“What is a good education; and what good is education?” Professor of English Literature Michael Bauman used to ask his students these two questions. Disagreement on this question though history began a debate that still rages in the West. This debate is now called the “philosophy of education.” However, at some point in the last century, those involved changed the question and began asking “what’s the use in education?” It is among these conditions that we find Robert Frost contributing his own answers to this great conversation in the pursuit of wisdom.
Frost did not work specifically as a philosopher, education theorist, or a political reformer. As a poet, however, he asked difficult questions that forced him to confront ideas that had consequences in each of these fields. Many of these poetic inquiries dealt with the nature of man, which inevitably guided his views of education. Because he spent much of his life as a teacher, Frost knew that his writing directly informed his teaching so much so that he said they “were one” (Hewlett 176). It is no surprise that we find a strong philosophy of education in the works of Robert Frost.
Frost had much to say about the social and political movements of his time, particularly in the realm of education. Because of his anti-progressivism, Frost thought that the “scientific” approach to education was inferior and even harmful when compared to the classical-liberal education he favored and considered a good in itself. We will explore this topic in an order of three steps: first, we will examine Frost’s response to general progressivism, second, we will investigate Frost’s concern for the progressive education movement in particular, and third, we will look at Frost’s proposal of an alternative philosophy based on a historical canon of the liberal arts.
Frost lived during a time of great reform among the educating institutions in the West. Progressivism, the most influential philosophical movement of its time, was at its peak and demanded that mankind move past the traditions and religions of the past (Kurtz 3). Progressivism is defined as any individual belief, social movement, or political philosophy that seeks social and economic reform in reaction against traditional religions and economic systems that hinder humanity from advancing society “into a better place” (Nugent 5). This philosophy has major anthropological presuppositions, which ultimately reject the belief in inherent constraints and limitations on human capacity.
Frost believed that whatever “progress” in society was, it could not thrust mankind into utopia (Selected Letters 418). Social reformation and advancement towards efficiency could never end suffering. Here Frost denies an underlying premise of the progressive utopian vision. The history of the Enlightenment and the different influences of the progressive movement are obviously far too elaborate and diverse to explore in detail, so for our purposes, we will explore the parts of it that have implications in Frost’s philosophy of education.
We will examine two examples of progressivism at work. The first is President John F. Kennedy’s address at Rice University where he outlines all of human history. Kennedy condenses the narrative to a period of forty years from the “man emerg[ing] from his caves” to “America’s new space craft” that will “literally [reach] the stars before midnight tonight.” If this wasn’t enough to show Kennedy’s subtle progressive leanings, he goes on to say, “If this capsule of history teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred” (Kennedy).
The second example, and in the midst of Frost’s lifetime, is the 1933 Humanist Manifesto. Although the Manifesto’s thirty-four authors defined themselves as humanists, they shared common ideas and political figures with the progressive educators; one of which was John Dewey. In the Manifesto, the authors state that man must reject the religions and traditions of old and “learn to face the crisis of life in terms of his knowledge,” then state that their goal is “to establish the satisfactory life for all, not merely the few” (5). At the end of the statement, the authors assert that “man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that has within himself the power for its achievement” (6). To do this, man “must set intelligence and will to the task.” Of course, each of these statements assumes that man is capable, without intrinsic limitations, of collectively creating the “world of his dreams.”
Contrary to the presuppositions of the progressive movement, Frost maintained that there were severe limitations on the intellectual and moral capabilities of man (Stanlis 63). These limitations hinder man from entering the utopia championed by many political philosophers and social reformers who deny such constraints on human nature. However, Frost did not condemn the concern for human suffering. In a letter to Louis Untermeyer, Frost states that he did not “feel it is humanity not to feel the suffering of others… The national mood is humanitarian,” which was “nobly so. I wouldn’t take it away from them” (Letters of Robert Frost to Louis Untermeyer 285). However, Frost never thought of humanitarian work could ultimately change man. In his view, these social efforts cannot bring forth an earthly paradise; as he wrote, “whatever progress may be taken to mean, it can’t mean making the world any easier a place in which to save your soul” (Selected Letters 418). Frost believed that any efforts made to permanently end human suffering are futile or even dangerous because the human condition is inherently and unchangeably self-centered, and without accountability, man inevitably tends towards a life of self-inflicted suffering.
Frost’s experienced this tooth and nail when tragedies struck his family. The reminder of death and disorder in the human soul was a constant theme in his life. From witnessing the premature death of his father and mother, sons Eliot and Carol, daughters Elinor-Bettina and Marjorie, to watching his sister Jean and daughter Irma succumb to mental illness, Frost endured disasters that forced him to consider the true nature of man and the suffering destined to him (Stanlis 252). He was constantly confronted with imperfections in the universe that cause the pain and suffering man is bound to experience. Frost understood that while man can attempt to artificially postpone the inevitability of death, they all “must endure their going hence.”
The discipline of science made the most aggressive attempts to advance the agendas of the progressive movement. Frost criticized the extensive reach of science that tried to “figure the world out.” Their obsessions with psychology, natural science, and the social sciences were meant to develop a formula to introduce a better world. However, Frost thought scientific thinking was no different than any other kind of thinking in that it was the contemporary metaphorical use of relating to the world as compared to the metaphors used throughout history (Larson 198). Scientific thinking provides for temporary understandings that help us to function in the world. In “Too Anxious for Rivers,” Frost explicitly states that science is incomplete. There is no “end of the story” from science but the “rest of the story is dreaming” (342). This metaphor is not permanent or complete; Frost firmly believed that “all men by nature desire to know” (Aristotle Metaphysics 1:1), a desire that cannot be satisfied by any enlightenment offered from scientific knowledge (Larson 198).
In his own work “Waste or Cod Fish Eggs,” Frost pokes fun at the “scientism” which held expectations beyond what the discipline could offer.
Some Harvard boys when they were rudely faced
By science with the awful fact of waste
It takes a million eggs to hatch on cod
Their totem symbol just gave up their god
And suicided with a lightning rod. (558)
The “totem symbol” of science, which the Harvard students tried to find in the codfish, is destroyed by inefficiency of its reproductive system. For every one codfish that survives, nearly one million eggs are destroyed or die in the process. Surely this is not the most efficient form of reproduction nature can produce. This “waste” does not point to the autonomous Darwinian scientism these students hoped for. In Frost’s view, these attempts at using science to figure out reality ultimately lead to a misunderstanding of reality.
The “autonomy” that concerned Frost was any belief or method that tried to remove the human from the natural context in which he lived. He thought that any attempt to see the world from an objective perspective, which leaves the boundaries of subjectivity, should be temporary because earth in its subjectivity is the best place to understand life. In “Birches,” Frost’s character left the earth for a short while, but always returned because earth is “best place for love” (117-118). In this particular poem, Frost did not criticize attempts to analyze and scrutinize the world. It is the means by which we try to do so that concerned Frost. How can one merely think about the world when one must think in the world? In a letter to his students at Amherst, Frost made clear that “it is not possible to get outside the age you are in to judge it exactly,” which he later warned as “dangerous” (Selected Letters 418). While scientism tried to leave the human context to understand it, Frost, through poetry, returned to the human context in order to understand it.
To Frost, the constraints on humanity that require us to collectively join in contribution to knowledge were inescapable, but even more, Frost held that these constraints and limitations were good and natural aspects of human life. He thought that the impossibility of utopia was a good thing. In “The Prophet,” Frost uses the popular biblical cliché, which says “the truth will set you free”: a truism for ethical decisions that most everybody heard as a child. Once again, Frost used his irony to provoke thought when he claimed, “My truth will bind you slave to me- / Which may be what you want to be” (559). The modern man desired total autonomy and freedom from the traditions set by history. In contrast, Frost desired to be bound to the truth in order to be free. Modern man’s pursuit for independence, or “autonomy” as described before, is unnatural and effectively de-contextualizes man from the context we belong in: man should not pursue this sort of autonomy.
Frost did not think the intrinsic constraints of the individual as a bad thing. The total autonomy that utopia attempted to give is not something Frost thought was good or even achievable. Rather, to him, utopian dreams “bunch us up and keep track of us” because “it can’t protect us unless it directs us” (Interviews 146). The pursuit of the humanist ultimately leads to tyranny (Stanlis 241). In “Build Soil”, Frost tells us to “turn the farm in upon itself / Until it can contain itself no more” (295). The natural sweat of the brow which man’s work produces is not an evil that can be remedied by a world without toil; it is the continuous journey of man producing civilization. In August 1944, Frost gave a speech at Bread Loaf and asked, “What is the opposite of utopia?” When no one could give a satisfactory answer, he concluded, “hell is not the opposite of utopia, civilization is!”
In short, Frost believed that the limitations of the rational and moral capabilities of man were unchangeable. Because of this, the sciences cannot give an exhaustive account of reality and therefore should not be seen as the savior of man. Any attempt to do so only delays the inevitable result of suffering and ultimately suppresses our natural desire for civilization.
Once we define progressivism and see how Frost responds to it in its most general form, we find his views of human nature show up in his philosophy and practice of education. His view on the necessity of constraints play out in his teaching methods as well as his system of constructing curricula. If limitations on human morality and intellect truly keep man from progressing, then ignorance is not the ultimate vice, and knowledge is neither inherently salvific nor directly connected to virtue. It follows that education should not be viewed as a means to reach the ends of producing a utopia and therefore should not be executed in accordance with the criteria set by the scientific method; or for our purposes, the progressive educationalists (Cox 49).
