What is Truth? Post-Christianity and Metaphysics Pt 3

Hello Everyone,

Well it is Good Friday and I’m a bit late with my new thoughts content. Apologies for that. I am working hard on trying to get my latest manuscript to my publisher asap, as it will debut in June. But please know you have not been far from my thoughts. I am always, as per my usual, imagining what to bring you and what to offer you during these high holy moments on the liturgical Christian calendar.

Good Friday is as good a time as any to talk about metaphysics, in keeping with our recent series.

The day Christians have claimed for 2,000 years that God died. A God that held all of history in its hands, the author and finisher of all things; the God in total control. As part of the grand plan this God incarnated into its son and died at the hands of its creation. The conservatives say for our sin. The liberals say to know our own suffering. The philosophers say it was the birth of atheism. The theologians say it was the beginning of the death of God. But what do we say? And more importantly, what does this all mean to and for us? And, for all intents and purposes here, why does this matter for our discussion on metaphysics.

Every year, without fail, it never ceases to amaze me. The Evangelical writers and bloggers talk of how we have been set free through the death of Jesus. The progressive writers and bloggers do their best to debunk Golgotha of its spiritual dimensions and talk of Jesus as an enemy of the state, a political prisoner, and a mutual protester in matters of empire and power.

Both fair enough, but both robbing the cross of its true and potential significance, watering down its meaning with our subjective interpretation only. ‘Only’ being the key word. Perhaps the meaning lies somewhere between the subjective and the objective. The objective being as good as non-existent since we can’t ever access it anyway. The subjective being fairly meaningless as it isn’t tethered to anything but ourselves.

So what do we do with the cross? What does it hold for us and beyond? And what does any of it have to do with metaphysics?

In Armen Avanessian’s book, Future Metaphysics, which I will return to as this series progresses, says this about the task of metaphysics:

“If metaphysics is that science which contains the first principles of human knowledge, then does it still have a timeless object at all, beyond things that can be known? Or does it now only occupy itself narcissistically with human knowledge itself?” He goes on to say, “philosophy, late in its career, looks itself in the eye and is startled to find that there is hardly anything left to see when one sees only oneself. Philo-sophy is constantly in danger of losing sight of what it ought to know due to its sheer occupation with or love of knowledge.”

We can certainly speak of metaphysics if we know what it is we are speaking of; a code that can never be cracked and buried treasure that can never be recovered. And often we find it is simply our own desires at the heart of the metaphysical search and, perhaps, at the heart of the cross.

Yet just because metaphysics is seemingly unretrievable, does this mean we do not query and search? At the very least, a quest that is marked by a phrase written of by Avanessian, “no beginning or end in sight.”

He says, “For ‘beyond the object’ in no way means the same thing as ‘beyond all objectivity’ or ‘purely subjective.’”

In philosophical terms, we can ascertain that ‘objectivity’ would pertain to what is known as logical positivism, meaning that all knowledge can be discovered via formula and scientific method. There is truth with a capital T and it will reveal itself through logic and reason. We can also assume that ‘purely subjective’ could be understood as phenomenology, meaning that we have subjective experiences of the objective and our own inferences and interpretations are all we can ever know about anything. All is relative.

So, again, our choices seem to be one of two binaries: the real and our interpretation of the real. And this is the battle I see on social media, blogs, publications, and the like, each Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It was or it was not. It happened or it didn’t.

The cross meant everything or it meant nothing.

It was cosmic or it was only relative to our own human experience.

A matter of metaphysics or not.

But what if we asked a better question, a deeper question, of metaphysics?

Perhaps a meta metaphysics question.

If metaphysics is a matter of first things, a starting point, a beginning, but we are asking questions that go beyond first things, knowing full well we can’t ever get at it fully, yet we quest anyway, while rooted in our humanity and our search for meaning. We find our meaning in the in between; the arrival and advent of Christ, the spirit, the specter, and the departure of Christ, the ascension, the return, the event, and all events before and since. We are simply a player on the plain. The plain in which history has began and has had its ending. And somehow the cross, in ways known and unknown, is wrapped up in all of this.

It releases us from our addiction and obligation to knowing, it stokes the flames of curiosity and sojourn, it brings peace in the midst of an itch that can never be scratched, it gives joy in the solace of what we know we can know and all that we know we cannot.

What does this all have to do with the cross?

Well, a lot.

Who told us we get to decide its ultimate meaning? Being incredibly removed from its context and socio-historical understanding, how arrogant we all must be to attribute meaning in a way that is final, but actually translates as banal.

We claim ultimacy, but as Avanessian writes, “are ultimate explanations even the point?”

Perhaps we have a theology of the cross that is truly a metaphysical one, in terms of the meta inextricably tied and connected to the physical. We have a sort of understanding, but only see in part. And this ‘part’ isn’t filled in by Evangelical doctrine of penal substitution, nor is it coopted by liberal reformers watering it down to be understood as ‘physical’ only.

We hold its meaning close to our hearts, making no inferences of secret and mystery, yet so aware of the caveat of more.

What is it with our need to know, our addiction to certainty in which we find ourselves in service to?

If we want to have a/the conversation on metaphysics we must take the ‘physics’ part of that seriously while honoring the ‘meta' piece, which must go beyond first things. And the implications are endless!

There is so much tension to hold here. But we are up to the task. This in the commitment we make as post-Christians. This is what keeps our faith alive and on its toes. This is why Jesus matters and will always matter. And this is why Good Friday will always be of interest irrespective our orientation and/or directionality to Christianity.

A call to more, an invitation to deeper, an abandonment to in-between.

Each year, around this time, I try and offer thoughts, new thoughts, that will encourage you in your Christian and/or post-Christian journey around these high holy holidays. Last year I wrote a piece call “Good Friday: What’s so good about it?” Which you are welcome to read and it is linked here.

But this year, this is what was on my heart to offer you. And while I know sometimes these new thoughts can raise more questions than they can answer, that is always the point.

To sit in the tension of all we can’t explain or articulate. And more than that to know, if we are to know anything, that that isn’t the point of it all anyway.

Whatever this day means to you and whatever you are up to, my hope is that you feel peace, excitement, new life, and maybe even a bit of grief, in squaring with the boundlessness and also the limits of our own humanity-the knowing, the growing, the questing, the querying.

Until next time,

Your Maria

Resources Mentioned:

Future Metaphysics by Armen Avanessian