An Argument for the Immortality of the Soul

This argument is an elaboration on something presented in Part 4 of my Dialogue on Philosophy and Ethics. My argument is very simple and relies on premises that are obscured more than weird. The structure is like this:

1) Everything that acts, acts for an end that it could possibly achieve

2) Man acts for perfect happiness

3) Perfect happiness is that state of affairs in which man could find no reason to act further

4) As long as there is impermanence, man will find reason to act

5) Therefore, man must be able to reach a permanent (immortal) state of affairs

I will reckon that the most difficult premise to argue will be that everything which acts, acts for an end that it may possibly achieve. I am also certain that there will be some confusion on the point of what constitutes perfect happiness for man, but I believe that is more a matter of confusion and, following my elucidation, it will be cleared up.

The idea of finality, or final cause, variously referred to as a thing’s end, aim, or directed-ness, is given an embarrassing amount of short shrift by those who ought to know. Its understanding and, resultantly, acceptance is largely what separates modernist philosophers from those of a more Scholastic, Thomistic bent. Modernists try and maintain that finality was done away with by the advent of natural science, but that this is not the case is quite clear from an examination of the concepts maintained even by our supposedly “undirected” sciences. Though admittedly, perhaps some of the blame may be laid with Aristotle, who is typically called upon to explain the idea, for which he explains it rather poorly. Still, that is no excuse for being wholly ignorant of the clarity brought to the concept by 2000 years’ worth of philosophers who followed him.

Finality is the idea that a thing is acting, or moves itself, to the attainment of a state in which it would achieve its aim, coming to rest and thus having no further reason to act. This may sound strange to those unacquainted, but it can be demonstrated that we all implicitly rely on there being just such a thing when we attempt to explain the action of a thing. I will present some examples in order that the concept be made clear in our own explanations, whether they are “everyday” or “scientific.” I wish to note in these explanations that, when we state why something does what it does, it is in order to achieve some end. Note our use of descriptions such as “in order that,” “directed to,” “to attain,” and so on.

Gravitation is a very basic example. A stone falls in order that it may lie on the ground. Whenever we see a stone, and see that it is falling, we suppose it is the case that there is some ground to which it is falling. Gravity is always and everywhere an attraction of material bodies to each other.

Gases also behave with directed-ness. One example is their behavior to maintain an inverse proportion between pressure and volume.

Finality is present in living things as well. A seed has as its end to grow into a mature adult.

And every animal has as its end to maintain and generate more life.

In fact, these ends are so essential that we explain the parts of a whole living being in terms of how they help it to achieve its end. Not only can we not explain a thing without reference to its final cause, but this final cause is so important that it is the principle by which we recognize that a thing is what it is. An animal has teeth in order that it may gain nutrition to gain energy in order that it may continue living. And while I don’t have any knowledge about seeds, I reckon that its parts are explained in terms of how they help that seed to achieve its end.

If you have any lingering doubts about the necessity of finality in explaining a thing, then I can present this challenge. Try and produce, to your own satisfaction, an explanation of gravity that does not even implicitly rely on the fact that a thing falls in order to reside at a lowest point. I will note that my argument is not that a thing will necessary achieve its end; an animal may die before procreating or starve, a sapling may be drowned, a stone might burn up in a planet’s atmosphere, and so on. However, in every case there is the possibility that a thing will achieve its end. A seed may not actually become a mature adult, but there is in respect to the reality of the world that possibility, and this no matter how unlikely for its present environment (say, a seed that tries to grow on the moon; it is only that there is, for all things considered, the possibility that it could achieve its end somehow). Though, when a thing attains this end and has no further reason to impel itself beyond, say when a stone finds the ground and so rests there by inaction, we can say that a thing has perfected its end. A thing brought to perfection is a thing without further reason to act, at least until it is the case that it is moved from its place of finality (like, when I pick up the stone and throw it in the air), whereupon it will act again to be brought back to its place of rest.

Now I argue this. Seeing as everything in the world has some end to which it acts, then we can only suppose that humans likewise have something to which they act, and this is what distinguishes humans in their essence from everything else. Arguing that, yes, everything else has an end which it might possibly achieve but holding a reservation as to the possibility of humans achieving their end is special pleading. It is much simpler to suppose that, in the case that everything else acts to an end it has the possibility of achieving, humans also have this same possibility in respect of their own end.

