Time Flies

Well hello again everyone!

My first year at Butler sure flew by, and my what an incredible year it was! The classes the friends, the Megan :D, the Final Four and National Championship!! ...The list goes on and on. The older I get, the more I feel life speeding up. At the same time, I'm wanting more and more to hit the pause button, to take a minute to just breathe, to catch up on a life that always seems to be zooming farther and farther ahead of me. But alas, that pause button is only possible in Hollywood (see: Click).

As you may already know, I've posted papers of mine on this blog, papers from high school and from college applications. Well, now I'm going to share a couple of papers I wrote this last year in a class called "Faith, Doubt, and Reason" taught by Professor Paul Valliere. So bear with me, this is gonna be a looong string of posts, but I hope you enjoy them :)

One last note, the papers are all numbered, 1-6, in the order in which I wrote them.

Until we meet again,

Tim

#6: My added Epilogue to Crime and Punishment

Lazarus, Awake!

(Epilogue, Chapter 3)

        Three years had passed since Raskolnikov began his confinement, nearly two years since the crime took place.  The prison had long since filled up with the most despicable of men.  Government officials decided to expand the prison to the boundaries of the fortress, effectively halving the barrier between the prisoners and freedom.
        Raskolnikov reflected on the time passed since his confession of love to Sonia.  Oh, how the world had become bright again!  The sun was warmer, the sky was clearer, and even the bare expanses of snow and ice had a mystic beauty about them.  The guards had taken a liking to Sonia long ago, which gave Raskolnikov ample opportunity to reveal to them his healing personality.  It was not more than a year before he, too, received preferential treatment from the guards.  For a very modest sum, he bribed the guards to allow him to build a small dwelling for Sonia within the confines of the fortress.  After that, his healing sped at an even faster rate.
        He sat across from her, gazing deeply into her beautiful face.  Friendship with the guards had brought an important benefit—food.  Not just more food, but the food given to the guards—moderate quality, yet far healthier and more substantial than either of them had eaten in many years.  The year of eating well had nursed them back to health.  Raskolnikov was stronger than he had been since his beginnings at university.
        One cold, gray day a new prisoner arrived.  For several months, no prisoner, not even Raskolnikov, was allowed to see him. However, that ban was lifted after six months, and Raskolnikov went to visit the newcomer.  He walked into the prisoner's room and sat down, silent.  The men stared at each other, minutes passing as each man sized up the other.  At last, the stranger spoke.  “I am Dr. Grigori Vikenti Maksimov.  Others will tell you I am an intellectual, a psychologist, imprisoned for twisting the minds of others into doing my bidding.”  The man's voice was dark, yet soothing.  His deep eyes were confident and knowing.  “I know who you are, Rodia.  I know what you are.”  Maksimov smirked, lips pursed tightly.  Raskolnikov started to sweat, his mind racing.  How could he ever return to the world?  Even this stranger knew of his terrible deeds, before any introduction had been made.  Had even his face been slandered?  Was he the villain of the city now?  Or almost worse, the mockery?  Maksimov continued, “You are the man for whom I have been searching.  You are the superman.”
        Raskolnikov, shaken, stuttered out a reply.  “N-n-no, I am n-not the one you are looking for.”  He paused a second regained his composure, something he could not have done three years ago.  “What do you know about me?”
        Maksimov paused before speaking, then replied, “You are Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.  You were a student in St. Petersburg before dropping out due to your fiancée's tragic early death.  You murdered the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and her step-sister Lizaveta Ivanovna.  You turned yourself in for the murders at the at the exact time in which you were least suspected for the crime.  Your deed was superbly planned and executed.  You would not have been caught had you not been convinced by your new affection, Sofia Semyonovna Marmeladova, daughter of Semyon Zakharych Marmeladov, the drunk whose conversation in a bar gave you the idea to kill the pawnbroker in the first place.  You are an extraordinary man, Raskolnikov, very extraordinary indeed.  The Napoleon of our time, as the people of Russia are calling you now.  You just need to be crafted, to be finished by a master's hand to become the masterpiece you truly are.  I am that master.  I will craft you to become that which will fulfill your potential.  You are the missing piece of my master plan to liberate all of Russia.  I need you, Raskolnikov, Russia needs you.”
        After a few seconds of silence, Raskolnikov responded.  “There is an extraordinary man out there,  but I am not he.”
        “You are he,” spoke the doctor.  “You killed the pawnbroker in cold blood.”
        “Ah, there you are mistaken.  I had a purpose for killing her.  She hoarded her wealth while others starved around her.”
        “And Lizaveta?”
        Raskolnikov paused.  “She was not supposed to be there.  I could not leave any witnesses. However, she is why I am not the extraordinary man.  The extraordinary man feels no guilt when his actions are justified.  I, on the other hand, felt guilty even before committing the crime, and Lizaveta was not even a part of that plan.”
        “But the extraordinary man does exist?”
        “He must.”
        “Why?”
        “Surely you must know, if you believe he exists.”
        “Tell me your thoughts on the matter.  Intellectual conversation never hurt anyone.”
        This was not quite true, and Raskolnikov knew it, but he continued anyways.  “Society is the active force in deciding the dividing line between right and wrong, justice and injustice.  That would be an accurate representation of the innate justice we all share if every man had an equal say in society.  But that is not the case.  A small number of people get a majority of the power, in which case those powerful few decide what society considers justice.  Additionally, civilized humanity has the innate desire to hold on to any power or influence it gains, so those in power twist the meaning of justice to allow themselves the ability to hold on to their power.  This forms the need for an extraordinary man, a man acting by his inborn sense of justice who therefore feels no guilt when defying society's concept of justice in favor of true justice.”
        “Answer me this,” Maksimov retorted.  “Where is the justice in a monarchy?  Where is the justice in a small, elitist class ruling over an enormous class of poor, starving people?  But I know you can find justice in a group of men overthrowing a tyrant in order to give every man his equal share of power.  Am I right?”
        Raskolnikov gazed at Maksimov for a minute in silence before standing up and leaving.  As he shut the door behind him, he heard the man say, “Come meet with the prisoners behind the equipment shed at 6:00 tonight.”  Raskolnikov, pondering the psychologist, walked back to Sonia's hut.  This man knew everything about him, more than even Sonia.  He had an uneasy feeling about the man.  The doctor himself had admitted to manipulating the minds of others, but Raskolnikov pushed that thought away.  Maksimov, clearly a man of great intellect, believed that Raskolnikov was the extraordinary man.  Not to mention the fact that he was now famous throughout all of Russia.  The Napoleon of our time...all of his philosophies and ideas, suppressed for years, came pouring back.  Had killing the pawnbroker truly been the right thing to do?  What was this doctor's meeting tonight about?  Raskolnikov worked himself up into a frenzy by the time he entered Sonia's hut, but one sweet kiss from Sonia cleared his mind of everything.  He truly loved her, she truly loved him, and that was all that really mattered.
        The two shared a dinner of meaty stew and recently fresh bread.  Sonia spoke, her voice soft and gentle.  “I saw that you talked to the new prisoner today.  What's his story?”  The first thought to cross Raskolnikov's mind was to make up a story, but he stifled the urge and answered, “His name is Maksimov.  He is a psychologist, and he knew all about me.  He said he's planning something big, but he's probably just another head case.”
        Sonia looked at him, searching his eyes.  Finding what she sought, she exclaimed, “I can't believe it!  He agreed with you, didn't he?  He brought up your “Superman” ideas, yes, and now he wants to use you in some mastermind plot!”  Raskolnikov stood in amazement.  How did she know all of this?   Sonia continued, saying, “You mustn't go, Rodia, please don't go.  Just do your time and we will be able to have the rest of our lives together.  Don't risk everything we have over some madman's plan.”  Unfortunately for her, Raskolnikov had already made up his mind.  “I know what I am doing,” he said.  “You have to trust me.  I will do what is best for everyone.”
        That evening, a group of prisoners were huddled behind the equipment shed, Maksimov clearly in charge.  He spoke of escape, of revolt, of freedom.  Surely a prison overcrowded with inmates could overtake the substantially outnumbered guards.  The other prisoners bought into everything the psychologist was saying, but when Raskolnikov entered earshot they hurriedly stopped the conversation.  He did not know the other prisoners well.  His relationship with the guards brought him into a strange position with the other prisoners, a position of both fear and respect.  Several escapes had been attempted during his years in prison, but he had not been made aware of them until after they had occurred.  He had the potential to manipulate the guards and the access to go places that the other prisoners could not; however, they were wary of telling Raskolnikov anything confidential in fear that he might inform the guards.
        Maksimov gestured to him, bringing him in front of the other prisoners.  “This man is the missing piece to our historic revolt,” the doctor said.  “If you were not imprisoned four years ago, you may know who he is.  This is Raskolnikov, the extraordinary man who killed the wretched pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna without remorse.  He set in motion the events which have led to our revolt and the salvation of Russia.”  The prisoners gave a hearty cheer then left, returning to their cells.  He turned to Raskolnikov, “Let me catch you up with our fail-proof escape.  Each of the prisoners here are from a different hall in the prison.  They are going back to their quarters now to rile up the other prisoners for our cause.  There is one guard assigned to each hall, which contain anywhere from 50-75 prisoners.  Every four halls are joined in a unit, and one additional guard is assigned per unit.  Similarly, three units are joined as a floor with two more guards watching the elevator and stairs.  Each building consists of five floors.  Three guards patrol the yard around each building, and a final guard works the mechanical door to each building.  There are ten buildings in our complex, all surrounded by an impenetrable wall and a giant gate operated by two guards from a gatehouse on top of the fortress wall.  Each hall-full of prisoners will overpower their guard, then combine with their unit, units with floor, floors with building, buildings with the other buildings...(mumbling) halls of 50 to 75...units of 200 to 300...floors of 600 to 900...buildings of 3000 to 4500... (aloud) there will be between 30,000 and 45,000 men on our side!  They will be facing a combined total of 210 guards, a winning ratio of prisoners-to-guards that is at worst 145:1 and at best 215:1.  The guards change shifts at 5:00 AM, 1:00 PM and 9:00 PM.  Just to be safe, we don't want to be facing fresh, rested guards, so we will begin our escape at 8:00 PM tonight.  Now, for your job.  Trust me, it is the absolute most important job of them all.  You will be the only armed prisoner, Rodion, which I will arrange.  At 9:00 PM tonight, you will enter the gate house, kill the two guards, and open the gate to release all the prisoners.  Without you, we will fail, and our escape will be meaningless.  Will you do it?”
        Raskolnikov thought about it for a minute, then slowly asked, “You have described a mass exodus, but I find no revolution here.  How will freeing every criminal in the country save Russia?”
        “Ah, yes,” Maksimov replied, “I did not describe the events after our escape.  We will proceed to the capital and overthrow the Czar.  There will be no more oppression, no more autocracy.  The wealth enjoyed by the few will be spread among the many who are destitute.  Justice will be served.”  With that, the psychologist walked away, leaving Raskolnikov to ponder that night's plans.
        Eight o'clock came and went.  From Sonia's hut, the insurrection of the prisoners was neither heard nor suspected by anyone other than Raskolnikov.  With fifteen minutes left before his role began, he stepped outside and headed to the gatehouse.  On the way, he was met by Maksimov, who handed him an ax.  “I think you know what to do with this,” the psychologist said, following alongside him.  He walked up to the gate house and knocked on the door to be let in.  The guards, recognizing him, opened the door and let him in.  He noticed that their weapons were across the room from where they sat.  Suddenly, shouts and explosions were heard from outside.  The guards looked out, seeing tens of thousands of prisoners pouring out of the now-burning buildings.  At this moment, Raskolnikov pulled the lever to open the enormous gate.  He stood, ax in hand, between the guards and the door.  He looked up, eyes fierce, and drew back his ax, preparing to swing.  It was then that he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror, standing, ax drawn, smoke and burning buildings behind him.  His mind raced back to that fateful day...
        He brought the blunt side down on her head...He struck once more, then again, full strength, with the blunt side of the ax, and on top of her head. The blood gushed as from an overturned glass, and the body fell backward (74)...And...Lizaveta...the sharp end of the ax struck her directly in the skull, splitting instantly the whole upper part of her forehead almost as far as the crown (77)...
        He snapped back to the present, standing with ax raised over two unarmed guards who had considered him almost a friend.  He saw the fear in their eyes, the fear that had been in the eyes of Lizaveta Ivanovna; he saw in his reflection the monster he used to be.  He looked behind at Maksimov, who stood above the prisoners and shouted, “Justice is served!  Down with the Czar!  We will vanquish!  One free and equal Russia!”  Raskolnikov looked at his reflection once more, then the ax was hurled against flesh and bone.  Immediately, Raskolnikov questioned his decision.  The first guard fell to the ground.  The second guard quickly grabbed the lever, closing the gate before any prisoners were able to escape.  Deciding he had done the right thing, Raskolnikov looked up at the bloody, lifeless body of Maksimov.  The first guard got up, ax in hand, after a flying leap at the mastermind.  The prisoners, without their charismatic leader, settled into a state of defeated chaos.  It was not long until the fifty thousand Russian troops, stationed in the town after Raskolnikov tipped off the guards, had the prisoners subdued, contained, and under sufficient guard.
        Several days later, Raskolnikov received a letter from the Czar of Russia himself, pardoning him for his crimes, releasing him from his imprisonment, and inviting him to a ceremony awarding him the medal of honor, and with it, 50,000 rubles.  Raskolnikov and Sonia returned to St. Petersburg.  The monetary award got them back on their feet, paying for their wedding, the rest of Raskolnikov's education, and a home for the two newlyweds.  The first night of living in their new home, the couple sat in their living room in a happy silence.  They looked deeply into each other's eyes, and she knew that he was finally healed.  He had faced his past and repented; he had awoken from his great dream, walked out of the cave from death back to life.

