In the transition from liking someone to falling in love with them there is the recognition of a previously unseen property in the beloved that transcends all their other traits. They may be attractive, interesting and creative, but the confession of unconditional devotion cannot arise in response to any of these.

If someone asks why you love them there is something obscene in the mere listing of traits. For while these may contribute to your connection with the other, love addresses something deeper. It is attached to a property unlike all other properties. I may like you because you are attractive, interesting and creative, but I love you because you are you. Because there is something excessive about you that emanates from the totality of your attributes but which cannot be reduced to them.

And yet, before the lover discovers this sacred property in their beloved, this x which elicits their martyrdom cannot be said to exist. In truth it comes into existence in the very act of acknowledging its presence. For example, two people could agree utterly about the characteristics of a particular person and yet one might be in love with them while the other merely likes them. For the lover there is something transcendent which illuminates the being of their beloved that cannot be pointed out to one who is not taken up by it.

This sacred property is not then something that stands beside other properties as some-thing which can be acknowledged by people in some detached manner. To acknowledge it is not only to call it forth into being, but to be utterly transfigured by it. It is that elusive some-no-thing that cannot be found on an operating table or through some psychological evaluation.

The existence of this x in the other demands our total response. As such the stereotypical Hollywood relationship, with its prenuptial arrangements, can never be described as love.

But, of course, relationships do dissolve and love affairs do end. So what is one to say?

Here we must avoid the common response of pointing out that nothing lasts forever, that things change, etc. etc. The lover is rightly bemused when confronted with such ideas. Not because they are incorrect, but because they do not grasp the absolute nature of love.

We must be more precise in our reflections. When one no longer recognizes the sacred property that emanates from the other, that property no longer exists. More than this, it never existed.

This means that we should reject the idea that it continues to exist after it is no longer recognized. But we must also reject the notion that it did exist up until the time that it is no longer recognized. It exists only in the act of its acknowledgement and disappears from all of history the moment it is no longer perceived in the present.

In order to understand this let us reflect upon what happens at the end of a relationship. Imagine a woman has fallen out of love with the person she has been seeing and starts a new relationship. And let us imagine that the man is still in love. In this state her presence evokes a deep suffering. Ensuring that a normal friendship is impossible. The man, or course, may choose this suffering as preferable to no contact at all, and even hold onto it throughout his life. But the point is that, in this state, he is still in love and a friendship is thus precluded.  In this state she still has the sacred property that elicits his desire. She remains everything, even though she has left.

However, if the day comes when he could actually be friends without the suffering a fundamental loss has taken place. He is now able to appreciate her various properties, but without the sacred x (what in Lacanian analysis is called the objet a). It is gone. Yet it is not something that he can recognize as having once existed. If he is able to perceive it at all, even as something past, then this means he recognizes it in the present moment and thus that he is in love. Instead the ex-lover can say, “I see why I liked them, but I can’t quite put my finger on why I loved them?”

In Michel Gondry’s 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind two former lovers erase all trace of the other from their minds after a painful breakup. But when they happen to meet again they immediately fall in love once more. Why? Because the procedure was unable to erase the one thing that mattered. What the couple really were seeking was a way of erasing the objet a. In that case they would not have to erase any memories whatsoever for the memories would be drained of that which gave them such dark power in the first place.

Once the objet a passes out of existence (like an object being erased from a photo) one is able to see all the properties that one liked about the other, but without the property that drove them into love. It is as if it has been removed from the past.

This is why there would be something inappropriate about a marriage ceremony full of caveats and promises like, “I will love you until I get bored and then we will live together unhappily for a few years until I finally leave”. But it is also naive to think that separations will not happen.

The point is a simple one. When there is love the end of love is impossible. Why? Because when the end comes the love that was never happened.

These thoughts are inspired by my reflections on Žižek’s work on love

I was recently interviewed by Rob Bell in Grand Rapids. Here is the audio,

Peter Rollins at Mars Hill

Here is the opening blessing from the Insurrection tour. Written and spoken by Pádraig ô Tuama.

