November 16, 2004
MISSED ONE:
Thinkers Behind the Culture of Death (Part 2): Donald DeMarco on the "Masters of Suspicion" (Zenit.org, NOV. 12, 2004)
John Paul II has referred to Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche as the "masters of suspicion" because they espoused that the heart is at odds with itself and therefore cannot be trusted.Donald DeMarco agrees wholeheartedly with the Pope's insight. DeMarco has co-authored a book investigating the dysfunctional lives and theories of the Architects of the Culture of Death" with Benjamin Wiker.
DeMarco, an adjunct philosophy professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary and professor emeritus at St. Jerome's University, relayed to ZENIT how these three thinkers and others have led to the disintegration of the human person.
[...]
DeMarco: In the course of his "theology of the body," Pope John Paul II refers to the "masters of suspicion," an expression he borrows from Paul Ricoeur that applies to Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche.
For the Holy Father, the philosophies of this triumvirate typify what St. John the Evangelist describes in his First Letter, verses 15 through 16, as the "lust of the flesh," "lust of the eyes" and the "pride of life."
Freud wanted to free the sexual instinct from the restraints of the "superego"; Marx encouraged members of the proletariat to revolt so that they could satisfy their desires for material possessions; and Nietzsche proclaimed an ego too powerful to be held down by moral constraints.
The lust, avarice and pride that these three atheistic revolutionaries espoused have not brought about personal fulfillment. On the contrary, they have led to a disintegration of personality. The fruits of lust, avarice and pride are, respectively, bitter loneliness, spiritual dissatisfaction and abject misery.
John Paul explains that "masters of suspicion" is a most telling phrase because it indicates that a heart that naturally expresses itself in the form of lust, avarice or pride cannot be trusted. The heart of man, as described by Freud, Marx and Nietzsche, implodes upon itself and in so doing becomes an object of deep suspicion. The heart is at odds with itself and therefore cannot be trusted.
The vital element that is omitted in the thought of these three godless thinkers is a relationship with the Father. As St. John writes, "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; because all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; which is not from the Father, but from the world."
The image comes to mind that the poet William Butler Yeats provides in "The Second Coming": "The falcon cannot hear the falconer ... anarchy is loosed upon the world." Man in the modern world, following the "masters of suspicion," has become so estranged from God that he can no longer hear the Father's integrating message. Without the Father, chaos reigns.
Freud, Marx and Nietzsche, whose influence on the modern world is immense, were particularly vehement in their rejection to the Fatherhood aspect of God. They all believed and taught that the condition for human liberty is the death of God the Father.
For Freud, perhaps the most basic tenet of his psychoanalysis is that neurosis results when the severity of the superego is too great. He therefore sought to rid people of the Law -- and ultimately the Law Giver -- that formed the superego. Freud saw himself as a new Moses, or an anti-Moses, whose destiny is to abolish the Fatherhood of God that was responsible for the oppression of the human psyche.
Marx was an avowed enemy of anything divine. "I hate all the gods," he proclaimed. His Promethean temperament set him against what he believed to be a fictitious god that first mesmerized and then oppressed the masses. He viewed subservience to a Father figure as a deathblow to one's own selfhood.
No sacrifice for him could be too great in deposing god in the interest of liberating man. "I would much rather be bound to a rock," he proudly asserted, "than be the docile valet of Zeus the Father."
Nietzsche wrote his first essay on ethics when he was but 13. In it, he imagined that he solved the problem of evil. "My solution to the problem was to give the honor to God, as is only just, and make him the father of evil," he wrote.
"Why atheism nowadays?" Nietzsche asked. "The father in God is thoroughly refuted." He also advised, "Love yourself through grace; then you are no longer in need of your God, and you can act the whole drama of Fall and Redemption to its end in yourself."
There's a hilarious bit in Edward J. Larson's fine new book, Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory:
By the 1870s, Darwin was an international celebrity. Even if people did not believe they descended from apes, they talked about it--and about Darwin. And for many of those who did believe, Darwin became a kind of secular prophet or high priest. Secluded in his remote country home at Downe, perpetually ill or supposedly so according to some, Darwin played the part of hermit sage receiving favored guests on his own terms. [...] Surveying the scene, Huxley sent Darwin a sketch of a kneeling supplicant paying homage at the shrine of Pope Darwin. Given their almost visceral contempt for Catholicism, both Huxley and Darwin surely enjoyed the irony.
The real irony, of course, lies in thinking all that ironic.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 16, 2004 10:19 AM
A friend of mine used to be seriously into astrology – from mystic prediction columns in newspapers right through to these incredibly elaborate Chinese birth chart things.
Occasionally, being young and prone to the odd less-than-chivalric moment, I would challenge her on the subject. A typical debate might run as follows:
She would say that the predictions were uncannily accurate, and cite a few examples from her life. I would point out that the predictions were so vague that you could interpret them to fit anything that happens to you.
She would make a few attempts at suggesting a scientific basis for astrology by talking about the gravitational pull of the planets (!). I would respond that there had been no objective tests or evidence showing that there was anything in this theory, and anyway what possible reason could you have to believe that your choices where determined by Venus and Neptune, rather than by more mundane matters such as free will, or your upbringing, or your biology?
And so it would go on.
