The Metaphysical Significance of Birth

 Going on with my Project (5) - The Birth of a Child

 I want to try one more such exercise and then offer another kind of argument. Up to now, my argument has had the logical form of a hypothetical or conditional statement: If some of our moods and emotional responses disclose aspects of reality, then reality is meaningful, and indeed love (and thus morality) is woven into the very fabric. I want to explore one more such conditional and then see what I can argue in support of the truth of the antecedent.

     The emotional response I want to focus on now is the response to the birth of one’s child. I remember stories of how extremely happy my father and especially grandparents were when I was born. I didn’t quite understand that as a child. As a father, while the difficult circumstances of my relationship to the mothers of my children complicated things – indeed, my first reaction on the new that they were pregnant was panic as my life as I had known it was over – that did nothing to dim my joy when my children arrived. I will not try to express it in words except to say a quiet joy was involved and awareness of the significance of being a father. 

    I would like to juxtapose this with a memorable line from a Bob Dylan song, “Masters of War”: “You have thrown the worst fear / that can ever be hurled / fear to bring children / into the world.” This against the background of possible world war and nuclear holocaust. I also know it is not uncommon for women who have given birth to be unable to bond with their newborn baby. I suppose much of that is explained by childhood traumas but I suppose it is possible a woman’s attitude to life and her own life might also generate this inability to love and feel joy, i.e. it is also in some cases connected to implicit metaphysics. If this complex of attitudes and emotions reveals anything about Being, if we are not just puppets attached to evolutionary or psychological strings, what do they disclose? And as we are animals how can such “spiritual” attitudes emerge? Are our responses reducible to those of a mother cat or a swallow? Surely not, but neither are they cleanly divisible from such instincts. How to make sense of that?

    When my first child was born, I had no language to express what I experienced, being at that time a typical modern secular materialist. When I second child was born, a thought-emotion welled up inside me, seemingly spontaneously: “he’s a gift.” Even if your worldview leaves no space for a Giver, this metaphor would be understandable to most people. Instead of a Giver, just substitute Mystery. It is the idea that the birth of a child transcends not only biology and social conventions, even as we express this transcendence with conventional metaphors, but also cannot be contained in any reductionist or subjectivist ontology – a bad way of saying that the advent of a new life is sublime. If we are true to this experience, we cannot believe in a meaningless, indifferent universe. Indeed, across cultures and historical periods, the birth of a child is surrounded by celebration, ritual, and deep personal transformation.

    We cannot reduce the whole experience to evolution or social convention, although we do need a language of love to express it, and all language is in part conventional. “He’s a gift” is part of the language of love. The emotion-laden experiences brought to expression within the language of love are in tune with reality. Without that language – as with my first child – your experience remains mute. Outside the language of love and the matrix of experiences that live within it, a person is blind to the reality of the child. The radiance of love, the light it shines on being, is what makes this life-affirming attitude authoritative.

     If our emotional responses to birth disclose reality rather than merely reflecting arbitrary or subjective feelings, what do they tell us? They tell us that life itself is meaningful, that love is not just an epiphenomenon of survival but intrinsic to Being, and that human beings are neither wholly animals nor detached spirits, but creatures in whom the physical and the spiritual intertwine. If this is true, then the experience of welcoming a child is not just an emotional response but a disclosure of a deeper truth about the world: that existence, at its core, is good, and that love is not an illusion but a deep aspect of Being itself.

    Of course, this response is not uniformly present, indicating the weakness of instinct. Mother cats nurture their kittens and then let them go. Human mothers and fathers have more freedom. The possibility of withholding love is a necessary condition for there to be love. Some women – men too, but women are more intensely bound to the birth – due to trauma, depression, or other psychological factors, struggle to bond with their newborns. If love and joy at new life are natural responses, then their absence raises questions. Are such women simply deprived of the "natural" neurochemical responses, a reductionist might ask? Or are the neurochemical responses different because the woman was traumatized or suffered from a lack of love in her own life? Seems like a chicken-egg problem. 

