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THE DISORDER OF EXISTENCE
(from Principles of Christian Theology, John Maquarrie, pp 70-73)
So far the description of human existence has presented man's possible ways of being rather than his actual condition. We have seen the polarities of existence, and even this view of the matter has suggested the possibility that this existence may be an absurdity of which it is impossible to make sense. But what do we find when we turn our attention to the actual instances of existing that present themselves for inspection?
A question like this can, of course, be answered only by a broad empirical generalization, and such generalizations can always be challenged. Yet perhaps no one would deny that when we do look at actual human existing, we perceive a massive disorder in existence, a pathology that seems to extend all through existence, whether we consider the community or the individual, and that stultifies it. Because of this prevalent disorder, the potentialities of existence are not actualized as they might be, hut are lost or stunted or distorted. If, as has been claimed above, self-hood is disclosed to us not only as it has actually come about but also in its authentic potentiality, then we cannot fail to be aware of the gulf separating the two, both in ourselves and in the human race generally. This disclosure, as we have seen, belongs peculiarly to conscience as a kind of synoptic self-knowing.
The disorder of human existence can be defined more precisely as "imbalance", and in calling it "pathological" I have implicitly compared it to imbalances in the physical organism. But here we are thinking of existential imbalance. The tension between the polar opposites in existence is not maintained, but one overcomes the other and pulls it out of place, so to speak, so that the whole structure is thrown out of joint. The possibilities for such distortion are presumably infinite. In general, however, we can perceive two main directions in which the imbalance takes place, though both may well be present together in a single person or in a single society, in different regards or alternating with each other.
On the one hand are such disorders, individual or social, as pride, tyranny, angelism, utopianism, with all their variations and intermixings. Individualism belongs here too. These disorders arise from reluctance or refusal to give full acceptance and acknowledgment to the facticity, finitude, and, generally, the limitation of human existence, and also from the desire to have a superhuman or godlike existence, free from the restraints that are inseparable from a genuinely human life. Of course, although men may try to get away from the limitations of existence, they cannot escape them, and so their attempted flight results in some such distortion as those that have been mentioned.
On the other hand, there are disorders such as sensual indulgence, insensitivity to others, despair, and the irresponsibility of collectivism. These disorders represent the retreat from possibility, decision-making, responsibility, individual liability and even from rationality. They move in the direction of a subhuman mode of being, that of the animal which is free from care and lives in and for its present. Of course, here again man cannot really relinquish the being that is his own; he cannot attain pure irresponsibility or animality or rid himself of care, but he distorts his being in the attempt.
The two kinds of disorder are found side by side in the same society or even in the same individuals, but by and large the second kind is characteristic of the masses while the first reaches its pitch in the relatively few who become intoxicated and bewitched with the sense of their own power. This first kind of disorder, though no doubt present to some extent among all kinds of people, has shown its most frightening manifestations in the great tyrants of history, and in them perhaps we see existence at its most disordered. Hence it is understandable that interpreters of man from St. Augustine to Reinhold Niebuhr should have seen in pride the typical perversion of human life.
While perhaps few would deny that there is indeed this massive and manifold disorder of human existence, there would probably be considerable debate as to the extent to which the perversion of existence prevails. Once again, the picture is ambiguous. Calvin, as is well known, taught a doctrine of total depravity, and bluntly characterized "everything proceeding from the corrupt nature of man damnable." This point of view seems to conflict with ordinary experience, for surely anyone who is not a misanthrope will acknowledge that many things proceeding from the "natural man" are not in the slightest degree "damnable": that the view is also unsound theologically will be shown in due course. Yet although Calvin exaggerates the disorder of human existence, such exaggeration may have had some excuse as against tendencies to underestimate the disorder in man's life and to take too facile a view of the matter and too optimistic a prospect of human capacities. Although we must reject as false the idea that human existence is totally disordered, we must acknowledge that the disorder runs pretty deep, and in acknowledging this, we are following not only the belief of the most thoughtful analysts of the human condition but the Christian belief about man from the New Testament on.
Less debatable than the question about the totality of the disorder of existence is that of its universality, understood in the sense of its horizontal spread. Every society acknowledges its injustices and imperfections, and every individual, when pressed, acknowledges his own disorder and his share in the wider disorder. Such an individual is thrown into a situation where disorder is already prevalent, and thus from the beginning he is wrongly oriented, and whatever decisions he makes or policies he adopts are relative to the disordered situation. So we can assert that the disorder is universal in human existence.
Can something be said to define more closely the character of the disorder that afflicts our existence? It has already been described as an "imbalance," in terms of the polarities of existence, and perhaps this model of imbalance is the best available and, as we shall see, one that can be further developed in connection with the idea of selfhood. But other models are useful in lighting up aspects of the disorder. It can be described as "falling," and although this particular term has its origins in religion and myth, it has been brought into secular philosophy by Martin Heidegger and has an obvious usefulness. It suggests failure to attain, falling short of actualization, or falling away from an authentic possibility, without of course implying that one had first arrived there, and then only subsequently fallen away.
