If there was one thing I could tell Christians…

… it would be that general revelation matters.

Popular Christianity wants to begin and end with the bible. For them the bible or Jesus is the way God is known. This presupposition is clearly demonstrated in their typically unexamined interpretation of The Word (of God) as either the bible or Jesus or both. They will commonly say things like, the bible is our foundation for truth or the bible is supreme authority. Doug Wilson said in a recent blog post, “I only have one way to treat the Word of God. I treat it like it is the Bible.”

Some of the most explicit believers that the bible is epistemologically most basic are those who practice presuppositional apologetics. When they’re pinned against a wall, forced to explain why they believe the protestant bible or Jesus are authoritative, they reassert it – the bible is true because the bible, Jesus is God because he said so, God is real because he said so in the bible. They’ve established sort of an explicitly honest dogmatism out of recognizing a profound insight – If we don’t begin somewhere then all worldviews are either lost in an infinite regress of proofs or we get tangled in a loop of circular reasoning (words of Owen Anderson). Christians, they claim, begin with the bible by asserting that it is indeed word from God. The acceptance of this assertion for no reason, is the Holy Spirit transforming you.

The problem with making the bible one’s foundation for truth is that it voids God’s general revelation. Without the bible, general revelation would become not general (not accessible to all), not revelation (doesn’t reveal anything without the bible), and leaves man with an excuse (they couldn’t have known, Romans 1:20).

There are more problems. One is that the bible does not and cannot attest unto reason in itself. Even if the bible explicitly said that contradictions can’t be true, there would be no way of interpreting it meaningfully without already assuming that contradictions can’t be true.

Critical examination of basic beliefs should bring to light that Christians already assume reason in their interpretations of the bible. They harmonize contradictions in the text. They read, “God created the heavens and the Earth” as distinct from, “God didn’t create the heavens and the Earth.” Once reason is given the authority to interpret the bible, it is also given the authority to test the bible for truth. So simply beginning with the bible and “proof texting” from there is not a sound epistemology. By rationally interpreting scripture, they’ve already assumed reason is most basic.

Presupposition Apologists generally deal with the authority of reason by mistaking it for how a person reasons. There’s no doubt that people sometimes reason improperly. But that is not to say that reason in itself is flawed. The conclusion of a sound argument is true, even if people think they’ve made sound arguments when they haven’t.

They also sometimes make the claim that reason changes based on cultural standards. This confuses reason as principle with reasoning from the principles of a culture. Cultures have different principles that they more-or-less take for granted because they haven’t examined their basic beliefs. The use of reason tests those principles for meaning so that one can transcend the thoughtless doctrines of their culture.

The bible does not and cannot attest unto reason. But Reason is self-attesting – it cannot be questioned because it makes questioning possible. It cannot be doubted because one cannot doubt without calling it into question. Reason then is certain.

Once reason is established as the truly authoritative foundation of our beliefs and worldviews, Christians can rebuild from there by showing through reason -- God’s existence, that we have a responsibility to know God, that we have not known God and are therefore in need of redemption, and that the gospel is the revelation of that redemption.

 

 

Technorati Tags: How we know God,knowing god from the bible or from creation,special and general revelation of God,making the bible morality,Romans 1 and general revelation,what does the knowledge of God come from,the bible does not give us knowledge of God

Blinks: 30 arguments for God, GMOs are safe, libertarian Demographics, and Bryan Caplan on Arguments

• Questions Libertarians can’t answer? Let me Google that for you. Some answers libertarians give are good, some are not so good. But if you don’t think that virtually all libertarians have engaged in some of the most obvious questions -- who would care for the poor? – Who would build the roads? – Wouldn’t Robber Barons take over the World? Then you just aren’t listening.
  
• Here are 30 arguments for the existence of God. The question that comes to my mind is how many of these arguments are sound? Atheists have to say 0. One sound argument proves God exists unless it is a probabilistic argument. Theists, I anticipate, would give a number between 25-30. In an unbiased world I would expect more low non-zero numbers, even if The Truth is that 0 or 30 of them are sound.
  