Education historian Diane Ravitch outlines and defines the progressive education movement, which occurred during Frost’s lifetime. Ravitch explains that in the early twentieth century, there were four essential elements of progressive education: developing a scientific method to schooling, creating child-centered classroom organization, shaping students to fit a specific vocation to provide social efficiency, and directing learning for the ends of social reformation, or what we now call “social justice” (60). Education professor David Labaree further separates these four facets of the movement into two distinct categories: the first was what he called “administrative” and the second “pedagogical” progressive methods (89). Although both were predicated on the ideology of an unconstrained human nature common to the entire campaign, they were very different in practice. Championed by psychologist Edward Thorndike, the administrative camp saw the student as a political instrument to serve society, which the system could assess and condition for such tasks through testing. The pedagogical side however, emphasized so-called “child-centered” classroom methods and social reformation, mainly under the influence of John Dewey (94). Contrary to the anthropological views of Frost, each of these two parts of the education movement assume no limitations on the human capacity for knowledge as well as moral and social imagination, which leave no room for a liberal education.
Frost wanted his education to be good- not necessarily strong. He criticized his progressive contemporaries by comparing their attempts to bulking up the State’s education rather than Frost’s desire to improve its quality.
I have long thought that our high schools should be improved. Nobody should come into our high schools without examination-not aptitude tests, but on reading, ‘riting, and ‘righmetic. And that goes for the black or white….A lot of people are being scared by the Russian Sputnik into wanting to harden up our education or speed it up. I am interested in toning it up, at the high school level….If they want to Spartanize the country, let them. I would rather perish as Athens then prevail as Sparta. The tone is Athens. (Interviews 194)
Because the progressivists thought they could create an essential science to the classroom, aptitude tests were a central thrust of the progressive reform movement. Students would take tests to assess their talents and practical skills to conform the their education towards meeting societal needs in order to create social efficiency. Similarly, the Greek city-state of Sparta spent its time and resources building its efficiency through martial status while Athens’ expenditures went towards “loving wisdom” and finding the best way to serve the city-state; Sparta pursued order and Athens pursued virtue. Frost thought we ought to “tone it [our education] up” rather than “harden [it] up”, by which he meant developing disciplined students (Interviews 270). He thought education used as the “knowledge is power” approach was inferior to loving wisdom for itself, even if a “stronger” power conquered the weaker; or if Sparta took Athens. Social efficiency is not a priority over and certainly should not subjugate quality. Sparta’s order is not necessarily good itself but must be used as good while Athens’ pursued the virtuous. Efficiency is an instrumental good while virtue is a good itself.
According to Frost, since human nature is inherently bound by constraints on morality and intelligence, curing ignorance through education cannot save man. However, Ignorance is often considered to be the enemy of the moral man. Plato famously argued that knowing the good always led to doing the good and a person could know the good by logically chaining one proposition on to another. However, Frost did not think the emphasis logic was effective. Frost scholar Sydney Cox affirms this when he says, “we are fooled by thinking of things as continuous and unbroken.” After which he quotes Frost, “Your whole life can be so logical that it seems to find to me like a ball of hairs in the stomach of an angora cat. It should be broken up and interrupted, and then brought together by likeness, free likeness” (51). This “freedom” Frost thought essential to education placed him adamantly against the first element of progressive education that Ravitch offers: namely, that enough effort can create a science of education in order to precisely and indefinitely determine a student’s potential (60).
If the theory is true that knowledge directly informs virtue, a person merely needs to “learn” to achieve ethical standards according to the social norm. Education becomes solely a means for “the greater good” which, taken to extremes, sacrifices all other goods for its own perpetuation. When intelligence is viewed as a means towards human perfection, progressive education institutions inevitably view their students as tools. This view defines intelligence as whatever knowledge can be used to preserve and move man forward in human progression; what our contemporaries call “progress and sustainability.” As described above, progressive schools sought to reach social efficiency through the means of education. The most obvious example of this reform is the testing movement.
The testing movement logically followed from what the progressives hoped to achieve. The best way to assess the success of a teaching method, for the purposes of revision, is testing. Testing and revising shows the productivity of a procedure and identifies the causes or hindrances of favorable outcomes. School and pedagogy becomes about tests and preparing for tests. Results rely on the students’ ability to parrot the information they were spoon-fed. Frost resented this because testing does not accurately assess the level of a student. Frost said a teacher could instruct their students “a whole year” and not feel “sure whether they have come near what [education] was all about”; but later Frost would hear “one remark [that] was their remark for the year”, which Frost said, “told me what I wanted to know” (“Education by Poetry” 725). To Frost, he could assess a student by “the closeness” the student gets to a text. The closer a student could learn to think like the author he is reading, the better the student is. “Everything depends on the closeness which you come” and Frost thinks students “ought to be marked for the closeness, [and] for nothing else” (725).
This “closeness” put Frost in contrast to the progressive emphasis on reason. In “All Revelation,” Frost explored the inadequacy of reason when he contemplated the immensity of the universe, or all reality, as compared to the meagerness of the human. Instead of responding with nihilistic and timid intimidation, he was encouraged by the knowledge that the “geode / Was entered, and its inner crust”. He concludes that man may not be able to completely comprehend the entirety of the universe. We cannot even do it all at once: the outer crust and the inner crystals cannot be examined at the same time. The knowledge gained is temporary because “the mind has pondered on / A moment and still asking gone,” which Frost later said is a “Strange apparition of the mind!” However, Frost claimed that humans have “All Revelation”; we have, in a sense, been shown the world and know how to look at it. We don’t need to know all things about the “geode” at all times, which modernity would have us do.
Without a doubt, the testing advent had a science-based understanding of student development. However, Frost noticed that when education becomes science-based, it becomes about cramming information into the student in effort to form the student into a product of the school (Cox 57). The most important task for the students is to memorize what their teachers tell them to, which inevitably imposes on students a large amount of work with little value. Frost complained that, “all those years may be wasted” in a typical learning institution by forcing “busy work” (qtd. in Cox 49). The educator is no longer concerned with developing whole beings but it limits himself to the development of tools for social productivity. The graduate of this program may work well in his “proper role” for a time, but his education had nothing to do with the individual himself, and his character is risked as a consequence. Sydney Cox affirmed that Frost was not interested in creating new working citizens, which makes “a stuffed shirt [which] is blown up with what is not digested” and instead of developing an educated person, this “learning” develops “a stuffed shirt [that] ‘doesn’t care what he thinks of himself, provided the world thinks well’” (57). The person is lost in the machine of efficiency and no longer cares for his own individual virtue.
The child-centered approach to the administrative tasks and pedagogical methods in the classroom also correlated with the unconstrained view of human potential held by the progressivists. According to Diane Ravitch, the progressive ideology assumed “that the methods and ends of education should be derived from the innate needs and nature of the child” (60). Rather than have the student conform to a standard of learning that may not be suited to his best interest, the child-centered educators wanted to conform the classroom to each individual student so that the student could access his own untapped knowledge. According to the progressivists, the student did not need to move toward anything in his education because everything was already in him.
As a teacher, Frost did not want to work with the child as a mere aid to the student’s esoteric self-education. In “Education by Poetry,” Frost reveals that we rarely “tell [students] what thinking means” and then goes on to define “thinking” as metaphorical: “putting this and that together; it is just saying one thing in terms of another” (723). Frost’s center of teaching does not lie in the child but the metaphor, which is best brought about by reading great books in the past that allow the student to think in different metaphors (719). He cared more about how close the student got to the text and the author and cared little about how close the student got to himself (725).
The progressive assertion that the child is an untapped educated individual who merely needs to be guided to his “inner-knowledge” violates Frost’s emphasis on the “closeness” to the classics (“Education by Poetry” 725). A student that looked to the historical canon for his education had to look outside of himself rather than inside his own soul. Frost scholar Peter Stanlis states that Frost wanted “the highest possible standards in a curriculum centered in the classics and the humanities” (203). The humanities were the philosophical systems developed throughout the history of Western Civilization, which Frost often referred to as “the book of the worthies” (197). Rather than child-centered, Frost was classics-centered.
The progressive education movement’s pursuits of both social reformation and social efficiency did not offer Frost what he thought necessary to develop the lives of individuals through learning. Frost valued education more than as a mere tool for a political or economic agenda.
Rather than attempt to achieve social order and justice through schools, Frost had a different vision for the student in which the best education had no further goals other than itself. At the height of the human experience, education was intrinsically a goal. In On Taking Poetry, Frost claimed that “the height of everything is fooling" because of “God’s foolishness” (“Poetry and School” 818). Frost did not mean the term “foolish” as synonymous with “squander,” but as that which comes from the general pursuit of the liberal arts: the liberty to live in the “height of everything.” When people experience what is most human, they act in this “great fooling.” They are not directed by a strict course of action that would lead them to a further end, but they have the freedom to explore and experience this fooling. This is a waste to be thrown away for those who worship efficiency and progress, but loved by those who pursue wisdom.
The context of understanding Frost’s “waste” in learning must be predicated on his belief that education has a direct connection to poetry. This may sound counter-intuitive, but Frost held a firm belief that poetry was essential to education. Contrary to popular understanding, a poem’s meter or rhythm cannot fully define the poem and it should not be reduced to a “syntax, language, [nor a] science” (Education by Poetry 717). Poetry, however unlocks the use of the metaphor, which lies at the heart of the poem. In “Education by Poetry,” Frost explained what he meant by this direct relationship of poetry and metaphor.
Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, “Why don’t you say what you mean?” We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections-whether from diffidence or some other instinct (719-720).
