Balance of Power

A detailed Summary of Balance of Power

Throughout the semester, a theme that has guided our thoughts has been the idea that the self is the capacity to have capacities. Through what we have read, written about, and discussed, we have been trying to come up with our own answers to the questions about the self; what a capacity is, how we find them, which ones are essential to human flourishing, what we do with them once they are found? Yet all of these questions lead us to answer that final and defining question of "what is the 'truth'?"

A capacity is a capability or a realized power in a person. Some of the authors that we read throughout the semester believed that these capacities must be implanted into us, and then nurtured and trained. C.S. Lewis says that, "The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts."(1-p.27) However, in this statement he contradicts his own belief. In order for irrigation to work and make things grow, there must be something there beneath the surface to begin with. This is exactly my belief. I agree with Lewis that our capacities must be trained and educated, but those that are essential to human flourishing are inside our hearts waiting to be uncovered.

One example of this is in our capacity for religion. One theme that has been common throughout several of the writers we have engaged this semester, is the importance of religion to human flourishing. Kierkegaard says that "man's only salvation lies in the reality of religion for each individual."(2-p.56) Evelyn Underhill also states that, "we are not happy, we are not secure, we are not fully alive until our life has an inside as well as an outside."(3-p.96, italics me) Our humanity hinges on the gift we are given which is the human soul. If we lose touch with that we have no meaning to life, no direction, no answers to the unending questions that plague our minds, no depth, no truth. We therefore need that capacity for spiritual life to be able to flourish. Underhill also says, we need the outside as well. "We all begin as tadpoles; but we ought to end as frogs- equally at home in both worlds (meaning spiritual and intellectual), both elements."(3-p.98) We need to find a way to combine both of these 'worlds' so that they can coexist. This is a difficult task because at times they can contradict each other. There is, however, a way to do this. Imagine that there are two planes (see diagram at back). One plane is that of a true believer. The other is of a skeptic observer. If you are raised, as I was, in a Christian home, or of any other faith, you have been brought up in the category of a believer. However, if we start in the plane of a true believer, our faith is naive. We don't have that connection between our inside and our outside. What me must do, like Nussbaum says, is to jump over to the other plane of the skeptic observer and look at our faith objectively. We must think hard and clear about it, taking a serious look at what our faith actually entails. If we then decide to take the leap back into our faith, we have found a way to bind our inside and outside and we will be more committed to our faith because our intellect is not constantly fighting against it.

There is a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson called "Ullyses" that talks about what the truth really is. "Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move." We spend all of our lives obsessing over the question of what really is the 'truth'. The answer lies in that "untraveled world" that always seems to disappear right when we are about to reach it. So what reason do we have for thinking about these capacities if we can never reach the truth? When we set forth on that journey to find the truth, we realize that it is not the end which we need. The journey's the thing. The journey is what trains and educates and nurtures these capacities. Each day we struggle to reach the balance which is needed to flourish and to find the 'truth'. That struggle is what makes us who we are and shows us how to live our lives. The answer to what the truth is? Stop worrying about the question and set forth on you're own journey to become those things which make us truly human.

As stated in "A Rational Animal", Reason can be broken up into the two categories of Theoretical Reason and Practical Reason. "Theoretical Reason is our capacity, small or great, to think thoughts, that is, to operate from and with propositions. Practical Reason is our capacity, small or great, to conduct ourselves according to moral p

Some common words found in the essay are:
Practical Reason, Evelyn Underhill, CS Lewis, Lewis Underhill, Lord Tennyson, Mysterious Universe, Cultivation Humanity, Power Throughout, Trial Preparedness, human flourishing, Theoretical Reason, subjective thinking, essential human, moral principles, human spirit, inside outside, essential human flourishing, plane true believer, sort truth, set forth, capacities essential, essential lives, sort truth declared, believe subjective thinking, connection inside outside,

Approximate Word count = 2289
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous