Flips in a Pool of Reason and Passion

If Descartes doubt didn’t make you feel like you were doing flips under water, I believe Swift did the job. I find myself almost sore for humanity, and kind of depressed. Who knew that such a seemingly innocent work could be so heart wrenching. Reason, sin, imperfection, perfection; I am a little overwhelmed by all the concepts running through my head right now. I’ll try to make this logical (Ha! Philosophy today! This one’s for all my dear honor’s philosophy friends who are taking it with me and know what I’m thinking.)

The biggest thing I noticed was the contrast between the Houyhnhnms and humans. As Gulliver describes his conversations with his master he seems to highlight terrible things about humanity in his day. In chapter seven it says, “ But I must freely confess that the many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds placed in opposite view to human corruptions had so far opened my eyes, and enlarged my understanding, that I began to view the actions and passions of man in a very different light.”

As Gulliver began to describe all facets of society he bumped into the different kinds of irrationalities we hold on to. He discussed politics, ethics, war, medicine, trade and everyday life and all of them seemed so… terrible, filthy and messy! His horse friend could not even fathom all the atrocities that the yahoo was speaking of.

The master horse seemed like a child—innocent and firmly convicted. All of his convictions however didn’t rise from passion, but rather, logic. He was never hot and on fire, but just convinced. There was also no violence in their world. There wasn’t even a word made up for what we know as a lie. Swift’s writing leads you to think—what would life be like without passion? Would the world be a better place if we were all completely and perfectly reliant on reason? Is passion the cause of sin?

Have you ever stretched your brain to think of a society without passion? Think of what we, humans, would be like without passion. What would our world look like? How would daily life carry through without passion? It would be orderly. That would be a nice attribute that would make things a bit more comfortable and stable. Life would be simple. There would be no wars, no issues, and no complicated feelings. But there would also be no love. Wait a minute? No love? For a while there I was becoming rather comfortable with the idea of a reason-filled, passionless society. But now, I’m not so sure. Now that I have thought about it, a passionless world seems kind of colorless to me. Like those black and white picture books that always disappointed me for lack of illumination.

Isn’t passion a driving force that gets things done? If I’m passionate about my blog topic, I’m much more apt to write it, right? Hold on, what about this idea of passion in relation to sin? It seemed that Swift was saying, since the Houyhnhnms were perfectly rational, they couldn’t possibly do anything wrong because they always clearly rationalized down to the truth, Passion was never in the way of their reasoning.

Further, if we assume that passion is what causes sin, than we can fairly say that if humans were passionless, then we would be without sin. In that case, if God is without sin, than wouldn’t he have to be passionless? But...God isn’t passionless! God loves us, God was angry because of sin, Jesus wept, and Jesus threw out the moneychangers in anger. There are all sorts of references in the Bible that lead you to conclude that God is indeed passion-filled. So, now, I’m scratching my head. You can’t really say that God isn’t rational either. He created the world and all the intricate systems it relies on. My goodness, now I feel like I’m the one doing flips in a pool! My natural answer to all these questions leads me back to my church upbringing. We are created in the image of a God who is both rational and passionate. After The Fall, sin came into the world and threw off the beautiful balance God created in man of both rationalism and passion. Because of this sin, humanity is a mess. Just like Gulliver described. It still is! There is no doubt. Thank goodness for salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank goodness God had compassion (passion) for us.

I really like this answer. I believe this to be true, but I want to learn more in order to be more solid in beliefs. I love it if this blog turned into a discussion. So comment away if you’ve actually made it through this whole blog. Sorry it was so long!