[*That is to say, a community of Christians with a very 'minimalist' ecclesiological understanding.]
From the title of the piece, you'd think he was going to explain how it is a lie to say that God won't give you more than you can handle (call this proposition G). What he actually begins by claiming - or rather, strongly implying - is that proposition G is a "trite Christian platitude," "an insipid axiom." In other words, the proposition is not really a lie, but rather is unhelpful as advice for someone going through a rough time. And secondly, Pyle further claims that proposition G is bullshit (i.e., not just bullshit, but bold bullshit!). Let's examine these two claims.
So far as the first claim goes, let's just say it's pretty subjective. After all, sometimes all someone needs is a 'trite Christian platitude' to give him a little boost. (Ronald Knox wrote of the pious old lady whose simple heart is warmed just by hearing the hallowed name 'Mesopotamia' - 'Mesopotamia' is a place-name found in the Bible, for those who are wondering why it should be significant to a pious old lady.) And so far as the notion of its being an 'insipid axiom,' on the one hand, it's just not clear why it should be judged 'insipid'; and on the other, if it is an axiom then it can hardly make sense to call it a lie. (And if one happens to have no taste for the truth (finds it 'insipid'), probably one shouldn't assume that it is the truth which is at fault.)
Of course, possibly Mr. Pyle wasn't even trying to say anything strictly true in the foregoing. Perhaps he was just stating in a broadly rhetorical way his displeasure with people who don't try hard enough to say something creative and 'relevant' in order to make people like him feel better when they're down. He really isn't trying to make any genuine theological point, as his title suggested; he wanted to make a psychological point and vent his feelings a little.
Nonetheless, the way he does so is, well, problematic. First, you should be able to vent your feelings without sacrificing your respect for the truth. Accordingly, if you are going to vent your feelings by claiming that some theological (-sounding) claim is a lie, you should actually think, and you should explain why it is that you think, that that claim is in fact false. And in order to do that, you first have to explain what the allegedly false claim actually means (the intended meaning of proposition G is just not intrinsically obvious); then you need to explain why you think it is false. Pyle never does this.
And as for the specific claims Pyle does make, there's just not much to admire in what he says. His first attempt to dismiss proposition G involves the claim that people who insistently ask a lot of "why"-questions when things are going badly - as opposed to trusting in 'insipid axioms' and 'trite platitudes' - are people doing something courageous, and that there is something holy and sacred in being so courageous. And a prime example of one such admirable person is Nate Pyle himself, apparently; it seems that he is one of these laudable people who asks God, Why? Why not step in? Why not act? Why wouldn’t you make it right? Why couldn’t you part the clouds and provide a moment for us to catch our breath? Why everything at once? Why? There are two problems here: First, a point of logic: it seems that you can ask those questions - if you like - without impugning proposition G. Indeed, perhaps proposition G is an important part of the axiomatic framework within which you can ponder responses to these questions. Second, a point of clarity: Pyle never explains what is so courageous - or, more generally, praiseworthy - about asking these questions. He just seems to be - rather grandiosely and absurdly - congratulating himself on what he takes to be his own courageous holiness without explaining what is especially courageous or holy about his reaction to his situation. Now again, maybe he simply isn't trying to say anything strictly true at all here, he is just trying to find a sophisticated way to make himself and others feel good about themselves (in spite of their self-pity - "my life sucks right now - but at least I'm a holy and courageous dude, not like those limp, lying cowards who try to tell me God won't give me more than I can handle"). But again, it's important to find a way of doing that which respects the truth and the truth is, it's just hard to imagine a genuine model of exemplary courage and holiness, say, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Jesus of Nazareth, or Anthony of Egypt, or Catherine of Siena, or John of the Cross, or Isaac Jogues, or Josephine Bakhita, or Antonio Maria Claret, or Edith Stein, Maximilian Kolbe, Simone Weil, John Paul II, etc., making these kinds of laments.
