Kierkegaard vs Hegel - Objectivity, Subjectivity, and Faith

The following is a paper I submitted during my undergrad studies at Calvin College. I hope you find it beneficial and that it clarifies some of the nuances existing between thinkers like Kierkegaard and Hegel.

I'd like to note, however, that if you wish to make use of my work, remember to cite your sources, including this webpage. The general rule of thumb is this: whenever you use anything, even an idea or concept, that you did not come up with yourself, use proper citation. The integrity of your project is too important to risk through acts of plagiarism.

So cite any and all sources you end up using. Yes, even if it's a paper posted by some schmuck on an online blog somewhere.

Cheers.

Philosophy 333

James Sellers

10/11/13

Writing Assignment #02

Kierkegaard often disagrees with Hegelian ideas. In this case, he disagrees with Hegel's definition of what constitutes truth with regard to the question of Christianity as truth. Hegel would say that truth is an absolute and objective certainty; this certainty is possible through having complete knowledge in its final form. Kierkegaard pseudonymously disputes this idea through Climacus when he asserts that truth as objective certainty has no power to transform the subject as an individual, and neither is it conducive to the passion and inwardness that are important conditions for truth relevant to the subject as an existing individual. For these reasons, Climacus states that truth is subjective and that how the subject relates herself to truth has greater significance than what she relates herself to. This comes to expression in the passage in Concluding Unscientific Postscript that compares the virtuous pagan praying to an idol and the nominal Christian who prays to the true God. In this paper, I will explore what truth means both objectively and subjectively and what these different interpretations mean for the definition and location of truth that Climacus wishes to espouse.

Climacus understands objective truth as a mutual agreement between thinking and being (189). Essentially, one's thinking must correspond with reality, or what is, and vice-versa; the subject must approach truth without biases of any kind, and the subject's beliefs must correspond to what factually is the case. For Climacus, however, this two-way agreement falls short. It turns Christian truth into mere approximation, whereby Christianity, were it to ever be proven as objective truth, would become a mere obligation instead of the object of passion, an abstraction instead of a personal reality. Additionally, this agreement between thinking and being does not take into account the problem of flux that is inherent to human existence:

“If, in the two definitions given, being is understood as empirical being, then truth itself is transformed into a desideratum [something wanted] and everything is placed in the process of becoming, because the empirical object is not finished, and the existing knowing spirit is itself in the process of becoming. Thus truth is an approximating whose beginning cannot be established absolutely, because there is no conclusion that has retroactive power” (189).

By this account, truth has only partial reality as approximating abstraction and not as a timeless reality. If truth as a two-way correspondence between thinking and being is the ideal, then it will always be in a process of approximation.

These problems with the objective account lead Climacus to reject it in favor of a subjective account. Climacus suggest that people think of truth not as an abstract approximation external to the subject to which she must comport herself dispassionately, but rather something that the subject reflects upon inwardly in order to exist in subjectivity. In other words, the question is not necessarily what human beings believe, but rather how they relate themselves to what they believe; the issue is how human beings can live in truth in a subjectively authentic manner. The divergence of the objective and the subjective comes to a head when Climacus writes:

“When the question about truth is asked objectively, truth is reflected upon objectively as an object to which the knower relates himself. What is reflected upon is not the relation but that what he relates himself to is the truth, the true. If only that to which he relates himself is the truth, the true, then the subject is in the truth. When the question about truth is asked subjectively, the individual's relation is reflected upon subjectively. If only the how of this relation is in truth, the individual is in truth, even if he in this way were to relate himself to untruth” (199).

Climacus does not necessarily deny the existence of objective truth as something to which the subject must relate herself. However, he goes one step beyond this, stating that the manner of subjective relation to objective truth is more important than the content of the subject's beliefs. If the question is whether or not one can have knowledge of God, the objective relation to truth encounters the problem of approximation, whereby objective knowledge of God deliberates dispassionately in the hopes of somehow proving God objectively. This is problematic, however, because “God is a subject and hence only for subjectivity in inwardness” (200).

