So having recently completed a book titled Mere Humanity: G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Human Condition by Donald T. Williams, I have decided to write about my own musings on the matter s discussed in the book. Half of this book dealt with looking at what it means to be Human by examining the various works of probably the three greatest Christian writers of the first half of the twentieth century. The book does not really look at Evolution as Williams argues that even if we did evolve from apes there is still the necessity for a Divine interjection, due to the various qualities to Humanity that are not natural – in the sense that we could have gotten them from nature. Two of them that stood out to me (or at least they are the only two I really remember) is our fascination with stories, and our creation of “unnecessary” art.
First I will deal with the latter so that people don’t get angry at me for calling art unnecessary and completely disregarding the rest of this post. Most of this argument comes from the chapter on G.K. Chesterton’s “The Everlasting Man” (supposedly a good book, I am hoping to read it soon). Now, let us be honest, it is completely legitimate to call art unnecessary because it does not fulfill any of the basic human needs. Yet still people have created, continue to create and probably will always continue to create art. We carve statues of long lost heroes; we paint our homes with scenes of our favourite activities or mythical creatures. It is something that humanity has done since out first steps on this earth. This is important because no other species on this planet does this. Robins do not have statues of famous robins in front of their nests; apes do not paint any masterpieces of note (some have painted “abstract” art but that is just hogwash). So if this propensity for art did not come from the natural development it must come from something outside nature. Both Chesterton and Williams attribute this to God and the fact that he made us in His image; I agree with this point. One only has to look at the creative wonder of the natural world to see God’s skill as an artist. Sunsets painted with majestic, warming hues; the Northern Lights dancing poetically across the night sky.
In a similar manner, God is the greatest storyteller of all time. The Bible is full of tales of God’s love and other wonderful adventures. In similar fashion humanity is fascinated with stories; we read to our kids at bedtime, we recite epic poetry in grand feasting halls, even something as mundane as sharing about our day is a form of storytelling. It is through this creative faculty that was implemented in us by God that helps to further separate us from beasts. In connection with this is the use of language. In Genesis we are given an account of God speaking life into existence; this always fascinated me when I learned of its implications early in my university life. At first I thought of it as an “interesting factoid to bring up at cocktail parties”, as my one prof always says. This factoid is that by mentioning that God spoke the world into existence shows that early Jewish culture was predominantly literate. However, since reading “Mere Humanity” it has garnered more significance. This is because in order to speak, one must have a language to say something in and so what we have in Genesis is an account of the first language created. Now as I write this I am reminded of something that I learned in my History of Magic class. That is that throughout the ages, from the Classical to the Enlightenment (I suspect beyond that I just do not know for sure) words have power. In Western tradition (unfortunately I know next to nothing about the Far East and so cannot comment on it) words are viewed by some people to have magical powers. This also occurred in learned circles, and for these practitioners the older the language the better because it was closer to the language spoken by God; which is where they thought the power came from. So why do I bring this up you ask? Well for one I find it fascinating. For another and more to the point, I think that words still are “magical”. Now I do not mean in the sense that if I say the right words in the right order that it will cure cancer. No, what I mean is that they have the ability to transport us to faraway lands, the can cause us to tear up with overwhelming delight, and make courage rise within us in order to face life’s most frightening moments. They can, however, be used for evil; to destroy someone so completely that they end their own life, and convince others to ruthlessly slaughter thousands of innocent people. Humans are both blessed and cursed with the ability to create languages. I do not think that any other species does that, sure some of the more intelligent species might have a simple code of communication but none have alphabets nor as many forms of communicating ideas. In fact I think that for most animals, the only real forms of communication they have are body language and touch. These do not come near, nor will they ever have the ability to write plays like Shakespeare, love poems like Keats, or novels like Jane Austen. Storytelling is a trait that is unique to God and Humans. On a brief side note before I finish this point, an argument could be made that chimpanzees have been taught to use and understand sign language. Well yes, they have but who developed the language? And who taught it to them? Humans did, so well some animals can learn languages it is humanity’s prerogative to create them. Plus it should also be noted that it is a very specific and simplified version of sign language that chimps are taught.
The second half of “Mere Humanity” dealt with two things; CS Lewis’ literary theory, and the problem of postmodernism. Now I want to deal with postmodernism because it is a big issue and I thought the book brought up some good points I wanted to share. One of the big problems that Williams addresses is that many Christians label themselves as postmodern without fully understanding the philosophical implications of this. Now my understanding of postmodernism is that it holds to the tenant that we cannot know Truth; that everything is relative. All notions of good, evil, beautiful, sublime, and ugly are merely subjective statements about one’s own feelings. So as a Christian it is impossible to hold this view, philosophically, as God tells us that there is Good and Evil. Genesis 2:9 talks of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and again in verse 17 “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (NIV) The position of saying that there is moral Truth is often called traditionalism; I personally hold to traditionalism which despite some false representation still asks questions, as Williams puts it “questioning is not the end itself. It has value in so far as purer gold is desirable”. Both modern and postmodern philosophy, however, reject moral Truth and as such are not able to say whether or not events like the crusades or 9/11 were evil; only that they have bad feelings about them. This argument from feeling, in a philosophical argument, has no meaning, no value; it is a personal opinion that need not apply to all people. This is not to say that modern and postmodern philosophers cannot live moral lives, only that in living the moral life they merely did what they thought was good and for no other reason.
So how does this concern the Church body? Well first off we need to recognize that postmodernism has taken a hold in the West (although some areas of the world there is a move towards ultra-modernism). As such I feel that all Christians need to at least have some basic understanding of apologetics. I do agree with the common sentiment that Churches do need to change how we deliver the Message; but we must not be compromising about the Message. Some churches have turned to much towards postmodernism offering a “build-your-own-Gospel” approach which is completely against what Jesus says; “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 NIV). So well I agree that churches need to adapt to the surrounding culture, we also need to stick to our guns and make sure we hold onto the Truth of the Message.
P.S. I really enjoyed Mere Humanity and would recommend it to anyone wanting to get an intro look into some of the writings of the three greatest Christian writers of the twentieth century. There is one point that really annoyed about the book though, and that was in the section on postmodernism, he casts the traditionalist as male and the postmodern as female. I thought this was in rather bad taste as the point would have been just as effective if he used gender-neutral language, or had both characters of the same gender.
