His Body and Blood in Bread and Wine

Some critics of the Church specifically criticize the presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Holy Mother Church teaches that Jesus Christ is actually present, body, blood, soul and divinity, in the Holy Eucharist, in the appearance of bread and wine. It is a Mystery, and an article of faith to say that the bread and wine we start mass with actually change to the living body and blood of Jesus Christ when the priest says the words of consecration. Our critics say this cannot be the case.

The authority to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ was given to the apostles at the Last Supper, when Jesus took bread and called it his body, and gave to his disciples to eat; he also took wine and called it his blood, and similarly gave it to his disciples to drink. And then he asked his disciples to do what he had done in his memory (Matt. 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:14-20; John 6:52-57). In a previous post we talked about the sacrifice of Jesus, and how it was designed to take away all the negative emotions concomitant with sin in his own self. We showed how we could share in this redemption by becoming other Christs. And the mechanism for this is embodying Jesus, or as St Paul would say, "putting on Christ" (Rom. 13:14). If we are what we eat, then eating Jesus means we become him, and benefit from his sacrifice that removes the concomitants of sin.

But our critics say we don't behave like those who eat Christ everyday. They say our actions don't correspond to our Eucharistic feast. They say that we should behave better if it was really Christ we were eating. They say they cannot understand how we can spend so much time with Christ and still not be saints. Well then, the first thing I will have to say is two words: free will. We humans have free will. We all get to choose whether we respond to Jesus or not. "Behold I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and have supper with him" (Rev. 3:20). Jesus does not force anyone to behave in any way. He just stands there in the Eucharist, non forceful; non pushy, waiting for us to change and become more like him.

There was once this story of a man who welcomed Jesus into his house. He gave Jesus charge of a small room in the basement. The next day the devil came and beat the man up. The man complained to Jesus. He said: "I gave you a room in my house and you let the devil come and beat me up." Jesus replied: "Well, you gave me only a small room in the basement and I am there tending to my affairs." The man then gave Jesus a room on the upper floor. The next day the devil came and beat the man up. The man was distressed and went to Jesus. He said: "I let you live in my house and you let the devil beat me up still." Jesus replied: "Well, you gave me only a room in the house, and I was in there minding my business." So the man gave Jesus charge of the whole house. The next day, the devil came and knocked. Jesus opened the door and asked: "Yes?" "Wrong house," the devil said, and went running down the lane, petrified.

So, the fact the Jesus is in the Eucharist and we eat him daily does not mean he forces us to be better. He waits for us to freely will to come to him. Besides, look at his own disciples, the people he spent all his time with. Time and time again he spoke with them, ate with them and prayed for them, but among them was Judas that betrayed him; Peter that denied him; Thomas that doubted him, and the rest that fled from him at the Garden of Gethsemane. Even while he walked with them, we still had the sons of Zebedee, James and John, asking for seats at the left and the right of Jesus in Glory. We had the disciples arguing about who was greatest in the Kingdom of God, and Jesus calling Peter a devil, when Peter tried to talk him out of his mission, without realizing it. So, if the disciples lived with Jesus 24/7 and still behaved this way, we can understand why our being with Jesus in communion everyday has yet to make saints of us.

Next, at the Great Commission and upon rising from the dead, Jesus gave the Church authority to teach and perform the sacraments. He said: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,  teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen" (Matt. 28:19-20). Again he said concerning his Church: "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18-19). And to his disciples, the founding fathers of the Church, he said: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whomever's sins you forgive are forgiven, and whomever's sins you retain are retained" (John 20:22-30). He also said: "Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 18:18). He said as well to Peter: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16:19).

 

And so, why are the bread and wine Jesus' body and blood? Because the Church authoritatively says so. And that's enough for me.

What Do My Dreams Mean?

These days I dream a lot. It's dream after dream after dream. I honestly cannot get it. And the dreams are not always pleasant. Plus, I don't know what they mean. What do my dreams mean? I wish I knew. I wish I was some sort of expert on the issue of dreams. I know Sigmund Freud has written extensively on the subject, but have you met Sigmund! The guy is very hard to read. Some people are so smart that sometimes they speak and you can't make head or tail out of what they say. It's so annoying! Someone once said that smart people exist to make life difficult for students. These brainy individuals write books and books and more books, and poor students have to read and read and read. Was it Bill Gates who declared that one of the greatest epistemological problems of our day is the number of books left unread? But smart people will keep writing; whether to show off or to inspire, or simply to make students suffer, smart people go on writing.

 

It begins by thinking. Smart people like to think. They sit on a chair or take a walk in the park, or lie in bed and think. They think and think and think, like Archimedes, until they reach an aha moment, and then they grab a pen and begin to write, or a laptop and begin to type. A funny clip from Seth McFarlane's Family Guy features one of the many versions of Peter Griffin sitting in a chair with chin propped up by hand, thinking. His wife comes in and says, "Would you please go and look for a job?" And the thinking fellow quips in his philosopher pose, "Why?" Why look for a job? Now, when an unemployed individual asks why he or she should go look for a job, is the person being a philosopher or just a fool? Can one be both?

 

And so it is that wise people question everything, even the foundation of life itself. Why am I here? What am I made of? Who am I? Descartes was famous for his meditations. We're reading him right now in class, and I really like what he writes, the product of his thoughts. But the funny thing about philosophers is that these otherwise wise men never agree on anything. Just as one has finished reading Descartes and loving everything he says, then comes Spinoza to say that everything Descartes said, everything you've read and loved, is mere rubbish. Or take Aquinas. You read and read and read and just love what he says, and take it you understand why the Church has adopted him as prime doctor. But then you reach the point where Aquinas himself says everything he writes is straw, compared to the beatific vision he has glimpsed. Well, you wonder, can you share this vision? And Aquinas would readily say no. Because language is insufficient.

