Being Mercenary

One old and tired criticism of Christians is that we are 'only' mercenary. It asserts we only strive to do good so that we can sort of buy our way into Heaven while avoiding the punishment of Hell.

Setting aside the point that there's nothing terribly wrong with such an idea - do we actually want to teach that it's better to do evil if you're so inclined rather than do good from less than perfect convictions? - the criticism avoids the generally accepted fact that people are encouraged to be mercenary in other ways, for much less important goals.

Aren't we mercenary in pursuing a job or career path? To seek a nice house in a nice neighborhood? When on the athletic field? In finding a soul mate? While shopping for cool new things or deciding what to have for dinner? In all these areas and countless others aren't we seeking what is good for us, however mundane? Yet in looking for eternal joy we aren't supposed to consider what's good for us, what will make us truly happy?

Absurd. As a practical matter, I'm fine with someone not breaking into my house simply because he fears jail time. It would be better if he weren't to become a thief for the sake of higher ideals: respect for others and personal discipline for a start. Yet whether out of fear or a clear understanding and acceptance of moral good, he would have acted rightly either way.

Being merely mercenary can never condemn a man. It is less than perfect, yes. But if it slips us through the Pearly Gates and keeps the old homestead secure, I should think it worth the trade.

The Eternal Party or, Party Hard

If you're gonna party then you gotta party hard. Not exactly a phrase you'd expect from a Christian, is it? But then, I'm not sure that Andrew W. K. is a Christian. Yet I wonder how much of what he says may in truth be compatible with religion.

I like his song Party Hard. It is arguably, perhaps obviously, religiously ambiguous. Yet in this secular world I think that its basic principles may well be applicable to Christianity. And his point may not actually be religiously ambiguous at all.

Hear me out. No less a Christian apologist than Mr. C. S. Lewis argues that Joy is the serious business of Heaven, and Heaven is a place where dance and frivolity, innocuous and unproductive in our world, is the Serious Business of Heaven. Add to this the secular comedian George Carlin's thoughts that in Heaven we may just be allowed to rave while the damned might be eternally condemned to a head bowed solemnity, I wonder if Mr. W. K.'s opinions are all that outrageous.

We do what we like and we like what we do, he chants. Well, we Christians claim to do that, basically. And we certainly claim that our actions in Heaven will be supremely joyful and we will like them, eh? Myself, I don't care what the secular world wants. I do what I like and I like what I do. I go to Mass every weekend and find it indescribably wonderful; I pray for others even if they don't want it; I want the best for them even though I might find their definition of the best differing from mine (believing nonetheless my dictionary superior to theirs, a view hopefully held with humility). I don't care if my opinion of the best concurs with their opinion of the best. I do what I like and I like what I do. Doesn't that fit their secular machismo (or feminiso, I suppose), by definition?

The Eternal Party. Without it, I do wonder if the secularists are missing something quite sublime?

Home for the Holidays

But in this world everything is upside down. That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is most like that which in a better country is the End of ends. Joy is the serious business of Heaven.

- C. S. Lewis

Mr. Lewis famously laments, as I hope I have captured as much by the quote above, and I am paraphrasing Mr. Lewis very poorly, that the trouble with our world, if we are feeling it properly, is that we feel guilty when we take a moment to enjoy it. He then asserts that the glory of Heaven is that we enjoy good things, every good thing, things brought on only with melancholy by our human holidays, for all eternity and rightly. And I think he is on spot with that attitude.

We feel pain at the holidays (especially as they end) because there is a happiness about them which does not really belong here. We were pretending that all is well when all was not. Not all of our friends are here; not all of our family; not all of our happiness. Yet we pretend.

We are in Plato's cave facing the far wall and not the projector. We have a mere glimpse of how things should be. Yet that gives us a glimpse of how things will be.

So I find happiness in this fading holiday season. If it is but a glimpse of what is to come, then what is to come is splendid.

