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Beginning Christian Spirituality

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The central reality of Christian spirituality is this:

John 8:31-32  So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, (32)  and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

There is a startling array of things that a new Christian can do or that people will recommend to them.

There are (and this is good) like 50 spiritual disciplines to choose from.

There are a million Bible reading plans.

There are 25 million prayer books.

But I want to simplfy things.

When you first become a Christian or want to be more serious about your faith in Christ, here is a three step plan to help you for the first few months.

  1. Say the Lord’s prayer daily. Jesus said to pray this way. God answers prayers according to his will and what prayer is more in line with God’s will than one Jesus said to pray?
  2. Read a chapter of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). These are the books about Jesus. If you want to “abide in” Jesus’ words, you’ve got to know them.
  3. Read a chapter of Proverbs a day and read the chapter that corresponds with the date (31 chapters in the book).

I recommend writing in a journal when you read. This will help you to do three things:

  1. Write questions.
  2. Write down what you’ve learned about Jesus, his greatness, his teachings, and about daily nuts and bolts wisdom.
  3. Write down what you could do better in life.

I suspect that a plan like this would be very helpful for busy parents, people who hate reading, long time Christians who do not know Jesus very well, or Christian academics who study the Bible for work but who do not store it in their hearts.

Politics is Pro-Wrestling

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How is politics pro-wresting?

  1. It’s fake, most of the people are lying and often the enemies are friends in the locker room (though in the history of pro-wrestling real fights break out amongst the giant, steroid infused alpha-males because they’re all vying for attention from the promoter and the fans for more money).
  2. It’s fun. Most of the people are doing it for fun/because they like it.
  3. It’s based on spectacle.
  4. It’s tribal. People get so emotionally attached to personae that principle, results, and data have very little to do with their allegiance to this or that person/party.
  5. People think it’s real.
  6. People get hurt in real life because of it.
This explains Trump’s rise (what happens below is a description of Trump in terms of pro-wrestling, not in terms of political support, policy, or morality):
  1. He admited it’s all fake and then started claiming to hate the people he pretended to befriend in the locker room (Clinton’s, etc). This way he can lie with a twinkle in his eye and his fans love him for it.
  2. He’s clearly having fun. And he’s been sued for having American flags too big for city ordinances on his properties…so he may (whether he’s right or wrong) really be a patriot. And because his character (him in real life?) loves high stakes games, he’s playing really hard.
  3. Trump creates spectacle on purpose…he even released a tape of himself pretending to be his own public relations manager to create controversy a few weeks ago.
  4. Trump, like Hillary with women, has decided to act as a tribal leader. But his act attempts to make him the leader for every caste of Americans who feel cheated by politics and Wall Street. In fact, I’ve checked his twitter mentions and people tweet him regularly thanking him for how his books have changed their lives. These tweets are remarkably similar to the ones sent to Hulk Hogan.
  5. Trump, by pulling back the curtain, has alerted the American public to just how awful all these people who run for office typically are. Think of all the people who claim to be too principle-based to make petty attacks, while they pettily attack Trump (this really has been for the best).
  6. Trump has criticized the war in Iraq, let people whose family members have been murdered by illegal immigrants speak at his rallies, and named specific companies who are moving their factories overseas to save on manufacturing costs as a result of cheap labor provided by bad trade deals made by congress. These people have really been hurt. In wrestling real injuries addsto the belief that it’s real. In politics, it makes people mad because politicians and their concern for the citizenry is clearly fake but the results hurt people who aren’t even playing.
Previously, I wrote about how reality is a simulation, like pro-wrestling.

The World is a Simulation

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The world probably isn’t a simulation.

Your senses give you access to the real world, but that access is still mediated.

Your perceptions can be inaccurate, your inferences can be wrong, and there can be data you missed out on.

A great deal of your worldview is false.

Another significant amount of it is not quite false, but simply fictional. It could turn out to be true, but we don’t know.

I’m not a global skeptic, I think that you and I can know things about the world through a sort of give and take between our minds, the minds of others, and the rest of the cosmos.

But just as viewing the world as a machine helps physicists ignore data to the contrary to find material and efficient causes in the world. But the world isn’t a machine.

Similarly, viewing the world as a simulation can help you control your life.

How so?

If so much of your worldview is false or simply made up, then you can choose which parts are significant, which parts to rewrite, and which parts simply do not exist (insofar as you give them no thought).

Eventually, as Dallas Willard reminds us, reality is the merciless “what” that we crash into when we’re wrong.

But the model (not complete or necessarily true in itself) of the universe, it being a simulation (rather your worldview being the simulation of the real world outside your mind), can be helpful.

If your down or feel like you can’t get out of a rut, decide to play the version of the simulation where you make good choices all day.

These are some thoughts.

