Francis Berger's Blog, page 112
November 11, 2020
Two Of The Most Ungodly (And Ludicrous) Things I've Ever Heard In My Life
"This Thanksgiving, the proper way to show your family that you love them is to stay away from them . . . as far away as possible. The greater the distance, the greater the love."
- uttered by some doctor featured on an American radio news program
"Mothers should wear masks when they are breastfeeding their babies."
- a recommendation from another doctor featured on Hungarian television
- uttered by some doctor featured on an American radio news program
"Mothers should wear masks when they are breastfeeding their babies."
- a recommendation from another doctor featured on Hungarian television
November 8, 2020
Nikolai Berdyaev: The Primacy of Freedom - An Excellent Essay By Richard Cocks
An solid essay by Richard Cocks whose outstanding work often includes clear analyses of Berdyaev's thought. This particular essay effectively elaborates many of the points contained within the excerpt from Berdyaev's Freedom and Spirit I posted here yesterday:
___________________________________________________________________________________________
For the Russian philosopher Berdyaev, freedom is absolutely fundamental. And freedom is connected with subjectivity and Spirit, rather than the objective (measurable) external world.
All attempts to locate meaning and value in things outside the human soul are doomed to fail. Thinking of the universe as an organism, for instance, seems like an improvement over thinking of it as a dead mechanism. It turns the cosmos into a living entity with a purpose, but it also means thinking of people as mere cells in this organism to be subordinated to the larger whole. Nationalism turns the nation into a false idol to be worshipped. Neither “history,” nor “progress,” nor “the human race,” nor Platonic Forms are particularly significant or even real. They are hypostatizations and abstractions. For Berdyaev, the concrete individual personality is the full locus of reality and value. Anything else renders the personality a meaningless nothing to be used as a means to some other end.
Kant, who also saw human beings as ends in themselves, pointed out that freedom must be a fundamental aspect of human subjectivity because love exists.[1] This is known directly from experience. Each one of us has loved and been the recipient of love. Love cannot exist without freedom. We should let the datum of love determine our theories and speculations about ultimate existence. If love is possible, and we know it is, then freedom exists.
This does not explain freedom. Freedom remains a mystery. This can be compared to the existence of life or of consciousness. How life emerged is unknown, but that does not stop us from acknowledging its existence, and something similar applies to consciousness.
With regard to freedom, at times, Berdyaev uses the mystic Jacob Boehme’s word the Ungrund which means the abyss of eternity that is absolutely indeterminate subjectivity which comes before everything. Tsoncho Tsonchev, a Bulgarian Berdyaev scholar studying at McGill University, writes “this is the primordial abyss from which God creates the world (Being) and from which Being, even God, the Supreme Being, emerges as Being.” However, “freedom is not the source of God, since God Himself is freedom (but a realized one, not the abysmal darkness); this freedom is rather a shadow, a potentia, a capacity, that becomes partially revealed only after the act of creation.”[2]
Thus there is a something rather than a nothing that precedes the very first act of God. And this something is freedom.
Freedom is fundamental and comes before all. Without it there can be no creativity. Without freedom all is mechanical and dead. There could be no love, no goodness, no friendship, and no meaning.
Anyone compelled to act is responsible neither for the good nor the evil that he causes through his actions.
Creativity requires agency. An agent is a center of consciousness, of decision-making, embodying intentionality and purpose. Determinism removes agency from the individual and effectively ascribes it to the Big Bang or the laws of nature, making human agency an illusion. Determinism reduces humans to the steel balls in a pinball machine that have no control over the spring-loaded mechanism that starts the ball’s journey around the machine, nor are there paddles that can be manipulated to alter the ball’s trajectory once the trip has begun.
Freedom is the alternative to nihilism. A certain kind of younger person sometimes imagines that nihilism is the truth and that the failure to acknowledge this comes from fear. Ivan Pavlov, who was immature at heart perhaps, is claimed to have said “There are weak people over whom religion has power. The strong ones – yes, the strong ones – can become thorough rationalists, relying only upon knowledge, but the weak ones are unable to do this.”[3]
It seems a shame to embark on the journey of life with a premature cynicism and rejection of existence. This attitude itself seems to come from fear; possibly a fear of disappointment. It certainly comes from hatred of life and being.