Metaphor is the vitality of language, without which we could not understand. Thought and metaphor are directly connected as “thinking one thing in terms of another.” Frost ultimately states that “Education by poetry is education by metaphor” and that one cannot know “the discreet use of metaphor… unless he has been properly educated in poetry” (719). If the true meaning of education is “thinking,” and thinking depends on metaphor, and learning to understand metaphor depends on a sophisticated education in poetry, then understanding poetry is the key to thinking well.
Frost did not merely replace the progressivists’ worship of science for his own affinity for poetry. Frost thought that poetry was not supposed to completely or permanently enlighten the individual. He said that a poem “begins in delight and ends in wisdom” and then quickly warns that this wisdom is “not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on” and that the understanding that it brings is “a temporary stay against confusion” (The Figure a Poem Makes 777). Although cults are one example of those that base themselves on this claim to a “great clarification,” other groups often do this in less obvious ways.
Traditionally, the liberal arts worked as a “temporary stay against confusion,” but after the enlightenment, scholars began seeking more empirical and extensive methods of knowledge. Science then was elevated from one of the many liberal arts to the standard all other disciplines must conform to. Frost knew that any discipline claiming to hold the key to knowing all reality ran the risk of overstepping its bounds into other forms of knowledge: thus, imagination became empiricism. While poetry was not a “great clarification,” it was necessary for education.
For students to properly understand poetry, they had to be well rounded in the classics. In Poetry and School, Frost states that we must “make ourselves at home among the poems” where we are “completely at our ease as to how they should be taken” (806). In order to do this in the classroom, he used pedagogical methods to push his students towards the great books. Frost wanted his students to engage the ideas from the “book of the worthies”; to understand, to the best of their ability, the great conversation passed down through the different metaphors of mythology, theology, philosophy, the humanities and the arts, law, natural theology, natural science, the social sciences, and ultimately poetry. Frost scholar Mildred Larson states that “Literature should present solely as itself-as literature, Frost believes” (200). So much so that Frost challenged his psychology students to read Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Plato outside of the assigned material.
With his immense experience in teaching at nearly every level of education, Frost learned to produce an atmosphere conducive to his standard of learning. Cox stated that Frost encouraged his students to engage in “random talk” in proper context of the subject matter (54). He rarely lectured, fearing that his character would get in the way of the lesson and he routinely did not plan classes because he understood that students needed to discuss ideas to their logical extent, which an inflexible syllabus would not allow. This required discussion and contribution.
Understanding poetry well is something we “spend a great deal of education on” (“Poetry and School” 818). However, there is a great irony in the pursuit of poetic wisdom. At its best, “poetry mounts somewhere into a kind of fooling.” In a couplet, Frost playfully shows this paradoxical view when he says “It takes all sorts of in and outdoor schooling / To get adapted to my kind of fooling” (“It Takes All Sorts” 478). It would make sense then why Frost thought “waste” worked closely along side with the “freedom” in schooling. The freedom to fool at “the height of everything” required a level of intellectual sophistication.
The education philosophy Frost proposed had two essential features: that “thinking” is “thinking one thing in terms of another” and putting like and like together, which is synonymous with metaphor, and that learning to use metaphor in this way is best accessed through reading, absorbing, and experiencing the “book of the worthies.” When we achieve this, “improvement will not be a progression but a widening circulation” (Poetry and School 806). Our knowledge and experience of human thought through the “book of the worthies” causes this “widening circulation.” As a result, education does not make us better, but bigger.
When we reduce what is good to what is practical, we remove the potential for “the height of everything.” This height is not an untapped human capacity that can achieve through systemic efficiency and social justice, but the experience of what we were made for. The question, “what’s the use of your education?” does not cohere with this philosophy. The correct response is, “use? Education has no ‘use’; it is what we use other things for.” Sydney Cox warns, “Something in school should save us from the fatal credulity of progress prophets. Something should save the students from supposing that the way of intelligence is eliminating opposition and waste” (50). This is the progressivism Frost feared, but Cox continues: “something must be present in education to remind them that as lying down goes with love, so waste goes with growth and opposition with night and day.”
Works Cited
Cox, Sydney. “But keep the generalizations broad and lose,” “And get students to start performing,” and “With the freedom of their materials.” A Swinger of Birches: A Portrait of Robert Frost. New York: New York University Press, 1957. 48-58. Print. Frost thought the current method of “busy work” education was the true waste of time. Education cannot progress us into a utopia because there is “no escape from suffering.” Frost refused to remove intellectual conflict and waste from the classroom because waste is required to grow. Frost refused to adhere to the belief that something cannot be good unless it is “useful”.
Frost, Robert. “All Revelation,” “Birches,” “Build Soil,” “Education by Poetry,” “The Figure a Poem Makes,” “It Takes All Sorts,” “Poetry and School,” “The Prophet,” “Too Anxious for Rivers,” and “Waste or Cod Fish Eggs.” Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays. Eds. Richard Portier and Mark Richardson. New York: The Library of America, 1995. 302-303. Print.
Frost, Robert. “Play for Mortal Stakes.” In Other Words: Amherst in Prose and Verse. By Horace W. Hewlett. Amherst, MA: Amherst, 1964. 176. Print.
Frost, Robert, and Edward Connery Lathem. Interviews with Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966. 146, 270. Print.
Frost, Robert, and Lawrence R. Thompson. Selected Letters. Ed. Lawrence R. Thompson. The University of Michigan: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. Print.
Frost, Robert, and Louis Untermeyer. The Letters of Robert Frost to Louis Untermeyer. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. 284-85. Print.
Kennedy, John F. “Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort.” Rice University. Rice Stadium, Rice University, Houston. 23 September 1962. President Kennedy outlines the West’s (particularly America’s) vast scientific progression in the twentieth century. He outlines the fifty-thousand year history condensed to a span of fifty years showing how technology and other scientific advancements have grown exponentially. Yet, Kennedy charges that there is new knowledge to be gained with new trials that man will inevitably overcome.
Kurtz, Paul. Reprint. “The Humanist Manifesto I.” Humanist manifestos I and II. Indiana University: Prometheus Books, 1973. 3-7. Print. The authors of the manifesto argue that man should overcome the traditions and religions of the past. Although these religions once aided man’s quest for “the good life,” they are now a hindrance and should be rejected. The authors outline fifteen statements by which they define themselves. Within these statements, they admit that they are naturalists (monists), that the “mind” of man is merely biological, and that they wish to seek equality for all. They conclude that man’s intelligence is the key to achieving the “world of his dreams.”
Labaree, David F. “The Ed School’s Romance with Progressivism.” Brookings Papers on Education Policy. Diane Ravitch. Brookings Institution Press, 2004. 89-112. Print. Laberee offers to show the Ed school’s ties to progressivism throughout history. He makes the distinction between pedagogical progressivism and administration progressivism; pedagogical progressivism reflecting “child-centered instruction,” “discovery learning,” and “learning how to learn” methods of teaching, and administrative progressivism attempting to create a scientific curriculum to allocate students’ skills to fit the needs of society. The ed schools, which reflect the pedagogical movement, haven’t been harmful or helpful. Labaree argues that the pedagogical movement influenced the rhetoric of reform but little policy, while the administrative movement had a large influence on reform.
Larson, Mildred. Robert Frost as Teacher. Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1979. Print. Scientific knowledge does not give us a key to unlock the absolute and certain truths of the world. Rather, it conveys the metaphorical relation of a civilization to its material earth. We see Frost convey this in his poem “Too Anxious Rivers” where he tells us that there is no “end of the story” from science. If there is no scientific method, or at least no scientific way to living a meaningful life, then our spheres of life should also influence this. Teaching, like society in Frost’s view, was not something that can be planned but must come together on its own structure.
Nugent, Walter T. K. "Introduction." Progressivism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. 1-5. Print. Nugent recounts a brief history of the progressive movement, in which the masses under the leadership of four political figures (William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, and Woodrow Wilson) sought to reestablish the "common good" which had been eroded through economic corruption and inequity. Workers created unions; Protestants created the Social Gospel; and activists began speaking out on woman suffrage. Most progressivists encouraged government action, seeing it as the solution to America's systemic problems. "Reform" became the ideology behind the campaign because the movement itself was too vast and complex to reduce to any one set of issues.
Ravitch, Diane. “A Fork in the Road.” Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms. Simon and Schuster, 2001. 51-87. Print. Ravitch tells of two choices early twentieth-century Americans could take: the Committee of Ten’s common academic curriculum and the progressive movement. Due to business leaders who wanted efficiency in the market place and progressive educators in the colleges of education, the Committee of Ten’s proposal was rejected. As a result, the progressive movement was given its opportunity for reform. The main goal of the social reformers, under the influence of John Dewey, was to reconnect the schools to society.
Stanlis, Peter. Robert Frost: The Poet As Philosopher. Wilmington, Del: ISI Books. 2007. Print
Friday, April 27, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Jesus and Religion
“It’s not a religion; it’s a relationship”: the most common come-back catchphrase among Christians today. This slogan is the premise explicitly stated in Jefferson Bethke’s recent spoken word video titled Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus.
No doubt, “religion” has become a taboo among Christians. But even more than a taboo topic, “religion” has become a controversial word. Michael Bauman, professor of Theology at Hillsdale College says, “Sloppy language makes sloppy thought possible.” So the question that follows: what is religion?
