When I heard that the Coen brothers were making a new film about a physics professor whose life is quietly falling apart, I had mixed feelings. The premise sounded a bit too much like Garden State for middle-aged people, without the indie music. The Coens have been on a bit of a roll lately, though. No Country and Burn after Reading were two of my recent favorites.
In the end (which should be obvious by the fact that I'm even writing this entry) I gave it a shot.
Two elements took me completely off guard, considering the premise: the offbeat humor and the breathtaking spiritual angst. One scene finds our protagonist, Larry Gopnik, sitting in a room with a Rabbi. In a moment of desperation, he asks, "Why does he (Hashem) make us feel the questions if he's not gonna give us any answers?"
The rabbi responds with a blunt, "He hasn't told me."
This may be a bold or foolish confession, but I wake up many mornings wondering if I'm wrong about the things I believe. Much of my upbringing, even through the end of college, bears a stark resemblance to brainwashing. After walking away from my faith for a time, I felt called back, but it's hard to know why you believe when so much of it was forced on you so early.
Anyway, this movie puts us in a world full of people of straightforward faith, and introduces us to a man on a search for something else. As he wanders through the inconsistencies of his stated beliefs, his profession as a physicist, and his complex, crumbling life, Larry grabs at any proposition that might help.
David Foster Wallace, in an essay titled "Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley," writes about his keen sense of mathematics and how it helped him develop a strong game of tennis. At the end of the essay, a tornado builds while he is in the middle of a volley with a friend. The tornado heralds the end of his development, since he cannot move beyond the math of the game.
I had to wonder if the Coens read Wallace's essay. The two seem to pair so perfectly together.
Our maths, the concrete symbols we ascribe to our universe, the bare facts and our ability to connect them logically, hit a wall in the face of life. We must either turn away from the unquantifiable, or we must leap into it by faith. Both positions leave us (or maybe it's just me - I know many people who don't seem to have a problem with this) with plenty of room for doubt.
After watching A Serious Man, I feel (once again) like I'm witnessing a tornado just when I thought I had the math figured out.
I think this discussion veers pretty deep into Calvinism territory. It might be a discussion better held over some beer, but I'm happy to share a few, less incendiary thoughts here.
ReplyDeleteFirst, there is the relationship of the subjective to the objective - can there be such a thing in a formal theological system centered on revelation? I think so (Vos is pretty insistent on the ever-present necessity of the subjective in confessional Calvinism, for example). The God of Scripture orients things according to His character, I believe, and from there spring logical relationships, but I don't pretend that I have His perspective on, well, anything. Mystery and mystical union factor in big, which is awfully suprising to a lot of Calvinists. Doubt is welcome here, provided a few details.
Second (and herein lie the details), doubt is a mutifacted thing, and whether it's acceptable or not is largely dependent upon its context. There's theological doubt and anthropological doubt. In the former, doubt is constructed in view of God, His actions, and whether or not I believe or understand them.
In the latter, doubt exists solely on the level of how I came into my views. Was I brainwashed? Was I misled? Was I environmentally conditioned? Does it matter?
Anthropological doubts are important, but one thing they are not is neutral. By framing the question in terms of myself and a supposed autonomy from God, I've assumed that salvation is ultimately about how I came to conclusions, when Scripture seems to argue that even given my subjective experience, salvation (and the understanding of salvation) are mystical things worked by God. You can deal with anthropological doubt, and you should, but you can't pretend that answering those questions answers those of the theological realm. To further DFW's example, I can't pretend that the math of tennis has anything to do with the imposing will of the storm.
Ultimately, it comes to a theological question: Thus saith the Lord. Do you believe Him? For the person who has merged (or confused) the theological and anthropological, it'd make a lot more sense to say, "How do I know He said that? Why should I believe Him, provided He is who this book says He is? How do I even know this book is what its tradition says it is?" Again, these are important questions, but they are penultimate, and they are short-sighted.
All this to say, if your experience of faith starts in a system and comes to a place where you have to jump out into faith, I think you've got an inherently flawed system. Augustine said, "I believe in order that I might know." This sounds awfully backwards, but I find it much more honest (and consistent) that pretending that I know in order to believe.
Notice, in that answer, I'm left with an awfully big hole in the anthropological realm. Why do I believe? Well, arguments, I guess. Arguments and feelings and morals and all that. But really, why do I believe? I can't help it. It is how I have been worked. That is a scary thing, an thing offensive to my ideas of autonomy and intellectualism and pride, but it is also a biblical thing.
And about know would be the time for some beer.
In response, Adam, to your comment and our long conversation regarding it, I add that the tornado is exactly what skeptics and believers alike need. Something to help us realize the limitations of our intelligence.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
ReplyDeleteHave fun on vacation.