It is true that without freedom, there would also be no hatred, evil, enemies, nor the embrace of nihilism. From freedom come both darkness and the light. All these things have to be possible to enable choice to exist. There must be no God-derived punishment for choosing these things because that would be a manipulation and a derogation of human autonomy. There can only be a metaphorical punishment – one without a punisher – and that is the consequences that flow from those choices.
In his excellent book on Dostoevsky,[4] specifically centered around the Grand Inquisitor section of The Brothers Karamazov, Berdyaev directs some of his remarks at the nay-sayers. Nihilists may dispute the existence of love but, in their pessimism and misery, they seem likely to acknowledge the existence of evil. But if evil exists then morality exists. And if morality exists, freedom and God exist.
Berdyaev writes: “The existence of evil is the proof of the existence of God. If the world consisted wholly and uniquely of goodness and righteousness there would be no need for God, for the world itself would be god. God is, because evil is. And that means that God is because freedom is.”[5]
In Berdyaev’s view, human beings are co-creators with God; God in his macrocosm and we in our microcosm. We need God and God needs us. “The idea of God is the only supra-human idea that does not destroy man by reducing him to being a mere means.”[6]
If God ceased to exist, so would man. If man and creation ceased to exist, then so would God. This seems to be because God is in all, through all and above all. If you die, I die. If I am to be saved, then all must be saved. I am my brother’s keeper and he mine. Man has an immortal soul and participates in eternity with God and thus he never dies.
Avicenna points out that if God exists then nothing can happen that is not in accordance with His will. What is His will? Complete uninterrupted freedom to love or to hate, to create or destroy, to befriend or renounce, to deny His existence or to believe.
Faith does not exist nor does it mean anything if it is not a matter of free choice – just like everything else. If you are not my friend from your own untrammeled free will, then you are not my friend. It would be the end of a friendship were someone to threaten to harm someone if he were ever to decide not to be a friend anymore. Certainly God could never justly punish anyone who refused to love him.
There must be no knowledge of God’s existence. There can only be belief, faith and hope. If God’s existence could be proved in an irrefutable manner, faith and hope would be destroyed. Each of us must have the choice to believe or not to believe. The possibility of atheism is a precondition for theism. Love exists because not love exists.
Read the rest here.
Other fine essays by Richard Cocks' are available here.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
For the Russian philosopher Berdyaev, freedom is absolutely fundamental. And freedom is connected with subjectivity and Spirit, rather than the objective (measurable) external world.
All attempts to locate meaning and value in things outside the human soul are doomed to fail. Thinking of the universe as an organism, for instance, seems like an improvement over thinking of it as a dead mechanism. It turns the cosmos into a living entity with a purpose, but it also means thinking of people as mere cells in this organism to be subordinated to the larger whole. Nationalism turns the nation into a false idol to be worshipped. Neither “history,” nor “progress,” nor “the human race,” nor Platonic Forms are particularly significant or even real. They are hypostatizations and abstractions. For Berdyaev, the concrete individual personality is the full locus of reality and value. Anything else renders the personality a meaningless nothing to be used as a means to some other end.
Kant, who also saw human beings as ends in themselves, pointed out that freedom must be a fundamental aspect of human subjectivity because love exists.[1] This is known directly from experience. Each one of us has loved and been the recipient of love. Love cannot exist without freedom. We should let the datum of love determine our theories and speculations about ultimate existence. If love is possible, and we know it is, then freedom exists.
This does not explain freedom. Freedom remains a mystery. This can be compared to the existence of life or of consciousness. How life emerged is unknown, but that does not stop us from acknowledging its existence, and something similar applies to consciousness.
With regard to freedom, at times, Berdyaev uses the mystic Jacob Boehme’s word the Ungrund which means the abyss of eternity that is absolutely indeterminate subjectivity which comes before everything. Tsoncho Tsonchev, a Bulgarian Berdyaev scholar studying at McGill University, writes “this is the primordial abyss from which God creates the world (Being) and from which Being, even God, the Supreme Being, emerges as Being.” However, “freedom is not the source of God, since God Himself is freedom (but a realized one, not the abysmal darkness); this freedom is rather a shadow, a potentia, a capacity, that becomes partially revealed only after the act of creation.”[2]
Thus there is a something rather than a nothing that precedes the very first act of God. And this something is freedom.
