Another good “Stone” column in the
NY Times: a discussion between Gary Gutting, moderator of the
series on philosophy, and Keith DeRose, professor of philosophy at
Yale.1
The discussion centers on the possibilities of “proving” that
God does or does not exist and how that influences the positions we
might take as believer, atheist, or agnostic. Indirectly, it seems
to me the discussion deals with the issue of what good God is to us
now.
At times I like to imagine what going
to church might have meant to a medieval peasant—it must have been
a sensory feast! There may well have been beautiful music and
incense, as well as the bread, the building itself and the
decorations within it, the magic of the foreign language, the
stories: what a pleasurable experience it must have been for people
who had little else of sensory pleasure in their lives! The priests
also would confirm that the world was ordered by a great being who
would ultimately take care of us. It was another version of the
feudal world in which most people lived—the lord of the manor or
the leader of a religious organization giving purpose and structure
to the lives of the many.
But it's also important to think about
what God does for us today. After I read the Stone column I made two
lists: one of positive things God does for us, and one of negative
things God does for us. Before I go on, I need to say that I think
God is entirely an abstract concept. As they say, the age of
miracles is past. Certainly some people think they have physical
experiences as a result of God's intervention into their lives, but
the interpretation of these experiences is purely mental—a matter
of belief and faith. Another person of another faith or of no faith
could easily interpret such experiences quite differently. So, I see
God as purely a concept, but the churches that celebrate God are of
course quite real and tangible. It's the actual celebration of God
in a physical church, with all the sensory beauty available there,
that is the metaphorical experience of God. Let me widen my
question, then--what good to us is God and church today?
In a parochial sense, God and church
still seem to offer a lot. Yes, there is that beauty, and there is
the consolation of tradition that the repetition in liturgy brings, and the
greater ease that assurance from a religious figure brings to a
person's life. For many, the church educates their children, marries
them when they are mature, and buries them when they die. A church
marks the importance of an individual life. A secular world doesn't
offer us so much in the way of ritual to console us or help us
celebrate at the significant moments in our lives. And for people
who don't have the time or desire or ability to think for themselves,
the church offers cradle to grave guidance, which many people
appreciate. It offers a philosophy that helps individuals to deal
with (or ignore) large philosophical questions. I don't see any
reason why churches and the varieties of gods they espouse cannot
continue at the parochial level to help people in their communities,
even in our multicultural age.
On a wider, more philosophical level, I
think a concept of a deity is necessary. Anselm's definition of God
as “that, than which nothing greater can be conceived” seems to
me to offer great value and meaning, philosophically. We humans are
thinkers and wonderers; it is inevitable that we would want a high
water mark, so to speak, to define for us what is best or most good.
Many of us want such a figure to help us move closer toward that
goodness in ourselves or in our communities. But in our increasingly
multicultural era, we cannot ignore that people around the world have
developed many different versions of this moral high water mark—and
that those versions work for them, just as our version works for us.
It seems clear to me, given the world knowledge we have now, that
religion can be successful on a parochial level but no particular
religion can be successful on a universal level.
A Jesuit priest of the last century, Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin, struggled with this question for much of his
life. (I am going to write more on his thoughts and writings in a
later post.) Obviously, if a religion is going to be lasting, it has
to aspire towards universality. Teilhard believed that all humans
were in the process of evolving toward a unity of spiritual
consciousness that he called the “omega point.” In a sense, he
foresaw a spiritual version of the internet. But even he felt the need to root
this universal consciousness in a particular religion—in Jesus
Christ himself, in fact. In the end, what Teilhard saw was a
unification of people in love for and aspiration toward Christ—in
the end, not a universal vision.2
What do we see of religion today on a
global (as opposed to parochial) scale? Here's where we run into
problems. If particular religions are to maintain their identities,
then they have to distinguish themselves from other religions via
doctrine and liturgy—via their own sense of God. The result is
that we suffer greatly from sectarianism on a global scale. Islamic
militants are perhaps the most obvious and appalling version of
sectarian religion right now, but even the very admirable Pope
Francis has to insist that gays and women have no place in the
hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. No one religion can embrace
or speak for all people precisely because religion is necessarily
sectarian.
