"To feel and to let the wonder of what is delight you." (Miroslav Volf, Gifford Lecture 2)
Last night's Gifford lecture by Professor Miroslav Volf was a tour de force. By exploring Schopenhauer and pessimism we were led into the darker ambivalences of the world, and the disturbing existential questions around despair and defiance of non-existence.
Through a philosophical and psychological analysis of three types of love, we were helped to understand the roots and the sources of pessimism as distortions of our created humanity. Then helped to see a way through the gloom to ways of loving and caring for the world which de-centres the selfish self through agapaic love, recognising the uniqueness, value and wonder of each person, and each life.
One or two quotations as examples of how sharply and accurately he has diagnosed our world's malaise:
"We live as if intrinsically valuable creatures are merely a means to slake our thirsts."
Epithemic lovers (those whose appetite for what they desire is always given priority) experience themselves as their own purpose, their own goal."
"Desiring to desire is a sociopathic condition. Such [inordinate] desire is invasive and not native to us" and leads to "massive garbaging, which is an unacknowledged hatred of the world."
"We must learn to long for what we already have."
And there it is greed, waste, and a world drowning in garbage – and that was only one strand of a creatively woven critique attempting to explain our contemporary human experience in a globalised world.
I don't take many notes at Gifford lectures, preferring to listen and think, then wait for the book that is published afterwards. This was a deeply rewarding listen.
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