PHILOSOPHY
-How much there is still to learn and why I love it-
FROM SOMEONE WITH A CHILD’S HEART AND A GROWNUP’S HEAD
Quote from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity
Larissa Martinson
Instructor, Dr. Richard Caulkins
“You’re an English Humanities Major? What are you going to do with THAT?” I get this question all the time. It doesn’t bother me, too much. It gives me a chance to share my love for philosophy and literature. This paper will attempt to answer the basic question “what practical use is it to learn about philosophy?” It is a difficult one to condense, but I am up for the challenge and hopefully my words will spark a curiosity on topics such as ethics, truth, and even logical positivism and metaphysics if you are brave enough. But more than anything this paper is to encourage fellow Christians to love learning and not to be afraid of the tough questions because one day an inquisitive child may come up to you and ask, “What does it mean to be alive?” As a child, I posed this same question to my mother and I was answered with a blank stare. This blank stare carried me throughout my life. Was it not a legitimate question to ask? If my mom can’t tell me what it means to be alive maybe God knows. God knows everything. But where do I even begin? Does God answer questions like that or does He just say, “Obey me because I said so?” Was there a God? Or was it just a story parents made up for kids to be good? These were questions that ran through me like lice I couldn’t itch away.
At eight years old I could sense my body. I knew without a doubt I was alive. Much like the main character,
I’m alive, he thought.
The grass whispered under his body. He put his arm down, feeling the sheath of fuzz on it, and far away, below, his toes creaking in his shoes. The wind sighed over his shelled ears. The world slipped bright over the glassy round of his eyeballs, like images sparked in a crystal sphere. Flowers were sun and fiery spots of sky strewn through the woodland. Birds flickered like skipped stones across the vast inverted pond of heaven. His breath raked over his teeth, going in ice, coming out fire. Insects shocked the air with electric clearness. Ten thousand individual hairs grew a millionth of an inch on his head. He heard the twin hearts beating in each ear, the third heart beat in his throat, the two hearts throbbing his wrists, the real heart pounding in his chest. The million pores on his body opened.
I’m really alive! He thought. I never knew it before, or if I did I don’t remember! (13)
Thinking about being alive for the first time was a revelation and illumination for
Honestly the subject of philosophy has always interested me, but I didn’t even know THAT was what I was interested in! I felt silly when my mind formed the questions. I wouldn’t dare let them cross my lips. Fear of looking stupid, past experiences of people giving me weird looks, and the very fact that I didn’t know what answers I was looking for all left me defensive and prideful. J.P. Moreland expressed my personal struggle in these words, “Defensiveness and a false sense of pride can arise to protect one from feeling embarrassed about not knowing something. Intellectual embarrassment is one of the worst forms of humiliation—no one wants to come off as stupid or uninformed (Love Your God With All Your Mind 97).”
For me, it was with trial and error that I stumbled upon the field of philosophy. Once I had discovered it, it felt so much like finding the treasure in the field or the great pearl among little pearls (Matthew 13:44-46). It started when God led me to take any classes that interested me because I hadn’t found my gift in teaching. Never had I been praised for my great public speaking abilities. I am not even gifted in communicating simple thoughts. I am not the best writer. But this I did know. I loved to think. I thought, if I can seek a forum or degree that teaches me to think with all of my being I can pray that these thoughts will be able to transcend through me and into my words whether written or spoken. After taking Christian Ethics, I found my treasure, my pearl. My school didn’t offer a major in philosophy, but just like the man who found the treasure I sold all I could for the knowledge I would receive from professors I loved. This is not meant to be a complete thesis on my philosophical beliefs nor a story of about me, but perhaps it is an autobiography with a philosophical bend of what I have learned to be true.
Philosophy tries to answer many questions. Who are we? What is truth? What is good and evil? Why are we here? Where are we going? Ultimately that one question I asked my mother was a philosophical one. Philosophical questions come naturally to all of us. They begin fading as we get older and the world becomes habitual. This is reflected in the novel about the history of philosophy called Sophie’s World by Jostien Gaarder. Gaarder compares the wonderment of philosophy to that of a child’s discovery of the world. “A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. To him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable—bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. You might say that throughout his life a philosopher remains as thin-skinned as a child (18)” In a slight contrast with the same idea C. S. Lewis said, “He [Christ] wants a child’s heart, but a grown up head (Mere Christianity 75).” It was from this idea I borrowed my title. My passion is to be the child with the grown up head to always be wondering, thinking, discovering.