On the Varieties of Happiness

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“All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.1” – Blaise Pascal

You want to be happy, I want to be happy, the world wants to be happy.

We use other words for happiness: success, joy, “the good life,” peace, and sometimes even satisfaction.

All of the words above, while used interchangeably, are hard to define. Philosophers and psychologists argue about happiness. It almost seems that, it shares a quality with pornography, about which was famously said, “I know it when I see it.”

In Pascal’s case above, the most basic definition of happiness is “the motive of every action of every man.” Pascal is not alone in defining happiness this way. Aristotle himself utilized this definition of happiness: “Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action.2”

I’ll go with this basic definition. Happiness is that thing which we all seek with all of our actions.

Now, here’s the kicker. Happiness (or whatever word you use for the goal sought by all human action) is described and defined differently in different circles and by different individuals.

You might think, “why does that matter? People want different things, so it makes sense that people would define their main goal for all their decisions differently, but if humans are all the same kind of thing, then their final goal is the same because they have the same nature and similar (though not the same) means should be used in seeking it. By analogy, look at exercise. If one person describes strength as being able to bicep curl 30 pounds for 300 reps and another defines it as being able to lift incredible weights over their head, then their training systems will vary tremendously. And if people define happiness differently, but still conceive of it as their highest goal in life, then they will likewise seek it very differently. But unlike weightlifting where one can choose the nature of the goals you seek, human life is the only life we have. We cannot choose our highest good, it simply is what it is, regardless of how we define it. If we seek happiness with an incorrect understanding of its nature, we’ll end up unhappy except by luck.

Thomas Aquinas answered the question, “doesn’t everybody seek happiness” with a yes and no answer:

I answer that, Happiness can be considered in two ways. First according to the general notion of happiness: and thus, of necessity, every man desires happiness. For the general notion of happiness consists in the perfect good, as stated above (AA. 3, 4). But since good is the object of the will, the perfect good of a man is that which entirely satisfies his will. Consequently to desire happiness is nothing else than to desire that one’s will be satisfied. And this everyone desires. Secondly we may speak of Happiness according to its specific notion, as to that in which it consists. And thus all do not know Happiness; because they know not in what thing the general notion of happiness is found. And consequently, in this respect, not all desire it.3

In other words, all seek happiness insofar as all seek the highest good for themselves, but not all know what the highest good is.

Common Perspectives on Happiness

Happiness as Positive Emotional Experience

In some circles, happiness is considered a mere psychological phenomenon. It’s just feelings and chemicals. My favorite author who claims this is a cartoonist and not a philosopher. But he’s a formidable cartoonist and a helpful author as well. Here is his definition of happiness:

“My definition of happiness is that it’s a feeling you get when your body chemistry is producing pleasant sensations in your mind.”4 Adams follows a venerable tradition of defining happiness in terms of feelings.5 As an aside, it appears that Adams would say that there is more to life than feeling good. Elsewhere he says that, “The only reasonable goal in life is maximizing your total lifetime experience of something called happiness. That might sound selfish, but it’s not. Only a sociopath or a hermit can find happiness through extreme selfishness.6” So, the good feelings of happiness do depend upon virtue, but virtue is not a part of happiness or even a necessary condition. It is simple one condition for most people.

Happiness as Virtue

The stoics defined happiness as virtue itself. To them, virtues were moral habits and virtue was the only good (good defined as that which is desirable). To be moral is sufficient for happiness. In other words, there are no others goods necessary to be happy. In this case, happiness seems to have very little to do with personal feelings, possessions, and relationships (except insofar as relationships are matters of ethics). This austere vision of happiness is very compelling to me. The idea that doing what is right is the same thing as the good life makes a lot of sense to me. It made even more sense to Immanuel Kant. Of course, one might ask the question, “What is better, to have virtue and pleasure or merely virtue?” I think that most honest people would realize that the combination is superior.

Happiness as Pleasure

One famous definition of happiness is simple pleasure. Happiness is pleasure, full stop. This particular definition is probably very common today. Among philosophers it was treated with contempt in the ancient world. The author of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes was critical this view based on personal experience, “I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.”7 This definition of happiness breaks down similarly to the previous one. Is it better to have pleasure with no courage or wisdom? Or is it better to have virtue and pleasure? The answer is, of course, the combination.

Happiness as Flourishing

Aristotle, when he further described the highest human good (again, this is his definition of happiness), said, “is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle…[and] in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.89 But elsewhere Aristotle adds that happiness includes other elements of real good as well. His understanding of happiness includes the fulfillment of desire. With regard to friendship, “without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods10…” Elsewhere he observes regarding intelligence that, “no one would choose to live with the intellect of a child throughout his life…11” For Aristotle then, happiness is the attainment of the goods of human existence including virtue. In his case then, happiness is nor merely a state for which we can set ourselves up and hope for. Instead it is an activity. His vision of happiness includes pleasure, social relationships, and excellence (virtue). It is a life when one successfully seeks their real needs. Thus, it will differ with regard to specifics for all, while still having roughly the same blueprint.