Which brings about the question of what man’s end is. For what do we act?

I propose that we act in order to be happy. We note that whenever someone does something, they are trying to achieve some specific end, and this because they judge it to be more preferable to other acknowledged acts. A person works in order to generate an income that they might buy the things they like, or they get up from the couch to walk to the kitchen and get a drink of water. In all these things, a person expends labor in order to achieve some more preferable state. In general, a person acts in order to be happy, whether they would find some intermediate happiness in a fine meal or the company of a friend.

However, there is a defect of this world in that it can not bring a person to perfect happiness. For every intermediate end achieved, a person is left unsatisfied. This is proved in that a person must act further no matter how desirable we might judge their state of affairs. I reckon that even a person living in Eden should be left unsatisfied outside the achievement of perfect happiness. A great quantity of happiness is still not perfect happiness, a state of affairs in which a person finds no reason to act further. And what impels us to act further? This is because everything in this world is impermanent, and so it passes away in its consumption. Food is eaten, and so in being enjoyed it can be no longer enjoyed (in fact, eating will eventually make eating not enjoyable). Rest is the consumption of time for enjoying comfort, but in so being consumed it passes away.

Therefore, I find that this world cannot of itself bring us to our end.

But remember that everything has the possibility of reaching its end! If man cannot reach his end in this world, then it must be a defect of the world rather than a defect in man. This world simply cannot supply man his perfection or completion. It is just not the right kind of place, much like empty space is not the right kind of place for a stone, for we see that it continues to move until it lays on the ground. The relevant defect that makes it impossible for man to achieve his end in this world is its essential impermanence. Nothing can remain the same, but is always changing, and this in order that it may be as it is (for otherwise it would not be; a body at absolute zero would have zero energy and would consequently have no mass, making it cease to be).

If impermanence in this world is the defect that prevents man from reaching his end, then it must be possible for man to reach a state of permanence, which is outside of this world. If this is the case, then what binds man to this world, his remaining impermanent, must be negatable, and so an individual must be able to be forever, and this not merely to say that he might potentially continue living in this world without ceasing, as it is not this world that can bring man his happiness. That is, we could note that even a person who lives forever in this impermanent world would never achieve his end, and so the possibility would not be realizable. Therefore, the possibility of man’s happiness must lie beyond this world, while man must be able to live beyond the impermanence of this world in some way.

A man who can live in permanence is, we should note, what we mean by saying that he is immortal.

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The Existentialist Obsession with Death

I believe there are many problems with existentialism as a philosophical view. Like postmodernism, it works better as a tool or method, a kind of mood that gives you a way for approaching problems that you might deconstruct it in order to put it back together again. The general problem with these as a view is that it likes to explode everything, then reflect on the rubble. It is devoid of positive content, and I mean that in the systematic sense. It is pure, negative critique. This is why you cannot start with existentialism or postmodernism and get somewhere; it is only good for being introduced after a certain point has been reached, then overcome, that the journey might be continued in a fruitful way. Otherwise, you’re left on the merry go round, ceaselessly wondering why your life sucks. It isn’t an accident that these two movements are founded on Nietzsche, a raving syphilitic. I know this will not jive with any existentialists or postmodernists out there, but I’m not too concerned.

I want to hone in on a particular problem with existentialism. The problem is that of an obsession with death, and framing it as the definition of life. “Living is dying; therefore, to die is to live.” I grant there is a certain poetic appeal to this resolution of the two opposed modes, life and death; I usually appreciate such resolutions. But that it would be nice for such a resolution to exist doesn’t mean that it actually is the case. Death is, at the bottom of it, something altogether different from life. When you are alive, you are; when you are dead, you are not. That’s the very distinction meant to be captured by our speaking of living and dead things. You can’t gloss over this just to get to your pretty words. There’s just no other way to go about it. When someone is dead, they’re freaking dead. And when they’re alive, they’re just alive. Nobody is dead while being alive, and introducing all the dialectical talking points about alienation, absurdity, and despair don’t let you ride roughshod over this neat and admittedly boring distinction.

