The Salvation of Mystery

The other day, I finally realized what post-modernism signifies. Post-modernism introduces an ambiguity, an uncertainty, a series of paradoxes into the understanding of everyday language and experience. I have witnessed a profound distaste for this probing and inquisitiveness, and I have directly shared this hesitation.

For a long time, I have viewed forms of post-modernism as empty, meaningless, and unnecessarily skeptical. To ask things like, 'what is the meaning of truth', 'who is the Other', and 'who are the People in "We the People"'? What's the point?

This rogue questioning seems to be a silly exercise - it ignores finding a solution to problems such as violence and poverty in favor of analyzing how we discuss problems such as violence and poverty.

Besides, isn't focusing on the problems themselves enough? The human race does, after all, have a great expertise for solving problems. Humanity has exercised a tremendous capacity for knowledge and discovery. Should I reject or cast doubt upon the workings of science and technology which have brought such monumental greatness and convenience into my life?

I am disturbed by the urgings of post-modernism, but I have realized something: I need this disturbance in my life -- and I have not yet begun to be disturbed enough.

"I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword." - Jesus, Matthew 10:34

Today, societies have unprecedented access to knowledge of the external world around us. From the smallest imaginable wonders reached through nanotechnology to the eerily beautiful images shown from the largest echoes of space by the Hubble Telescope, humanity has a more significant grasp on reality than ever before.

Or so we think...and so we tell ourselves.

I have started to embrace post-modernism because it demands that we re-ask these questions of ourselves. So let me ask you again, not what kind of grasp you have on reality, but what kind of grasp reality has on you?

Said another way: Do you have an internal knowledge of yourself which equals your knowledge of the external world?

"What is truth?" - Pontius Pilate, John 18:38

Many post-modernists have expressed skepticism about the existence of a universal and absolute truth. Many religious people have expressed strong dismay about post-modernism because of this skepticism. Religious figures have reasoned that any skepticism about a universal truth would naturally extend to skepticism about the truth of religion, which is often claimed to be absolute and universal in nature.

I believe this skepticism of skepticism is unwarranted. (Skepticism of skepticism? Isn't that just the kind of unnecessarily complicated phrase a true post-modernist would use? What is it about post-modernism which erodes the use of language? What better evidence that what questions does in fact erode!)

The skepticism (from religious people) of the skepticism (of post-modernists) is not warranted because both religion and post-modernism share some of their most important values and perspectives on the world.

Mystery Enters the World

I'm not a Christian. But I am willing to accept that a fellow named Jesus very likely existed at some point, and could have done many of the things described in the Bible.

In the Gospels, Jesus vigorously questions the religious authorities of his day. The Pharisees constantly attempt to pin Jesus down on legalities to destroy his credibility.

Jesus denied that the prominent religious figures of his day had a monopoly on universal and absolute truth. He did not come to ease their understanding - he did not come to reassure their prejudices - he did not come to bring peace, but to bring a sword, and he did not come to bring simplicity, but to bring mystery.

Both religion and post-modernism introduce a mystery and an uncertainty into our mundane, everyday world which forces individuals to confront the structure and meaning of their inner-most, firmly-held beliefs and attitudes.

Both religion and post-modernism can lead the pilgrim into a voyage of re-examination, from which emerges a new life full of vitality and hope.

Mystery's Final Ascension

Where is the hope from mystery? Where is the light in this darkness?

The answer is the power of human imagination. Both religion and post-modernism imagine new meanings and new interpretations of life - both envision new alternatives to choose, and actively confront humanity with those choices.

Both religion and post-modernism resurrect what they divide: beneath the multiplicity and diversity of meanings lies a common connection. As words and concepts used to segment and oppose human beings are undermined, a new possibility of existence is realized.

No more Jew and Gentile, no more man and woman...

No more I and Other, no more black and white...