The subjective relation, on the other hand, has personal and urgent reality for the subject. Climacus endorses this mode of relation. An objective seeker of God can only approximate the truth of God as an idea, but a subjective seeker of God is infinitely concerned with how she relates to truth. The person who knows the truth objectively but relates to the truth impersonally prohibits truth's genuine, transformative effect in her life. But the person who, while objectively in untruth, relates to it in truth allows herself to experience truth nevertheless on account of her intensely personal and authentic passion and need. If the question is where more truth can be found, in the objective relation or in the subjective relation, Climacus feels that the answer reveals itself in the comparison of the nominal Christian with the virtuous pagan:

“If someone who lives in the midst of Christianity enters, with knowledge of the true idea of God, the house of the true God, and prays, but prays in untruth, and if someone lives in an idolatrous land but prays with all the passion of infinity, although his eyes are resting upon the image of an idol—where, then, is there more truth? The one prays in truth to God although he is worshipping an idol; the other prays in untruth to the true God and is therefore in truth worshipping an idol” (201).

Put simply, actions speak louder than words. The pagan who prays with life-transforming intensity feels the effects of genuine faith, which inwardly spurs him to action, whereas the Christian who goes to church out of a sense of obligation and prays dispassionately feels no such effects of genuine faith and is not inwardly prompted to action. The pagan likewise struggles with uncertainty and takes hold of faith, while the Christian settles for a mere approximation of God. Acknowledging the truth intellectually is by itself an insufficient belief, because belief must be practiced to have effectual value. What one believes must be reflected in one's actions. As an example, Climacus considers the figure of Socrates, who was willing to die for belief in immortality. “He stakes his whole life on this “if”; he dares to die, and with the passion of the infinite he has so ordered his life that it might be acceptable—if there is an immortality” (201). So with regard to the prayers of the virtuous pagan and the nominal Christian, the transforming power of their beliefs decides whether a subject is in truth or not. As such, the truth ultimately lies in the subjective. Climacus supports this conclusion further when he states that the objective emphasis is on what is said and the subjective with how it is said (202). “At its maximum,” he writes. “this 'how' is the passion of the infinite, and the passion of the infinite is the very truth. But the passion of the infinite is precisely subjectivity, and thus subjectivity is truth” (203). In this way, it is preferable (according to Climacus) to pray to a false god in truth rather than praying to the true God in untruth.

With truth being located in subjectivity, Climacus provides a definition of this truth: “An objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness, is the truth, the highest truth there is for an existing person” (203). This means that past a certain point, objective knowledge becomes suspended for the subject, and the infinite passion of inwardness grows stronger in this objective uncertainty. The subject thus chooses objective uncertainty, fueled by infinite passion. Climacus observes that this definition also expresses what it means to have faith. Without a sense of objective uncertainty and risk, one does not need something like faith. “If I am able to apprehend God subjectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith” (204). Only in the absence of objective certainty can something as hopeful as faith occur. Praying in truth thus means to let faith guide one through inward passion in how one relates to one's beliefs.

In short, Climacus concerns himself primarily with the authenticity of the subject's relation to objective truth. The orientation of the subject and the power of a belief to transform the subject in a real and life changing way ultimately makes the most important difference. Truth is thus found in subjectivity, in the heart of the believer as her beliefs drive her to action. The Hegelian idea of absolute knowledge becomes unattainable to the subject, but this very suspension of objectivity brings faith's value to light. In this sense, Climacus implies that Christianity as truth does not lend itself easily to the modern understanding, but is rather something best understood through the genuine and earnest practice of faith.

Works Cited:

Kierkegaard, Søren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Hong ed. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1846. 189-204. Print.

