Woke Jesus: a brief philosophical analysis based on Schopenhauer

Sermon on the Mount, by Carl Bloch

According to Schopenhauer, Catholicism was a Christianity that had been profoundly abused, while Protestantism was a degenerate Christianity. The reasons he gives for this are as follows: while Catholicism kept alive the ascetic spirit, denying the will, present in the original Christian message, it committed incalculable crimes and abuses throughout its history; Protestantism, however, degenerated the primary message of Christianity of denying the will, by attacking real asceticism, that is, monasticism. It is worth quoting a long passage from the second volume of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and as Representation:

The more sublime a teaching is, the more open is it to abuse at the hands of human nature, which is, on the whole, of a mean and evil disposition; for this reason, the abuses in Catholicism are much more numerous and much greater than those in Protestantism. Thus, for example, monasticism, that methodical denial of the will, practised in common for the purpose of mutual encouragement, is an institution of a sublime nature. For this reason, however, it often becomes untrue to its spirit. The revolting abuses of the Church provoked in Luther's honest mind a lofty indignation. In consequence of this, however, he was led to a desire to reduce the claims of Christianity itself as much as possible. For this purpose, he first of all restricted it to the words of the Bible; for he went too far in his well-meant zeal, for he attacked the heart of Christianity in the ascetic principle. For, after the withdrawal of this, the optimistic principle of necessity soon stepped into its place. But in religions, as well as in philosophy, optimism is a fundamental error that bars the way to all truth. From all this, it seems to me that Catholicism is a disgracefully abused, and Protestantism a degenerate, Christianity. Christianity in general thus appears to have suffered the fate that falls to the lot of everything that is noble, sublime, and great, as soon as it has to exist among mankind.

In an article titled Schopenhauer on Religious Pessimism, scholar Dennis Vanden Auweele shows that, for Schopenhauer, although Catholicism maintained the tradition of asceticism through monasticism and celibacy practiced by members of the clergy and religious orders, it became an optimistic religion by rejecting the concept of grace. In fact, when we read Schopenhauer's work, he imputes to Catholicism not only crimes and abuses, but also the departure from the doctrine of grace, which teaches that we are incapable of saving ourselves through our own actions. Schopenhauer sees in the figure of Saint Augustine the most correct doctrine, while he rejects Pelagius. While Augustine emphasized the fallen nature of man and of all creation due to our primary guilt, through the dogma of original sin, Pelagius believed that we do not carry a primary guilt in us and that our will was totally free to choose or reject Christ's message. While Catholicism had condemned Pelagianism, it would have also brought it inside the Church when it considered that salvation comes both through faith, as well as through works.

Schopenhauer does not treat these things in literal terms, but in ideal terms. For Schopenhauer, everything in the empirical world is phenomenon, that is, individualized manifestations of a single metaphysical will that subsists outside the a priori forms of our mental representations; i.e. time and space. The will is, therefore, atemporal and unlimited, and everything that exists in the world is its objectivation. Since the will is the intimate essence of all things, including that of humans, we are, in essence, at the same time victims and wrongdoers. We are, therefore, guilty, whether we like it or not, even if we, as individual manifestations, are innocent and have not committed any wrong. Catholicism, although it has the dogma of original sin, also embraces the idea of ​​salvation through good works, and for Schopenhauer that makes it a religion that embraces the possibility of our nature being good in an essential way. Protestantism emphasizes salvation by divine grace and faith, emphasizes the total depravity of humanity, placing good works only as a consequence of salvation. Its great fault, for Schopenhauer, was rejecting asceticism, which is denial of the will. This made Protestantism an optimistic religion.

If we were cynical, in a more contemporary sense of the term rather than in the original philosophical sense, we could say that Schopenhauer's praise of Luther and the ideals that led to the Protestant Reformation is nothing more than a defense of the religion of his immediate ancestors, since his parents came from Protestant families, even though they were not very religious. But I do not believe that this is what happens in Schopenhauer's analysis. There are entire religions that he considers to be founded on optimism, that is, on the affirmation of the will. Among them are Judaism and Islam. Yes, he mentions groups, usually mystical groups, of Jews and Muslims who embrace more pessimistic interpretations of reality, but unlike Christianity and Buddhism, for example, Schopenhauer considers these religions to be will affirming religions from their start and, therefore, they are optimistic, unlike original Christianity and Buddhism, which are, for him, religions that deny the will and are therefore pessimistic.

