Nietzsche’s [claim] was that our desire for truth above utility is just one of the many symptoms of human weakness and lack of self-reliance: we are incapable of carrying the burden of our solitude and asserting our will as the ultimate ground of everything we believe; we cannot bear the realization that we are self-grounded, unprotected by any universal order of things.
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But on this point, as in most other areas of philosophizing, he was not consistent: he glorified the spirit of doubt, but failed to see that if there is no such thing as truth, there cannot be doubt either. My act of doubting implies that I believe something to be true, but am unable to decide what that something is. If we get rid of truth, doubt becomes impossible.
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But on this point, as in most other areas of philosophizing, he was not consistent: he glorified the spirit of doubt, but failed to see that if there is no such thing as truth, there cannot be doubt either. My act of doubting implies that I believe something to be true, but am unable to decide what that something is. If we get rid of truth, doubt becomes impossible.
- Leszek Kolakowski, Metaphysical Horror, p. 29
"My act of doubting implies that I believe something to be true, but unable to decide what that something is."
ReplyDeleteI have trouble with that statement, because no matter what I decide, truth is true whether I choose to believe it or not. A lot of the time, I have decided to accept the truth whether I like it or not. Whether I accept or resist the truth is less about doubt and more about self denial. Or blindness.
I guess this is where being in a reformed church has influenced me, that only God can show us the truth about Himself and help us believe--conversion is something he can only do, we can't do for ourselves or anyone else. He opens our blind eyes to see the truth. The things of God can only be perceived through the spirit, because it is spiritual, I remember through Colossians.
Although faith has its reasons, and can be logically supported, there comes a point where all analysis fails, and we believe because God has given us the ability to believe.
I mean, every time a friend becomes a Christian, it is an amazing thing to me. What was once a dead person is now alive. The Gospel, which is the power of God for salvation, accomplished this kind of spiritual resurrection. I've met many new Christians from China in the past year, it blows me away how they got from "ground zero" to full fledged faith in Jesus in a relatively short amount of time, on not much information it seems to me, with a message from the Bible that goes against everything, it seems, that they've been taught about life. How do people make such drastic 180 degree turns? It's so precious to me, I want them to hurry back to Communist China, so they don't get corrupted by us American Christians.
Fair enough. In the context of the book, I took "decide" to mean the same as "determine" or "figure out" or "recognize." I don't think he meant that truth was pliable and waiting for us to decree what it's going to be.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. In the context of the book, I took "decide" to mean the same as "determine" or "figure out" or "recognize." I don't think he meant that truth was pliable and waiting for us to decree what it's going to be.
ReplyDeleteThe passage is quite remarkable, in the light of the paradox that Kolakowski discusses about truth and doubt-- that the doubt is a marker, or evidence, that truth does exist. It's actually hopeful for those of us who experience doubt. And even more so, for those like me, who know very little about philosophy or even particle accelerators (yay, Kate!)
ReplyDeleteThanks.