 

So what then? How can we know? What can we know? What are dreams made of? It seems to me that even after making life considerably hard for students, wise men still cannot resolve it. I bet even if I read Freud I'd still not understand dreams. It's like reading Plato's Theaetetus on Knowledge. When you begin reading the book and realize it's on knowledge, you hope you're finally going to learn what knowledge means; what it's all about. But when you do finish reading the book, you discover that all you really know is what knowledge is not, and that you may never in fact know what it is. So why did you read it in the first place? Same reason the author wrote in the first place; to satisfy a mental itch. To feel smart. And so the enterprise of reading and writing will go on.

 

Or God. Thousands of books, articles and papers have been written about him, but no one sufficiently explains who he is, or what he is. All we get when we read about God is what he is not, or analogies to things on the earth, or what he has been "revealed" to be. By whom? Jesus? The Church? It begs the question in each case, since God is manifested in these, and you cannot prove the existence of something by itself. We cannot prove the existence of first principles; we just have to take them for granted. It's the only way we can say anything about anything. It's like Descartes' Cogito model. How can he prove the existence of his mind or intellect? By the fact that he's thinking? But what ratifies the fact that he's thinking? His thoughts? Doesn't this sound like begging the question? I know I am thinking because I think that I know I am thinking. Phew!

 

I begin to understand the relativists, the agnostics and the atheists. I begin to understand why they refuse to believe anything. They seem to realize that deductions come from inductions, and the information sourced from inductions is partial. Because no matter how large a sample size is, generalizations made would always end up inadequate. One would have to know every element in a set to adequately generalize about the set. And only God - our concept of this reality - can examine every element in a set. So, only God can adequately know. By the way, this word "adequately," and all the words in its family, like adequate, adequation and so on, are used often by Aquinas to explain what we can know, and how what we can know is limited compared to what God can. Take the set called humanity for example: it is made up of every human being that has existed; the human beings that are existing now, and the human beings that are yet to exist. Only God can know all of these human beings. God sees the past, the present and the future, as if they were all happening right now. Augustine, Aquinas and Boethius say as much. Anselm is of the view that God is infinite in perfection and there is nothing more perfect the human mind can conceive than God.

 

God. So I guess it all boils down to God, the necessary being; the one "who alone exists of himself and is infinite in all perfection." Everything begins and ends with God. And we don't know exactly what he is, but we believe he exists. We can know him by reason. Aquinas, Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure, Scotus, Descartes - philosopher after philosopher has attempted to prove him. One particular "proof" sounds so cool. It's Descartes'. It says: Whatever is contained in the concept of a thing can be predicated of that thing. Necessity of being is contained in the concept of God, and so it is predicable of God. In other words, God is a necessary being. Cool. But it begs the question still. It's pretty much the same as Anselm's Proslogion argument, only in better language. It's like saying: God is necessary because he's necessary, and he's necessary because I think so.

 

Phew! Again I ask: What can we know? What is life? Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going to? What do my dreams mean? I don't know. I'm still searching. Are you?

The Sacrifice of Jesus

Let's continue our discussion on the concept of sacrifices. We have said in a previous post that sacrifice is a way of getting rid of negative emotions by taking responsibility for occurrences in our lives, especially losses, in such a way that they become like incidents we chose for ourselves rather than conditions we unwillingly received. In this post, we are going to consider the sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God. The universe that God made was designed to be good. In the creation story that we find in Genesis, we see that God made everything there is and subsequently called it all good. In other words, he designed the world to be as perfect as he is. He wanted everything to fit together in smooth harmony; in perfect peace. But as time progressed, because of free will in humans, the species he created to master the world and coordinate its parts in a seamless symphony of praise to him, the world did not in fact resemble the perfection of the creator. Rather than rising up to him, it fell further down and away from God. This state of affairs, of the earth not sufficiently resembling heaven, caused God concern, and he decided to intervene.

The evil in the world, which is the privation of godly perfection, causes negative emotions; it causes grief, pain, regret, insecurity and every other negative emotion known to humans. For example, if we are stolen from, we experience loss; if we are hurt, we experience pain; if we are cheated, we experience anger, and so on. The fact that the world is not as perfect as God intended it to be causes manifold negative emotions in us. The fact that there is wrongdoing and injustice in the world means that there is suffering and pain; that the world does not currently live up to its potential. This is the situation God sought to change. He sought to save people from the persistent onslaught of negative emotions. And so he set a salvation story in motion.
 

He befriended Abraham early on in the story. He had an end-goal for salvation in mind, but he wanted to see if humans deserved what he wanted to do. He decided to test Abraham. After giving him a son late in the poor man's life, God subsequently asked him to sacrifice the son, Isaac. Abraham was distressed, but he decided to obey God. And so he took his son up the hill to sacrifice him. He made the altar ready; bound his son; laid him thereupon, and began to raise the knife to cut the boy open when God stopped him, and just in time I might add. Phew - lucky Isaac! But Abraham had done something for humanity. He had told God by his conduct that it was reasonable to do what God had in mind. God was going to sacrifice his own son, so as to remove the deluge of negative emotions that persistently plagued humanity. Recall in this regard in any case that we have already said that sacrifices are efficacious in doing away with negative emotions.

