The Madman and the Existentialist

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"---As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"
The Gay Science (1882), Friedrich Nietzsche


Existentialism is nothing less than an attempt to draw all the consequences of a coherent atheistic position. It isn't trying to plunge man into despair at all. But if one calls every attitude of unbelief despair, like the Christians, then the word is not being used in its original sense. Existentialism isn't so atheistic that it wears itself out showing that God doesn't exist. Rather, it declares that even if God did exist, that would change nothing. There you've got our point of view. Not that we believe that God exists, but we think that the problem of His existence is not the issue. In this sense, existentialism is optimistic, a doctrine of action, and it is plain dishonesty for Christians to make no distinction between their own despair and ours and then to call us despairing.
Being and Nothingness (1943), Jean-Paul Sartre


Here you have two philosophers who lived lives in despair. Nietzsche ended up in a mental hospital, and Sartre went through World War II still believing in man only and in no way believing in God. The parable of the madman is very telling of the philosophy of Nietzsche: God is dead. God was an invention to impose slave morality, but it was time for the Ubermensch (superman) to rise up through bloodshed and destruction to claim what was rightfully theirs. It is also interesting to see that Nietzsche thought himself that his ideas would be played out in reality and that the 20th century was to be the bloodiest of all centuries, a prediction that definitely came true. Hitler was not naive to this, he openly handed out different copies of Nietzsche's works at party rallies in the 1930's. Hitler was the Ubermensch, a fact all too surreal when he initiated blitzkrieg on all of Europe. One quote from Hitler that is on my facebook page is all too revealing in his thinking of what he had created: "When we meet here, do we not feel the wonder of it all? Not every one of you can see me, and I cannot see every one of you. But I feel you, and you feel me. It is faith in our nation that has made small people great, that has made anxious people courageous, and has joined us together." From one philosopher's pen anxiously writing about God being dead, to a man having no moral sense and killing about 11 million innocent people. This never ceases to amaze me how one man okayed the immoral with his pen, and the other man okayed the acting out in utter immorality for all of the world to see.

Sartre saw a concentration camp firsthand, but said that it was from there that he gained a greater faith in man, not God. To hear that makes my heart sink, for to come from an utterly despairing setting and still denounce God takes more pride and arrogance than any human can imagine. To claim that existentialism is optimistic and that it is for that reason that he is an existentialist (not part of this quote but is stated latter in his book) is a grossly misunderstood man. To not trust in a sovereign God who has extended His grace through his Son Jesus Christ when experiencing utter despair like a concentration camp, and in turn reaffirm your faith in man and existentialism is utterly depressing itself. That is all that must be said for now because of the despair of these two men's lives.

The absence of evidence...

The absence of evidence is not evidence for absence. I have not been on here in a while, and I know the significance of this blog is minuscule in the entirety of life. I do not feel as if life is this big thing that we somehow attain, but rather it is the essence of life that our lives can find value in. Because we have life (whether we are spiritually dead or not) we are inherently valuable. Trying to understand evil and suffering within that context can be pretty messy, but when it is understood through the lens of our Lord and Savior then life seems to find more meaning through suffering. A person must suffer in order to know life, and it is through that reality that the Christian differs from the agnostic or atheist. I am taking a philosophy class on the Problem of Evil and Suffering, and I find it so far to be the most beneficial academic endeavor that I have ever been involved in. There are two sides when thinking about this issue: free will theism and Augustinian-Calvinist theism. My heart tends to be a free will theist, but my mind is pulling me to a more Augustinian-Calvinist tradition. I get wrapped up in the practical application of these two sides. You know, which side when actual suffering occurs best comforts the believer. But then I think of it as a witnessing tool, which side would best comfort the non-believer. Is it comforting for a non-believer to be told that their suffering is for a greater good, or that their suffering is not of God and is in fact the work of man's depravity? I do not know, and these are just some of the questions that I hope can be answered in this academic semester. I stumbled upon a quote in a book one day that I think I might agree with and it is by Norman Geisler: "God made evil possible, man made evil actual." David Hume, sometimes dubbed the "happy atheist" (although in one of his introductions to an essay he states it is clear there is a designer behind the earth), rightfully called into question of the origins of evil and how he believed it contradicted the belief of God's omnipotence. I am not saying he is right at all, but it was a good challenge for the classical theists to answer the question 'Whence then the evil?'. We as Christians need to deal with the experiential side of dealing with evil and suffering, but I think we need to also ponder the topic in our heads and spirits to discern what we should see as from God. A weird topic I know, but it is weighty when you take the time to dive deep into it.

