On Theses, Grad Schools, and Books

My advisor is done with my thesis now, so I'll have to look over that. Of course, the chapters which I thought were simply collections of quotes he thought "flowed together well," and the chapter which I thought was the best one was "a bit difficult to understand." I'll be interested in reading through his more specific comments. I know that I'll need to practically rewrite the introduction and conclusion (I needed to have something in their place before turning in this draft), and I still need to figure out where I want one chapter to lead (which will also determine where exactly the thesis itself leads).

In other news, I'm getting close to sending in my last grad school application, to Marquette. I have all the stuff already, I just need to reread my paper and statement of purpose. It feels nice to have everything put together half a month before it's due (but don't worry; I promise not to make a habit of it). On the flip side, I already got back a rejection letter from Northwestern. Maybe the fact that I got my transcripts in 2 weeks late had something to do with it.

And now for something completely different. I found the most awesome book ever in Border's yesterday. I'll give a blurb from it, and give ... ummm... props to anyone who can guess the book:

At tunc quies est erepta!
Tota domus est correpta
Tum tumultu, tum fragore!
Tremeduni nos pavore,

Conspicamur nunc intrantem
Limen nostrum nunc calcantem
Cattum quendam Petasatum
Numquam nobis exspectatum!

Thesis done!

Or at least the first draft is. Now I have 2 weeks off before my adviser gets it back to me, so I'm getting caught up on all the books I've been wanting to read. I just finished The Seven-Storey Mountain, and am now working on The Beauty of the Infinity. There's something satisfying about finishing books which you've started months (maybe even a year) ago.

I'm finding myself at an impasse with the whole Protestant-Catholic thing. I'm at the point where I don't like Protestantism enough to become Catholic simply because it seems better, not because I fully agree with it. After all, a position which claims that it is infallible, can still be mostly right and simply wrong on that one point, and I don't take either magisterial or papal infallibility to be my reasons for wanting to convert at this point.

The problem is, that I've resolved that the point of the magisterium would be to provide some sort of unity, which should be obeyed out of respect even if not completely believed. I'm just so tired of Protestant schisms, with no method of resolution. However, there is one issue where I don't think I can put my theory into practice: birth-control.

Or rather, the prohibition against it. It's one thing to say that I'll become RC and undergo some inconveniences for that sake of my convictions. It seems like another thing to say that either Joy, or myself, or both, pretty much have to give up our lives on the basis of rather murky arguments. If I were convinced that RC were really true, than I would have to do it; but the thing is, I'm not convinced and I'm not going to sacrifice everything my wife and I have been doing on a whim.

I don't know whether to feel like the rich man who couldn't give away all that he owned, or angry because conservative narrow-mindedness ruins everything it touches (to be fair, liberal vapidity destroys everything else).

My Frustrations with Reason

Since you made me enter into this discussion with you, if you have got the better of me and not I of you, are you indeed right, and I indeed wrong? If I have got the better of you and not you of me, am I indeed right and you indeed wrong? Is the one of us right and the other wrong? are we both right or both wrong? Since we cannot come to a mutual and common understanding, men will certainly continue in darkness on the subject.

Whom shall I employ to adjudicate in the matter? If I employ one who agrees with you, how can he, agreeing with you, do so correctly? And the same may be said, if I employ one who agrees with me. It will be the same if I employ one who differs from us both or one who agrees with us both. In this way I and you and those others would all not be able to come to a mutual understanding; and shall we then wait for that (great sage)?

- Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu)

Zhuangzi, one of the most important figures in philosophical Daoism, echoes my frustrations well. In context (at least, in the translation which I had to work with) he tries to settle the matter with an appeal to the Dao (alt. Tao), a "pivot" between the conflicting views. At any rate, even with this way out, he still thinks that reason has its troubles.

The problem is this: if I get into an argument, does my winning or losing mean anything about the truth of the matter? Does my extended winning or losing in a series of arguments show anything other than that I am brilliant or a dunce? I can out-rationalize many people, but I can never seem to get that perfect argument which can tell me which path to follow, which can clear away the obstacles and give me enough to stand on so that I can commit myself without the omnipresent doubts.

If I take side A seriously, I start to realize that some people on side B have as well, and thought up good counter-responses. But then, side A has thought up counter-counter-responses, and so on. Even if one side appears weak, this may be because either I have not found good sources yet, or because that side has not had any home-grown intellectuals as of yet. Neither seems to intrinsically count against that position. I can take the arguments of Protestants against Catholics, Catholics against Protestants, Orthodox against both, around and around again without ever coming to a firm answer.

The Terrifying Truth about Fax Machines

... is that they are evil. Or at least the one in the clubhouse office is. So, I had decided back in December to apply to Northwestern's Religious Studies program. The only problem is, the deadline was December 31st. So I hurriedly polished up a class paper, put together a statement of purpose, and faxed transcript requests.

So, this week I've been wondering where everything is. My application is in, and one professor has turned in a letter; to be fair, I didn't tell the other two professors that I needed letters ASAP instead of by January 15th (for my Notre Dame application), but I would like an answer from my emails or something so that I know they are getting through. I've also been in contact with records offices, trying to figure out what's happened to my requests, as evidently they haven't been getting through.

I think that I've discovered the reason now: after talking to the registrar at Taylor, and saying that I would try faxing it in again, she emailed me saying that she had received a blank page. The stupid fax machine makes you put the pages in backwards to send them. Maybe this isn't news to anyone else, but it's kinda frustrating to me that this piece of junk might have cost me an grad school opportunity and the $75 application fee.