The book of Matthew gives us a concise genealogy of Jesus, from Abraham, through David, all the way to Jesus Christ. This Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the one that performed the sacrifice God had had in mind for so long. He was God's salvation mechanism for humanity. Now, we have already established that the presence of evil in the world leads to pain and suffering. In other words, because of the freely chosen wrongdoing of people, negative human emotions abound. Jesus himself was without sin. He did not share in the responsibility of wrongdoing and its consequences. Recall in this regard that in a previous post I said that sacrifice does not entail guilt. I gave the example of how backtracking and taking responsibility for say, may dad's death did not mean that I was actually guilty of such death. This element is important. And so, Jesus had to be born without sin. He had to have no share in the sinful nature the consequences of which his sacrifice was supposed to take away. And that was exactly the case: Jesus was born without sin; a spotless lamb to be sacrificed for the redemption of the whole world.

God understood clearly the mechanism of sacrifice. First, the person performing the sacrifice must be innocent of the deed. So, for all the friendships I sacrificed, I did not initiate the friends' leaving me. When things in my life started to get better, such as my joining the seminary or progressing in my vocation, these friends just stopped talking with me. I would call them, and they would refuse to answer. I would send them emails and they would refuse to respond. One of them actually blocked my number from his phone; another would reply my messages with covert insults. All of this would ordinarily cause me grief or loss or bitterness or shame or make me feel depressed or insecure, or like a loser who could have no friends. But mentally backtracking, I went ahead and claimed responsibility for all these abandonments by friends. I mentally accepted that I was the one who, by my own choice and deed, drove the so-called friends far away from me. In other words, even though they were the ones who left me, I went ahead and said to myself: I have removed these people from my life. I am responsible. And having done this, the next logical question was: Why? Why did you remove your so-called friends from your life? And the answer was: so as to grow in my vocation. And so, instead of self-pity, or loneliness, or sadness, or any silly, negative emotion, all I now have is grim determination, and a sense of power.

The concept of sacrifices like I said in an earlier post may sometimes be used in not-so-good ways, but the mechanism is the same. So for example, a person looking for wealth goes to a voodoo priest, and he is asked to sacrifice his mother or his wife or anyone close to him. If the seeker does this, in his quest for wealth, he replaces fear, insecurity, timidity and so on with boldness, ruthlessness and courage, with which he relentlessly pursues wealth and does in fact get it, because his mental state creates the situation he craves. And the persistent thought that his sacrifice cannot have been in vain makes him go all out to get what he wants, and he often does. It's the way the world works. Recall in this regard everything we said about The Secret of Rhonda Byrne. Having said all this in any case, let's get back to the sacrifice of Jesus, God's son.
 

Now, here was Jesus, a person who had met the first requirement. He was born free from sin. He was not born of a physical father, but only of a mother that had previously been immaculately conceived, and the Holy Spirit. Next, he had to feel the sorts of emotions he wanted to help rid the world of. Or at least have a sense of them. So, he had to be true man, a true and actual human being in every sense of the word. So for example, before I sacrificed my parents, I used to feel the sadness and grief of their loss; before I sacrificed my so-called friends, I used to feel rejected and abandoned. So, performing the sacrifices, I knew what I was going for. I knew what the emotions I was seeking to rid myself of looked like. And this knowledge, this sense of what I was doing, made me all the more motivated to make the sacrifices, for my own good. Similarly, by sharing our humanity, Jesus got a firsthand glimpse of what he was dealing with: the pain, the grief, the sadness, the sorrow - everything. He encountered lepers and saw their pain by himself, with his own eyes; he encountered outcasts, such as prostitutes, sinners, tax collectors, and the poor, and he went ahead and befriended all of them. The Gospels are replete with stories of how Jesus ate and drank and fraternized with all these otherwise rejected elements of society. He felt what we feel.

The next thing is to be able to have the rational power to actually perform the sacrifice. Depending on the extent of the sacrifice to be made, the rational power of the person sacrificing has to surmount the task. Jesus' sacrifice was for the benefit of all humanity, literally gazillions of people, including those that had lived before him, and those that would live after him, stretching into the ages of the ages. Only one person could have the rational power to do this: GOD. And so Jesus had to be true man, but also true God at the same time. He got his humanity from his mother, and his divinity from his father. Let me here jocularly say that he was biracial, a kind of mutt; a mix of God and man. Just kidding - you know, but you kinda get the picture. In my case, for example, I had the rational power to step back from the negative-emotion-causing losses in my life and say no. I was able to mentally assume them as sacrifices and thus rid myself forever of the emotions. Not everyone uses their rational power to make sacrifices. Rather, they let the losses overwhelm them. They stay in the guilt and sorrow and sadness and never find any relief. Some resort to psychotropic and psychedelic drugs to calm the pain of loss and regret brewing within.

Jesus saved us once and for all by his sacrifice (1 Pet. 3:18). He was not responsible for our wrongdoing and its consequences; he felt or at least understood our emotional predicament; he had the rational capacity to make the required sacrifice, and he did not resist when the opportunity came to make such a sacrifice. He could have played into the hands of the world. He could have become a politician, a magician or a business tycoon. Rather, he lived his life in a way that was bound to get him killed even though he was innocent. The wages of wrongdoing are always some form of pain, and the end-goal of pain is a despairing death. A person can be reckless for only so long. Eventually, he or she has to pay the price, and it ultimately is a painful, spirit wracking death. This is what all of us - especially the really terrible ones among us - deserve. But not Jesus. Jesus was sinless and so he did not deserve a painful, spirit wracking death.

But he mentally took responsibility for all the sins - the ones that deserved the punishment of painful death - as if he had committed these sins by himself. And if he had committed these sins by himself, then he deserved to die for them, and so he did. And by performing this sacrifice, he replaced in himself all the concomitant negative emotions with only positive ones. And as many as identify with him; embody him; live by his example; become other Christs, these individuals would similarly replace in themselves all the negative emotions they would otherwise feel, with positive ones only. Recall in this regard that when Moses built the bronze serpent, the injured still had to look upon it to be saved. They had to participate in the salvation (Num. 21:4-9).