Another model is that of "alienation," also used by Heidegger and by many other writers. The description of the various modes of imbalance showed these as a turning away from one or other of the poles of human existence, so that this imbalance becomes an alienation within existence itself. The basic alienation is really from oneself, in the full range of one's possibility and facticity. This in turn leads to alienation from other existents, for, as we have seen, individualism at one extreme and collectivism at the other take the place of authentic community.
Is it not the case, however, that there is still a third level of alienation, a deeper level where one feels alienated from the whole scheme of things? Perhaps this could be called "lostness." It is the sense of being cut off not only from one's own true being or from the being of others, but from all being, so that one has no "place" in the world. This is surely the deepest despair that can arise out of the order of existence.
At this point it is appropriate to introduce the word "sin." It will be remembered that one part of the purpose of this philosophical theology is to describe the situations in which theological or religious words and assertions have their meaning. So far we have been discussing the human condition in secular terms. "Sin" is a religious term, and it has connotations that differentiate it from notions like "guilt" or "wrongdoing," though presumably "sin" includes these notions. What is distinctive in sin, however, is the last point to which we came in our discussion of models of human disorderthe notion of "lostness" of being alienated not only from oneself and from other existents but, at a still deeper level, from all being. The religious man would say that this lostness is separation from God, but until we can study the word "God" more closely, this assertion can be left aside. For the meantime, in accordance with the method of a philosophical theology that proceeds descriptively, we can only ask whether the situation described is one that can be recognized as typical of our human existing in the world. That sin can be understood as "separation" or "missing the mark" or "falling away" in respect of one's relation to oneself or to one's neighbour would perhaps be universally conceded. That it is understood as alienation at a still deeper level is what is asserted in the distinctively religious connotation of the word, and I have tried to show that this religious connotation is firmly grounded in a common and widely recognizable element in man's awareness of his own existence in the world, or, more briefly, in his self-understanding. There is of course much that has still to be unfolded and examined before this as yet vague awareness of being cut off at the deepest level can be properly evaluated. In the meantime, however, it would seem that: our discussion of the disorder in human existence has led us still further in the direction of despairing about man and concluding that his existence cannot make sense.
Already when we had taken note of the polarities and tensions that enter into the constitution of existence, we noted the possibilities for frustration and the frankly despairing views of some philosophers. Now that we have seen how, in actual existing, frustration and distortion do come about and how there is universal disorder, imbalance, falling, alienation, or however it may appear to us, have we not already reached the stage at which we must simply say that it is hopeless to try to make sense of this strange kind of being that we call "existence" and that we know in the phenomenon of man? At least, we have seen enough to show us that Sartre and those who think like him are far nearer to a realistic appraisal of the human condition than those complacent humanists who believe that with more science and education, better social conditions and the like, the ills of humanity can be cured and a fuller existence enjoyed. These men just have not faced the radical character of existential tension and disorder, and this becomes increasingly clear as the problems of the affluent society show themselves to be just as intractable as those of the impoverished society. Our analysis has rather shown that because of the universality and solidarity of human disorder, there is within the human situation no remedy to hand that will be adequate to overcome the problems of that situation.
We can say then that the alternatives confronting us have been sharpened. Either we must go along with Sartre and company, and acknowledge that life is indeed a useless passion, so that the best we can hope for is to reduce its oppressiveness at one point or another, to patch up the situation here and there, without any hope or possibility of really overcoming the absurdity and frustration that belong intrinsically to human existence, as thrown possibility; " or, if we are seeking to make sense of life and to bring order into existence so that its potentialities can come to fulfilment, we have frankly to acknowledge that we must look for support beyond humanity itself, pervaded as this is with disorder. To put the disjunction in another way: either we acknowledge the absurdity of a situation in which we find ourselves responsible for an existence which we lack the capacity to master, and have just to make the best of a bad job; or else we look for a further dimension in the situation, a depth beyond both man and nature that is open to us in such a way that it can make sense of our finite existence by supporting it and bringing order and fulfilment into it. We see then that the quest for meaning and sense in existence, for order and fulfilment, now takes on a more definitely religious character. Whether there is any support from beyond man such as would make sense of his existence and overcome its frustrations, we cannot yet say. But at least we can see that the idea itself is not an empty one. Our descriptive analysis of the human situation has provided a frame of reference within which this idea can be located, that is to say, assigned its meaning. The term in the religious vocabulary which denotes the idea described is "grace," so it is permissible for us now to introduce this word, in addition to "sin" which appeared earlier in the section.
Of course, in the famous words of St. Thomas, "grace does not abolish nature but perfects it." This point has to be stressed lest anyone should get the mistaken idea that we are saying that man's quest for grace (which is finally identical with the quest for God) arises only from his lack, disorder, and frustration. The condition of his being conscious of any lack is that he already seeks a fulfilment. We have already seen that in the human being anxiety and hope are intertwined. The quest for grace is ultimately rooted in the openness of human existence or the transcendence of the human spirit toward a whither that attracts. All this will become clearer in the section which follows.
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