Losing Sight of Divinity
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Transcript of Losing Sight of Divinity
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Losing Sight of Divinity
GREATWK EA2
Tara Margarita D. Del Rosario & Miguel Lorenzo M. Sotto
It is not uncommon for a man or a woman to attend mass dressed in an attire that
they would also wear to public establishments such as a mall or restaurant. Rewind 100
years, and these same seemingly decent individuals of today, would back then be
deemed practically as obscene as prostitutes. While others may still find this to be
inappropriate in modern times, it can be said that it is, more or less, socially accepted
(especially amongst the youth). Even if fashion is to be taken into consideration, where
the clothing has become more and more revealing as time progresses, events such as
funerals or business meetings still require its attendees to dress in a very specific kind
of attire. While the church still encourages people to dress appropriately during the
ceremony, the word appropriate has since become very subjective. So much so that, it
is much more frowned upon to wear red to a funeral, or a T-shirt to a large corporate
meeting, than it is to wear a short skirt to hear mass. All of this simply leads to the
implication that throughout the years, there has been a gradual loss of meaning in
religious experiences or rituals. This can be noticed not only in the act of going to
church, but even something as simple as praying. This one-on-one encounter with the
almighty has since regressed from being a daily occurrence, to an occasional gesture.
This paper therefore would discuss this loss of meaning behind religious experiences
from a Christian standpoint, in reference to the works The Archaeology of Knowledge,
The Meditations, and The Man With the Blue Guitar by Michel Foucault, Ren
Descartes, and Wallace Stevens respectively.
As a post-modern philosopher, Foucault went against tradition and the norms ofsociety in history. He believes that history is formed by the discourses, or what
happened in the past that create the concepts of culture. InThe Archaeology of
Knowledge, Foucault tries to diminish oeuvres - masterpieces (the bible); collection of
absolutes; questionable truths - by checking discourses, which he says to be in
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opposition to the history of thought (Foucault, 23), in order to prove there is no
absolute truth in attempt to liberate us from discrimination and to attain freedom. In
Chapter 5, Foucault argues that oeuvres belong to a single discursive
formation, (Foucault, 119) and that different oeuvres or the mass of text by many
different authors, simply repeat the same concepts, elaborate the other authors ideas,
answer the other's questions, or continue the same message as a previous author. The
authors merely criticize, invalidate, or pillage one another through these dispersed
books without even knowing, which Foucault describes as communicating by the form
of positivity of their discourse (Foucault, 119). This being said, the Bible is an oeuvre,
and by proving that an oeuvre is nothing more than a repetition of ideas, it cannot be
proven to be a complete truth, or a source for reference on how to live life. This
connects to what the idea of religion means to Foucault, who believes it is one of the
aspects in society that create certain great historical individualities (Foucault, 18). The
problem he sees in this however, when he checks each discourse, he finds that any
discourse is temporal and not universal. In other words, they become negotiable when
they should not be. For example, premarital sex. The decision whether premarital sex is
bad or good, or if the term should even exist is based on religious ethics. Meaning,
because of religion, premarital sex is looked down upon in society, but Foucault
believes, that if a man and a woman are deeply in love, why not? The discourse of
premarital sex basically goes: a couple must fight the urge because they should be
married, in the future, before engaging in any sexual act. This confirms that the futureof
this couples sexual life is decided in their past before marriage. Foucault believes that
one element in history should be independent. In this case however, whether that
couple is accepted - or not looked down upon - in society after their marriage is
dependent on the couples decision in the past. In continuation to the idea of the Bible,
religion and God in general, there are discourses Foucault calls rarity discourses in
chapter 4. He explains the type of discourse like so: It is based on the principle that
everything is never said in relation to what might have been stated in a natural
language,!there are, in total, relatively few things that are said. We must look
therefore for the principle of rarification... (Foucault, 111). In other words, rarity
discourses are statements/events of awe or fascination. As he explains, a rarity
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discourse is an event without explanation. In terms of religion, this would be a miracle.
In Christian society, miracles are accepted without question, and some practicing
Christians even pray about more miracles. Foucault questions this acceptable
ignorance Christians have towards miracles; he believes we should detach ourselves
from a divinity. From all the evidence Foucault found through the discourses, the
ouevre, and the rarity discourse, he was able to portray how a person could lose the
belief in a divinity. In the diminishing of oeuvres, he proves there cannot be absolute
truths or events without explanation, which is the base of religion because it is solely
reliant on faith. Therefore, in The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault shows us how
the common social problem of the loss of religious meanings takes place in history
through discourses.
