What's The Narrative Life of An Intellectual Christian Like?
It’s DrinkHaven day! We’re having drinks and seeing what sort of posts come out of that. In my case, it turned out to be a semi-drunk dialog with an intellectual rat-adjacent Christian here, who is also a friend from Colorado. :)
With my new focus on creating narrative in our lives, I began to strongly suspect that Christians (and other theists) have a major advantage by already believing in a world that is run on narrative rules, with an author/protagonist. I had images of a life filled with stories, woven together with a common shared myth. This is our conversation about that. It’s maybe not super interesting to anyone else, but it’s what came out of today’s experiment.
Sean was a rationalist until ~2 years ago, remains smart and driven, and is a Catholic now. He blogs at Collisteru, you can read his other writings there.
His version of this same post is here.
Eneasz: When I was young and the world was full of magic I believed I was involved in a story of good vs evil. God was the king that was leading us, we were his soldiers. I miss this world of characters and storylines and narrative magic. Do you feel there is a narrative to life? I assume you must believe god is a person who pays attention to the world and directs it, do you think so? What makes you think that?
Collisteru:
[I will preface all by work by saying that I am a bit tipsy right now, and so these ideas are only half-formed and I do not necessarily fully support them upon the fullest reflection. ]
So, I do think that GOD has a personal interest not just in the world, but in our lives and even in the structure of physics, and in my life in particular, and in your life in particular. GOD is infinite and omnipresent, HE is boundless, as St. Augustine, HE is like the water of the sea, and we are like fishes enveloped by this water.
Eneasz: Why???? T_T
Collisteru: I think that theism is the most parsimonious explanation not just for consciousness, but also for the existence of true good and evil, and also for the general narrative of history.
Enaeasz: I don’t think consciousness is a problem, so I’ll ignore that. True good and evil don’t need a personal god IMO. They can arrise from humanity. But what is this about the narrative of history. I think we can impose one, a lot of what I’m doing with my writing now is taking my own history and making a narrative out of it, but this is an artifice, and can be worked in various ways depending on the narrative-spinner’s desires. Eg my post Words Are Fake recounts how I started to relay an event in my life and making it into a narrative that is legitimate, but not true to my experience. By thinking about an event in a certain way I could make a narrative out of it that was false, even tho every fact relayed was true. I needed to interpret it in the way that my psychology actually believes it to make it a true narrative.
Collisteru: So, I have a good friend back in Colorado who is in my opinion one of the best up-and-coming philosophers of our generation. One of his concepts that I like is assuming realism.
The tension between realism and relativism is one of the most fundamental contours of philosophy. I call relativism any philosophy that says that a thing X is constructed by humans or does not exist outside human kinds or dissemination, and realism that says that that thing X does exist outside of human construction.
It’s pretty clear that privileging realism gives us better results than not doing so. For example, science only began to advance when we understood that we could be right and wrong about the contours of reality, that reality existed in some form entirely outside of our human understanding of it, which was a major innovation in philosophy and science. This innovation was in part spurred by teh development of Christian theology, which was the first world-system to separate the natural and the supernatural.
I believe, more controversially, that this philosophy of realism can also be applied to history. The “GOD’s-Eye View” of history is the correct one, and so we see that there is a privileged, correct way to view history. The best formulation of this I’ve found is Hegel’s from his Lectures on the Philosophy of History [https://hegel.net/hegelwerke/Sibree1894-Lectures_on_the_Philosophy_of_History.pdf] . Hegel says that history is the progression of spirit from less to more freedom. While I don’t agree with every detail of Hegel’s theory, I think the general trend has been well substantiated both before and since.
[More on board with realism being good and important; beauty is an objective thing. I don’t think beauty is just in the eye of the beholder. Realism argues against a GOD existing, because there doesn’t appear to be a GOD existing, where the universe is chaotic and soulless.]
Eneasz: I’m becoming more realism-pilled. EG since I saw CJ the X’s talk about beauty in art I am committed to Beauty is Real Thing that exists within the world, and it is our job to find it, channel it, recognize it. It depends on context, but it is a real thing that one can be right or wrong about. But this makes me think that realism argues against god, because there is no god to be found. Nature is cold and relentless and utterly impartial. It is our job to make narrative, it is our job to find beauty, because there is no god to do this for us.
Collisteru: What do you think daily life and the universe would look life if Christianity if true?
Eneasz: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away”
Collisteru: So, I agree with every word of this, and every word of it is in the future tense. I believe that all of this will come in an undetermined part of the future, but I didn’t necessarily think that it’s happening now. Christians believe in a linear progression of history in which the history of salvation is affected in a linear way. Titus 2:13 CEB – “At the same time we wait for the blessed hope and the glorious appearance of our great God and savior Jesus Christ.”
