Critique of Dostoevsky and Freud

            Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote about two brothers, Ivan and Alyosha. Ivan is telling Alyosha about a poem that he wrote. He describes Christ visiting Seville during the most intense period of the Inquisition. Many people gather around him but the Grand Inquisitor comes, captures the Jesus, and takes him away for questioning. He then interrogates the Jesus. He goes on to talk about the freedoms that humans possess, primarily the freedom of religion and how the church has taken the freedoms of the people and enforced Christianity. Ivan then describes the three temptations of Christ as being the three fundamental temptations and flaws of all humanity. Man’s freedom, Ivan says, leads to a need to worship something. However man desires more than to just worship something; man must have unity in worship and is always seeking for community. He also says that God desires man to have this freedom because to be loved out of free will is far greater than to be loved by coercion.

            This concept of freedom is expressed well by Dostoevsky. He shows humans as being slaves and rebels, but also as having been given freedom by God. There is some validity to this statement. Additionally, Dostoevsky is almost condemning the church for its actions. The church has eliminated that basic freedom of man by forcing man to worship Christ. The Inquisitor thinks that it is for the service of Christ but it is truly just taking away his pleasure.

            Sigmund Freud had a personal correspondence with Albert Einstein concerning the causes of World War I. He answers Einstein’s question by saying that although war is so hated and despised, it is necessary because it is conflict is the essential nature of man. The mind, as seen by Freud although not in this work, is always fighting between the two conflicting parts of the Id and the Superego. He gives a psychological history of man that shows its longing to avoid conflict, but that conflict will always exist. His conclusion to Einstein’s question is that war is natural, but it should be avoided because it ends hopeful human lives and it forces men to murder.

            Freud correctly analyzes the fundamental aspect of human nature as possessing conflict. In his own terms, there is a sinful side of us, the Id, which is always in conflict with our new nature, the Superego. While it was not a perfect analysis, there are many correct perceptions in his theory. He also identifies man’s desire for community as being essential.

            Dostoevsky and Freud both describe the same basic nature of man as being in conflict. Dostoevsky’s approach is more spiritual, as he illustrates the slavery and freedom of the soul. Freud rejects the idea of a soul and the conflict he describes is mental, between the Superego and the Id, with the Ego mediating. Man’s nature is not essentially conflictual, although the ensuing effect is. Calvin shows that man’s nature is depravity. However, in Christ we have been given a new nature that is like Christ. These two natures come into conflict which is beautifully expressed by Paul in Romans 7 where he says that “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Paul had recognized that his new nature wanted to live justly, but his sinful nature, the thing he hates, triumphed over his Christ nature. However, Dostoevsky’s and Freud’s views were based on a Godless, or at least non-Christian, philosophy. Therefore they did not see any redemption in the eternal conflict of man. After the rejection of God in the Enlightenment, the optimism of man gradually fell towards pessimism and despair. Why would a human want to live their entire lives in conflict? Especially with themselves? Dostoevsky admitted that man desires peace. However this peace will never be found solely by man’s efforts, it can only be found in Christ. 

Life Elsewhere?

            Recently, scientists published an article in the journal Astrobiology in which they ranked every discovered planet and moon according to their likelihood of having life. They organized two different rankings: the Earth Similarity Index (ESI), which measures how similar they are to Earth in their size, density, and distance from the center of the solar system, and the Planetary Habitability Index (PHI), which measures factors such as whether or not the surface is rocky or water, and if so if it is frozen or liquid, the chemistry of the planet, and if there is an atmosphere or a magnetic field. The exoplanet Gliese 581g, which scored the highest on the ESI with a 0.89 (Earth is a 1 on the scale) and a 0.45 on the PHI, had the highest composite score out of all the planets and moons tested. The highest scorer on the PHI was Titan, Jupiter’s moon. Mars was the highest scoring planet other than Earth in our solar system. All of the exoplanets in the Gliese solar system scored highly on both of the indices, and are continuing to be studied by astronomers.

            As the search for extraterrestrial life expands, scientists now have a reasonable order in which to search the universe. The results of the ESI were promising. However the PHI results were quite low, so low in fact that if they were on a standard testing scale, every planet and moon would have failed. The results are especially troubling because the PHI is a far more important test when testing for the possible origins of life and its early sustainability. Moreover, some astronomers doubt the existence of Gliese 581g, which was the highest scorer. The prognosis does not appear to be good if the most likely extraterrestrial “world” to host life does not even exist.