In so many ways growing up has gone in reverse for me especially philosophically. Logical and failing to recognize the supernatural, I never read any fantasy stories with wonder but rather with a brittle skepticism. It amazes me now how God softened my heart to the gospel and the miracles of Jesus. These walls of uncertainty toward the fantastic were slowly broken through strong Christian professors I never knew existed. “It all comes down to your worldview” was the mantra chanted through the halls of college. What makes a Christian worldview different from the rest? Philosophy is my field of study even through all of its complications. What are the practical uses of philosophy as a Christian? As a lover of the written word? Or as a woman who aspires to teach children what it means to be alive? This is what will be addressed in this paper.
Philosophy and the Christian
Philosophy literally means the love of wisdom. There are many Biblical references to the search of wisdom most obviously are those written by King Solomon known to be the wisest man who ever lived. He asked for discernment and not riches and power. Proverbs 4:5 (ESV) says, “Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.” Proverbs 8:10-11 (ESV), “Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you desire cannot compare with her.” Proverbs
“Where am I or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favor shall I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? And on whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, inviron’d with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.” –David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Qtd. in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview p. 10)
It never occurred to me that even Christians have trouble answering these questions until the world of college opened different ideas, opinions, and legitimate arguments to me. I discovered, or rather God allowed me to discover, worlds where Christians and non-Christians alike were still questioning absolutes. Hume and his skepticism is less than encouraging. Although argumentatively intriguing, these are the questions I do not want to back down from discussing.
The answers a Christian can boldly say. I am here because God put me here. My existence is not only physical, but also spiritual and mental. The fact that Hume and other existential philosophers can think of these questions is proof enough for our mental capabilities go beyond that of a mere animal though that may beside the point. As a Christian, I know I will return to God in heaven. But even as a Christian I do not know exactly what that entails. This topic deals with philosophical issues, apologetic and theological. I don’t have to be afraid because the Word of God gives me hope that where ever I return will be a place of no more death or dying. Arguably, according to existentialist philosophy, we have no purpose. Life is nothing but absurd. You can feel this when reading Camus’ The Plague. There are those who feel life and ethics to be all relative. Christians should go courageously into the world armed with logical arguments for Jesus resurrection as Gary Habermas, Distinguished Professor of Apologetics and Philosophy as said is “the MOST important part of the Christian faith”. Christian can impact the world with words for those who argue ethics and morality, we can point them to the reasons for our questions.
Christian philosophers, those in the past and in the present, inspire me to go beyond the ordinary. Here are just four quotes that have spurred me on. One is from 1st century philosopher St. Augustine of Hippo, one from 17th century Blaise Pascal, one from 19th century Soren Kierkegaard, and 20th century Francis Schaeffer.
“If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there? You have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.” –
“Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.” -Blaise Pascal. This is what I love about the study of philosophy and philosophers. We are not content being stuck knowing one thing really well, but in knowing everything, how thoughts, morality, logic, and worldviews transcend into every profession.
“What the age needs is not a genius - it has had geniuses enough, but a martyr, who in order to teach men to obey would himself be obedient unto death. What the age needs is awakening. And therefore someday, not only my writings but my whole life, all the intriguing mystery of the machine will be studied and studied. I never forget how God helps me and it is therefore my last wish that everything may be to his honor.” from Soren Kierkegaard’s Journals. In response to this I believe this is the same for my age too. We don’t need smarts so much as people willing to die for what they believe. I, too, want my life to be an example to any one who wants to see the truths of God displayed and the wonder it is to think.
Lastly Francis Schaeffer states, “The Christian is the real radical of our generation, for he stands against the monolithic, modern concept of truth as relative—we believe in the unity of truth (107).” Christians need to live up to this.
Philosophy and Literature
I love the written word. Stories and myths tell philosophical, profound truths. Philosophy itself is a second-order discipline. It goes hand in hand with education, theology, psychology, health care, the sciences, and literature. Philosophy being a second-order discipline does not make it a less valued study but on the contrary makes it more valuable. When I pick up a book of fiction I am seeing reflections of reality. The author is shedding light on a philosophy lived out in created characters. Kreeft says it best.