But even within Protestantism Schopenhauer noted the capacity for denial of the will, as in the case of the Shakers. The Shakers emerged in the 18th century and one of their main doctrines is total celibacy, something that is normally frowned upon by more conventional Protestantism. This characteristic made Schopenhauer consider them a pessimistic branch of Reformed Christianity. Quoting again an extensive passage from the second volume of The World as Will and as Representation:

However, even in the very midst of Protestantism, the essentially ascetic and Encratite spirit of Christianity has again asserted itself, and the result of this is a phenomenon that perhaps has never previously existed in such magnitude and definiteness, namely the extremely remarkable sect of the Shakers in North America, founded in 1774 by an Englishwoman, Ann Lee. The followers of this sect have already increased to six thousand; they are divided into fifteen communities, and inhabit several villages [...]. The fundamental characteristic of their religious rule of life is celibacy and complete abstinence from all sexual satisfaction. It is unanimously admitted even by English and American visitors, who in every other respect laugh and jeer at them, that this rule is observed strictly and with perfect honesty, although brothers and sisters sometimes even occupy the same house, eat at the same table, in fact dance together in church during divine service. After each dance, one of their teachers cries aloud : “Remember that ye rejoice before the Lord for having mortified your flesh! For this is the only use that we can here make of our refractory limbs.”

Schopenhauer wrote this in the first half of the 19th century. The Shakers today have only two or three members, all the others having died or left the group because they did not want to practice celibacy. In this sense, Catholicism was smarter: while it cultivates celibacy for some, it encourages marriage for the majority. The conventional lines of Protestantism are even more emphatic: marriage is encouraged for all and celibacy is frowned upon.

Today, although many Catholic priests in countries such as the United States and, to a lesser extent, Brazil, have been infected by the rhetoric of the so-called “culture war” between conservatives and progressives, it began in the United States between various Protestant denominations, especially in the so-called Bible Belt, an extremely conservative evangelical region in the southern United States. It is fair to say that North American evangelicals still provide most of the fuel that feeds the engine of the culture war, which has repercussions not only in the United States but in many countries around the world, from Europe to South America.

Historically, the United States is a country of Protestant denominations. In the 19th and 20th centuries it experienced “spiritual revivals” in which personal and inter-denominational protestant experience was emphasized over obedience to ecclesiastical authorities that often promoted a faith considered bland and too open to the secular world — which is interesting from the point of view of a Schopenhauerian philosophy since, even though they said they lived for the Kingdom of Heaven, they were still optimistic and world-loving given their oposition to true asceticism, the one that rejects the world. These revivals that occurred in the United States were largely responsible for the following current global scenario: among high-income countries, the United States is by far the most religious — and the most violent, least educated states in the United States are the most religious and conservative; these states also have the lowest life expectancy in the country.

It is within this context that, for the past year, we have seen news reports about how several American pastors have been receiving complaints from their followers about so-called “woke” preaching. In a political context, the term “woke” originally referred to a person who became aware of the oppressions and injustices in society and aimed to improve them. Currently, in the cultural and political war between conservatives and progressives, woke became a derogatory term used by conservatives to refer to progressives and their cultural and political views. Many evangelical pastors are unable to preach the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says that we should turn the other cheek, forgive our enemies, and take a stand against the pursuit of material gain. They also say that their followers complain about Christ’s teachings about helping the needy, the prostitutes, the sick, and embracing those who suffer in general. In short, evangelical Christians accuse Jesus Christ of being too woke and ask for more Old Testament preaching.