At this point it’s important to ask, “Do people seek virtue?” And the answer is yes. They simply do not seek it perfectly. But most people want to be known as virtuous and most people will justify their actions when they are accused of a wrong. Why? Because being good (and being known as good) is desirable. So virtue is a component of what we all seek (happiness), even if we aren’t seeking to become virtuous (thus remaining unhappy).

Happiness as God

For Thomas Aquinas, who saw happiness as the highest good, God had to be happiness. Why? Because the most perfect good is necessarily the most perfect being. This is why he said that, “Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence.12” Why? Because temporal happiness still involves and requires seeking, but the vision of God entails the end of all seeking. So while there is, for Aquinas, tremendous value in natural human flourishing (Aristotle’s view), human flourishing finds its completion in the soul’s apprehension of the divine nature in everlasting life.

Of course, this vision of happiness is only available subjectively to those who think that a deity exists. And it is only available objectively to those to whom God, if real, give this grace.

Conclusion

You want to be happy. It’s important to think about what that means. Few people simply think of specific things or circumstances in the big cold world that would make them feel better, but not the particular character of life it would take to actually be a happy human soul. I hope this brief meditation on the nature of happiness has helped you.

References

1Blaise Pascal, The Harvard Classics 48: Blaise Pascal: Thoughts, Letters, and Minor Works, ed. Charles W. Eliot, trans. W. F. Trotter, M. L. Booth, and O. W. Wight (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1910), 138.

2Aristotle, “ETHICA NICOMACHEA,” in The Works of Aristotle, ed. W. D. Ross, trans. W. D. ROSS, vol. 9 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1925).
3Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, n.d.).
4Adams, Scott. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (p. 172). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
5I say “seems” because Seneca wrote in his letters about the importance of how one feels for determining whether or not the right course of life has been taken. See especially Letter 9 in Letters from a Stoic.
6Adams, Scott. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (p. 171). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
7Ecclesiastes 2:1
8 Aristotle, “ETHICA NICOMACHEA,” in The Works of Aristotle, ed. W. D. Ross, trans. W. D. ROSS, vol. 9 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1925).
9 Aristotle, “ETHICA NICOMACHEA,” in The Works of Aristotle, ed. W. D. Ross, trans. W. D. ROSS, vol. 9 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1925).
10 Aristotle, “ETHICA NICOMACHEA,” in The Works of Aristotle, ed. W. D. Ross, trans. W. D. ROSS, vol. 9 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1925).
11 Aristotle, “ETHICA NICOMACHEA,” in The Works of Aristotle, ed. W. D. Ross, trans. W. D. ROSS, vol. 9 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1925).
12 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, n.d.).

Pathos 2: Tribalism

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In the first post on pathos, I talked about the existential fear of ending up on the wrong side of an eternal power. Another aspect of Christianity’s appeal is its inherent tribalism. (This post is in a series.)

Now wait, isn’t Christianity a universal experience? Isn’t it available to all? Doesn’t Jesus say, “Make disciples of all nations…”?

And yes, Christianity is universalist in that sense. Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, said so:

Romans 3:29-30 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, (30) since God is one–who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

On the other hand, Jesus said things like this:

Matthew 23:8-10 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. (9) And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. (10) Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.

His call to priority in the lives of his followers is rather tribal.

The fact of the matter is that we all look up to leaders and even great leaders typically see themselves as carrying on a legacy, renewing a tradition, or filling the gap left by another. In the case of Christianity, there are lesser leaders: Peter, Paul, Moses, Augustine, Aquinas, Wesley, local pastors, parents, etc. But at the end of it all, the question every person has to ask is something like this, “Who is my leader, to whom do I owe allegiance?” The first answer to most people is, “myself.” This is well and good everybody has a duty to seek the wellbeing of their soul. The other answers are probably good too. I’m loyal to my family, my boss, my nation, the traditions that made it, my school, favorite team, my church, and so-on. And again, these things can be good, but only some of them are steady and some can go wrong. Moses himself even said, “You shall not fall in with the many to do evil…” Tribal loyalties have limits.

For the Christian, the conversation goes further:

John 6:66-69 After this [some difficult to accept teaching] many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (67) So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” (68) Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, (69) and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

For the Christian, the answer of final allegiance boils down to this question: Do I find Jesus to be a compelling guide and do I find the movement he started to be worth preserving?

When people have your back it’s a good feeling. When the man out front is excellent and does all things well, one feels proud and excited to be a part. I remember seeing my karate instructor, at the time 41, best a much younger Brazilian jiu-jistu instructor in several practice matches to help the younger man get ready for a tournament (in which he placed first). Knowing that my karate instructor could, with a relaxed face perform so well against another trained fighter felt pretty good.

