Are we predestined or free-willed, part 2

In attempting to follow up my previous post on this matter, I need to lay some groundwork. First, since writing that post ten months ago, I have come across many ideas that have reshaped how I approach this topic and where I personally fall on this issue. So, I will start by explaining much the most thought on this issue that I have recently come across and we'll go from there.

After writing that post, I began attending Colorado State University for my Master's in Literature. One of the first classes I took was a graduate level course in literary theory, where I was re-exposed to the work of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan and exposed for the first time to Ferdinad de Saussure, Gilles Delueze, Terry Williams, Judith Butler and Alain Badiou. These philosophers are some of the most vital and important in contemporary English studies, or have been at some point, and all of them deal, or have been used, with questions regarding ontology. Ontology, or the question of being, is essential to any discussion of free will. From a Christian stance, the question of ontology, or what our being constitutes, is a question that is usually assumed to have been answered from the get go. Most of us who were brought up in evangelical circles have been told the purpose of life is to worship God and get souls saved. I'm being reductionist here, but that is the general means by which most of my evangelical experience has answered the whole "what's the meaning of life/being" question. This short answer allows us to take a stance that is both free-willed and predestined. If the meaning of existence is worship, and the meaning of earthly life is salvation, then the "predestined" notion fits with worship and the salvation is free-willed, i.e. personal. Basically, what part of a free-willed, sinful person would worship a holy God, unless that person made a choice to and then the "deep longing" inside someone is filled by enacting their predetermined purpose, worship. This is how I've come to understand the argument from most of evangelical, Protestant Christianity in how this interplay works. Ultimately though, the stance is that God is in total control and most of our free will is, to an extent, an illusion. This highly Calvanistic tendency has permeated western Protestant Christianity, but I'm not ready to throw it out the window yet.

To take a step away from Christianity, I'd like to return to the postmodern philosophers I was talking about before. These philosophers have concerned themselves with a question of ontology, coming to a "conlcusion" if you will, where they reject any stable notion of being.* To go back to the example above, if someone were to say, "the answer is worship of God" then a response in this mode would counter by saying, "but you are not a being that can do that, because God, religion, and your notion of free-will are totally bound up in the ideological constructions of Western society. You do not have free choice, only the ability to work within a system that shapes you in a certain way." In essence, the notion of being is radically under question and to many in a post-structuralist mode, there is no "real" agency. To be reductionist again, free-will doesn't exist because there are forces (not insidious, just for clarification) that mold and shape every person to conform to the cultural norm of the time they are born, from birth. This is seen as neither good, or bad, just the way it is. Taken to its extreme, this is a form of relativism that isn't totally about "all truth is truth" but "all truth is a construction, so no one truth can be totally trusted as all encompassing." We are, in this vein, "predestined" in a sense, but without a end goal.

I am going to take up my further thoughts in other posts, just because this is turning into a long explanation. Look for part three soon.

*Badiou has been associated with an anti-postmodern movement of Continental philosophy, though from what little I've gathered he is not throwing the post-structuralist view totally out the window, and has been actively associated with attempting to return to some stable notion of being that doesn't rely on modernist assumptions and includes postmodern assertions.

Old Post; Reflecting on Bush, six years later.

-I wrote this post for another blog I started that got no traffic. I still like it, so I am reposting it. Originally posted 11/27/10-

I came across a documentary this evening titled "Bush's Brain" that was released in 2004. While it initially attracted my eye, I hesitated to watch it. "Why would I waste my time with such dated material?" I thought to myself. Despite this, I decided to watch some of it, though I admittedly only made it about 15 minutes in. The material, suffice it to say, is not topical at all. However, six years ago it would have been and I was right on the verge of agreeing with it.

The fall of 2004 was a defining year for me. It was my first year of college, I was moving out of my house, turning 20, and getting ready to vote in a very contemptuous election. I was constantly volleying back and forth between my family's desires to see the "Christian" man in office and my new found friends endorsement of the "better than Bush" candidate. While who I voted for is of little consequence now, the issue at hand were the last vestiges of my familially constructed conservatism. Within hours of taking the oath, Bush was making policy that was harshly against my personal beliefs. Tack on the already vehement opposition to the Iraq War and I was fully and completely on the other side of the fence.

I think that my story is echoed by many in my generation. We were all 17-19 when the Iraq war broke out and for many of us, this was tantamount to Vietnam. An unjustified war, one that was not provoked but initiated by the United States. We are also the generation that had to witness 3,000 citizens die on what should have been a normal Fall morning. All of this happening under the auspiciousness of one George W. Bush. In truth, the eight years that "W" was in office proved to be a tumultuous, generation defining time. At least it should have been.

Bush, after two years of being out of office is largely forgotten. I have heard almost no one talk about the man in any fashion. I think he's working on a memoir. In truth, my generation, the one that was so opposed to the seeming dictator, the one that elected the first African-American into office, sees little value in talking about the man we all thought was "the worst thing to happen to America." Myself included.

I was strongly opposed to the Iraq war, even going so far as to yell at my dad one time. I was so deeply invested in my opposition to this war, to Bush's politics, to his image and now I simply pass over a lampooning documentary as "irrelevant." I think most of my peers would do the same.

Maybe we all are just too invested in becoming adults to be that passionate anymore. I'm getting married in less than two months (*the wedding was on 12/18/10) and that brings a whole host of new issues into my life. Perhaps we just feel defeated, because let's face it; the man that was going to "change" everything from the Bush state has failed to meet most of our expectations. Or maybe nothing is happening fast enough, and we really are too focused on immediate results. Perhaps Bush wasn't as bad as we all thought.

What if we all are just too damn apathetic, though? I know many of us believed strongly in our opposition to Bush, but when we look at the nation, not much of anything has changed. Six years later, we are still at war, still in the economic shitter, still questioning our leaders. Still questioning our leaders. There it is; the one thing that can effect real, legitimate change. Questioning. That is how I came to wonder about Bush's motives for the Iraq war and it is what keeps me invested in reading literature. What keeps me invested in interacting with life. Keeps me invested in faith. Keeps me invested. It is, ultimately what can light that fire to "revolution." Social, personal, intellectual, economic, spiritual, whatever it may be. It is what allows us to push forward and be a force for change, because if we don't question, we won't see a need for change.

I, as much as everyone else, got caught up in Obama's rhetoric, much in the way I got caught up in the anti-Bush rhetoric. What I shouldn't have done is let go of my skepticism, because then the disappointments that precede from a Bush, or Obama, or a movement against any such leader wouldn't be so damaging. More importantly, it would still be pushing for real, evidential change and activism. Anti-Bush was a start, Obama-mania was a start. Now, the real work begins and it only took us six years to get here.

-Dan