• Shocking news -- Genetically Modified Foods are safe. "The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops."  There was never any reason to think that they weren’t safe. Every argument I’ve ever heard against “Franken Foods” was just plain fake science, appealed to the perfection of nature (as if she took such great care of us), appealed to unknowns (because how do we know the long term effects?), or warned against people making money off of it (as if people never make money helping other people).
  
  Cecil Adams also has a page on GMOs. It is pretty good except for the end – “The big agribusiness companies will move on to some other pesticide, but organic farmers will be screwed.” The vast majority of organic foods in the marketplace are from big business. Moreover, even if it weren’t, who cares? People losing their jobs to more efficient processes is the normal economic process of creative destruction.
  
• A very good post by Bryan Caplan on quality argumentation. “… a good argument must have a conclusion less obvious than the denial of your initial premises.  You can't argue that 1+1=3.  After all, any argument of the form ‘A, therefore B’ is also an argument that ‘Not B, therefore not A.’”
  
• Steve Jeffrey’s articulation of Post-Millennialist Eschatology is fabulous. He gives an audible account of it on the Theopologetics Podcast.
  
• 2013 American Values Survey: In Search of Libertarians in America has some very good demographic information of libertarians.
  
  

 

 

Technorati Tags: How many libertarians are Christian Right,how many christian right are libertarians,Bryan Caplan on arguments rhetoric,Genetically modified foods safety,costs benefits of gmos,arguments for God,existence of God,what is a libertarian,Steve Jeffrey post-millenialism

A Mother’s Lesson about Debt

"Mommy, is our country so poor?"
"Because our country didn't make any investments"
"Why?"
"Because they didn't accumulate any debt that amounted to future returns"
"But wouldn't I have to pay off the debt?"
"Yes honey. But you'd be a lot richer and much more able to"
"Mommy, why didn’t they care about future generations?”
”They did honey, just not enough to think about it for more than 5 seconds.”

A country's debt never needs to be paid off. Debt is investment for future returns, as the future returns come in old debt is paid off and new debt is accumulated, so total debt continues indefinitely. This is the normal pattern of growth. Debt can get out of hand. It can be mal-invested. But there is no point at which the debt needs to be paid off and we’re back at 0. The use of the word “debt” rather than the word “credit” is misleading since they’re both synonyms. There is no difference between saying We’re in so much debt to China and We have so much credit with China. The ability to continue accumulating so much debt indicates high expectations that the future will be great and we’ll be able to pay it off.

Deep Dark Secrets of Economics -- Simple. Clear. But never changes anyone’s mind.

 

Technorati Tags: Does the Debt ever have to be paid off,Debt analogy,debt and credit difference,debt never has to be paid off,pay off America's debt,continual debt for a country

Scripture does not Teach that the Saved go to Heaven for Eternity

Does scripture teach that the saved go to heaven forever when they die? Surprisingly, the answer is no. Christians are confused about the Afterlife and confusing translations of bible passages about heaven and hell certainly don’t help anything.

Protestant scripture teaches that the saved will live out their days on an earth remade. This is a holy new earth, so there is a sense in which one can call it heaven – but that’s not really what most Christians mean by heaven. They mean some twelfth dimension floaty place (words of Doug Wilsons). And when you ask Christians what this twelfth dimension floaty place will be like, they’ll use the language that Revelation uses to describe the New Earth – streets of gold, crystal sea, no more pain, sorrow, tears. This heavenly Kingdom, New Jerusalem, descends out of heaven in Revelation 22, onto the earth.

