Man's response to the reality of death determines, fundamentally, his worldview. The natural response, at least the first, most intuitive natural response, to death is fear. Man fears that there is nothing after death, that after death, his person ceases to exist, his identity ceases to exist. All of his thoughts, memories, and joys no longer exist. This, of course, is the logical conclusion of the naturalism and materialism which grips so many today; whether their assent to materialism and naturalism is implicit or explicit, this logical conclusion of those philosophies – annihilation of the person upon dying – is the great fear, the ever-present alpha and omega of modern man's despair. While everyone comes face to face with the reality of death, the vast majority react naturally against dwelling on it or contemplating it. I am in no position, of course, to judge whether or not this reaction is healthy or unhealthy.
So, then, what is a man to do with this fear, with this dread of annihilation? It seems to me that there exist two options, two possible ways forward, two possible approaches to life and living, from this dread. (Unless, there is, just maybe, a Way, a Truth, and a Life – perhaps, even, a Savior?).
The first option rejects the existence of objective morality and lives a life of subjectivism, in which I simply chase pleasures, avoid any unnecessary pain, and create my own values and moral compass. Inevitably, this sort of approach depends on me strengthening my will so as to dominate over the wills of those around me. It requires me to always stay within myself and my own person, refusing to give myself to others to any extent which won't result in a "gain" for me; if I don't deem it to increase my contentment, I won't do it. So, that's the first option; I can reject the existence of objective morality, depend solely on my own valuations, live solely for my own contentment, and live, always, truly alone, for I have rejected the existence of morality because I have rejected the existence of any eternal personhood. Since the persons around me are finite beings, why care for them? It makes far more sense to care for myself since, even though I too am a mere finite being, at least I can experience my own consciousness (whereas I cannot experience others') and so I can only experience my own pleasures and feel my own pains.
Interestingly, this refusal for true relationality with other persons is precisely what Pope Benedict XVI, in his Introduction to Christianity describes as Hell itself: eternal rebellion against relation with other persons, eternal desire, fulfilled, for autonomy and loneliness. And is this not what we intuitively know about demons, about evil? Evil abhors company, does it not? You don't hear of demons coming together to throw a party, do you? How could they? They're always desiring things for themselves, always rushing because they're in the despair that if they don't get it, someone else will; they're living eternally in the belief that this is a zero-sum world, that all I am to do is use things and people around me for pleasure.
The second option is to believe in the existence of an objective morality. This I would call the "virtuous pagan" option. I would reject a belief in the supernatural, a belief in God, or even a belief in the immortality of the soul. However, I would *not* reject the idea that a man's life consists of living well and living well consists of living in accordance with virtue, and living in accordance with virtue consists of living a life of moderation, meaning living a life centered between extremes. The natural development of this train of thought reaches its most noble point with Stoicism. One is to live in accordance with nature, even though one cannot know the existence of God, say, or even the objective existence of a moral code with certainty. However, the other option is to be rejected (the life of hedonism, the life of selfishness, the life of Hell itself). Therefore, the best option is to live a life of service to one's fellow man, even if one does not have the full understanding as to why that is. It is to live a life of controlling one's emotions, controlling one's desires, rejecting the fruits of one's labors and simply focusing on the ever-present now. It is, in a short, a life of, as Flannery O'Connor puts it, "domesticating despair and learning to live with it".
However, there is a fundamental flaw with this option; despair can never be truly domesticated. Despair is powerful and always finds a way to get into man's mind, a man's will, or a man's soul (assuming, for the sake of argument, that this soul is not immortal but simply the full life-principle of the man). Despair cannot be domesticated because it is such a powerful state of being that only a constantly controlling will is able to keep it subdued, but a constantly controlling will struggles without itself having a focus on something other than mere negation; it requires a pursuit of a positive aim, a positive goal. Therefore, the only way out of despair is to fixate one's mind, will, and soul on some positive thing. This, of course, can lead to an addiction, which is why virtue is necessary, for virtue insists that man avoid extremes and live a life of the mean. For me, this positive thing would be, say, "finding the cure for cancer". The other options, "enjoy as much sexual pleasure as possible", "eat delicious foods", "become famous and popular", are intriguing but wouldn't be in accord with living a life of natural virtue, since they all would rip activities (such as sex, eating, and influence/leadership) out of their naturally ordered ends (procreation, nourishment, and service) and become, unnaturally, ends in and of themselves. Since the Stoic life is to live a life according to nature, these options would not work. On the contrary, "finding a cure for cancer" has its ultimate end the reduction of suffering in human life and the prolonging of human life, which seems to be a virtuous end, but only if one question can be answered: why is human life valuable?