I am currently preparing for a four day intensive course in theology for Wesley Seminary in Washington DC starting this Monday. For those of you attending the course outline looks something like this (I have placed the primary thinkers for each lecture in brackets),

—

Monday

An “Ontological” argument for the existence of God (Anselm)

Cosmological arguments for the existence of God (Aquinas)

A Teleological argument for the existence of God (Aquinas)

—

Tuesday

The Critique of Onto-theology (Heidegger and Barth)

Existential faith (Kierkegaard and Pascal)

The death of God (Nietzsche)

—

Wednesday

Theology as Anthropology (Feuerbach)

Religion as an Opiate (Marx)

Religion as Wish-Fulfilment (Frued)

—

Thursday

Radical Theology (Tillich, Bonhoeffer, Altizer)

Mystical Theology (Henry, Marion)

Weakness Theology (Caputo, Vattimo)

While spending some time in LA I was asked by someone what the goal of my work was. Or rather, what I was wanting to offer people through the collectives I was helping to establish. This is a question that I have been reflecting on a lot recently.

Some of these reflections have been fed by Freud’s potent comment that he sought to transform human misery into general unhappiness. This goal can seem quite depressing at first glance. However I think that there is also something profoundly powerful nestled in this modest aim. Freud never offered people the usual snake oil. He never claimed that if we just follow a certain dogma, engage in a prescribed set of practices, buy a particular product etc. we would banish depression and find happiness and fulfilment. Rather he merely held out the possibility that we might be able to face up to life in all of its beauty and horror. Embracing it by saying “yes” when it would be so easy to say “no”. He helped people face up to their trauma’s and bear their weight. Indeed he pointed to ways in which we might be able to turn them to our own benefit.

Occasionally churches offer potential converts a life of fulfilment and happiness in exchange for answering an altar call and engaging in some spiritual practices. And indeed often ecstasy of some kind accompanies the initial response to an altar call. An ecstasy however that tends to dissipate quickly, leaving the new convert to attempt ever more bizarre practices to return to the initial high.

In the collectives that I am part of such promises are avoided. Rather the good news comes down to offering people the possibility of facing up to their suffering and darkness and sharing them with others in some (often ritualistic) way. The good news is found in offering those present the space to face their anxieties (rather than repressing them or falling into dispair) and develop the courage to embrace them. This of course is not something that brings in the masses. Stadiums are more often filled by smiling men in good suits offering a lot more (in exchange for a little cash).

This is a subject that I shall be exploring more in the coming years. But for now I will leave you with this parable from The Orthodox Heretic which hints at what I think the good news might look like (click here for another parables, not my own, which also touches on this issue).

There was once an old man named Benoni who had known great misfortune through life, having lost his wife and children to poverty, disease, and war. The many lines on his face betrayed his pain, and his heart was filled with sorrow and regret. Indeed he barely had the strength to carry on.

But there was one who had drawn alongside him in his sorrow. His comforter was the village blacksmith, a strong but caring man who exhibited a gentle, humble, and charitable way of life. People knew very little about this blacksmith, as he was a quiet man who had moved into the town only a few years before. Yet he was well liked by the community and would often be found sitting on the porch of his workshop, enjoying the midday sun and passing the time by engaging strangers in conversation. His face was strong and full of character, betraying both a depth of spirit and a breadth of experience. But it was also a kindly face that was set alight by his compassionate smile.

When Benoni lost his first child, the blacksmith called round to his home, put his hand on Benoni’s shoulder and with great affection said, “I am so sorry that you have suffered this grave misfortune. If you will allow me, I would like to stand with you at this time of hardship.”

Ever since this first encounter the blacksmith had called round to Benoni’s house most evenings, sometimes to sit and chat, sometimes to listen, and sometimes simply to leave food and other provisions. As each new calamity befell Benoni, the blacksmith would be there to speak and cry with.

One day when Benoni was particularly depressed he went to visit a pastor who lived in the heart of the city, so as to talk through what had taken place over the traumatic years and try to make sense of it. The pastor listened to what Benoni had to say and then, after a little thought, replied, “Well my son, in order for great fortune to take place one must first suffer great misfortune. The suffering you have faced is the price that has had to be extracted for strength of character, and a spirit forged in the fires of hell.”

