WHEN OPPOSITES DON’T ATTRACT
As we
become more aware of the diversity in our world, we also seem to be less tolerant
of the effects of this diversity. I speak
here not about diversity of ethnicity, religion, or socio-economic status, but
about diversity of opinion and conviction.
Politically, socially, and culturally, our nation has devolved into a
world of “us” versus “them,” with a growing gap between the two. This gap tends to be the genesis for all sorts
of conflict, but it also offers possibilities for innovation and
creativity. It depends on how we handle
the opposites we find among us, and I see four options.
First, the simplest way to deal with opposites is to consider them as incompatibles. You can either have one or the other, but not both. This is the “either/or” outlook. You can have A or you can have B, but you can’t have both. Either/or is the simplest way to consider opposites, and it’s most attractive to zealots. In the original sense of the word, a Zealot could imagine either a Judea dominated by Rome, or one that was completely independent and self-determining. Anyone who tried to merge the two was a traitorous collaborator, worthy of more hatred and disgust than even the brutal legionnaires. And we find their modern counterparts all around us. In the dark days of the Cold War, a nation was either pro-Soviet or pro-US. You had to choose one side or the other, and you certainly couldn’t choose both. If you tried to be “non-aligned” country, both sides distrusted and rejected you. You can either have a Republican President or a Democratic President. The Tea Party movement exemplifies this philosophy well. Small government, diminished regulation, and lower taxes are the holy grail. You’re a traitor to the cause if you back down from or seek to find any nuance in the gospel according to Grover Norquist. Please don’t misunderstand my example to imply that either/or is the provenance of one side of the political spectrum; you can find examples on the left as well.
Second,
if you become disillusioned or dissatisfied with either/or, you can compromise. For years, I considered this to be the best
way to deal with disputes between opposites, and my heroes were great
compromisers like Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. When people disagree, the best thing to do is
to split things down the middle and give a little bit to each side. No one is particularly happy about the
result, but everyone (or at least, everyone who is reasonable) can grudgingly
accept the result. But the beauty of
compromise is also its downfall. No one
is happy, and no one can exult in the outcome, other than to celebrate that
neither side has slaughtered the other.
Compromise dulls and deadens; it does not inspire or invigorate. Compromise leads to counting slaves to be
three-fifths of a person, a conclusion that concluded nothing but merely set
the stage for a fratricidal conflict four score and seven years later. Compromise is the solution Solomon offered
for two women claiming one baby, which would have brought about the wholly
unsatisfactory result of each possessing half of a tiny corpse.
In
time, I discovered the wonder of a third option for handling incompatibles: the
Hegelian dialect, which replaces compromise with evocative possibility. As thesis and antithesis interact, they
create synthesis: a new way of thinking and being that had never existed
before. Unlike either/or, it requires
thoughtful consideration and even acceptance of both opposites. Unlike compromise, it creates and offers a
solution for which all parties can be passionate. The dialectic approach requires a great deal of imagination and creativity, together with openness to things never before conceived. As you may be able to tell, I’m quite
taken by power of the dialectic. But I’m
learning more about another, potentially more productive, strategy to approach
incompatibles.
In
this fourth way of thinking, the opposites are no longer incompatibles between
which one must triumph over the other, nor two positions leading to a
dissatisfying compromise, nor even a synthesis which replaces them both. Let’s use the language of church leadership
experts Roy Oswald and Barry Johnson and call them polarities. In this schema, the opposites interact with
each other not simply to produce a synthesis that is better than either of the
originals, but to allow full expression for each. Oswald and Johnson call it an infinity loop
between two poles. Movement toward one
pole enables us to experience the full benefits that come from it. But staying at that pole will lead to
problems, which movement toward the other pole can overcome. The goal is not to find some midpoint between
the poles (that would be compromise), or to discern a new perspective that
gleans from each pole (that would be something like dialectic), but fully
embracing both and enjoying what comes from the interaction and tension between
the two.
G.K.
Chesterton’s 1908 book Orthodoxy offers
an outlook similar to Oswald and Johnson’s description of polarities. As he puts it, the point is not to find a
balance between virtues, but to have them collide with each other. He advocates holding passionately,
uncompromisingly to both opposites.
Separate them, exaggerate them, and then crash them into each other. To explain, he offers the example of courage,
which he defines as “a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to
die.” If all you care about is living,
you will run away from danger and hide from every threat. But if all you care about is dying, then
suicide is awfully attractive. Courage
is the collision of valuing life so much that you are willing to lose your life
for it. Is this the same thing as Oswald
and Johnson’s polarities? I’m not sure,
but at the very least they’re kissing cousins.
Polarity,
or the collision of opposites, provides intriguing insight into some of the
toughest theological nuts we have to crack.
Looking again to Chesterton, he considers Isaiah 11’s prophecy of the
lion laying down with the lamb. The
prophecy does not mean that the lion becomes lamb-like. The lion would then be subdued by the lamb,
which is just as much of an either/or as the lion eating the lamb would
be. The prophecy is not that the lion becomes a lamb, but that the two
opposites can lie down together. They
can be with each other, both fully living out their identity.
This
metaphor of lions and lambs is not limited to an ancient prophecy; it is a
description of our Lord. In Revelation
5, John is told to turn and look at the triumphant Lion of Judah, but when he
turns he sees a Lamb that has been slain.
Is Jesus the gentle, humble, sacrificial lamb? Yes.
Is Jesus the roaring, fierce, powerful lion? Yes.
No either/or. No compromise. Not even a synthesis. But a polarity. Two simultaneous virtues crashing into each
other. And this opens us to the mystery
of God.
- Do we worship one God? Yes. Do we worship three Persons? Yes.
- Does a loving, sovereign God control the events of the world? Yes. Are there terrible evils in this world that violate God’s will? Yes.
- Does God love us with an infinite, unimaginable love that nothing can shatter? Yes. Does God hate our sin with an unspeakable fury? Yes.
- Is Jesus God? Yes. Is Jesus human? Yes.
- Is the kingdom of God here? Yes. Will the kingdom come with the return of Christ? Yes.
- Is the redeeming work of Christ the only means for salvation? Yes. Does God desire for all people to be saved? Yes.
You may
quibble with some of these opposites and point out that they are or can be
quite compatible with each other. And
you may be correct. But the number of
foundational convictions that Christians hold which are, or at least seem to
be, in contradiction with each other is certainly something to give us pause,
and is a great supply of grist for the mill of apologetics. It is certainly not the expression of a
straightforward description of life, God, and the world. Our faith cannot be confined to a discreet
set of theological propositions, although much benefit comes from the centuries
of inquiry and consideration. If
Christianity is a riddle, it is one that will never fully be solved. Rather, it is an evocative and eternal
mystery in which we revel and lose ourselves.
Each
of these four strategies for handling oppositional elements can be appropriate in
the correct context. Some things are either/or, with no room for
compromise. Other matters can be settled
satisfactorily with compromise, while others set the stage for a synthesis, and
yet others form a dynamic polarity. The trick,
of course, is to match the most fitting approach for the matter at hand.
