What fun, teaching my evening class last night to an engaged, intelligent, impassioned group of adult learners whose eagerness to discern the spiritual possibilities inherent in a world without gods matches my own! We didn’t quite solve the challenge: how to create a self-sustaining, mutually supportive, visibly active community of non-believers in this region of the country, traditionally so inhospitable to non-belief. But we sure took a good first step, proclaiming (like those Whos down in Whoville) we are here, we are here...
And that on the heels of a terrific A&S class yesterday, led by Miso’s report of his interview with a Muslim friend who grew up here but left his heart in Kurdistan, considering American culture crass and licentious. The profile of the young man he painted for us so vividly struck me as chilling– just as the late John Updike’s young man in Terrorist was chilling, at home in neither world, a kind of ticking bomb just waiting for tinder to set him off.
But this is a post about medievals and scholastics, who we’re reading about in Intro. [NOTE TO STUDENTS: come to class today, all your questions about the Friday exam, reports, presentations etc. will be answered.]
The first figure discussed by Simon Critchley in today’s reading is The Venerable Bede, who apparently faced his end considerably less venerably than the poet advised, without “unfaltering trust.” With his dying words he quoted Paul, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” breaking down and weeping over the dread departure of the soul from the body and the prospect of God’s judgment. This is disappointing: I always thought Bede had earned his name. Wallace Stegner cited his “truest vision of life” as analogous to a bird flying out of darkness into a lighted hall, and then soon out again (Spectator Bird). My wife and I used that quote on our wedding-scroll tokens.
Then there’s the Neoplatonist John Scottus Eriugena, who (like Plotinus) said the world is best understood as a dynamic process of emanation from the divine One. His view anticipated the pantheism of Spinoza— “Atheism is reversed Pantheism,” said Feuerbach (who also said you are what you eat) and the “heresy” of Giordano Bruno, burned at the stake in 1600 for discovering a few astronomical truths and speculating about other worlds. The human being is the microcosm of the divine macrocosm of nature. “Perhaps your fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it,” he said as he batted away the crucifix that would supposedly have saved him.
The Inquisitors were more successful in extracting a recantation from Galileo, but it’s nice to believe he did mutter “Pero si muove” under the breath of his confession.”Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze.”
It’s so refreshing to be reminded of the Islamic “falsafa” tradition, committed (as in the case of Al-Farabi) to combining logical rigor and empiricism with their neoplatonic mysticism. Avicenna‘s concupiscible faculties are impressive. “I prefer a short life with width to a narrow one with length.”
Critchley has a good answer to Anselm. I can conceive of neither death nor God. They both passeth understanding. The ontological proof comes up short, the soul remains elusive (or illusory).
Poor Abelard. Hard to say his name without cringing.
Averroists defended the autonomy of philosophy and its separation from questions of theology and religious faith. We still wage that battle. Can’t we all just co-exist? No, our magisteria really do overlap, Professor Gould notwithstanding.
Maimonides‘ Guide for the Perplexed was a perennial best-seller throughout the middle ages: a measure of the perplexity many faith traditions engender, when running up against the realities of modernity.
Aquinas argues against the separation of the natural and the spiritual and in favor of their continuity. Me too! But not quite like he says.
Bonaventure worried that the separation of the worlds of faith and reason would ultimately culminate in atheism. Could be.
Duns Scotus gave us haecceity, a very useful word that never comes up in casual conversation. It means the uniqueness or the indivisible “thisness” of a person.
Ockham gaves us a razor. Machiavelli a manual, Erasmus a satire. More lost his head. Luther played with paradox and renounced philosophy. Copernicus re-oriented us. Montaigne invented the essay…
Gotta love Francis Bacon’s death by empiricism, when his strange sudden impulse to stuff a chicken with snow backfired and he caught his death. Curiosity and the experimental imperative killed him, it seems, but generations of carnivores ever-after were gratified by his sacrifice.
Tags: John Updike, Simon Critchley, Venerable Bede, Wallace Stegner
Up@dawn 
February 24, 2010 at 12:14 pm |
I would like to gather some opinions. Today in class, we talked about what makes a good death compared to a bad one. I would just like to ask what determines whether someone died a good death or a bad one. Consider this example: the soldiers who served in the Confederate army assumedly fought because they wanted to keep their way of life. Does that make their deaths good or bad because they served what we today consider evil?
February 26, 2010 at 9:30 am |
As Shakespeare illustrates, death is the great equalizer. Does it really matter how an individual died? Shouldn’t we focus more on their actions in life? Sure, one could get a “good story” out of a more outrageous or symbolic death, but overall, a person’s death is (at the very least, indirectly) a reflection of his/her life. Whether those soldiers died a “good death,” I find to be irrelevant. Their deaths in battle would not have come if their morals, choices in life, etc, would not have led them to that point.