Since the old testament all the way through the new, the prophets and disciples taught that the dead will be physically resurrected on the last day, and everlasting life in the Kingdom of God is what follows,

"But at that time your people -- everyone whose name is found written in the book -- will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake; some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt"
Daniel 12:1-2

In Matthew 22:30, Jesus teaches that the resurrected will not marry or be given in marriage. The question the Sadducees asked was about the resurrection, a specific one I believe on the last day, not a generic one.

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.
Matthew 22:30

When Lazarus dies, Jesus tells Martha that he will rise again. She confuses his meaning, thinking that he’s referring to the resurrection on the last day.

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.
John 11:23-25

When under trial by Felix, Paul’s words are recorded in Acts. He speaks of the universal resurrection of both the just and the unjust. The un-just are thrown into the lake of fire, while the just remain to see the Kingdom of God.

I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.
Acts 24:15

Paul wrote to the Corinthians that baptism doesn’t make sense if the dead are not raised,

Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead?
I Corinthians 15:29

After all, according to Genesis, God puts man on the Earth and it was very good. The purpose God put man on the Earth for, can’t be undone by the introduction of sin. What God sets out to accomplish, he will accomplish (words of Steve Jeffrey).

Habakkuk teaches that the day will come when the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. If the Earth is going to hell in a hand basket, and the saved are going to some twelfth dimension floaty place, then that day will never come.

A Heavenly Earth and a Temporary Stay in Heaven

There are two senses in which the truly might “go to heaven”. One sense is that the Earth is going to be a heavenly place. God makes everything new and this place is empty of both moral evil and natural evil. If one wants to call that physical place on earth heaven, then be my guest. Some say that the earth will be a part of heaven that we live on. However, it is not what most people think of when they say heaven, because they’re not ghosts, they’re not in the clouds, and things will still be made of matter. Moreover, it is not what most people call heaven because heaven for them is so great it is unimaginable. An earth without moral evil and natural evil (and perhaps some other differences – no sea?) is very imaginable. It is also not what some theologians call the beatific vision of God they imagine heaven must be. It is not ultimate direct unmediated static existence in God’s presence.

The other sense in which the saved might to to heaven is in what is called the intermediary state. There is a state between death and resurrection, and there’s some dispute about what this state is comprised of. Some think it is soul sleep – the dead remain unconscious until they are resurrected. Others believe that this intermediary state consists of a spiritual temporary stay in heaven with God for the saved, and some spiritual temporary stay in a not-so-great place for the unsaved. Regardless of which of these options is true, they are both an intermediary (temporary) state, to be followed by the final state which most believe to be either in the lake of fire or the Kingdom of God. Scripture might teach that the saved go to heaven, but eventually they’re going back to where God made their home – the earth.

By the way, Here is a very good conversation between three evangelical theology minded bible-believing Christians who all have different eschatological differences. What is relevant about it is that at one point they are all asked whether they believe that scripture says the saved will live out their days on a material Earth, and they all answer with a very clear yes.

 

Technorati Tags: Does the bible teach that Christians are going to heaven,is heaven on earth?,Is heaven the beatific vision of God,what is the intermediary state,where is heaven,what does the bible say about where heaven is,the kingdom of god on earth or in heaven

Blog Links (Blinks, if you will) October 19th, 2013

• Dan Kuenh’s blog Facts and Other Stubborn Things is new to my blog list. He seems like a pretty regular smart guy, judging from his blogroll is left of center, and frequently comments on Econlog.
  
• A post by… Dan Kuenh -- A criticism of the Bootleggers and Baptist Metaphor. The end was particularly insightful:
  
  ”there is a strain of libertarian economics that runs on metaphors: Baptists and bootleggers, for example. The communication value of these metaphors is often very high, but the analytic content is much lower, I think, and it's usually because of a surprisingly narrow view of how the principles at hand are best applied, and a surprising lack of appreciation that others would apply it differently.”
  
• A debate between Steve Jeffrey – who I know, and Jacques More – who I’ve never heard of, on Calvinism.
  
• A C- grade episode of Econtalk where Cliff Winston tells us about the wonderful world of Infrastructure. At least it is better than Fox News.
  
