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Patrick Downey, Desperately Wicked: Philosophy, Christianity and the Human Heart<\/i> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 181 pages, ISBN 9780830828944.<\/b><\/p>\n\nPatrick Downey, Desperately Wicked: Philosophy, Christianity and the Human Heart<\/i> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 181 pages, ISBN 9780830828944.<\/b><\/p>\n
Desperately Wicked<\/i> is a philosophical exploration of who we are. As the subtitle suggests, Downey seeks to uncover the magnitude of the wickedness in the human heart. His analysis is sobering, exposing that what is wrong with us is more than merely the fragility of human fallibility.<\/p>\n
After six chapters of exploring philosophical writings on sin, he concludes in chapters seven to nine by demonstrating the necessity of the coming of the Christ King. The solution to wickedness is the conversion of the human conscience, a transformation that only Christ can bring.<\/p>\n
The book under review is also helpful for scholars since it is also probably written with the goal of complementing the resurgence of analytical philosophical theology. While Downey is not explicit about the connection with analytical philosophical theology, the motif is evident, both in this volume as in his other work, Serious Comedy: The Philosophical and Theological Significance of Tragic and Comic Writing in the Western Tradition<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Humanity, Downey postulates, wears a Dionysian mask that conceals the criminal intent to perform dark deeds aimed at satisfying our ‘wicked’ desires often invisible to others. Behind the concealments are fears and anxieties of wanting to appear just and be just, and people often seek to overcome fear through coercion. The erotic and thumotic desires relate to the intent of wanting to possess and keep our private property. To satisfy these erotic and thumotic desires, and to protect our possessions, we blame or deceive others, or exaggerate our superiority over others. These primordial desires in humankind are carried to full term in the social arena of politics exactly the way such was portrayed in the Greek tragedies.<\/p>\n
We need the miracle of the King. He knows us. He possesses all of the virtues shared by none. And He offers a gift that overturns what is impossible to correct in humanity. He turned the body politic of survival and the invisible quest for erotic and thumotic desires so rooted in humanity, and makes us “Good.” No longer must we mistake who our enemies are. No longer must we treat our brothers and sisters as rivals. No longer must we hold with a tight fist our discontent and malaise but learn the spirit of loving, sharing, and accepting others. Friendship with God becomes then friendship with the world in service to God and the world, with justice and equality. The old bondage of fear, rooted in displaced desires, and manifested politically in the search for excellence and happiness by means of deception, cruelty and self-enrichment through impoverishing others has been replaced. The taboo of others reading through our “invisible” Dionysian mask of wickedness no longer has a hold of us!<\/p>\n
While it may seem that the book is written for philosophers, the book would appeal to an audience interested in knowing ourselves and understanding human behavior. Downey writes in simple language even as he introduces readers to a collage of western classical philosophical writers including Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, along with some renaissance to modern philosophical investigations by Blaise Pascal, F. Nietzsche, S. Kierkegaard, F. Dostoevsky and others. Readers need not be intimidated by the list: These philosophers’ ideas are presented in illustrative boxes, and hence, readers do not have to be distracted by the many philosophical writings he introduces in the book. While it is difficult to write about human psychology in plain language, particularly while drawing from philosophical sources, Downey does this well. Beneath the shadow of these philosophers is an authentic Christian presentation of The Philosophy of Sin<\/i>, a title written in 1949 by a Christian devotional writer, Oswald Chambers, who was popularly remembered for his My Utmost for His Highest<\/i>. If Chambers presents a Christian discourse drawn from the sources of Scripture, reason, and experience (including the experience of Christian tradition on mortification of the sinful nature), some of which appeared in My Utmost for His Highest<\/i>, Downey presents a compelling case that the Christian doctrine of human depravity has its roots even further back in the classical philosophy of antiquity.<\/p>\n
Readers interested in philosophy, politics, and the Christian faith would also find Downey’s presentation fascinating. While he did not aim at rewriting political theology per se<\/em>, it is no less true that Downey has creatively set forth a political theology from the perspective of the reality of a desperately wicked humanity. The fall of humankind, while it did not lead into sin (so he argued), has brought to the surface the unsearchable reality of the political nature of humanity, which often manifests itself politically in human relations and in social institutions. One may say that if we allow Downey’s thesis to run its full course, the rehabilitation of humanity through Christ leads to the renewal of politics after the in-breaking of Jesus-politics in Christianity. The micro-level treatment of Downey’s political theology by way of human anthropology then is complemented at the macro-level with J. Budziszewski’s The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man<\/i> (1999), which is also a philosophical-theology on political theology and theological anthropology. If Downey focuses on human heart and its political implications, Budziszewski focuses on political ideologies of morality, virtues, government, communitarianism, liberalism, conservatism, and etc., read through a theological grid of the doctrine of the fall. Some readers may find also interesting here that Budziszewski writes in repudiating nihilism. Downey’s positive vision of Christian conversion finds an affinity with Gordon T. Smith’s Transforming Conversion<\/i>. Conversion is not just a personal affair, but it is also a communal and social transformation.<\/p>\n Without hesitation I recommend Desperately Wicked<\/i>. If you want to know yourself and relate to others better, you need to read this book. Critics may argue with Downey about his doctrine of depravity, but the book paints a sober picture of who we really are and what Christ has done. While it is written with the western context in mind, I would envision that the material would also be popular in non-western context, since there is a measure of truth in this book that cuts across all cultures.<\/p>\n