Thursday, 18 August 2005 03:52 pm
(no subject)
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deckardcanineMy current reading is of Peter Kreeft (pronounced "kreft," I believe), Making Sense Out of Suffering. I've owned it for a while now, but I decided to save it for a long time after the last book I read on the theme, when I rather needed it. Kreeft alludes to the books I have read, sometimes in sharp disagreement. I could talk, er, type a blue streak about the great information and ideas he has, but that would annoy more people than it pleased. Nevertheless, he has gotten me to realize a couple things about myself.
First, he said that all forms of creation are painful for humans (childbirth being the most dramatic example, not the only). Introspectively, I concur. That has to be the real reason why I find it so hard to sit down and create even what I already have planned in my head. It's not simply an aversion to work; I found last weekend's 8 hours of copy edits no more taxing than writing a four-stanza poem, which is another thing I reputedly do very well.
Second, as he talked about pervasive themes in arts and philosophy, I remembered something I once read on Kreeft's website: "There are relatively few atheists among neurologists and brain surgeons and among astrophysicists, but many among psychologists, sociologists, and historians. The reason seems obvious: the first study divine design, the second study human undesign." If the first sentence is true, then my personal case is ironic. The so-called hard sciences turn up some findings in favor of theism -- estimates of the unlikelihood of life beginning without deliberate assistance don't hurt -- but ultimately their bases for argument from design and such are only a little interesting to me, partly because they seem to say next to nothing about what God is like. Curious statistics such as that no one on record has died attending, going to, or coming from Mass are a little better, but they're still stats. No, to me, the strongest support for my faith comes from the way people act, what they seem to think, feel, dream. Maybe it just comes from already having psychology as my favorite science, but certain things in human nature and culture, on both individual and global scales, make it difficult for me to believe that people would develop as they have without a particular kind of God.
You can believe or not as you choose. My main points pertain to a new self-understanding.
First, he said that all forms of creation are painful for humans (childbirth being the most dramatic example, not the only). Introspectively, I concur. That has to be the real reason why I find it so hard to sit down and create even what I already have planned in my head. It's not simply an aversion to work; I found last weekend's 8 hours of copy edits no more taxing than writing a four-stanza poem, which is another thing I reputedly do very well.
Second, as he talked about pervasive themes in arts and philosophy, I remembered something I once read on Kreeft's website: "There are relatively few atheists among neurologists and brain surgeons and among astrophysicists, but many among psychologists, sociologists, and historians. The reason seems obvious: the first study divine design, the second study human undesign." If the first sentence is true, then my personal case is ironic. The so-called hard sciences turn up some findings in favor of theism -- estimates of the unlikelihood of life beginning without deliberate assistance don't hurt -- but ultimately their bases for argument from design and such are only a little interesting to me, partly because they seem to say next to nothing about what God is like. Curious statistics such as that no one on record has died attending, going to, or coming from Mass are a little better, but they're still stats. No, to me, the strongest support for my faith comes from the way people act, what they seem to think, feel, dream. Maybe it just comes from already having psychology as my favorite science, but certain things in human nature and culture, on both individual and global scales, make it difficult for me to believe that people would develop as they have without a particular kind of God.
You can believe or not as you choose. My main points pertain to a new self-understanding.
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no subject
Certainly language is one of the most flawed human constructions ever, and therefore less than an ideal home for a divine gift. Kreeft senses limitations to his task as well, offering only clues and not full-fledged answers.
In other words, your perspective on people?
If you want a specific example, there's the sense that we're exiled kings, that we're getting less than that for which we were born. Mythologies all over the world have us in some sort of fallen state. It's these apparent universalities in our ideas and feelings that get me thinking, "Why else would this be?"