Dialogue ~ 18 (rendezvous - or recap)

The text of ‘The Last Judgment’ (Matthew 25: 31-46) reads, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Is there correlation between the poem of Parmenides ‘On Nature’, the biblical message of the ‘The Last Judgment’, the teachings contained in the Gospel of Thomas and that of Kant’s ‘Critique of Judgment’? On the surface these texts appear different, but consider that they are pointing in the same direction, which is figuratively speaking, into the depth of the human heart. 

Why do I say this?  Well, think of a movie that many will watch, and afterwards, there will be those who will say that the movie was good, was bad or that it didn’t register with them at all. So too with misconceptions about an embodiment of ‘Truth’, in that there will always be those who take offense with and go to war with others over whose interpretation of truth is accurate. In the introduction of the Critique of Judgment, Kant puts forward that “Judgement in general is the faculty of thinking the particular as contained under the Universal.  If the universal (the rule, the principle, the law) be given, the Judgement which subsumes the particular under it … is determinant. But if only the particular be given for which the universal has to be found, the Judgement is merely reflective.”

I cannot dispute that it is the human capacity to reflect upon what is deemed as being preferable or is practical for the universal good of a nation or group that has generated the framework and momentum of civilisation - morality, art, science (technology, medicine), education, law and social order. For millennia, humanity has contemplated its place in the cosmos and has been exploring ways of crafting and maintaining some semblance of acceptable order from what has been regarded as an ocean of chaos – the freedom to discern, that is to say, the free will of human individuality.

“We reach for the stars over and over again, but it is as if they are always beyond our grasp. Why is that, if not for an intelligence of nature itself, evident in its teasing and encouraging of us to grow into all that we are and can become - for an evolution of a species?”

If it is the evolution of our species then, that is the crowning glory, why has the process been so turbulent and filled with bloodshed and suffering – is that to be expected in such a process, i.e. is suffering mandatory for transition to occur? I can remember listening to a debate on the radio many years ago, the topic of which was whether representatives from minority groups should be given preference on training courses at the expense of more capable candidates. So too there have been many debates as to whether the military actions of certain nations is acceptable in view of the devastation that is left in their wake. What I have observed from the defending arguments put forward in these cases (and others besides) is that the stream of thinking arises from the same tenet or assumption, which is that the end justifies the means. 

The narrative follows this pattern: the noblest of all human values is touted as primary (which usually generates consensus or cohesion); then follows an endeavour to create a platform for these larger aspirations of humanity through whatever means are necessary, including that of manipulative and oppressive action (whereby consensus fragments). To some, it would appear as if there is no human cost that is not justifiable in the service of some identifiable measure of progress that is connected to their lofty vision of the good or desirable. Protagoras, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher is given as saying, ‘man is the measure of all things’, this being interpreted by Plato as meaning that there is no absolute truth but that which individuals deem to be the truth. It follows that language, donned in the disguise of being reason, has been successfully crafted as a tool by which to encourage conformity and as a weapon against dissent. It is not that there is anything wrong with humanity contemplating the good but that inevitably where there is light there is dark. 

What is the Last Judgment referring to? I have to ask, is it really depicting an approaching time or an event when the righteous shall be separated from the … well, the not so righteous? Forgive my ignorance, but how is it that any human being can become so perfect - or so humble - that they are deemed as being ‘better than’ or fit for saving from damnation and subsequently bestowed with eternal life? Let me be clear: I am not disparaging in any way those who have faith in or believe in such things. No, I am saying that I am not comfortable with entertaining such a concept because there is something about it that ‘isn’t sitting right’ with me; which is a clear signal either that I am looking at something in the wrong way or that there is more to the story than meets the eye. 

Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man”. I believe this is true and I also believe that appearances can be deceiving, particularly so, as a person grows more confident in their truth. 

To pause for a moment and reflect: I have always struggled with the concept of faith; I am comfortable with changing my mind about things and have questioned authoritative narratives that are being represented as truth. Like a child that is in love with jumping into puddles, I have found that life is always revealing more about itself; being inquisitive is to be authentic and willing to participate in life; I would even suggest that it is to touch or to hold life with reverence – it is a sacred union: that which is to be known and that which is pulsing with enquiry. Perhaps reality isn’t at all passive, but is a dynamic entity itself, vibrant in its encounter. To grasp at it or to treat life with disdain is to close off the very essence that is flowing through our veins. I digress.

To return then, to the topic of my enquiry, being that of ‘the last judgment’ - what can I possibly have to say about it that has not already been said? The irony is, that I am intuiting from the text that it is referring to a doorway, a portal if you will, which the human mind is capable of traversing; but that when the human mind does so, it does not do so alone. Go back for a moment to what Kant had said in relation to judgment, “Judgement in general is the faculty of thinking the particular as contained under the Universal.” 

  

In the Gospel of Thomas (v.18), it says, “The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us how our end will be.” Jesus said, “Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death.” What intrigues me about this teaching is that if a feedback loop of natural intelligence of the human brain is sufficient per se to reveal ‘the beginning’ of a state of well-being, at least in the sense of ‘eternal life’ (a reference used throughout the New Testament), then why is it that so few individuals it would seem, let alone collectively, are not glimpsing that state of the good already? When we do (or believe that we do), the good appears to crumble before our eyes and we have to manipulate others or events or even fight to preserve it?

Consider yourself as endeavouring to put together an image, a jigsaw puzzle of the cosmos (of reality) through whatever it is that you are capable of discerning and comprehending (inevitably through analysis, logic, imagination or intuition, reason if you will), but that each time you turn over a piece of the puzzle, a neighbouring piece flips over and is obscured from your view! You can certainly try to predict or to build up a probable best guess of reality from that which is being revealed to you, but each glimpse you obtain is comparable to a drop in an ocean – it is ever changing, if only because you are accustomed to experiencing life from the perspective of being an individual. 

The human individual is optimised it would appear, to accumulate data from its environment and from which it can proclaim its reality; an individual appropriates the faculty of discernment to make judgments as to what is to be incorporated into the good and what is to be left out or eliminated. There is a feedback loop built into this system, such that an individual (or bottom-up algorithm) could self-correct, but that would be presupposing that an individual (or algorithm) is paying attention and is not competing with reality to preserve its self-interest.

I suggested earlier that the signposts given by Parmenides poem ‘On Nature’, the Gospel of Thomas, Kant’s Critiques (amongst many others) appear to be pointing towards the depth of (figuratively speaking) the human heart. In this instance, I am referring to ‘human heart’ in the same sense as I spoke of ‘doorway’ or ‘portal’ earlier, in that it might by symbolic of ‘the beginning’ in the context of experiencing eternal life as has been suggested throughout the wisdom texts. It is challenging for me at times such as these, to find some way to express or to communicate in words what is beyond space time as is popularly understood through conventional analysis or Cartesian co-ordinates. I do believe that humanity is teetering on the precipice of a quantum leap, but if you were to ask me where the evidence is, then no, I would not be able to answer.