Kierkegaard-Crop Rotation and the Aesthetic Life

Phil 333

James Sellers

09/26/13

Writing Assignment#01

The aesthetic life is lived in pursuit of the interesting and the rejection of boredom. As such, it is no simple matter to be an effective aesthete capable of generating interest from mundane subjects. Certain mental acrobatics must be involved. In “Crop Rotation,” the outline of a strategy to ward off boredom is proposed, in which Author A (who is possibly Johannes himself) prescribes a life infused with change and guided by a method. This method is crop rotation, the rotating of one's aesthetic crops, the varying of the soil in which amusement and interest may grow. This method is utilized in “Diary of the Seducer” by Johannes in his relationship with Cordelia. He manipulates, strains and elongates the affair in order to extract as much interest from it as possible, all in accordance with the strategies defined in “Crop Rotation.”

There are correct and incorrect ways to rotate crops. Traveling abroad because one's homeland has become familiar to the point of being boring does not solve the issue, and the boredom of country life is not effectively combated by simply moving to the city. This change is extensive, a changing of fields through which one hopes the soil will yield better crops. But changing the soil in an immediate sense will not accomplish much; reflectively varying one's methods of grain cultivation from this soil will. Through an intensive pursuit of change, interest can be grown in mundane soil, if one is resourceful enough. Limiting oneself to a single field, while restrictive, prompts resourcefulness that can give rise to interest.

“The more inventive one can be in changing the mode of cultivation, the better; but every particular change comes under the general rule of the relation between remembering and forgetting. The whole of life moves in these two currents, so it is essential to have control over them” (233).

If remembering and forgetting are principles by which change can be used to combat boredom, then the interpretation of one's own life and experiences are the key to crop rotation. Remembering the past selectively in a poetic sense means recalling experiences strictly in an interesting light, censuring the past to make it interesting instead of boring; the aesthete turns her life into an entertaining spectacle. Thus she can sow seeds in the soil of her experience and forget unpleasantness, which is an obstruction to the generation of interest. This art of forgetting through how one remembers is the standpoint towards reality which is most conducive to the rotation of crops, and thus the preferred mode of living for the reflective aesthete. However, this stance also means that the moment must be enjoyed with restraint, never pursued to the point of completion. The longer and more drawn out an interesting affair is, the more effectively boredom can be avoided. This is how Author A believes one can have a cake and eat it too (234).

This art of remembering through forgetfulness mentally seals the aesthete off from influences of boredom, but only if she can avoid the hindrances of the boring status quo. This means that anything which could distract one from the rotation of crops must be cut out, including friendship, marriage, and vocation. Being trapped in any of these relationships imposes a sense of obligation, which is restrictive and therefore boring. However, friendship, marriage and vocation can be enjoyed as long as they are not pursued to their fullest. For example, an acquaintance you are on good terms with can be useful in generating new possibilities of interest. And while a married couple have climbed so high in their relationship that they have nowhere to go but down, an engaged couple can enjoy a degree of eroticism before it grows stale (238), though the relationship should ideally last no longer than six months. Just as the moment can be suspended and enjoyed with restraint, a relationship can be drawn out with similar effect. In this sense, relationships have utility and represent potentially fertile soil for the growth of crops.

But just as she varies her soil, the aesthete herself must be varied (239). In order to extract as many possibilities of interest from her experiences as possible, the aesthete must be in control of her mood, able to foresee which mask will benefit her most for any given occasion. Summoning any feeling at will is impossible, but with practice, the aesthete can use moods to manipulate people, situations and even herself, toward desired ends.

This will help her to see the accidental in the arbitrary, to derive enjoyment from normally uninteresting situations. In engaging the arbitrary, it is possible to extract satisfying, accidental meaning. Going to the same church every week may be arbitrary, but counting the tiles in the stain glass windows can be entertaining and therefore gives the whole experience an accidental value. The aesthete should therefore always be on the lookout for the accidental (240).

