My Search for Myself Continues

I am now reading The Ethics by Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza in preparation for my last class on proving the existence of God.  He was before Freud, so rather than having the three influences, the Id, the Ego, and the Superego, he has two.  I think he was influenced by his education in rabbinics.  The Rabbis see a conflict within us between our יצר רע, our evil inclination, and our יצר טוב, our good inclination.  For Rabbi Ben Zoma, a hero is someone whose good conquers the bad.  For Spinoza, it was the passions and the intellect.  

It would be easy for me to define morality in Ben Zoma terms as the victory of the good, since morality is defined as the distinction between good and bad and right and wrong.  Since I have already discussed the issue of true and false in a previous blog, I will not include that even though I think it is relevant.  Philosophy since its inception has dealt with the struggle to be good.  If we look at it in terms of human development and evolution, then I could conclude that our drive to survive, something that is inherent in all living things, apparently, knows no morality.  The good becomes equated with survival and passing on genes.  Anything that promotes survival is good.

Humans discovered that being alone, the first negative we hear from God in chapter two of Genesis, is not the best way to survive.  As a result, the individual good (morality) was replaced by the collective good (ethics).  And so a conflict developed.  How can we ensure personal thriving within a collective relationship?  Hobbes agrees with the Bible that human nature is corrupt.  As a result, even though our intellect tells us that we must live under the rule of law, the law can be a hindrance to personal gain.  

I do not know if I agree with Hobbes and Genesis 6:5, וַיַּ֣רְא יְהֹוָ֔ה כִּ֥י רַבָּ֛ה רָעַ֥ת הָאָדָ֖ם בָּאָ֑רֶץ וְכל־יֵ֙צֶר֙ מַחְשְׁבֹ֣ת לִבּ֔וֹ רַ֥ק רַ֖ע כּל־הַיּֽוֹם׃, "The Lord saw the magnitude of the evil of the humans on the earth; and all the inclination of the thoughts of his heart is only on evil all the time,"  I like to think that the majority of humanity live moral lives.  The ones who don't seem to be the ones we hear about.  Unless the donation to a charity is in the millions, no one takes note.  

And so my search leads me to the question of why are some people "bad"?  Since I am not a Christian, I was not raised with the idea that because of Adam and Eve and their act of disobedience, we are born into a sinful state.  I don't think sin is a state of being.  I don't believe in the magical properties of absolution, that my faith somehow has the ability to atone for my sinful state.  My ability to continue to sin after my confession of faith tells me that my state of sin is not the reason that I sin, since my ability to sin should have been removed by my confession of faith.

There is something else within us that drives us.  I think that is why Freud was so fixated on drives.  If these drives control us, then we are truly not free.  My search leads me to the source of that drive.  If we can identify the problem, we should be able to find a solution.  Isn't that how science works?  Freud, the greatest student of the human mind, amplified my search.  To identify the problem, we must find the cause.  Must I accept the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) to attain a successful conclusion?  The principle states that everything can be explained because there is a reason for it.  Once I discover the reason that we choose to sin, I will be able to stop it.  Philosophy tries to compel us to develop our intellect, because of intellect has the ability to control our passions and emotions, the vehicle of our sin.  

Unfortunately, our intellect can try to suppress our passions and emotions, but it cannot remove them, because like passions, and emotions, there has to be a cause for our intellect to function the way it does.  Philosophy implies that we can enhance our intellect through the study of philosophy.  The Book of Proverbs takes the same approach.  To achieve wisdom, you must study wisdom texts.  To understand the wisdom texts, you must have wisdom.  All this makes me feel like a rodent on a spinning wheel, running as fast as I can, but getting nowhere.

I can see why this leads people to turn to God.  There must be a reason that we have the drives, passions, and emotions, even though we let them control us.  Did God put them there just to test us?  We know that testing is a device of God.  We are told specifically in Genesis 22 that God tested Abraham.  Did God put the tree of the knowing of good and bad there just to test the man and the woman?  Was the result of their eating the birth of guilt?  Is the feeling of guilt enough to make us want to be good?

Apparently God knew that it was not.  So God set up a system of reward to obedience, and punishment for disobedience.  For this system to work, we must have free will.  If I am born into a state of sin, then I will sin, because that is my nature.  For the rabbis, law is meaningless without free will.  Since we are not free from the good and evil inclinations, our freedom resides only in our ability to use them properly.

So far, we seem intent on just trying to control our impulses.  Religion tries to make us afraid to sin because of the consequences.  Philosophy tries to tell us that sin is not logical or rational.  They have not worked.  Is there a better alternative?  Can we medically and scientifically identify what in our mind and consciousness causes our sinful inclination and then heal it?  Or, as the rabbis state, those impulses are still necessary for our survival.  So I am back running on my wheel.