Love, for the unattainable

Saint Augustine’s “Confessions” is a monumental work of religion and philosophy by merging the Greek philosophical tradition and the Judeo-Christian tradition, one of the most decisive moments of western religious development. Intellectualism and many other characteristics of Greek philosophical tradition are displayed in his critical examination of his personal life in “Confessions”. He also credits Platonists with making it possible for him to conceive of a spiritual reality, which set him on the correct path in his search for God, as he began to see God as more eternal and infinite—“Eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity: you are my God” [Confessions, VII.V (16)]. Nevertheless, even though both St.Augustine and Plato praise the cause of pulling oneself out of worldly desires to seek for immortality, they apply their equally powerful reasoning skills from different angles in rationalizing the ways which they believe to achieve sense of fulfillment in the long run.

In both “Symposium” and “Confessions”, happiness is identified as the instinctual motivation behind human behavior. Although St.Augustine’s disappointment over his professional excellence, which eventually led him to seeking peace in Christianity, seems to contradict with Diotima’s teaching that “the happy are happy by the acquisition of good things” [Symposium, 205A]. “Good things” may not be conventionally acknowledged at all times, only the desire is perpetual in all people. In addition, the longing to an interior world ever free of anxiety was shown when Augustine was consumed by frustration before his enlightenment--“while I was saying ’Tomorrow I shall find it; see, it will become perfectly clear, and I shall have no more doubts. Faustus will come and explain everything’” [VI. XI (19)]. This, echoing with Diotima’s saying that “eros is of the good’s being one’s own always” [206A-B], suggests that Augustine’s conversion to Christianity is to a certain extent like falling in love, though with immaterial beauty--God’s grace.

On the other hand, St. Augustine compelled by the need to establish a coherent Christian doctrine, intends to impart a more specific religious morality through “Confessions”. Reason as the center of Greek philosophy is used only in theoretical representation in “Symposium”, such as in “Ladders of Eros”. Augustine may find the approach ambivalent. He uses reason for practical significance when he presents to readers his spiritual journey to God and attempts to rationalize his decisions along the way by introducing free will. Platonist love does not work like rational judgment and people yearn for ultimate Good and Beauty because loving has become the center of their will. As a result, it seems to be a natural progression as one’s pursuit of beauty ascents from body to soul, one to many, the material to the immaterial towards the things that are always as opposed to those that come into being and pass away. In contrary, Augustine calls for a proper freedom of will, which is the ability to enjoy what is good and beautiful, to lead us to God’s grace. Unlike Plato who advocates the autonomy of human free will as long as one seeks after the truth, Augustine thinks freedom of will must be necessarily guided by divine law, which results in inevitable lack of autonomy. Consequently, God’s grace may change the will as we witness how Augustine managed to resist the worldly temptations and adopted a life of abstinence as his pursuit shifts away from worldly ambitions because his inward teaching already fulfills him—“It is simple to see how far I have succeeded in restraining my mind from carnal pleasures and from curious quests for superfluous knowledge; for I do not indulge in these things” [X. XXXVII (60)].

St. Augustine may find many truths about God in Platonist philosophy but his conversion to Christianity showed him that only in Christ, Platonism is completed and perfected for the mass. As an elite in the society, his objective in writing “Confessions”, besides calling for believers who had sinned to recognize the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, was to initiate a moral system based on reason, with divinity at the top—the locus of “truth” in Plato’s Ladders of Eros. He uplifted the Hebrew religious customs to a higher level by laying down the foundation of Christian theology, which enabled the survival of the religion under unified teaching of Roman Catholic Church in subsequent conflicts. Hence, St. Augustine would only be attracted to platonic notions that could help him in better shaping the authoritative religious mentality in his time.

Simple as believing in what you see?

“The Book of J”, though differs from King James Bible in numerous ways, still preserved many of the most well-known religious stories in Christianity and Judaism. It describes the creation of humanity and its earliest civilizations, portraying not only the power of Yahweh but also the interaction between Yahweh and the mankind. Through the stories of conflicts and harmonies, we could re-establish the journey human civilization with the gradually conscious adoption of religious and moral values. On this matter, Sigmund Freud believed that religions are “mass delusions” [P.32-9]. The ego ideal in religion is substitute for a longing for the fatherly figure since childhood. When the ego falls short of its ideal, a religious sense of piety and humility induced. Nevertheless, with respective to the story of Abram from “The Book of J”, deviations from the Freudian psychology on religion and morality can be observed.

