9 December 2011
Love exists
I've been enjoying popology, a great series of mini-sermons based on chart-topping pop music videos, from Christchurch's Steve Bell. I felt the need to spend half a day writing a reply to his most recent video (embedded below):
Your message seems confused - as you admit, even you don't know what you mean. It's tempting to forget the whole message as a wishy-washy muddle, but I'm a fan of your reviews and you state some wonderful truths in this one so I think it's worth trying to sort it out (even if it's taken me half the day).
Of course love doesn't exist in itself - it's a concept. "Love itself has no meaning, but rather it gives meaning to everything. It gives significance to those you love, they become important because you love them." This is great. But the following statement "Love does not exist as something that is itself significant" is confusing. Love is clearly a significant concept, since you're bothering to talk about it. I'd argue it is the most significant concept of all.
Together the two statements "Love doesn't exist" and "Love calls everything into existence" are a contradiction. Something that doesn't exist can't bring anything into existence. But this contradiction can be resolved, and I will do so below.
I think I understand something of what you're getting at. We find truth, meaning, and beauty, by loving each other. Truth is not to be found through academic belief in concepts, but in the active and messy genuine care of others. Any concept of "God" that gets in the way of that is wrong.
But love isn't just a feeling - how do we know we are loving, how do we measure the truth and goodness of love? Like you said in your last review ("We Found Love"): there is good love, and bad love (or alternatively, a spectrum of love from pure to flawed to fake). Pure love is purely giving. But by what basis can we assert this? And how can we believe that good love is possible, or that it really matters?
Because God has shown us good love. We cannot find truth, or love, without God. I'm not saying an athiest can't find truth and love, but I am saying that an athiest finds them because God does exist. God is love but love is not God: For some reason you don't make this distinction, and this probably more than anything is what muddles your message. God exists in himself, unlike love. God is other, a person not a concept, so he can love us, and he can "call everything into existence". And we can love him in return. In God we find not only an object of love, but a definition.
(Disclaimer: Nowadays there's a need to explain the use of the male pronoun "he" in reference to God. It doesn't mean I think God has a gender, it's that in English the gender neutral pronoun "it" is impersonal, and one of the most important things about God is that he is a person we can relate to. I could use "she", but in the Bible, God is much more often referred to as a father than a mother, I am following the Hebrew tradition of the male pronoun, and I'd needlessly offend more people by breaking that tradition.)
Without God, there is no definition of love - or indeed anything at all beyond our own subjective definitions. Without God, all our philosophy, all our talk of truth and love, is like a discussion about colour between the congenitally blind. God exists, so beauty is more than just a subjective feeling, it is a transcendent truth, with basis in the existing, objective world. God exists, so we can have confidence and persistence in believing that love matters, and that we matter, in a broken world which so often tells us to give up.
You do no one a service by falling for the split in our culture that puts objective truth (many would say "science") on one side and subjective love, beauty, and experience on the other. Each is essential for giving meaning to the other.
Love without truth has no definition and is meaningless. Truth without love is useless and meaningless. God is both, but much more than that, we can love him and therefore have a commitment to an ideal of love, and perfect loving actions, which do not exist in the world - apart from a sole example, Jesus.
Through the story of the Bible, God has shown us that he loves us - that we are meant to love and live in unity with the world - and that his love is so perfectly unselfish that he gave himself to die for us, so that we can ourselves aspire to, and ultimately attain, an attitude whereby we love like Jesus did.
The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the most beautiful story of love I've ever heard. All other stories pale in comparison with the purity of the love God showed on the cross, the epic scale, and accessible focus on the raw humanity, questioning, and suffering of Jesus. It is that love which gives my life meaning and which has kept me from ending it all when I've been in very dark times, doubting the validity of my own existence, and giving in to the messages of meaninglessness pervasive in our world.
Don't water down your message, despite its inherent offence in rebuking our human arrogance and apathy. Don't pretend even for a second that you have a better definition of love than God. Without God, you have no message at all.