• A debate between the Traditional and Annihilationist views of hell. Chris Date makes three arguments from scripture for Annihalationism (the unsaved will be destroyed, rather than be tormented everlastingly). All of his arguments come from scripture directly or by implication.
  
  1. Scripture teaches that man is not inherently immortal. Eternal life is a gift from God that needs to be sought.
  2. Scripture teaches that Jesus’ death was a substitute for our our punishment. Jesus died after suffering.
  3. Scripture teaches directly that the unsaved are destroyed. The wages of sin is death. Death is eternal punishment.
  
• A very good overview of what scripture teaches about the intermediary state and final state of the dead.
  
  The old testament uses the word Sheol which translated as the grave half the time, and hell half the time. Obviously the same image does not come to mind when one uses the word the grave and the other uses the word hell.
  
  It gets worse. The New Testament Greek uses the word Hades for the Old Testament word Sheol, which is then translated into English as Hell. But there is another word the New Testament uses which is translated into Hell, Gehenna – which is in reference to the Final State after the dead are raised from Sheol or Hades, which is an intermediary state.
  
  It is no wonder Popular Christianity explicitly acknowledges the resurrection of the dead in the end, but then implicitly denies it by claiming that people are in heaven or hell right now, and will spend eternity there. Christians are confused about the Afterlife.
  
• Did Coke really contain Cocaine? Cecil Adams answers.

 

Technorati Tags: What does the bible teach about hell,difference between intermediary state and final state,Chris Date debate on hell,Steve Jeffrey debate on Calvanism,Russ Roberts Econtalk on Infrastructure

Not Raising the Debt Ceiling does not mean Default

I have yet to hear a coherent explanation of why restricting total government expenditure to revenue by hitting the debt ceiling would lead to the default on one particular expenditure (debt payments). I have; however, heard several media outlets assert it. Actually, almost all of them. Politicians too! John Boehner blamed the president,

“The president -- the president, his refusal to talk, is resulting in a possible default on our debt.”

Barack Obama also perpetrates this idea, stating that if Republicans don’t resolve the debt ceiling standoff,

"we stand a good chance of defaulting."

But then I read the writing of economists, and they say that it just isn’t true.

David Friedman puts out a nice little post on why the debt ceiling doesn’t lead to debt default.

There is also a bit of a non-sequitur written in the comments by one IGM Panel Expert. Caroline Hoxby, a Stanford economist, states,”The federal govt could make its interest payments on current debt even if the debt ceiling were not raised.”

And then there is The Economist’s blog, Free Exchange,

“Failure to raise the debt ceiling need not entail default”

On my rounds of economics blogs, and I have several dozen of them, I have not heard a single one state the idea that failing to raise the debt ceiling entails default on the debt.

Why isn’t what economists are saying obvious? Saying that not raising the debt ceiling means default is like saying that a family with plenty of income not getting another credit card means they can’t buy food. It just doesn’t make sense to say that if we have to limit expenditure to revenue, then we have to default on the most important expenditure of all!

This, of course, isn’t new. Several years back the president and everyone in the media warned that if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we’ll have to default on social security. Apparently, any time we approach the debt ceiling, the thing that needs to be cut is whatever cut is the scariest of all.

Here is my interpretation: The media likes superhero stories. Politicians like to look like superheroes. So the big story about politicians swooping in at the last minute to make a deal and save us from the worst thing ever emerges from the political and entertainment systems. There’s another player, people. People like to watch superhero stories. They like the entertainment and they like rooting for their political team to beat the bad guys and save the world. They also don’t like cognitive strain or intellectual discipline. Diligent seeking makes them uneasy and uncertain. Why else would they be so ignorant on something they perceive to be so important?