Freedom is fundamental and comes before all. Without it there can be no creativity. Without freedom all is mechanical and dead. There could be no love, no goodness, no friendship, and no meaning.
Anyone compelled to act is responsible neither for the good nor the evil that he causes through his actions.
Creativity requires agency. An agent is a center of consciousness, of decision-making, embodying intentionality and purpose. Determinism removes agency from the individual and effectively ascribes it to the Big Bang or the laws of nature, making human agency an illusion. Determinism reduces humans to the steel balls in a pinball machine that have no control over the spring-loaded mechanism that starts the ball’s journey around the machine, nor are there paddles that can be manipulated to alter the ball’s trajectory once the trip has begun.
Freedom is the alternative to nihilism. A certain kind of younger person sometimes imagines that nihilism is the truth and that the failure to acknowledge this comes from fear. Ivan Pavlov, who was immature at heart perhaps, is claimed to have said “There are weak people over whom religion has power. The strong ones – yes, the strong ones – can become thorough rationalists, relying only upon knowledge, but the weak ones are unable to do this.”[3]
It seems a shame to embark on the journey of life with a premature cynicism and rejection of existence. This attitude itself seems to come from fear; possibly a fear of disappointment. It certainly comes from hatred of life and being.
It is true that without freedom, there would also be no hatred, evil, enemies, nor the embrace of nihilism. From freedom come both darkness and the light. All these things have to be possible to enable choice to exist. There must be no God-derived punishment for choosing these things because that would be a manipulation and a derogation of human autonomy. There can only be a metaphorical punishment – one without a punisher – and that is the consequences that flow from those choices.
In his excellent book on Dostoevsky,[4] specifically centered around the Grand Inquisitor section of The Brothers Karamazov, Berdyaev directs some of his remarks at the nay-sayers. Nihilists may dispute the existence of love but, in their pessimism and misery, they seem likely to acknowledge the existence of evil. But if evil exists then morality exists. And if morality exists, freedom and God exist.
Berdyaev writes: “The existence of evil is the proof of the existence of God. If the world consisted wholly and uniquely of goodness and righteousness there would be no need for God, for the world itself would be god. God is, because evil is. And that means that God is because freedom is.”[5]
In Berdyaev’s view, human beings are co-creators with God; God in his macrocosm and we in our microcosm. We need God and God needs us. “The idea of God is the only supra-human idea that does not destroy man by reducing him to being a mere means.”[6]
If God ceased to exist, so would man. If man and creation ceased to exist, then so would God. This seems to be because God is in all, through all and above all. If you die, I die. If I am to be saved, then all must be saved. I am my brother’s keeper and he mine. Man has an immortal soul and participates in eternity with God and thus he never dies.
Avicenna points out that if God exists then nothing can happen that is not in accordance with His will. What is His will? Complete uninterrupted freedom to love or to hate, to create or destroy, to befriend or renounce, to deny His existence or to believe.
Faith does not exist nor does it mean anything if it is not a matter of free choice – just like everything else. If you are not my friend from your own untrammeled free will, then you are not my friend. It would be the end of a friendship were someone to threaten to harm someone if he were ever to decide not to be a friend anymore. Certainly God could never justly punish anyone who refused to love him.
There must be no knowledge of God’s existence. There can only be belief, faith and hope. If God’s existence could be proved in an irrefutable manner, faith and hope would be destroyed. Each of us must have the choice to believe or not to believe. The possibility of atheism is a precondition for theism. Love exists because not love exists.
Read the rest here.
Other fine essays by Richard Cocks' are available here.
November 7, 2020
Berdyaev On The Origin Of Evil
Taken from Nikolai Berdyaev's Freedom and the Spirit:
Pure monism and pure dualism do not understand and therefore reject the mystery of freedom; they regard evil from an exterior point of view without grasping its inward origin.