            The main purpose of astronomers is to find extraterrestrial life. Their goal is twofold: they believe the discovery of extraterrestrial life will disprove the Bible and finally disprove Christianity, and to add to the possibility that life arose by randomly by chance (yes that is redundant but it further adds to the extreme uncertainty that life came from non-life). The antiscientific practices that have taken over all science are driving it to its breaking point. Science should be practiced by always trying to disprove theories, and once something cannot be disproved beyond absolute doubt, it can be accepted. Now scientists look for ways to prove their own theories and reject opposition. Biology is fully corrupt. Evolution is built upon false proof, and if any serious scientist tried to disprove it, they could do so without a blink. Astronomy has grown to be the same monster. Rather than accept the Biblical Creation, scientists fabricate ridiculous theories such as the Big Bang and the Multiverse hypothesis to explain how something appeared from nothing, and then how life appeared from non-life. A famous physicist once said that “Astronomers search their whole lives to find the origin of life. After they have looked everywhere, and come to the highest peak of astronomy, they climb on to the peak to find that theologians have been there all along.” Scientists spend their entire lives thinking there is a universe without God, but will spend eternity knowing that the universe exists because of God. 

Hegel and Darwin critique

            Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s first point is that Reason, or the Idea of truth, is the essence of history. He also says that the Spirit is self-existent and does not rely on any outside sources of sustenance. Everything exists in the world of the spirit, but also has connection to matter, which is the opposite of the spirit. For the essence of matter is gravity, and everything is being drawn towards the center; but in the Spirit, it is the center of itself, and relies on no other influence, therefore it is free. He then says that the law, morality, and the State are the fulfillment of freedom. Hegel proceeds to deduce that because the law is the fulfillment of freedom, only the will which obeys the law is fully free. History, Hegel says, is progressive, and is always nearing a fuller grasp of the Idea. He ends by saying that the Idea is eternally present, meaning that it cannot be found in the past or the future.

            Hegel appears to promote a kind of pantheism by saying that everything exists in the Spirit. However, although he never fully clarifies the relationship, he says that matter and the Spirit are opposites. He considers man to be the highest entity of the Spirit, because its ultimate goal is to satisfy itself. His glorified view of the State is ominous because of its supreme power especially since the ultimate freedom can only come through full submission to the law.

            Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 to extreme opposition. He claimed that life has slowly evolved over time, progressively building up numerous beneficial mutations. Darwin considers variability to be governed by correlated growth, compensation, use and disuse of organs, and outside influences. Darwin still believed in a creator God that created a few primitive species which gave rise to all life on Earth as it is today.

            Darwin has at the basis of his theory an incomplete and unobserved view of the fossil record. He himself admits that the fossil record is “highly imperfect.” He forms a hypothesis based on an estimation of what he thinks the fossil record will produce. Additionally, Darwin’s view of mutations is flawed. Over 80% of all mutations are harmful or neutral, and only a small few are largely beneficial. Furthermore, Lamarck’s theory of Use and Disuse, which is used by Darwin, is extremely ridiculous and false. Since the beginning of the world, the genetic code is declining; every mutation causes the loss of information. Evolution, if it were reality, would be degenerative, not progressive.

            Hegel and Darwin were both extremely influential in solidifying the Romantic Movement and completely removing the concept of a God from society. Hegel’s theory of the ultimate freedom being found under law, which echoes the absolutism of Hobbes, is a slippery slope. He saw the government, and all of mankind, as fully enlightened and good. He rejected the Lutheran and Calvinistic views of depravity. Moreover, the Socratic view that the beginning of all knowledge was the knowledge of ignorance was rejected. Man was now the ultimate standard. Absolutes were only established by the will of the present desire of man. The infinite truth, the basis for all civilization, was discarded.  Both Hegel and Darwin considered this rejection necessary because the old views were formed by men who were not as knowledgeable or enlightened as present man was. Hegel’s main contention, and indeed Darwin’s also, is that history is progressive. While Hegel applies his view to philosophy, and Darwin to science, the two men’s views are synthesized in modern thought. The Marxian view of communism was borne out of the progressive view of history, as it is always striving for communism. This view, that is considered progressive, is only progressively despairing. Schaffer’s observance of Western Civilization shows its decline though the ages. The idea that man is just a result of nature, and that it is only separated from the other beasts by its superior mind is hopeless. To rephrase Darwin, there is NO grandeur in this view of life, only despair. Our only hope can be found in the eternal, infinite grace of God. 