What I'm saying is this: sinful people in our world deserved to be punished by God for our sins. Jesus, true God and true man, even though guiltless, assumed responsibility for all these sins as if he had committed them himself, and so he was the one punished. And in so doing, he removed in himself as God the feeling of negativity that all our sins would ordinarily cause him. Because when we sin we hurt God. "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me" (Matt. 25:31-36). But God, as Jesus, applied the concept of sacrifice so that he could replace in himself the negative emotions our hurting him (like my parents' unwittingly hurting me and my so-called friends' unwittingly hurting me) otherwise occasioned. But when we do evil we don't just hurt and spite God that created all, but we also hurt ourselves and others; we hurt humanity as well by making it less than perfect. But Humanity, as Jesus, applied the concept of sacrifice so that it could replace in itself the negative emotions our hurting it otherwise occasioned. And the foregoing can be said in the present tense, especially as for God and Spinoza, reality is timeless: Jesus, as God and People, applies the concept of sacrifices to replace a deluge of negative emotions with positive ones.

And when we, people, ape Jesus; when we as people emulate Jesus, we can sacrifice along with him; we can learn to be like him. We can copy his example and make our own sacrifices. We can accept that he has set us free, and we can live as free as he made us. Jesus said on the cross: "Father, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). Theologians say this was when God was forced to look away for a second because of the weight of sin weighing on Jesus on the cross - a truly ugly sight. But then, Jesus also said: "It is finished" (John 19:30). And so, all our sins are gone. We can pray to Jesus, join the community of believers; embody him, and behave in the way he would, and so be free from sin on the last day. The same self in which he replaced negative emotions with positive ones he leaves available for us in the Eucharist, so that we can have him in us, and us in him. We should have faith. And we should make sacrifices. Like Jesus did.

Give Me Reason Any Day

I told you in a previous post that I have forgiven my uncles; you know, the ones I was angry with for many years; the ones who envied my dad, so much that my dad could not contain his grief and so took his own life. I have forgiven them. For everything, including the fact that they could not love me. And I meant it when I said I forgave them. I still forgive them. I forgive them with every fiber of my being. And it is a true forgiveness, a divine forgiveness. It is a forgiveness that will last forever. Amen. I have "let go of the hope that the past could be any different." But I don't think they have let go of their hope to see me destroyed. Even though I have let them go free, they still hang on to their hope that I end up defeated, frustrated and unsuccessful. Without my desiring it, I still see them in my dreams, and I still sense the spiritual attacks they repeatedly send my way. Clearly then, even though I have left them and everything concerning them, they still refuse to free me from their wicked thoughts. What does a person do in such a case?

 

What I mean is this: What is the remedy for a situation where, even though you have forgiven and spiritually let go of your enemies, those enemies have not spiritually let go of you? You wake up in the morning and do not wish the slightest ill to these people, but they wake up in the morning and wish you every ill they can think of. What do you do then? You cannot retaliate by wishing them ill as well. If you do so, then you are back to where you started. You are back to the hating and the anger, and it means you haven't really moved on. You have undone the state of forgiveness it took you so long to attain. You cannot either let their spiritual attacks destroy you, or you would actually be where they want you to be: hell. So what do you do? You play on the defensive. You build an impregnable defense system in order to fend off their attacks.

 

But how? How do you build an impregnable wall about you in such a manner that the spiritual attacks your enemies persistently send do not destroy you? You have to have insight, to begin with. If you do not know you are being attacked, you cannot get into defense mode. So the starting point is to know that you are being attacked. Thankfully, I know I am being attacked. I know this as clearly as I know that I am typing this. I see in my dreams, in the signs around me and in my own philosophical reflections that I am definitely under spiritual attack from my extended biological family. I know this for a fact. And so I have insight into the situation. And I realize that they might never stop attacking me. In such a case, I must constantly live with this hazard: the persistence of spiritual attacks directed against me. It won't go away. It's like living with HIV. It very well may never blossom in to full-blown AIDS, especially if one handles the condition well; but it will always be there. And so, like HIV, I have to live with the constant reality of spiritual attacks. Insight.

 

What next? Now that I realize I need to have insight into the situation of living with persistent spiritual attacks sent me primarily by my extended biological family, and I do in fact have such insight, what else need I do? I should defend myself. Because I have refused to fight back by sending them attacks in return and so undo my forgiveness of them, I need to have a strong impenetrable defense against them in such a fashion that for however long they send attacks my way, they will never get me, until I have succeeded in doing all I was put on this planet to do, and have died at a ripe old age, hopefully in my sleep. What sort of defense should this be? It should be a spiritual defense. If the attacks are spiritual in nature, the defense would have to be spiritual in nature as well. But what spiritual defense system is so powerful as to permanently fend off the spiritual attacks I will have to live with, as sent to me by enemies that refuse to change?

 

It would have to be a sound epistemology. How? You see, happiness is ethics plus epistemology. Let me rephrase that in mathematical terms: Happiness = epistemology + ethics. This is a mathematical equation. Now, my enemies wish me to be unhappy. In other words, they wish me to have neither epistemology nor ethics. But, I already have epistemology. I already have insight into my condition. I already know that my enemies persistently send me evil attacks. So, I cannot not have epistemology. But how do I know that my epistemology is right? How do I know that the insight I have into the situation is accurate? How do I know that what I think I know is actually true? I have to test it. Now, whenever I act on what I claim to know and it makes me feel good, strong and in control, then I know by the equation above that it is true. Let's say I know A (epistemology), and I go ahead and act on the A I know (ethics), and it results in happiness and a sense of progress, then I know that A is true, because God wants us to be happy, and anything that makes us truly happy comes from God, and God is not a deceiver, and everything that comes from him is true.

