7 Faith with Reason Mel Gibsons The Passion
7 Faith with Reason Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Hegel’s and Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Religion 1
Heidegger on Plato and Christianity l l l 2 1) Heidegger: “Nietzsche was right in saying that Christianity is Platonism for the people. ” 2) Nietzsche: Christianity is the expression of the slave morality => two interpretations of Plato => two interpretations of Christianity => Hegel on slavery and morality
Heidegger/Nietzsche interpretation of Plato l Plato separates reality into two levels: – – l => disenchantment of physical, earthly life – l l 3 lower, earthly level: the object of sensation and illusion higher level: the object of intellect, reason: the ideal world of Reality Recall Stoicism: the material world is unimportant to the higher, true existence Christianity repeats this scheme in the form of popular religion: it is the next life that counts => material world as object of pragmatic knowledge and control: technological mentality of West
Stoicism = Slave morality l Hegel’s dialectic of master/slave – l l 4 The Master is implicitly overcome by the slave Stoic resolution: freedom at the mental plane through detachment from emotional attachment = Dualism of inner/mind and outer/ body
Two forms of Christianity: Stoic and Platonic l l Stoicism = Philosophy of (Roman) Empire Platonism = philosophy of the (Greek) republic – – l 5 The philosopher goes back down into the cave (Symposium) We see the god in the beloved (Phaedrus) Should be: Christianity = Stoicism for the masses, not Platonism – Is there a “Platonic Christianity” as well?
Kant’s critique of Stoicism l Stoicism: moral duty is its own reward: – l l Kant: No one can be happy without the satisfaction of basic desires, without finding love in their lives Hence: morality aims at the Highest Good – – l 6 =doing your duty is true happiness Morality and happiness Divinity (Justice) manifested in the here and now, as in Plato’s Phaedrus Hegel: Platonism, Stoicism, and Kantian morality are stages in the evolution of humanity whose goal is the realization of Spirit
Two interpretations of Christianity l l 7 1) Theory of Atonement 2) Theory of Jesus as Teacher/Model
Two Early Christianities l 1) “Orthodox” interpretation of Jesus as Savior-Redeemer – l 2) “Gnostic” interpretation of Jesus as Teacher-Model – 8 Need to believe in redeeming blood sacrifice of Jesus to be saved Need to understand the deep teachings of Jesus in order to be able to save oneself
Fate of Gnostics l Council of Nicea in 325 CE formulates orthodox Christian beliefs (Nicene Creed) – l “Gnostic” theories of “inner knowing” are outlawed in 326 CE by the Emperor’s decree – 9 Called by Roman Emperor Constantine Texts buried in desert of Egypt near Nag Hammadi are discovered in 1945
Kierkegaard’s defense of orthodox Christianity l Kierkegaard: religion is beyond morality – – l For example: God tells Abraham to kill his only son – 10 Morality: the universal, the rational (Kant) Religion: the individual, beyond rationality, a scandal to rational philosophy (of Kant and Hegel) (Christianity: God the father sends his only Son to die on the cross)
A truly loving God? l God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac – 11 Like the sacrificial lambs of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
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Kierkegaard: What is Christianity? l l 1) God is Infinite 2) Man is finite 3) Jesus Christ is God and Man: Infinite and Finite 4) For reason this is a contradiction – – l 13 Christianity is not just beyond reason (v. Kant) but in contradiction to reason (v. Hegel) 5) Requires a leap of faith beyond reason
Hegel’s dialectic of finite and infinite l 1) Critique of concept of external creator God – – – l 2) Hence creation is the manifestation of the Infinite (Spirit): – – 14 If God is infinite (all reality), there can be nothing outside of God Orthodox theory of Creation: God is really a finite being because other than his creation. Reflects Roman stage of history: rule by the Emperor all is within God; all is (implicitly) God through the dialectic of involution/evolution
Complementarity of religion and philosophy l l 15 Religion expresses truth at the level of feelings Art expresses truth at the level of sensuous representations Philosophy expresses truth at the level of conceptual thinking Each stage of history is expressed in its own appropriate religion, art, and philosophy
Three stages of religion l 1) Religion of nature (hunter-gatherers, Navi, Ewoks) – – l l (Transition: “Greek religion of the Beautiful Individual, ” emerging division, & Plato’s philosophical remedy: recall the earlier divinity) 2) “Religion of expediency” (Rome) – – l God/gods as above nature and power over the world Religion of the separate ego, disenchantment, and Stoicism 3) The Consummate Religion (Christianity) – – 16 Includes China, India The divine is in the world: animism (enchanted world) God reenters the world, dies on cross (=death of the Ego) Rebirth of Spirit through the community of free humans
