Naked Ambition and Human Shame
I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge.
—Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
My children and I have been studying ancient history together, and this week we considered the days of Noah and his descendants. I was struck by the shift that takes places in Genesis after the flood. Noah and his family saw both God’s judgment, and his mercy and provision; they literally floated on the waters of his wrath, safe within an ark of salvation. Yet only two chapters later we gaze up at a tower of humanity’s prideful ambition. As my sons read aloud Genesis chapter 11, I was struck once again by the monstrosity of the words uttered by humanity; like a Shakespearean biting of their thumb at God: “Let us make a name for ourselves.” (11:4). It is worth noting the contrast of these ambitions: Noah builds an ark in submission to God with a posture of faithful reliance, the people of Babel build a tower in self-promotion with a posture of arrogant autonomy.
The American author and literary scholar, Roger Shattuck, traces the dark themes of human ambition in his book, Forbidden Knowledge: A Landmark Exploration of the Dark Side of Human Ingenuity and Imagination. He asks the question that I believe is at the heart of the story of Babel, and all other tales of human ambition gone wrong,
“Will knowledge solve our problems? Will an “explosion” of knowledge reduce hardship among us and make us just, virtuous, and free?”
As we consider this question, there are a host of examples that ought to give us pause before we answer. The pursuit of knowledge and innovation, combined with selfish ambition and unbridled curiosity, have been the central themes to some of the most macabre fictional works, such as Shelley’s Frankenstein, Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Goethe’s Faust. But it isn’t just that selfishly ambitious scientists and academics make for good anti-heroes; there is something underlying their vice that runs through all of humanity. And it isn’t just within fiction. Our own history is replete with stern warnings to us of the dangers of ambition without boundaries. The hazards of unbridled ambition thrive not only among megalomaniac generals and dictators who think themselves gods, but also among those whose aims were perhaps good, yet still their efforts resulted in horrific outcomes. Such outcomes are like a double-edged sword of innovation and vice, and can be seen in modern ambitions such as The Manhattan Project, or social media with its complex web of ethical tradeoffs.
“The hazards of unbridled ambition thrive not only among megalomaniac generals and dictators who think themselves gods, but also among those whose aims were perhaps good, yet still their efforts resulted in horrific outcomes.”
Unhindered human ambition is perhaps best understood through the myth of Prometheus, particularly in its revision and reframing. Prometheus, because of his love for mankind, steals fire–the source of human innovation–from the gods. This act of supposed kindness angers Zeus, and he sentences Prometheus to be bound to a stone and have his liver pecked out by an eagle, regrown, and pecked out again, for eternity. What is perhaps most telling about our view of human innovation and ambition is how this tale has been revised over time. Later tellings of Prometheus end here. He suffers, but humanity gains the benefits he sought to give them. But there’s a significant difference in the first recorded myth of Prometheus. The ancient Greek poet, Hesiod, in his epic Theogony gives us a more accurate picture of this tale. As he tells it, what follows Prometheus’ grab for godly power on behalf of humans is both Prometheus’ gruesome punishment, and humanity’s consequence: Pandora. Pandora is infamous for her unquenchable curiosity, a curiosity that resulted in her unleashing all manner of evil, illness, and corruption on the earth. Hesiod’s original telling gives us insight into these dual relationships humans have with innovation and ambition, knowledge and the gods. The moral of the story is startling both in its simplicity, and the way it makes our modern sensibilities squirm: when mankind pursues knowledge without the blessings of the gods we gain vast wonders, but we also unleash horrific evil.
As we consider Shattuck’s question then, it is not just that knowledge cannot save us, but it also has the power to doom us. When we pursue knowledge with a promethean ambition we are seeking, like Babel, to make a name for ourselves. This is the pursuit that tormented Victor Frankenstein of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It is the knowledge that allowed him to animate a living thing, and yet simultaneously unleash death upon all whom he loved. This is naked human ambition. This is the kind of ambition that sits beside the tree in the garden, and with glittering eyes says, “it is not enough that I am in God’s image, I must be like God”, and thus plunges itself into shame.
What I find particularly fascinating about Hesiod’s Prometheus is how it captures so truly the state of human affairs. Prometheus is bound in an endless loop of suffering; his “help” for humans has landed them in a worse state than before, and there is nothing to show but a fated cycle of prideful ambition and destruction. It’s hopeless. Like Victor Frankenstein’s end, death comes with no redemption. Frankenstein’s and Prometheus’ ambitions then, were not only futile, but destructive, and in the end the hope they sought further widens the chasm between humanity and salvation.
The fate of mankind on its own is this same repeated cycle: autonomy from God, destruction and violence, an attempt to correct the destruction without God, repeat ad nauseum. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, we keep answering Shattuck’s question, can we solve our problems? with an exuberant, yes! There are many stories in our past revealing our constant search to make a name for ourselves and to solve our problems on our own. We’ve tried to reach the heavens with our hands by building a tower; to bring value to the valueless by searching for the philosopher’s stone; to conquer death and cure disease by searching for the elixir of life and the fountain of youth; to gain happiness and prosperity by searching for the holy grail; we’ve tried to cure cancer, to create the perfect moral system, to perform rituals that will dispel our anxieties, to learn everything that we might be happy, to make a name for ourselves that we might be immortal; and we continue to search and build and know in vain. It is both the object and the nature of our search that has chained us to this futile promethean loop. What then? How do we escape this destruction of our own making?
The solution to our problems is not knowledge, fire from the gods, an elusive object, progressive innovation, nor technological advance, but One who stands in stunning contrast to all these pursuits. The One who so loved humanity he too was bound, not to stone, but a cursed tree. The One who makes the valueless valuable; who conquered death and cures our ultimate illness: the corruption of our wicked hearts. The One who is neither elixir nor fountain, but nonetheless, Living Water. It is not the holy grail we must pursue, but the One whose blood it is fabled to have contained. Our myths have all pointed to our desperate need, and yet the glaring gap in them all is the denial of the One who is our only real solution. Our answer then to Shattuck’s question is, no, knowledge will not save us, but the One who is the source of all knowledge can.
“The solution to our problems is not knowledge, fire from the gods, an elusive object, progressive innovation, nor technological advance, but One who stands in stunning contrast to all these pursuits. The One who so loved humanity he too was bound, not to stone, but a cursed tree.”
At the cross our hopeless striving and selfish ambition is put to death. We need not build a tower to heaven, for heaven has come down to us. We need not strive to make a name for ourselves, but instead rest in making his name great. Pandora’s box can be closed. The curse can be reversed. Human ambition and our fate can be transformed—to live, not as counterfeit mini-gods, but as image-bearers of the God who created us, for his glory, not our own.
