Losing Sight of Divinity

8/13/2019 Losing Sight of Divinity

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Losing Sight of Divinity

GREATWK EA2

Tara Margarita D. Del Rosario & Miguel Lorenzo M. Sotto

It is not uncommon for a man or a woman to attend mass dressed in an attire that

they would also wear to public establishments such as a mall or restaurant. Rewind 100

years, and these same seemingly decent individuals of today, would back then be

deemed practically as obscene as prostitutes. While others may still find this to be

inappropriate in modern times, it can be said that it is, more or less, socially accepted

(especially amongst the youth). Even if fashion is to be taken into consideration, where

the clothing has become more and more revealing as time progresses, events such as

funerals or business meetings still require its attendees to dress in a very specific kind

of attire. While the church still encourages people to dress appropriately during the

ceremony, the word appropriate has since become very subjective. So much so that, it

is much more frowned upon to wear red to a funeral, or a T-shirt to a large corporate

meeting, than it is to wear a short skirt to hear mass. All of this simply leads to the

implication that throughout the years, there has been a gradual loss of meaning in

religious experiences or rituals. This can be noticed not only in the act of going to

church, but even something as simple as praying. This one-on-one encounter with the

almighty has since regressed from being a daily occurrence, to an occasional gesture.

This paper therefore would discuss this loss of meaning behind religious experiences

from a Christian standpoint, in reference to the works The Archaeology of Knowledge,

The Meditations, and The Man With the Blue Guitar by Michel Foucault, Ren

Descartes, and Wallace Stevens respectively.

As a post-modern philosopher, Foucault went against tradition and the norms ofsociety in history. He believes that history is formed by the discourses, or what

happened in the past that create the concepts of culture. InThe Archaeology of

Knowledge, Foucault tries to diminish oeuvres - masterpieces (the bible); collection of

absolutes; questionable truths - by checking discourses, which he says to be in


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opposition to the history of thought (Foucault, 23), in order to prove there is no

absolute truth in attempt to liberate us from discrimination and to attain freedom. In

Chapter 5, Foucault argues that oeuvres belong to a single discursive

formation, (Foucault, 119) and that different oeuvres or the mass of text by many

different authors, simply repeat the same concepts, elaborate the other authors ideas,

answer the other's questions, or continue the same message as a previous author. The

authors merely criticize, invalidate, or pillage one another through these dispersed

books without even knowing, which Foucault describes as communicating by the form

of positivity of their discourse (Foucault, 119). This being said, the Bible is an oeuvre,

and by proving that an oeuvre is nothing more than a repetition of ideas, it cannot be

proven to be a complete truth, or a source for reference on how to live life. This

connects to what the idea of religion means to Foucault, who believes it is one of the

aspects in society that create certain great historical individualities (Foucault, 18). The

problem he sees in this however, when he checks each discourse, he finds that any

discourse is temporal and not universal. In other words, they become negotiable when

they should not be. For example, premarital sex. The decision whether premarital sex is

bad or good, or if the term should even exist is based on religious ethics. Meaning,

because of religion, premarital sex is looked down upon in society, but Foucault

believes, that if a man and a woman are deeply in love, why not? The discourse of

premarital sex basically goes: a couple must fight the urge because they should be

married, in the future, before engaging in any sexual act. This confirms that the futureof

this couples sexual life is decided in their past before marriage. Foucault believes that

one element in history should be independent. In this case however, whether that

couple is accepted - or not looked down upon - in society after their marriage is

dependent on the couples decision in the past. In continuation to the idea of the Bible,

religion and God in general, there are discourses Foucault calls rarity discourses in

chapter 4. He explains the type of discourse like so: It is based on the principle that

everything is never said in relation to what might have been stated in a natural

language,!there are, in total, relatively few things that are said. We must look

therefore for the principle of rarification... (Foucault, 111). In other words, rarity

discourses are statements/events of awe or fascination. As he explains, a rarity


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discourse is an event without explanation. In terms of religion, this would be a miracle.

In Christian society, miracles are accepted without question, and some practicing

Christians even pray about more miracles. Foucault questions this acceptable

ignorance Christians have towards miracles; he believes we should detach ourselves

from a divinity. From all the evidence Foucault found through the discourses, the

ouevre, and the rarity discourse, he was able to portray how a person could lose the

belief in a divinity. In the diminishing of oeuvres, he proves there cannot be absolute

truths or events without explanation, which is the base of religion because it is solely

reliant on faith. Therefore, in The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault shows us how

the common social problem of the loss of religious meanings takes place in history

through discourses.

