An existentialist approach to the problem Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgXTHVA0g_0&list=PL617sdAb8POsr0-rRpueISxDqMHI9c6z1&index=2&t=0s

1. "Finding the ground for values in
a post-modern world”
Livingstone House
20 April 2019

2. Pre-modern
• Monoculture
• Fate – born into one’s faith
• One religion or denomination
• One correct reading of the text
• Determined by the magisterium of the church
• One set values, beliefs
• Metanarrative
• Enforced by church and state

3. Modern
• Renaissance
• ‘Back to text’
• Questioning of texts, questioning of authority
• Reformation
• Religious division
• More than one way – which is the ‘correct’ way?
• Choose one’s religion
• Religious wars
• Scepticism about religion – ‘religion causes wars’
• Alternative source of truth and values
• Enlightenment
• Questioning of all traditions, questioning of texts
• Rejection of revelation
• Reason as the basis for knowledge – rationalism, logic
• Experience as basis for knowledge – empiricism, science
• Modernity – secularisation
• De-sacralisation of public space – privatisation of religion
• Capitalism, fascism, communism

4. Post – modern
• Scepticism of Enlightenment rationality
• Culminated in world wars, Holocaust etc.
• Pluralism
• Relativism
• Texts
• Rejection of meta-narrative
• Critique of universal values, morality, reason, language, progress
• Socially conditioned – no ‘truth’
• All languages are social constructs
• No absolute language, all expressions are relative
• Deconstructionalism – Derrida, Lyotard
• “Every translation and every reading of a text is an interpretation”
• Post-structuralism

5. Meaning and interpretation
Interpretation
Judgment
Text
Painting
Music
Person
Purpose
Values
Hermeneutics:
Theory and methodology
of text interpretation
Every reading is an interpretation
and every interpretation is an
appropriation of a text for its
own purposes.

6. Structuralism and its critique
• Saussurean structuralist theory
• A binary opposition is seen as a fundamental organizer of human
philosophy, culture, and language
• For Derrida a “violent hierarchy” where “one of the two terms governs
the other.”
• Deconstruction rejects most of the assumptions of structuralism and
more vehemently “binary opposition” on the grounds that such
oppositions always privilege one term over the other

7. The conquest of B by A
• Order
• Odd
• One
• Right
• Male
• Resting
• Straight
• Light
• Good
• Square
• Chaos
• Even
• Many
• Left
• Female
• Moving
• Curved
• Darkness
• Evil
• Oblong
Pythagoras’ Table of Opposites
A B

8. A typical example
• ”Poststructuralists insist that words and texts have no fixed or intrinsic
meanings, that there is no transparent or self-evident relationship between
them and either ideas or things, no basic or ultimate correspondence
between language and the world”
• Thus, while language has been used to create binaries (such as
male/female), poststructuralist feminists see these binaries as artificial
constructs created to maintain the power of dominant groups
• "Deconstructing Equality-versus-Difference: Or, the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory
for Feminism," Joan W. Scott

9. Where do we go?
• Back to the pre-modern - deductionism?
• Fundamentalism – certainty
• Back to the ‘Word of God’
• Neo-orthodoxy – not an experience of the original hierophany
• Secularisation – reductionism
• Accept the desacralisation - ‘God is dead’
• Orthodoxy not plausible
• Accommodate to modernity abandoning the unscientific myth - miracles etc.
• Reduce religion to ethics
• Reducing everything to human experience – Feuerbach
• God is a projection
• Existentialism – Inductionism
• Start from human experience – phenomenological
• Open ended – uncertainty – a journey – a work in progress
• Search for authentic experience lies behind the tradition
• Neither condemn nor celebrate modernity – engage with it
• Neither reactionary not revolutionary

10. What is our existential reality?
What does it mean to be a human being?
• We have a mind and body
• We exist in relationships with other people
• We live in the physical world

11. As embodied beings what are our basic desires
and goals in life?
• Grow up and become an adult
• Marry, have a family and friends
• Creative life and be prosperous
• Desire fulfilled leads to joy

12. Is it so easy. . . .?
• People struggle to attain mind-body unity
• Alcoholism, laziness, lying, identity crisis
• People struggle to achieve good relations
• Divorce, conflict, loneliness, ‘bad sex’
• People struggle to manage the ‘world’
• Finances, tidiness, pollution
• People struggle to find meaning in life
• Need help – need God’s blessing
• Experience God – absolute dependence (Schleiermacher)
• 12 step Alcoholics Anonymous

13. What does blessing mean?
• ‫-ברך‬ barak – kneel, bless, praise, salute
• ‫ך‬ ֶּ‫ר‬ ֶּ‫-ב‬ knee
• A blessing from God is an empowerment to
be able to do what is not within our natural
capabilities

14. Be wholesome
Mind Body
True
Person
The ability to create and complete our character
Sensitivity to the
Heart of God
Subject
We create our character
through our thoughts,
words and deeds
Keep promises
Don’t drink, smoke
Unity of mind and body
“Marshmallow test”
Words and deeds are one
Joy
“Be complete as your
heavenly Father is complete.”
Matthew 5:48
Object
Fulfill potential
God
Meditation
Concentration
Virtuous
The physical desires should
express spiritual values
☀ Bodily functions
☀ Eat
☀ Sleep
☀ Sexual desire

15. Society
Nation
World
Have a family
True
Love
Child
God
The love of God and the
love of man are not two loves,
but aspects of the same unifying love.
St Maximus the Confessor
When husband and wife
are united in marriage,
they are no longer seen
as something earthly,
but as the image of God
Himself.
St John Chrysostom
Husband Wife
Family
The ability to create a family
Joy
Four Great Realms
of Heart
“If we love one another,
God lives in us and his
love is made complete
in us.” I John 4:12
Family is the
basis of society
Family is the
school of love

16. Be creative and an owner
Right of dominion over the creation
Good
Environ-mentInherit God’s
creativity
Lords of Creation
Microcosm
God took the man and put
him in the garden of Eden
to till it and keep it.
Genesis 2:15
Natural
World
Person Joy
Whatever the man called
every living creature, that
was its name.
Genesis 2:19
Harmony with nature
The creation waits
for the revealing
of the sons of God.
Romans 8:19
God
Stewards

17. In practice . . .
• Mature person - True Teacher
• Mind – body unity
• Trustworthy and virtuous
• Rounded person - True Parent
• Relate freely in every direction
• Creative person - True Owner
• Responsible job
• Owner

18. What is the universal absolute standard?
• Murder is wrong
• Violation of heart
• Protects the 1st blessing
• Rape is wrong
• Violation of lineage
• Protects the 2nd blessing
• Robbery is wrong
• Violation public property
• Protects the 3rd blessing

19. From this universally accepted standard of evil
one can build up standards of goodness
• Relationship between Mind – body
• Don’t use violence – care for others
• Don’t lie – tell the truth
• Don’t get addicted – self-control
• Human relationships
• No sexual abuse
• No adultery – be faithful
• No coups – respect legitimate authority
• Relationship with the creation
• Don’t harm animals
• Don’t litter
• Don’t pollute
• Take care of the natural world

20. Why be good? Why follow the law?
• Become like God – Keeping the Sabbath
• All life becomes holy and every act meaningful
• Makes us better people which influences society and
thus the world
• Strengthens good spiritual forces
• Tikkun olam
• “Repairing the world” or “perfecting the world.”