The God Blogger

2:30am. Friday, October 25, 2013. My House in Lincoln, NE.

Philosophy and philosophers are often faced with the “God question.” It seems only natural that those who spend most of their time speculating in some way or another about the nature of the universe would get the lovely task of having to deal with one of the largest concerns of human history – Is there a God? If there is a God, then what is God like?

Honestly, I’ve avoided this issue in recent years mostly because in past years I made it my entire existence. I’ve had so many opinions about God I can no longer keep them straight in my head; I’ve known everything from “there is no God, we just made it up to feel better,” to “there’s only one God and everyone who believes something different will find themselves in an unfortunate eternal hell.” I’ve had deeper convictions in these views than most other things I take to be true and strangely enough I’ve been equally and profoundly convinced by both extremes at times in my life.

Religion is of little help. Often we find ourselves swept up by these traditions of God, taken in by kind communities, enamored with their seemingly unwavering dedication or charmed by smiling clergy and irrefutable arguments. These things captivated me at certain times and repulsed me at others. No matter what, I find myself constantly on the defense and also playing devil’s advocate against the religious views of myself and others. It’s quite annoying…to both others and myself.

And once we stop looking within or looking to priests, rabbis, imams and pastors we sometimes find ourselves asking the “God question” with our most trusted (non-clergy) friends and family. I find that this too is a bit of a crapshoot. I know many atheists whom I trust and admire, and I know Christians that are just as trustworthy and admirable, I met a Hindu once that I’m still convinced was some type of angel. As much as I love my friends and family I know that the “God question” aches for certainty in them just as much as it does in me. None of us can be more certain than another.

So here’s the answer to the “God question” … just kidding, as always I have no answers, only thoughts. What’s most interesting is that regardless of our level of certainty we can find ourselves filing the “God question” away in the envelope marked “stuff that doesn’t matter.” If you think I’m wrong or I’ve thoroughly pissed you off I’m sorry but it is often in a moment of overwhelming grief, agony or distress that we stop asking ourselves whether or not God exists or if God cares about us and we start hedging our bets in the form of prayer to whatever might be out there. Also, in similar moments of overwhelming grief, agony or distress we can stop believing with such unshakable determinacy in whatever God we believe in. Suddenly, it’s just whatever seems most immediately pragmatic that we start clinging to like a ring buoy in an endless ocean.

We look to the “God question” to address some of our most pragmatic moral and metaphysical concerns and to provide some comfort in this often uncomfortable world. Yet, the “God question” is frequently neither pragmatic nor comforting. I know a pastor that, when asked certain questions about the nature or existence of God will answer in four words, slowly, raising a finger for every word in order to imply the gravity of each of them – “I (and up goes his thumb) do (index finger) not (middle) know (ring).” While it is tempting to offer this same answer to the “God question,” as I said before I will not be offering answers.   

Rather, I will refer to this personal anecdote: I have a tattoo on my back that very few people know about, it’s a black and grey picture of stones I found while walking on the beach when I was fifteen. The stones are in the shape of a cross. I got it on my eighteenth birthday. It represents one of those rare moments of clarity one can sometimes have; when I found those stones I was so thoroughly assured, for just a moment, of the nature and existence of God. And yes, that assurance waivers significantly and I cannot deny that. However, I have another tattoo as well, this is one that most people who know me are aware of – it’s an outline of a dove and it’s on my right ankle. I got it when I was 21 and it represents all the other moments of life that are not so clear, it is the spirit of what is in-between human and divine.

When it comes to the “God question” I think the moment often dictates a particular answer – we are the stones or the dove.

Facing Philosophy

6:49pm Sunday October 6, 2013. The Mill Coffee House in Lincoln, Nebraska.

So this is a post that’s been in the works for a while now. I  would like to talk about the difference between philosophy in college and philosophy in grad school (as always though, it seems to go beyond just that). This difference became most apparent to me when I  brought my first paper to a professor’s office hours to discuss it. It was my third draft but it was the first time I  was showing it to a faculty member. He didn’t even have to look at it. I  told him my thesis: given one professional philosopher’s account of accidents and another professional philosopher’s account of knowledge I’m going to show that the two accounts are incompatible and thats why we can’t have knowledge by accident. Okay, it was a little more technical but thats the gist, for all the non-philosophers out there. This was his response:

“That’s fine, but I’m just not sure where you’re making an original contribution.”

The words just hung there, kind of like they do here. They sit in a puddle of white space in my head echoing like the voice of God. I knew instantly that this was the difference between college and grad school. I  wanted to cry. I  wanted to call my mom. I  wanted to run to the other grad students and have them explain to me how they’ve managed to make these brilliant contributions and tell me it was all going to be okay. More than anything though, I  wanted to hide.

I  was so embarrassed, here I  am trying to prove myself, thinking I’ve done something when I’ve really just written a glorified book report. Now I’m expected to say something no one else has said before and I  wonder if I’m prepared. I  wonder if I  can do this. Until now I  have only been expected to make sense of other professional’s research and now I  guess it’s up to me to make my own way. Now, there’s this professor standing in front of me saying “yes, but now you are the professional philosopher and you ought to have something to say.”

It’s humbling to say the least.

Yet as small as I feel right now, it’s not a bad thing; it’s an opportunity to rise to a challenge. This is where I  can become a better writer, better philosopher, better student than I have ever been before. And I  live in Nebraska so it’s not like I have anything better to do.

Where do I come off, you may ask, getting all sunshine and roses on a largely terrifying situation like this? Part of me wants to say, I have no idea and that I’m nuts to be so optimistic. There’s another part of me that knows though, it’s because I saw Tamar Gendler speak this past week.

For those of you who don’t know who Tamar Gendler is, she is this awesome philosopher and professor at Yale who works mostly in the areas of epistemology, philosophical psychology, metaphysics and philosophical methodology. Dr. Gendler visited our department this past week and I  was lucky enough to see her speak twice and to go out to lunch with her (while at the same time freaking out that I’m massively incapable of contributing anything to my chosen field of study). While her work is fascinating, it wasn’t anything that she said specifically that leaves me feeling so optimistic. It was something she did.

During her first presentation something went wrong with her powerpoint slides such that they were cut in half and the top of the slide was on the bottom of the screen and the bottom of the slide was on the top of the screen… for every single slide. She wasn’t put off in the slightest though, she laughed at her own misfortune and actually had the entire audience laughing at it too, and she simply forged ahead with confidence. All I  could think to myself was, “wow, I  hope I’m that good someday.”

And then it occurred to me - so much of my work, in philosophy and in life isn’t going to be determined by my ability to be constantly excellent. Inevitably things will go wrong, challenges will arise, I  will run into walls, my work won’t seem to be making any original contributions, my powerpoint slides will be hacked up and garishly rearranged, and what’s really going to matter in the end is how I  took it on.

It’s true, most of the time I  have no idea what the hell I’m doing and on the rare occasion that I  have salient ideas, something else outside of my control usually goes wrong. What matters more is being able to pick myself up, having confidence in my own character and forging ahead. In the end, I  know that I  am capable and so I  have every reason to be optimistic. I  think.