 

I know that my enemies, especially my extended biological family keep sending me spiritual attacks (epistemology). I act cognizant of this knowledge (ethics) and it makes me feel more in control and better able to take charge of my destiny. God wants me to be more in control and better take charge of my destiny. And so, the knowledge that my enemies send me spiritual attacks is true. They actually do send me spiritual attacks, out of jealousy. And this is exactly, in any case, what happened with my dad. So, it's not even new. My dad was raised by the British all the way from childhood, through Baptist Boys' High School, Port Harcourt, all the way to University College, London. He was Assistant Comptroller of the entire Nigeria Customs, and this as far back as the 70s. He was an excellent worker, a definite type A achiever. But his brothers were jealous of him, and sought every way to undo him. And they did undo him in the end. They drove him, emotionally and spiritually, to take his own life. And having so succeeded, they similarly choose to undo his offspring in any way they possibly can. Which is what they do each day.

 

The good news, though, is that I am not my father. I can't overemphasize this point. I am not Patrick Nze. I am a totally different person. I'm courageous and determined. I know my truth (epistemology), and I act victoriously on it (ethics), and so I "stay calm and move on." Isaiah 54:17 says: "No weapon formed against me shall prosper; all those who rise up against me shall fall." I am determined to succeed. "I shall not die, but live to declare the goodness of God" (Psalm 118:17). Why were Patrick's brothers jealous of him? He had a wife; he had a good job and made money; he was special and smart and very talented, and so they could not stand him. In my case, I don't have a wife; I don't have money, and I am to be sworn to obedience, where I get to use my gifts only as I am led. I want to be a humble priest, and yet my enemies are not satisfied. Well, let them keep sending me spiritual attacks. We shall see what will happen in the end. When their enemies persisted in pursuing the Israelites, Yahweh told Moses not to worry because, "the enemy you see today, you will never see again" (Exodus 14:13). One day, when these enemies of mine are tired of sending attacks that ultimately fail, they will simply stop.

 

But I will not concentrate on them and their attacks. I will focus on God, who alone can defend me from them. With God helping me, I need never worry; I need never fear. I need instead to build a lasting, impregnable epistemology that is full of insight into the situation, and a determined defense against it. And I can do this only by the power of reason. Reason will defeat the emotions that hamper my acting on what I know. Reason will drive away negative emotions, such as: anger, despair, sadness, depression, and so forth. Reason will keep me alive. Reason will save me. When push comes to shove; when "the mountains tumble into the depths of the seas" (Psalm 46:2); when things go south; just give me reason. Give me the grace to think things through logically. I am not asking for faith; I am not the stuff of which saints are made. Just give me one and only one thing, O God; any day of the week, give me reason!

Things are Getting Better

As we grow and develop, we are bound to realize that things are getting better. Compare the world today with the world centuries ago - don't you notice that things are getting better? Take the field of medicine for example. Many centuries ago, one of the most popular ways for treating all manner of diseases was by bleeding the patient. Today, there are many drugs and treatments for various ailments. And it's not just the field of medicine that has seen improvement. Practically every sphere of human involvement has experienced decisive growth, development and change. Indeed, things are getting better. And they will keep getting better. I am excited for the future.

 

Why are things getting better? Because our souls are getting leaner. In Plato's Symposium, Socrates praised the lean soul. The lean soul is the one that does not pad itself with material things. It does not stay at the level of appetite. The lean soul does not gorge itself on food, or wine, or sensual pleasure; the lean soul is not after wealth or honors or self-aggrandizement. The lean soul instead is focused on philosophical reality; it contemplates life; it busies itself with epistemology and ethics. The lean soul seeks after truth. Conversely, the fat soul is overburdened with material pursuits; the fat soul lives at the level of appetite. It gorges itself on food, drink and sensual pleasure. It does not keep a philosophical posture; it does not contemplate immaterial reality. The fat soul does not seek after truth; it is not interested in epistemology and ethics. It is more interested in consumption.

 

Lean souls are productive. They lead their peers. They point the way, like light in the darkness. Lean souls are entrepreneurial; they come up with new ideas; they start businesses; they mentor people, and they pretty much make the world about them better. They give more than they take, because they are more intellectual than appetitive; more restrained than avaricious. Lean souls make sacrifices, so that their posterity might enjoy. Conversely, fat souls consume more than they produce. They are full of greed and wastefulness. They take more than they give, and they do not live any heritage for posterity. Realize in any case that there is a difference between a fat soul and a fat body. A person may have a fat body and a lean soul; and a person can also have a lean body and a fat soul. To tell a fat soul, observe the attitudinal and behavioral interests of the individual. If the person is more disposed toward dissipation, greed, sensual pleasure, and the satisfaction of narcissistic and selfish concerns, that person has a fat soul, regardless of his or her physical shape and size. If on the other hand the person is interested in philosophical pursuits, especially epistemology and ethics; if the person is more disposed toward immaterial, spiritual or intellectual pursuits, then such an individual is a lean soul, even if he or she has a fat body.

 

In the bible, Jesus talks about being poor in spirit (Matt. 5:3). This may easily be taken as a reference to leanness of soul. He says that the reward of leanness of spirit is the attainment or realization of the kingdom of God. It is no wonder then that the world is getting better. If the teleological end of humanity is happiness, then it is logical to say that the teleological end of the world, which is populated by humanity, is global happiness; or, analogically speaking, the kingdom of heaven. But how do individuals attain happiness in the first place? By epistemology and ethics. And what sort of souls do in fact engage in epistemology and ethics? Lean souls. And so, the more lean souls there are, the more happy people there are; and the more happy people there are, the more the world better resembles heaven. Or in ordinary terms, the happier and better the world is.