So Benoni returned to his home alone, lit a fire in an attempt to take away the evening’s chill, and contemplated the words of the minister. Perhaps he is right, thought Benoni, maybe I should take some comfort from these words. But it is cold, I am alone, and words can offer no shoulder to rest on.”

Just then the blacksmith knocked on the door and Benoni, as always, welcomed him in. As they sat together they drank whiskey and talked long into the night. That evening Benoni shared the words of the pastor with his friend, adding, “Perhaps now that I have been given these words to comfort me, you no longer need to visit as you have done this last year.”

The blacksmith simply looked at the floor for a few moments and then replied, “My dear friend, if what the elder has said is true then I am needed all the more, for if you had to suffer such great misfortune in order to find strength of character and wealth of spirit, then this is in itself a great misfortune.”

And so they sat late into the night bringing comfort and warmth to each other through the sharing of their lives.

The hymn entitled ‘The Sweet By and By‘ was originally inspired by a comment made by Joseph Webster (who composed the music) to S. Fillmore Bennett in 1868. It was well known that Webster was a sensitive man who was prone to bouts of depression. Bennett writes that Webster had come to his place of business in a melancholy mood one day. When asked what the matter was Webster responded by saying, ‘It’s no matter, it will be all right by and by’.

Immediately Bennett was inspired and penned the words to the hymn. There and then Webster created a melody and within thirty minutes they were singing it together. The famous refrain from the hymn is,

—

In the sweet by and by

We shall meet on that beautiful shore;

In the sweet by and by

We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

—

For a man like Webster this song was able to help him turn away from his current problems by enabling him to imagine a heavenly realm where everything would be fixed. He was able to console himself in this life with thoughts of another.

It was left to the labour activist and songwriter Joe Hill (pictured above) to expose the problem with this hymn in his parody entitled ‘The Preacher and the Slave‘, written in 1911. He composed this song in resonse to the fact that migrant workers would often be greeted by this song (sung by the Salvation Army) as they returned to the city each evening, after having worked all day in dire conditions.

Songs like ‘The Sweet By and By’ communicated to these oppressed people that their life would begin after death and consoled them with the notion that one day, in the sweet by and by, they would be happy and content. The song did reflect the peoples suffering and it was a response to it, but it was a response that prevented action which would address the suffering (this is one of the points Marx makes in the introduction to his A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right).

In ‘The Preacher and the Slave’ Hill parodied the idea that we just needed to wait for another life after this one (this song is were the now famous phrase, ‘pie in the sky when you die’ derives from). For Hill life is possible before death, but only as we put our shoulder to the plough of historical struggle and fight for equality here and now.  And so he wrote this,

—

Long-haired preachers come out every night,

Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right;

But when asked how ’bout something to eat

They will answer in voices so sweet

Chorus (sung as a call and response)

You will eat [You will eat] bye and bye [bye and bye]

In that glorious land above the sky [Way up high]

Work and pray [Work and pray] live on hay [live on hay]

You’ll get pie in the sky when you die [That's a lie!]

And the Starvation Army, they play,

And they sing and they clap and they pray,

Till they get all your coin on the drum,

Then they tell you when you’re on the bum

(Chorus)

Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out

And they holler, they jump and they shout

Give your money to Jesus, they say,

He will cure all diseases today

(Chorus)

If you fight hard for children and wife-

Try to get something good in this life-

You’re a sinner and bad man, they tell,

When you die you will sure go to hell.

(Chorus)

Workingmen of all countries, unite

Side by side we for freedom will fight

When the world and its wealth we have gained

To the grafters we’ll sing this refrain

Chorus (modified)

You will eat [You will eat] bye and bye [bye and bye]

When you’ve learned how to cook and how to fry [How to fry]

Chop some wood [Chop some wood], ’twill do you good [do you good]

Then you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye [That's no lie]

—

Thanks to David Dark from pointing me in the direction of Joe Hill.

