Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T01:48:51.443Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

God and the Problem of Loneliness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

John G. McGraw
John G. McGraw
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, CanadaH4B 1R6.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As Milton reminds us, the first thing God named not good was loneliness. In proclaiming it not good for man to be alone, was God but projecting his own loneliness? In the words of James Weldon Johnson, God stepped out on space, looked around and said, ‘I'm lonely’.Johnson's concept of God may be very ‘spaced-out’ but the notion of a monotheistic God as lonely is far from preposterous. A God endlessly immersed in the contemplation of its solitary perfection (à la Aristotle, for example) would be an isolation anything but splendid. Such a being might be perfect as an abstract essence, but it would be perfectly alone.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , September 1992 , pp. 319 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Milton, J., Tetrachordon. In Mijuskovic, B. L., Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology and Literature (Assen, the Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1979), p. 3.Google Scholar

2 Johnson, J. W., ‘The Creation’. In Dusenbury, W., ed., The Theme of Loneliness in Modern American Drama (Gainesville, Florida: University of Florida Press, 1960), p. 1.Google Scholar

3 Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologiae (Turin: Marietti, 1952), 1, 30, 3, p. 162.Google Scholar

4 Feuerbach, L., The Essence of Christianity, trans. Eliot, G. (New York: Harper and Row, 1957).Google Scholar

5 Lavelle, L., Evil and Suffering, trans. Murchland, B. (New York: Macmillan, 1963).Google Scholar

6 Nietzsche, F., in Jaspers, K., Nietzsche, trans. Wallroff, C. and Schmitz, F. (Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, 1965), p. 86.Google Scholar

7 Sartre, J.-P., Being and Nothingness, trans. Barnes, H. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956).Google Scholar

8 Satre, J.-P., Le Diable et le Bon Dieu (Paris: Gallimard, 1951), p. 213Google Scholar. The translation from the original French and all bracketed words are mine. For the distinctions between homonomy and autonomy, see Angyal's, A. Foundations for a Science of Personality (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1958)Google Scholar. As used in this essay autonomy and homonomy can be positive or negative. Moreover, each correlates with the other positively or negatively.

9 Baudelaire, P. C., The Eyes of the Poor. In R. Sayre, Solitude in Society (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 74.Google Scholar

10 Eliot, T. S., The Cocktail Party (London: Faber and Faber, 1950), p. 117.Google Scholar

11 Bulwer-Lytton, E., The New Timon, in Dusenbury, p. 8.Google Scholar

12 Hesse, H., Im Nebel. In Cowburn, J., The Person and Love (New York: Alba House, 1967), p. 102.Google Scholar

13 Mijuskovic, pp. 1–38.

14 Nietzsche, F., Ecce Homo, trans. Kaufmann, W. (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1989), p. 343Google Scholar. Kaufmann translates the German ‘Einsamkeit’ as solitude, but this German word can, like its English counterpart ‘solitude’, mean either an objective, physical condition or loneliness, a subjective condition, or both. Neitzsche often uses ‘Einsamkeit’ to signify either or both conditions simultaneously. The distinctions needed to be drawn between these two phenomena would require another essay. However, generally speaking, ‘solitude’ is used to indicate in se a positive way of being alone, whereas loneliness is in se a negative way of being and feeling alone. Of course, solitude can be employed negatively and loneliness can serve as a vehicle for personality development.

15 Nietzsche, F., in Harper, R., The Seventh Solitude (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), p. 13.Google Scholar

16 Nietzsche, F., in The New Nietzsche, ed. Allison, D. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1988), p. xxvi.Google Scholar

17 Zakahi, W. R. and Duran, R. L., ‘Loneliness, Communicative Competence, and Communication Apprehension: Extension and Replication’, Communication Quarterly, XXXIII, 1 (1985), 50–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Jones, W. and Moore, T., ‘Loneliness and Social Support’. In Hojat, M. and Crandall, R., eds., Loneliness: Theory, Research and Implications (San Rafael, California: Select Press, 1978), pp. 145–6.Google Scholar

19 Perlman, D. and Peplau, L., ‘Loneliness Research: A Survey of Empirical Findings’. In Peplau, L. and Goldston, S., eds., Preventing the Harmful Consequences of Severe and Persistent Loneliness (Rockville, Maryland: The United States National Institute of Mental Health, 1984), p. 24.Google Scholar

20 Nietzsche, F., Human, All Too Human. In Clive, G., ed., The Philosophy of Nietzsche (Toronto: The New American Library of Canada, Mentor Books, 1965), p. 108.Google Scholar

21 Fromm-Reichmann, F., ‘Loneliness’. In Hartog, J. et al. , eds., The Anatomy of Loneliness (New York: International Universities Press, 1980), pp. 338–9, 348–51.Google Scholar

22 Ibid. p. 345.

23 Ibid. pp. 345–8.

24 Ibid. p. 345.

25 Klein, M., ‘On the Sense of Loneliness’. In Hartog et al., pp. 362–76.Google Scholar

26 Guntrip, H., ‘Sigmund Freud and Bertrand Russell’, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, IX, 35 (1973), 275.Google Scholar

27 F. Fromm-Reichmann, pp. 350– See also Sangster, J. and Ellison, C., ‘Mental Illness, Loneliness and Helplessness: A Challenge for Research Therapy’, Mental Health and Society, V, 5–6 (1978), 284–95.Google Scholar