#5: Micah

The Mystery of Micah

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8).  This passage is one of the best-known verses in the Bible.  It sums up not only the entire prophetic movement but also the essence of true worship.  Oddly enough, this famous passage was most likely not written by Micah.  “Not only the tenderness of feeling...but also the dramatic and exceedingly animated descriptions, make the composition of this section by Micah very improbable”1.  In fact, the entire court metaphor from 6:1-7:6 is found by Hastings to be diverse enough in contents, style, and character to render him unable to attribute the section to Micah's pen.  Even the Encyclopaedia Judaica admits that the writings of Micah could be attributed to two different time periods, stating that Micah could be a younger contemporary of Isaiah or one of the post-Exilic prophets2.  Who, then, is Micah? What is his true message? What meaning can people today draw from the words of Micah? All of this is the mystery of Micah.

The origins of the message in the book of Micah are not the only items up for question.  There is much debate over when Micah prophesied.  It is generally agreed upon that Micah was a younger contemporary of Isaiah; however, he may have also been a student of Isaiah3.  It is likely that Micah prophesied for somewhere around two decades.  Micah 1:1 states that Micah prophesied “in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah.”  The appendix to the New Oxford Annotated Bible states that these kings reigned from 759-687 BC, and that possible allusions to the fall of Samaria in 722 and the campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 701 place Micah in the final quarter of the eighth century.  However, Calvin says that Jotham and Ahaz each reigned for 16 years while Hezekiah reigned for 32, a total of 64 years, different from the appendix's 73 year total4.  Calvin also believes that because Micah is said to have prophesied during the reigns of each of these three kings, he must have prophesied for all of Ahaz's reign and only a little from each of the other two kings5.  Hastings disagrees, and believes that due to outside references to Micah and also the allusions Micah makes, he prophesied primarily in the reign of Hezekiah, with only a little in the reign of Ahaz and no certain prophesying in the time of Jotham as the first verse asserts6.  According to Clark et al., Jotham reigned approximately 740-736 BC, Ahaz 734-716 BC, and Hezekiah 716-687 BC, a total of 54 years.  Jeremiah 26: 18-19 references Micah prophesying in the reign of Hezekiah, and scholars today believe that most of Micah's prophesy is to be dated in the period 715-700 BC7.  Clearly, there can be no certainty about when exactly Micah prophesied; however, if the Bible is to be believed, Micah prophesied around two decades, the entire reign of Ahaz with a few years on either side of his reign to include the other two kings.

Fortunately, the world view in the time of Micah can be relied on with some certainty.  Louise Pettibone Smith gives an excellent account in “The Book of Micah”.  “The outstanding characteristic of the eighth century in Western Asia was the domination of Assyria...In December 722 or January 721, Samaria, the capital of North Israel was taken by the Assyrian army.  This brought an end to the Northern Kingdom which became an Assyrian province...In 705 Hezekiah of Judah joined in the general revolt against Assyria.  Sennacherib invaded Judah, took 46 fortified towns, and by 701 shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem “like a bird in a cage” and extracted heavy tribute.  He did not, however, take the city itself nor remove Hezekiah from the throne”8.  The end of the eighth century was also a time of great change in the economy of Judah.  Since the split from Israel, Judah had been a poor country dependent on agriculture and herding.  At the end of the century, Judah gained control of a caravan route lost since Solomon's time, giving Judah control of the lucrative international trade9.  This led to a concentration of wealth among Judah's merchant princes while the poor farmers suffered oppression and injustice at the hands of the rich.  Micah was born in the country and therefore the oppression of the poor was a major topic of his.

There are many specific institutions and practices that Micah preaches against, yet most every injustice boils down to wealth.  Hastings says, “For Micah in assigning the ground for judgement...specifically to do with the aristocracy of Jerusalem, against whom his whole anger is turned on account of the injustice perpetrated by them”10.  In 1:7 Micah preaches that Samaria gathered wealth by illegitimate means and thought it to be had by its worship of false Gods.  The cause of God's vengeance was that Samaria had abandoned itself to ungodly forms of worship and had departed from the Law.  Micah also stamps with disgrace all the wealth in Samaria.  Another view of this verse is that idolatry is the crime being punished here and also that the temple prostitutes sold themselves to pay for the making of more idols11.