“Philosophy and literature belong together. They can work like the two lenses of a pair of binoculars. Philosophy argues abstractly. Literature argues too—it persuades, it changes the reader—but concretely. Philosophy says truth, literature shows truth (21).
No author can write without bringing his or her worldview and presuppositions into the words. It challenges me to read what other philosophies can embody stories. Literature shows abstract thoughts. It gives organization to philosophical topics. It excites me when philosophies are displayed through fictional characters. The ideas of philosophy seem more real.
The greatest examples of philosophical discoveries through fictional characters are those from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Rowlings’ Harry Potter series. Both authors suck you into making your choices and personal battles parallel to the characters they create (ex. Frodo’s journey to destroy the ring of power and Harry’s battles against Lord Voldemort). These authors in particular are able to give us the entire spectrum of good and evil in all its forms in fantastical settings. It makes Shakespeare’s words from the play Hamlet real, “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophies”. Peter Kreeft states, “This is the philosophy of the poet and of the happy man, for whom nature is a fullness, a moreness, and therefore wonderful. It is the philosophy of all pre-modern cultures (33).”
My biggest concern is people who read will read casually and without wonder. Will we even see the truths, the battles, and the struggles within ourselves as real? Or are they just words on a page some author wrote? To spread the questions and truths found within specifically fictional literature is an aspiration of mine. My dream is to write or speak on philosophy at elementary levels keep children growing with curiosity. I dream of searching through the works of women authors such as the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, and Elizabeth Browning for their philosophies.
Philosophy and the Woman who seeks her
Where are all the women philosophers? I am not a feminist and I don’t believe women should try to be equal to men, but there have been very few if any well known women philosophers. Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, is the only one on that comes to mind. She wrote in 1792 that “women are not allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue.” Her concern was that women were not being educated in a manner that would allow them to learn and practice virtue, thus preventing them from both becoming the equal of men and fulfilling their human nature (Gladstein, 52).
Women through history have been the doers not so much the thinkers. Interestingly enough wisdom is personified as a woman in Scriptures. Proverbs 1:20- “Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice;” and Proverbs 9:1- “Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars (emphasis mine).”
Wisdom is a woman, a love. It is not extremely difficult for a man to love a woman, but for a woman to love herself or another woman, that can be a challenge. Wisdom should be a woman’s sister. But the sister relationship is one of strain and competition rather than harmony. Proverbs 7:4 says, “Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call insight your intimate friend.” Woman and specifically sisters do not seem to find this intimate friendship until maturity and growth have occurred. This has been fairly consistent throughout my own life. Philosophy and wisdom are for women, too. I strongly believe women can be renowned thinkers. We may have to work a little harder at it. We may have to be in interesting situations. I, myself, was the only girl in Logic class. Women need to continue learning to think. Do you ever wonder why men can’t understand you? It is because you are illogical!!! All jokes aside, my message for women today is find your sister, Wisdom, and love her.
In all practicality only women can be mothers. Mothers have children who are curious. I want to be a mother and I want to be prepared for curious children. Philosophy, even in its complicated theories and flat out wordy textbooks, it holds the questions we all search for. The questions that come so easily to children need not be answered with blank stares. Let them wonder. Learn with them if you don’t know the answers. Don’t get annoyed. Show them the joy of thinking and discovery- that is what philosophy is all about.
Conclusion
Philosophy is loving wisdom, searching for it, and living it. Socrates lived as an annoying gnat to test his own philosophy. But I want to live as a butterfly that physically shows transforming philosophical truths and lead one down a path full of questions where answers are nectar. I want to be a Christian who challenges believers and unbelievers alike to question their presuppositions. I want to continue reading the stories, gathering philosophies authors have written into the lives of fictional characters. People relate best to stories; I want to share stories. Lastly, as a woman I embrace and love wisdom as my sister, and as an aspiring mother my children will be free to be in awe of being alive.
“Philosophy begins in wonder,” Plato said. The mystery and marvel of it all is rarely lost on a child. Youngsters don’t need to be taught philosophical curiosity. It just comes naturally. Nearly as soon as we learn to talk, the world and its mysteries enchant our imagination. Who am I? Why are we here? Who made God? Does the refrigerator light really go off when we close the door? Kids are born philosophers. Usually only the concerted efforts of adults—understandably exasperated at answering “Why?”—can stifle children’s passion to understand (Baggett, 2).
So who wants to answer my question, “What does it mean to be alive?”