 

Technorati Tags: Does not raising the debt ceiling mean default,David Friedman on Debt Ceiling and Default,Economists on Debt Ceiling and Default,Politicians love the debt ceiling,The media loves the debt ceiling and default

The Government shutdown isn’t that big but still bad

The United States Government has officially shut down. This gives the impression of anarchy. When anything else “shuts down” they don’t continue on doing the “essential” activities. A government shutdown means something completely different. So first I’d like to assess the magnitude of it.

Mother Jones lists 48 ways the government shutdown will “screw you over”. Read past the juvenile scare language and extreme stretching of the truth and we have a pretty good list of the total effects of the shutdown, and they’re pretty dismal. What gets shut down is the non-essential services as determined by the Office of Management and Budget – and pretty much everything government does according to them is essential. It is so easy to exaggerate the necessity of every government program until it looks like the world is crashing down. But if we stop for a second to get a sense of magnitude, it just isn’t that big a deal.

According to Mother Jones, the shutdown screws over anyone who gets sick because “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would lack funding to support its annual flu vaccination program.” In actuality it inconveniences a small faction of the population who use this program. Flu vaccinations have not disappeared off the face of the earth, so most people who were going to get them still will. Not a big deal.

It also says that “400,000 Department of Defense employees will be given unpaid vacations” It forgot to mention that the Department of Defense is the largest employer in the World – employing 3.2 million people. So that’s 1/8 of their workforce. I’m not saying it’s good. Those workers aren’t exactly low income but I’m sure they’d prefer to work. But it is not that big a deal.

“The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will halt regular inspections.” If you you think that health and safety is not positively correlated with economic growth – and that businesses can radically reduce the health and safety of workplaces only to change them back when regular inspections continue – then this should scare you very much. If you’re a bit more realistic, then it is not a big deal.

There are a lot of delays, cutbacks, and furloughs in a very small fraction of total government activity, which is still a fraction of total economic activity. The United States government has shut down 18 times in the last 40 years -- usually because of budget problems like what is happening now. The longest one lasted 21 days. So when it comes to magnitudes, this is in the running for most important thing to happen to the United States this year, but not a clear winner. The near-attack on Syria would probably be the winner.

Is it bad? I contend that it almost certainly is.

The programs that are shut down – got funding reduced – postponed – are a mishmash of cased where
1) government is solving market failure
2) government is crowding out what markets could do all by themselves and
3) government is doing something that just shouldn’t be done

The intuitive answer is that if category 1 is shut down that’s bad, and if 2 or 3 are shut down that’s good. But I think it is all bad in this case.

The reason that 2 and 3 are bad is because they’re being shut down temporarily.

2) Markets simply won’t have time to respond by picking up the government’s slack. Infrastructure has to be built. Investments need to be made. It would be great if government quit doing those things indefinitely, but we all know that business as usual is on its way. Government is crowding out what markets could do better, but markets aren’t going to respond very much when governments shuts down for a few weeks max.

3) When government does something that shouldn’t be done it usually isn’t because those things it is doing aren’t valuable. It is because the resources it is employing have higher valued alternative uses. Parks, water fountains, golf courses, and NASA all seem to be good things. But the relevant question is what is the opportunity cost? What would we do with all those valuable resources otherwise?

Since the government shutdown is temporary, the opportunity cost is near 0. Furloughed workers aren’t going to find new jobs. New buildings aren’t going to be built. New investments aren’t going to be made. The resources aren’t going to other, higher valued places, they’re going idle. There’s nothing good about that.

 

That’s my basic take on the government shutdown. The shutdown began a little under a week ago, so it is late. I had some reading to do before I got a decent general understanding of what is going on. I live in Canada now. Instead of government shutdown we have frequent labor union strikes – which appears to be in effect no different from government shutdown.

 

 

Technorati Tags: How bad is the government shutdown,how big is the government shutdown,what is shut down in the United States,How long will the shutdown be,libertarians government shutdown a good thing,government shut down 18 times,government shutdown bad or good

Liberalism means Redistribution

Until now, I’ve thought that the best definition of liberal is being generally more in favor of social freedom and economic restriction than non-liberals. It was a pretty good definition; imperfect, but pretty well articulated the implied meaning of the common use of the term.