For existentialism to be overtly concerned with the import of death for a living being, it will fail to aptly characterize the existential crises which actually strike. It problematizes something not inherently problematic, which is to make something a problem that isn’t; it isn’t cute. In fact, it’s dangerous. People have died on account of people problematizing something that wasn’t a problem. (See Marx on the mode of production and how people trying to apply Communism has worked out.) It misses out on the way things actually work in favor of filling it with a kind of despairing, existentialist mindset.

The obsession with death does not get hard metaphysical work done. You cannot proceed from “I have this despairing feeling” to “Therefore, there are no natures.” The Sartrean existence precedes essence is supposed to be grounded in some feeling we have about being thrown into the world, having an existence before we’ve made anything of ourselves; as if essence is just “what we make of ourselves!” Sartre happens to be right about the subjectivity of thrown-ness, but it doesn’t lead to the neat metaphysical conclusions he claims it does, and the same method doesn’t work for other existentialists. You do not get from “We are all removed from each other by an inseparable distance” (as if this were some existentially relevant fact I should have a way of feeling about) to “Therefore there are no objective moral facts in the world.” Reason just doesn’t work that way.

Maybe this is all a bit scattershot, but I’m becoming frustrated with the existentialist’s lack of attention to technical detail in their “critiques.” There’s no attempt at relating what’s being said to what’s come before. It’s a serious problem if one imagines themselves to be doing something like philosophy, instead of just self-aggrandizing their moods and feelings like its so serious and full of gravity.

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The Unnaturality of Death

It has been proposed, for various and well-meaning reasons, that death is something natural. This is not a mere difference in definition of nature that people have been using; people have meant it in very many different ways. It has been construed as natural because it occurs in nature, or because it is of the nature of a living thing, or because it is what one should want to do after a well-lived life. There have only ever been theological reasons offered against the naturality of death; death is a consequence of sin. Were the Garden of Eden not to be pierced by the corruption of evil, death would not have occurred.

I can’t say I’ve ever been wholly impressed by this view. For one, it misses the point of our still-remaining immortality. Death is not annihilation, it is just the ending of this part of our lives, and the beginning of a new one. This is so whether or not one has the fate of Heaven or Hell; the life of a human never ends. Would Adam and Eve have died if sin were to not occur? I’m not certain they wouldn’t have still died.

For all that, it still seems death is not something we should say is natural. Even if it is a result of life, that something is concomitant to a phenomena does not in itself make it natural. Approaching nature as the nature of things, that something dies does not show that death is the end of the thing.

We need to analyze the concept of nature as we apply it to beings. For it to be a nature is for something to have a certain aim, something that it seeks to accomplish. Inanimate matter has as its nature that of gravitation, the end of coming to rest in the locale of greatest mass. It can occur for times that a thing fails to do so; consider a comet endlessly whipping around the sun, never achieving rest. But we wouldn’t say that its continuing to careen around on a highly elliptical orbit is something it does; what it does is try and come to rest in the sun, which is why it returns to orbit. That it was impelled with such a velocity is something that happened to it. Therefore, that a thing moved is not of its own nature, at least not originally. It possesses the nature to be moved, at the very least, but that it is moved is not something of itself. This is the point to stick on.

So we see that a thing has something happen to it is not what we ought to understand as being its nature. It has the possibility of never achieving its nature, but this not because of the thing’s nature but because of circumstances external to it; thus not achieving its nature is something that happens to it, rather than something it does.

In this way we might understand that death is not something a living thing does. The end of a living thing is to live. That it is the end of a living thing to live is how we understand the form it possesses, how we interpret its parts as being concerned with the perpetuation of its life. An animal has a mouth that it can eat, a digestive tract that it might get nutrients from its food, legs that it might pursue food, skin that it might maintain bodily integrity, sexual organs that it might propagate others of its own kind, and so on. All this is concerned, ultimately, with its maintaining life. There is no organ or part of the animal that is concerned with achieving death. The animal doesn’t try to die. Death is something that happens to it.

As such, death is not something that comes of a thing’s nature. This is not to say that death might not yet happen to a living thing, but only to say that no thing has as its nature to die. Were it the nature of a living thing only to die, then it should never be a living thing, since its natures of living and dying would always be opposed to each other and it shouldn’t exist. But if its a living thing, then by definition its nature is to live. That’s what it is to be a living thing.