When conversing with a person who adopts the western American belief that tolerance is the “end all” of virtues, Christians are often shy away traditional terms such as “religion,” “church,” or even “sin.” But like Bauman implied, the use of language is essential to understanding ideas and their repercussions. Consequently, Christians change the meaning of these words to fit a politically correct method for evangelism. Instead of shaping our culture to conform to Christianity, we try to conform Christianity to the sentiments and standards of the culture. “Religion” suffers this abuse more than any other word associated with the Christian tradition; and as a result, we alter the definition of religion to “man searching for God,” but “Christianity is God searching for man.” While this definition accurately includes a standard of living based on a system of beliefs but unnecessarily includes this standard of living as a means to salvation. It is not necessary for something to be “religion” at an attempt to fix the human condition.
Hidden away in Bethke’s poem is the assumption that religion is always an attempt to achieve salvation. In the first chapter of James, the apostle never mentions religion for the purpose of making ourselves right before God. He says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27 NIV).”
The amazing thing about James’ teaching on religion is not only that he promotes it, but also that God “accepts (it) as pure and faultless.” Of course, God would not accept a list of dos and don’ts in place of His Son and James goes on to say that “faith without works is dead,” so our definition (or placement) of “religion” must be skewed. This is nothing new. In an effort to reclaim the fundamentals of the Christian faith in the early twentieth century, J. Gresham Machen stated in Christianity and Liberalism that Legalism tells us to first realize our sin, do good works, and then be saved, but Christianity compels us to realize our sin, follow Jesus, and do good works. In the Lutheran Catechism, the Lutheran church states, “good works never precede faith, but are always and in every instance the result of faith in the Gospel.” We don’t do good works for salvation; we do good works because of salvation.
Back to our Christian conversing with the American kumbaya religious pluralist who has a chip on his shoulder for organized religion: it is tempting to say, “Jesus came to abolish religion,” as Bethke does. However, the only time Jesus ever talks about abolishing anything is what he doesn’t abolish: the law (Matt 5:17); and rather than abolish it, He fulfills it! It could be argued that this distinction is irrelevant here because both words imply that the law does not have the same authority it once did. However, when something is abolished, the abolisher hates what he abolished; when something is fulfilled, the fulfiller honors what he fulfilled. Jesus honored the law.
Bethke confuses between cultural religion and actual religion and bounces back and forth from a “religion” that is prevalent in our society which consists of rejecting the poor, starting wars, engaging in premarital sex, and reducing our Christianity to a Facebook status, and actual “religion” which is a standard of living based on a belief system. Again, respecting language is essential to precisely communicating an idea. In the cultural sense, Bethke offers a convicting commentary on the Church today; in the actual sense, Bethke loses the foundation of moral action that is not excluded from the Christian life, but is included intimately.
When Jesus took His disciples up to the mountain in Galilee, His last words weren’t “don’t be religious; have a personal relationship with me and just love people.” Instead, He told them to make disciples and baptize them; essentially, “go and do.” Jesus gave His people a responsibility to the world; He did not relieve them of it. He commissioned a task; He didn’t omit one.
Humans have the inherent compulsion to pervert a good thing. Bethke argues that we use religion for our own power struggles to put ourselves in the place of God. We take religion and use it for our own self-gratification: to “spray perfume on the rotting corpse,” as it were. Bethke provides an accurate description of a overwhelmingly popular abuse of religion today. However, what makes a good thing evil is its perversion. When a man drives down the interstate under the influence of drugs or alcohol and crashes killing innocent people, the court system does not say, “we hereby deem driving an immoral act.” Rather, the man abused a good thing. This does not make the good thing bad. The tools and materials used in ancient Israel to build the idols that the Israelites worshipped rather than the true God of Abraham were not bad. The idols themselves were not immoral; but the fact that that the people of God made them idols made the act immoral. We do the same with religion. Religion is an instrument meant to serve God and man, and like those tools and materials, religion serves a purpose; and like those tools and materials, we continue to use it to worship other gods: ourselves.
The statement that Jesus is greater than religion is essential to the Christian faith. To say otherwise is like pointing to a sign giving directions to a restaurant and saying it is better than the restaurant itself, or that a trailer for a film is better than the film itself. These lesser things are not to be treated as the real things but are signs meant to point in the right direction. Religion as described by James is like those signs or previews: they point us to what is to come but will no longer be needed when it is finally here.
However, the greater does not abolish the lesser. We cannot conclude that a religion’s secondary status compared to Christ’s primary status negates the importance of the former. Nineteenth century survival of the fittest mentality influences us to think when something is stronger, the weaker is unnecessary, abolished, and therefore with no value. This is not reconcilable with the teachings of Jesus.
The Lord of creation does not need religion to bring about his will, but we need religion to effectively live as Christians in this world; not an attempt to purify ourselves, but a standard of action to serve as agents to the world. Because of our broken nature, religion is part of God’s rescue plan; it is not the rescue plan itself. This does not mean that the church will not have a role in the new heaven and the new earth and I don’t mean to imply that religion is a result of sin, but the Church won’t be the same role that Jesus and James call us to in this life: to care for the suffering. Once restoration is fully realized and there is no more death, no more mourning, or crying, or pain, and no more widows, or orphans, or imprisoned, or impoverished, then there will no longer be a need for religion as C.S. Lewis says so eloquently in The Great Divorce, “we know of no religion (here in heaven), only Christ.”
No doubt, “religion” has become a taboo among Christians. But even more than a taboo topic, “religion” has become a controversial word. Michael Bauman, professor of Theology at Hillsdale College says, “Sloppy language makes sloppy thought possible.” So the question that follows: what is religion?
When conversing with a person who adopts the western American belief that tolerance is the “end all” of virtues, Christians are often shy away traditional terms such as “religion,” “church,” or even “sin.” But like Bauman implied, the use of language is essential to understanding ideas and their repercussions. Consequently, Christians change the meaning of these words to fit a politically correct method for evangelism. Instead of shaping our culture to conform to Christianity, we try to conform Christianity to the sentiments and standards of the culture. “Religion” suffers this abuse more than any other word associated with the Christian tradition; and as a result, we alter the definition of religion to “man searching for God,” but “Christianity is God searching for man.” While this definition accurately includes a standard of living based on a system of beliefs but unnecessarily includes this standard of living as a means to salvation. It is not necessary for something to be “religion” at an attempt to fix the human condition.
Hidden away in Bethke’s poem is the assumption that religion is always an attempt to achieve salvation. In the first chapter of James, the apostle never mentions religion for the purpose of making ourselves right before God. He says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27 NIV).”
The amazing thing about James’ teaching on religion is not only that he promotes it, but also that God “accepts (it) as pure and faultless.” Of course, God would not accept a list of dos and don’ts in place of His Son and James goes on to say that “faith without works is dead,” so our definition (or placement) of “religion” must be skewed. This is nothing new. In an effort to reclaim the fundamentals of the Christian faith in the early twentieth century, J. Gresham Machen stated in Christianity and Liberalism that Legalism tells us to first realize our sin, do good works, and then be saved, but Christianity compels us to realize our sin, follow Jesus, and do good works. In the Lutheran Catechism, the Lutheran church states, “good works never precede faith, but are always and in every instance the result of faith in the Gospel.” We don’t do good works for salvation; we do good works because of salvation.
Back to our Christian conversing with the American kumbaya religious pluralist who has a chip on his shoulder for organized religion: it is tempting to say, “Jesus came to abolish religion,” as Bethke does. However, the only time Jesus ever talks about abolishing anything is what he doesn’t abolish: the law (Matt 5:17); and rather than abolish it, He fulfills it! It could be argued that this distinction is irrelevant here because both words imply that the law does not have the same authority it once did. However, when something is abolished, the abolisher hates what he abolished; when something is fulfilled, the fulfiller honors what he fulfilled. Jesus honored the law.
Bethke confuses between cultural religion and actual religion and bounces back and forth from a “religion” that is prevalent in our society which consists of rejecting the poor, starting wars, engaging in premarital sex, and reducing our Christianity to a Facebook status, and actual “religion” which is a standard of living based on a belief system. Again, respecting language is essential to precisely communicating an idea. In the cultural sense, Bethke offers a convicting commentary on the Church today; in the actual sense, Bethke loses the foundation of moral action that is not excluded from the Christian life, but is included intimately.
When Jesus took His disciples up to the mountain in Galilee, His last words weren’t “don’t be religious; have a personal relationship with me and just love people.” Instead, He told them to make disciples and baptize them; essentially, “go and do.” Jesus gave His people a responsibility to the world; He did not relieve them of it. He commissioned a task; He didn’t omit one.
Humans have the inherent compulsion to pervert a good thing. Bethke argues that we use religion for our own power struggles to put ourselves in the place of God. We take religion and use it for our own self-gratification: to “spray perfume on the rotting corpse,” as it were. Bethke provides an accurate description of a overwhelmingly popular abuse of religion today. However, what makes a good thing evil is its perversion. When a man drives down the interstate under the influence of drugs or alcohol and crashes killing innocent people, the court system does not say, “we hereby deem driving an immoral act.” Rather, the man abused a good thing. This does not make the good thing bad. The tools and materials used in ancient Israel to build the idols that the Israelites worshipped rather than the true God of Abraham were not bad. The idols themselves were not immoral; but the fact that that the people of God made them idols made the act immoral. We do the same with religion. Religion is an instrument meant to serve God and man, and like those tools and materials, religion serves a purpose; and like those tools and materials, we continue to use it to worship other gods: ourselves.
The statement that Jesus is greater than religion is essential to the Christian faith. To say otherwise is like pointing to a sign giving directions to a restaurant and saying it is better than the restaurant itself, or that a trailer for a film is better than the film itself. These lesser things are not to be treated as the real things but are signs meant to point in the right direction. Religion as described by James is like those signs or previews: they point us to what is to come but will no longer be needed when it is finally here.