 

But how do we know that there are more leaner souls today than at any previous point in history? Education. The rate of education has increased. Look at statistics. The average person in the world today, regardless of where they live, is more educated than at any previous point in history. Many people go to elementary school, and then to middle and high schools, and on to colleges and graduate schools. Conversely, years ago, all people had was elementary or no education at all. Witchcraft, superstition and falsehood supplied the lack. And in this darkness of ignorance, many people could not find fulfillment or happiness. They did not have electricity; they did not have clean drinking water, and they did not have any of the infrastructural facilities that make life as we know it today easier and better. And because of this, they suffered. And why did they not have all these amenities? Because they did not have the knowledge (epistemology) to fabricate them. They also did not have the virtues of industry (practical ethics) to grow and develop in mature and sophisticated ways. Many of them were unhappy because they did not understand life as we do today. They did not know how best to cure diseases; they did not know how best to engage in agriculture; they did not know how best to express and actualize themselves. There was institutional demarcation among classes of people in such a fashion that meritocracy was impossible. People were prevented from fulfilling their potentials and were consequently denied the happiness that such a fulfillment brings.

 

Socrates explained in Plato's Meno that education (from the Latin educare) is the opening up of the soul; a process of drawing out of the recesses of the soul what its engagement in material reality has made it forget. In other words, exercising the soul to make it leaner is education. Let me give an analogy. Now, take a fat person - and this time around, I mean a person that has a fat body. If this person becomes uncomfortable with being fat, such a person would have to exercise vigorously, and restrain from consumption, in order to lose weight. Even drastically, such a person could have liposuction, a sort of surgery where doctors remove the fat from the person's body by medical operation. The person can then feel healthier and freer, physically. In the same way, education is like the gym exercise routine of a fat soul; and drastically, intensive education might be a liposuction procedure performed on a fat soul, to remove the fat, and render such a soul lean.

 

For Socrates, the fat of the soul is acquired when the soul participates in material pursuits, when it lives at the level of appetite. Such a soul is deceived and stays in falsehood. Such a soul cannot contribute positively to its world. Such a soul consumes and becomes even fatter. The fat of the soul is greed, pride, envy, avariciousness, anger, sensuality and so forth. Through rigorous education in any case, such fat is burnt off as if by exercise or surgically removed by liposuction, and the resultant leaner soul can then thrive in happiness through the progressive conduct of epistemology and ethics. Lean souls are good souls. And lean souls are the product of education. Good education is therefore a must. And thank goodness our education keeps getting better.

 

Just like things in general are progressively getting better. O joy! So, let's summarize what we've discussed so far, and conclude. We have said that things are getting better. We said the way we know they are getting better is by comparing our lifestyle today with what was obtainable centuries ago. Through this juxtaposition, we clearly see that there is progress. We, as a species, are moving forward. And this is because there are many more leaner souls today than there were previously. Leaner souls are more philosophic and contemplative. They live on the level of intellect and spirit; they create and give more than they consume. They bless posterity and the world about them with their wisdom and creativity, and the use of their talents. They vigorously engage in epistemology and ethics, and so are happy, and collectively they teleologically improve the world about them, and so make it better. And fat souls can become lean by exercising through education. In this way, they can join the ranks of lean souls, and everyone can then contribute toward making the world better. Because of the increasing plenitude of lean souls, things are getting better.

The Parable of the Lost Son

Luke 15:11-32 presents us with a very touching tale. It is the tale of a man who had two sons. The younger son went up to his dad and suddenly asked for his share of his dad's property. The father must have been bewildered. His son could not even wait for him to die first before asking for a share of his estate. But he went ahead and gave the lad what he requested. Promptly then, the son went off and squandered his newly gotten wealth on a life of dissipation. And when he had spent it all, a severe famine struck the land he lived in. He began to be in need. He began to search for a job, and he got one looking after sheep. He was so hungry that he could easily have shared the pigs' food. Eventually, he came to his senses and realized that even his father's servants did not fare as badly as he did now. And so he resolved to go to his father and seek forgiveness. He decided to tell his dad to treat him as a servant rather than a son. And with such a resolve, he got up and began to journey back to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced and kissed the lad. The son had his speech prepared. He told his father that he had sinned against him and God, and now deserved to be only a slave.

 

But his father would have none of that. He had very fine clothes brought with accessories to boot and arrayed his son in these. Then he had a fattened calf slaughtered and a feast celebrated, "because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found" (v24). And so the rejoicing began. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field and on his way back as he neared the house he heard the merrymaking. He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. The servant told this older son that the merrymaking was because his younger brother had returned and his father was very excited at the event. This older son became very angry and refused to enter the house, and so the father had to come out to him. He said to his father, "Look, all these years I served you and not once did I obey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf" (v30). The father assured the son that all he had was his son's. Yet, the father saw it fitting to celebrate and rejoice over the return of the younger son, "because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found" (v32).

 

Let's explain this story. Let's take the father to be our reason, our capacity to think. This rationative capacity is what makes us human, and separates us from all the other animals. Because it is the most perfect aspect of ourselves, Descartes has pretty much seen it to be what we properly are. He calls us thinking things. Now, our reason serves as a moderator between two opposing aspects of ourselves: the superego and the id, to borrow from Sigmund Freud. The superego is the elder son. The id is the younger one. The id is the immature aspect of ourselves. It is our artistic mind. Recall in this regard that in a previous post we talked about the difference between the artistic mind, which is immature and inchoate, and the scientific mind, which is mature and stable. Hubbard would call the id the unclear mind. This id wants us to live at the level of appetite, to borrow from Plato, who has said that we have three aspects to ourselves: appetitive, animated, and intellectual. The father is the intellectual; the elder son is the animated, and the younger son is the appetitive.

