light that shines in both minds, but differently, so that you see something that is really there that I don’t, and I see something that is really there and you don’t.
For instance, let’s say that I, as a typical theist, would say, “Death is great, because it leads to heaven.” I am omitting a whole lot. Death is an atrocity. Death is an enemy before it is a friend. It can be a friend, even if there is no life after death, because life on earth forever without death would be like eggs going rotten. I might not see that as someone who doesn’t believe in life after death does see it. So, since I am sensitive to that data, I have to listen more to you.
Q: So, you are still looking at forever; maybe there is just forever.
A: Yes. We all have to be open to all the data we can, but it seems to me that we have to be looking for truth, not just comparing opinions. Comparing opinions is just sort of internal mental masturbation— playing with opinions.
Q: Maybe it’s all we have.
A: If that is all we have, then we are like those two people in the New Yorker cartoon some years ago on a desert island, starving. A message in the bottle comes. There is hope. They open the message, they read it, and their faces fall. The caption says, “It’s only from us.”
Q: It may be Harvey; it may be Harvey.
A: Well, if it is Harvey, we are in for it, but at least you can still make a Pascal’s wager. There is no conclusive case that it is only Harvey. So, if both options are equally intellectually respectable, what would you gain by the despair and the emptiness by opting for it? At least Pascal’s wager makes sense, doesn’t it?
Q: I don’t look at things only in terms of loss and gain.
A: No, neither do I. That comes second. The most important question is truth. If you would give me a tremendous psychological gain, an immense amount of happiness at the expense of truth or an immense amount of truth at the expense of happiness, that would be a hard choice. But I would, at least, want to choose truth, rather than happiness.
William James divided all minds into the tender-minded and the tough-minded. The tender-minded seek happiness and ideals and comfort and integration and all that sort of thing. The tough-minded seek facts. He said that a tough-minded person and a tender-minded person can’t understand each other and can’t really have an argument. I think he’s a little wrong there, because deep down, I think we’re all tough-minded. For instance, this is a wonderful place, but does anybody really think this is heaven and that I’m God? If you thought that this was heaven and I was God and this was the beatific vision, would you be happy? If happiness is all you want, why would you believe that, because we know that it is not true, stupid. See, truth trumps happiness. So, one, truth; two, happiness.
Q: I wonder if you might briefly contrast Kierkegaard’s balancing act of faith with nature’s nihilistic will to power.
A: In twenty-five words or less, Kierkegaard’s faith is not a balancing act; it is a leap— a definite commitment with all of his heart, but in a lot of darkness. Nietzsche made the opposite leap. He said, “I will now disprove the existence of all gods. If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god? Consequently, there are no gods.” That is faith, but it is the opposite faith. It makes no sense. It is Lucifer’s faith— “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” I think when Nietzsche goes into hell, he will sing the words from Sinatra’s song “I did it my way.”
Q: Maybe I just misunderstood you. You are talking about the whole idea of either the result of evil or the result of suffering producing something good. I have also heard this philosophy called the Fortunate Fall— that it is a good thing that Adam and Eve sinned, because then God could send his Son. But that doesn’t seem to make sense. You also might have said something answering that other question about when you referenced death. I am just really confused.
A: If it is fortunate or good, then why not do it? If God brings good out of evil, then why not supply him with a lot of evil, because we’re not the General and we’re not advising the General. We are foot soldiers, and we have been given our marching orders. There is good, and there is evil. There is right, and there is wrong. Fight for the right and against the wrong. We’re also given little clues about the general strategy. God says, “Even when you do wrong, I can make good out of it.” That’s dangerous. It’s wonderful, but it’s dangerous and can’t substitute for the first thing. We know very clearly our marching orders. So, let’s go out and do them.
1 This is a reference to the deviation from the original Tolkien plot in which Faramir realizes that the ring is a thing of evil and should not be used. Thus, he is not tempted to hold on to the ring but sends Frodo, Sam, and Gollum on their way. Peter Jackson has Faramir bring them to Gondor and only later release them.
PAUL VITZ
March 25, 2004
Good evening, I am Eric Metaxas, and welcome to Socrates in the City, the thinking person’s alternative to standing in front of Trump Tower and having your picture taken.
By the way, in passing, I want to publicly thank Donald Trump for adding to the aesthetic value of Fifth Avenue with that fabulous banner. It’s so charming that it really is almost Dickensian. It’s just wonderful to have somebody scowling at you from a building, isn’t it?1
Anyway, it is a pleasure to be here tonight and to see all of you. As many of you already know, the idea behind these Socrates in the City events comes from Socrates’s famous maxim that the “unexamined life is not worth living.” It follows logically that the unexamined maxim is not worth remembering. So, I think the fact that this Socratic maxim has been remembered for lo, these twenty-five centuries means that it has been examined and been worth remembering, although I am not sure if that is true, because I really can’t remember.
Anyway, our thesis here at Socrates in the City is that the illustrious inhabitants of our fair city— that’s us— are less likely to lead examined lives than people in other parts of the world, principally because we New Yorkers are very, very good at distracting ourselves with high-flying careers and low-flying entertainments. I am not certain that this is true. I have no data, but it is a thesis. And I will be sticking with this for the remainder of the evening. So, please humor me.
In any case, over the last five years, we have scoured the known world for brilliant thinkers who have led particularly examined lives so that they might share the benefit of their examinations with us here in our unexamined burg, as it were. Of course, we inevitably have had to look far beyond New York City for these thinkers— the thesis again being that New Yorkers are, by definition, too successful and too distracted and too ambitious to ever attain the level of self-examination and philosophical brilliance necessary to address one of these august gatherings we like to call Socrates in the City.
Here at Socrates, we have had speakers from everywhere but New York. We have had speakers from Boston, actually three: Dr. Armand Nicholi, who spoke on C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud and teaches at the Harvard Medical School; Dr. Thomas Howard on Chance or the Dance?,
