The End of Philosophy

“I believe in one God,

the Father almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all things visible and invisible….”

A couple of months ago, I installed Substack. I didn’t know much about Substack before installing it and after having used it (as a reader not a writer), I still don’t know much about it. Nevertheless, downloading it and entering the stream of inchoate thoughts intensified a sentiment I had been ruminating on for some time. I think if there is any conclusion to be drawn from the proliferation of content in our age it is that most of everyone has not much to say. Everyone is a writer and not many people have anything worth writing. Everyone has opinions and not many people have opinions worth eight cents. Everyone has something to say and, at the same time, nothing to say. In other words, giving everyone a platform has made us (or, rather, me) realize that no one really deserves one. 

I am, of course, nothing but a hypocrite in saying this. I am writing my opinion of other people’s writing. Who is to say mine is better? This isn’t to say I think everyone should stop writing. Quite the contrary, actually, but that is a subject for another time. Nevertheless, what I would like to lay out here is something that I would hardly say is my opinion. In fact, it is probably the opposite of an opinion. My point in this bit of writing is to ask, what is the point of all these opinions? What is the point of all these ruminations? Is there a point? It should go without saying that more people attempting intelligent discourse is a good and necessary thing. At the same time, we must also ask about the excess. Where does this philosophy lead? Surely the endless discourse must have an end. They say the pen is mightier than the sword. But at least both pen and sword have a point.

While I was an undergraduate, I once set out to write a poem about how much I hate libraries. Happily, it never saw the light of day. In any case, I still maintain the sentiment. I understand why libraries exist. I know their value and I will champion for their persistence. Nevertheless, libraries are some of the strangest places on earth. If they are not strange, they are at least quite funny. It is the only place where you can find people arguing against burning books next to books that ought to be burned. They are the only place on earth where the heretic and the heresiologist stand next to each other. In times past, only a gallows would bring them together. I once came across Augustine’s Confessions right next to a book on Queer Theory in Augustine. I understand the system that brings these books together, but is it not a strange thing? It is as if they were placed to cancel each other out. It is this simple proximity that seems to be the first whiff of the carrion of thought. A proliferation of this sort of commentation leads to a dilution. When everyone must have their take, everything is taken away. To put my point a bit more bluntly, I will not deny the Queer Theorist of Augustine their platform. I would only maintain their platform belongs in hell. 

The strange habit of this age is to debate on settled matters. It seems that whatever persuasion one might be there are an endless set of thinkers and apologists ready to defend it. My recent perusal into Substack confirmed this. Any religion, habit, philosophy, or theory has its own community, served up by an algorithm eager to feed its bloating children. In our day and age, the Devil has a thousand advocates. This is really quite unfortunate since the Devil had his own day in court and no amount of arguing will ever put him back in Heaven. This activity of debating on settled matters, of exhuming Augustine to put him on some modern perverse trail, is more than just wrong, it is the death of philosophy. The virginal search for dialectic wisdom ends in the fog of opinions, and the young man falls out of the window because he fell asleep while listening. 

Perhaps I simply do not have the patience to listen to every nuanced opinion from the latest heretic. Perhaps libraries are really quite benign things never meant to be taken as seriously as I have here. In any case, no matter what one thinks about the current state of public philosophy, it is quite clear that philosophy still must end. Philosophy, taken here to mean the original “love of wisdom”, is no good if you don’t actually get wisdom in the end. The dialectic is worthless if, at the end of the day, one cannot distinguish between the good and the bad. Taken simply, the end of philosophy lies in dogma. In our age, no philosophy really ends in dogma, and thus dies in its own apathy. In previous ages, perverse philosophy at least had the strength to get there, even if it was quite bad dogma. But no matter what, philosophy must end in dogma. It must end in a clear definition or it has failed. And this I will hold is one of the greatest feats of Christianity in the last two millenia. Christianity gave us a dogma. A dogma that has stood beneath the stars in all those millenia since her founding. Inviolate in all the violent waves of shifting opinion. Christianity has a philosophy and the philosophy gave us a dogma and the dogma is a creed. A creed that was true when it was first penned and will be true until every one of us lies in the earth and our flesh has rotted off our bones. 

Much can be said about the immensity of thought in the ecumenical creeds. Much can be said about the power of the simple creed uniting a truly universal faith. I would only point out that the simple words of the Nicean creed have a way of satisfying all the previous human thought. The simple words, “I believe in God the Father… the Son, Consubstantial with the Father,... and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father,” stand at a sort of fork in human philosophy. In a way, all the metaphysics of the philosophers are answered and finally settled. Much can still be said about Nicea and the metaphysical implications of its formulation. I only posit here that the conversation is no longer an open question. Orthodoxy has clear definitions. Philosophy has ended in a dogma, and the dogma brings life. 

I believe in one God,

the Father almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the Only Begotten Son of God,

born of the Father before all ages.

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;

through him all things were made.

For us men and for our salvation

he came down from heaven,

and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,

and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,

he suffered death and was buried,

and rose again on the third day

in accordance with the Scriptures.

He ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory

to judge the living and the dead

and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins

and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead

and the life of the world to come. Amen.