     There is also a deeper dimension: an implicit metaphysical stance toward life itself, which is connected to biography but is also generated by social structures. Is the inability to experience joy in childbirth connected to a view of life – a perspective on the person’s life – as fundamentally bleak or devoid of meaning? Or isn’t this a common attitude in our society? The dominant value of “autonomy,” which holds that the self is the only source of value in an otherwise indifferent nature – we demean what we intend to exploit or destroy – leads to seeing the unborn child as an intrusion of nature, an obstacle to freedom. Technology is the “solution.” If value is created solely by individual will, then a being who enters the world unbidden and whose presence places demands on another is often seen as a burden rather than a gift – conditioned of course by the ideology of autonomy, which social roots in capitalist society. This view, however, blinds people to the deeper reality revealed by love: that the child is not merely an imposition but a revelation. In the presence of a newborn, we are confronted with a truth that precedes our will, a being whose “value” is not contingent on our desires like other market commodities but intrinsic. The failure to see the child in the light of love, to acknowledge this given reality, is not merely a failure of sentiment but a failure of metaphysical vision. The ties between metaphysics and emotion is evident here: one’s deepest assumptions about reality shape how one experiences even the most fundamental human realities.

     Another angle on this I have taken from a line in a Bob Dylan song, “Masters of War,” perhaps Dylan’s darkest. This line is: "You have thrown the worst fear / that can ever be hurled / fear to bring children / into the world." Dylan captures an existential dread, a response to a world that seems fundamentally threatening of humanity, where the very act of bringing forth new life appears reckless or even cruel. It points to the metaphysical dimension of birth: the fear of bringing a child into the world is, in some cases, the fear that life itself cannot be affirmed, at least in the real-existing world, while the joy of welcoming a child affirms the opposite. Indeed, the ability to experience joy at the birth of a child serves as an absolute standard by which to judge social and political reality. A just and ordered society is one in which new life is welcomed with hope and celebration. When this joy is replaced by fear, it signals a profound disorder, not only in society but in the metaphysical assumptions underlying it. A society that makes birth itself a source of anxiety rather than joy has betrayed something fundamental about the nature of life and love. Conversely, a society or culture may be said to be in line with human nature when space is there for people to feel joy over the birth of a child.

   I seem to just be asserting that love is authoritative, its absence a form of meaning-blindness. Once I grant that emotions (moods, feelings, attitudes) can be revealing, I am confronted with the fact that people have incompatible emotions. This is not unconnected with different metaphysical assumptions about self and others, nature and society, and God. And this is not unconnected with personal experience within a particular social-historical-economic matrix. I need to explore my love is authoritative.

Afterthought 

In Zustimming zur Welt, eine Theorie des Festes, one of the most important philosophers for me, Josef Pieper, argues that true celebration is an affirmation of the goodness of existence. For him, a genuine feast is not merely a break from work or a diversion but an acknowledgment of reality as fundamentally meaningful, indeed rooted in gratitude for existence itself. This ties directly into my train of thought about the birth of a child as a moment of metaphysical disclosure. If birth is a reason for celebration across cultures, it is because it affirms something beyond individual will, something given and good in itself.

[Now logically it could also follow that this phenomenon is just part of our genetic wiring and doesn't disclose anything. You need more than universality for that. I think - logically - you end up where Nelson Goodman did, it "irrealism" or a plurality of incommensurable worlds. You have to look at it from inside experience, inside the beam to use C. S. Lewis's metaphor, to find the light love shines on things authoritative. I will have to go into this later. But while universally normative responses to birth might be a starting point, they don’t automatically reveal metaphysical significance. The key lies in how these experiences are interpreted and understood from within, in the context of lived experience – in the "beam" in C. S. Lewis’s toolshed. The light that love shines on things is not something that can be proven empirically or rationally in a strictly scientific sense; it must be understood existentially, from the "inside" of human experience. Therefore, I need an account such that within this experience there is an authoritative quality, something like an intuitive grasp that transcends mere instinct or biological drive. This "light" uncovers a deeper dimension of reality, one that speaks to the heart, to the goodness of life and love. Thus I would avoid Goodman’s "irrealism" by showing that meaning is not something that can be easily reduced to subjectivism but is authoritative, revealing itself through our experience of birth, love, and joy among other phenomena.]

