Laws of Thought

I haven’t been keeping up with posts recently, and I’m trying to amend that before my son is born (when I’m sure things will get backlogged again). I’ve been busy travelling to Boston, writing midterm essays, and dealing with a variety of illnesses. Now, trying to keep my sanity while studying religion in the secular, university system, which treats faith like a biological specimen under a microscope, prioritizing evolutionary and anthropological assumptions over the philosophical lens. All that invites syncretism and perennialism.

Religions do not do the same thing, and to say otherwise is an arrogant Western perspective. It is inherently disrespectful of religious traditions and the people who practice them. We must follow basic logical principles to avoid collapsing into metaphysical incoherency.

One principle is the law of identity: A = A; this means each being is itself and not another. I am who I am; I am not who I am not. The multiplicity of identity has actual existence; therefore, it possesses real distinctions. If the multiplicity does not possess real distinctions, then, ultimately, everything is meaningless.

If A = A, then Islam cannot be Daoism, because that violates the law of identity. It also violates the law of noncontradiction: A cannot be both A and not-A at the same time. Islam cannot be both Islam and Daoism. Christianity cannot be both Christianity and paganism. These logical principles are sorely absent when observing religion from an anthropological lens, because all the distinguishing features of each religion dissolve into window-dressing that changes depending on one’s cultural and environmental background. This is perennialism, and it is inherently reductionist. It also lays the foundation for someone like Jonathan Haidt’s developing the moral foundations theory of religion, characterizing all religions as moralistic at their core with different expressions of that same essence.

Religions aren’t chicken wings with different cultural expressions manifestation as if they were sauces: Teriyaki Theravada, Sweet-N-Sour Sufism, or Lemon Pepper Paganism, etc. etc. Religions aren’t moralistic!

A is A.

Islam is not Daoism.

Daoism is not Christianity.

Christ is not a moralist.

Truth is not a flavor-preference.

The secularization of religious phenomena is stupid—religion is not an anthropological marvel or sociological function.

Pentecost was not collective effervescence.

The Burning Bush was a theophany, not a neurological glitch.

The reason is that all these lenses assume a naturalistic worldview. They implicitly possess 19th century materialist presuppositions that distort religious phenomena, radically reducing it to cognitive processes and evolutionary products. Beneath these post-Enlightenment, post-Darwinian assertions lies the fundamental error in this field of study.

Despite their professed respect for ancient and indigenous cultures this worldview actively undermines the lived reality of those same peoples; further, it leads to the destruction of A for the sake of being not-A. There is no replacement idea behind this systematic deconstruction of religion, because non-religious institutions cannot provide what the religious can: God. And God is the origin of meaning and purpose.

If one believes that they can create meaning and purpose without God, I would challenge them to consider whether meaning and purpose can really exist if they are temporary, finite, and easily replaceable. If life is blind and contingent, then so are the words used to describe it. Meaning cannot arise from meaninglessness. So why should I care what an atheist professor thinks when, by his own logic, thought itself is just neurological noise?

Why would I believe someone whose chosen hill is pointless? Really, if nothing matters, then why should I subscribe to atheism or agnosticism when my doing so carries no moral weight? Morality does not have intrinsic reality if evolution is true, and if it really only developed as an evolutionary tool to preserve the tribe and our species then it still doesn’t exist ergo there’s no rational necessity for me to apostatize and become an atheist, or even a spiritual-not-religious person.

That’s the thing that so many of these philosophical humanists can’t grasp: the nihilism that they are employing, whether they recognize it or not, justifies my unwillingness to let go of what they deem as a relic of the past. There’s no justification in their own worldview for my not being religious. When I say, Jesus Christ is Lord, there is no basis on which someone needs to prove me wrong (which I’m not: Jesus Christ is Lord). It would be a waste of your meaningless life for you to try to convince me otherwise.

But the point isn’t to prove the humanist philosophy correct; there is, rather, a systematic effort to destroy A for the sake of not-A. When I read through class offerings in the religious department and their descriptions include:

“Religiosity refers to genetically evolved cognitive proclivities—learning responsive instinctive patterns of thought and behavior—that predispose humans toward systems of moralistic supernatural beliefs and practices… Religion evolves culturally and refers to collaborative in-group projects where individuals strive to please group-specific supernatural social partners (gods, spirits, etc.) or affect supernatural processes, with the primary intent of benefitting the in-group.”

I’d argue that this is just the language that expresses the temptation to exalt the self and amplify the ego, enthroning man’s rationalism in the place of God. In a few words, it is a convoluted way of not being repentant. Yet, I believe that all the trouble begins with the desire to destroy A, because not-A, in the spirit of the law of non-contradiction, cannot be both not-A and A at the same time. Secularism is, at its core, a Christian heresy, departing from the Church in the wake of such post-Schism philosophies as nominalism. Therefore, it is not a new impulse to tear down A for the sake of not-A; this temptation is as old as the serpent’s beguiling promise that the First Man could be both God and not-God.

Hence, why the philosophical study of religion is necessary because we live in a time where objective truth has been traded in for cognitive ease and consumerism. That’s not progress. That’s the collective eating itself in the form of ritualistic cannibalism masking as a free market.

The desire to destroy is a product of our times as much as it has been a temptation throughout history. It’s not something that ought to ground us in angry indignation but should foster deep mourning for the world around us. Prince Myshkin did not judge the fallenness of the community around him, even though it would have been easy for him to do so; instead, he descended into their deep woundedness and, as a light, shone in the darkness. He didn’t compel anyone to do anything; he didn’t judge. Everyone who met him encountered Christlike compassion which, in the age of mass consumption, scientific rationalism, and spiritual relativism, is nonexistent.

Much like 19th century Russia, our modern age carries a deep woundedness, manifesting as pride and destructive tendencies. But this frustration is not a justification to judge, but to see—really know—that we are all guilty of this sin. We are all guilty of constructing self-exulting towers, built on the blood of our enemies whom we kill in our thoughts and in our hearts. The fallenness of this world, and this peculiar expression of religious secularization, belongs to me, too.

As the Elder Zosima said, “My heart of my heart, my joyful one, you must know that verily each of us is guilty before everyone, for everyone and everything. I do not know how to explain it to you, but I feel it so strongly that it pains me. And how could we have lived before, getting angry, and not knowing anything? … I alone dishonored everything, and did not notice the beauty and glory of it at all” (The Brothers Karamazov 289).

We live in the age of the Machine that smuggles the temptation to destroy A into every aspect of our lives; we destroy by our pride, egotism, despondency, anger, and self-will. Personally, my frustration with the anthropological relativization of religion can, in a way, become an idol… A distraction, pulling me away from what is important: Christ Himself. And Christ commands that we forgive and judge not.

Non-judgement doesn’t mean there isn’t objective Truth, only that mercy is the embodiment of Truth. Religion isn’t meant to be studied through the naturalist lens because it is a mode of being. Forgiveness is a liberating action that restores being. Secular, scientific rationalism cannot do that, only God can; and, while He is A and we are not-A, He means to give us of Himself so that we, being not-A, can participate in A’s glory.

That’s not collective effervescence. That’s salvation.

A is A.

“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye” (Col. 3:12-13).

Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