Now more than ever people need to find a love with substance and truth - a love like Jesus: "love with skin on", God with us.
* * *P. S. To those reading this who don't share my faith - this isn't a complete message of the good news of Jesus, it doesn't make sense by itself. If you're interested in hearing the whole thing, and addressing any objections you may have, I'd love to talk with you more about it - get in touch with me via email (chris at gracefool.com) or Facebook.
* * *Update 13/12: Steve explains himself in our Facebook discussion, reproduced below:
Steve (12:34 12/12/2011):
Christopher, what an excellent response. There is so much I like in what you've written on your blog post.
I like your disclaimer. And I like that your worldview leads to meaning and life in dark times.
I have trouble with your assumption that, because I don't understand, I must be confused. I don't necessarily equate the two. Do you?
What makes you think I've watered down my message?
Here's a song by a favourite artist of mine. I've just become aware, thanks to your post, that my review/comment may be doing to some just what this song does to the listener:
Sadly, no nice video to accompany it, but I find the lyrics compelling enough. It took me a long time to get this song. I'm sure the point of it will be more apparent to you.
Me (14:20 12/12/2011):
Thanks Steve :)
Looking at my post now, I disagree with a lot of it, the way I said it. It touched a sensitive spot in me, and I'm sorry for taking a more oppositional stance, and especially for my arrogance.
I don't know if you are confused - I just said your message was confused. I should have said "unclear". Your message was unclear on purpose, which means it's more likely that people will take your message the wrong way - which is probably what I did.
So what do you mean by "God does not exist"? I agree that, like love, God is in a different category of existence, because he "calls everything into existence". We cannot know God without embracing mystery, the fact that we cannot understand him, we cannot fit him in our head, let alone the way he exists. Nevertheless we can know him - we can relate to him - and this is where I took exception. God may be in a different category of existence - but he also makes himself available in our category of existence - we can know him as a real person, and be certain of his being there for us. Do you mean to say this isn't true?
I don't think you do, which is why I wondered if you were compromising your message. Taken by itself, your video seems to be that way. I think you're right - like "It's Better To Be Dead" (great music BTW, and funny how the protagonist is Christopher :p) it tears down our assumptions, our vain attempts to categorise and understand everything, and find meaning in what we do. Like Ecclesiastes, "It's Better To Be Dead" reminds us that everyone dies, whether foolish or wise... we should stop trying to judge everything, happiness is not to be found that way... a worthy message, but stopping there, as the song does, is quite depressing. Like that, your video leaves us hanging, without answers or meaning... so I guess I jumped in to fill it. We can't be happy without meaning, we can't move without at least the illusion of it, and we can't live with a belief vacuum - something will jump in to fill it, the only question is whether it is truth or lies. To be sure, I have spoken messages like yours, to create questions, to highlight meaninglessness, but I regret every message of mine which stopped there. We have been given such an awesome message of hope, why not tell it?
Steve (14:39 13/12/2011):
No worries, I totally appreciated that I would be shot at dawn for this review.
The point of "It's Better To Be Dead" is less about reminding us of our ultimate fate, and more about what it does to the listener in hearing it: No-one goes, "Yes. Yes it is better to be dead, for the dead feel nothing".
Instead, it's like placing a strawberry on the table, and telling my three-year old son that he must not touch it. Of course he'll rally against what he's been told - it's his nature - that strawberry has one destination - his grinning chewer.
To tell the living that life is not for them is to call the living to life in perhaps the most powerful way.
Though I acknowledge it was not my witting intention in this review, what then happens when the listener is told that God - or love - does not exist? Christopher devotes half a day to making a case that God is. You weren't really trying to convince me, were you?
Me (15:20 13/12/2011):
Hehe well then, nicely played ;) I'll happily spend more than half a day (my whole life) making a case that God is.
I wasn't sure. I haven't seen you come out and say your purpose, your main message, in any of your videos (although I've only seen about half of them).
Steve (16:21 13/12/2011):
Don't watch the other half - I probably would take issue with myself about what I said by now... ;)