Both post-modernism and religion can free individuals from oppression and encourage them to see beyond the superficial differences which all too often consume humanity, to see new conditions of human life, where all individuals are free to pursue their creative potential as human beings.

Both Jesus Christ and Friedrich Nietzsche can tell you that underneath truth, there is life.

Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Wish to Live

What are the highest values in life? What ideas provide guidance for the best possible living? What is the inspiration which accords the best template for living, for fully realizing our potential as human beings?

Friedrich Nietzsche mentions the "will to power" as a force which has "succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive life". Is this "will to power", though, merely a description of how the world works, of how life exists, or is it also a normative statement (an outline of how life should be lived)? Should we live only according to our instincts? Does living against the pattern of our instincts hopelessly obscure and defeat life itself? Or, rather, does life only begin to soar once it transcends our basic instincts for higher goals?

Which parts of the "will to power" should be embraced by society? Nietzsche repeatedly asserts that those conditions which enable life to flourish should be promoted. But what does it mean for life to flourish? Does life flourish when it is restrained, or when it is constricted; does life flourish only when it is maintained and managed, or only when it is free and independent? What does it mean to preserve and enhance life? And what kinds of life does Nietzsche value?

Nietzsche objects to those who place more emphasis on suffering in this life, in exchange for a better future life, than on experiencing life in the present world. But for many people, the experience of life essentially contains suffering - and suffering really can be described as the origin of life. Perhaps suffering is the main mode of life, after all: not the "will to power", but the "will to suffer" predominates, or perhaps the "will to power" is also a "will to suffer". Lastly, perhaps Nietzsche is not really against an acknowledgment of suffering, but merely disagrees as to what manner people should direct their suffering.

A preacher here on campus has suggested that God created the world in an act of love as suffering. I have heard it said, "to love someone truly, you must allow them to have the chance to make you suffer".

Did God create the world in an act of love as suffering? Even if there is no God, is this the essential state of our world as it exists now? Does all the world in the world owe its existence to some form of suffering?

And who would punish a lover for one's own love, if there is a God who has created such a world? Jesus in the Gospels tells the parable of the prodigal son. The father allows the son to experience life on his own terms, and allows the son to suffer the consequences of his actions. Would a loving God allow us to suffer merely as a consequence of Its actions, merely because a world was created wherein we humans were given this life which has built itself upon our suffering?

To love is in part to suffer. And suffer I do, as we all do...adrenaline, oxytocin, estrogen...coursing through the channels of my soul, of every "soul". Chemicals corrode my soul, yet they restore my body. My body atones for my soul. These hapless emotions, what poor excuse of a being am I? Too far gone in this world. Too near-sighted for the things to come. Not spiritual enough. Too human.

That lustful glance is the adultery of my spirit. But not to glance is the adultery of my body. To glance, to live: to commit adultery of the mind, or the heart? I have been ripped to shreds and torn apart, glued together again, haphazardly...this is the way life has developed over billions of years, ripping and tearing itself apart, to time and time again, build things that are newer and stranger, odd and more odd are these evolved creatures, these "thinking things" that are called human beings. This is the worst and the best that I am. I give my love, I give my pain, and I give my innocence...all in the name of life.

This is what God gave me, if it was indeed a divine gift...my own freedom, my own shame; my own love, my own suffering. All that and less: some of the things He gave me I'm apparently supposed to disown. In the name of a Higher Life. In the name of a Higher Love, and a Higher Truth.

Pilot washed his hands before he condemned Jesus. Did God wash His mind in the hormones of our psyches before condemning us?

If God exists, then God should commend evil instead of condemning it, for this evil has propelled us to life. We love ourselves. We love our family. We love our tribe, our sect, our friends. This is evil, since we love them for their suffering, because only that has brought us into this world and continually sustains us. Perhaps someday, when we remember the suffering that endures and surrounds us, the suffering that has created life in all its stark beauty and terror, then we will love our neighbor as ourselves, most of all because they suffer as we suffer.