Now, we have arrived at the key question, indeed the ultimate question. One can say that, even if one cannot say clearly why human life is valuable, it is definitely clear that this whole chain of reasoning, this entire pursuit of finding a coherent worldview with which to approach life, is impossible if human life did not exist. It is, in effect, to simply say that, regardless of the *value* of human life, the *existence* of human life, and in particular *my* human life, is a brute fact of reality, the fundamental axiom of being, and therefore the starting point of all reasoning. I am sure you see that this is a rather tenuous, if not completely vacuous, position upon which man can build his worldview. When confronted with the ultimate question, the question that matters more than anything else, the only possible answer is: "Well, the answer to the ultimate question is that, without the subject of the ultimate question, the ultimate question cannot be asked." It is unsatisfactory because the answer is that there is no answer; the question, therefore, is actually meaningless and cannot be asked. If this is true, then, if it is true that there is no answer to this ultimate question, this train of thought, this being a "virtuous pagan", seems to collapse into the same primacy of the will which characterizes the first option, which entailed rejecting the existence of objective morality and instead replacing it with the will to live, the will to survive, and the will to consume.
However, because the virtuous pagan is virtuous, he or she cannot accept that alternative, and instead simply must live on the intuition that there is, surely, some good in the world and so the only real option is to live and fight for that good, even if that good cannot be concretely objectively known. It is, in short, a life of simply not asking the deepest questions, and instead focusing on whatever present reality is at hand, always going from one purpose to another, always solving one problem after another.
And yet, his mind does not cease asking this question, this question of the value of human life, of the meaning of human life. He finds it thrust into his consciousness at the cinema, at the opera, at the bar, at the wedding, at the baby shower, at the birth of a new human, at the divorce, at the graduation, at the voting booth, at the emergency room, and, finally, at the funeral. He cannot escape the question as he interacts with the mentally ill. He cannot escape it as he views with disgust, revulsion, and anger those heinous acts against the dignity and sanctity of human life. It will not leave him.
And so, to assuage the restless mind which seeks answers to the deepest questions, man resigns himself to simply corralling and controlling the mind, reining in its desire for a Truth which either cannot be known or, even worse, does not exist. Thus, the Stoic, this most virtuous pagan, meets the Buddhist, that most virtuous nihilist. The virtuous pagan meditates, focusing his mind and will on the most basic and primal part of physical human life: the breath. In so doing, he strengthens their ability to focus on one thought and, in doing so, to identify thoughts which could lead to the mental anguish, the mental despair he so desperately seeks to avoid, and attempt to annihilate them by, in the end, annihilating his very ego, his very person, his very Self. Thus, the man has already died. No longer does death have a hold over him, for there is no longer a "him". With this death of Self, he can enjoy the world as a cosmic game, as a cosmic illusion.
Or, maybe, just maybe, what I have here raised is a false dilemma: maybe we have a Savior, who points the way to Eternal Life, Eternal Bless, Eternal Relation with Being Itself.
So, then, what is a man to do with this fear, with this dread of annihilation? It seems to me that there exist two options, two possible ways forward, two possible approaches to life and living, from this dread. (Unless, there is, just maybe, a Way, a Truth, and a Life – perhaps, even, a Savior?).
The first option rejects the existence of objective morality and lives a life of subjectivism, in which I simply chase pleasures, avoid any unnecessary pain, and create my own values and moral compass. Inevitably, this sort of approach depends on me strengthening my will so as to dominate over the wills of those around me. It requires me to always stay within myself and my own person, refusing to give myself to others to any extent which won't result in a "gain" for me; if I don't deem it to increase my contentment, I won't do it. So, that's the first option; I can reject the existence of objective morality, depend solely on my own valuations, live solely for my own contentment, and live, always, truly alone, for I have rejected the existence of morality because I have rejected the existence of any eternal personhood. Since the persons around me are finite beings, why care for them? It makes far more sense to care for myself since, even though I too am a mere finite being, at least I can experience my own consciousness (whereas I cannot experience others') and so I can only experience my own pleasures and feel my own pains.
Interestingly, this refusal for true relationality with other persons is precisely what Pope Benedict XVI, in his Introduction to Christianity describes as Hell itself: eternal rebellion against relation with other persons, eternal desire, fulfilled, for autonomy and loneliness. And is this not what we intuitively know about demons, about evil? Evil abhors company, does it not? You don't hear of demons coming together to throw a party, do you? How could they? They're always desiring things for themselves, always rushing because they're in the despair that if they don't get it, someone else will; they're living eternally in the belief that this is a zero-sum world, that all I am to do is use things and people around me for pleasure.
The second option is to believe in the existence of an objective morality. This I would call the "virtuous pagan" option. I would reject a belief in the supernatural, a belief in God, or even a belief in the immortality of the soul. However, I would *not* reject the idea that a man's life consists of living well and living well consists of living in accordance with virtue, and living in accordance with virtue consists of living a life of moderation, meaning living a life centered between extremes. The natural development of this train of thought reaches its most noble point with Stoicism. One is to live in accordance with nature, even though one cannot know the existence of God, say, or even the objective existence of a moral code with certainty. However, the other option is to be rejected (the life of hedonism, the life of selfishness, the life of Hell itself). Therefore, the best option is to live a life of service to one's fellow man, even if one does not have the full understanding as to why that is. It is to live a life of controlling one's emotions, controlling one's desires, rejecting the fruits of one's labors and simply focusing on the ever-present now. It is, in a short, a life of, as Flannery O'Connor puts it, "domesticating despair and learning to live with it".