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Existentialism as Dimension of Human Life

There is an irreducible quality to the existential aspect of life that humans are afflicted by. It is a sort of sickness, a sort of weariness. It might even be called a type of pain; to say that “pain is painful” is to admit that pain is ultimately more than just the firing of neurons, it has that indelible quality of the painful sensation. It cannot really be described, it can only be felt. Pain is very painful. Likewise, existentialism is a sickness or weariness. It is the fatigue of the human soul, that part of us open to experiencing and perceiving the significance of the world beyond its facticity to its… how can we say it? It is a feeling. It is what founds art’s attempt to point beyond. We are motivated to transcendence, and our worry that we might die and all is for nought is a real worry.

Stoic and Epicurean word games about death and the lack of sensation associated with it do not prove a cure for the existential sickness. We are worried about our fact of existence and the possibility of transcending this human fatigue. The only solace of death might be that we are no longer human, for we no longer are (to be human is to be; to not be is to not be human). But the existential sickness does not want to rid of existence, but to cure the sickness that afflicts our existence. To speak of something having “existential import” is to refer to something’s being more or less fulfilling of the passionately meaningful aspect of life.

God cannot die. Death is the eternal night, the infinite solitude, the absolute nothingness. Perhaps that is why we dread the thought of ceasing to exist. We are from God, not in order to be banished from God, but to return to Him like a symphony in the concert hall. Christ comes to us, Incarnate, under the power of a vulnerable mother; God gave to Mary the choice of delivering the Son of God. If Mary had declined, through refusal or sin (would the refusal to be the mother of Christ been a sin?), and if God had not let Himself be unjustly accused and executed by man, then Christ could not have conquered death. The Christian religion seems a monolithic aspect of reality, but in reality its foundations are contingent and may not have actualized, without any logical contradiction. Death is an all too real possibility, an eternal night banished by Christ’s true light.

The return to God through Christ is the cure for the existential sickness. Christ relieves the dark fatigue from our souls and quenches our thirst for life and happiness so that we need not ever thirst again.

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Omne Vivum ex Vivo and the Metaphysics of Life

Life (not living things) is the realm of metaphysics. This is simply due to the fact that “what it is to be alive” is not something that can be answered by science, because one must first know what it is to be a living thing in order to do any systematic observations of living things and so tell us any things there are to know generally about living things. But the question “What is life?” is something metaphysical. What it is distinguishes a living thing from a dead thing is nothing that will be told by experiment.

What we do know is that in order to be a living thing, it must be something that ordinarily exemplifies behavior that aims towards its sustenance and growth. It will do this by sensing and reacting to the environment in order to put itself in contact with sources of energy in order to sustain the being of its body (aka homeostasis). Dead things only act in order to balance external forces, but have no internal activity that directs their behavior.

I bring this up because I’m puzzled by the proposition of “omne vivum ex vivo,” or “all life comes from life.” In short, a living thing cannot come from a dead thing. This seems to make sense, and its borne out by experience. But of course, being borne out by experience doesn’t prove everything, nor does making sense mean that it is true. Yet I’m unsure how to proceed.

A naturalistic narrative about the origination of life must at some point posit abiogenesis, when some dead thing gave birth to a living thing; yet how can a “dead thing” conceive life? Is this metaphysically possible?

But then if only life gives life, then it follows that life must always have been present in the world, something we can’t definitely say is falsified. Though this would seem to mean that there exists sub-atomic living things; yet there is nothing in the definition of life that would preclude such a possibility, and there is also (at least not yet) no reason to believe sub-atomic particles are really so small.

I’m agnostic about the whole thing. The hypotheses of abiogenesis or sub-atomic life at this point seem on equal footing, at least in respect to the metaphysics and empirical evidence. There is room for more thinking here.

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Communion as Fullest Inclusion: Notes on the Death of Osama bin Laden

The mission of the Christian gospel in this life is to bring communion to all people. This is not a radical mission; in fact, it would serve to restore the nature of humankind. In order for communion to be restored, there must be reconciliation and forgiveness. Vengeance, schaudenfraude, and any other acts or pleasures taken to the exclusion of others are antithetical. If we gather together, united in hatred, this is a false communion, and our foundation is bound to undermine itself, for hatred is always seeking further destruction. Real communion seeks renewal and restoration of human relationships.