Either evil finally disappears or it appears as a force completely outside and apart from the human spirit. But if evil cannot be regarded as having its source in God, and if outside God there is no other source of being, how can the phenomenon of evil be explained.
How can this dilemma be resolved?
To the Christian way of thinking neither monism nor dualism is right, and it has its own peculiar solution of the problem of the origin of evil. For Christianity this question is connected with that of freedom and cannot be solved apart from it.
Indeed monism and dualism both involve the denial of freedom, and are thereby incapable of comprehending the phenomenon of evil. The interpretation of the mystery of evil through that of freedom is a suprarational interpretation and presents reason with an antinomy.
The source of evil is not in God, nor in a being existing positively side by side with him, but in the unfathomable irrationality of freedom, in pure possibility, in the forces concealed within that dark void which precedes all positive determination of being.
Thus evil has no basis in anything; it is determined by no possible being and has no ontological origin. The possibility of evil is latent in that mysterious principle of being in which every sort of possibility lies concealed.
The void is not evil, it is the source of every kind of life and every actualization of being. It conceals within itself the possibility of both evil and of good. An initial, irrational, and mysterious void lies at the heart of the whole life of the universe, but it is a mystery beyond the reach of logic.
Thoughts?
Pure monism and pure dualism do not understand and therefore reject the mystery of freedom; they regard evil from an exterior point of view without grasping its inward origin.
Either evil finally disappears or it appears as a force completely outside and apart from the human spirit. But if evil cannot be regarded as having its source in God, and if outside God there is no other source of being, how can the phenomenon of evil be explained.
How can this dilemma be resolved?
To the Christian way of thinking neither monism nor dualism is right, and it has its own peculiar solution of the problem of the origin of evil. For Christianity this question is connected with that of freedom and cannot be solved apart from it.
Indeed monism and dualism both involve the denial of freedom, and are thereby incapable of comprehending the phenomenon of evil. The interpretation of the mystery of evil through that of freedom is a suprarational interpretation and presents reason with an antinomy.
The source of evil is not in God, nor in a being existing positively side by side with him, but in the unfathomable irrationality of freedom, in pure possibility, in the forces concealed within that dark void which precedes all positive determination of being.
Thus evil has no basis in anything; it is determined by no possible being and has no ontological origin. The possibility of evil is latent in that mysterious principle of being in which every sort of possibility lies concealed.
The void is not evil, it is the source of every kind of life and every actualization of being. It conceals within itself the possibility of both evil and of good. An initial, irrational, and mysterious void lies at the heart of the whole life of the universe, but it is a mystery beyond the reach of logic.
Thoughts?
November 3, 2020
The Freest of The Sons of Men
An intriguing and beautiful passage from Nikolai Berdyaev's Slavery and Freedom:
Christ was a free man, the freest of the sons of men. He was free from the world; He was bound only by love. Christ spoke as one having authority, but He did not have the will to authority, and He was not a master.*
* Here Berdyaev is referring specifically to a master of slaves.
Christ was a free man, the freest of the sons of men. He was free from the world; He was bound only by love. Christ spoke as one having authority, but He did not have the will to authority, and He was not a master.*
* Here Berdyaev is referring specifically to a master of slaves.
November 2, 2020
Evil Wants You To Obsess Over It
This post basically began as a note-to-self, but I have decided to publish here in the hope that it might also benefit others.
The following excerpt from Nikolai Berdyaev's Freedom and the Spirit (bold added) provides a pertinent warning about the dangers of obsessing over evil, which, I confess, I occasionally do.
"Evil must be unmasked if it is to be defeated, for ignorance or denial of evil weakens our resistance to it. Man must learn how to 'try the spirits', for he is often in the grips of devils who appear as angels of light. But there is also another danger, that of a too exclusive concentration upon evil, which consists in seeing it everywhere, and which by an exaggeration of its power and attraction amounts to a continuous obsession with it. Man is thus plunged into an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust. He has more faith in the power of Satan than in that of God; he believes more in Antichrist than in Christ Himself. Thus a most pernicious spiritual tendency is set in motion which spells destruction for all positive and creative life. Evil has its effect upon man not only when he denies its existence, but also when he exaggerates its significance."