However, there is a fundamental flaw with this option; despair can never be truly domesticated. Despair is powerful and always finds a way to get into man's mind, a man's will, or a man's soul (assuming, for the sake of argument, that this soul is not immortal but simply the full life-principle of the man). Despair cannot be domesticated because it is such a powerful state of being that only a constantly controlling will is able to keep it subdued, but a constantly controlling will struggles without itself having a focus on something other than mere negation; it requires a pursuit of a positive aim, a positive goal. Therefore, the only way out of despair is to fixate one's mind, will, and soul on some positive thing. This, of course, can lead to an addiction, which is why virtue is necessary, for virtue insists that man avoid extremes and live a life of the mean. For me, this positive thing would be, say, "finding the cure for cancer". The other options, "enjoy as much sexual pleasure as possible", "eat delicious foods", "become famous and popular", are intriguing but wouldn't be in accord with living a life of natural virtue, since they all would rip activities (such as sex, eating, and influence/leadership) out of their naturally ordered ends (procreation, nourishment, and service) and become, unnaturally, ends in and of themselves. Since the Stoic life is to live a life according to nature, these options would not work. On the contrary, "finding a cure for cancer" has its ultimate end the reduction of suffering in human life and the prolonging of human life, which seems to be a virtuous end, but only if one question can be answered: why is human life valuable?
Now, we have arrived at the key question, indeed the ultimate question. One can say that, even if one cannot say clearly why human life is valuable, it is definitely clear that this whole chain of reasoning, this entire pursuit of finding a coherent worldview with which to approach life, is impossible if human life did not exist. It is, in effect, to simply say that, regardless of the *value* of human life, the *existence* of human life, and in particular *my* human life, is a brute fact of reality, the fundamental axiom of being, and therefore the starting point of all reasoning. I am sure you see that this is a rather tenuous, if not completely vacuous, position upon which man can build his worldview. When confronted with the ultimate question, the question that matters more than anything else, the only possible answer is: "Well, the answer to the ultimate question is that, without the subject of the ultimate question, the ultimate question cannot be asked." It is unsatisfactory because the answer is that there is no answer; the question, therefore, is actually meaningless and cannot be asked. If this is true, then, if it is true that there is no answer to this ultimate question, this train of thought, this being a "virtuous pagan", seems to collapse into the same primacy of the will which characterizes the first option, which entailed rejecting the existence of objective morality and instead replacing it with the will to live, the will to survive, and the will to consume.
However, because the virtuous pagan is virtuous, he or she cannot accept that alternative, and instead simply must live on the intuition that there is, surely, some good in the world and so the only real option is to live and fight for that good, even if that good cannot be concretely objectively known. It is, in short, a life of simply not asking the deepest questions, and instead focusing on whatever present reality is at hand, always going from one purpose to another, always solving one problem after another.
And yet, his mind does not cease asking this question, this question of the value of human life, of the meaning of human life. He finds it thrust into his consciousness at the cinema, at the opera, at the bar, at the wedding, at the baby shower, at the birth of a new human, at the divorce, at the graduation, at the voting booth, at the emergency room, and, finally, at the funeral. He cannot escape the question as he interacts with the mentally ill. He cannot escape it as he views with disgust, revulsion, and anger those heinous acts against the dignity and sanctity of human life. It will not leave him.
And so, to assuage the restless mind which seeks answers to the deepest questions, man resigns himself to simply corralling and controlling the mind, reining in its desire for a Truth which either cannot be known or, even worse, does not exist. Thus, the Stoic, this most virtuous pagan, meets the Buddhist, that most virtuous nihilist. The virtuous pagan meditates, focusing his mind and will on the most basic and primal part of physical human life: the breath. In so doing, he strengthens their ability to focus on one thought and, in doing so, to identify thoughts which could lead to the mental anguish, the mental despair he so desperately seeks to avoid, and attempt to annihilate them by, in the end, annihilating his very ego, his very person, his very Self. Thus, the man has already died. No longer does death have a hold over him, for there is no longer a "him". With this death of Self, he can enjoy the world as a cosmic game, as a cosmic illusion.
Or, maybe, just maybe, what I have here raised is a false dilemma: maybe we have a Savior, who points the way to Eternal Life, Eternal Bless, Eternal Relation with Being Itself.
Please find an Illuminated Understanding of death, and everything else too via these 2 related references:
ReplyDeletewww.easydeathbook.com
www.aboutadidam.org/dying_death_and_beyond/index.html