February 25, 2010 at 3:07 am |
Would that make Pat Robertson the Grinch?
February 25, 2010 at 9:09 am |
On the other hand, in todays world dying for what you believed in is almost honorable. So their death would still be considered good. Also, we honor our heros today that die in the line of duty, who is to say in 100 years what they are dying for will be considered “bad”?
February 25, 2010 at 9:31 am |
A good death is dying doing something you believe in, that’s honorable, or that helps others. A bad death is choking on your cheerios in the mornin. In fact, that’s kind of ironic.
February 25, 2010 at 11:38 am |
I’d say “in today’s world dying for what you believe in” has been substantially discredited by suicide/homicide zealots, in the absence of self-critical scrutiny directed towards “what you believe in.” I don’t find the slogan “my faith right or wrong” any more defensible than “my country right or wrong.” Those who are unwilling to expose their beliefs to critical challenge do not deserve our praise for their willingness to die, and to kill.
My father’s death a year and a half ago was not “good,” but it was better than it might have been since his terminal diagnosis and his relative good spirits gave my sisters and step-Mom and me an opportunity to say a meaningful good-bye.
February 25, 2010 at 12:06 pm |
I would agree with Brandt on what is a good death. However, I would also add, dying at a point in your life when you are satisfied with the legacy you’ve left behind, is a good death. I don’t think dying from old age or an illness is necessarily a bad death. Dying with regret or or longing for a chance to undo or do something different with your life, to me, would be a terrible death. I always want to feel like I’ve been true to myself and what I feel I’ve been called too (serving the Lord), anything less than that I would consider a bad death.
February 25, 2010 at 12:08 pm |
I feel that saying this is a “good death” or a “bad death” depends on a persons viewpoints. In the confederate soldier example, people of the South can look see this person as a hero whereas the people of the North can regard the same person as a traitor commiting treason. Same thing can be said about the American Independence and the feelings of the Brits in contrast to the Americans. Personally I think a good death happens without pain or suffering of the person dieing and a chance to see all loved ones before passing away. On the other hand, some may argue that a good death is one that happens for a reason and leaves an impact such as a martyr.
February 25, 2010 at 12:23 pm |
Doesn’t the notion that a death can be good or bad have to entertain a certain notion of destiny; especially when talking about suicide or tragic death cutting short the potential for life/experience where it must be assumed that said life was supposed to have happened or had an inherent purpose to begin with?
February 25, 2010 at 12:25 pm |
by the way, I’m not finding the quiz answers. Can anyone help me out?
February 25, 2010 at 1:34 pm |
I think that “good death” and “bad death”, like Araz, depends on one’s viewpoints. Overall, we all have different interpretations of what is good or honorable or worthwhile, as opposed to what is bad or undeserved or tragic. If this were not the case, we would not have political parties, different governments, different religions, and differences in court rulings for crimes across the world.
Just another point to consider…From the Christian view, death never carries a “negative” connotation. In actuality, it carries more of a positive one. In the Bible there are numerous references about “dying to one’s self” which means someone is repenting from the sin in their life and seeking out how to better live in God’s image. Also, when we die, according to the Bible, each and every one of us who had salvation in Christ will reach Heaven, and will be joyful in constant praise to God. Considering all of this, how could our death on Earth be bad if this is what awaited us in the afterlife?
I think we as students all view death initially as “bad”. This is because we have spent the past decade of our lives working towards obtaining our future, and we want to fulfill every wish we have for ourselves. We haven’t had a chance to leave our legacy…Very thought-provoking topic of discussion, though.
February 25, 2010 at 6:35 pm |
I believe that a good death or bad death is reflected by the manner in which one passes away, and not what they were doing when they died. A good death in my opinion is when one has the opportunity to say goodbyes to loved ones and drifts peacefully into an eternal sleep, whereas a bad death would be getting shot down in a robbery or assault and either instantly killed or tortured with no chance of saying farewell. The “manner of death” is portrayed by the death itself, and not the event that was taking place.
For example, someone killed at a charity event would still seem like a “bad” death because they didnt get to say goodbye or anything. Because they died at a charity event i would see them as a “good person” but having a “bad death.”
February 25, 2010 at 8:23 pm |
When its your time to go i dont think there is any bad or good, its just death. dying, doing sometihng you or the whole world thinks is honorable does not make the deat any better or worst, perhaps it makes the after life better but death is death not good or bad
February 26, 2010 at 3:32 pm |
A good death for will depend on what the situation of a person/people has/have