That Inconsolable Longing

C. S. Lewis speaks of something which, in German, is called Sehnsucht. He translates that as the inconsolable longing. It is a wish, says Wikipdeia, for we know not what. But we know not what, don't we? And it hurts very deeply, doesn't it?

We want what we cannot on this earth have. We want to be free and brave and bold and happy. We want peace and love; we want there to be no hunger or strife in the world. We want to be with our friends and families always, doing only the good things, the things which will make us truly happy. Simply, we want all the things not fully available in this world.

Lewis takes that a step farther. He argues, quite sensibly, one should think, that we would not have such a feeling if it were not possible that such a feeling could not somehow, someday, be assuaged. We live and love today, in this world, under these circumstances; but it is all so incomplete. Yet we hope there is more. But more than hope; in our hearts, we know it is there.

That is why we so often feel sad. We have that knowledge that things ought to be better. We know that there has to be a somewhere where things are as they should be. We sense it; we feel it; we are, by a very taut cord, attached to it. It is there. It has Being.

And we are detached from it as long as we live on this world. Therein lies the pain, the yearning; the inconsolable longing. We know that it is possible, indeed, we know that it is likely (if we know anything at all) and true. We know that things are not as they should be. We know that someday it will all be put to right.

If we wish it yet only because we need that sense of the ideal in order to make it day to day this world, and nothing more, then our actions are vain. Only if things will be as they should be in the end will any of our hopes and dreams and fancies of this world have meaning. Pretending is merely a child's game, a fool's errand. Only if we trust that that something better, that more perfect reality, exists, will our labors and sentiments be of value.

The inconsolable longing. It hurts. Hopefully you have it and hurt as well.

Heaven: Perhaps Stephen Hawking is a Fairy Story.

Stephen Hawking, the eminent theoretical physicist, says that Heaven is a 'fairy story' made up by those who fear death. One wonders where the scientific proof of that may be found, because, seeing as science depends on observation and testing, with empirically measurable results, it is fair to ask for his empirical proof that Heaven does not exist.

But let's take his assertion one step further just the same. What should we do with our lives without Heaven or an afterlife? We should, 'fulfil our potential on Earth by making good use of our lives.' Okay, well, how do we, Mr. Scientist, scientifically determine what is good? Why, empirically, of course, because you are a scientist, should we do good? What, solely in terms of empiricism, is good? Good speaks of virtue; it is a statement of value. What value is found by mere scientific observation?

In a word, none. Not one atom of good can be found in the Big Bang theory which itself is brought out by the Big Bang theory. Science, in and by itself, only tells us that things happen, perhaps even how they happen. But science never tells us why they happen, or offers even the least bit of evidence for why even science itself is good. Science as science, though a great and useful tool in our universe, is only that: a tool. Finding the value in what it discovers requires us to take the next step and analyze philosophically what, if any, good there is to it. We must use Reason for that, and the standard of evidence becomes different. It becomes rational rather than empirical.

Hawking and his cohorts will assert that God was not necessary to the creation of the universe, and as such, there is no God. They ignore the simple question: why should we be shocked that a God, in the act or acts of creation, would ensure that the science necessary for creation would be part of the equation from the start?

Hawking may well be the preeminent scientist of his generation. Yet we have come to venerate science so much that we have stopped requiring that scientists remain scientific. What Mr. Hawking has become, to use a term coined by the old newsman Edward Newman, is an anything expert. Because he is so well known as a great scientist, the popular notion is that he must know a great deal about everything.

Would you ask Stephen Hawking for advice on car repairs? The stock market? Dog grooming? Raising emus? Repairing your plumbing? No? Then why ask him what is good? He may well know the answers to all that, but not because he is a scientist. It would be because he would also be a mechanic, stock trader, vet, expert in animal husbandry, plumber, and philosopher.

As it is, he is none of those things. He is only a scientist. He may be very well versed in that. Yet that in itself fails to qualify him to speak on non-scientific matters. His recent statements attest to that very well.