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  • Sin, Sorrow, and Suffering:A Roycean Response to These Deeper Tragedies of Life1
  • Kim Garchar (bio)

Introduction

American philosopher Josiah Royce is known for having concerned himself with the question of evil and experience of tragedy. In this essay, I focus not on the question of evil but rather on the associated problems of sin and tragedy, and the suffering that exists in their wakes. In particular, I take as my starting points Royce's claims that meaning is found and created only in the context of a community,2 that interpretation and a shared dedication to common goals unite persons into a community,3 that these processes of interpretation and shared dedications create meaning in the community, and that human beings all crave meaningful lives. Given this framework, I argue that sins and tragic events are ontologically, if not experientially, similar in Royce's philosophy. Further, I argue that if persons are to recover in any meaningful way from a given tragedy, the response to the tragic event must be structurally similar to the atonement (recovery from sin) Royce develops in The Problem of Christianity.

Sin, Treason, and Weakness of Will

Royce argues that all human beings crave meaning in their lives, and discusses this meaning in terms of "salvation." Specifically, he suggests that the longing [End Page 57] for and need of salvation arises from recognizing both that there is some end or aim of human life that we currently cannot uncover or grasp, as well as the experience that individuals are incapable of attaining this higher aim by themselves.4 To uncover the higher aim or end of humanity is simply to understand what humans ought to do and why in relation to the big picture—be the big picture the universe, Nature, or the Divine. Royce explains, "You cannot rationally conceive what human experience is, and means, except by regarding it as the fragment of an experience that is infinitely richer than ours, and that possesses a world-embracing unity and completeness of constitution."5 To find salvation, then, requires that one grasp the meaning of life and be able to carry out the dictates or act upon the demands of this meaning. Since meaning is created in community, and communities are dynamic, living organisms, salvation is an ongoing process; the individual relates to community, community relates to the "big picture," and the "big picture," in turn, informs the individual. Salvation is not a fixed state that one achieves permanently.

That we do not already grasp the higher aim of humanity is, according to Royce, a result of a fallibility and finitude inherent to human beings. "The deeper tragedies of life," Royce writes, "largely result from this our narrowness of view."6 Our capacity to think is, while powerful, at the same time rather limited. We are unable to process or analyze all of the information presented to us at any one time. Consequently, we are forced to select which information will be thought about and acted upon in any given moment, and persons often choose (which also entails both thought and action) poorly, unwisely, or in a manner contrary to their own freely chosen ideals. Consider three examples: a person dedicated to nonviolent protest who in anger physically lashes out at an arresting officer, a would-be vegetarian who in a moment of weakness relishes a steak, and a scientist who believes so surely in her work that she fabricates or falsifies data to support her claims for publication. All of these instances are examples of poor choices—that is, betrayals of ideals—although perhaps more or less reflectively. The nonviolent protestor's punch may be understood as occurring relatively unreflectively, and betrays his dedication to nonviolent protest for social change. The vegetarian's lapse into carnivorism may or may not be reflective, but in the instance I've presented, it seems to be simply a weakness of will. The scientist's ruse seems both a reflective and intentional betrayal of her loyalty to science as method of inquiry and truth seeking in general, [End Page 58] and exhibits a more significant weakness of will than that which troubled the vegetarian. That the poor...

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