   [A philosophy professor once told me that when you begin relying on "intuition", you know your argument is in trouble, and that seems a good warning sign. But two great Bach interpreters might argue about how to play a certain composition, and someone unfamiliar with Bach or the musical tradition would be locked out of such a discussion, which relies on lived experience. He would be like a dog watching TV. Therefore, some truths are just like that, not accessible to neutral rationality. To me, it is part of our finitude. Some degree of trust or faith that things are at least partly as our best experience reveals them to be is indispensable.]

 

So for Pieper – who is right – festivity is the lived expression of a metaphysical vision in which Being is received as a gift rather than as raw material for the will to manipulate. A true feast is not just a social custom or a psychological need; it is an act of recognition, an acknowledgment that existence is not neutral or indifferent but fundamentally good. A society capable of genuine celebration is one that implicitly affirms the meaningfulness of life. Conversely, when celebration withers as when birth is met with fear rather than joy, when gratitude gives way to anxiety, this signals not just a shift in cultural practice but a deeper loss: the inability to see the world as love-able.

[The existential dread expressed in “Masters of War” – the fear of bringing children into a world that seems unfit for them – is a rupture in the human capacity for celebration. When birth itself ceases to be an occasion for joy, it is not merely an economic or political problem but a metaphysical crisis. It reveals a world in which love is no longer seen as woven into the structure of reality but as something fragile, contingent, even illusory. A society that loses the ability to celebrate birth has, in a sense, lost the ability to affirm life as meaningful. Cf. the life-negating culture of abortion.]

    A celebration of birth such that the celebration affirms life and connects individuals to the deeper truths of existence, can be found in many forms of life. A good example is the traditional Jewish celebrations of birth, especially the Brit Milah (circumcision) for boys and Simchat Bat (celebration of a girl’s birth). the Brit Milah embodies as a festivity an affirmation of life. It is not merely a biological event but a sacred event. It is a celebration of life. The ritual is not just about the child’s entry into the world but about the broader meaning of life, community, and spiritual continuity. The ritual ties into Pieper’s account because it elevates the biological act of birth onto a transcendent plane. It shifts the focus away from the individual’s autonomy or survival and onto a shared cultural and spiritual life. The Brit Milah is an acknowledgment that the birth of a child brings new life into the world, not just biologically but spiritually.

     The Simchat Bat is a celebration of the birth of a girl in Jewish families. Traditionally, the arrival of a girl is celebrated with a festive meal and blessings, where the community would offer congratulations and joy. This celebration is less formalized but still reflects a deep acknowledgment of the value of new life, regardless of gender. The birth of a girl is seen not just as the continuation of the family line but as an opportunity to celebrate the unique and irreplaceable value of every individual. This accords with Pieper’s idea of festivity as a recognition of life’s inherent value.  It shows that the celebration of a girl’s birth is not just a personal or familial event but a profound affirmation of the goodness of life itself. It would be a moment where the child is seen not through the lens of utility or practicality but as a being of inherent worth, deserving of joy and celebration.

     Such celebrations are meaningful because they acknowledge life as a gift, giving reality to exactly the subjective feeling I experienced upon the birth of my child. They stand in stark contrast to a secular, utilitarian view of birth, where life is seen as a neutral event, perhaps even a burden or an obstacle to personal freedom, as in the modern concerns about overpopulation or ecological strain. For Pieper, celebration is about standing in awe of life’s goodness regardless of the personal costs or challenges. A celebration of birth, whether a Brit Milah or a Simchat Bat, affirms life as it is when not falsified: namely, as a gift to be received with joy and gratitude.

      Here I will only allude to the celebration I know best: Christmas, in its religious meaning as a celebration of the Incarnation – God became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. In Christian theology, this birth is not just the coming of a child but the coming of God himself into the world in human form, as a little child. In this sense, birth is imbued with an extraordinary significance: the Creator enters creation, the author of the human story enters into the story as a character, affirming its inherent goodness and value (“For God so loved the world...”). The birth of Christ is the ultimate celebration of life, not only because it brings a child into the world but because it reveals that life is good, it is worth living, and it is worth experiencing, despite suffering and mortality. We are invited to see God in the birth of every child, as indeed I have with my own children. (How capitalism has covered up this dimension of the Christmas celebration is well-known.)