[lit-ideas] Re: lit-ideas Digest (editing) and Missouri)
- From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 09:00:16 +0700
Mike Geary wrote:
"One doesn't just wake up one morning and say, 'OK, today I'm
changing my basic beliefs' (excepting, of course, Paul of Tarsus).
It's the incremental realization that a particular belief isn't really
working."
I can't think of any belief of mine that I decided to hold. On the
other hand, I can remember occasions where I realized that I no longer
believed what I thought I believed. It seems to me that beliefs are
less the result of a decision and, following Nietzsche, more the
surface expression of a great deal of activity that is going on
elsewhere. For myself, I often have to work hard to find out what I
believe, not necessarily because the issues are complicated but rather
it is as though the conditions for my holding a belief are not yet
settled.
I wonder if something similar is occurring in the Paul story. The
story makes clear that Paul does not choose to change his beliefs but
is, rather, overwhelmed. For Christians, Paul is overwhelmed by a
vision of Jesus Christ, but a more mundane explanation might be that
Paul, for whatever reason, has an epiphany that he no longer believes
what he thought he believed.
The relevant Nietzsche quote: "Beware that, when fighting monsters,
you yourself do not become a monster."
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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