We spoke earlier on the Lent reflection thread about that moment when Jesus cries out 'My God, why hast thou forsaken me?? I mentioned that it was important to me that at that moment Jesus did feel entirely bereft of God. And I said that his desolation at that point was a symbol of the experience of atheism, of a universe empty of God.
I still want to talk about that, but I don?t want to clog up the Lent thread, which has moved on to other themes this week.
I want to mention a small but rather joyful experience that I had while walking the dog on this bright spring morning. As usual I was admiring the spontaneous joy my dog has in so many things. He doesn?t stop to ask why he chases a stick or a rabbit. He is simply acting out his instincts and experiencing the pleasure that evolution programmes into the activity.
We are different. We ask ?Why, what value does it have?? for all of the actions we perform. We are reflective beings, and reflection is ?desacralising? (is that a word?) ? desecrating (that?s a word). That is, it takes the value out of the action: it places it in the reason for the action. So that the value of everything becomes dependant on the discovery of some ultimate, something which is of value in itself.
And once we are deprived of the ancient myths and mesmerizing traditions that give traditional societies clear (illusory) answers about ultimate value, we ? or many of us ? come up against the absence of any compelling answer. Why live? (?What value does our living have??) We have all our instrumental aims ? we work to feed the children, etc. But what actions have intrinsic value?
That question is a separation. My dog is immersed in what he does. I have been torn apart from what I do.
And not only from what I do, I?ve been torn apart from everything ? the bright spring morning. What value does that have? When we reflect on anything we take it as the object of our understanding. We stand apart from it. And reflection on the bright spring morning, on the material universe, teaches us causes but it does not teach us reasons for its existence. So again, it is desacralising, desecrating.
Our thoughtfulness, our intellect, destroys a happy union with ourselves and our surroundings. And that of course is what is conveyed in the story of the Garden of Eden. The evolutionary significance of our intelligence is that it makes us highly adaptive ? it gives us choices so that we can shape our survival techniques to a variety of situations. It gives us free will. If my dog asked ?Why chase sticks?? he would be thrown out of Eden too.
I haven?t got to my small joyful experience yet but the post is already too long. I?ve only got as far as indicating that Jesus? desolation in the cross is the encapsulation of an awful separation that we are doomed to as a species. The absolute loss of value, loss of sacredness. Christianity has the immense value of stating that loss. And the next question is whether and how it redeems it.
Is anyone interested in pursuing this further at all?