Similarly, knowing that Jesus is simply the best and highest revelation of God, or rather seeing him as the most compelling tribal leader among the many is encouraging. This, coupled with the fact that he enjoins those who follow him to “love one another even as I [Jesus] have loved you,” means that in the church one has a community with a tribal leader of universal relevance and a concern for the group that helps you know that your needs won’t be trivialized.

So, I’m a Christian because I see Jesus as my teacher and my leader in this way and I see his people as my people. In tribal terms, I am a Christian.

Twenty-One Pilots and Your Soul

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Being a millennial can be rough.

I don’t typically care about labels, as I find them restrictive, but categories of things clearly matter and being a millennial does predict certain traits.

It’s a generation of people whose jobs have been gutted by stupid trade deals.1

Most of them were raised with self-esteem centered parenting styles that can leave somebody crippled by even slight criticism.2

The majority of them were raised during the time when the public school system was facing it’s most colossal crises of content, teaching style, classroom sizes, and stupid advice to graduates.

The baby boomer generation has a tendency to make fun of millennial types for still living with mom and dad, but if the only jobs in an area are in the service industry or if those jobs are entry level internships with little to no pay, somebody can’t just move away and take them.

On the other hand, millennials can demonstrate above average narcissism and anxiety (one must ask though, do they simply have more outlets available for the normal human desire for honor and appreciation?).
Millennials also have, it seems, made some of the stupidest decisions regarding student loan debt of any generation. But, they go to college as kids after having been told that: any degree is better than no degree and that student loan debt is “good debt.” While the racket is obvious to adults, millennials hear these stupid messages in in high school.
Spiritually, millennials have grown up in the generation of parental outsourcing. Over the years working with college and high school students I’ve surveyed hundreds of millennials. Very few of them who identify as Christians read the Bible, prayed, or discussed discipleship to Christ with their parents.

Now, why do I care about all of this?

It’s actually just a clever segue for introducing you to a song:

In the song, the main character has had his car radio stolen and he’s forced to sit in silence:

I ponder of something terrifying
Cause this time there’s no sound to hide behind
I find over the course of our human existence
One thing consists of consistence
And it’s that we’re all battling fear
Oh dear, I don’t know if we know why we’re here
Oh my, too deep – please stop thinking
I liked it better when my car had sound
There are things we can do
But from the things that work there are only two
And from the two that we choose to do
Peace will win
And fear will lose
There’s faith and there’s sleep
We need to pick one please because
Faith is to be awake
And to be awake is for us to think
And for us to think is to be alive
And I will try with every rhyme
To come across like I am dying
To let you know you need to try to think

In ancient times, some Christians found the need to simply sit in silence in order to overcome the temptations of being within a society dominated by evil ideas, destructive images, and worst of all their own words leading people into evil. Henri Nouwen wrote very eloquently of modern man’s experience of silence and 21 Pilots’ song reminded me of this paragraph:

“In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me-naked vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken-nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in my wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractive- or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation. Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all its vainglory.”3

Now, the horrors described by Nouwen are the inheritance of all the sons of Adam who, like their father, have chosen to go astray from God. And most of us love the darkness of being distracted because our deeds are evil and exposed by the light, whether or God or simply of a silent moment wherein our consciousness can absorb the quieted cries of our hoarse and weakened consciences.

If I were to give a challenge to millennials, I would tell them to spend more time in silence and solitude. Many don’t know themselves or even know that they have a soul. We cannot repent if we do not know what’s wrong with us. And we cannot, in my mind, love our enemies if we do not know how thoroughly we’ve been the enemy of our own happiness.

Conclusion

If millennials would spend some time in silence, perhaps they would know that one’s response to circumstances does not have to be a spirit of defeat. And indeed, for Christians there is a Spirit of love, power, and self-control. But one has to see the wreckage of their own soul in order to submit to it’s reformation.

There is a distinctly Christian response to living with an existential dread that your deeds don’t matter and that the wrungness in your soul is unique to yourself. It’s to get to know this person that you’ve become and to recognize that the God before whom every quark and quasar is displayed knows you even better and still loves you. Even further, it’s to think about genuine solutions to the problems you face. The purposes in our hearts are deep. Nevertheless the wise man, and I would add, the wisdom of solitude can help us draw them out. Once you know your habits of thought and feeling when undistracted, it’s a lot easier to change them.

References

1This book made me rethink almost everything I think about trade. I highly recommend it:
Ian Fletcher, Edward Luttwak, and United States Business and Industrial Council, Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Business and Industry Council, 2010).

2Carol S Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (New York: Random House, 2006).

3Henri J. M Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry, 1981, 17-18