I find it helpful to think of
spirituality as a stream of water running through time and place and
the different religious sects as cups that are dipped into the water
and presented to the people. Some religions, such as the Society of
Friends (Quakers) are very simple and try to offer the water (the
spirit) to people with very little mediation--in a simple clear cup,
so to speak. Other religions, like the Roman Catholic Church, scoop
up the water in cups made of precious metals encrusted with many
jewels—cups that are kept under lock and key when not in use
because they are so precious and must be protected from the masses.
To my mind, a lot of spirituality is lost in that effort because all
we can see is the surface, the doctrine and the liturgy; the water
inside, the spirituality, is virtually lost. (I am employing a
metaphor here, of course.)
Globally, it often seems as if each
religion is insisting “Our cup is the one true cup!” with the
result that what we share in common (the water, the spirituality) is
practically forgotten. Religion on a global scale thus often
perpetuates hatred, violence, war, a divisive mentality in general—us
vs. them thinking that simply cannot result in a conscious or
spiritual unity of people. Science can unite people, because we are
all creatures of this earth and this universe, and that is what
science studies. Religion can not unite us, because it arises from
and reflects deep cultural differences. Even more now than earlier
in human history, religion is necessarily divisive. Many medieval
European peasants didn't know there was more than one God or one
religion in human cultures, other than the religion Christianity developed from; they
probably knew little of the world beyond their own parish. They knew
there was “one true faith” and had little reason to doubt it,
because their knowledge of the world was so limited.
Now we have a vast knowledge of the
world and the many religions that have developed within it. The use
of God and religion to people has changed as a result, necessarily.
Islamic terrorists can have and have had a great impact on us, even
though their lands of cultural origin and their religion are so
different from ours. We have to pay attention to them, even
if only defensively. The emerging great populations of the world, in
India and China, have very different religious beliefs (or nonbeliefs) from us, but
they will greatly affect the economy of the world that we live in.
We have to pay attention to them and respect them as they are.
God and religion are still important to individuals and communities,
sometimes even to nations that know little of multiculturalism. But
God and religion cannot be deciding factors globally—except to the
extent that we accept the God and religions (or the lack thereof) of
other people to be as valid to them as ours is to us. As William
Carlos Williams reminds us, we can come to know and sympathize with
each other based on a respect for the importance of the local to all
of us, even though the local is not the same for all of us.3
Our respect for the local wherever it may be found can become
universal, but any particular manifestation of the local cannot
become universal—that would simply be an imposition on others, not
respect. (We tried that during the colonial period, and the result was great pain and suffering.) The universal has to be an acceptance of and respect for
the equal value of local customs and beliefs throughout the world.
Metaphorically, the abstract concept of
God has to be rooted in the physical reality of a church—and as
long as there is balance between the abstract and the concrete (or
local), that experience is metaphorically healthy. But when any one
church, any one physical reality attempts to claim a perfect
understanding of the abstract concept of God, the healthy
metaphorical balance is lost. Religion is necessarily parochial.
Once we accept that, we can accept that there are many ways of
understanding whatever God means to people, that there are many
different kinds of cups being dipped into the stream of spirituality.
Then we can live together and maybe make some progress toward unity.
1http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/why-take-a-stance-on-god/?emc=eta1
2Some
will argue that the Roman Catholic (ie, universal) Church is
essentially universal in its outlook, given that people around the
world subscribe to its doctrines. But one need only think of all
the Protestant sects that have broken from the Roman church, not to
mention the orthodox and entirely non-Christian religions, in order
to appreciate the impossibility of true universality. Even now,
with Pope Francis working toward a more open and inviting church,
many of the more conservative Catholics are concerned about the
future of the church. Some are protesting that Francis does not
mean what he says. If Francis persists, will the more conservative
Catholics break away?
3
“If I succeed in keeping myself
objective enough, sensual enough, I can produce the factors, the
concretions of materials by which others shall understand and so be
led to use—that they may the better see, touch, taste,
enjoy--their own world differing as it may from mine. By mine,
they, different, can be discovered to be the same as I, and, thrown
into contrast, will see the implications of a general enjoyment
through me. That is what is meant by the universality of the local.
From me where I stand to them where they stand in their here and
now—where I cannot be—I do in spite of that arrive! through
their work which complements my own, each sensually local.” From
William Carlos Williams, “Against the Weather,” in Selected
Essays
(NY: New Directions, 1969), pp. 197-98.