In addition to this, works previous to that of Foucaults dealing with Philosophy
have been priming society into thinking more critically for centuries. Ren Descartes for
example, exhibits in his work The Meditationsthat in order to determine absolute truth,
one must first doubt everything in which he or she knows: To achieve his bold quest of
for an absolute certain philosophy, Descartes is willing, with equal boldness, to
overthrow and destroy all he has ever believed, to cast doubt upon all his
beliefs (Descartes, 95). Religion, it can be said, is one of the topics in which it is fairly
easy to create doubt, especially when viewed in a philosophical standpoint. Naturally, if
one were to doubt religion, in order for it to obtain certainty it would have to go through
the process of reason, which has never exactly been religions area of strength.
Although Descartes tries to provide arguments towards the existence of a higher being:
whether I, who have the idea of an infinite and perfect being, can exist if this being
does not exist? (Descartes, 106), the multitude of arguments against Descartes from
the likes of Philosophers such as Nietszche, kept the doubt alive. In addition, religion is
also primarily based on faith. Descartes has an unquestionable standpoint stating that
God is the ultimate perfect being and he has three arguments which he believes prove
this. For the first, he chose to use mathematics to prove God. This is because ideas in
mathematics are clear and distinct, and always have a definite answer for solutions and
such without question - like one plus one must equal two. In order for Descartes to
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prove Gods existence, he simply fabricated a demon to falsify mathematics, in order to
prove Gods existence. This is not logical because Descartes only created this demon
out of faith and the thought that he must prove that God exists. For his second
argument, Descartes states that human error does not exist in God (Descartes, 107).
And finally, his third argument introduces the Cartesian Circle - circular proofing. This
means that Descartes claims to prove Gods existence, from the innate idea of God
existing. He states: ... nondeceiving God exists in order to establish that I can trust my
clear and distinct ideas and thus move beyond the Cogito to other certain
truths (Descartes 108). In the end, Descartes manages to establish a solid and widely
recognized argument confirming his own, and the existence of others as well: I think,
therefore I am. I doubt that I think, I deny that I think, these only confirm that I must exist
to deny or doubt (Descartes, 97). However, ones that attempt to confirm the existence
of a god, which is the whole basis of any religion, fails to reach the same level of
acceptance amongst the philosophical crowd.
The possible effect of all these new arguments against the credibility of religion
is that the lifestyle of modern society (especially the people with the same opinion as
those presenting the arguments) have changed in such a way that Religious
Experiences or rituals can be treated with a general form of lax, as it has become more
and more accepted to be, in one way or another, against some aspects of the church.
This can be noticed more clearly in the 20th century onwards, not only reflecting in the
actions of people, but in the works being produced with inter-lapping concepts. It can be
said that Wallace Stevens may have interpreted the change in the characteristics or the
behavior of people as some sort of rebellion to those who constrain: Raise reddest
columns. Toll a bell and clap the hollows full of tin. Throw papers in the streets, the wills
of the dead, majestic in their seals (Stevens, 130). The contrasting color, in conjunction
with somewhat crude actions against the departed, suggest a revolt against the
constraints of a past that could be in reference to the level of control the church had
over the people. This insinuation is intensified as the mood of this particular section
becomes loud in a way, as it employs the use of various musical instruments such as
trombones, or drums, reflecting the intensity of the said change. This is seen throughout
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the section, until finally it is revealed that it is a religious figure that is being rebelled
against: behold the approach of him who none believes... Lean from the steeple. Cry
aloud, Here I am, my adversary, that confront you... (Stevens, 130). Although for
someone to confront something with such ferocity, on must believe that there is
something to confront in the first place. What can be said here is that, yes the churchs
presence is still recognized, but it is being challenged, and is losing. With no further
positive progression on the side of the church, it is no wonder then that these religious
experiences, are losing those to experience them in the first place.
To conclude, a century might not be a very long time in terms of the amount of
time that modern society has been existent. However, how people have changed in
terms of beliefs and lifestyle during that century might as well render the two from
different dimensions. What was considered criminal, may be perfectly normal in todays
society. This can be seen in many ways, but probably none as prominent as how
religious experiences have lost an incredibly significant amount of meaning. This
happened through a process, one which involved people developing a critical mind and
actually taking into consideration rationality to explain certain phenomena rather than
turning to divine intervention. Foucault figures that every event in history should be
treated as independent and cannot be considered the truth without explanation, which
can be used as a direct criticism of the bible as it is often taken for an absolute truth.
Descartes encouraged people to think critically about an absolute truth by the process
of doubt or skepticism. Though he succeeded in presenting an argument for his
existence, the same could not be said for a god. Stevens, then describes the effect on
society, wherein peoples lifestyles have changed to a point that the church or a higher
being is actually being rebelled against. All of these events in succession, more or less,
play the role in diminishing what people used to see, in the unseen.