One of the biggest controversies of Micah's time is addressed in 2:1-2.  In Micah's day, society was mainly agricultural, and wealth was therefore mainly in the form of land.  Each family had its own ancestral lot, which had originally been distributed by lot after the conquest under Joshua.  It had been intended that this family land would never change owners but would remain in the possession of the family forever.  As long as each family did have its own land, the the standard of living everyone enjoyed was about the same throughout the community.  But after the monarchy was established, the people of the towns and especially of the court began to grow richer than the people of the rural areas.  Farmers often did not have enough wealth to enable them to survive a series of bad harvests.  They had to sell their ancestral land, which in this way would pass to the rich.  It soon happened that the rich were no longer content to wait for misfortune to compel the poor people to sell their land; they would devise ways of forcing them to sell, and would even steal the land if necessary.  The courts were in the power of the same rich people, and there was no justice for the poor12.

Injustice runs rampant in Micah's time.  “The innocent are eliminated, and the social order of integrity and respect is turned on its head”13.  Micah condemns the false prophets who claim to speak for God but who prostitute themselves for financial gain in 3:6-7.  In 6:11 Micah turns towards the merchants in the cities.  “Treasures of iniquity will be taken away.  Frauds and robberies by false measures and deceitful weights do not escape God's judgement.  God will punish thefts, and those who cheat by false weights will not continue to go unpunished”14.

Micah 3:1-4 gives a graphic metaphor dealing with judicial and government leaders.  The judicial and government leaders are supposed to be concerned about justice, but instead they hate what is good and love what is evil.  Micah compares the leaders to cannibals, killing, ripping up, cooking, and eating the people of Israel.  This same passage also deals with the higher standard to which God holds His chosen people.  The chiefs and rulers of the house of Jacob are God's chosen.  The title is not given here as distinction, but rather to amplify their sin, because they should know better.  They abuse the high and sacred authority, which was given to them by God 1.  The judges are corrupt, given to wickedness and hate good.  They are openly wicked and ungodly, and carried on war against anything just and right.  This higher standard is also addressed in 6:16, which states that the people have been disloyal to God, following the ways of a wicked king and his foreign gods.  Also, the people of Israel are scorned by other nations, even though they are God's people, because they have disobeyed Him15.

The passage 6:6-8 is interesting to interpret.  As previously stated, 6:8 is one of the best-known verses in the Bible.  The point of this passage is that God will forgive.  He will not blindly punish; however, the religious and ritualistic ways of repentance are not what He desires.  It is foolish to pretend to happily approach God when, having committed injustice, one is wanting to be as far away from God as possible.  The people try to flatter God, without truly repenting; God sees through this.  No one can plead ignorance to what God wants because the Law spells out what God wants and now Micah has summed it up.  Micah is saying that religion is hypocrisy: the people say want forgiveness but without truly changing themselves16.  They try to bribe God with offerings, progressing from reasonable practices to more extravagant ones and then finally to outlawed ones.  Even then, the Lord says He doesn't want ritualistic offerings.  Unlike the priests, unlike the judges, unlike the kings, God cannot be bought.  In giving the famous requirements of the Lord, Micah is careful to close the door to more hypocrisy.  He says to “do justice,” not just avoid injustice; he says “to love kindness,” not just to do it, but to take joy in doing so; and he says to “walk humbly with your God,” a requirement to which only an individual and God will be able to attest.

The discrepancies in the authors of the book of Micah and dates of the prophesies actually benefit the discussion of the consequences Judah faces when ignoring the warnings of Micah.  In many cases, Micah predicts the exile of the Jews, which is then actually recorded as happening.  Micah describes the consequences of many different sinful acts committed by His people.  In 1:6-7 Micah foretells that Samaria will be in such ruins that it looks like a field. It will be so empty that vines could be planted there and it will be so deeply destroyed that not even the foundations remain. All the idols that the people worshiped will be destroyed as well.  Micah says that Judah and Jerusalem will be destroyed beyond repair in 1:9.  1:11 is an interesting verse in which Micah describes the destruction of individual cities using word-play between the name of the city and some action involving it to emphasize his message.  Shaphir, which means splendid, will be made deformed and shamed; Zaanan, which means to migrate, will be forced to stay at home17.  After delving into the theft of the poor farmers' land, Micah says in 2:3-5 that God is planning evils against the rich and powerful who have stolen land from the poor.  They will be broken down so much they will not be able to be corrected.  The events against them will be so great that the Jews create a parable out of it.  Micah refers here to the Assyrians taking over and dividing their ancestral land among themselves, so that there is no hope of the Jews ever getting it back.  He ends by saying the Jews are unworthy of God's favor.  The powerful think they are above the law, but in 2:10 Micah disagrees.  Since God's covenant with Abraham, the land of Canaan was sheltered by God for the Jews.  It was their nest, per se, their safe haven.  In their injustice, the Jews believed that they still held rights to this land, but in breaking the covenant they forfeited all rights they had to Canaan18.  Again in 3:4, the government leaders thought they were above the law, but God shows that they are not.  He abandons them and ignores their pleas for help.  Micah preaches against the false prophets in 3:6-7.  They will not be able to reach God and they will be disgraced by their inability to prophesy.  Everyone will be able to see God's vengeance on them.  3:12 is the pinnacle of this section: the people are so wicked that God will destroy His own holy city, His own mount Zion, and even His own temple.  Micah returns to the consequences faced by Judah in 6:13-16.  Nothing will stand in the way of God punishing His people.  God will strike them with a famine, not by a lack of food but by making the food not sustain them.  He will keep any enemy or other outside force away from them so it is clear that the famine is a curse from God.  Finally, God will destroy anything they try to protect.  They will then be completely subjected to their enemies. All the fruit of their land will be plundered by others.  Judah will be sent into exile and mocked by all other nations.

The book of Micah describes the Jews' return from exile and the peaceful reign of the Lord (4:1-5:1), the ideal future king, the Messiah (5:2-5a), the deliverance of His people and punishment of the foreign nations (5:5b-15), and again the deliverance of God's people and their praise of Him (7:8-20).  However, none of this content was written by Micah; this fact is agreed on by Hastings, Smith, Encyclopaedia Judaica, and Clark et al.  Micah himself did not prophesy a better time or better society than his own.  He only saw the imminent destruction of Judah.  The other more hopeful parts of the book of Micah are generally agreed to have been added after the return of the Jews from their Babylonian Exile19.

The meaning of Micah's message was ignored in his own time.  His fellow countrymen ignored his prophesies for the hundred years between the time of Micah and the Assyrian invasion.  His message can hopefully be applied somewhat to modern times so that some group of people may be changed for the better by it.  Micah constantly warns against the evils brought by wealth and power.  He preaches against idols and false prophets.  Through one of the most well-known scriptures in the Bible, Micah criticizes empty, ritualistic religion.  All of these critiques are applicable in the world today.  Micah is no longer a mystery.  His overall message: to be righteous by following the Law, not in fear of punishment or by blind habit but by an honest love for mercy proven by a humble walk with God.


Works Cited

Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets. Trans. Rev. John Owen. Vol. 14. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1993. pp. 147-409

Carroll R, M Daniel. "A passion for justice and the conflicted self: lessons from the book of Micah." Journal of Psychology and Christianity 25.2 (2006): pp. 169-176. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. EBSCO. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.

Clark, David J., Norm Mundhenk, Eugene A. Nida, and Brynmor F. Price. The Books of Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah. New York: United Bible Societies, 1993. pp. 117-264

E.J. Jerusalem. Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 11. New York: Macmillan Company, 1971. pp. 1479-1483

Hastings, James, ed. Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. III. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990. pp. 359-360

Maxey, Al. "The Minor Prophets: Micah." Zianet - Premium Internet Service. Web. 17 Mar. 2010. .

Smith, Louise Pettibone. "Book of Micah." Interpretation 6.2 (1952): pp. 210-227. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. EBSCO. Web. 24 Feb. 2010.

(Note: Sorry for the numbers throughout, I cited via footnotes in this one, and the footnotes didn't copy. Or make much sense in a blog.)

#4: Plato's "Republic"

Justice by Desire

Plato's Republic describes an authoritarian society and calls it just; at the same time, it calls a democratic society nearly the most unjust type of society. This is the exact opposite of what many people in our society would believe to be true; however, any group of individuals from our society will have different definitions of justice relating to laws, society, morals, and many other broad topics. This makes sense given the importance society today places on individuality, but any society will be as flawed as the individuals it encompasses. Through creating a perfect society, Socrates discovers justice in its truest form, “the having and doing of one's own” (Stephanus 434a). This applies both to an individual within Socrates' perfectly just society and also to a part of an individual's soul. How do the boundaries of “one's own” get decided? In other words, what is the deciding factor between the just and the unjust? Plato says that it is desire. Every time he talks about justice, he brings the topic of desire into the discussion as well. Justice and desire are inseparable throughout this dialogue. In the analysis of human nature and the body politic in Plato's Republic, the deciding factor between the just and the unjust is desire.