It occurs to me now that there is a better definition of what people mean when they say liberal. And it comes from observing that most economists are both self-identified liberals and tend to be for more economic freedom. They are not the only ones identifying them as liberals. When most non-economists get a good understanding of what economists believe, I think they would also identify economists as liberals. This was puzzling. How can economists be liberals and be pro-market, if liberalism means not pro market?

Liberalism is better defined as belief in a particular kind of economic restriction, rather than economic restrictions generally. Liberalism means being pro redistribution. If one looks at what economists believe and what other liberals believe, the overlap consists in mostly redistributive policies not anti-market policies. Along the lines of market policies, economists are much more pro-market than non-economist liberals.

Consider the rationale for market failure between economists and liberals. Sure economists believe in market failure, but they define it much more narrowly than non-economist liberals do.

Economists believe that monopolization is the exception and that it happens under a specific set of conditions. Non-economists think that monopolization is the rule, and happens naturally if government doesn’t do something about it.

The public tends to think that the averse effects of monopoly is on competing smaller producers, therefore any time a business is “putting the little guy out of business” it is monopolistic behavior. Economists recognize that the averse effect of monopoly is on consumers, and that its effect on competing producers is just the normal process of creative destruction.

Sure markets get us more stuff, but public doesn’t consider economic growth as positively correlated with improved working conditions and improved consumer safety. Economists do.

Economists are for free trade. The public thinks that when we trade with poor African labor we’re exploiting them, and when we trade with poor Asian labor they’re exploiting us.

The public thinks that low skilled immigrants have a negative effect on economic growth. Economists think that low skilled immigrants have a positive impact on the overall economy.

The public thinks that increasing labor input is how the economy grows, implying an increased role for government to make sure that happens. Economists measure economic growth by outputs, and realize that reducing labor inputs so it can go be productive somewhere else makes us all richer.

The public uses moral language to defend their preferred policies for more environmentalism, more health care, more education. If these are moral imperatives, then there aren’t any tradeoffs and there is no limit at which we say enough is enough. Economists do a cost benefit analysis, and look for tradeoffs to establish threshold beyond which more of these things just doesn’t make any sense.

Along almost every metric I can think of, economists are more pro-market than the public. But in general they vote democrat, identify themselves as liberals, and are almost never defined as libertarian despite being for more of both social and economic freedom. Economists and non-economist liberals are in strong agreement on redistributive policies. Take money from the rich and give it to the poor. Economists usually take a smarter stance on the least cost way of accomplishing redistribution, but they believe in more of it than the average person just like liberals do.

This definition also makes a lot of sense out of liberal’s infatuation with the Nordic countries. If you take redistribution out of consideration, the Nordic countries are some of the freest economies in the world. France, Spain, or Italy would better be better models for the liberal ideal if liberals wanted general economic intervention.

This definition doesn’t contrast liberals with conservatives as well as the social / economic freedom definition does, but it is a better definition of what is found universally among liberals and what best distinguishes them from the public as a whole.

 

Technorati Tags: What do economists believe,are economists liberals,are economists pro market,definition of liberal,economic intervention,market failure liberals economists,why are economists liberals

Blog Links (“Blinks” if you will) October 2nd 2013

• Steve Jeffrey mentions me in a post for pointing out Michael Huemer’s book to him. He also points out what is usually missed by evangelicals; that responsibility for sin is not only established only by knowing but not doing, but by culpable ignorance; not knowing but ought to.
  
• Some, like Russel Roberts (host of Econtalk) have pointed out that measures of income stagnation are corrupted by decreasing household size. Tyler Cowen refutes it and Bryan Caplan refutes him.
  