‘It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this’ Bertrand Russell

It was Aristotle who first defined human beings as rational animals. Without getting too deep into what Aristotle meant when he wrote this we can see how the idea informs the popular understanding of how education can help people undergo change.

For instance, when it comes to issues like environmental crisis, animal abuse, persecution of minorities etc. it is often said that what we need to do is get the truth out to as many people as possible. There will, of course, always be some who don’t care. But those who seek to be kind and loving individuals will be challenged by what they hear and endeavor to change. In this way documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc, and The Lottery help to positively impact society.

There are two basic reasons why this view is held. Firstly, such documentaries do generally tell us something that we don’t already know. Secondly, to a greater or lesser degree they seem to make a positive impact. However I would like to argue that this explanation misses something vital and, as such, fails to explain the phenomenon of resistance. Namely the situation in which people refuse to watch such documentaries (or engage in conversation about the issues they raise) by offering lame excuses, a host of unformulated arguments and/or visible bodily discomfort at the mere suggestion.

Of course there are many situations that we are genuinely ignorant of. But by the time a major film or book is released on some ethical subject it is generally the case that there is some knowledge about the issues among the general population. So, while such documentaries do indeed offer us information that we may not have known before, perhaps understanding their real power requires a more nuanced reading.

It is difficult to deny that offering information to people concerning ethically disgusting practices can facilitate change. But rather than this being connected with the idea that we now know something that we were previously ignorant of we must ask whether it might actually be because we can no longer pretend that we don’t know.

Hard as it might be for us to accept, what if we already know that our desire for cheap food and clothes feeds gross cruelty and suffering? What if we already know that the way we live is excessive and that there are ways to consume that minimise our damage on this earth? What if we already know that some of the things we desire are not worthy of our admiration?

At a basic level we might wish to pretend to those around us that we don’t know about something that would require us to change because we don’t want them to witness our more callous nature. However, at a more fundamental level, we are often attempting to pull the wool over our own eyes. Pretending to ourselves that we don’t know what we already know. In this situation we want to maintain a certain self-image and thus seek to surpress anything that would challenge it. The difference between not knowing and not wanting to know that we know is evidenced in the psychological phenomenon called Resistance.

Resistance is seen when, as mentioned above, people emotionally react to something that does not, in itself, need to be responded to in an emotional way. For instance there is a huge difference between someone not seeing a film on some challenging issue because they are genuinely busy and one who offers up a range of ridiculous excuses and half-baked arguments for why they are not attending.

To take an example of resistance I recently witnessed a conversation about hybrid cars in which one of the people took visible pleasure in pointing out that the enviromental impact of driving a new hybrid was much greater than that of driving a large, previously built, SUV. What was interesting was not the information itself but the way that the individual delivered it. The information was not given as a means of seriously forwarding the discussion concerning how we minimise our negative impact on the environment, but rather as a means of shutting down a conversation that was making that person feel uncomfortable about their own desires and lifestyle.

We witness a similar logic happening when, after the Second World War many civilians in Germany said that they did not know what was happening to their Jewish neigbours. This is no doubt true in the sense that they would not have known the full facts. However there were enough hints around to point to the reality that people actively tried to avoid finding out what was happening for fear that they would then need to act. Something most of us would have done if we had been there (because it is what most of us do today concerning all kinds of injustice).

So the issue here is not that we fail to know something, but rather that we don’t want to know that we know. For when we know that we know then we are forced to change our behaviour, offer embarrassing counter-arguments that make it obvious we don’t really care or simply admit our lack of concern (which is at least to be respected more than pretending that we do care).

This also has its corollary in religious issues. Many people avoid reading books that question their ideas on scripture, sexuality, the afterlife etc. because there is a part of them that already knows that their views are wishful thinking or unfounded. While resistance, with a little training, can be easy to spot in other people, it is more difficult when it comes to ourselves. However, when confronted with something that challenges us we must be sensitive to our own reactions, working out whether we experience emotional resistance and, if so, what it is we are hiding from ourselves.