Which brings us to the bullshit claim (i.e., the claim about 'bullshit'). I've already mentioned that Pyle doesn't actually do what his title indicated he was going to do, namely, explain the falsity of proposition G. Thus Pyle himself is bullshitting and it is actually his piece that is bullshit. As Harry Frankfurt explained in his 1986 essay "On Bullshit":
The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to.
This is the crux of the distinction between him and the liar. Both he and the liar represent themselves falsely as endeavoring to communicate the truth. The success of each depends upon deceiving us about that. But the fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it.
Now Pyle certainly might dispute my characterization of "what he is up to," but in the meantime, so far as I can see, his claim about proposition G being a lie/bullshit is itself just bullshit (in the technical sense given in the underlined sections above). Pyle tries to tell us that God won't give you more than you can handle is a "limp, anemic sentiment" which "will not stand in the face of a world that is not as it should be." But his limp, anemic argument for that claim is as follows:
Tell that [proposition G] to a survivor of Auschwitz. Tell it to the man who lost his wife and child in a car accident. Tell it to the girl whose innocence was robbed from her. Tell it to the person crushed under the weight of depression and anxiety. Tell it to the kids who just learned their parent has a terminal illness.
As if none of the people who have been in these situations has been able to handle 'what God has given them'... In reality, Pyle's list of tell-that-to's don't constitute an argument at all; it's just a vague appeal to emotion. Pyle seems to sense this, so he adds a 'real' argument, namely, a limp, anemic proof-text from 2 Cor. 1, where St. Paul writes (and Pyle emphasizes): "we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself." But Paul then goes on to say, "It is God who has preserved us, and is preserving us, from such deadly peril; and we have learned to have confidence that he will preserve us still." Paul never says, "God gave us more than we could handle." He does say, "we have learned to have confidence that God will preserve us." So what is Pyle thinking here? Not sure.
So much for a general analysis of Pyle's pile. In terms of a more personal reaction, his assertion that it takes courage to ask "why? why? why?" when some faced with some difficult situation strikes me, frankly, as ridiculous. When I had to hold my little daughter's beautiful little body and accept that she was taking her last breaths and then feel her body turning cold in my arms and finally leave it behind at the hospital, I was numb, devastated. I couldn't conceive carrying on without her and I wept bitterly in the presence of God. But I never asked "why?" Pyle and his pile of theological bullshit would seem to have it that I just lacked the courage to take up my holy and sacred duty to give God notice of the brunt of my emotions by asking evidently useless questions.
Pile's platitudes remind me of Weird Al's "Dare to be stupid." Sorry, bro, but I don't think that's real courage, and I don't think there's anything sacred or holy about it. When we dare to ask the question "why?" it should be because we actually want to know the answer to a real question, so unless you can seriously imagine that perhaps God wants to give you a special answer to some very particular question - think Abram's vision in Gen.15 or Moses and the burning bush -, and thus that he has not already given you a sufficient general answer to that question, there's no need to make a pretentious show of asking it. And it seems, I dare say, that in reality Pyle's "why"-questions are in fact all "why me"-questions. In other words, they express egotism, not courage, not holiness, not obedience to some sacred duty. Which is not to say we shouldn't feel compassion for someone who is in the clutches of self-pity, but we should still try to keep in the habit of calling things by their true names.
Pile's platitudes remind me of Weird Al's "Dare to be stupid." Sorry, bro, but I don't think that's real courage, and I don't think there's anything sacred or holy about it. When we dare to ask the question "why?" it should be because we actually want to know the answer to a real question, so unless you can seriously imagine that perhaps God wants to give you a special answer to some very particular question - think Abram's vision in Gen.15 or Moses and the burning bush -, and thus that he has not already given you a sufficient general answer to that question, there's no need to make a pretentious show of asking it. And it seems, I dare say, that in reality Pyle's "why"-questions are in fact all "why me"-questions. In other words, they express egotism, not courage, not holiness, not obedience to some sacred duty. Which is not to say we shouldn't feel compassion for someone who is in the clutches of self-pity, but we should still try to keep in the habit of calling things by their true names.
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