Death of God (Hegel) l 17 ““God himself is dead, ” it says in a Lutheran hymn, expressing an awareness that the human, the finite, the fragile, the weak, the negative are themselves moments of the divine, that they are within God himself, that finitude, negativity, otherness are not outside of God and do not, as otherness, hinder unity with God. ”
Sin as separation l Death of God: “a monstrous, fearful picture [Vorstellung, representation], which brings before the imagination the deepest abyss of cleavage. ” – l Need complementary conceptual comprehension – 18 “picture thinking”: image for the sake of feeling – Orthodox theology of Atonement fails to provide a logically coherent conceptual comprehension Hegel: Need to overcome the dialectic of the ego in Spirit: I that is We, We that is I
Dialectic of the ego > from Stoicism to the Unhappy Consciousness l l Stoic consciousness is separated from the empirical world (= Slave morality—be a good slave or master) Skeptic points out the lack of substance of Stoicism – l Thus: Unhappy Consciousness: Truth as the Unknowable Beyond, and I am powerless, nothing – 19 But Skeptical consciousness is purely negative Goethe: So Faust, experiencing the emptiness of the rational intellect which kills the holistic Spirit, makes a bargain with the devil to find love
Phenomenological meaning of the death of God/Jesus l 1) Jesus is fully aware of our essential oneness with God (“His prayer: Our Father”) – l 2) And at the same time he intensely experiences his separation from God (=feeling of abandonment of the separate Ego: Unhappy Consciousness) – – 20 Hegel: Just as we are when we know that the truth of reality is Spirit (infinity, totality, universal love) “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? ” =Death of the slave consciousness
Overcoming sin l l l Sin = separation (Ego-identification) Jesus expresses sin (negativity) to the fullest, and also death to this separation Jesus exemplifies the death of the Ego consciousness: model for all humanity of inner truth Human evolution = “Calvary of Absolute Spirit” Result >I that is We, and We that is I – – 21 Early Christians experience this at the level of religious feeling (Pentecost) But a new dialectical rationality is needed to bring this feeling to full rational consciousness
Two theories of Justice l l 22 1) This world is inherently weak or corrupted, and only an external, superpowerful being can save the day 2) Justice in this world: The world is intrinsically moral – crime will be punished and the good will receive their reward
Hobbes’ pessimism l l l Human nature is inherently egotistical The result is murder and mayhem Only an outside power can save us from ourselves: – – 23 1) The Leviathan State 2) Joined to the Christian religion of the redeeming death of Jesus Christ, Son of God, on the cross
Hobbes’ “Scientific Christianity” l The new materialism of science – – – l Calvinist beliefs of the time – – – 24 Human beings are inherently egotistical Only the State can save us from ourselves Our lives are determined by outside causes (new physics , law of inertia) Human nature is intrinsically corrupt, sinful (original sin) Only an outside power, God through the redeeming death of Jesus, can save us. Some are predestined to be saved, others to be damned (predestination in religion linked to determinism in science)
Kant’s alternative conception of Christianity l l l 25 1) Critique of deterministic science 2) Assertion of human freedom as the basis of morality 3) Arguments for belief in the possibility of creating a just world (kingdom of God on earth) 4) Jesus as the model and teacher of morality 5) Rejection of the doctrine of Original Sin
Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ l 26 “There is no greater hero story than this one, about the greatest love one can have, which is to lay down one’s life for someone. The Passion is the biggest adventure story of all time. I think it’s the biggest love-story of all time; God becoming man and men killing God. If that’s not action, nothing is…. Christ paid the price for all our sins. ”
Jesus as Savior-Redeemer l l 27 Redemption: to buy back, “pay the price” for someone who is a captive slave Supposes that human beings are captives of the Evil One St. Augustine: We do live in a just world: all of us deserve damnation Some of us are saved through the mercy of God in sacrificing his only Son to redeem us
A perfectly loving God? l l l 28 “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ” 1 John 4: 10 Recall: God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac Here: God sacrifices his own Son
Republican nature of early Christianity l l l 29 “As imperial power became increasingly centralized, remote, insensitive, and later unstable, ‘In many ways Christianity represented how Rome liked to idealize its republican past. ’” Spodek, The World’s History, 330 Early Christians = Republican spirit of “each for all and all to each”: challenges Empire 325: the Empire Strikes Back
Faith and Reason l Kant: we cannot know reality in itself; therefore we must believe something – l Hegel: we can know reality in itself: through dialectical science; – – 30 Believe in the possibility of the Highest Good dialectic of the ego leads ultimately to Spirit: an I that is We and a We that is I
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