These strategies for the preservation of interest and the avoidance of boredom are adopted by Johannes in the “Diary of the Seducer.” His relationship with Cordelia, as well as his entire sense of perception, is governed by these rules. In his April 20^th entry, Johannes writes that “One has to restrict oneself, that is a main condition of all enjoyment” (267). This restriction he speaks of is the principle of limitation that is necessary for the intensive pursuit of interest, as well as the restraint vital to the art of forgetting through selective remembrance. In the previous April 14th entry, he describes the state of his soul as a ship about to plunge into the ocean. But despite the power of the waves, he sits above in the crow's nest, observing the tension below as a grand spectacle. This represents the reflective aesthetic state of mind during the process of crop rotation, in which one's own experiences become sources of entertainment.

Before his engagement to Cordelia, Johannes injects himself into her life indirectly through the presence of Edvard, a young man infatuated with the girl. “We are firm friends now, Edvard and I” (287). Johannes' friendship with Edvard is the kind of friendship endorsed by the method of crop rotation; Johannes is befriending Edvard strictly because the boy is of use to him in his manipulation of Cordelia, and the depth of their relationship ends there. Johannes does as crop rotation prescribes and avoids friendship as a genuine obligation, because that would be boring. Likewise when considering the prospect of his intended engagement with Cordelia, he dismisses marriage upon the basis of its ethicality. “The damnable thing with an engagement is always the ethical side. The ethical is just as boring in life as it is in learning” (305). Johannes never intends to marry because it is ethical, and ethics are restricting, and anything restricting is boring. His standards for relationships, both in terms of friendship and marriage, are those espoused in “Crop Rotation.”

His manipulations of Cordelia are an excellent example of controlling moods. During the engagement, it becomes a priority to draw out the tension of the relationship for as long as possible to yield the maximum amount of interest. For this reason, Johannes attempts to balance Cordelia's disposition between two extremes, her cool of disillusionment with the relationship and her warm erotic desire for him. “In this wrestling, her womanliness is matured. I could use conversation to inflame and letters to cool, or conversely. The latter alternative is in every way preferable” (322). When he fears that she is drawing too far away, he draws her in with eroticism, and when she is too near, he pushes her away with distant behavior. The aim is to keep Cordelia in suspense until she breaks off the engagement herself (which happens six months into the relationship, in accordance with the policy on engagements in “Crop Rotation”), all the while engendering in her a sense of her own power over him. In keeping the relationship alive within this field of tension for as long as possible, Johannes generates interest, rotating his crops intensively in a single field.

Johannes is also adept at finding the accidental within the arbitrary. Before Cordelia breaks the engagement, there is an entry where Johannes is sitting on a fence with a cigar, observing the movements of a fisher-girl as she carries firewood. There is nothing that makes this scene special except for Johannes' internal comments, which attempt to paint the situation as more colorful than it likely is. “Maybe you are not a real fisher-girl but an enchanted princess; you are the servant of a troll; he is cruel enough to make you fetch firewood in the forest. That's how it always is in fairy stories” (337). Johannes is highly attuned to the potential interest of every moment, even when not contemplating his larger projects. Instead of a boring fisher-girl, an enchanted princess, and the firewood in her arms is the demand of a cruel troll; all accidental things yielded from an arbitrary situation, demonstrating that Johannes' state of mind is constantly engaged in the act of crop rotation.

If “Crop Rotation” is the proposed method of combating boredom, then “Diary of the Seducer” is the application of that method. Everything Johannes does is motivated by a pursuit of the interesting. He is so dedicated in his practice of the art of remembering and forgetting that he has lost himself within that mental framework, to the degree that the success of his own project leaves him feeling lost and melancholic. At the end, the only thing left to him is to reflect (375). It is ironic that for all the work and manipulation Johannes does to increase the longevity of interest, he cannot control moods in a way that yields lasting interest. No matter how hard he fights reality for every scrap of amusement, he has no underlying source of happiness or contentment. Since Johannes' life is the life of crop rotation in practice, the result of his project with Cordelia is a demonstration of the aesthetic life's ultimate failure to provide the satisfaction that it promises.

Works Cited:

Kierkegaard, Søren. Either/Or. Penguin ed. London: Penguin Books, 1843. Print.