Thoughts on Oedipus Rex

            The play, Oedipus Rex, or the King, starts with a problem. The wonderfully crafted tale leads through the life of Oedipus as the story evolves until the end, where everything is fully revealed. the play begins with a plague striking the city of Thebes. The priest and the people cry to Oedipus for help. A prophet proclaims to the people that they must “drive the corruption” from their lands and they will be free. The priest, Tiresias, accuses Oedipus as the corruption saying that he killed the previous king of Thebes, Laius. He also says that the murderer, the corruptor, killed his own father and married his own mother. Jocasta tells the defiant Oedipus that the prophecy was made that her and Laius’s child would kill the father and marry the mother so they had the child killed. Oedipus begins to believe some of the prophet’s story as the events are unfolding. He summons a shepherd, who is the witness of the killing of Laius. A messenger comes and says that Polybus, the king who Oedipus thought was his father, is dead. The messenger then says that Polybus was not Oedipus's real father, but found him as a baby abandoned on a mountainside. The shepherd then arrives and Oedipus interrogates him about the killing of Laius. The shepherd tells Oedipus that he killed Laius, his own father. Now knowing that he is the prophesied child, Oedipus is overwhelmed with shock. Jocasta, his own mother and wife, kills herself because of the atrocity. Oedipus blinds himself when he sees that his wife/mother is dead. The play ends with Oedipus being taken away from his daughters, his sisters.

            The play is a tragedy. It ends in horror with the two main characters dead or exiled. It is not like many modern plays (from Shakespeare to modern) in that it is only one main event, rather than several separate acts or scenes. The entire play is set in a court with a large group of people observing everything that happens. It represents that no political scandal can be hidden from the citizens. While the play is a tragedy, and its characters are not typical of the people of the time, elements of Greek worldview are still expressed. The heavy dependence of prophecy, both by the oracle at Delphi and Tiresias, play an immense role in the play. The oracle’s prophecy caused a king and queen to try to kill their own son. Tiresias is presented as insane and is hated by Oedipus but eventually is found to be right. The word of the prophets is as much truth to the Greeks as the Bible is to Christians.

            The view of gods, and especially prophets, is very similar to that in The Iliad. Achilles knows that the prophets communicate with the gods and therefore deserve respect. Oedipus, like Agamemnon, refuses to accept the word of the prophets, and ultimately faces his downfall. Their lives are controlled by fate. Determined by a higher power, no human can escape it. The Greeks, as seen in Oedipus Rex and the Iliad, have a strong belief in fate. The dependence of the Greeks on the gods is not a correct worldview, but it was successful in that it served as the basis for the most powerful society in the world for several hundred years. As Francis Schaeffer points out, society must have a strong base to be successful. Christian society has its roots in Scripture and in God. The infinite standard serves as a basis for all belief and reason, and dictates our lives. The Greeks had that strong base in their gods. Greek society was far more intertwined with the idea of gods than the Latin society. Although they had the exact same gods, just differing in name, the Greeks were far more pious in their worship and devotion to the gods. They were still wrong with their ideals, but it was sufficient to support Greek civilization. This play was not meant to be a display of Greek worldview or ideals, although it did to a degree, it was simply a play. It was not the grand epic like the Iliad and the Odyssey. It did not have a specific moral like Aesop’s fables. It most certainly was not a parable like Plato’s cave analogy. It was simply a play, a system of entertainment for the Greeks. Its renown has lasted through the ages as one of the greatest tragedies of all time. 

Critique of Inferno

            Dante Alighieri starts off his epic in the Inferno, which is hell and its environs. His first occurrence is meeting Virgil, who will serve as his guide through hell. The outermost ring, Limbo, is where Virgil says are the people that lived before Christ and lived righteous lives but did not get into heaven. There is still suffering there, but it is minimized. They then trek further in to hell, and after crossing the river into the pits of the underworld, come across the normal hell. There Dante sees Celestine V, who supposedly renounced his papacy for selfish reasons. With him are many other vile and unrighteous sinners. Virgil then tells Dante that the people such as Abraham and David, who are “missing” from hell, are in heaven with Christ because he took them up with him after he rose from the dead. Virgil shows Dante the four great ancient poets. Dante encounters Ugolino, who recounts his unfortunate life and death to Dante and Virgil. They finally reach the inner ring of hell, and can see Satan himself at the center. Around him are Judas, Brutus, and Cassius. Finally, they climb out of the inferno and are back in the realm of the living.