28 D. Perlman and L. Peplau, ‘The Causes of Loneliness’. In Peplau and Goldston, p. 24.

29 Laing, R. D., The Politics of Experience (New York: Ballantine Books, 1967), p. 130.Google Scholar

30 Lynch, H., The Broken Heart: The Medical Consequences of Loneliness in America (New York: Basic Books, 1976).Google Scholar

31 Searles, H., Collected Papers on Schizophrenia and Related Subjects (New York: International Universities Press, 1965), p. 123.Google Scholar

32 Laing, R. D., The Divided Self (London: Penguin Books, 1969), pp. 45–6.Google Scholar

33 F. Nietzsche, in Jaspers, p. 56.

34 Laing, R. D., The Politics of Experience, p. 37.Google Scholar

35 Kierkegaard, S., The Sickness unto Death, trans. Lowrie, W. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1954), p. 186.Google Scholar

36 Ibid. p. 173.

37 Sartre, J.-P., The Flies. In No Exit and Three Other Plays, trans. Gilbert, S. (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1955), p. 123.Google Scholar

38 Ibid. pp. 124–5.

39 Ibid. pp. 121–2.

40 Sartre, J.-P., Existentialism and Humanism, trans. Mairet, P. (New York: Haskell House, 1977), pp. 26–30.Google Scholar

41 F. Nietzsche, in Harper, p. 12.

42 Nietzsche, F., Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Kaufmann, W., The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking Press, 1965), pp. 176–7, 190.Google Scholar

43 Ibid. p. 175.

44 Nietzsche, F., Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Cowan, M. (South Bend, Indiana; Gateway Editions, 1955), p. 35.Google Scholar

45 Nietzsche, F., Thus Spoke Zarathustra, p. 176.Google Scholar

46 Nietzsche, F., Untimely Meditations, trans. Hollingdale, R. J. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 139.Google Scholar

47 Camus, A., Caligula, trans. Gilbert, S. (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1958), p. 68.Google Scholar

48 Ibid. p. 37.

49 Luke 12: 49–55.

50 John 15: 18–25.

51 Jaspers, K., Philosophy, v. 2, trans. Ashton, E. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970)Google Scholar. See especially pp. 71–3, 177–215.

52 May, R., Man's Search for Himself (New York: W. W. Norton, 1953), p. 31.Google Scholar

53 Arnold, M., To Marguerite. In Dilman, I., Love and Human Separateness (New York: Blackwell, 1987), p. 117.Google Scholar

54 John 6: 47.

55 John 10: 30.

56 Matthew 27: 46.

57 The names for the last four forms of loneliness delineated in this presentation are taken from two pioneers in the study of the taxonomy of loneliness: Sadler, W. A., ‘On the Verge of Loneliness’, Humanitas, X, 3 (1974), 255–76Google Scholar and Weiss, R., Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1973)Google Scholar. I am particularly indebted to Sadler for his division. It might be preferable to replace the terms ‘emotional’ and ‘social’ loneliness with, respectively, ‘eros’ and ‘friendship’ loneliness since the latter two are the paradigms for these two types of loneliness. However, the basis and rationale for using the names employed for any of the ten forms of loneliness would require another essay.

58 Paloutzian, R. F. and Ellison, C. W., ‘Loneliness, Spiritual Well-Being and the Quality of Life’. In Peplau, L. and Perlman, D., eds., Loneliness: A Source Book of Current Theory, Research and Therapy (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1982), pp. 224–37.Google Scholar

59 W. Jones, ‘Loneliness and Social Behavior’. In Peplau and Perlman, p. 239.

60 Luke 9: 58.

61 John 1: 10.

62 John 4: 44.

63 Hammarskjold, D., Markings. In Burke, C., ed., Loneliness (Winona, Minnesota: St Mary's College Press, 1977), p. 3.Google Scholar

64 Millay, E. St Vincent, Conversation at Midnight. In May, p. 202.Google Scholar

65 Marquis, D. R. in Clark, E., ‘Aspects of Loneliness: Toward a Framework of Nursing Intervention’. In Zderad, L. T. and Belcher, H. C., eds., Developing Behavioral Concepts in Nursing (Atlanta: Southern Regional Educational Board, 1968), p. 37.Google Scholar

66 Russell, B. in Satran, G., ‘Notes on Loneliness’, Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, VI, 3 (1978), 286.Google Scholar

67 For all his denunciation of the Christian religion, Nietzsche, nonetheless, extols it as the ‘best bit of ideal life’ he has ever known and that in his heart he believes he has never been ‘vicious against it’. On this see Jaspers, , Nietzsche, p. 434.Google Scholar

68 Sartre, J.-P., in a 1977 interview reported in Harper's Magazine, February, 1984, p. 38.Google Scholar

69 Fromm, E., The Art of Loving (New York: Harper and Row, 1956), pp. 6–8.Google Scholar

70 John 14: 15–26.

71 St John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle I, in M. Simpson, ‘Loneliness and Solitude’, The Way, XIV, 1 (1974), 23.Google Scholar

72 Kant, I., Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, trans. Goldthwait, J. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965), pp. 46–50.Google Scholar