David B. Calhoun’s Blog

I’ve been puzzled by this for a while now as a sort of philosophical problem, and I may be blowing it out of proportion, but it just fascinates me: to what extent does a person’s life nullify their opinions? I used this analogy in Literature class last Wednesday: people think Nietzsche (who, by the way, has the craziest name in the history of philosophy) told some truths, yet he lived the last decade or so of his life in a syphillis-induced insanity. There seems to be a disconnect from the great life he was teaching and the life he was living, in other words. But does his life make his view null and void? A while back I wrote “Beware of philosophers who don’t live what they teach/preach”, and this is still appealing to me today, but it seems there are different things going on here.

The first, the doctrine/teaching is stated by the philosopher. That is, some fact is thrown into the open air and presented as fact. If the doctrine is useful to us, then this will be presented with a life application to this fact. For instance, it is all well and good that a race of Hapropianides live on the planet Zong at the other corner of the galaxy, but if there is no application then the fact becomes useless to us. However, it doesn’t cease to be a fact! This is the key point.

Therefore, if a philosopher presents a truth (or what is taken to be truth) and gives a method of living this truth, then we would expect the philosopher to live by this method. However, if the philosopher completely contradicts the method of living the truth, the truth claim itself remains untouched (unless we are to assume that the philosopher wasn’t as smart as we once thought, and possibly made an error as to the truth itself). Therefore, the truth claim and the application are completely different things. Yet what I wrote still stands - beware of the philosopher who doesn’t follow his own doctrines, because obviously his method of living those doctrines is flawed. It would be wise to follow a philosopher who gives us a method for following a truth and is able to live that truth, and that the method isn’t completely incapable of being followed.

For when a person explains that the Earth is spherical and yet refuses to travel across the Atlantic for fear of falling off the edge, we ought to avoid only the person and the method, and only follow the truth claim itself (assuming that it is really a truth).

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung, and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.” C.S. Lewis

Some interesting, if not flawed, insight from Victor McCampbell:

“It seems clear to me now that contentedness is something superior in nature to happiness. That is, as happiness in a purely pleasurable sense (in contrast to an Aristotilian sense of happiness as a sort of utility of one’s doing their work, and doing it well).

There is an outright advantage contentedness has over this type of happiness: it seems to be a sort of telos or end, wheras happiness is only a means to an end. This is also seen in the sense that a person who is content is a person who is happy being content in their current state. For how could a person be content who was not happy with their present lot in life?

On the other hand, it is possible to imagine a person who is happy but not content. We admire celebrities because we envy their wealth and their good hand in life, but we fail to realize that these celebrities go on making movie after movie, buying house after house, even marrying spouse after spouse, and all to what end? Surely they are happy with their wealth yet not content in it, for then they wouldn’t seek more.

Therefore, contentedness is superior, for it is an end. Contentedness seems only subservient to happiness because happiness is required to be content - yet this is deceiving: one can be content and have happiness only in the sense that they are happy in their contentedness. This is an extreme example of a contented person, yes, but it illustrates with more clarity the superiority of contentedness.”

Psalm 22
Plea for Deliverance from Suffering and Hostility
To the leader: according to The Deer of the Dawn. A Psalm of David.

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.

3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried, and were saved;
in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

6 But I am a worm, and not human;
scorned by others, and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock at me;
they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;
8 “Commit your cause to the LORD; let him deliver–
let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”

9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
10 On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
11 Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.

12 Many bulls encircle me,
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.

16 For dogs are all around me;
a company of evildoers encircles me.
My hands and feet have shriveled;
17 I can count all my bones.
They stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.

19 But you, O LORD, do not be far away!
O my help, come quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my life from the power of the dog!
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!

From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me.
22 I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me,
but heard when I cried to him.

25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD.
May your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the LORD;
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before him.
28 For dominion belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.

29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for him.
30 Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord,
31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that he has done it.