Until eventually, she would come out with the inevitable failsafe:
"Yes, but how can you prove that evidence means anything, or reason, or an objective test? You can’t prove that these things are real, and my belief isn’t. They’re true for me, which means they’re true."
At which point, even as a youngster, I would realise it was time to change the subject. It's only polite, after all.
On any topic, when someone resorts to "It's true for me, therefore it is true, as there’s no such thing as objective truth", we all know that it is because:
1) they know they’ve lost the reasoned part of the argument
2) they’ve decided from the outset what their point of view is and it's not the sort of thing they're interested in hearing challenged.
3) Their attachment to their viewpoint is essentially emotional.
Of course, there is a difference between my friend on astrology and OJ on ID versus the Theory of Evolution.
The difference is that my friend didn't continually issue statements insisting that non-astrologists were evil, or wrong, or both.
Posted by: Brit at November 16, 2004 11:07 AMAstrology is wrong and evil.
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2004 11:13 AMOJ: this is one of your great posts, just don't let it go to your head like Pope Darwin
Posted by: JimGooding at November 16, 2004 11:23 AMJim:
I've got the beard and the recluse thing down, but no acolytes.
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2004 11:30 AM"Freud wanted to free the sexual instinct from the restraints of the "superego"; Marx encouraged members of the proletariat to revolt so that they could satisfy their desires for material possessions; and Nietzsche proclaimed an ego too powerful to be held down by moral constraints."
So why do religious people satisfy their desires for sexual gratification or material possessions or allow their egos to inflate beyond moral constraints?
Posted by: Robert Duquette at November 16, 2004 1:11 PMDarnnit, Robert, there you go with those annoying facts again.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 16, 2004 5:23 PMSo why do religious people satisfy their desires for sexual gratification or material possessions or allow their egos to inflate beyond moral constraints?
Because "Men of Sin" (for lack of a better term) will cite any cosmic authority -- Bible, Koran, Christ, Darwin, Freud, you name it -- to justify what they wanted to do anyway.
The formal theological name for it is "Original Sin"; the Calvinist version is "the doctrine of total depravity". It is basically that men are men and men are imperfect; what you describe above are the manifestations of that imperfection.
Posted by: Ken at November 16, 2004 5:51 PMOJ, I thought Peter and David were your acolytes?
Posted by: Chris Durnell at November 16, 2004 6:16 PMChris:
They're apostates--believing in both Eric and Julia Roberts
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2004 7:03 PMRobert:
Men are sinful. The false gods sought to legitimize sin, always a popular endeavor to tell folks they can do whatever they want.
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2004 7:12 PMIs that the "I'm fallen, and I can't get up" defense?
Posted by: Robert Duquette at November 16, 2004 8:09 PMRobert:
No, you can get up. God given morality tells you how. Marx, Freud, Darwin, Nietzsche, etc., tell you that you haven't fallen so keep wallowing.
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2004 8:24 PMI thought that it is all about forgiveness. Once you're forgiven, what's the point of getting up?
Posted by: Robert Duquette at November 17, 2004 12:50 AMThe Founding Fathers realized than men are sinful and fallible, which is why they created the rock-paper-scissors division of the federal government in the US Constitution.
It's the Tranzis and Marxists who try to build political utopias on the assumption that God dead (or AWOL). Given their world-view they see nothing wrong with giving absolute power to an unaccountable elite.
Posted by: Gideon at November 17, 2004 2:39 AMRobert:
You can't be forgiven until you repent. Your gods tell you that you haven't even sinned.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 8:48 AMRobert:
You've(we've) fallen and the good news is that you(we) can get up. God heard your(our) cry for help before you(we) cried out, and he came himself in Jesus Christ to help you(us) get up.
The point of getting up after you've fallen is because you can and because you want to suceed.
Posted by: Dave W. at November 17, 2004 9:17 AMI thought it was because we couldn't get up that God had to send Jesus down to do the getting up for us. Martin Luther discovered that no matter how we tried, we could never get all the way up. So we basically have to acknowledge that Jesus got up for us, and we are set.
BTW, Nietzche, Freud and Marx are not my gods. As far as I know I have no gods. Why do I need gods to tell me if I'm down or I'm up, or if I have to get up or can get up or not?
Posted by: Robert Duquette at November 17, 2004 1:21 PMRobert:
You're your own god too, which they taught you to be. Gods are a dime a dozen in the modern paganist culture.
You're not set until you accept Christ and that acceptance imposes obligations.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 1:32 PMI guess that means almost all humans that ever existed are condemned, while the rest are not due almost solely to an accident of birth.
Some God. As my 10-yr old son would say, "That's cheap."
You are not the compass God steers by.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 2:29 PMHumans are saved by God's grace. It's free, but it's not cheap.
Posted by: Phil at November 17, 2004 9:57 PMOJ:
Never said I was. Still cheap, though. And morally inferior to 10-yr old boy.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 18, 2004 6:25 AMA pope speaking badly of avarice.
Now I've heard everything.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 18, 2004 9:18 PM..."morally inferior...?
depends on whether what you are teaching your son about the consequences of accepting or rejecting a relationship with God is grounded in faith or not.
"The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are parishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (I Cor. 1:18). As my 5 year old daughter would sing, "only the blood of Jesus."
Posted by: Dave at November 18, 2004 9:59 PM