 

The id does not care for consequences. It is concerned with the flesh only. It is interested in pleasure; it operates on the pleasure principle alone. Similarly, the appetitive aspect of ourselves as defined by Plato is drawn to material reality, the reality of sense perception, and so is prone to deceit and illusion, and falsehood. In the parable of the lost son, we see how the younger son demanded material wealth from his dad, concerned not for the father's wellbeing; sparing no thought for anyone but himself, and insisting only to satisfy himself. And when this younger son had received the share of wealth that should come to him, he went off quickly and wasted it all. This is what artistic minds do; this is what the id does; this is what the appetitive aspect of ourselves does. Our unclear mind makes us waste ourselves in dissipation. We pad ourselves with material stuff in such a way that we weigh down our souls. We cannot free ourselves enough to focus on immaterial reality, which is of a higher spiritual worth than material reality.

 

Because of its disregard for consequences, the id always leads us into trouble. The id, the appetitive aspect of ourselves, our unclear mind, always brings us ill. Without prudence, the id can run wild. It is the id that makes people text while driving; it is the id that makes people smoke pot. It is the id that makes people commit every crime there is. The artistic mind when unrestrained can cause a lot of disaster. It is impatient, narcissistic, immature and reckless. The artistic mind brings depression, sadness, neuroses, and all manner of psychological and physical ailments. It is willful, wayward, headstrong, and seeks its own way. It is properly speaking a lost cause. Without the taming potential of reason, it is doomed. Similarly, in the parable of the lost son, we see how the younger son fell into starvation once he had squandered all his wealth and a famine had hit the land. He sought to eat the food meant for pigs, but could get none. He was in rough shape indeed. Similarly, our artistic mind is a stew pot of all negative emotions there are, and negative emotions squeeze the happiness out of us.

 

But the son came to his senses and went back to his father. Similarly, Descartes has offered us a three-step method for dealing with negative emotions, for the consequences of the id. We should, having become conscious of our negative emotions and behaviors (having in the first step "come to our senses"), allow the negative emotions in the second step to travel all the way to our head, so we can process them intellectually. We should lay our negative emotions and behaviors at the feet of reason, at the feet of our ratiocinative ability. In the same way, the younger son, having first come to his senses (consciousness), presented himself to his father, and processed his situation with his father. The third step of Descartes' method is speaking words of reason to the negative emotions and behaviors (by the way, one of the ways to become conscious of emotions is through observable behavior). Similarly, the father reasoned with  his son. He made the son realize that he was welcome home in spite of all that had transpired. He sent for the best dress and the best meals and treated his son with love. Our reason always perfects us as humans when we apply it. It always reminds us of who we are: children of God, and not mere animals. It tells us that we are not our mistakes. It tells us that we have the potential to grow and change and develop and mature. Our reason consoles us and makes us whole again. This is what the father (ego, reason) did with the younger son (id, appetite).

 

But the elder son was offended that his younger brother should be so welcomed. Our superego, or our animated aspect, is the soulful aspect of ourselves. It keeps score. It torments us with guilt. It is like a score card. Just like a wind vane measures wind direction and a thermometer temperature, our superego keeps a strict account of each thing we have ever done, consciously, subconsciously and unconsciously. Recall in this regard that we have defined soul as the sum-total of everything we have consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously done. Our superego always points us to what we have done, to make us feel guilty. It says: Look what you have done; look what you have done; look what you have done! And when we look at what we have done, we feel guilty because we all have done bad. Romans 3:23 says: "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

 

And so, left to our deeds alone, we can never find peace and happiness, no matter how good we try to be. Recall the scrupulosity of Martin Luther the monk in this regard; recall also the many people who try to attain peace and happiness by acting in a sanctimonious way; by crossing the river by the land, as we said in a previous post. We can only find guilt in so doing. I think it instructive that when St Rita's otherwise saintly mother was dying she complained of having not loved her family enough, to which St Rita responded with shock, wondering what more her mother could have done by way of loving. The saintliest of people have been known to be the most scrupulous; always examining their conscience and still finding themselves unworthy, in spite of everything. Also recall that when the rich young man called Jesus "good," Jesus protested, saying that only God was good (Mk 10:18).

 

Similarly, the older son tried to guilt his father into not rejoicing over the return of the lost son. He showed how the behavior of the younger boy did not deserve such merrymaking. And this is what guilt does. It tempts us with despair. It tempts us with the prospect of giving up on ourselves. It tempts us with the prospect of our inability to be redeemed. Recall the movie Seven Pounds. It was guilt that made the main character, played by actor Will Smith, who had mistakenly killed his fiancé and a few other people because he was texting and driving, fall into deep depression and ultimately kill himself. For every time he might have summoned the courage to forgive himself and move on, his guilt, his memory of what he had done, kept cropping up to squelch his progress. In the same way, our guilt (superego, animated aspect) always tries to "prove" that we are worthless; that we do not deserve salvation; that we are completely doomed forever. This is what our soulful, animated aspect does to us by calling to mind our past.

 

But we must forgive; we must sacrifice, and we must be at peace. We must "let go of the hope that the past could be any different." Our reason must rise above our guilt. Our ego, the inner teacher; God within us, should calm the roaring of guilt; should tame the superego; should adjudicate between the superego that is wont to play devil's advocate, and the id that is presumed unworthy of salvation. Reason should make us believe in spite of everything absurd about life. Psalm 116:10 says: "I trusted even when I said, 'I am sorely afflicted.'" This is what reason helps us to do. Reason makes us isolate bad situations and the occasions of guilt, and transcend them with faith, hope and love. Reason makes us realize that we have done some good as well, and not just bad. All the times we brushed our teeth; all the times we washed our clothes; all the times we said good morning to someone - all these albeit little things are good things. And just because we have done our fair share of bad things, that does not mean we should give up on ourselves because of guilt. Reason gives us a reason to live. Reason lifts us up. Reason is God in us. Reason makes us put everything in perspective; prevents us from the fallacies of secundum quid, hasty generalization and slippery slope, three of the most common and dangerous fallacies in everyday living. Reason saves us. 