• Here is an old debate from the 80s where David Friedman defends libertarian economics from libertarian ethics. David Friedman as usual was very impressive despite looking something like Disco Stu. But surprisingly, his opponent, Mr. George Smith was also very impressive. It reminded me a lot of Bryan Caplan’s debate with Robin Hanson over efficiency vs. liberty
  
  HT: David Henderson
  
• Why libertarians can’t win by breeding (or many other ideologies for that matter). The reason is that the label stays the same but ideologies change. “libertarians” can win by breeding, but only if the definition of “libertarian” is calling something the word “libertarian”.
  
  This applies to many other breeding strategies.
  
• A Bryan Caplan classic: 10 things I learned my first 10 years of parenting

 

 

Technorati Tags: Bryan Caplan on parenting,Russel Roberts econtalk Tyler Cowen,David Friedman Debate economics,breeding strategy libertarian,Culpable ignorance in Christianity

Why does Making a Beast out of Yourself avoid the Pain of Being a Man

“He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man”

This is the line that introduces one of Avenged Sevenfold’s songs, Bat country. Avenged Sevenfold is a hard rock band. It’s a quote taken from Samuel Johnson; an English Poet from the 18th Century (Link).

The quote is used in reference to alcoholism. Alcohol makes a beast out of yourself, curbing your ability to use reason which makes you a man.

People making beasts out of themselves is not a new observation. What is much more interesting is why they do, and that’s what the quote articulates so well. Suffering comes in two kinds; intrinsic and extrinsic.

Extrinsic suffering the hurt sensation one gets when they place their hand on a hot stove. It is pain – nerve fibers giving your brain a discomforting signal. This is not the kind of pain that making a beast out of yourself avoids. Beasts feel extrinsic suffering. So what is the pain of being a man?

It is intrinsic suffering. It is suffering in the mind. It consists of intellectual feelings like guilt, shame, anger, and emptiness cumulating in the form of depression. The person is torn apart by their conflicting beliefs caused by their unwillingness to use reason. Their minds are fragmented by their attachment to a fantasy version of things – a version of things that is empty of meaning. This kind of suffering is deep and dark. It is a kind of intellectual, spiritual, death.

There are a few responses to intrinsic suffering. The first is in various ways of making a beast out of ones self. Alcoholism is what the quote is referring to, but there are other ways we make ourselves into beasts – destroying our reasoning capabilities to resist intrinsic suffering. A certain kind of meditation is another way. It is a way of moving past our reason into nothingness, emptiness -- just being without action or thought. Another way might be in animalistic sexuality – physical pleasure without spiritual kinship. Gluttony is another way people distract themselves from intrinsic suffering. Food becomes no longer a means to life which is a means to the good, instead excess food becomes a way to stimulate our senses to distract ourselves from the suffering. Beasts can live by bread alone but man cannot.

The other category by which we avoid intrinsic suffering the wrong way is by suicide. When distraction doesn’t work and we can’t take it anymore, we kill ourselves.

I think we can leverage our understanding of what it means to be a man into a natural moral law. Man, by having a rational nature, created in God’s image, should not make a beast out of himself in any way. And if his thoughts are in the right place, intrinsic suffering does not guide him into making a beast out of himself. He also does not commit suicide. Intrinsic suffering does not guide him into suicidal acts.

In contrast to beastly behavior and suicide, intrinsic suffering ought to guide us to seek and understand. We are being tormented spiritually, mentally, because that is inherent in our thoughts are not in the right place. We neglect the reason that connects us to reality and instead believe what we want – and even abuse reason by twisting it to call our version of things “reality”. We are vain in our reasoning. If we are pure in our reasoning – if we seek and understand – then we will not make beasts out of ourselves or commit suicide because those are symptoms of failing to seek and understand.

 

I suggest a post by someone who believes something close to what I do. He also links an anecdote in popular culture to spiritual death. His name is Owen Anderson and he analyzes something Lewis C.K. says.

 

 

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