*OT* In the story or myth of Genesis, "the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."
Adam and Eve incorporated the possibility of their own death when they ate the forbidden fruit in order to learn. It was the serpent who spoke the Truth and exposed God as a liar when he said: "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
Yes, there are infinite ways one can learn. I do not know them all. There is Sensuousnes, Perception, Understanding, Self-consciousness, Passive Reason, Idealism, Observation of Nature and Human Individuality, Active Reason, Moral World View, Religion, Art, Music, Terror, Imagination, Alienation, Human Love and Friendship, Dancing, Listening, War, Wisdom, and of course, Holy Philosophy, to name a few.
But when it comes to Learning and making Errors, my own Error is something I can discover only by myself, since it is only when I have discovered it that it is discovered, even if the whole world knew of it before.
I'm a big proponent of each individual experiencing the hard knocks of life; for the knowledge and wisdom that accompanies such a learning experience sticks in the Heart forever and then the individual never forgets and learns from his or her own errors.
I'm a very strong proponent of Freedom of Religion. I wrote a short paper a number of years ago on the conflict between the Humanistic and Christian conception of Truth. I will include it here in its entirety, though I will be subjecting myself to numerous attacks from the right wing fundamentalists. But since Learning is my God and Education is my religion and I hold Human Dialogue in the highest esteem, I will paste it here in its entirety and only respond to intelligent criticism:
There is definitely a conflict between a scientific and religious explanation for the world and our
place in it. The nature of this conflict lies in two radically different conceptions of Truth. Before
we analyze the implications of each of the two perspectives for community building and for our
personal responsibilities, we will first present the nature of Truth from each perspective. We take
as our point of departure the Socratic and Christian interpretation of Truth.
How far does the Truth admit of being learned? With this question let us begin. It is a Socratic
question, a question with respect to virtue, since virtue was determined as insight ( Meno 87d;
88d) . Insofar as the Truth is conceived as something to be learned, its non-being is
evidently presupposed, so that in proposing to learn it one makes it the object of an inquiry. Here
we are confronted with the difficulty to which Socrates calls attention in the Meno (80e ) :
“ Do you realize that what you are bringing up is the trick argument that a man cannot try to
discover either what he knows or what he does not know? He would not seek what he knows, for
since he knows it there is no need of the inquiry, nor what he does not know, for in that case he
does not even know what he is to look for. “
Socrates thinks the difficulty through in the doctrine of Recollection, by which all learning and
inquiry is interpreted as a kind of remembering; one who is ignorant needs only a reminder to
help him come to himself in the consciousness of what he knows. Thus the Truth is not
introduced into the individual from without, but was always within him. Every human being is in
possession of the Truth.
In the light of this idea it becomes clear with what marvelous consistency Socrates remained true
to himself, through his way of life giving artistic expression to what he understood. He entered
into the role of midwife and sustained it throughout because he perceived that this relation is the
highest that one human being can sustain to another. Socrates was a midwife subjected to
examination by the God ( Plato’s Apology 33c).
From the standpoint of Socrates every point of departure in time is an occasion, a vanishing
moment. The teacher, the college professor, the tutor are no more than this; and if they offer
themselves and their instruction on any other basis, they do not give but take away, and are not
even the other’s friend, much less his teacher. Herein lies the profundity of the Socratic thought,
and the noble humanity he so thoroughly expressed, which refused to enter into a false and vain
fellowship with clever intellects, but felt an equal kinship with a slave boy (Meno 82b ).
In the Socratic view each individual is his own center, and the entire world centers around him,
because his self-knowledge is a knowledge of Truth. It was thus Socrates understood himself,
and thus he thought that everyone must understand himself, in the light of this understanding
interpreting his relationship to each individual, with equal humility and with equal pride. He had
the courage and self-possession to be sufficient unto himself, but also in his relations to his
fellowmen to be merely an occasion, even when dealing with the meanest amongst them, such as
Anythus (Meno90c) . How rare is such magnanimity! How rare in a time like ours, when almost
every second person is an authority! For while no human being was ever truly an authority for
another, or ever helped anyone by posing as such, or was ever able to take his client with him in
truth, there is another sort of success that may by such methods be won; for it has never yet been
known to fail that one fool, when he goes astray, takes several others with him.
From the Socratic point of view I owe nothing to a teacher; for the Truth in which I rest was
within me, and came to light through myself, and not even Socrates could have given it to me. If
I imagine myself meeting Socrates or anyone of my high school teachers in another life, then none
of them could be more to me than an occasion, which Socrates fearlessly expressed by
saying that even in the lower world he proposed to merely ask questions; for the underlying
principle of all questioning is that the one who is asked must have the Truth in himself, and be
able to acquire it by himself. All human authority figures vanish and become occasions to
deepen my search for Truth as soon as I discover that I have known the Truth from eternity
without being aware of it.
Now if the human seeker is not in possession of the Truth, then he must be destitute of
the Truth up to the very moment of his learning it; he cannot even have possessed it in the form
of ignorance. What is more, he cannot even be described as a seeker (from a Christian point of
view) ; for such is the expression we must give to the difficulty if we do not want to explain it
Socratically. He must therefore be described as beyond the pale of Truth, or as being in Error.
He is then in Error. But how is he now to be reminded, or what will it profit him to be reminded
of what he has not known, and consequently cannot recall?