 

And so, let us use our reason all the time. Let us not make decisions based on emotions. Let us allow our emotions to travel all the way to our heads each time we become conscious of them in our hearts, through our sensitivity and sensibility; and let us always endeavor, as much as we can, to maintain a contemplative and philosophical attitude. Let us embrace epistemology and ethics. Let us be happy. "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!" (Phil 4:4).

The Dreams of Rene Descartes

The intended conclusion of Descartes’ dream argument as contained in his first meditation is as follows: It is not possible for human beings to perfectly distinguish when they are awake from when they are dreaming. The premises leading up to the foregoing intended conclusion of Descartes’ dream argument as contained in Meditation One are that: firstly, humans when awake do have sense perceptions of a similar sort as are obtainable in dream states; and secondly, there is no fool-proof yardstick for differentiating between waking experiences and dream-state situations. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that humans may indeed be dreaming when they perceive themselves to be awake. Descartes states as follows in view of the foregoing: “As I consider these matters more carefully, I see so plainly that there are no definitive signs by which to distinguish being awake from being asleep.”

Descartes attempts to establish the above conclusion by the two premises previously stated, after showing how insane individuals’ fantastical waking experiences are in grain no different from the similarly fantastical experiential content of the dreams of sane people. He explains the aforementioned premises with illustrative examples so as to sufficiently support his points. He astutely guides his reader step by step along the argument toward his conclusion. Next, with regard to what kind of knowledge is supposed to survive Descartes’ argument, it would appear that Descartes is rejecting knowledge sourced via the senses, as he does in the argument preceding the dream one, where he states that “the senses do sometimes deceive us.” Knowledge obtained through reason alone, such as arithmetic or geometry, survives his dream argument, as opposed to knowledge obtained from physical sciences, such as “physics, astronomy, medicine, and all the other disciplines that are dependent upon the consideration of composite things.”

By way of evaluating Descartes’ argument so as to establish its success or lack thereof, I think that there is justification for Descartes’ argument. Our waking experiences do sometimes resemble our dream ones, and the images such as of animals, people, objects and so forth which we are confronted with in our dreams are often similar to those we encounter in situations when we are awake. Also, the emotions that dream experiences occasion in us correspond to the ones waking experiences engender in us; and we even carry over emotions deriving from dream experiences into waking situations. Hence, even though eminent philosopher Thomas Hobbes in this regard has contrarily stated thus: “upon waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts; I am well satisfied that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake,” Descartes nonetheless makes a valid and convincing argument.

One objection that may be raised with regard to Descartes’ dream argument may be lucidity of perception, and Descartes in fact raises it himself. Descartes states thus: “But perhaps, even though the senses do sometimes deceive us when it is a question of very small and distant things, still there are many other matters concerning which one simply cannot doubt, even though they are derived from the very same senses.” He goes further to illustrate the foregoing: “for example, that I am sitting here next to the fire, wearing my winter dressing gown, that I am holding this sheet of paper in my hands, and the like.” He shows in the subsequent lines of the text how doubting these lucid perceptions, perceptions close to his immediate range of vision as opposed to perceptions of distant objects that usually appear to be of a different size than they are when nearer to our immediate range of vision, would be apparently impossible. He also states: “But right now my eyes are certainly awake when I gaze upon this sheet of paper. This head which I am shaking is not heavy with sleep. I extend this hand consciously and deliberately, and I feel it. Such things would not be so distinct for someone who is asleep.” And so, it would appear that lucidity of perception presents a sure and definite way of distinguishing between dreaming and wakefulness. 

Yet Descartes responds to this objection subsequently when he states as follows, with reference to the former illustration: “This would be all well and good, were I not a man who is accustomed to sleeping at night and to experiencing in my dreams the very same things or now and then even less plausible ones, as these insane people do when they are awake. How often (for example) does my evening slumber persuade me of such ordinary things as these: that I am here, clothed in my dressing gown, seated next to the fireplace – when in fact I am lying undressed in bed!” The reference to insane people here concerns his earlier position of supposedly being unable to deny perceptions of objects within his immediate range of vision, objects such as his very hands; his clothing and habitus (to borrow Aristotle’s terminology); his sitting beside the fire, and so on; proximate, lucid and tangible realities, as it were, save he were mad.

 

He states with reference to the foregoing: “Unless perhaps I were to liken myself to the insane, whose brains are impaired by such an unrelenting vapor of black bile that they steadfastly insist that they are kings when they are utter paupers, or that they are arrayed in purple robes when they are naked, or that they have heads made of clay, or that they are gourds, or that they are made of glass.” He also says, with specific reference to the latter illustration: “As if I did not recall having been deceived on other occasions by similar thoughts in my dreams.” And so it would appear that the lucidity of perception objection does not undermine Descartes’ dream argument after all. 

Another objection is common to most people, and a number of individuals can testify to having had such experiences as I subsequently describe: It concerns the ability to feel emotions when a person is asleep and dreaming. The feeling of pain and other such tangible, unmistakably touching emotions, it would seem, distinguishes dreaming from wakefulness, as they are easily experienced in the latter. But there are some dreams that are so phenomenal that we do experience the feeling of pain while engaged in them, even though asleep. So, even this objection does not undermine the dream argument. Ultimately then, I think that Descartes makes a successful argument and, because I am persuaded of this, I can find no other “proper conclusion” to the dream argument.