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 of society in history. He believes that history is formed by the discourses, or what happened in the past that create the concepts of culture. In The 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

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 future of 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

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 Meditations that 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

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

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.