I have recently been reading Jean-Michel Oughourlian’s beautifully crafted book The Genesis of Desire. A work that carefully blends the authors extensive psychiatric expertise, the theoretical depth of René Girard’s philosophical anthropology and recent developments in neuroscience to explore the interrelated themes of love, violence, and rivalry.

If one wishes to delve into the murky waters of our most intimate relationships to discover why they are often beset by the most intense obsession, conflicts, love triangles, compulsion, revulsion and jealousy (sometimes all at the same time) then you will enjoy this book.

Of course when it comes to such things as romantic love we can be wary of books that expose the inner workings of our most sublime feelings. But such knowledge does not have to rob love of its beauty. Something Oughourlian points out when he writes,

When we go to the theatre we certainly have no wish to see the gears hidden behind the scenery; we prefer to surrender ourselves to the pretence of the representation and not let ourselves be distracted from the pleasant illusion in which we are immersed. And yet, we know that it is an illusion, and that knowledge does not prevent us from experiencing each time a renewed pleasure, becoming once again an enchanted spectator

At its core this book offers a clear description of mimetic desire (the mechanism by which humans learn what to desire). By showing how our desire is always another’s desire (i.e. always connected with, constructed by and modified in light of other peoples desire) Oughourlian provides a way of understanding the origin of all human conflict and the birth of the concepts good and evil. An explanation that is supplemented by a subtle and interesting psychological commentary on the creation story found in Genesis.

I would like to offer a brief and partial reflection on the following quote from the theologian/philosopher Paul Tillich,

The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt

In order to approach this let us begin with the rather benign claim that things exist. More than this, some of these things are conscious, i.e. there are some beings in the universe that sense the universe. And then there are self-conscious things. These are beings that are aware of their consciousness. Perhaps a way to understand the difference between mere consciousness and self-consciousness is through the phenomenon of ‘blind sight’. In blind sight a person who thinks they are blind can actually see. While the individual in question believes that she is blind, when asked to make guesses about her environment, she will be able to describe it with a degree of accuracy well above what could be considered chance. Here the individual can see while not actually perceiving themselves as seeing. In short, ‘sight’ is taking place without there being any awareness of it.

With the awareness of our existence comes the awareness of our own potential non-existence. In other words, self-conscious beings are aware, to different degrees, of their own potential fall into nonbeing. Tillich writes about how this awareness is manifest in different types of anxiety. Anxieties that, in their most acute state, are felt as despair.

He writes that anxiety is distinct from the phenomenon of fear. For while fear is always directed toward an object (enemies, spiders, enclosed spaces etc.) anxiety has no object (it arises in response to the foreboding shadow of nothingness itself).

Tillich writes of three anxieties (that are simply different ways in which nonbeing makes its absence felt). There is the anxiety of fate which, at its most extreme, is encountered in a despair that we face death. Then there is the anxiety of emptiness (where we experience our various projects as unfulfilling) that can degenerate into the despair of total meaninglessness. And finally there is the anxiety of guilt (where we feel that we fall short of our own being). An anxiety that, at its most all encompassing, is felt in the despair of condemnation.

In response to these sometimes crushing anxieties there are a host of religious answers, i.e. answers that attempt to address the questions cast up by our awareness of nonbeing. These answers come in many forms, and yet even if they were intellectually persuasive (which, Tillich would argue, they are not) they would never fully banish these deep anxieties. We can of course repress them, but then they make themselves felt in different ways (in bursts of aggression, self-loathing, over-eating, phobias, substance abuse etc. etc.)

In response to this Tillich questions the idea that the way of Christ provides religious answers to our existential questions. Rather he attempts to show that Christ invites us to participate in a way of being that enables us to live beneath the shadow of these questions. Joyously embracing life while fully acknowledging their presence. Living in such a way that they are deprived of their weight and sting. In doing this he points to the possibility of a God arising from the ashes of the death of the religious God. A God that can be described as the source of our ability to live fully in the midst of our existential doubts.

This possibility of fully living in the midst of these anxieties will be something I explore in my forthcoming book, The Uprising of Christ.

I have just finished rereading Paul Tillich’s book The Courage to Be. It is a rich work that is both intellectually satisfying and personally challenging.