You said the words I knew you knew......

Oh God, oh God I needed you. God all this time I needed you, I needed you.

My life in a nutshell: hoping for what I can not see and longing for significance to be found in my life. Do I want to be depressed, or is it just the ever-present thought of insignificance that actually keeps me sane? I do not know. Being and nothingness seem to haunt me at the same time. I long to be, but I often find myself as nothing. Nothing in the sense that I do not reach out to those who are hurting and broken. I seem to find that the consequence of nothingness is feeling alone, alone in a world where to just be is possible. I do not feel that I am nothing when I am with my wife and children. No, I actually feel the possibility to live life for others that knows no bounds. I go to my school or work, and nothingness creeps in and takes its place. My lack of an ability to care for others in these settings frightens my inner-self. My mind is full of bad thoughts towards others, but my heart tells me to be that man that would lay down his own life for his brothers and sisters. Maybe its jealousy or pride. Maybe its carnality at its finest. I have felt for a long time that I do not know really much of anybody at my college, yet I spend a lot of my time there. Any control that I have ever thought to have had, slips right through my hands when I go to college. I used to be the type of person that befriended people because I genuinely cared. I have tried to care, but have been rejected. So I resort to the phase of nothingness that has kept me from just being. To just be in the entirety of my life would be a massive burden lifted from myself. Do I have the strength to pull myself up? I do not know. It is by the grace of God that the possibility becomes stronger, but sometimes people need others to be there with them in the physical.


Good night and good luck.....

A response to Mr. Claiborne...

I have finished the book Jesus for President, and am compelled to respond to it as it is still fresh in my mind. The thing that amazes me most is that he stands up for what he says by everyday living the life of what we Americans would call a community secluded from the real world. It seems to me at first glance that this way of living would be impossible, but when I think about it more in depth that impossibility is in actuality a very real way of living. Although I do not think I could personally live as he does, I have always through the years been sick of the fact that America has strictly become a nation full of consumers. We need to realize that a nation full of producers is much more profitable for the human psyche and soul. If we are going to be a nation of consumers, then we will in turn sacrifice the ability to see the beauty in how something is made. We lose our ability to be human when we do not recognize the beauty behind things that are made. I agree with Shane that the way we are making things overseas (not everything) is immoral. The fact that we can tell someone to make something for us cheaper for our own benefit should sink into our hearts. We need to realize though that the godless system of capitalism is the only system in which it fits our sinful human nature. It fits it in the sense that our inclination to be greedy is very real, and it preys upon that nature. So it is our human nature that creates the system of beggars that Shane talks about. As Christians, we need to point out the fact that the way of doing things in the world is godless, and so we need to step up and be the light in the world. We as a Church should be feeding the hungry, giving clothes to those that lack them, providing health care to the sick and dying. We have failed to do these things because we have been swayed by the godless system of keeping to one's self, rather than sharing in the abundance that God has so graciously granted us.