Desire is essentially the central discussion in Socrates' definition of justice within the individual. He has already outlined the three-tiered society in the just city and must now show the parallel within the soul. By cataloging the various human desires, he identifies a rational part that lusts after truth (438d), a spirited part that lusts after honor (441a), and an appetitive part of the soul that lusts after everything else, including food, drink, sex, and especially money (437). These three parts of the soul correspond to the three classes in the just city (435c). The appetite, or money-loving part, is the aspect of the soul most prominent among the producing class; the spirit, or honor-loving part, is most prominent among the auxiliaries; and reason, or the knowledge-loving part, is dominant in the guardians.

Just relations between the three parts of the soul mirror just relations among the classes of society. In a just person, the rational part of the soul rules the other parts with the spirited part acting as a helper to keep the appetitive part in line. Compare this to the city where the truth-loving guardians rule with the honor-loving auxiliaries acting as their helpers to keep the money-loving producers in line. What it means for one part of the soul to “rule” the others is for the entire soul to pursue the desires of that part. In a soul ruled by spirit, the entire soul aims at achieving honor. In a soul ruled by appetite, the entire soul aims at fulfilling these appetites, whether these be for food, drink, sex, fine material goods, or hordes of wealth. In a just soul, the soul is geared entirely toward fulfilling whatever knowledge-loving desires reason produces.

Desire alone is what keeps a just person behaving according to the intuitive norms of justice. Since his soul is ruled by a desire for truth, he will not be in the grips of lust, greed, or desire for honor. Because of this, he will never steal, betray friends or his city, commit adultery, disrespect his parents, violate an oath or agreement, neglect the gods, or commit any other acts commonly considered unjust (444a). His strong desire for truth weakens urges that might lead to vice.

Those who are led more by their desire for knowledge are more just than the others who are not. The people who are the most just are selected to become guardians, and they will become the philosopher-kings of the just city. According to Socrates, only the “truly rich [will] rule—not those who are rich in gold but those are rich in the wealth that the happy must have, namely, a good and rational life” (521a). These guardians are a major topic for Plato's discussion, especially their education. The allegory of the cave, the most famous metaphor in western philosophy, illustrates the effects of education on the human soul. Additionally, it illustrates the effects of the desire for truth on the human soul.

The freed prisoner in the story is supposed to be a guardian, a philosopher-king-to-be. His love for truth and therefore knowledge drives him onward and upward, out of the chains of ignorance. He continues past the shadows on the wall, looking in pain at the fire and the statues. His desire is fed by the realization that these are more real than the shadows. He grasps how the fire and statues together create the shadows he for so long took for reality (515d).

His desire for knowledge forces him upwards, however, past the statues and fire to the dazzling outdoors. He is blinded by the extreme light and can at first only look upon his past. He sees shadows first as he did in the cave. Next, he looks at reflections in water as he saw the statues and the fire. Finally, he is able to look at the objects themselves: the houses, trees, flowers, and everything that exists in the world. He sees that these are even more real than the statues were, that the statues were only copies of these (516a).

From shadows to statues to real things he has progressed, and now he has the potential to glimpse at the most real things. When his eyes have finally adjusted to the brightness, he can lift his sight to the heavens and look at the sun. In a flash, “he would infer and conclude that the sun provides the seasons and the years, governs everything in the visible world, and is in some way the cause of all the things that he used to see” (516c). The sun represents the form of the good, and now the philosopher-king has reached the highest understanding (517b).

Upon successfully reaching this ultimate knowledge his desire that everyone has knowledge drives him back into the cave to spread the truth that is the form of the good. He returns to his peers but is blind in the darkness. His exposure to the dazzling light has made him unable to see that which he saw in his ignorance. He is mocked by his peers when he cannot win their childish games. He tries to teach them the truth he has found, but because they have not taken the journey upward, they are unable to grasp anything he is telling them (516e). This is the plight of the philosopher-king.

In this metaphor, education is not the force driving the prisoner up the path from the cave to the sun and back. That force, leading him through many painful and confusing experiences, is his desire for truth and knowledge. He first wants only to learn and to know the truth. In his return, he wants solely to spread that truth to all.

The overall point of the allegory of the cave is that the desire for truth and knowledge ultimately leads one to the form of the good. Socrates says, “In the knowable realm, the form of the good is the last thing to be seen, and it is reached only with difficulty. Once one has seen it, however, one must conclude that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything, that it produces both light and its source in the visible realm, and that in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding, so that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public must see it” (517c). This supports the idea that to Socrates, the form of the good was God; it was held as the “form of forms” and represented all that was right and structured in the universe.

The purest of desires, the desire for truth and knowledge, leads to the purest of structures and therefore the most justice. Conversely, the less pure the desire, the more justice declines. This decline shows how drastic an effect desires have on not only a single ruler but an entire city. Socrates shows this by describing the decline of the just city to each successive unjust city-man pair: the purest is the aristocracy described by Socrates in the majority of the dialogue, ruled by the knowledge-driven man; there is a timocracy, and the honor-driven man who resembles and rules that sort of government; there is oligarchy, which resembles and is ruled by a man driven by his necessary appetites; there is democracy, which resembles and is ruled by a man driven by his unnecessary appetites; and there is tyranny, which resembles and is ruled by a man driven by his unlawful appetites. Each of these constitutions is worse than those before it; tyranny is the most wretched form of government, and the tyrannical man is the most wretched of men (544c).

Because the philosopher-kings of the just city will rely on their fallible sense perception in choosing the next generation of rulers, they will inevitably make mistakes over time. They will “join brides and grooms at the wrong time, the children will be neither good natured nor fortunate. The older generation will choose the best of these children but they are unworthy nonetheless” (546d). These unworthy rulers will want to change things so rulers can have private property and focus on wealth, while the just among the rulers will want to preserve the old order and focus on virtue (546). The resulting compromise of a constitution is timocracy.

The timocratic man is one ruled by spirit. His father is an aristocratic man who encourages the rational part of his son's soul. But the son is influenced by a bad mother and servants, who pull him toward the love of money. He ends up in the middle, becoming a proud and honor-loving man. “He'd be gentle to free people and very obedient to rulers, being himself a lover of ruling and a lover of honor” (549a).

The oligarchic man is a thrifty money-maker. He is a timocrat's son and at first emulates him, but then some disgraceful and unfair mishap befalls his father. The son traumatized and impoverished, turns greedily toward making money and slowly amasses property again. “He makes the rational and spirited parts sit on the ground beneath appetite, one on either side, reducing to slaves” (553d). Reason can only reason about how to make more money, while spirit only values wealth and has as its sole ambition more wealth. This man has evil inclinations, but these are held in check because he is careful about his wealth; he does not want to engage in activity that would threaten him with the loss of what he has managed to build up from scratch (554).

The oligarchic father is ruled by his necessary desires; these are desires we cannot train ourselves to overcome, such as the desire for enough sustenance to survive. The democratic son, on the other hand, is ruled by his unnecessary desires; these are desires which we can train ourselves to overcome, such as the desire for luxurious items and a decadent lifestyle. The miserly father only wanted to hoard his money, whereas the son comes to appreciate all the lavish pleasures money can buy. Manipulated by bad associates, he abandons reverence and moderation and begins to regard anarchy as freedom, extravagance as magnificence, and shamelessness as courage (560).  When he is older, though, some of his virtues return, and he is sometimes pulled toward moderation. Yet he thinks all pleasures (those of moderation and of indulgence) are equal, and he yields to whichever one strikes his fancy at the moment. “There's neither order nor necessity in his life, but he calls it pleasant, free, blessedly happy, and he follows it for as long as he lives” (561e).

The tyrannical man is the son of the democratic man. His father is not lawless, but he does indulge unnecessary desires. Just like the father, the son is exposed to drones, men with lawless desires. But whereas the father had his own oligarchic father's thriftiness to pull him toward the middle road of democracy, this son, brought up on the democratic ethos, moves further toward “all the kinds of lawlessness that those who are leading him call freedom” (572e). He is implanted with a strong erotic love; this love itself acts as a drone, and incites him to all manner of lawlessness. It makes him frenzied and mad, and banishes all sense of shame and moderation (573b).

The tyrannical man is ruled by his lawless desires. Lawless desires draw men toward all sorts of ghastly, shameless, criminal things. Socrates' examples of lawless desires are the desires to sleep with one's mother and to commit a foul murder (571d). All of us have lawless desires according to Socrates; these desires occasionally come out at night in our dreams, when the rational part of us is not on guard. But only the tyrannical man allows these desires to emerge in his waking hours. “Under the tyranny of erotic love, he has permanently become while awake what he used to become occasionally while asleep” (574e).