Simone de Beauvoir, God, and the Blank Canvas of Values

Being an existentialist, Simone de Beauvoir once said that values exist in the world only because we attribute value to them. The world and everything in it, the trees, the creatures, are a blank canvas upon which we paint.

I thought about this as I took time out of my busy day to sit outside and smoke my pipe. It was warm and balmy today. Even though I personally dislike warm weather, nature loves it. People were out and about, playing and talking. The ants were working and exploring, and the trees were basking in the sunlight as they blossomed after a prolonged winter. The stones beneath me were warmed by the sun.

I sat and thought about these ants and these trees, about the wooden bench I sat on and the stone beneath it. In themselves, these things have no value. They are just inert matter waiting to be cognized and given importance. People often step on ants and think nothing of it, or they cut up stone and wood into shapes meaningful for them. The ants and the wood and stone themselves mean nothing and have no value except in what potential value they present us with in the act of cognizing them.

Then I thought about a lack of cognizance. I thought about no humans being around to attribute value to these things. It was a world like that blank canvas, still, unrealized, dead. It was a cold and dark world.

Then I thought about God, and I realized that even if the canvas was blank, it had a craftsman who imagined a wealth of possibilities for it. In themselves, the ants and the wood and the stone mean nothing, but they are loved by God. He attributes the quality of being beloved to them, and this makes them cognizable to us as having values beyond their functional use. But more than this, it opens up the possibility that we might see the world as its craftsman sees it, as something beloved. Even in a world without cognizance, value exists, the value of love and preciousness.

As a rational being, I may paint upon this canvas either great or terrible things. But nothing that is not contrary to love is without value, nothing is nothing in itself, because everything is loved. And because of this, I wish to love everything, even though my capacity for this kind of universal love is imperfect. I love the ants as they crawl on me; they are my sisters in the order of creation. I love the wood of the bench and the trees as they afford me comfort and beauty. I love the stone beneath me as it holds me steadily.

But even as I attempted to love the world around me as God loves it, I realized that I felt intruded upon by the person sitting across from me. I should love that person just as I love the ants and the wood and the stone, but it is more difficult for me, being someone who finds comfort in solitude. The imperfection of my love is laid before me; is it a challenge to overcome? A lesson to be learned? Or is it enough to attempt to love the world as God loves it?

Until next time, this is the Idiot, signing out.
-The Idiot

Random Thoughts about Memories and Facticity

Every once in a while, you experience a moment that is worthy of preservation, a moment that you can't help but recognize as having genuinely authentic content. You take it all in, you take pictures with your mind's eye, you smell the roses, and then the moment is gone. It can be depressing to say goodbye to that moment, to see it as just another lifeless representation of a meaningful event, which you place on the shelf of your memory, next to all the others as they collect dust. It can be saddening to consign that memory to the role of acquaintance rather than friend.

But those memories are never lifeless, not for an instant. They're never absent. Far from being dusty photographs in the museum of your life, they are like new colors that you experience, that become permanent fixtures of how you see the world. That genuinely authentic moment is with you always, because you absorbed it into your whole outlook. That memory is part of who you are now, part of what makes up your facticity and its vibrancy will forevermore color what new experiences become apparent to you.

The memories you accumulate are not there now as a solid, tangible thing you can experience, but they are no less real. And if you can have faith that they are there, defining every subsequent moment of your existence, these memories have all their fondly remembered potency, only now they are drawn infinitely closer to your heart.

This is the Idiot, signing out.

Human Belief in Knowledge, Certainty, and Assassin's Creed

Foreword: The following is not exactly polished. As far as philosophy goes, it's pretty basic stuff. It's a discussion about Cartesian scientific certainty, which is all the rage these days. It's also about the role that faith (or belief, if you like) plays in human experience. All of this was inspired by a particular scene in Assassin's Creed 1 (minor spoilers). I wrote it without a whole lot of editing, but regardless, my convictions as to the importance of faith in human experience are firm. I hope you will see why upon reading this.