Now if the learner is to acquire the Truth, the Teacher must bring it to him; and not only so, but
he must also give him the condition necessary for understanding it. For if the learner were in his
own person the condition for understanding the Truth, he need only recall it. But one who gives
the learner not only the Truth, but also the condition for understanding it, is more than a teacher.
All instruction depends upon the presence, in the last analysis, of the requisite condition; if this
is lacking, no teacher can do anything. For otherwise he would find it necessary not only to
transform the learner, but to recreate him before beginning to teach him. But this is something
that no human being can do; if it is to be done, it must be done by God Incarnate, Jesus Christ.
Insofar as the learner exists he is already created, and hence God must have endowed him with
the condition for understanding the Truth. The Teacher is then Jesus Christ himself, who in acting
as an occasion prompts the learner to recall that he is in Error, and that by reason of his
own guilt. But this state, this being in Error by reason of one’s guilt is Sin.
The Teacher, then, is Jesus Christ, and he gives the learner the requisite condition and the Truth.
The Truth then is that the learner owes the Teacher everything. He is Jesus; and yet his eye rests
upon humanity with deep concern, each hour of the day is taken up with the troubles of the
learner who confides in him. He knows that the Learner is in Error- what if he should
misunderstand, and droop, and lose his confidence!
Moved by love, the God as Teacher is thus eternally resolved to reveal himself. His love is a love
of the learner, and his aim is to win him. For it is only in love that the unequal can be made
equal, and it is only in equality or unity that an understanding can be effected, and without a
perfect understanding the Teacher is not the God, unless the obstacle comes wholly from the
side of the learner, in his refusing to realize that which had been made possible for him.
This equality is brought about by God showing himself to the learner as a human being, as Jesus
Christ and receiving his worship. God loves the learner so much that he suffers all things,
endures all things, makes experience of all things. Jesus must suffer hunger in the desert, he
must thirst in the time of his agony, he must be forsaken in death, absolutely like the humblest-
Behold the man! His suffering is not that of his death, but this entire life is a story of suffering;
and it is love that suffers, the love which gives all is itself in want. What wonderful self-denial!
for though the learner is devoid of Truth and thus miserable, he nevertheless asks him anxiously:
Do you now really love me? This immediate identification of God as Jesus with the plight of the
learner is the Truth which binds man to God.
The source of the conflict between a scientific and a religious explanation for the world and
our place in it boils down to the question of whether every human being possesses the Truth
within himself or needs to acquire the Truth from over and beyond himself.
Let us not underestimate the nature of this conflict; it has far reaching implications. In the book of
Genesis (Verse 22), “ God tested Abraham and said to him, take your son, your only son Isaac,
whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of
the mountains of which I shall tell you.” From a religious point of view, Abraham is required to
sacrifice his son. But if he sacrifices his son, he is committing murder from a humanistic moral
point of view. Should murder be interpreted as a holy religious sacrifice? I think not. Although in
the book of Mathew (Verse 28), Jesus says: “ All authority in heaven and on earth has been given
to me.”
Learning is the most basic instinct of humanity. Is this why Adam defied God and ate from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden? What right does God have to say in
Genesis (Verse 2): “ You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” To be sure, the garden of Eden is God’s garden.
But by defying God and eating the forbidden fruit, Adam asserts learning and the pursuit of
knowledge as man’s noblest aspiration. Knowledge is good. From a scientific point of view, the
only mistake Adam made was that he did not eat all the forbidden fruit on the tree of knowledge.
“ Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil;
and lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever- therefore
the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was
taken.” (Genesis, Verse 3).
Since man has been banished from the garden of Eden, he has lived (in one form or another) under
the Darwinian law of Life: Life is survival of the fittest. The most fit human beings are those that
are the most intelligent. The more intelligent a person is the more he can manipulate his
environment to suit his needs. The motto of the Enlightenment: “ Think for Yourself “ is the
scientific code for personal responsibility. Creative Human Reason is what rules the World from
a scientific point of view. Human reason can accomplish any possibility that we can imagine
today.
The only thing remaining for daring intellectual scientists to accomplish is the impossible. And one
can easily understand why some scientists have now entered the realm of the impossible. For what
does the independent and inquiring scientific mind hate more than being told that something just
can’t be done, pure and simple, by any agency at all, at any time, no matter what. Indeed, the
whole concept of the impossible was something of an affront to creativity and advanced
intelligence, which was why being told that something was impossible, was an unparalleled
stimulus for getting all sorts of people to try to accomplish it anyway, as witness all the attempts
to build perpetual motion machines, antigravity generators, time-travel vehicles, and all the rest.
Science is today looking to usurp the power of religion. Cryonicism is a scientific movement
which believes in the possibility of freezing the dead and reanimating them at some later date
when it is technically feasible to do so. From a cryonicist point of view, when I die, I might come
back. When you die, you’re dead. So who is the dummy?
The community is composed of individuals. Each individual, from a Socratic standpoint, possesses
the Truth within itself. It is the personal responsibility of each human being to inspire his fellow
man to discover the Truth within itself. This can be achieved through questioning and human
dialogue. The building of the community is the duty and work of Creative Human Reason.
Creative Human Reason needs to be expressed in the community. If Christians want to join in this
effort for the sake of Christian charity, that is fine. It is the result that matters the most here.
But open-ended dialogue is essential; for no one knows for sure which explanation of
the universe is right, the scientific or religious. But it is certainly nobler to believe in oneself, in the
human, all to human saving grace of reason, than in a divine power which is unfathomable and
not completely human. |