This man now lives for feasts, revelries, luxuries, and girlfriends (573d). He spends so much money that he soon runs through all he has and needs to begin borrowing (573e). Then, when no one will lend him any more, he resorts to deceit and force (574). We see him running the whole gamut of typically unjust acts in his insatiable need to quench his erotic thirsts; he has become a living nightmare. His desire for erotic love drives this nightmare, keeping him lost in complete anarchy and lawlessness (575a). He will dare to do anything to keep feeding the desires that erotic love produces. Soon he cannot trust anyone and “lives his whole life without being friends to anyone, always a master to one man or a slave to another and never getting a taste of either freedom or true friendship" (576a). The most decent parts of his soul are enslaved to the most vicious part, and so his entire soul is full of disorder and regret and is least free to do what it really wants. He is continually poor, unsatisfied, and he lives in fear (576c).

After this frightening image of the tyrannical life, surely all must agree that no life could be more wretched. Socrates, however, disagrees; there is one sort of life even worse than this one. That is the life of a man who is not only a private tyrant, but who becomes an actual political tyrant (578b). The real tyrant is in a better position to indulge all his awful whims and to sink further into degeneracy. He is in continual danger of being killed in revenge for all the crimes he committed against his subjects, whom he has made into slaves (568e). “A real tyrant is really a slave, compelled to engage in the worst kinds kind of fawning, slavery, and pandering to the worst kind of people. He's so far from satisfying his desires in any way that is it clear that he's in the greatest need of most things and truly poor. And, if indeed his state is like that of the city he rules, then he's full of fear, convulsions, and pains throughout his life” (571e).

Socrates has shown us a compelling reason to believe that justice is worthwhile, that the most just man, the aristocrat, is much happier than the most unjust man, the tyrant (580c). This directly contradicts the dissented verdict reached in Book II that the unjust life is more pleasant than the just one. Socrates' arguments that the just life is more desirable than the unjust life are his long-awaited answer to Glaucon's challenge in Book II to prove the worth of justice in the face of so many who have thrived by way of an unjust life.

Another argument presented by Socrates supporting the worth of justice is that there are three sorts of people in the world: those who desire truth, those who desire honor, and those who desire profit (581c). Each one of these people takes the greatest pleasure in whatever is is they most value and thinks that the best life is the life that involves the most of this pleasure (581d). Yet among these, only one of them can be proved to be right. Only the philosopher “is the finest judge of the three” (582b) because only he has actually experienced all three pleasures. If the philosopher is right, the pleasure one gets from having a just soul, one aiming at reason's desires, is the best kind of pleasure (583a).

The next argument also involves pleasures. Socrates argues that the pleasure of the philosopher is the only real pleasure. All other pleasures are actually relief from pain, not positive pleasure. Other pleasures are not real pleasures because other desires, those not aimed at reason's desires, can never be completely satisfied. All we do is quench these yearnings temporarily, easing the pain of wanting. The philosophical desire can be completely fulfilled by grasping the form of the good (586e).

To conclude his answer to the question posed to him in Book II, Socrates presents two refashioned portraits of the just and unjust man to replace the false portraits outlined in Book II. He asks us to envision that every human being has three animals inside of him: a multi-headed beast, a lion, and a human (588d). If the man behaves unjustly, he is feeding the beast and the lion, making them strong, and starving and weakening the human being so that he gets dragged along wherever the others lead. He also fails to accustom the the parts to one another and leaves them as enemies (589a). If the man behaves justly, he is “saying, first, that all our words and deeds should insure that the human being within this human being has the most control; second, that he should take care of the many-headed beast as a farmer does his animals, feeding and domesticating the gentle heads and preventing the savage ones from growing; and third, that he should make the lion's nature his ally, care for the community of all his parts, and bring them up in such a way that they will be friends with each other and with himself” (589b).

Socrates has done a superb job of proving justice's worth. It is notable that Socrates seems to revisit the discussion of the tripartite soul in his final argument about the three animals. The multi-headed beast is appetite, the lion is spirit, and the human is reason. This beautiful dialogue has come full-circle to the initial point made by Socrates. Justice in the individual, as in the city, involves the correct power relationships among parts with each part occupying its appropriate role. When that relationship is skewed, the entity is no longer just. Therefore, the deciding factor between the just and the unjust is desire.


Works Cited

Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Pub., 1992.

#3: Faust

A Soul Hangs in the Balance

It is uncomfortable how human Faust is made out to be.  He is lost, a wandering spirit, just like so many of us are, searching to find the one thing that ties everything together: the ultimate answer.  This search for the ultimate answer is exemplified in the recent movie, “A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.”  On a distant planet a pair of children were dubbed the “chosen ones” and built a super computer capable of calculating the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.  After waiting millions of years, the computer faithfully spouts out the answer “42.”  The children were frustrated with this answer, but the computer insisted that this in fact was the answer they sought. The computer informed them that all they needed to make now was a machine that could identify the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, which would make sense of the answer “42.”  The President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, along with the main characters of the film, are searching for this Ultimate Question.  Faust is also searching for the Ultimate and is met with equal hardship.  Faust commits entirely to each aspect of faith, doubt, and reason in his attempt to find the ultimate answer; however, the answer is found only with a balance between these three values.  Moreover, faith, doubt, and reason are additionally represented by the respective characters of Gretchen, Mephistopheles, and Faust.

The farthest we see into Faust's past is his look back into his youth, reminiscing about the days when religion played a major role in his life.  “There was a time/Of quiet, solemn sabbaths when heaven's kiss would fill/Me with its love's descent, when a bell's chime/Was deep mysterious music, and to pray/Was fervent ecstasy” (Goethe ll.  770-74).  Even though he ends up losing it, the faith of Faust runs deeper than one might expect it; one must lose faith in order to find it.  Consider Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy.  Descartes loses all faith in anything; he distrusts anything sensory.  The one thing that remains proven is himself; “I think therefore I am.”  This single fact amidst a sea of doubt gives way to one additional truth: because he can think about an infinite being while being completely finite himself, there must be an infinite being who put that thought in his head.  Faust loses his faith much like Descartes; both are tormented by a lack of knowledge about how the world works.  In the end however, both men find their way back to God: Faust in Part 2, Descartes in his proving the existence of God.

Gretchen, on the other hand, is deeply rooted in her faith.  When confronted with the death of Martha's husband, she  replies, “I promise to pray for him with many a requiem” (ll.  2943).  Hers is not a perfect faith; she strays in her enchanted love for Faust but this is not completely under her control.  The enchantment on her is a strong one; she is too committed to Faust for her own good.  “I look at you, dear Heinrich, and somehow/My will is yours, it's not my own will now./Already I've done so many things for you,/There's—almost nothing left to do” (ll. 3517-20).  The final scene shows the true colors of Gretchen's faith: the evil she committed while enchanted has driven her mad with guilt.  She cannot live with herself and therefore will not allow herself to be saved by Faust.  “No,/From here to my everlasting tomb/And not one step further I'll go!” (ll.  4539-40).  These are still mad ravings, however; Gretchen is still deeply bound in her enchanted love for Faust.  Once she sees Mephistopheles, she snaps the enchantment and is a living rock of faith.  “Oh my God, I await/Your righteous judgement!/.../Oh Father, save me, do not reject me,/I am yours! Oh holy angels, receive/Me under your wings, surround me, protect me!” (ll.  4607-13).  The redemption of Gretchen even after the murder of her mother and child proves that despite her enchanted straying, she is still the epitome of faith in this story.

Faust loses his faith as he pours himself fully into his education, for as he learns more about the world through the eyes of science, he is brought to the realization of just how little he truly knows about the nature of the world.  “No hell-fire or devil to worry about/Yet I take no pleasure in anything now;/For I know nothing” (ll.  369-71).  This realization is what eventually spurs Faust to search for the ultimate answer through intense and fast-paced experiences.  He is called Professor and Doctor, learned in Philosophy, Medicine, Law, and Theology (ll.  354-60).  These, too, have failed to give Faust his ultimate answer.  He gives quite a soliloquy about the shortcomings of his education: “God, how these walls still cramp my soul,/This cursed, stifling prison-hole/Where even heaven's dear light must pass/Dimly through panes of painted glass!/Hemmed in by books to left and right/Which worms have gnawed, which dust-layers choke,/And round them all, to ceiling-height,/This paper stained by candle-smoke,/These glasses, boxes, instruments,/All stuffed and cluttered anyhow,/Ancestral junk—look at it now,/Your world, this world your brain invents!” (ll.  398-409).  The entire Scene 4. Night is really Faust pondering his life, reflecting upon his education and his focus on reason, while also dabbling in the realm of magic and doubt.  He even begins to question his own divinity.  “Am I a god? Light fills my mind;/In these pure lines and forms appear/All Nature's workings, to my inner sense made clear/.../How great a spectacle! But that, I fear,/Is all it is.  Oh, endless Nature, where/Shall I embrace you?” (ll.  439-41, 454-56).  This is representative of how lost Faust really is, to consider that he could be divine.  He is wandering; his search for the ultimate answer continues past the realm of reason.