Anātman as Openness

Currently reading:
Wound of Knowledge
   by Rowan Williams

I've been thinking some more on the Buddhist notion of anātman (or no-self; also seen as anatta in some texts). I feel the need to deal with it, because so much practical advice given in Christian circles sounds similar. I don't mean simply trendy, pop-psych advice, but even the advice of great saints throughout history in both their lives and their thoughts. This is even separate from the Biblical admonitions to deny one's own self, to crucify it, to die with Christ and let him live within oneself. Holiness of any sort comes through a denial of self, and there must be some ontological feature of the self that allows this.

However, I have trouble within a Christian context speaking of non-self. If we are not enduring entities in some fashion, then who is saved? There would be a causal chain connecting "me" now to "me" in heaven, but this would not be the same person. I also would think that this would have ramifications for the Incarnation and the Atonement, but I won't get into that now (in short, if what is saved must be assumed, and there is now such thing which could be assumed, what could be saved?).

This is why I offer the view of "openness" instead. It is not that we do not exist as selves, but that our existence as selves necessarily implies an openness to the world around us and the world's continual influence. While this could be taken in a mystical direction, let me put forth some prosaic examples. Right now, I occasionally hear my pet rabbit doing something or other in the kitchen. Sometimes I might even need to respond. This is not a response to something inside of myself, but something which is not-me. I may have all of my own concerns, but then my wife comes home and has the things that she wants to do. In order to deal with that, I must open myself up to new ways of valuation, caring, and seeing the world.

To be closed, by contrast, is to engage in selfishness and hatred (one could probably make a case for each of the seven deadly sins; maybe in another post when I'm bored and putting off thesis-writing). Intellectually, it is to force all information through tightly controlled categories which can never be readjusted. Volitionally, it is to assert one's own will and to seek to avoid feeling the force of anyone else's. In trying to make oneself a self-contained self, one is actually becoming less. It is in letting go of this construction that one can have peace, freedom, love, and holiness.

But, while this construction of the closed self bears some resemblance to the Buddhist's notion of a constructed self, the answer is not to deny any reality whatsoever to the self. We simply need a new category to allow for a type of being which is fundamentally open to the world and which increases in fullness of being as it increases in openness, while nevertheless enduring.

Scotus and Buddhism

With the first draft of my thesis due soon (January 15th, if anyone would like a copy), I've been spending some more time ruminating over Buddhism. I'm currently finding that Scotus' (and Anselm's) notion of two affections in the will is helping me to see both where Buddhism is insightful, and where it is deficicent.

A quick primer, before I get into matters: Buddhism teaches that we have one big problem. We suffer. We do not merely suffer when we have literal pain, but throughout life once we realize its transitoriness. In the end, joys end up producing as much suffering as anything else. The cure for this is to realize that we do not actually exist as enduring entities. The precise explanation for what this means differs between Buddhist traditions, but one would not be amiss in most of them to think that we are mere aggregates which are continuously changing, without any stable self or soul underlying the change. Once we realize this, we can let go and be unattached to any specific aggregate, realizing that it is as little "ourself" as the aggregate which comprises other people.

Scotus' theory of the will, which he borrows and develops from Anselm, includes the notion of two affections which can motivate the will to act: the affection for the advantageous, or what is good for ourselves, and the affection for justice, or what is good in itself. I see the problem with Buddhism (at least early Buddhism) is that it only recognizes the affection for the advantageous. It then rightly recognizes that if this is all that there is, then all that one can do is to quiet it, to realize that there really is nothing permanently advantageous, and so the best course of action is to let go of attachments to all thoughts concerning advantage or disadvantage.

If that really were all of which the will consisted, I think that it would be perfectly correct. As it stands, I think that some formulations are still tremendously insightful, and probably more helpful for dealing with life than, say, modern counseling (btw, an experience which I have found to confirm me in my thoughts that academic studies can sometimes be more useful for the art of living than so-called practical studies). However, the Christian can add something: there is a real final goal in life, something outside of oneself which nevertheless continuously pulls one on. This is only possible if one can have an affection for the good in itself, above and beyond desires for one's own good. This is not to say that sin does not dampen this affection, or that we can pursue God perfectly on our own, but simply that without the potential within the will not even God could restore us without making us non-human.

There is an extent to which the Christian might want to practice non-attachment; any person displaying holiness displays a selflessness, a love which seeks not its own, and a complete abandonment to the will of God. However, Christian thought also teaches a reattachment to our ultimate final cause, God. I think that some forms of Mahayana Buddhism realize something similar, but in the end simply struggle in trying to explain what this "something else" is within their own tradition (not that I would expect any Buddhist to accept this as a conclusive argument against their position; I respect their own thinking on the matter too much to pretend that I have refuted it. It's merely how I see their position in terms of my own).

This reattachment to God, further, gives worth back to the affection for the advantageous. Once our affection for justice is working properly and we seek that which is truly good in itself, and truly The Good in itself, we find that this Good also will satisfy our own good. More than that, but we can even speak of the advantageous because of the Good in itself. I take it that Buddhism is correct in saying that, without this ultimate final cause, there can be no true advantage, and so there cannot be a satisfiable affection for the advantageous. We attain our being because of our end, not simply because of our creation in the past. Because God has willed for us to attain Himself in the particular ways which He has decreed, we are what we are. In other words, God cannot be thought of as efficient cause without also being thought of as final cause, as well as present sustainer of the universe.