Friday: We Abstain From Metaphors
If you think analogies are complete, you should stop thinking that. If you think that poisons kill at once, you should also stop thinking that
If you think analogies are complete, you should stop thinking that. If you think that poisons kill at once, you should also stop thinking that. If you also think that politicians are similar to doctors in that they have the same effect on society as doctors do on personal health, you should never think that.
Today is Friday. And Friday is our fasting day according to G.K. Chesterton, from the use of metaphors. He said: “Perhaps it would be well to have a Fast Day, on which we undertook to abstain from everything but abstract terms, Let us all agree that every Friday we will do without metaphors as without meat. I am sure it would be good for the intellectual digestion.” I agree with the recommendation. But I shall immediately disappoint Mr. Chesterton by arguing in favor of his proposition by using lots of metaphors.
I have chosen two metaphors for my demonstration. Two analogies which terminate thought rather than allow us to contemplate. They terminate thought by stirring a sentiment and bringing us hastily to a conclusion when an argument is still in order. I believe this is why Chesterton suggests that we do without metaphors as without meat as it is good for intellectual digestion.
The analogies: lies as poison; and the politician as doctor.
Lies as poison, coined from The Prince of Preachers Charles Spurgeon’s words goes thus: "If you sincerely drink poison, it will kill you: if you sincerely cut your throat, you will die. If you sincerely believe a lie, you will suffer the consequences. You must not only be sincere, but you must be right."
Upon reading all that, you will agree that Mr Spurgeon is right. Do anything fatal out of sincerity and you will be a victim; your sincerity cannot save you — good intentions don’t save. But allow me to direct your attention to the three categories of fatal things expressed by Mr. Spurgeon to make the point that you need to be both sincere and right. We have poison; we have cutting your throat; and we have believing a lie. Everyone will agree with me that although similar, these things are so much different. But what is most different is that one is more different than the others in terms of how fast the fatality occurs. Where there are different kinds of poisons and lies, There is only one style for cutting the throat. And in that sense, once you cut your throat, you are dead. But do all poisons kill at once? And do all lies bring their consequences at once? The answer is no. All poisons do not kill at once. All lies do not bring their consequences immediately. Time is a factor.
Of course, Mr. Spurgeon is a preacher and we must be kind to say that to his congregants, the point stands. If you believe something that is not the gospel, it will harm you. Mr. Spurgeon has done well. However, my fracas is with those who take the poison analogy as decisive and convincing. It is not. And there are different reasons why. This is where Mr Chesterton’s warning that “I think we ought all to be on guard against depending on them as a substitute for reason” becomes poignant.
If believing that “If you sincerely drink poison, it will kill you” requires harshly rebuking poison-ingesters is the way to go, fasting from analogies becomes a serious task. The assumption that the defence of the truth and the duty to warn our brethren always demands rudeness — because it is urgent — to rouse them and make them aware of the harm, is a faulty conception of how analogies work and how poisons work.
Human beings being experience-oriented, know that all poisons do not kill at once. Clearly, there are acute poisoning — where the effects to short-term exposures appear immediately. Against this, you hardly need to warn the swallower. They either adjust quickly or they are dead before you can do anything. But with chronic poisoning, symptoms do not appear immediately. The first signs to consistent exposure may not appear for years; just until they do.
In the case of chronic toxicity, a rude warning is counterintuitive. If you tell your brother that this poison will kill him, he may reject your warning as long as he cannot see that he is dying. Worse still, he may enumerate the benefits of this poison – of course to him it is medicine, not poison. Without a point of reference to show the poison at work, and since not all poisons cause an immediate upset to the body, you may simply sound rude and crazy. If by poison we mean the wrong doctrine, we must ask ourselves why despite our warning, they won’t let it go.
As it is with slow poisons, so it is with subtly false doctrines. Dealing with subtlety requires the utmost care and discernment. If a brother's experience says one thing, and your correction — which is mostly explanation — says another, you and I both know which they will turn to. If your brother sits in a congregation where extrabiblical false doctrines yield “results” and “fruits” that are pleasing to the senses, it will be difficult to refute him without patience, and you will ruin everything by being harsh.
There is a stark difference between satisfying your conscience by proclaiming the truth and engaging in meaningful conversation with the aim to persuade a fellow in error. There is. There is also an added difference between being in conversation with a malicious phoney and being in conversation with a sincere falsehood ingester. This clarification is important to the end that we must have a correct view of a person we are in conversation with. It is bad to treat a sincere person with contempt as it is bad that we are tepid with a malicious entity. We must refute the former gently but firmly and we must refuse to even smile with a wicked man.
You see when a person is stuck within a framework, you are not tackling talking points. You are fighting blockwork of experience. When your brother who is not pragmatic in name but is pragmatic in deed meets your logocentrism, his pragmatism will almost always win. The way to save your brother is to engage in a long fight with his pragmatism until your logocentrism wins. And a long fight is a long fight. Not your brashness, nor your red face, nor your fiery words will win. You must be ready to stake out the long fight. And this is why patience is a virtue: it is easier to proclaim the truth hastily and appease our conscience by saying “I have said my own, do what you want, heaven bear me witness” than to wait for our sincere friend and brother to realise his error.
Metaphors flatten. They summarize. But we must learn when not to use them as long as we need more time and convincing. It is not enough to proclaim the truth, you must spend time showing that the lie is a lie. We should avoid using quotes and metaphors as thought-terminating devices.
Many times I see a fellow acknowledge that a particular doctrine that he believed wrecked his faith. But by the mercies of God, he had come to believe the truth. However, I always miss the part where they acknowledge that this wreckage happened long after they believed the falsehood. That is, the effect is a chronic effect. The element of time that helps convictions is conveniently missing from their report in the face of urgency. Bad ideas and bad arguments need time to dawn — to arrive at a special realisation where something becomes convincingly clear. If you will not battle a man experience for experience, narrative for narrative, argument for argument, you are not going to make it.
To oppose the analogy literally, I could use Mithridates and hormesis. Mithridates king of Pontus, who, fearful of poisoners, concocted an antidote: he ingested sub-lethal amounts of every known poison to which he developed an immunity. When he was under threat from the local populace he tried to kill himself with poison, but the attempt failed and he had to request that a guard kill him with a sword (blades are efficient). I may respond that if you drink poison at a fair dose, it can possibly make you stronger. Will this refute Mr Spurgeon’s point? Definitely not; because we know that Mr Spurgeon’s point is about false doctrines, not poisons. Hormesis may not negate Mr Spurgeon, but it will teach us that metaphors are limited.
About politicians having as big an effect on society as doctors do on personal health, I call hokum. I leave it to the reader to decide why.
Today is Friday, and the weekend starts. Be at leisure.