Believing From Within

Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote about a character called Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov. Doystoyevski portrays this character as someone who is not an intellectual heavyweight but is still able to find great meaning in life. A common problem for writers seeking to portray inwardly significant characters is that inward greatness is hard to appreciate in our world (and maybe impossible to recognize in another person). Most people, such as the Apostle Thomas, seem to live their lives on the basis of what can be verified by evidence. But Alyosha is different.

Without further ado here is the passage:

... It seems to me that Alyosha was even more of a realist than anyone. Oh, it cannot be denied that in the monastery he believed completely in miracles, but in my experience miracles never bother a realist. It is not miracles that incline a realist towards faith.

The true realist, if he is not a believer, will invariably find within himself the strength and the ability not to believe in miracles either, and if a miracle stands before him as an incontrovertible fact, he will sooner disbelieve his senses than admit that fact. And even if he does admit it, it will be as a fact of nature, but one that until now has been obscure to him. In the realist it is not faith that is born of miracles, but miracles of faith. Once the realist believes, his realism inexorably comples him to admit miracles too.

The Apostle Thomas declared that he would not believe until he saw, and when he saw, said: 'My Lord and my God.' Was it the miracle that had made him believe? The likeliest explanation is that it was not, and that he came to believe for the sole reason that he wanted to believe and, perhaps, in the inmost corners of his being already fully believed, even when he said: 'Except I shall see ... I will not believe.'

To put the believing in terms of the inside versus the outside: the problem is not that people have a hard time accepting truth in the external world. On the contrary, people have a hard time accepting the truth they keep deep, down in the basement of their hearts.

For Dostoyevsky the reason to accept or deny a view is simply whether or not one wants to accept or deny the view. The evidence often turns out to be merely a diversion to overlook ones wishes in hope of finding acceptance in the eyes of others.

But the life of devotion is personally conscious of what it longs to believe. As the writer of Hebrews said of faith, "It is certain of what is unseen. This is what the ancients were commended for."

The Hidden Son of Man

Rene Magritte (1898-1967) was a Belgian artist known for his unusual style. Three years before his death he painted a work he called "The Son of Man". The picture features a man in a suit with a bowler cap. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the piece is the fruit that seems to be floating over the man's face.

Most of the objects in the painting look fairly ordinary. The suit was probably an ordinary thing for a person to wear in Magrittes' day. The wall, the sky, even the fruit seem like ordinary walls, skies, and fruits.

The apple over the face is a little unexpected, though.

Magritte's comment on the piece is:

Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, but it is impossible. Humans hide their secrets too well...

Camus writes in The Myth of Sysaphus that it is hard to tell what is going on inside a person. One does not know whether a woman crossing the street is in high spirits or whether she is simply a good actress.

Like the Son of Man painting, people often had a hard time seeing the real Jesus Christ. When looking at Jesus some saw a future political leader. Others saw Moses or Elijah.

In Mark 8 Jesus asked Peter who he found Jesus to be. Peter answered, "You are the Christ". In other words he believed Jesus was the Messiah - sent specifically by God to save His people. Jesus told Peter, "Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you."

In the same way that we cannot see the man in the Son of Man painting with our eyes, we cannot see Jesus Christ with our physical eyes of flesh and blood.

Magritte finds that is impossible to see who is really there underneath everything. The recognition of another person's identity is truly a miracle. And to see oneself, one must not look at the exterior (as the world sees the apple), but as God sees oneself.

"By their fruit you will know them."

The most we can see about the Son of Man in the painting (other than his hands and clothes) is the fruit blocking his face from our view. We do not have the priviledged perspective of the painter who sees his subjects barefaced.

Jesus tells us the best we can do now to recognize others is to see their fruit. This is not the same thing as seeing people as they are before God ... to see their hidden thoughts and underlying priorities.

