Monday, September 07, 2009
Holy Nerds Club (May-Aug) - Sophie's world
If you've been following my blog, you'd probably realise by now that I had fallen behind on my new year's resolution of reading one spiritually enriching book every month. Well, I'm proud to announce that four (yes, 4!) very long and agonising months later, I've finally finished Sophie's World. That's almost half a year spent on a single book, although to be fair, it's a lot thicker and the font size is much smaller than those I had read previously. Besides, four months is a considerably short time to read about a topic that has spanned over thousands and thousands of years.
Bro Sam introduced the book to me one day while we were browsing around in the bookshop. At that time, philosophy, to me, was as foreign as Sanskrit. Nonetheless, I impulsively picked the book up and paid for it. I did have a friend in poly who used to sprout quotes and anecdotes about Plato and Socrates, so I guess that formed my basic foundation, albeit a weak one, for the topic.
Sophie's World, as it clearly states on the cover, is a novel about the history of philosophy. Like economics, philosophy is one of those subjects that had been conveniently left out of the compulsory school curriculum. So while we were learning what the inside of the plant is called, we're missing out on the bigger picture: how did the plant come about in the first place? A flaw in the education system, if you asked me...
What's interesting about this book is how the author, Jostein Gaarder, had cleverly combined the seemingly dull and long-drawn history of Western philosophy with a fictional tale through the eyes of 14-year-old Sophie. For first-timers like me with very little knowledge of such a broad, underrated and dying subject, this book is the perfect introduction to philosophy.
I particularly enjoyed the 'heavy' portions which talked about some of the greatest philosophical concepts. Simple yet often forgotten questions like 'Who am I?' and 'Where did the world come from?' had been posed by philosophers since the early days, and really, what's truly amazing (and for me, faith-defining) is the fact that no one - no genius, scientist or teacher - has an answer to how the world came about, which only goes to reiterate God's mysterious ways in creation.
It helped me to appreciate how evolution has brought us to where we are today, and question whether modernisation, with all the technological, scientific and political advances, are good things after all. It also made me rethink the purpose of my existence: if I'm truly living life or simply going with the world's flow.
The book puts into perspective how small I am and how incomprehensively big the universe is. And really, at some point in time, you just have to stop and marvel at God's ingenuity and mystery.
The fictional aspect of the book provides much needed breaks in between the huge chunks of content, and serves as a metaphoric message which Gaarder is trying to drive home. However, I found myself being constantly irked by the cheesy dialogues which seemed redundant and lame at times.
Overall though, I have to say it was a good read. If I could, I would do it all over again. The second time round, I'd probably prepare a blank piece of paper and map out the whole history of Western philosophy - just to see how ideas had progressed through the centuries.
With all that content, I could go on talking and discussing significant concepts about creation and religion for hours, but I shan't...The book leaves much for self-exploration and the best way to do it is to get into Sophie's World yourself.
Here's an excerpt from the book to whet your appetite:
"Faith is the most important factor in religious questions...If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this, I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith, I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith.
...Many had previously tried to prove the existence of God - or at any rate to bring him within the bounds of rationality. But if you content yourself with some such proof or logical argument, you suffer a loss of faith, and with it, a loss of religious passion. Because what matters is not whether Christianity is true, but whether it is true for you."