However, the greater does not abolish the lesser. We cannot conclude that a religion’s secondary status compared to Christ’s primary status negates the importance of the former. Nineteenth century survival of the fittest mentality influences us to think when something is stronger, the weaker is unnecessary, abolished, and therefore with no value. This is not reconcilable with the teachings of Jesus.
The Lord of creation does not need religion to bring about his will, but we need religion to effectively live as Christians in this world; not an attempt to purify ourselves, but a standard of action to serve as agents to the world. Because of our broken nature, religion is part of God’s rescue plan; it is not the rescue plan itself. This does not mean that the church will not have a role in the new heaven and the new earth and I don’t mean to imply that religion is a result of sin, but the Church won’t be the same role that Jesus and James call us to in this life: to care for the suffering. Once restoration is fully realized and there is no more death, no more mourning, or crying, or pain, and no more widows, or orphans, or imprisoned, or impoverished, then there will no longer be a need for religion as C.S. Lewis says so eloquently in The Great Divorce, “we know of no religion (here in heaven), only Christ.”
Monday, September 26, 2011
The Divided House
Below is a commentary on the Babylonian account of creation vs. the Genesis account of creation.
Here is a link to the Babylonian Enuma Elish: http://www.crivoice.org/enumaelish.html
[Note: Due to different translations, the references to the text may not be 100% literal to the text provided by the link.]
Any culture’s account of humanity’s origin has determined who (or what) they believe God is, who man is, and how man should live. Because of this, Ancient Near Eastern writers often conflicted on the character of God (or gods) and the purpose of man in the annals of the birth of mankind. While the Genesis and Babylonian accounts of creation may have some similarities, further analysis reveals that the Sitz im Leben of the authors contradict each other in their theology and philosophy. The Babylonian account of creation differs most from the Genesis account in that it does not tell of a godhead that is unified under one mind or will, but rather, that they are divided and weak.
In the Enuma Elish, the author presents the first arc of tension in the fourteenth line when he introduces Anu to be the “rival” of his fathers. Here the reader learns that instead of being united, the gods struggle for power. Apsu and Tiamat, the father and mother of all, do not have complete sovereignty in which they command utter submission from the gods. The godhead Tiamat is not all-powerful, and if defeated, can be replaced.
This battle for power continues to rage and gives the gods “unrest”. As a result, Apsu asks Tiamat to join him in destroying the gods but the mother refuses and rebukes him. This implies that conflict not only lies between enemies, but also between two acquaintances (1). This division makes Apsu weak and a lesser god called “Ea” kills him. Angered by this, Tiamat confronts Ea’s son Marduk and they engage in combat.
In the sixty-first line, the author refers to Marduk as “lord” before the battle with Tiamat finishes. This referral to “lordship” (2) reveals two things: first, the reader knows that Marduk will be the victor, and second, the author expresses allegiance to the more powerful god. Because of this eternal struggle for power among the gods, an unchanging standard of morality does not exist. The King’s Word decrees what is “good” and as long as power shifts, what is morally acceptable will also shift. Instead of a consistent code of conduct, the reader finds that might makes right.
After Marduk slays his enemy and establishes his rule, he soon realizes the same problem that Apsu and Tiamat both experienced: restlessness still plagues the gods. They need someone to bring them peace because they cannot bring it themselves. Marduk executes Kingu who allegedly “contrived the uprising” and creates man out of the carnage. Here the reader learns that the chief end of man is to slave so that the gods may have rest. The gods made man because they were incomplete without man’ service.
The Enuma Elish describes the divine powers as being divided and always at war with themselves. This serves more to describe the history of the Babylonian reign and the transfer of power because it’s content describes human nature rather than Divine nature. The gods quarrel, never find peace, and need slaves to remedy their restlessness. In the Genesis account of creation however, God does not create man out of any need for Himself, but out of mere desire (Gen. 1:26 – 28). For the God of Genesis does not need the service of man to be complete. Unlike the Babylonian text, The Genesis account of creation offers a God whose unity and power cannot be parted (Gen. 1: 1-2) (3).
Notes
1. The text does not clarify whether Apsu and Tiamat were lovers or friends.
2. The text intentionally leaves the word “lord” without capitalization.
3. Although there is no simple reference in the Genesis creation account that says, “God was completely powerful and unified”, it is implied in the language. He merely speaks and existence obeys Him.
Here is a link to the Babylonian Enuma Elish: http://www.crivoice.org/enumaelish.html
[Note: Due to different translations, the references to the text may not be 100% literal to the text provided by the link.]
Any culture’s account of humanity’s origin has determined who (or what) they believe God is, who man is, and how man should live. Because of this, Ancient Near Eastern writers often conflicted on the character of God (or gods) and the purpose of man in the annals of the birth of mankind. While the Genesis and Babylonian accounts of creation may have some similarities, further analysis reveals that the Sitz im Leben of the authors contradict each other in their theology and philosophy. The Babylonian account of creation differs most from the Genesis account in that it does not tell of a godhead that is unified under one mind or will, but rather, that they are divided and weak.
In the Enuma Elish, the author presents the first arc of tension in the fourteenth line when he introduces Anu to be the “rival” of his fathers. Here the reader learns that instead of being united, the gods struggle for power. Apsu and Tiamat, the father and mother of all, do not have complete sovereignty in which they command utter submission from the gods. The godhead Tiamat is not all-powerful, and if defeated, can be replaced.
This battle for power continues to rage and gives the gods “unrest”. As a result, Apsu asks Tiamat to join him in destroying the gods but the mother refuses and rebukes him. This implies that conflict not only lies between enemies, but also between two acquaintances (1). This division makes Apsu weak and a lesser god called “Ea” kills him. Angered by this, Tiamat confronts Ea’s son Marduk and they engage in combat.
In the sixty-first line, the author refers to Marduk as “lord” before the battle with Tiamat finishes. This referral to “lordship” (2) reveals two things: first, the reader knows that Marduk will be the victor, and second, the author expresses allegiance to the more powerful god. Because of this eternal struggle for power among the gods, an unchanging standard of morality does not exist. The King’s Word decrees what is “good” and as long as power shifts, what is morally acceptable will also shift. Instead of a consistent code of conduct, the reader finds that might makes right.
After Marduk slays his enemy and establishes his rule, he soon realizes the same problem that Apsu and Tiamat both experienced: restlessness still plagues the gods. They need someone to bring them peace because they cannot bring it themselves. Marduk executes Kingu who allegedly “contrived the uprising” and creates man out of the carnage. Here the reader learns that the chief end of man is to slave so that the gods may have rest. The gods made man because they were incomplete without man’ service.
The Enuma Elish describes the divine powers as being divided and always at war with themselves. This serves more to describe the history of the Babylonian reign and the transfer of power because it’s content describes human nature rather than Divine nature. The gods quarrel, never find peace, and need slaves to remedy their restlessness. In the Genesis account of creation however, God does not create man out of any need for Himself, but out of mere desire (Gen. 1:26 – 28). For the God of Genesis does not need the service of man to be complete. Unlike the Babylonian text, The Genesis account of creation offers a God whose unity and power cannot be parted (Gen. 1: 1-2) (3).
Notes
1. The text does not clarify whether Apsu and Tiamat were lovers or friends.
2. The text intentionally leaves the word “lord” without capitalization.
3. Although there is no simple reference in the Genesis creation account that says, “God was completely powerful and unified”, it is implied in the language. He merely speaks and existence obeys Him.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Aristotle's Metaphysics
Here is the second essay that I wrote for my oxford tutorial which is a critique of Aristotle's metaphysics. Almost all of the content is based on Aristotle's Metaphysics book I or Physics book I. All of the references are in parentheses.
In philosophy today, certain fundamental aspects of Aristotle’s metaphysics are still used almost universally among the western philosophical world. Aristotle addresses many topics covered by metaphysics; from causation, form and matter, the existence of mathematical numbers, to God, Aristotle leaves few rocks uncovered. The fundamentals of Aristotle’s metaphysics, specifically pertaining to his theology, in comparison to popular theology done simultaneously have led to what can be considered the most important inquiry one could make.
There is no denying that Aristotle deemed it a sacred duty to pursue knowledge, if not for the sake of knowledge itself (Met. A. I). Even without any practical ends, knowledge is good for its own sake. Nevertheless, there are it seems, different degrees of knowledge in terms of their importance. The highest of these degrees of knowledge is wisdom, which is found in pursuit of first and most universal cause (W. D. Ross, Aristotle, P. 154). Yet, what is the ‘first and most universal cause'? What is the final cause; the beginner of the infinite circle of time and movement; what is the ‘unmoved mover’? Though his view is considered less than orthodox, Aristotle inevitably reaches the conclusion of a God as the first and most universal cause.
In his mind, Aristotle thought that because there are ‘better’ things, there must be a ‘best’ thing, which must divine. Ontological arguments among theistic apologists today are greatly praised and used often. Perhaps one of the most popular ontological arguments for a theistic apologetic would be none other than the famous (or to some, the infamous) C. S. Lewis.
Lewis’s argument lies mainly in his works Surprised by Joy and Mere Christianity where the argument is portrayed more as a theme rather than a concise argument given in a one section in either if his books. Since then, his modern admirers have condensed the argument to a more concise version.
The argument can be stated in a short analogy as follows; a man who is starving in a desert may never find food or water and tragically perish. Even though he dies, he knows there must be water and food; they must exist, for how would his body know what to ‘need’ for him to need it in the first place? Likewise, there is a need for a God. We see good things and better things, so there must be a best thing, or preceding things so there must be a first thing to cause the next things. Even if we cannot know the divine in any way, we can know that the Divine exists according to Aristotle’s argument.
