“What is incomprehensible is that nothing, and yet everything, has changed, after all… ‘Nothing has changed’ means: Although I have no right to change my report about what I saw, since I see the same things now as before – still, I am incomprehensibly compelled to report completely different things, one after the other.”
– Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology
The Jastrow Rabbit-Duck Illusion…or is it Duck-Rabbit?
It can be understandably tempting to draw the conclusion from the problem of evil that God does not exist. Rather than solving the proposed problem, this conclusion seems to compound the issue even further: for not only is there perceived evil, but it can only be at it’s source only incidental and meaningless!
While it’s evident that being a god-fearing individual does not preserve you from the experience of evil, I think that it is the proper context for reckoning evil, though this perspective is not always grasped even by the faithful.
Consider St. Paul’s admonition to give thanks in all circumstances. We know that St. Paul’s life did not lack in its difficulties. How is it that he could possibly recommend that we give thanks in all circumstances?
We can easily focus on this difficult aspect of all-encompassing thankfulness and abandon this project even before we begin. Rather, we would do well to approach it reasonably and begin by at least being thankful for the small, ordinary things in life. As the incomparable G.K. Chesterton once admitted:
“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”
G. K. Chesterton being thankful, no doubt.
Adamantly saying grace (i.e. giving thanks) will no doubt lead you to begin to recognize everything as a gift. The thing about gifts, it’s helpful to remember, is that they aren’t earned – they are by definition freely and unconditionally given. Acknowledging this implication should naturally begin to temper any undue sense of entitlement and any of its resultant unfulfilled frustrations.
We must ask ourselves: Can we truly accept gifts? Honestly, how many of us would accept an unwarranted gift without suspicion, even by someone who we know, without a doubt, loves us? Is this jadedness preventing us from truly being thankful?
Regardless of our perception, everything is nothing less than total gift; that is to say, everything is grace. And because this is so, we can confidently conclude that there are no gifts without a giver. We will come to find that the consequence of recognizing this simple fact is pure joy, not unlike the joy young children experience when they receive gifts.
The gif(t) of pure joy.
Of course, we will likely discover that, with this movement of gratitude, being primarily dispositional, ultimately nothing about our day to day experience changes…and yet everything has changed.
Three Wire songs in a row? You’re welcome.
Ordinary, Obscure & Laborious 