The fruit one bears is an indirect communication of the spirit cultivating the fruit. When Jesus manifested himself to people on earth, he usually wasn't clothed in the luminant shining robes of heaven -or however you fancy they dress in heaven. His clothing was regular human clothing that did not directly express his divinity.

In his earthly ministry, Christ's expression of his identity was in the way he cared for others and served them through healing, teaching (usually parables), and demonstrating a righteous life.

So too a disciple of Christ cannot effecively assert his association by loud proclamations and ingenious super-human arguments. Jesus told his disciples: "They will know you are my disciples if you love one another." A disciple of Christ must learn to communicate his standing before God indirectly: by loving God and his neighbor.

Esthetics: A Footnote To God's Love

One of the strangest things I find in life is the way good looks can command attention, and yet how vain and deceitful they are in the absence of a devoted heart. The following quote is taken from Fear and Trembling III.145. The text is from a part of a footnote, but a sobering footnote indeed!

Esthetics just sees to it that the lovers find each other and does not concern itself about the rest. If only it would see what happens afterwards, but it has no time for that and promptly proceeds to slap a new pair of lovers together. Of all the branches of knowledge, esthetics is the most faithless. Anyone who has really loved it becomes in one sense unhappy, but he who has never loved it is and remains a dumb brute.
-Silento

So many fashion magazines ... so little zeal.

But did he believe?

So often when a person is told about the kingdom of God, they have empirical questions. "Where is the evidence of the flood?", "How do we know Jesus even existed historically?", "How old is the earth?".

And so Christians think, "If we can show these people the signs of heaven, then they'll want heaven to be in them. It will happen so naturally we will hardly need to tell them about it."

And this gives birth to two activities: natural theology and apologetics.

Perhaps one of the best apologists ever was that Jewish leader Nicodemus.

Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night. Perhaps we may suspect his timing as a lack of confidence, but Nicodemus explains things differently:

"Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."

Nicodemus explains his "assuredness" to visit Jesus at night:

"Seeing is believing" + "I saw Jesus perform supernatural actions" = "Jesus is supernatural"

What could be simpler than that? But Jesus appears to explain things differently:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

There are a couple unusual things about Christ's statement. The first is this state where one is "born again". Jesus singlehandedly takes a word "born" with a commonly understood meaning and makes it mean something totally different.

The second unusual aspect of Christ's words is the way he claims "seeing" the kingdom of God is a matter of who you are.

Most everything in the physical world is empirically verifiable. For example, the existence of the statue of liberty is empirically verifiable. As long as you can see the statue of liberty you can be sure it exists.

It doesn't matter what kind of person you are, when you look across the New York harbor you can see the statue of liberty. Some people find truth more profound the more everyone can see it.

It is different in the world of the spirit. These physical factors contribute to other physical factors, but, "The spirit gives birth to the spirit."

Jesus tells Nicodemus he should not be surprised - he must be born again.

Nicodemus thought he had totally "figured out" who Jesus is. He had thought it through, and he had an interesting argument to assert who Jesus is.

He had an argument. The believability of the argument rested on the signs and on seeing.

In Jesus' world however, believing is seeing.

The Mob Media

The media shows the tiniest percentage of what people do. There are millions and millions of people doing wonderful things all over the world, and they're generally not the ones being touted in the news.
Fred Rogers

I find there are two things to be taken from Mister Roger's observation.

The first is that if I'm going to really do something wonderful, it implies very few -if anyone- will notice it. Yet if I do something wonderful I find that I am more accepting of my choices ... and God is as well.

To be together with God on something doesn't exactly make a large group of people. And yet isn't it a blessed thing?

Everyone seems to want their fifteen minutes of fame, but who is willing to be obscure?

Who is willing to lead a life of devotion when no one is watching?
The other thing I find true in this passage is that the writings of the press (which always express the most apparent most interesting information) are hardly of consequence.

"That which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God."
Luke 16:15b

Sure the press reports on things that are "nice to know". The news tells us about things like foreign relations, the price of oil, and the next thing at the movies.