This is in line with Schopenhauer's criticism of Protestantism, which, according to him, embraced optimism by rejecting asceticism. His criticism of Protestantism, especially in the second volume of The World as Will and Representation, makes us certain that he would not be at all surprised if he were to return to life today and see what this branch of the Christian religion has become. There is no point in focusing on grace if we abandon the denial of the will. It is no wonder that the evangelical religion has increasingly emphasized the Old Testament, which, with the exception of a few texts, affirms the will. The affirmation is so great that it rejects not only asceticism, but also the recognition of oneself in others, which makes room for the rise of the most atrocious selfishness. The criticism of the sale of indulgences, which was at the heart of the Protestant Reformation, is also thrown in the trash by several reformed denominations today. The grotesque “prosperity gospel” is the official death of the best ideals of the Reformation.

The reaction these Christians have, calling Jesus woke, is not just a political reflex that comes out of the ether, but the result of a historical process of change in thinking that began with the Protestant Reformation. They have rejected the main theme of the New Testament, which is the idea that we must become eunuchs in order to reach the Kingdom of Heaven, as Christ says in Matthew 19:11-12. The often violent rejection of asceticism, emphasizing the idea that everyone should marry, is a metaphorical slap in the face not only of ascetic Christians, but a slap in the face of Jesus, since he never married and, at least according to the Sacred Texts and tradition, never had relations with anyone. But asceticism is not an end in itself; it represents the individual's complete recognition that he is mere phenomenon, that he recognizes himself as a manifestation of the will that animates empirical existence — and this recognition necessarily makes the ascetic compassionate towards all other sufferers. Even without reaching asceticism, the recognition of a mystical union with everything is something that has made many Christians throughout the centuries, even those who marry, capable of recognizing themselves in their enemies.

Thus, an atheist who genuinely gives to those in need represents the original spirit of Christianity much more than a Christian who advocates the criminalization of poverty. It is perfectly understandable why Christians who hate the poor, reject those who are different, and worship material wealth would prefer their pastors to talk little about Jesus and focus on the Old Testament. It is perfectly understandable that they consider Jesus to be woke, progressive, and whatnot. It is clear why these Christians have an aversion to those other Christians, those who follow the New Testament without caring so much about the tribal laws of the old god.

The New Testament clearly emphasizes detachment from the material world, a preference for celibacy, and compassion even to the detriment of one’s own life. For his anti-woke Christian detractors, however, Jesus came only to affirm the worst aspects of the Old Testament, nothing more. But the Scriptures themselves, however distorted they may be, confirm the opposite: the New Testament breaks with the Old. There are several passages where this is exposed, but I will mention here one of my favorites. In Galatians 3:23-25, Saint Paul writes:

Now before faith came, we were prisoners of the Law, confined as we waited for the faith that would eventually be revealed. Therefore, the Law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, so that we might be justified by faith. However, now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

Before concluding, however, it's important to make one last observation.

Schopenhauer ignored political and social issues, to the point of being criticized by another great pessimistic philosopher of the 19th century, Philip Mainländer. Some conservatives today even use Schopenhauer's philosophical pessimism to give an air of intellectuality to their positions, even though they know little about his philosophy. If they did, they certainly would not approve of his criticism of our optimistic and degenerate Christianity, nor his praise of Buddhism and the denial of the will. They would be horrified by his preference for extinction, which is the ultimate goal of the denial of the will, the crowning of his entire philosophical system.

Yes, if I had to bet, I would say that Schopenhauer, if he were to come back to life today, would most likely not ally himself with Marxists, for example. Mainländer was right in pointing out that he almost completely ignored politics. But when we look at the moral philosophy that Schopenhauer advocated, it becomes quite clear that he would have no affinity with self-proclaimed “conservative Christians” either. Such Christians, though closet anti-Semites in most cases, believe that Jesus came only to affirm the worst aspects of the Old Testament and nothing more. Their latent anti-Semitism does not cause them to reject the Old Testament; on the contrary, they take it for themselves, putting themselves out there as the true Israelites. Imagine their horror when they learn that Schopenhauer considered the Marcionites and Gnostics to be closer to the true message of Christ than any subsequent Christian denomination.

by Fernando Olszewski