I should answer my own question by answering what I believe the world would be like if there was no GOD. I believe Lovecraft did a good job of depicting this; I imagine a life where everything is ambiguous, where the universe has no moral or physical regularity. Imagine a nightmare. Imagine a place where monsters spring from the hills and fall out of the air in front of you; where the stormclouds of angry fate appearify and bite you for no reason whatsoever. This is not our life; and yet without the LORD it would be. That’s why I believe.
Eneasz: That’s just saying laws of physics wouldn’t exist without god. Which is fine, but not really a thing I’m interested in, cuz not provable. I want to know how you are holding on to a belief that narrative is being created by god. Do you believe that? Why doesn’t the universe look like a fantasy novel?
Collisteru: Of course GOD laid down the rules of physics. Sure, we can’t prove the existence of regular physics is caused by GOD. But I don’t think we can prove GOD at all. I think that’s fine– I’m okay holding certain beliefs that I can’t prove. You can’t prove most moral claims, for example.
What do you mean “why doesn’t the universe look like a fantasy novel?”
Eneasz: Disagree, it’s easy to prove many moral claims. What I mean is why is there no narrative, why are so many lives meaningless, why isn’t everything about beauty and truth and moving towards a satisfying resolution. Why doesn’t anything matter?
Collisteru: “Disagree, it’s easy to prove many moral claims.” Okay, prove a moral claim.
I think that lives are meaningful, and things are about beauty and truth, and in particular I believe that love itself, which the avatar of GOD as a metaphysical object, is the final goal of life. I think everything matters, and I believed this strongly even when I was an atheist. This is probably what started me on the road to faith. I’m not entirely sure what to say to those who do not feel this. Why do you do the things you do? Why do you have the goals you have?
Eneasz: Love this, and basically agree this is what we should do as humans, but no idea why you are introducing “God” into it. Are you just using “God” as a word for “the post-singularity state of universal love and togetherness that we’re striving for”? Then why give it personhood? ANd why use the word that will cause the maximum confusion among 99.9% of humans? I see this so much with smart people who say they believe in God, and then it’s never anything that actually works on a literal personal level in the world.
Collisteru: Hahaha, that’s a very fair point.
So, I don’t think GOD is exactly a state… HE is outside space and time. I give GOD personhood because I think HE is a person… he has spoken to me and many people I know. HE is our friend. I think GOD actually works on a literal personal level in the world.
Eneasz: OK. Fair enough, I do not have access to that evidence. I didn’t intend to come into this trying to convince you, and I knew you wouldn’t be convincing me either, so I’m trying to steer this away from being about “does god exist.” I am trying to understand what life with a god belief is like that is significantly different from one without it. I… I think maybe this is futile. It feels like imagining what life is like as the opposite sex, or living in a D&D World. I can make it as beautiful as I want in my imagination, but I can never actually feel it. I’m drunk and I was trying to feel it vicariously through you. So I guess…. What is it like to wake up in the mornings? Or to go through an average day? I want to see archetypes and myths more clearly, I want to see forces in the world that I’m a part of. I am working to do this, and it is a huge amount of work. I’m emotionally exhausted this month, the last week I haven’t had the energy to do effort-posts. I’m tyring to imagine what it would be like if everything just felt like this by default and didn’t require putting myself in an altered headspace and living in a beautiful, liminal world through self-interrogation and writing. Is your life like what it feels like for me to hit “send” on an effort-post, all the time? Or is that just my fantasy view, like what I believed it would be like to be a woman?
Sean:
This is very special and I appreciate your curiosity and charity during this discussion. You are very kind.
A goal I’ve often seen practicing Christians have is to think of God as their first thought in the morning. I achieve this perhaps on 20% of days… and of course, it is a good thought, though also a thought laden with responsibility. I think it makes me want to better express the LORD’s values and what I think HE wants me to do in my life.
Unfortunately, us humans are finicky creatures… we are like the cat who wanders away from home many times, then comes back, wet and shivering. I do not think of GOD as often or as thoroughly as I would want to. In this tainted world, developing a relationship with the good, the true, and the beautiful is a discipline.