As stated above, Aristotle’s view of God is less than what most adopt as a proper definitive. (1) God’s incomprehension of evil, (2) the lack contingency to the Divine, and (3) unconscious teleology which ultimately leads to a non-‘created’ genesis are all aspect of which most theistic philosophers would deny in Aristotle’s theology. To review the first objection, if the Divine is the ultimate cause of Good, and evil is a travesty of that good, then it would be reasonable to say the Divine has no relation to evil on any level, and therefore has no knowledge of evil. Aristotle accepts this view as it completely separates the Divine from the perversion of good (Ib. 25, 32, 26), but is it necessary for the distinction? It seems that if these definitions of God and evil are true, then God could still have knowledge of evil and its results without being acquainted with it. In other words, God can know what evil is without having it as any of God’s attributes, which would, of course, destroy our definition of God.
The main point of which the Divine serves Aristotle is to satisfy the dilemma of the beginning of time and movement, but this does not lead Aristotle to a creation genesis (301 31, 279 12 ff). This inevitably calls for an unconscious teleology, which has no foundation or basis in the Divine even though God caused the infinite loop of time and movement. Aristotle’s notion of God seems to satisfy the void of the origin of space, but why does it not apply elsewhere? According to the concept of the first cause, would not the origin of sensible things also need an unmoved mover? Furthermore, it seems that if there were no purpose, meaning or intent, or rational behind the genesis of sensible things, then indeed reality would imply a ‘matter over mind’ state of hierarchy. If mindless matter is all there is, then the mindless is all there is, and therefore philosophy and the very rational logic used by Aristotle could not be trusted. This would mean that matter is superior to mind (if the mind would exist at all) and would imply observational science of sensible things superior to a prior knowledge, which would certainly not be excepted by Aristotelian standards, and would provide no presupposition basis for those sciences.
Aristotle further argues that the Divine is not concerned with any “practical interests in the world” because any of these practical interests would “detract from His perfection” (W. D. Ross, Aristotle, Page 184). Aristotle’s God must be perfect, and thus separated from any imperfection at all costs, but why must God not involve Himself with this world in a way that brings it closer to perfection, to be separated from imperfection? Hardly any rationally thinking human being would deny the imperfect state of which mankind lives in, which would suggest that God is not at work in the world. However, if God is really perfect, and He is all powerful (which seems to be an attribute Aristotle would deny) then must not he make this world perfect at some point in time by virtue of His perfection; must not He have a devised plan to make the imperfect perfect, and thus everything He does is for a greater end? And if He is not all powerful (in spite of His status as the unmoved mover), then must not He try to make the imperfect perfect and fail in the attempt; all this by virtue of His perfection?
Aristotle’s God certainly did satisfy the need for which he saw, but it is worth inquiry to why many other philosophers would deem his God is too narrow. We can look to the gospel account of Saint John as a comparison of a widely held belief. In the first verse of the first chapter that St. John wrote to the Gnostics, the author says that “In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God and the logos was God. He was with God in the beginning.” Then St. John goes on to claim something that Aristotle would have immediately rejected; “…He (Logos/God) was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” To believe the view that not only does God dabble in the practicalities of this world but actually became one of this world, is to believe in a much different God then the God Aristotle produces. Aristotle did not hold the same theory of Forms as Plato did, and this belief written in the Christian gospels seem to imply them. According to the theory of Forms, an Idea is (1) everything essential for the object to be and (2) a perfect being of the object, then would not this Idea of humanness be a God-like being? If this theory of Forms is correct, then whatever (or whoever) this Idea of humanness is might not be so different from humans. Is it not essential to humanity to be a person? And to be a person, one must be capable of rational thought? If this is true, then the Idea of humanness must be a person, the object of whose Image humans reflect.
Alas, the reflection cannot see the object in the same way a shadow cannot see the sun. However if this God were all-powerful, perfect, and willful, then he would move to fix all imperfections by virtue of His perfection. Furthermore, would He not become the particular so as to give knowledge of the perfect form? For it is inconceivable for an imperfect being to become perfect by means of itself; but it seems more likely for the perfect being can become imperfect for a greater ends.
In the gospel of St. John it is taught that Jesus the Christ was this being who came from perfection into imperfection. When He was asked to “show them the Father,” Jesus responds, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me?” (John 14:9). This obviously implies that no one can know the Divine except by the means of the Divine incarnate. According to the Christian gospel, man was created to bear the Image of God (Genesis 1:26); is this not exactly what a form does for its particular? What’s more, is that this Form must also hold dominion over, or be in complete compatibility with all other Forms in the same way that humans hold dominion over, or can be compatible with sensible things, not because He reflects humans, but because humans reflect Him (Ibid.).
The argument could be raised however, that a misunderstanding of ‘perfection’ is applied to the scenario in that the Form makes the particular perfect. Of course, if a red haired human were the perfect human, then the brown haired humans could never be humans. However, the argument merely states the particulars become ‘like’ the Form by knowing the Form, not that the particulars ‘become’ the Form itself. Therefore, the particular can still obtain attributes that are not necessary for it to be itself and still be a made-perfect particular.
If all this is true, what then is more important than knowing this ‘God incarnate’? For indeed the highest degree of knowledge would be the wisdom gained by knowing the first and most universal cause. In other words, what then is more important than knowing the object of which we are to reflect? If this is true, then surely it must be the greatest discovery mankind has ever made. If this is false, then it is certainly the greatest lie ever told. Either way, it
is worth much inquiry.
In philosophy today, certain fundamental aspects of Aristotle’s metaphysics are still used almost universally among the western philosophical world. Aristotle addresses many topics covered by metaphysics; from causation, form and matter, the existence of mathematical numbers, to God, Aristotle leaves few rocks uncovered. The fundamentals of Aristotle’s metaphysics, specifically pertaining to his theology, in comparison to popular theology done simultaneously have led to what can be considered the most important inquiry one could make.
There is no denying that Aristotle deemed it a sacred duty to pursue knowledge, if not for the sake of knowledge itself (Met. A. I). Even without any practical ends, knowledge is good for its own sake. Nevertheless, there are it seems, different degrees of knowledge in terms of their importance. The highest of these degrees of knowledge is wisdom, which is found in pursuit of first and most universal cause (W. D. Ross, Aristotle, P. 154). Yet, what is the ‘first and most universal cause'? What is the final cause; the beginner of the infinite circle of time and movement; what is the ‘unmoved mover’? Though his view is considered less than orthodox, Aristotle inevitably reaches the conclusion of a God as the first and most universal cause.
In his mind, Aristotle thought that because there are ‘better’ things, there must be a ‘best’ thing, which must divine. Ontological arguments among theistic apologists today are greatly praised and used often. Perhaps one of the most popular ontological arguments for a theistic apologetic would be none other than the famous (or to some, the infamous) C. S. Lewis.
Lewis’s argument lies mainly in his works Surprised by Joy and Mere Christianity where the argument is portrayed more as a theme rather than a concise argument given in a one section in either if his books. Since then, his modern admirers have condensed the argument to a more concise version.
The argument can be stated in a short analogy as follows; a man who is starving in a desert may never find food or water and tragically perish. Even though he dies, he knows there must be water and food; they must exist, for how would his body know what to ‘need’ for him to need it in the first place? Likewise, there is a need for a God. We see good things and better things, so there must be a best thing, or preceding things so there must be a first thing to cause the next things. Even if we cannot know the divine in any way, we can know that the Divine exists according to Aristotle’s argument.
As stated above, Aristotle’s view of God is less than what most adopt as a proper definitive. (1) God’s incomprehension of evil, (2) the lack contingency to the Divine, and (3) unconscious teleology which ultimately leads to a non-‘created’ genesis are all aspect of which most theistic philosophers would deny in Aristotle’s theology. To review the first objection, if the Divine is the ultimate cause of Good, and evil is a travesty of that good, then it would be reasonable to say the Divine has no relation to evil on any level, and therefore has no knowledge of evil. Aristotle accepts this view as it completely separates the Divine from the perversion of good (Ib. 25, 32, 26), but is it necessary for the distinction? It seems that if these definitions of God and evil are true, then God could still have knowledge of evil and its results without being acquainted with it. In other words, God can know what evil is without having it as any of God’s attributes, which would, of course, destroy our definition of God.
The main point of which the Divine serves Aristotle is to satisfy the dilemma of the beginning of time and movement, but this does not lead Aristotle to a creation genesis (301 31, 279 12 ff). This inevitably calls for an unconscious teleology, which has no foundation or basis in the Divine even though God caused the infinite loop of time and movement. Aristotle’s notion of God seems to satisfy the void of the origin of space, but why does it not apply elsewhere? According to the concept of the first cause, would not the origin of sensible things also need an unmoved mover? Furthermore, it seems that if there were no purpose, meaning or intent, or rational behind the genesis of sensible things, then indeed reality would imply a ‘matter over mind’ state of hierarchy. If mindless matter is all there is, then the mindless is all there is, and therefore philosophy and the very rational logic used by Aristotle could not be trusted. This would mean that matter is superior to mind (if the mind would exist at all) and would imply observational science of sensible things superior to a prior knowledge, which would certainly not be excepted by Aristotelian standards, and would provide no presupposition basis for those sciences.
