{"id":85345,"date":"2016-05-30T22:44:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T02:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/?p=85345"},"modified":"2016-05-30T22:45:05","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T02:45:05","slug":"it-all-boils-down-to-stoicism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/it-all-boils-down-to-stoicism\/","title":{"rendered":"It All Boils Down to Stoicism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Marcus<\/a>
Marcus Aurelius on his death bed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last night I was watching <\/span>The Flash<\/em> and heard Barry Allen say to his foster-father something to the effect of, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always said that everything happens for a purpose, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m beginning to believe it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not convinced (though, admittedly, I have no connection to the Speed Force, so what do I know?). Let me see if I can demythologize the notion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back when I was an Evangelical Christian, I noticed something suspicious about all the big promises about answered prayer and discerning the will of God, plus the teaching that Christians could rest assured that we would lead a charmed life. We could be confidant that God would take care of us. Naturally, it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take very long to realize these promises were false, because equivocal, though we discovered that the hard way. What I mean is that no one had told us about the fine print. Did God always answer prayer? \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, er, yes<\/em>, he does, but, heh-heh, sometimes (in fact most<\/em> of the time!) the answer is a big fat No<\/em>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Oh!<\/em> So that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/em> the way it works! Bait and switch, no?<\/p>\n

But no Christian can dismiss the whole thing as a con game and still qualify as a Christian. His fellow believers, suspecting this, would assure him it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an option. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a Christian, you have<\/em> to pray; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of the job description. (And this pops another theological balloon: salvation by grace, since prayer turns out to be a non-negotiable practice of piety.) So what do you do? You keep on praying and you utilize the magic word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153faith\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as permission to ignore the clanging bell of cognitive dissonance. That is, you undertake to ask God for this or that blessing, for healing, for guidance, etc. You can find some scripture verse that assures you God wants this for you, so you can approach him with confidence! Believe and you shall receive! B\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6u\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6t\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/em>. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen. And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another clich\u00c3\u00a9 designed for that disappointment: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who has known the mind of the Lord?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d How foolish you were to think you, a puny mortal, could know the will of the Creator God! So you reproach yourself in proper Christian humility. But you know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to happen the next time you need something from God. You will quickly forget the human incapacity for reading the mind of God, and you will be back on your pious knees, asking God for some boon. And round and round you go.<\/p>\n

There was a clue that should have tipped us off, but we ignored it, were implicitly taught<\/em> to ignore it. We were told to add to any request the proviso, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if it be Thy will.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Aha! If<\/em>! In other words, God must already have had a plan for you, and you, like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, were willing to acquiesce in it if necessary. Why kick against the goads? But if you thought about it long enough to put two and two together, you saw the irony: surely God must know what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing; he needs you<\/em> to tell him what to do? If God decided to set aside his plan and answer your prayer instead, it would become like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Monkey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Paw,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d backfiring in ways you hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t foreseen. You might as well stop telling God his business.<\/p>\n

This is why Meister Eckhart said a praying Christian should say no more than \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thy will be done.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What is such a prayer designed to effect? You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re no longer asking God to grant a request. So what would<\/em> you be doing when you prayed such a prayer? You would of course be trying to sensitize yourself to the leading of the Spirit, to reorient yourself to be willing to accept what comes to you from the hand of God. And that, friends, is Stoicism.<\/p>\n

\"Zeno<\/a>Stoicism is an ancient Hellenistic philosophy founded by Xeno of Citium in the third century B.C.E. It was a mutation from Cynicism and upheld the Cynic tenet of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153living in accord with Nature by reason.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stoics were pantheists and believed that the divine Logos permeates all things (kind of like the Force) and controls all things. The only good thing is virtue<\/em>, and everything that happens to you is, and should be viewed as, a kind of chisel to chip away at your character. You are entitled to enjoy the pleasures of life; just maintain a degree of inner detachment to possessions, hobbies, relationships. That way, you will not feel devastated when you lose these things, as you sooner or later will. Ultimately, these are adiaphora<\/em>, indifferent things. Take \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcem or leave \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcem. Because ultimately, virtue is the only real good. Tragedy strikes? Hey, go ahead and cry, but buck up! You can choose how you will react to it. You can decide that this unpleasant event will nonetheless be an opportunity for character growth if you accept it as such. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why kick against the goads?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was a Stoic proverb. How foolish to curse your luck; do you<\/em> know better than God<\/em>? He sent it to you, smart guy. Acquiesce; you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be glad you did.<\/p>\n

And this is what all the Christian talk about God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s providential care boils down to: he approves or sends all events your way to assist in the process of your moral sanctification. Sure, you may not like it in the moment, but you will thank God for it one day, all the sooner if you cooperate. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d things are<\/em> all that will happen to you, that is, things conducive to your sanctification. That makes plenty of sense; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just not what they told you at first. But you should have suspected as much if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ever read James 1:2-4. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s idea that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153everything happens for a purpose\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is more vague, kind of slippery. It does not necessary entail theism. It might fit better with Pantheism, since there seems to be no thought of a personal Controller weaving a tapestry, every thread in the right place, with a definite finished product in mind. No God plotting out everything as a vast novel. It sounds more like the impersonal Dominoes game of Karma. But even this is not demythologized enough for me.\"STAY<\/a><\/p>\n

I think that the idea of events being somehow aimed at you (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Special delivery for Mr. Price!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), a form of the doctrine of predestination, is the result of our confusing two very different things. We look back at what has happened to us and we know we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change the past. We are stuck with it. But we seem to be inferring that it couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been avoided beforehand even if we had known what was on the way. This assumption becomes theologized as God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s word (his promise or command) which shall not and cannot return to him void, i.e., having failed in its purpose. I think Stoicism shares this confusion. But, fortunately, the value of Stoicism does not require it.<\/p>\n

Forget about second-guessing the past: what if you had done things differently? Why did God make this happen to me? Who cares? The thing is: it has<\/em> happened, tragic or trivial. Now what are you going to make<\/em> of it? What are you going to do<\/em> with it? You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be wise to cut your losses, to calculate, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What can I learn from this?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How does this reshuffle the deck?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the lay of the land now?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where do I, where can<\/em> I, go from here?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

What new opportunities might suddenly have opened up before you? Opportunities for lessons learned, for introspective self-scrutiny, character growth. Why not? The Stoics were right: why waste the opportunity? Why fail to make lemons into lemonade? Is it better just to curse the luck? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see how. This is just common sense. Use the big word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153philosophy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d if you want. Try to inflate it into theology if you prefer. But I think that is a distraction. It makes you agonize over insoluble pseudo-problems. Or put it this way: theology breeds questions that, as the Buddha said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tend not unto edification.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

So says Zarathustra.<\/p>\n

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Last night I was watching The Flash and heard Barry Allen say to his foster-father something to the effect of, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always said that everything happens for a purpose, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m beginning to believe it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not convinced (though, admittedly, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com\/zblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}