Eneasz: Interesting. This is helpful. Upon reading this I think I’m glad I’m not Christian. I like my way better, because it feels true. Forcing myself into a frame of “God” feels like interpreting what I see in a way that is… OK I hate to say this because it’s going to sound insulting, please believe me that I don’t mean it in a pejorative way, but ofc there’s no way this won’t be insulting… I see it as kinda desperate. Wanting an interpretation so hard that one is willing to impose a narrative that is available, but not True To Self. Like what I almost did with Words Are Fake. I still feel that being true to self is very hard, and I will slip from the path many times. But imposing a view that has been put through committee and decided as correct is one that can be done, and will certainly lend structure and narrative and some version of a good life… but a version that belongs to something outside of me more than what is actually mine. I think the difference between Love and God is that Love must come from within, and God is what happens when that is wrestled away from you by another. Maybe this is related to my opinions on monogamy vs polyamory, and how much I am repelled by control of others. God is Love + Outside-Control, and that feels like Anti-Love to me.
Collisteru:
Oh Eneasz. I cannot peer into your soul. I cannot enter into your breath-spirit and understand the kaleidoscope of music and light within…
I’m not insulted. I understand why you say that Christianity seems desperate. I just don’t think I have as an inherent value-forming one’s own world-system. I haven’t done the tests to figure out Newtonian physics and quantum physics, but I don’t think I would be a better person if I had made my own conception of physics. The physicists have thought mkuch more about physics than I have, so I do well by accepting their ideas. The theologians have thought much more about GOD, including as the origin mof mortality, than I have, and I do well by accepting their ideas. I don’t think I’m so important that everything I believe has to come from me, or it won’t be “True to Self.”
“ I think the difference between Love and God is that Love must come from within, and God is what happens when that is wrestled away from you by another.”
I think that loves permeates the universe and that it comes from both inside and outside me, and I think that it is a metaphysical force that we must experience.
In general, I hope that atheists and Christians can continue to have charitable conversation; each coming to better know the thoughts of the other.
Eneasz: The difference between physicists and theologians are too numerous to list, to the point that I consider it bad faith to try to compare them. I do think I’ve learned a bit more about the Christian view from this conversation, and I’m happier about my position than I was before we started. Knowing that there isn’t a shortcut I consider worth using is kinda reassuring, even if does mean so much more work. Ty for the convo.
Why do you say he "was" a rationalist when he is obviously still a rationalist? Scholasticism was the high point of rationalism.
"The tension between realism and relativism is one of the most fundamental contours of philosophy. I call relativism any philosophy that says that a thing X is constructed by humans or does not exist outside human kinds or dissemination, and realism that says that that thing X does exist outside of human construction."
I'm calling this out because this false dichotomy is one of the roots of Christianity and all other forms of Platonism, and is used for all kinds of rationalist chicanery. When a non-Platonist hears it, he might recognize "relativism" as being inaccurately equated with strong social constructivism; but never realizes that "realism" means not "the material world is real", but "the spiritual world is real and the material world is not."
The materialist, realistic response to this false dichotomy is to recognize that every genuine claim is both objective (realistic) and subjective (relative), because all claims are relative to the context they're made in. There are no context-free claims. "Eneasz is the tallest person in the room" is objectively right or wrong; we can get out a ruler and judge it, and every sane person will agree on the result. But it's also only subjectively right or wrong, as it depends on which room the speaker is in. EVERY LINGUISTIC CLAIM (that is not a tautology) HAS THIS NATURE.
(I'm using "linguistic" to mean "in a natural language rather than in a formal system". The claim "EVERY LINGUISTIC CLAIM (that is not a tautology) HAS THIS NATURE" is itself a tautology, because it is logically necessary given a precise-enough definition of how a natural language works.)
The Platonist believes precisely the opposite: there are /only/ context-free claims. No genuine claims occur within a context; they are eternal truths or falsehoods. The world of the Forms is outside of context and outside of relationships. Only claims about the essential properties of Forms, the inheritance hierarchy of Forms, and their position on the Great Chain of Being, are real claims. To a strict Platonist like Hegel, even the claim "my raincoat is yellow" would not qualify as being a claim about the real world, for, as he said, "Nothing that is not eternal is real." Color is an accidental property; some raincoats are not yellow, therefore nothing is true about the color of raincoats.
This sounds insane, but if you bear this in mind when listening to Christians complain about relativism, you'll realize that their objections to it apply to literally every claim about the material world. The only statements that aren't relative in some sense are ones about formal systems, like math or the Neo-Platonist world of eternal Forms arrayed on the Great Chain of Being.
Alternatively, you can see the wrongness of the Christian claim that there are absolutely "realist" claims which are True or False by studying Buddhism, the root of which is that linguistic claims are never absolutely True or absolutely False. Buddhism is wrong in the opposite direction, demanding we treat everything as completely relative, lacking any objective component. This is a classic example of how reacting against a contradiction or error, without recognizing the flaw in the paradigm which made that error inevitable, dooms you to remaining trapped within that paradigm and taking the opposite and equally wrong view.