally knee-jerk reactionary disavowing prevalent among the non-religious).

As with much else, of any kind of nature (whether mopeds, opera, literature, friendships, &c), when I’ve not yet made any sort of hard-and-fast decision or indelible opinion, I tend to consume indiscriminately. Similarly, I am encountering the same behavior regarding theology and religion (and indeed, spirituality and some modicum of practice): I’m still such a neophyte that I don’t have any real capacity to form preferences or tastes. Of course, there are parameters, inherent ground-rules I’ve had for myself (“I don’t need to try Communism to know it’s bad,” to quote The Opposite of Sex): some internalized set of boundaries is necessary in any process of discernment, regardless of nature. The key, though, is to understand how, when, and under what circumstances such boundaries are malleable (if, indeed, they are ever malleable).

When I first became interested in opera some years back, I saw everything I could: every single performance, every era, every language, every genre. Whatever, whenever, wherever. I had no discrimination about consumption, every opportunity was an opportunity to glean preference, idea, thought, and experience. I saw Baroque opera, Classical opera, Romantic opera, contemporary opera. English, French, German, Russian, Czech, Italian. Everything. I sat through hours of performance that I really didn’t enjoy (and kept checking my watch throughout), but I still learned.  I also saw transcendent, breathtaking, exhilarating performances that tapped into the very root of my soul.

‘The process of discernment’ is, in its usual context, applies to one’s navigation of religious practice, belief, and – ultimately – faith. But it extends so far outside of that, the honing and crafting of personal desire, opinion, and thought. Philosophies need to be contextualized, I think, to be valid – preferences have to be contrasted to dislikes or disinterests. Reading Sartre, Nietzsche, Kant, or Heidegger is well and good, but without proper intellectual context, they become entirely void of true substance and meaning.

(At this point, I should note that this is the fundamental root of my ‘issue’ with core curricula at colleges and universities: the laying of an intellectual foundation can’t occur, in any meaningful sense, in a vacuum. How many students read, say, The Republic, or The Communist Manifesto, or a great piece of literature (Dostoevsky and Nietzsche (hell, any existentialist) both seem to be particularly victim to existing in a vacuum, without any real grasp of the framework and context of the work), but are lacking – in an essential sense – what makes these works important?

Understanding relevency (even if not agreeing with it-) is an endlessly complex task that, in no situation, can occur in the course of a semester, a year, or even the full tenure of an undergraduate career. Maybe the closest, I think, one can come to a truly immersive, worthwhile venture of the sort would be to do one’s studies at, say, St John’s College. The buying and selling of presumably-useful (though often hollow and substance-less) ‘intellectualism’ raises my ire, because it flies in the face of every sort of meaning the liberal arts possess.).

I Will Show You Fear in a Handful of Dust

Concurrent with completing my evening’s Polish homework, I’ve found myself motivated to make an abnormally off-the-cuff and achingly personal (if not awfully difficult, for a compendium of reasons-) post.

In the past six months or so (though I freely admit it’s been brewing long before-), I’ve been starting the process of preparing to engage with something of an informal spiritual awakening. Any description I can offer is so heavily qualified: I don’t feel adequately versed or capable of commenting extensively on the nature of this exploration, nor do I feel that, at this juncture, I’m prepared to even fully acknowledge it’s official beginning. It’s more akin to watching a storm brew on the horizon: I imagine I’m on the great plains, looking out across a broad expanse of flat wasteland, and can see the clouds gathering and have begun to catch the smell of ozone, humidity, and oncoming rain.

I have only a modicum of study completed so far; just some readings by C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves, prompted by my desire to understand, exactly, where all of these ideas of divine, romantic, affectionate, and storge love were originating from, and some explanation of what they were) and rather a lot of internet-based research. I’ve started reading the New Testament, something my ego and pride both have trouble accepting, more for curiousity’s sake than anything else. I can’t help but feel that I’m on the verge of some sort of true revival (in the least Evangelical-mega-church sort-of way) of mind, body, and soul. To imply that I’m waiting results in a sense of both entitlement and laziness, I don’t expect something or someone to simply fall into my personal atmosphere and suddenly enlighten me. However, I haven’t quite yet reached the terminal velocity, the fever pitch, of the desires I have for education, study, and reflection. In response to not fully and wholeheartedly engaging with such things, I’ve instead been teasing my intellect and mind carefully, quietly, and only in the most perfunctory sense, in order to cultivate further a sense of longing and want.

The Christian apologists strike me as the most natural place for me to start; especially the likes of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton. Indeed, Narnia nonsense aside, Lewis speaks on a profound sense to me because he, like myself, was a professed atheist. My own atheism, of which I was so proud and vocal about, isn’t dissolved; it’s not yet ceased to be. But I’m so catastrophically less assured of its existence in my mind: Lewis wrote that he was an atheist primarily because he was angry at God for not existing, and I feel like I can relate to such a sentiment on a very real, very personal level.

One of the books I read recently, K. Armstrong’s Through the Narrow Gate, brought up many of my thoughts. Though the book is autobiographical and details her decision, entrance, and eventual exodus from the convent, she discusses at great length her frustration that, despite her best efforts, she never truly forms the sort of relationship with God that is so greatly exalted. She draws upon stories of the saints, martyrs, prophets who all had personal relationships with God — and yet, never experiences them herself.

My experience with Judaism has been lackluster, in virtually every sense of the word. I so valued Synagogue insofar as it provided a quiet juncture, when I was young, for reading: I was allowed to bring a book with me, and would typically spend the two-odd hours of (conservative) service reading in the pew (is there actually a Judaic term? Pew seems so out-and-out Christian, though it’s the most apt noun) while others in the temple prayed around me. Hebrew school, which was useful to the extent that I’ve a comfortable reading ability of Hebrew (and now, most happily, this has transferred itself to an unusual level of comfort with Yiddish!), never engaged me intellectually, and never spoke to me in any meaningful sense.

As with much of my education, I was bored, complacent, and just trying to get things over with in Hebrew school: I disdained English and literary classes for much the same reason. It’s not that literature, debate, &c. aren’t meaningful for me (indeed, they’re my lifeblood and very much a keystone of my existence as a human being), but I never felt like I was challenged enough.

Granted, it would be easy for me to pin this on the guidance of elders: my parents were traditionally practicing Jews while I grew up, but there was never any engagement with the ideas of Judaism, and the notions of the Old Testament God didn’t reach me in any sense, save for a passing curiousity. I was certainly not an exemplary Hebrew school student: I left as soon as I was given permission to relinquish attendance (upon being bat mitzvah’d), and have really not looked back since. Sporadically, I’ve independently tried to cultivate a Jewish identity, and to some extent I have one as an inherent component of being a Jew. Yet, despite my attempts (though admittedly anemic, as many were), it’s never felt right.

It’s not that I feel a fundamental disconnect with Judaism: on the contrary, there is something (je ne sais quoi) about Jewish culture, ideation, theology, and community that fascinates me. However, I don’t feel an intellectual drive towards it, I don’t feel like it feeds or nurtures any sense of my spirit or even soul (of course, at this point, I feel obligated to explicate that I’m not even sure what I mean when I say soul, because the idea in-and-of itself is so abstracted to me that I don’t even know where to begin).