"People today tend to talk in terms of knowledge and ignorance. In true Socratic fashion, human existence has largely become a dichotomy where knowledge and ignorance represent bookends for an all-applicable standard. Certainty and grounded-ness are perceived as the ultimate goals. The highest good of discussion and discourse is to stick closely to the facts and adhere to a decidedly scientific rigor. But personally, I think it's more complicated (and yet also much simpler) than that. More than facts and certainty, I believe that the dichotomy which applies more deeply, more authentically to the breadth of human existence, is faith and doubt.

I played Assassin's Creed yesterday. It's a fun little game to play, set in the under-explored historical setting of the Third Crusade. I liked it quite a bit when I was younger, partly because it was one of the few games willing to touch on things like philosophy and religion. But things are never quite as good as you remember, and this game is not as ideologically grand as I remember it being. Essentially, it's science fiction set in the middle ages, with the player attempting to wrest control of advanced alien technology from the evil Templar Order. There is a part of the game later on in which you have to assassinate a Teutonic crusader named Sibrand, who has terrorized the people of the city of Acre with his paranoid fear that assassin's are out to get him (which is actually true, in his case). To make the player feel justified in killing Sibrand, there is a scene in which he accuses an innocent and defenseless priest of being an assassin, and then kills him. The player naturally feels enraged (and maybe a little guilty) over this.

The player makes the successful stab while Sibrand is alone, and lays the dying crusader down. "Rest now, and go to the arms of your God," says the assassin. "Have you learned nothing?" rasps Sibrand. "I know what awaits for me, for all of us." "If not your God, then what?" "Nothing," utters Sibrand, his voice hushed in fear. "Nothing awaits. And that is what I fear." "You don't believe?" the assassin asks incredulously. "How could I? Given what I know, what I have seen? This life is all we have." The talk lingers a little while, with Sibrand explaining that armed with his scientific knowledge (gleaned from the alien tech we mentioned above), he intended to free the holy land by dispelling the illusion of religion. "I followed my orders, believing in my cause," he says, whispering his final words. "Same as you."

The irony of this, to me, was that Sibrand talks about the dialectic between knowledge and ignorance as a criterion while speaking about belief in the same breath. He, a middle ages crusader, saw scientific wonders that made religion look like ignorance by comparison. In this light, holding knowledge over belief became a moral obligation; to be true to himself, he felt he needed to dismiss all belief as ignorance in favor of the standard of knowledge. But upon his death, he confesses that he acted from the standpoint of belief.

When knowledge is reduced down to its most basic axioms, when we arrive at the deepest foundations of what we think is certain, we have nothing but belief. Short of studying EVERYTHING that there is to know about ANYTHING, to the extreme point of achieving certainty in all aspects of your knowledge, there is no way to know for certain that what you know is actually the case. You have to take it on faith that your eyes are not deceiving you. How do you know the traffic light is green? How are you absolutely, beyond all doubt, objectively certain that it is green? Might it be red? You don't know; all you can do is trust your senses and take it on faith that what they are telling you corresponds to reality. Descartes, for all his faults, shines here; there is no way for you to be certain that everything you learned in school is objectively true. And even if they were true facts when you learned them, the nature of science is that it is in a state of near constant self-contradiction. What is true today in science may not be true tomorrow. The implication of this model of knowledge is that absolute certainty is a pipe dream. Nothing can be known for certain. If you are honest with yourself, I think you will find that this is true of everything you think you have ever known. Faith or doubt, not certainty, is at the base of human understanding. Everything we think we know is an assumption without ultimate proof, a leap of faith. There is no primordially verifiable evidence for human experience.

This is one reason why I am skeptical when people tell me that the dialectic between knowledge and ignorance is the only way to understand the world. I find that it is never that simple. The best that science can do is explore the world and present us with more knowledge, which then serves to update/negate what we thought was absolutely true. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, as knowledge is valuable, and without it, we would arguably remain incomplete and unfulfilled. Learning is a natural and fundamental part of what it means to be human. But the end point is that the more knowledge you have, the more things you have to be uncertain about and the more things you must take on faith.