In addition to this, works previous to that of Foucaults dealing with Philosophy

have been priming society into thinking more critically for centuries. Ren Descartes for

example, exhibits in his work The Meditationsthat in order to determine absolute truth,

one must first doubt everything in which he or she knows: To achieve his bold quest of

for an absolute certain philosophy, Descartes is willing, with equal boldness, to

overthrow and destroy all he has ever believed, to cast doubt upon all his

beliefs (Descartes, 95). Religion, it can be said, is one of the topics in which it is fairly

easy to create doubt, especially when viewed in a philosophical standpoint. Naturally, if

one were to doubt religion, in order for it to obtain certainty it would have to go through

the process of reason, which has never exactly been religions area of strength.

Although Descartes tries to provide arguments towards the existence of a higher being:

whether I, who have the idea of an infinite and perfect being, can exist if this being

does not exist? (Descartes, 106), the multitude of arguments against Descartes from

the likes of Philosophers such as Nietszche, kept the doubt alive. In addition, religion is

also primarily based on faith. Descartes has an unquestionable standpoint stating that

God is the ultimate perfect being and he has three arguments which he believes prove

this. For the first, he chose to use mathematics to prove God. This is because ideas in

mathematics are clear and distinct, and always have a definite answer for solutions and

such without question - like one plus one must equal two. In order for Descartes to


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prove Gods existence, he simply fabricated a demon to falsify mathematics, in order to

prove Gods existence. This is not logical because Descartes only created this demon

out of faith and the thought that he must prove that God exists. For his second

argument, Descartes states that human error does not exist in God (Descartes, 107).

And finally, his third argument introduces the Cartesian Circle - circular proofing. This

means that Descartes claims to prove Gods existence, from the innate idea of God

existing. He states: ... nondeceiving God exists in order to establish that I can trust my

clear and distinct ideas and thus move beyond the Cogito to other certain

truths (Descartes 108). In the end, Descartes manages to establish a solid and widely

recognized argument confirming his own, and the existence of others as well: I think,

therefore I am. I doubt that I think, I deny that I think, these only confirm that I must exist

to deny or doubt (Descartes, 97). However, ones that attempt to confirm the existence

of a god, which is the whole basis of any religion, fails to reach the same level of

acceptance amongst the philosophical crowd.

The possible effect of all these new arguments against the credibility of religion

is that the lifestyle of modern society (especially the people with the same opinion as

those presenting the arguments) have changed in such a way that Religious

Experiences or rituals can be treated with a general form of lax, as it has become more

and more accepted to be, in one way or another, against some aspects of the church.

This can be noticed more clearly in the 20th century onwards, not only reflecting in the

actions of people, but in the works being produced with inter-lapping concepts. It can be

said that Wallace Stevens may have interpreted the change in the characteristics or the

behavior of people as some sort of rebellion to those who constrain: Raise reddest

columns. Toll a bell and clap the hollows full of tin. Throw papers in the streets, the wills

of the dead, majestic in their seals (Stevens, 130). The contrasting color, in conjunction

with somewhat crude actions against the departed, suggest a revolt against the

constraints of a past that could be in reference to the level of control the church had

over the people. This insinuation is intensified as the mood of this particular section

becomes loud in a way, as it employs the use of various musical instruments such as

trombones, or drums, reflecting the intensity of the said change. This is seen throughout


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the section, until finally it is revealed that it is a religious figure that is being rebelled

against: behold the approach of him who none believes... Lean from the steeple. Cry

aloud, Here I am, my adversary, that confront you... (Stevens, 130). Although for

someone to confront something with such ferocity, on must believe that there is

something to confront in the first place. What can be said here is that, yes the churchs

presence is still recognized, but it is being challenged, and is losing. With no further

positive progression on the side of the church, it is no wonder then that these religious

experiences, are losing those to experience them in the first place.

To conclude, a century might not be a very long time in terms of the amount of

time that modern society has been existent. However, how people have changed in

terms of beliefs and lifestyle during that century might as well render the two from

different dimensions. What was considered criminal, may be perfectly normal in todays

society. This can be seen in many ways, but probably none as prominent as how

religious experiences have lost an incredibly significant amount of meaning. This

happened through a process, one which involved people developing a critical mind and

actually taking into consideration rationality to explain certain phenomena rather than

turning to divine intervention. Foucault figures that every event in history should be

treated as independent and cannot be considered the truth without explanation, which

can be used as a direct criticism of the bible as it is often taken for an absolute truth.

Descartes encouraged people to think critically about an absolute truth by the process

of doubt or skepticism. Though he succeeded in presenting an argument for his

existence, the same could not be said for a god. Stevens, then describes the effect on

society, wherein peoples lifestyles have changed to a point that the church or a higher

being is actually being rebelled against. All of these events in succession, more or less,

play the role in diminishing what people used to see, in the unseen.

Losing Sight of Divinity

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