Aristotle further argues that the Divine is not concerned with any “practical interests in the world” because any of these practical interests would “detract from His perfection” (W. D. Ross, Aristotle, Page 184). Aristotle’s God must be perfect, and thus separated from any imperfection at all costs, but why must God not involve Himself with this world in a way that brings it closer to perfection, to be separated from imperfection? Hardly any rationally thinking human being would deny the imperfect state of which mankind lives in, which would suggest that God is not at work in the world. However, if God is really perfect, and He is all powerful (which seems to be an attribute Aristotle would deny) then must not he make this world perfect at some point in time by virtue of His perfection; must not He have a devised plan to make the imperfect perfect, and thus everything He does is for a greater end? And if He is not all powerful (in spite of His status as the unmoved mover), then must not He try to make the imperfect perfect and fail in the attempt; all this by virtue of His perfection?
Aristotle’s God certainly did satisfy the need for which he saw, but it is worth inquiry to why many other philosophers would deem his God is too narrow. We can look to the gospel account of Saint John as a comparison of a widely held belief. In the first verse of the first chapter that St. John wrote to the Gnostics, the author says that “In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God and the logos was God. He was with God in the beginning.” Then St. John goes on to claim something that Aristotle would have immediately rejected; “…He (Logos/God) was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” To believe the view that not only does God dabble in the practicalities of this world but actually became one of this world, is to believe in a much different God then the God Aristotle produces. Aristotle did not hold the same theory of Forms as Plato did, and this belief written in the Christian gospels seem to imply them. According to the theory of Forms, an Idea is (1) everything essential for the object to be and (2) a perfect being of the object, then would not this Idea of humanness be a God-like being? If this theory of Forms is correct, then whatever (or whoever) this Idea of humanness is might not be so different from humans. Is it not essential to humanity to be a person? And to be a person, one must be capable of rational thought? If this is true, then the Idea of humanness must be a person, the object of whose Image humans reflect.
Alas, the reflection cannot see the object in the same way a shadow cannot see the sun. However if this God were all-powerful, perfect, and willful, then he would move to fix all imperfections by virtue of His perfection. Furthermore, would He not become the particular so as to give knowledge of the perfect form? For it is inconceivable for an imperfect being to become perfect by means of itself; but it seems more likely for the perfect being can become imperfect for a greater ends.
In the gospel of St. John it is taught that Jesus the Christ was this being who came from perfection into imperfection. When He was asked to “show them the Father,” Jesus responds, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me?” (John 14:9). This obviously implies that no one can know the Divine except by the means of the Divine incarnate. According to the Christian gospel, man was created to bear the Image of God (Genesis 1:26); is this not exactly what a form does for its particular? What’s more, is that this Form must also hold dominion over, or be in complete compatibility with all other Forms in the same way that humans hold dominion over, or can be compatible with sensible things, not because He reflects humans, but because humans reflect Him (Ibid.).
The argument could be raised however, that a misunderstanding of ‘perfection’ is applied to the scenario in that the Form makes the particular perfect. Of course, if a red haired human were the perfect human, then the brown haired humans could never be humans. However, the argument merely states the particulars become ‘like’ the Form by knowing the Form, not that the particulars ‘become’ the Form itself. Therefore, the particular can still obtain attributes that are not necessary for it to be itself and still be a made-perfect particular.
If all this is true, what then is more important than knowing this ‘God incarnate’? For indeed the highest degree of knowledge would be the wisdom gained by knowing the first and most universal cause. In other words, what then is more important than knowing the object of which we are to reflect? If this is true, then surely it must be the greatest discovery mankind has ever made. If this is false, then it is certainly the greatest lie ever told. Either way, it
is worth much inquiry.
Plato's Theory of Ideas
Here is the first essay I wrote for my Oxford tutorial. It is on Plato's theory of Ideas which is mainly developed through the Republic.
In the Republic, Plato uses many different allegories, analogies, comparisons, diagrams, and images. Arguably the most famous of these is the allegory of the cave. Comparing shadows to statues and the Sun to real things, Plato defines the Idea of Forms. Although Plato’s allegory introduces the superior relevance of Ideas to sensible things, the allegory shows some fallacies in Plato’s philosophy.
Earlier in the Republic, Plato makes a notable argument in using the examples of the Dreamers. Plato distinguishes three different objects of reality: knowledge, belief, and nescience (476c 2-7). Here, the object of belief is considered to be ‘semi real’ because there is no conception of the belief, merely an experience of it. It is interesting for Plato to make the claim that it is even possible for something to be ‘semi real,’ as if the becoming of existence undertakes the process of alteration. Coming to be is not a process of change, because ‘change,’ of course implies the existence of a changeable property both before and after the adjustment. Knowing then that something that is coming to be cannot have properties preceding its coming into existence, it can be said that coming to be is not a change. If coming to be is not a change and for something to exist it must have properties, then there cannot be an ‘in between’ stage of existence and nonexistence; there cannot be ‘semi properties’ for a ‘semi existing’ object. This is inconceivable.
It could be argued however, that the said ‘semi real’ existence is not a process of coming to be, rather a static object in terms of its realness. If this is true, then again, any property of the object would be a semi property; and of course, by definition it is inconceivable to have a semi property. Also, the static object would have the property of being unchanging in terms of the level of its realness. Having this attribute gives the object a property and thus is actually real.
Plato also fails to distinguish between the person, and the Idea when he gives the example of the dreamer (476 c 2-7). A person may experience a form of beauty and have no conception of it. In other words, the Idea of beauty is independent of our failure to conceive it (or in this case, refusal to conceive it). The problem here is the failure to distinguish between failing to justify a belief and the Idea of beauty itself. A person can experience something overwhelmingly beautiful, not have a clue how to define it, and still have experienced it. Since knowledge requires the justification of a belief, the person, in this case, cannot have knowledge of the experience even though they and the Idea came into contact.
Plato (or Socrates) makes an interesting claim of the discovery considering Socrates’ message from the oracle at Delphi. In the allegory of the cave, Plato explains how people bound by their own ignorance are trapped until they are set free and become lovers of wisdom. It is interesting to note Plato’s use of comparison in the passage where he speaks of the prisoners on being able to see the shadows of the objects themselves (514 b-c). While it seems true that the ‘bound’ might not be able to fully comprehend the substance of the statues and animal carvings made from wood, rock, or other materials, it cannot be said however that they have no ability to sense the differences between the images. A four-legged animal could be distinguished from a tree, a fish, and two humans speaking, fighting, or making love. The ‘bound’ then have some experience of properties the objects project, even without the experience of the objects themselves through certain properties of the shadows and the echoes of unseen sounds. Therefore the bound have some sense of discernment between the different objects though this ‘sense’ is the only tool of which they have to discern. This mere sense, is of course not to be trusted and sometimes deceives, which is why the bound’s feeble attempt to define the objects and predict future events are more trivial than the knowledge of the object themselves.
In the allegory, Plato makes an obvious reference to the trial and death of Socrates when he says that the ‘bound’ would “grab hold of anyone who tried to set them free and take them up there and kill him” (517 a 6-7). The interesting inclination that Plato embraces however is an attitude that Socrates seems to have rejected. In Plato’s view, once the bound is set free and has time to contemplate the objects around him, he becomes enlightened (518 a). In other words, the lovers of wisdom become wise. Socrates would have rejected this notion because he viewed himself a fool (Plato’s Apology 21 a-d). It seems that Socrates would have rejected the claim of ultimate enlightenment because it ignores a distinction between philosophy and the philosopher. According to the allegory, a person set free, given the time to adjust can know. Where as Socrates might have said something along the lines of “the more I know, the more I know that I do not know.” The problem here is not philosophy, but the philosopher. Socrates understood that he was incapable of understanding all of reality, much less understanding all of reality simultaneously.
Another aspect that Socrates would have emphasized, and Plato seems to be unable to escape, is the need for the bound to be “set free,” as opposed to freeing themselves (515 c 5-6). When the man reaches the outer rim of the cave and contemplates real animals, humans, objects, and the Sun, he does so by means of philosophical reasoning. Is the means by which to contemplate real things the same means by which a man must be set free? It should be noted that anyone who inquires can reason philosophically.
In Plato’s passage on the divided line, he explains geometry as being contingent upon visible images (511 a), which must be assumed to proceed in mathematical reasoning. Philosophical reasoning is not contingent upon visible images and is not forced to make assumptions which is why philosophical reasoning is superior to mathematical reasoning according to Plato’s divided line. More relevant to the point at hand however, is the reality that philosophical reasoning can be done by anyone without prior assumptions.
How does this influence the allegory? If it is true that philosophy can be done by anybody, and philosophy is the means to ultimate enlightenment, then it would seem that anyone can escape; but they cannot escape, they must be set free. According to Socrates’ view, we cannot set ourselves free to reach ultimate enlightenment. Not because of the nature of philosophy but because of the nature of man. Our incapability to see things as they really are often keeps our reasoning from reaching truth. While it should not be said that we cannot reach truth by reasoning, that is illogical because it is a truth claim that is ultimately based on reason, it should be realized a certain doctrine of the human condition: that there will always be something false somewhere in everyone’s belief which they think is justified.
What then can set us free from this bondage of ignorance? If it is knowledge itself that releases us from this captivity of ignorance, then everyone can be set free. More than that, everyone has been set free and still chooses to sit in the place of their bondage ignorant of their freedom. If this is true, then both knowledge and ignorance are present at the same time in the same object applied to the same subject. This is of course impossible because if they were set free by knowledge, they would have knowledge of their liberation and their captivity would be voluntarily executed.
Another way to look at this would be to slightly alter the allegory in reference to a statement above: that it is not the captivity that forces the poor thinking, but the thinking that forces the captivity. This could be argued, but it is not convincing because it requires people to interrupt their own naturally false way of thinking to be set free. One other possible line of thought would be to say that knowledge would be made known to the captives before they were made captive. So as to say that even they have the opportunity to be set free, they choose ignorance because of their habitually bad thinking. This seems to be more convincing because it includes a person’s self-captivity of poor thinking, though they are still in ignorance.