I think Shane challenged me most when it comes to war and violence. I can not wrap my mind around abandoning war. War is evil in and of itself, and I agree with him. But just as I would feel myself obligated to defend my family if somebody were trying to kill them, I also would feel the obligation to defend the most defenseless that are being wiped out just because they were born a different race from those who are oppressing them. "But a common thread ties together the most horrific perpetrators of violence: they kill themselves" (pg. 204). I think he fails to realize that the reason that happens is that those defending the defenseless have driven these leaders to ultimate defeat. Everything Hitler lived for was for his own personal glory, and when that was shattered utter hopelessness drove them to suicide (sad though that Hitler in his final letter still thought he was fulfilling that glory by killing himself). I am not denying that war destroys our image because what we do in war is ask men and women to do that which is the antithesis of right-order in this world. I guess I am more of a Bonhoeffer in this respect that we pray for mercy in the sinful action of war. Mercy in order that we may protect those who have seen no mercy themselves, and also for those of us who would be participating in that defense. This nation has no doubt perpetrated unnecessary wars, but should we expect anything different? We are not a Christian nation as so many of my friends and family claim it to be. If we do claim that then we have blasphemed the name of our Lord greater than any other nation in history. I apologize as an American for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for the Civil War, for slavery, for allowing over 40 million babies to be aborted, and if any of these actions were done in the name of Christ, then I apologize to you God for our nation wrongfully using your name to perform and support systems that can only be described as sinful and heinous. Do we want to be considered a Christian nation? I think not, for then we would be defaming the name of Christ, and I do not want to participate in any way or form of such a labeling.

I have felt as though God has been preparing me over the past few months, and after reading this book have been reaffirmed in the feeling that God is doing something. I feel as though He is preparing my heart and mind to live in another country. Maybe not as a technical missionary, but just someone who ministers to the needs of those who we would consider the least of these. I have so sinned in my life in thinking that these people will be helped by others and I need not worry about the suffering around me. After I read this book I have started to realize that I have a major problem. My attitude has been incorrect, I have wronged my fellow man. I have been blessed, and therefore I have the obligation to be a blessing. Shane's right in the sense that we are hoarders rather than givers. We take take take, and forget that in our walk with Christ we are called to be givers. I hope that I can give to those around me, no matter who they are. I hope I can give of my love, finances, mercies, talents, abilities, whatever it may be I wish to be a giver and not a taker. That is my prayer for my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, that we would do the Word by our giving hearts.

I agree with the awesome Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky when he says: "To live without Hope is to cease to live." We should be a people set apart for God that shows that the true Hope to a lost and broken world is Jesus Christ. Never shall we falter if we put our trust in Him to be givers to those who suffer. God will take that, and when we are in time of need He will provide through the giving of somebody else because we were first obedient to His Word. I wish to say more, but for another time.

Good night and good luck.......

The subject is.....

"I am merely a man", that is the title of this blog. I name it that because I am merely a man who is seeking to understand even a fingertip's worth of the nature of God and who He is. I do not know people who blog, in fact only one so far, but I do this in order that I can look back at all the thoughts I have decided to write down over what will then be my past. It will be used as an encouragement to myself (and hopefully others eventually) to know the growth that I have made in certain areas of life.

I have been reading Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne with the hope of understanding a perspective that I thought was totally foreign to me. In fact, I felt coming into the book that there was a level of ignorance that his position sold to people. I was wrong, and I admit that it was I who was ignorant, and you could even say arrogance was guiding my ignorance. I thought that this book would be some childish attempt at saying "peace is great". I have been humbled by Shane's honest attempt in this book to push forward one of the most difficult challenges in my philosophical understanding of life. I am not done with the book yet, so I refrain for now to tell you what those challenges are and how I have faced them. The point of this blog is to reflect on the reality that progress is happening in my life right now. I feel though that yes this topic ultimately deals with God, but I feel it to be more of a philosophical issue with me. I feel that right now spiritual non-growth is occurring. I feel I need a great awakening. I feel this land needs a great awakening. I feel we need to be the hands and feet of our Lord Jesus Christ and pray continually that God would declare that this land would awakened out of the slumber of what this godless culture has made us fallen asleep to. I need the Lord. His love, grace, mercy, compassion, and goodness is all that I need. O the day when I can finally live my faith to the fullest and let those attributes of God flow through my own life.

Goodnight and good luck.......