It is thus with deep regret and sadness I note that many are celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden. Why are we celebrating the death of a deeply fallen man? We should be hoping and praying that, no matter how bleak and improbable it seems to us, bin Laden is finding reconciliation with God, not the ultimate abandonment of Hell. If bin Laden is given to the fate of Hell, then the demons of Hell are making the strongest celebration of having claimed from God a lost and weary soul.

I do not say any of this without being thoroughly cognizant of the great evils bin Laden perpetrated in his life, but I do not in turn wish his destruction, but the restoration. Would it not be better if, at the end of time, victims of his crimes could enjoy God together with him rather than hold the empty sorrow of assurance of his eternal separation from God and the Communion of Saints?

You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

The death of a man, any man, no matter how evil or pitiful, is never a cause for celebration. That it has come to this, that we must fight against another to secure our liberties, is a necessary evil that we should not regard with any misplaced enthusiasm. God bless our soldiers, but God forbid we need to take up such a cause. I do not believe it to have been feasible for Osama bin Laden to be captured, for certainly his men would resort to unreasonable demands for his release, but I do not relish that this execution of justice should be necessary. This is not a time for joy, but sober reflection on the complexities of life and the evils which take place in our world. This is a time for prayer and mourning.

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Ego-Charities and Slacktivism

I’ve decided to coin a phrase which would go alongside “slacktivism.” Slacktivism is, in short, “acting in a cause” which does nothing to really contribute to the cause.

My word is “ego-charity.” I will define ego-charity to be those causes where people expend an effort in a completely pointless way which will do nothing to actually help the people it claims to want to help, but does more to boost their ego. In my sights is the cause to remove the connotation of the word “retarded.” The problem with this cause is not that it’s doing anything wrong, but that it will do nothing to help the plight of… retarded people, who, I’m quite certain, have never been hurt by people’s use of the word ‘retarded,’ but could definitely be made happier if you spend time with them. So, instead of doing something to make retards happier, these people spend their time doing something which implies a judgment of others, and most likely includes a vindication of their consciences, boosting their ego. But, despite how “great” they’re going to feel, they won’t be doing anything that actually helps retarded people.

Indeed, if you want to help retarded people, you could try campaigning against the widespread murder of those diagnosed with mental handicaps in the womb. Let’s be honest; you don’t know any retarded people who would like to die; if you wouldn’t like to live as a retarded person, that is only representative of your weaknesses, and not of the intrinsic value of life.

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Some Thoughts for Humility

Considerations of my “tininess” and insignificance by being a remote atom on a remote speck somewhere in a remote galaxy in a remote universe never really daunted, for I have never found my being spatially dwarfed limiting or claustrophobic. The great empty expanse is just that; a great empty expanse. That is all there is, now we may pass over it, for we have described it sufficiently.

What I find more striking is that, for all humanity’s spatial remoteness, we are yet the center of intellect, of mind, of thought, of philosophy, of love and worship and all things worth living for, all things divine and beautiful. Right now I am listening to Beethoven’s 7th; for all the grandeur of a galaxy, not even a supercluster towers over his demonstrated genius. So why ought it be the universe that humbles me? The only thing the universe secures against me is death; but even above that there is God. In a sort of rudimentary way, in an eternal amount of years from now we may be kicking back and discussing the universe as one would discuss a quaint country store.

What towers over me, rather, is the works of man. I can admire man’s accomplishment in philosophy already as one might admire a breathtaking tower. There are times over and over again my wonder is renewed, as if I were an ancient Mesopotamian who, thinking there was pride to take in my city-state’s ziggurats, were shown the skyline of New York City today. If philosophy is a city, then it is one that I have scarcely begun visiting and taking in the sights, and I am a poor country boy who hopes some day to hit it big and, who knows, live there and open a humble grocer.

Whatever my contributions to philosophy, I can already see that I am casting it like a drop into the sea, where it is covered up in the 2500 year expanse from the pre-Socratics, but where I must also see that its expanse goes forever on into the future. My drop will be made less and less as more time goes on. And I will realize I am insignificant before it all.

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Living Well is Dying Well

One who isn’t preparing to die well isn’t living well.

Why not read St. Bellarmine’s The Art of Dying Well?

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