Even after Faust procures the devil Mephistopheles and succumbs to doubt, in Faust's heart of hearts he is still driven by reason and a yearning for a definite answer.  On their Walpurgis Night trip up the Harz Mountains, Mephistopheles is pushing Faust to go to the gathering of witches, but Faust declines.  “But the summit's where I'd rather be!/There's swirling smoke up there, fire from hell./The mob streams up to Satan's throne;/I'd learn things there I've never known” (ll.  4037-40).  Even when encountered with this rare immersion into the realm of magic, Faust still keeps his eye on his goal of finding the ultimate answer.

Faust's abandonment of faith and reason ultimately leads him to magic.  In this case, magic is the doubt of reality; the witches and demons give us a sub-culture per se that the “real world” is seemingly unaware of.  Faust summons the devil Mephistopheles for one purpose: to provide him with the means to live life only in the moment, a fast-paced series of intense experiences.  Faust's lack of faith results in a lack of morality.  Pushing reason to the back-burner leads Faust to make the most questionable decision of all: selling his soul to the devil.
“Books sicken me, I'll learn no more./Now let us slake hot passions in/The depths of sweet and sensual sin!/Make me your magics—I'll not care to know/What lies behind their outward show./Let us plunge into the rush of things,/Of time and all its happenings!/And then let pleasure and distress,/Disappointment and success,/Succeed each other as they will;/Man cannot act if he is standing still./.../I tell you, the mere pleasure's not the point!/To dizzying, painful joy I dedicate/Myself, to refreshing frustration, loving hate!/I've purged the lust for knowledge from my soul;/Now the full range of suffering it shall face,/And in my inner self I will embrace/The experience allotted to the whole/Race of mankind; my mind will grasp the heights/And depths, my heart shall know their sorrows and delights./Thus I'll expand myself, and their self I'll be,/And perish in the end, like all humanity” (ll.  1749-59, 65-75).
Faust wants to experience all of life for every person crammed into his own single lifetime.  After abandoning faith and reason, he is left with no other option than this.

Mephistopheles is the representation of doubt in this story.  Faust is at his core a man of reason, so Mephistopheles must play off of Faust's doubts in order to manipulate him.  When Faust tires of witchcraft as a means to reach his goal of infinite experiences, Mephistopheles offers another means, working the land and living the simplest of lives, knowing full well that Faust would never accept this as even a remote possibility.  Mephistopheles sets Faust up with Gretchen by planting the jewel box in her room.  Thus, Mephistopheles brings the complicated factor of love into the equation.  This is a crafty move by the devil; Faust says he wants a fast-paced life from one experience to another but love seems to be his exception.  Faust stays committed to Gretchen from their initial meeting, long enough for her to have a child and also to murder it; however, Mephistopheles also leads Faust away from Gretchen for an extended period of time, so that he is left with only one opportunity to save her.  On Walpurgis Night, Faust seems to be wavering in his lack of commitment towards reason.  He says that he wants to venture on to the top of the mountain because there are new things there for him to learn.  Mephistopheles works to convince him otherwise.  “And meet new mysteries as well./Let the great mad world go its way;/It's cosy here, so why not stay?/The great world, as you know, by subdivision/Turns into small worlds; it's an old tradition” (ll.  4041-45).  In the final scene, Mephistopheles seems to be helping Faust save Gretchen.  “Come! One moment longer and you're lost!/What's all this dallying, parleying and dithering!/My night-steeds are quivering,/The sun's nearly risen” (ll.  4597-600).  Upon hearing his voice, Gretchen snaps out of her enchanted love and all but pleads to die.  Instead of helping the situation, Mephistopheles is driving the wedge further between Faust and Gretchen.

Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles represent the respective foci of reason, faith, and doubt.  None of these characters have any sort of balance between these three belief sets, resulting in misery or failure for each of them.  Gretchen lost her child, her mother, and her own life.  Mephistopheles lost the soul of Gretchen he was striving to obtain.  Faust lost the woman he loved and his newborn child.  The worst failure of all, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the Gretchen story.  Instead, I digress back to Faust's original goal: finding the ultimate answer.  Despite keeping a keen eye on the prize of ultimate knowledge of life, Faust simply became a puppet in the hands of Mephistopheles, playing his part in trying to win over the soul of Gretchen.  It almost worked: she murdered her own child and mother.  However, the Lord saw her for what she was—enchanted and misguided—and redeemed her in the end despite Mephistopheles' best efforts.  Mephistopheles twisted Faust's attention to be predominantly on Gretchen; in doing so, Faust lost focus on finding the ultimate answer and as such was left unfulfilled.

Gretchen could not have been Faust's ultimate answer for several reasons.  First, her arrival in the story is due entirely to Mephistopheles, the devil.  He has no motivation whatsoever to just hand Faust the answer like that.  Second, I believe that Faust's ultimate answer could not involve losing all control of his life and stumbling around on autopilot while being controlled by Mephistopheles.  The devil himself would not take pleasure in fulfilling someone's life; instead, Mephistopheles is much more likely to throw the speed bumps at everyone involved.  Finally, as I will describe next, Faust can only find the ultimate answer if he has a balance between the values of faith, doubt, and reason.  Faust has no where near that balance so it is illogical to believe that Gretchen was the ultimate answer.

It is interesting to me that while the prologue in heaven reflects that found in the book of Job and the soul in question seems to be that of Faust, the soul truly being fought over is that of Gretchen.  Like Faust, she is led astray by the enchantment of Mephistopheles, but in the end she snaps out of it and is saved because of it.  As previously mentioned, Faust all but stopped his quest for the ultimate answer via experiences in his pursuit of Gretchen.  What is the moral of the story then?  Is it that living only in the moment through fast-paced experiences does not lead to fulfillment or absolute knowledge?  That is a valid point, but I see more than that.  In order to be a decent, healthy, successful human being, one must have a balance between faith, doubt and reason.  If any one belief set overpowers the others, life with crash and burn until balance is regained.  Despite the fact Faust committed to each faith, reason, and doubt, he was never happy because he committed his whole being to one at a time; he never found balance.  Faust commits serially to faith, doubt, and reason in his attempt to find the ultimate answer; however, the answer is found only with a balance between these three values.


Works Cited

Descartes, René. Meditations on first philosophy in which the existence of God and the distinction of the soul from the body are demonstrated. 3rd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 1993. Print.

Goethe, Johann. Faust, part one. Trans. David Luke. New York: Oxford UP Inc., 1987. Print.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). IMDb.com Inc. Web. 04 Dec. 2009. .

#2: Don Quixote's Faith

Ambiguous Faith

Faith is a curious thing, pondered and questioned for longer than we could ever know.   Where do we come from?  Why are we here?  Through this questioning, faith and religion have emerged, attempting to answer that which we can never know for sure.  One's early beliefs grow and expand to include doctrine and creed.  Sometimes, strong faith leads to fanaticism, where doubt and reason are shoved aside and only faith is considered.  As faith is strengthened, where do we draw the line separating faith and fanaticism?  Don Quixote dives into the grey area between faith and fanaticism, and his ultimate concern of chivalry combines with his incredible imagination to lead him on the countless adventures found in Cervantes' novel.

Don Quixote exemplifies two different types of faith.  First he shows a good faith by being admirable, wise, and godly.  This manifests in several different ways.  The Don shows good faith when he has good intentions.  In Chapter IV Don Quixote finds a rich farmer, Juan Haldudo, whipping his young servant, Andreś, for carelessly losing sheep.  The Don tells Juan to pay Andrés immediately, but settles for Juan's word that if Andrés comes home, Juan will pay him the wages due to him (42).  Don Quixote has good intentions here, sticking up for the boy in the face of a cheating master.  Another way the Don shows good faith is by seeing the good in others.  The first time he visits the inn, he mistakes two prostitutes he meets outside for princesses.  He then proceeds to flatter the women both at the gate and over dinner.  The women play along with him for jest, seeing that the Don has clearly gone mad (32).  This example is not only evidence of the Don's madness but more importantly, it is an example of his seeing the good in people.  These women were a pair of prostitutes, fit for muleteers, but the Don sees them as princesses and shows them great respect.  He is also able to enjoy his dinner at the inn despite having his helmet stuck on his head because he believes he is in a great castle where princesses are entertaining him.  He considers the innkeeper a knight worthy of leading his knighting ceremony and almost gets scammed in the process.  In a different inn, Don Quixote mistakes the hunchbacked servant Maritornes for a beautiful princess who has fallen in love with him and has promised to sleep with him that night.  In Chapter XII, the Don encounters a chain gang of galley slaves.  Don Quixote sees them not as the criminals they are but as innocent men detained against their will.  These are only a few examples among the countless  instances where the Don sees the “inner knight” in those he meets along his journeys.  This leads to the third facet of Don Quixote's good faith, his optimism due to his fantasies.  When he is caged by the barber and the priest, he accepts their explanation that he is under an enchantment (431).  This acceptance makes his captivity more bearable, an advantage of optimism.  A similar situation occurs in Chapter VII, when the Don is back in his own home.  He wakes to find the priest and the barber. Having walled up the entrance to the library, his so-called friends tell him that an enchanter has carries off his books and the library itself.  Two days later, his niece tells him that an enchanter came on a cloud with a dragon, took the books due to a grudge held against the Don, and left the house full of smoke.  Don Quixote believes her and explains that he recognizes this enchanter as his arch-rival.  Like a child, Don Quixote accepts absurd explanations and even lets his imagination take these explanations to a new level, as we see here with taking the story of an enchanter and turning it into a story of his arch-rival enchanter.  In this isolated situation, however, the expanded story served only to motivate Don  Quixote.  This foolish belief is not bad when alone; simple belief in these outrageous tales leads only to the improved happiness and morale of the Don himself.  Don Quixote's good faith also includes situations where his imagination turns foolish but does not lead to anyone else's harm.  The most famous example of this occurs when the Don mistakes a field of windmills for giants.  He rushes at one with his lance, only to get caught in the windmill's sail and thrown to the ground (64).  His actions in these situations lead only to his own embarrassment or slight harm, but not to the harm of others, preserving their designation as actions based upon good faith.