The following excerpt from Nikolai Berdyaev's Freedom and the Spirit (bold added) provides a pertinent warning about the dangers of obsessing over evil, which, I confess, I occasionally do.
"Evil must be unmasked if it is to be defeated, for ignorance or denial of evil weakens our resistance to it. Man must learn how to 'try the spirits', for he is often in the grips of devils who appear as angels of light. But there is also another danger, that of a too exclusive concentration upon evil, which consists in seeing it everywhere, and which by an exaggeration of its power and attraction amounts to a continuous obsession with it. Man is thus plunged into an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust. He has more faith in the power of Satan than in that of God; he believes more in Antichrist than in Christ Himself. Thus a most pernicious spiritual tendency is set in motion which spells destruction for all positive and creative life. Evil has its effect upon man not only when he denies its existence, but also when he exaggerates its significance."
November 1, 2020
A Warm Welcome
Approach any settlement or residence in Hungary and you are likely to hear or encounter the following words - Isten hozott (pronounced Ish-ten ho-zoat). A welcome greeting expressed upon one's arrival, the saying can be roughly translated as God has brought you. 
October 29, 2020
So, How's That Liberty Working Out For Ya?
My posts on religious themes over the years have occasionally drawn scoffing critical comments from smug libertarian-atheist types who, after having roundly dismissed my belief in a sky-god, have contemptuously informed me that the only thing that matters in life is liberty.
Ah, yes.
So, how's that liberty thing been working out for you this year?
Ah, yes.
So, how's that liberty thing been working out for you this year?
October 27, 2020
Gulácsy's Dreamlike Visions
Lajos Gulácsy (1882-1932) is regarded as a great painter here in Hungary and his works are included in the Hungarian National Gallery. I personally don't see any 'greatness' in Gulácsy's oeuvre, but I do have a soft spot for the dreamlike quality of his work, as exemplified in the two paintings below. 
October 25, 2020
Nietzsche The Composer
Friend and fellow blogger S.K. Orr recently learned that philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche composed music. Unlike S.K., I knew Nietzsche composed music, but (also unlike S.K.) I had never taken the time to listen to any of the philosopher's compositions.
My music knowledge is embarrassingly unsophisticated, which makes me oblivious to the likely flaws and shortcomings of Nietzsche's musical creations. Having said that, I rather enjoyed the selections featured in the clip below as well as the selections S.K has featured on his blog here.
My music knowledge is embarrassingly unsophisticated, which makes me oblivious to the likely flaws and shortcomings of Nietzsche's musical creations. Having said that, I rather enjoyed the selections featured in the clip below as well as the selections S.K has featured on his blog here.
October 23, 2020
Budapest 1938
Below is a great Traveltalks newsreel from 1938 featuring Budapest. You Tube appears to be "suggesting" the video to everyone who lives in Hungary (I haven't searched for anything related to Hungary on You Tube for over a year, yet was suggested this video all the same).
Most of the comments for the video are run-of-the-mill You Tube comments, but a few note the ominous timing of the suggestion. For example:"The saddest thing for me is that one seems aware of the hell and misery that would befall Budapest in a few years time.""That's why this video was featured! We're going to be crying, too. A couple of years (or months) from now, we will face misery and hell, too.""I had the same thought I was watching this." I can't help but agree to a certain extent, but I would argue our 1938 is already behind us. It ended somewhere in March or April. The whole world is well into 1939 now, closing in fast on 1940.
Note added: The analogy I draw at the end is an extremely loose one. What we are currently experiencing defies historical comparisons.
Most of the comments for the video are run-of-the-mill You Tube comments, but a few note the ominous timing of the suggestion. For example:"The saddest thing for me is that one seems aware of the hell and misery that would befall Budapest in a few years time.""That's why this video was featured! We're going to be crying, too. A couple of years (or months) from now, we will face misery and hell, too.""I had the same thought I was watching this." I can't help but agree to a certain extent, but I would argue our 1938 is already behind us. It ended somewhere in March or April. The whole world is well into 1939 now, closing in fast on 1940.
Note added: The analogy I draw at the end is an extremely loose one. What we are currently experiencing defies historical comparisons.