Still it seems to be a large claim to say that because we can define Ideas, we can have full comprehension of them. This seems to ignore a dimensional limitation of human thought capabilities. While it is true that a person can have knowledge of an Idea, it is impossible to conceive all Ideas simultaneously, which is a limitation in human knowledge. It seems to be more possible that in reality, people cannot actually gaze upon the Sun, but by the Sun people can see everything else .
In the Republic, Plato uses many different allegories, analogies, comparisons, diagrams, and images. Arguably the most famous of these is the allegory of the cave. Comparing shadows to statues and the Sun to real things, Plato defines the Idea of Forms. Although Plato’s allegory introduces the superior relevance of Ideas to sensible things, the allegory shows some fallacies in Plato’s philosophy.
Earlier in the Republic, Plato makes a notable argument in using the examples of the Dreamers. Plato distinguishes three different objects of reality: knowledge, belief, and nescience (476c 2-7). Here, the object of belief is considered to be ‘semi real’ because there is no conception of the belief, merely an experience of it. It is interesting for Plato to make the claim that it is even possible for something to be ‘semi real,’ as if the becoming of existence undertakes the process of alteration. Coming to be is not a process of change, because ‘change,’ of course implies the existence of a changeable property both before and after the adjustment. Knowing then that something that is coming to be cannot have properties preceding its coming into existence, it can be said that coming to be is not a change. If coming to be is not a change and for something to exist it must have properties, then there cannot be an ‘in between’ stage of existence and nonexistence; there cannot be ‘semi properties’ for a ‘semi existing’ object. This is inconceivable.
It could be argued however, that the said ‘semi real’ existence is not a process of coming to be, rather a static object in terms of its realness. If this is true, then again, any property of the object would be a semi property; and of course, by definition it is inconceivable to have a semi property. Also, the static object would have the property of being unchanging in terms of the level of its realness. Having this attribute gives the object a property and thus is actually real.
Plato also fails to distinguish between the person, and the Idea when he gives the example of the dreamer (476 c 2-7). A person may experience a form of beauty and have no conception of it. In other words, the Idea of beauty is independent of our failure to conceive it (or in this case, refusal to conceive it). The problem here is the failure to distinguish between failing to justify a belief and the Idea of beauty itself. A person can experience something overwhelmingly beautiful, not have a clue how to define it, and still have experienced it. Since knowledge requires the justification of a belief, the person, in this case, cannot have knowledge of the experience even though they and the Idea came into contact.
Plato (or Socrates) makes an interesting claim of the discovery considering Socrates’ message from the oracle at Delphi. In the allegory of the cave, Plato explains how people bound by their own ignorance are trapped until they are set free and become lovers of wisdom. It is interesting to note Plato’s use of comparison in the passage where he speaks of the prisoners on being able to see the shadows of the objects themselves (514 b-c). While it seems true that the ‘bound’ might not be able to fully comprehend the substance of the statues and animal carvings made from wood, rock, or other materials, it cannot be said however that they have no ability to sense the differences between the images. A four-legged animal could be distinguished from a tree, a fish, and two humans speaking, fighting, or making love. The ‘bound’ then have some experience of properties the objects project, even without the experience of the objects themselves through certain properties of the shadows and the echoes of unseen sounds. Therefore the bound have some sense of discernment between the different objects though this ‘sense’ is the only tool of which they have to discern. This mere sense, is of course not to be trusted and sometimes deceives, which is why the bound’s feeble attempt to define the objects and predict future events are more trivial than the knowledge of the object themselves.
In the allegory, Plato makes an obvious reference to the trial and death of Socrates when he says that the ‘bound’ would “grab hold of anyone who tried to set them free and take them up there and kill him” (517 a 6-7). The interesting inclination that Plato embraces however is an attitude that Socrates seems to have rejected. In Plato’s view, once the bound is set free and has time to contemplate the objects around him, he becomes enlightened (518 a). In other words, the lovers of wisdom become wise. Socrates would have rejected this notion because he viewed himself a fool (Plato’s Apology 21 a-d). It seems that Socrates would have rejected the claim of ultimate enlightenment because it ignores a distinction between philosophy and the philosopher. According to the allegory, a person set free, given the time to adjust can know. Where as Socrates might have said something along the lines of “the more I know, the more I know that I do not know.” The problem here is not philosophy, but the philosopher. Socrates understood that he was incapable of understanding all of reality, much less understanding all of reality simultaneously.
Another aspect that Socrates would have emphasized, and Plato seems to be unable to escape, is the need for the bound to be “set free,” as opposed to freeing themselves (515 c 5-6). When the man reaches the outer rim of the cave and contemplates real animals, humans, objects, and the Sun, he does so by means of philosophical reasoning. Is the means by which to contemplate real things the same means by which a man must be set free? It should be noted that anyone who inquires can reason philosophically.
In Plato’s passage on the divided line, he explains geometry as being contingent upon visible images (511 a), which must be assumed to proceed in mathematical reasoning. Philosophical reasoning is not contingent upon visible images and is not forced to make assumptions which is why philosophical reasoning is superior to mathematical reasoning according to Plato’s divided line. More relevant to the point at hand however, is the reality that philosophical reasoning can be done by anyone without prior assumptions.
How does this influence the allegory? If it is true that philosophy can be done by anybody, and philosophy is the means to ultimate enlightenment, then it would seem that anyone can escape; but they cannot escape, they must be set free. According to Socrates’ view, we cannot set ourselves free to reach ultimate enlightenment. Not because of the nature of philosophy but because of the nature of man. Our incapability to see things as they really are often keeps our reasoning from reaching truth. While it should not be said that we cannot reach truth by reasoning, that is illogical because it is a truth claim that is ultimately based on reason, it should be realized a certain doctrine of the human condition: that there will always be something false somewhere in everyone’s belief which they think is justified.
What then can set us free from this bondage of ignorance? If it is knowledge itself that releases us from this captivity of ignorance, then everyone can be set free. More than that, everyone has been set free and still chooses to sit in the place of their bondage ignorant of their freedom. If this is true, then both knowledge and ignorance are present at the same time in the same object applied to the same subject. This is of course impossible because if they were set free by knowledge, they would have knowledge of their liberation and their captivity would be voluntarily executed.
Another way to look at this would be to slightly alter the allegory in reference to a statement above: that it is not the captivity that forces the poor thinking, but the thinking that forces the captivity. This could be argued, but it is not convincing because it requires people to interrupt their own naturally false way of thinking to be set free. One other possible line of thought would be to say that knowledge would be made known to the captives before they were made captive. So as to say that even they have the opportunity to be set free, they choose ignorance because of their habitually bad thinking. This seems to be more convincing because it includes a person’s self-captivity of poor thinking, though they are still in ignorance.
Still it seems to be a large claim to say that because we can define Ideas, we can have full comprehension of them. This seems to ignore a dimensional limitation of human thought capabilities. While it is true that a person can have knowledge of an Idea, it is impossible to conceive all Ideas simultaneously, which is a limitation in human knowledge. It seems to be more possible that in reality, people cannot actually gaze upon the Sun, but by the Sun people can see everything else .
Sonnet #2
Here is a sonnet I wrote after reading Lewis' ontological argument for the existence of God. Just to remove any shred of doubt, this is not condoning self inflicted death, but merely to explore the answer to death according to the Gospel.
Sonnet #2
When life has met the end of its short flight
What hope have we of life or death to take
Our bodies worn and nude embark to make
The journey borne and rude at death’s first sight.
The blind man’s end will make him push and run
The cliff from which he screamed at God to die
Nirvana brings no better cup to try
To fill and spill into oblivion!
There is a place I know exists. In sea
Of sand a man may dwell, and never taste
The touch of quenching drink, but know that he
Is from a place that’s free from baron waste
What joy of peace I have that when I roam
That I can die and then arrive at home.
-M.D.K.
Sonnet #2
When life has met the end of its short flight
What hope have we of life or death to take
Our bodies worn and nude embark to make
The journey borne and rude at death’s first sight.
The blind man’s end will make him push and run
The cliff from which he screamed at God to die
Nirvana brings no better cup to try
To fill and spill into oblivion!
There is a place I know exists. In sea
Of sand a man may dwell, and never taste
The touch of quenching drink, but know that he
Is from a place that’s free from baron waste
What joy of peace I have that when I roam
That I can die and then arrive at home.
-M.D.K.
The Sleeping Bride
There is very little of a poet inside of the hand that wrote this miserable sonnet. Yet, it is the first sonnet I have ever written.
The Sleeping Bride
A life to live in fear of faith
Could not achieve a grace which met
A life to pay receiving debt
His love, His grace, His truth, then scathed
The Maker shown; a truth forgot
A sleeping bride in slumber white
Now they are dreaming in the light
A death of man which sin had wrought.
Is there hope to see His face?
To blot the blotch that once had stained
Can there be receiving grace?
The death of sin that god had pained
Awake! O bride, now hear his call
And heed His name, the Lord of all!
-M.D.K.
The Sleeping Bride
A life to live in fear of faith
Could not achieve a grace which met
A life to pay receiving debt
His love, His grace, His truth, then scathed
The Maker shown; a truth forgot
A sleeping bride in slumber white
Now they are dreaming in the light
A death of man which sin had wrought.
Is there hope to see His face?
To blot the blotch that once had stained
Can there be receiving grace?
The death of sin that god had pained
Awake! O bride, now hear his call
And heed His name, the Lord of all!
-M.D.K.
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