In ‘Civilization and Its Discontents’, Freud concludes that people resort to religions because the system “assures him that a higher Providence will watch over his life and will compensate him in a future existence for any frustration he suffers here.” [P.22-7] Most importantly, he believes that such infantile wishes are directed to “an enormously exalted father”. [P.22-10] Indeed, in many religions, the piety of the believers is shown most passionately in their devotion in nurturing their “bond” with such a figure, who is the embodiment of attributes desirable yet unattainable by mankind. Abram was the first man chosen, guided and blessed by Yahweh for his whole life. In the account on his fruitful relationship with Yahweh, for the first time in the book, there also appears a detailed description of “the exalted father” in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. However, it is puzzling that Yahweh, in the story of Abram, exhibited inconsistency in exercising his power over the earthlings, especially on issues involved equality and justice—ideals relentlessly sought after since time immemorial. If religious feelings, as Freud believes, largely stem from the longing of helpless human beings for shield from the ruthless nature and the possible coercion from fellow human beings, it is difficult to account for the lack of objection from women over Yahweh’s inadequate regulation when Abram intentionally gave up his wife Sarai, who became Pharaoh’s concubine, for his own wealth and safety. Furthermore, Hagar upheld her unwavering faith, exclaiming that “You are the God I lived to see—and lived after seeing” [P.81-38], even though neither Abram nor Sarai was blamed for the unfair treatment of Hagar despite her obedience as the surrogate, which seems horrifying in its magnification--“The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood. In the story of Abram pleading Yahweh to reconsider his annihilation of Sodom, a stark contrast was displayed between the heroic determination of Abram with the disappointing recklessness of Yahweh, which almost resulted in desecration of the heavenly decision-making process. In this context, Yahweh seems far from the resemblance of the father figure in Freud’s psychoanalysis of religion, who can convince his followers to bear with the frustrations in life and abide by his moral principles in hoping for a blissful future.

On the other hand, for the earthlings, the condemnation of contempt towards Yahweh surpassed that of any moral sins, even the self-mocking laugh of Sarai outraged Yahweh. Yet he did not consider it offending when Abram questioned his impartiality towards the innocent in Sodome nor unethical when daughters “conspired” to conceive children for their father Lot. Moreover, when Sodom was about to be abandoned by Yahweh, the absence of repentance was incongruent with Freud’s assumption that “what is bad is whatever causes one to be threatened with the loss of love”. [P.85-20] In the Bronze Age civilization presented in the story, the fear of the authority--Yahweh, seemed not be able to arise any noticeable guilt or remorse administered by the superego.

The reason for the incompatibility of Freud’s analysis (especially the part on morality) with “The Book of J”, I venture to propose, may lie in the drastically different levels of material well-being of two civilizations where the two authors lived. Freud lived in a time of rapid technological advances when life expectancy was not longer at the mercy of God and the sustainable economy allowed people to pursue their spiritual needs. Whereas three thousand years ago, when the top concern of mankind was to survive and sustain the familial bloodline, the most expedient guidelines practiced naturally differed from the contemporary view of morality and justice. Hence, while religion in the context of 19^th century Europe was to alleviate people’s dissatisfaction of being inhibited from following instinctual desires, the saga in “The Book of J” represented the initial struggle to preserve human species, during which compromises had to be made and submissive attitudes adopted when confronted by the unknown nature and fate. Based on this assumption, however, Freud’s theory that “Eros and Ananke [Love and Necessity] become the parents of human civilization” [P.55-17] helps to explain the rudimentary forms of customs and culture observed in “The Book of J”, which might be the most pragmatic application possible. As a piece of religious text, the question on how the imperfect image of God was interpreted and utilized for religious purposes still remains unresolved. However, I have come to appreciate that, in a society which still prioritized generating surplus to enlarge the community, it was somehow reasonable for J to depict a God who is not the embodiment of a comprehensive set of virtues deemed indispensible by modern societies of both Freud’s and our time.