After having lived in Europe for some time I was greatly disappointed to see the role of the media there. People in Europe seem to evaluate everything (public figures, the government, morality, romance) on the basis of how popular it is. And to find this in a place that also brought us Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, and Sartre.

If a person wants to do something wonderful (and if he is devoted to this task) does this not also mean he will gladly sacrifice for this wonderful thing? And will he not be willing to endure the scorn of his generation for his devotion?

Popularity and global attention is no advantage to such a person.

Time will come to an end. Our lives will be laid bare before eternity, and how much will we wish we understood those things better? How much general news-worthy knowledge will we be responsible for?

Riddles of the Sphinx

Last sunday I watched an excellent movie, Mystery Men, with my family. Mystery Men is about a group of superheros who simply do not measure up to the public's view of what a superhero should be. Instead of a lot of action and special effects we are shown characters who are simply trying to relate to themselves and each other.

The film was refreshing for several reasons, particularly because of Mr. Furious' (Ben Stiller) relationship with a waitress (Claire Forlani) - which had some solid things to say about what it means to love. The writing is absurd (bizarre at times) but often hilarious. In my opinion the acting is also superb.

My favorite part of the movie is the character of "The Sphinx". When one of the mystery men ask what his superpower is, he is told, 'He's very mysterious ... and he can break guns in half with his mind ... I think ...".

The focus of the story really is on a few people with good intentions who have become outsiders. And the Sphinx is the most outlying character of them all.

It turns out the Sphinx really has the power to break guns in half with his mind, but this is not his true ability. His real super power is that he can break (in a sense) the minds of his oponents in half.

Ordinarily super heros tend to focus on their abilties, but the Sphinx overlooks the art for the beholder of the art. In doing so he turns logic upside down in a way which is somehow more true than the other world. Here is a small list of his aphorisms during the movie:

You are not ready to face so great an enemy. Not until you have vanquished the enemy within yourselves.

The wise man knows that he is weakest when he thinks himself strong.

He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions.

When you doubt your powers, you give power to your doubts.

Patience, my son. To summon your power for the conflict
to come, you must first have power over that which conflicts you.

A perspective like this (and not the batmobile or a beatiful super villainess) is what contours the greatness of the best super hero mythologies such as Batman.

In stories like these we are taken away to an exciting adventuresome place and then placed back into our own lives without us becoming aware of it.

The obstacles I face at my job (for example) often appear impossible to deal with. I look at them and say, "I'll never be able to conquer this!" But the victorious worker is the one who looks inside at his choices and sees that if he can only obtain that single power of self-control he will prevail.

And I find the true hero (as the characters found in Mystery Men) is not the one with the greatest appearance but the one who has learned to confront his doubts, his indulgences, his every inclination to do what the circumstances tell him to do, and is not carried away by them.

The Big Solution

So often people look at Christianity and say, "Well, what kind of system is that supposed to be?" And, "How can we accept ideas like that?" And, "How can we make this into a form of government?".

Somehow these questions do not bring us any solutions to our problems - perhaps because these questions are the cause of our problems.

At some place I think everyone is well aware that life is mysterious. To some this is a very frustrating thing - an everlasting source of despair in fact. To others this is a beautiful, wonderful aspect of life.

Life is mysterious - perhaps one of the greatest mysteries. And so is love. When some people see love they rejoice! They say, "Here it is! This is the thing I have been searching for but could not describe!"

When we ask some of the "Why?" questions at God I think we should note a few things that are not His answer to our problems:

- A better government
- Explanations
- Education
- Technology
- A system of any kind

God's solution to our problems was a single, individual: Jesus Christ.

So the next time you face hardship remember that God's solution was not "better planning" or "better ideas" but a living person, Jesus Christ. And if you want to continue showing God's love in the spirit of His solution you need to also become a living person. You need to become like Jesus Christ.