Don Quixote also shows a bad faith, one that is negative, foolish, and fanatical.  The first aspect of the Don's bad faith is his foolish belief.  In the first chapter, the Don polishes his old family armor and makes a visor for his helmet out of cardboard (29).  He foolishly believes that old armor and a cardboard visor are adequate protection against the dangers he will face.  The next aspect of Don Quixote's bad faith is his naïve trust in others.  In the previously mentioned situation when the Don met a rich farmer beating his young servant boy, the Don's good intentions of sparing the boy were undermined by his own misguided trust in the knighthood of the farmer.  Don Quixote simply gives his orders to the farmer and walks away, happy with his first successful adventure.  Unfortunately, because the Don doesn't accompany the pair to see his orders carried out, the boy ends up receiving an even worse flogging at Juan's home.

This leads into the next aspect of Don Quixote's bad faith: the harm of others, especially innocent people.  This theme is prevalent throughout the text and is the most commonly reoccurring manifestation of the Don's bad faith.  In Chapter VIII, Don Quixote and Sancho encounter two Benedictine friars and a carriage carrying a lady and her Basque squire.  The Don thinks that the two monks are enchanters who have captured a princess.  He attacks them, knocking one monk off his mule.  Just as this fight is ending and the Don is telling the lady to return to Toboso and present herself to Dulcinea, an argument breaks out between Don Quixote and the Basque.  After a dramatic battle and a break in the storytelling by Cervantes, the fight continues.  The Basque splits the Don's ear and the Don knocks the man down threatening to kill him, but Don Quixote spares the man's life when promised that all involved would present themselves to Dulcinea (67).  Throughout the novel, Don Quixote is a very likable character except for his nasty habit of harming others for no reason.  This is the most visible aspect of his bad faith.  Another aspect of this bad faith by way of harming others manifests when the Don makes promises no one would ever expect him to keep.  One specific example of this is his promise to Sancho that he will make Sancho governor of an island if Sancho leaves his wife and children to become the Don's squire (61).  Even though the Don wholeheartedly believes that he will win an island for Sancho, and even though he ends up winning an island for Sancho, this is still an example of Don Quixote's delusions putting others in harm's way.

The final manifestation of the Don's bad faith occurs when the Don has fantasies that lead to his own harm, beyond mere embarrassment.  An example of this occurs when the Don mixes together the Balsam of Fierbras, which the Don says has the power to cure any wound.  However, when Don Quixote drinks the freshly-made balsam, he proceeds only to vomit, writhe, and sweat before being wrapped up and falling asleep (131).

Don Quixote's faith, both good and bad, is tied to his books of chivalry as well as his imagination.  In this way, they are incredibly similar.  In order to detect the difference between his good and bad faith, one must examine the harm that comes to others and to himself.  Belief and imagination are one thing; acting on that belief and imagination is something entirely different.  One can believe any number of harmful and dangerous things; belief alone is nothing.  A sole belief is contained within oneself and can therefore do no harm; however, once action enters the picture, even the most trivial of beliefs, such as a literal belief in books of chivalry, can turn dangerous.  Action takes belief from within oneself and promulgates it to other people .  In the case of Don Quixote, his actions based on faith directly expose countless people to imminent danger.  There is a difference however in Don Quixote's motivation to act in good or bad faith.  The Don's ideals of helping the innocent and avenging wrongs can lead to acting on good faith.  We see this in the story of the rich farmer flogging his servant boy (42); however, the chivalric belief that knights are permitted to use violence in the pursuit of justice leads to the Don's attacks against innocent people, making it an action of bad faith.

Don Quixote is a very complex character.  The novel starts off portraying this lovable, crazy old man who thinks prostitutes are princesses and who lances windmills because he thinks they are giants.  However, as the novel continues, Don Quixote becomes less and less likable as he harms others and floats off into the deep end of madness.  The duality of Don Quixote's behavior is mirrored by the duality of his faith.  He is admirable in his aid of the innocent against much stronger evils and fanatical in his use of violence when only a passing “hello” would be sufficient.  Don Quixote's complex character at once makes him endearing and repulsive, since it is apparent that his fantasies and good intentions sometimes bring pain to others.  The specific criterion in Don Quixote that distinguishes between good faith and bad faith is the harm of others.  On the surface, Cervantes seems to be saying that it is alright to be crazy and delusional as long as you stay to yourself, but once you harm others it is no longer alright.  Analysis of the Don's faith reveals that although it is very specific in its distinguishing factors, it is a metaphor for the relationship between overall good and bad faith.  Good and bad faith are very much interconnected.  Practicing Muslims, who are righteous, godly, and generally respectable people, believe the same things and study the same texts as extremist Muslims like the ones who perpetrated the September 11 attacks on our country.  Christians we see at church each Sunday, our neighbors and friends, believe in the same things and study the same texts as members of the Ku Klux Klan.  Faith itself has a duality, a good side and a bad side, a yin and a yang.  The challenge in being a person of faith is counteracting that duality while still growing in faith.  The Don is never actually successful at this counteraction.  As his faith in the books of chivalry grows, Don Quixote never seems to move out of limbo, always showing aspects of both his good and bad faith.  This is not an ideal situation; the goal of growing faith would seem to be increasing the good faith while moving farther and farther away from the bad faith.  Don Quixote, in strengthening his faith in chivalry, should be helping the innocent and pursuing justice more while harming innocent people less often and using something other than violence in the pursuit of justice.  He makes strides in this direction in Chapter XLIV; Don Quixote, through words alone, successfully persuaded the two guests to cease beating the innkeeper.  Unfortunately, this is followed by a brawl with a goatherd and an attack on a group of penitents, signifying that the effort to have only good faith is futile.

Through the duality of Don Quixote, Cervantes asserts that faith not balanced by doubt or reason ultimately leads to fanaticism.  This is mirrored Consider Genesis 22, the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, his only son.  Abraham had such an immense amount of faith that on God's command he dropped everything and prepared to give up the continuation of his family, the one thing God had ever promised him.  Abraham's faith crossed the line when he took the knife to his own son's throat without a second thought, mindlessly following the orders of the same God he had laughed at and questioned previously.  In Chapter IV, the Don meets a group of merchants from Toledo.  He threatens the merchants, saying that they can proceed no further until they all confess Dulcinea the most beautiful maiden in the world.  When they ask for a picture in order to confess her unrivaled beauty, Don Quixote says, “what merit would there be in confessing so manifest a truth?  The whole point is that, without seeing her, you must believe, confess, affirm, swear and uphold it.”  Don Quixote's faith in Dulcinea's beauty has turned fanatic; he has turned to using physical force to persuade others to believe as he does.  He is so lacking of doubt that he will not take the opportunity to confirm his faith in Dulcinea's beauty by looking at a picture of her.  As early as Chapter III, the Don's faith in his books of chivalry has turned fanatic as well.  During his first stay at the inn, Don Quixote knocked one guest unconscious and smashed the skull of another, just because the guests tried to move his armor from the well where it was resting.  Would any person with an ounce of reason smash in a stranger's skull solely for moving that person's possessions?  Would any sane person in that situation be free from all doubt, no matter the consequences?  The answer in both cases is no.  While the Don's faith has a positive side to it, the negative side overcomes him in the end.  Don Quixote has great faith without doubt and beyond all reason; this boundless faith, no matter the several positive aspects, ultimately leads to fanaticism.


Works Cited

Saavedra, Miguel De Cervantes.  Don Quixote (Penguin Classics).  Trans. John Rutherford.  New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.  Print.