            The strict rhythm of Dante’s verses give order to the great epic. It further applies the idea that hell is made of several layers, that each get progressively worse in correspondence to the transgressors. Virgil is an interesting choice for a guide, but helps in the storytelling because he was such a great poet. When Virgil shows Dante the four great ancient poets, who are led by Homer, they call out to him as if he is one of them. Dante then considers himself to be among the great poets such as Homer, Ovid, and Virgil.

            Dante has an interesting worldview. Throughout his journey are mixed elements of Catholic beliefs and mythology. The Greek titans as well as the layout of the underworld with the river Styx are straight out of Greek mythology, and even from Homer himself. He says in his journey that good works are not enough to keep someone out of hell, however Virgil tells Dante that “the signature of honor they left on earth is recognized in heaven and wins them ease in Hell out of God’s favor.” Dante believes then that works cannot lead to salvation, but are still necessary in order to keep a person in the “good” parts of hell rather than the center. Moreover, Dante considers some sins to merit more punishment than others. In the Bible, we are warned that all sin is equal in God’s sight, save the unforgiveable sin of blasphemy. In Dante’s Inferno, the worst sin is betrayal, which is why Judas, Brutus, and Cassius are in the deepest part of hell with Satan himself. The Christian worldview does not allow for different parts of hell. A soul can go to either heaven or hell, with no inner or outer rings. Works, according to Dante, cannot lead to salvation, but still have bearing on eternity. While this idea is Biblical, his view is incorrect. We will be rewarded with riches based on our deeds on the earth when we are judged by God. Works will not keep people out of the deeper parts of hell. Dante takes a nearly Lutheran stance when criticizing the pope, but does so for a far different reason; Luther criticized popes for their inadherence to the scripture, but Dante criticized the pope because he stepped down from the papacy because it was too corrupt. Finally, Dante’s placing of Aristotle above Socrates and Plato shows that his reason is more based on induction and observable facts than from the source of an infinite truth. Dante appears to be a true medieval Catholic humanist that shows the corruption of the church from its original beliefs, in which he is trying to synthesize ancient reason and logic with his Christianity. 

Rousseau and Locke Critique

            Jean Jacques Rousseau gives a history of man that explains the origins of inequality. His opening sentence condemns the first man who over claimed personal property. His history begins with pre-civilized, and even pre-barbaric, man. The first step towards inequality came when man proclaimed himself chief among the animals. Then through several steps, man’s association amongst itself became the breeding ground for judgment based on inequality. Rousseau ends by saying that independent man is the pinnacle of mankind and that civilization is corrupt because of the congregation of men. In Emile, JJR gives his view on the raising of children and the acquisition of knowledge. His basis is that God made all things, and that it was good until it was ruined by man. When a child is born, it is dependent on man, not God, but it is the duty of a parent to remove this dependence for it is an evil. He then says that man cannot experience the absolutes (i.e. joy and total despair), but can only experience happiness, and the lack of happiness. Furthermore, a child must only be given what is essential to live, and must not be trained that anything in excess is good. JJR ends by saying that man is born basically good and that “he does not know how to do wrong.”

            Rousseau does not follow a strict theology through his works. His views on the nature of man are anti-biblical and seem to be a predecessor to Darwin. Additionally, his evaluation that happiness is the greatest state which man can achieve is incorrect; man can achieve true joy which is our ultimate end. JJR also implies that God made all things good and that man corrupted it, therefore the deeds of man are greater than the works of God.

            John Locke was the first of many great philosophers to ask the question, where does knowledge come from? His response began with the fact that man is born with “no inborn qualities.” Locke goes on to say that all knowledge comes about by experience. That experience has two forms: sensory observation and reflection in the mind. He attempts to show his point by saying that the ability to reason comes only once things have been observed by the senses, then the mind has enough capacity to reason. The mind then organizes the experiences.

            Locke introduced a massive topic that would be addressed by many further writers. The reason they felt the need to discuss it was because Locke did not do enough to prove his points, and merely left them as his beliefs and rarely tried to prove them. Moreover, to say that man is born with no “inborn qualities” is errant because if man were born as a blank slate, man would not know how to use his senses to observe and experience nature. The most basic ability to know how and to desire to observe is inherent in man.