Sibrand automatically assumed that because he had obtained knowledge, everything beyond the scope of tangible knowledge and certainty had to be discounted. He assumed scientific, factual ignorance was the great evil to avoid, but this very assumption was an act of faith. There was no hard evidence to ground his assumption that knowledge was the highest criterion; he chose where he would place value, where to put his belief. Ironically, his unbelief was wholly constituted by belief, by faith, a faith tainted with despair, a faith determined to sink deeper into doubt.

All this sermonizing is just to say this: you have far more faith and doubt than you do knowledge or certainty, and this tension between faith and doubt is at work in every moment of your life. Do with that what you will.

I only know that I want to believe in something more than knowledge, which is contingent on the ever changing interpretations of what constitutes ignorance. I want to believe in something more than Sibrand's despair. I have to believe in something, by virtue of human finitude, and I cannot do otherwise. So I will choose to believe in something good, something noble, something higher than myself, something constant and absolute. And when I look out into the world of possible beliefs that I could work toward realizing, Christianity and the hope of new life stand out to me in a profound way that I cannot, for all my powers of reason, adequately justify. I am compelled by my very existence to believe, so I will believe in hope. And in that hope, may my ordinary faith be lifted up to new heights, there to find new life."

Until next time, this is the Idiot, signing out.

The Theology of Flatland (God and the 4th Dimension)

Last semester at school, I was required to take a lower level math course that I had no desire to sit through. For the most part, my dread and hesitancy were both justified, but for one brief, shining week or two, the math class covered the topic of the 4th Dimension. Part of that study involved reading Flatland, a wonderful book by Edwin A. Abbott that tells the story of a 2-dimensional being experiencing the higher realities of the 3rd dimension, as we see it. Truly fascinating stuff, I would encourage anyone and everyone to read it.

Everyone else in the class seemed to hate this topic. Perhaps it was too cerebral for them (though how any of them could prefer to discuss modular arithmetic or statistics instead of dimensional theory is beyond me), but my colleagues were relieved when the topic was over and we were assigned a paper, detailing our thoughts and reactions to Flatland. Perhaps it was because I was in a particularly theological mood that semester, but I tackled it from a perspective of how the idea of the 4th dimension pertains to varying models of God's existence. It was philosophically satisfying as well.

This is the paper that I wrote. I feel confident enough in my writing and reasoning that I can share it with you all without too much trepidation. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope this gives you something extra to think about when the subject of God's existence or Flatland or dimensional theory crops up.

And with that said, spoilers. You have been warned.

"At first glance, Flatland appears to have little to do with theology. The given history of that 2-dimensional plane is fueled by satire, the plot points are written in terms of geometrical proofs and the overall goal of the work seems to be to get the reader to think in terms of 0-4 dimensions (or even 0-nth dimensions). Yet the book has themes that transcend the field of mathematics to which it is traditionally bound, especially in the second half when the main figure, A. Square, receives a revelation from a Sphere who comes in the name of a “Gospel of the 3^rd Dimension.” Such terms as “Gospel,” “converts” or “Apostle” imply deeper religious meanings which can give the book added context (62). By no means is this a book with ideological content that is exclusive to the field of mathematics.

This shift towards theology begins in the second half of the book and persists until the end, from the arrival of the visiting Sphere to A. Square's imprisonment. The book's first sign of theological awareness is the point in the story when the Sphere pulls Square out of Flatland and into Spaceland, where Square is overcome with wonder and awe that leads him to initially make the assumption that he now sees things as God does. “Behold, I am become as a God. For the wise men in our country say that to see all things, or as they express it, omnividence, is the attribute of God alone” (66). The Sphere is quick to rebuke him, responding that if omnividence is the attribute of God, then even the crudest and most immoral of Spacelanders must be divine, at which point divinity becomes a joke. Qualities like mercy and love are betters indicators of divinity, according to him.