#1: Genesis and 9/11

The Evil of Humanity

Thanks be to Allah. In God we trust. These phrases sound similar, calling on a higher power, but there are several more parallels between them. Both were used after the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001, by prominent people from both the perpetrators and the victims of that event. Each phrase has been used to unite millions of people, especially during these last eight years. Both phrases refer to the same God, the only difference being the respective viewpoints of Islam and Christianity. There are several thematic similarities between the Muslim extremists allegedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks and the stories found in Genesis. Is there truly a difference between Abraham's willingness to kill his only son at the orders of the Lord and flying hijacked planes into buildings filled with innocent people at the direction of Allah? Genesis tells stories of monstrous people, revenge, and evil deeds done in the name of God, all of which are paralleled in accounts of the September 11 attacks.

In the words of William Shakespeare, “In time we hate that which we often fear” (ThinkExist). After the attacks on our country, we were afraid and so we turned to hate. There was no one more despised on September 12, 2001, than the 14 men who carried out the attacks against our nation the day before. Not that the hatred was entirely unjust; the extremist terrorists were despicable. The following excerpt is transcribed from a mid-November tape of Osama Bin Laden speaking to a room of supporters: “We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for...After a little while, they announced that another plane had hit the World Trade Center. The brothers who heard the news were overjoyed by it” (Washington). We called them cowards for killing civilians, cowards for not being uniformed. They didn't follow the “rules” of war; they were monsters. Due to their extremist beliefs and actions, we Americans discriminated against Muslims across the country and across the world. We hated to the point of passing the immensely unjust PATRIOT Act, hated to the point of rushing into a war without second thought at the intelligence or motives behind such a war. In our hatred, we turned into the monsters we so despised. We are a predominantly Christian nation; should we be expected to know better? Not exactly. Genesis is filled with stories of terrible people and, almost worse, good people doing terrible things. Jacob recounted to his wife that God told him to deceitfully acquire of Laban's flocks, which was actually his own doing, lying to justify his actions (Genesis 31: 8-12). Potiphar's wife framed Joseph for attempted adultery and got him thrown into prison for what could have been the rest of his life (Genesis 39: 7-20).

Perhaps the most heinous deeds, however, come from the stories of Lot, Abraham's nephew, and his town of Sodom. The first comes from Genesis 19: 4-8, when the angels of the Lord come to stay with Lot before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not only do the men of Sodom want to sleep with the visiting men, but Lot offers up his own daughters instead. It's a rare father today who would offer his daughter to one man, let alone all the men in his town. The story gets more despicable, though, in verses 31-36, after the destruction of the two evil cities. “And the firstborn said to the younger, ‘Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the world. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father.’ So they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she rose...and the younger rose, and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father.” Daughters knowingly and willingly sleeping with their father with the intention of becoming pregnant—very few things are as immoral. That is not tolerated in any culture, even the one of the ancient Hebrews that Lot and his daughters were a part of.

Monstrosity is rarely without motive; the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks are no exception, nor are the characters of Genesis. Gary North wrote about revenge as a motive for the attacks. As of September, 2001, this country had been waging a terrorist campaign against Iraq's civilians for over a decade. Estimates range from 750,000 to 1,500,000 civilians dead, half of them children, because of our continuing trade sanctions. We refused to lift these trade sanctions until Saddam Hussein resigned. Yet he remained in power only because President Bush refused to pursue a military objective – warriors vs. warriors – by conquering Iraq in 1991. He deliberately let Saddam's army get away. We starved Iraqi children for a strictly political objective: to get Saddam Hussein to resign. The public neither knows nor cares. Motive? Here is a motive. It's called revenge – not for the sake of the secular Baath party, but on behalf of Islam (North). Bin Laden also talked about the benefit of the attacks for Islam. Revenge played an enormous role in the attacks of September 11, but this is obviously not the first mention of revenge in the history of the world. Driven mad with jealousy of Joseph's favored position in the eyes of their father, and with the dreams and prophecies Joseph spouted out about his lording over them, Joseph's brothers first plotted to kill him, then sold him to passing slave traders after staging his death (Genesis 37: 18-28). Even more vengeful is the story of Jacob's sons defending their sister's dignity, found in Genesis 34: 13-17, 24-29. The brothers had an entire city of men circumcised, one of the most painful experiences for grown men, saying that it was the only way that Shechem could marry their sister. This was in deceit, however, and the brothers proceeded to kill every male, plunder the city, and take all of the animals, wealth, children and wives. That is revenge to the extreme, a city taken for the harm to one person. The number of people killed in the 9/11 attacks is roughly 3000, in comparison to the half billion Muslims we have pitted ourselves against due to our foreign policy since 1948 (North). It almost seems like the terrorists did less damage than Jacob's sons did. They definitely did less damage per person originally harmed. And to think that we hold these stories as sacred texts, stories of destruction and revenge far worse than those of the September 11 attacks.

Genesis and 9/11 both involve monstrous deeds committed with the somewhat reasonable motive of revenge, but there is one more piece to the puzzle. The terrorists were religious men, as were the characters in Genesis. Why would they succumb to the call of revenge? The answer is one that has been seen throughout all of human history: “God told me to do it”. Divine calling caused the Crusades, it influenced the Holocaust; God seems to be our strongest justification and most common scapegoat. In the transcribed tape of Osama bin Laden and his supporters, the subject of divine justification is brought up several times. Bin Laden quotes several short and incomplete Hadith verses: “I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad.'' Shaykh quotes the verse from the Quran: “Fight them, Allah will torture them, with your hands, he will torture them. He will deceive them and he will give you victory. Allah will forgive the believers, he is knowledgeable about everything'' (Washington). Genesis is not free from the scapegoating of God either. In fact, it seems like in many stories, God is logically the one to blame for the wrongdoing. He doesn't exactly have a clean record, either, with the great flood (Genesis 6-8), destroying Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19: 24-25), putting people to death for their wickedness (Genesis 38: 7-10), and causing famine (Genesis 41: 30-31). In Genesis 20: 3-7, 18, others are punished by God because Abraham lied about Sarah being his sister. Genesis 16: 4-6 tells us of Sarah's abuse of Hagar. After Hagar escapes, God orders Hagar to “return to your mistress, and submit to her” (Genesis 16: 9). Later, in Genesis 21: 10-12 and 14, God tells Abraham to send Hagar and her baby son, Ishmael, out into the wilderness, an almost certain death. God tells Abraham to cause himself and others great pain in Genesis 17: 10-14, the ordering of circumcision. The largest and most questionable act ordered by God is found in Genesis 22. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as a burnt offering. Abraham listens to God without hesitation, and sets off with his son to the mountain where God directed them to go. Once they arrive at the mountain, Abraham and his son travel alone to the peak. Abraham builds an altar and lays the wood. When Isaac inquires about the animal for sacrifice, Abraham tells him that God will provide. “Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘...Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’” Abraham then receives a reaffirmation of God's blessing to him, offspring as numerous as the stars.

Which is more appalling: killing strangers in another country, whom you do not and will never know, or killing your one and only son, whom you love? It is illegal in every country to kill your own son. Yet at any moment in history there is a war raging, and strangers are being killed by strangers. This very second, an American is killing someone that he or she does not know, but because our soldier is wearing a uniform, because our country declared war, suddenly it is acceptable to society to kill another human being. Is there a difference between the acts in Genesis and the attacks of September 11, 2001? There most certainly is not. Both include monstrous people, revenge, and divine justification for evil deeds. Genesis tells us stories about the greatest and most faithful people, with whom God walked and talked. Yet Genesis also tells us about the polar opposite, the most immoral and faithless people. Abraham could be considered the epitome of faith, to the point of willingly sacrificing his only son. Abraham's nephew Lot, on the other hand, offered up his daughters to the men of Sodom, and his wife was turned to salt when she couldn't obey the Lord's command not to turn back and look at the burning city of Sodom (Genesis 19:26). Sometimes the same person contains both sets of traits, such as Jacob, the great deceiver and also the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Genesis reflects human nature, and its inclusion in the Bible is partly to justify the evil side of our nature. The attacks of September 11 reflect the atrocities committed in the name of God, and the evil in human nature that was present on both sides of that tragedy. We are not worthy of the pedestal we place ourselves on, both as Christians and as Americans. We are as much to blame for the attacks as the hijackers of those four airplanes. Evil is part of our basic human nature. In the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Our greatest evil flows from ourselves” (ThinkExist).


Works Cited

North, Gary. "The Unasked Question of 9-11: What Was the Motive?" LewRockwell.com. 13 Sept.
        2001. Web. 04 Sept. 2009. .

ThinkExist.com Quotations. Web. 16 Sept. 2009. .

Washington Post. "The Rhetoric of 9/11 - Transcript of bin Laden Video Discussing Sept 11 Attacks (10-13-01)." American Rhetoric: The Power of Oratory in the United States. 13 Oct. 2001.
        Web. 04 Sept. 2009. .