            The fundamental flaw of both authors is their misunderstanding of human nature. Both Rousseau and Locke, although emphasized more by Locke, say that man is born basically good, and is corrupted by the world. Their solution is also very similar; man must be removed from the evils of the world, or can only experience ameliatory influences. This solution only works if man is naturally good and if experience is the only way in which knowledge can be acquired. Clearly man is sinful. But not just sinful, man is completely and totally depraved. Paul states that “there is no one righteous, not one.” Additionally, experience is not the only path to finding knowledge. Immanuel Kant said that “although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.” (Yes I have used this quote a lot, but it’s one of my favorites) There are three distinct, but intrinsically connected, parts to our ability to gain knowledge: experience, reason, and revelation. Revelation is the greatest of the three because through it, we are given the knowledge and ability to observe absolute truth. Experience gives us abstract examples of our knowledge. And through reason, we can synthesize the knowledge that we observe because of the truth revealed to us by God. Just as Kant proved that pure reason alone is incapable of bringing the ship back to the shore, experience also falls far short of steering the ship in a positive direction. There is no hope if man relies on reason alone, or on experience alone, but as Christians we have been given revelation which allows us to use reason and experience the way they were meant to be used which gives us hope and joy, which is our ultimate end. 

Reflections on Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes

            Francis Bacon in his New Organon, which was meant to supersede the Organon of Aristotle, compiled a collection of his thoughts concerning a variety of matters, but most importantly, the learning process. His first statement is that man can only learn through nature. He then states that knowledge and power are intrinsically connected to each other. He then gives several reasons concerning the importance of logic and reason. Bacon describes four “idols” which stand in the way of human reason: first is that man is the measure of all things, second is that man is stuck in a cave and should work together for “the common good”, thirdly he says that words can cloud something’s true meaning, and finally he states that religion and philosophy can be errant. Bacon also states that raw experience or experimentation is useless without reason to synthesize the information. He concludes by saying that the goal of science is to understand nature, not just to gain experience.

            Even though it was not his intent, Bacon’s work is certainly secular. He elevates the powers of observation and analysis above that of reason, and indeed revelation. He was the first of many great thinkers and philosophers to quash the power of reason for that of experience. Bacon puts such emphasis on the importance of experience in regards to knowledge, which, as Bacon says, is power.

            Rene Descartes wrote in a similar fashion to Bacon, except that his “thoughts” became several paragraphs rather than just a few sentences. His first statement is that good sense, or reason is equally distributed to all men, but that some people use it better than others do. He then proposes his own four-step method to finding knowledge: to doubt unless something has been explicitly proven, to divide the difficulty/problem in to manageable pieces, to begin from the simplest of the pieces of the problem and work toward the more complex, and finally to be clear and thorough. Descartes then goes on to say his famous statement, “I think, therefore I am” while attempting to prove that the spirit exists separately from the physical. He uses the example that a person can dream something that does not happen in reality; therefore it must be separate from reality.

            Descartes stressed the role of reason in synthesizing experience. His main argument was to propose a dualism of the spiritual and the physical. His treatment of learning is beneficial because it is an easier path to reason and experimentation. However, he applies his method to too much by saying that only that which can be reasoned is true.

            Bacon and Descartes both stress the vitality of experience in regard to knowledge. They stress the importance of facts, very much like the schoolteacher and principal in Dickens’s Hard Times. They follow in the footsteps of Aquinas and Aristotle who all said that knowledge is useless unless synthesized by reason. Descartes takes his philosophy too far by saying that only things which can be proven by reason are true, which is similar to Bacon’s statement that knowledge can only arise from observation. As the great philosopher Immanuel Kant later said, “But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.” Kant was correct in saying that knowledge is connected to experience, but that it is fully dependent on experience. Bacon and Descartes both neglect the revelation of God, which reveals knowledge to man that cannot be accessed through experience or reason. God would not need to reveal himself to man if man could seek God on his own. In Romans 3, Paul says that “there is no one that seeks God.” The fundamental flaw with both philosophers is that they believe that God can be reasoned. The very nature of God is beyond reason. Although He has created a rational universe that operates by predictable laws, God does not operate by its simplicity and has qualities that cannot be reasoned such as His eternal and infinite presence and the Trinity. Moreover, there are simple truths about God’s existence which cannot be accessed without God’s revelation. Jesus said that he spoke in parables to keep truths of his kingdom from those that do not believe. As Christians, God revealed his truth to us so that we can have knowledge and understanding of him. God’s revelation is not only necessary to our spiritual lives, but is the source of our ability to understand our observations. Bacon and Descartes both admitted that raw observations are useless without synthesis, and our reason to synthesize observation comes from God’s revelation. Without it, we would be chained in the darkness, only able to see shadows of reality.