In this case, Omnividence is a thinly veiled term for omniscience, which was platonically thought to be one of the attributes of a perfectly rational and aloof God. In this platonic theological model, God is seen as being above the possibility of being affected by anything, even feelings. This preference of the intellectual over the emotional is reflected in Flatland's attitude towards women, who are depicted as being irrational and overly-emotional. The Sphere's answer is a dismissal of the platonic model, with its uncaring and purely rational God. Furthermore, it is a refutation of A. Square's gnostic presumption that knowledge, power, and perception are signs of godliness.

It is worth briefly noting that the King of Pointland is another example of the platonic theological model and its inadequacies. As described by the Sphere, this non-dimensional being is completely self encapsulated and utterly indivisible, since he is a universe unto himself: “He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing” (75). The Greek world associated plurality and divisibility with the physical, which was mortal, sinful, and prone to decay. Conversely, singleness and indivisibility were associated with the spirit, which was divine, rational, and eternal. What this implied for them was a God who was a single unit unto himself, so completely transcendent that he could only be aware of himself. This platonic God was, for the Greeks, the highest being, a position that is contested by the example of the King of Pointland, who while being utterly singular is also at the lowest possible level of existence. How pitiful it would be if God were so wrapped up in himself that he could not even be aware of anything other than himself! Creation itself would then be impossible, since creation, by definition, implies a creator and a creation, which is a plurality. By way of this comparison between the non-dimensional and the platonic, we can apply geometry to theology; if God is to be worthy of his name, he cannot possibly be non-dimensional and ignorant of plurality like the King of Pointland, and consequently, he cannot be like the God that the Greeks envisioned.

Also worthy of mention is how Square's initial conviction that Spaceland is the ultimate reality is analogous to the way many people imagine they may feel about the prospect of meeting intelligent extraterrestrials or experiencing the 4^th Dimension firsthand. The rash assumption is often made that upon find ourselves capable of such transcendence, God becomes irrelevant. It may seem a disappointment for a Flatlander to experience the 3^rd Dimension and not find God there (as was the case when Square first assumed that omnividence was Godly and then realized his error), but this does not mean that God is not out there in a yet higher dimension. The day may come when human beings discover a way to travel to the most distant stars or experience the 4^th Dimension for themselves, and they may find no God waiting for them. But this should not be discouraging. How disappointing it would be to learn that God is merely 4^th Dimensional, and not at a level of existence infinitely greater than that. Whatever dimensions we eventually travel to and regardless of what beings we meet, it would be theologically advisable for us to remember that God is the Great Other, of whom we can as of yet see but little. Square's inability to look upward did not discount the possibility of upward direction; our inability to look in God's direction does not discount the possibility of his existence. No matter how many dimensions we travel to, we will not find God with our own eyes, but he will still be present. Until we meet face to face, he will remain Nth Dimensional.

All of this is to say that our finitude as human beings affects how we think of God and also how we are unable to see him. Our platonic models yield only the pitiful King of Pointland and unfeeling rationality, and no matter how hard we try, we do not have eyes capable of seeing beyond the fog of our imposed dimensions. No matter what incredible strides we make in terms of spatial or dimensional capability, the one true and all encompassing answer is beyond achieving on our own strength. But in spite of all this, we have heard God speak to us, though we could not see him. We did not have to rip through dimensional barriers to find the truth; the truth came to us. When God decided that the time was right for us to see him with our limited, 3-Dimensional eyes, he stepped down into our dimension as the Incarnation, so he could preach a Gospel of a Kingdom, the Dimension of Heaven."

Feedback/comments are welcomed and encouraged. I'd love to hear what you think of all this.

Until next time, this is the Idiot, signing out.

Immanuel Kant-Copernican Revolution

Here it is, my new video! This is footage of a honors presentation I gave last semester at school. It was a lot of work to put together, but a lot of fun too. Sorry about the choppiness of the editing; I had to chop it down to size in places in order for youtube to let me upload it. Other than that, I'm quite proud of it. Enjoy!



This is the Idiot, signing out.