1) Because I am alive. I've never been able to get over the surprise of this. It seems completely unlooked-for and gratuitous. It fits with the idea of a God who didn't have to create anything, but did so out of pure love.
2) Because the world is so dramatic. Nothing had to exist at all. But, given that something does exist, why wasn't it a static, lifeless, unchanging mass of some kind? Or, on the other hand, why wasn't it a chaotic flux with no pattern, no form, no breathing space? As it is, we have a playground for the human intellect, a theatre for the human soul. (I am partly indebted to Carl Sagan for this point. He was merely pointing out how the universe we inhabit allows the emergence of science. He might have been horrified if he realised he was planting a seed of theistic belief in an innocent teenager's mind.)
3) Because things are fundamentally good. We hear a lot about the "problem of evil", but not about the "problem of good". Most of us can expect to live out this day, and the one after that, and the one after that. We can expect that the person sitting next to us on the bus would sooner help us than hurt us. Most of the things we do every single day bring us joy, from the first scoop of breakfast cereal to the caress of a soft pillow on a tired head. Even the things we don't want to do, like working or exercising or waiting in a queue, often end up bringing us an unexpected satisfaction. Whose fault is it that we become blasé about such abounding joy?
4) Because of my thoughts. I am unable to conceive how my memories of a Christmas morning twenty-five years ago are basically made of the same stuff as a pebble, a screwdriver or a tub of lard. I am not sophisticated enough to understand eliminative materialism, just as I would gape at someone who told me that, from the viewpoint of advanced mathematics, two and two actually equalled a pear tree. And the fact that my thoughts seem somehow outside the realm of the physical makes me unable to believe that only the physical realm exists. It also makes me think that there must be an intelligence behind the universe, on the grounds that the greater cannot come from the lesser.
5) Because I have an idea of good and bad. Though I am often successful-- spectacularly successful-- at rigging those notions of good and bad to line up with what I want to do, now and again I find they become stubborn and won't cooperate. Besides, why should I even want to rig them? Why not just ignore them? And I find that other people not only have these notions, but have them to a degree far in advance of myself. It seems as though my notions of right and wrong have a source outside the physical world, too.
6) Because of Jesus Christ. Talk about a magnetic personality! Even the enemies of Christianity seem unable to find anything to say against him. Bertrand Russell accused him of petulance for withering the fig tree that would yield no fruit. It wasn't one of Bertie's better moments; this is plainly a kind of concrete parable for the benefit of his disciples.
I don't know of any character, real or invented, who combines an air of absolute authority with utter humility, as does Christ. He is not some stoic, otherworldly, blissed-out sage, as one might expect of a visitor from the heavens. And yet, how banal that would be! But no; Christ weeps, becomes irritated, has a flair for the dramatic, and dreads his final suffering. And yet every word he spoke seems to glow with irresistible truth.
7) Because of the saints. The saints have the paradoxical quality of being fanatical and yet not fanatics. They were men and women addicted to doing good in the way a teenager is addicted to video games. But, though they seemed to have a kind of craving to feed the poor and comfort the afflicted, none of them seemed to find that these practical acts of charity clashed with spending long hours in prayer and devotion. It even seems as though the two things are-- contrary to appearances and the "social gospel" critics of the Church-- actually one thing!
When you have a group of witnesses who stick to their guns through every persecution, who are even willing to give up their lives for the truth of their claims, and whose stories "check out" with one another to an extraordinary degree, you begin to think there is something to what they are saying.
8) Because of the Catholic Church. Whatever else you may say about the Catholic Church (and everything else has been said, at one time or another), it is undoubtedly the greatest show on Earth. It has run and run and run-- through the rise and fall of empires, the birth of nations, the passing of whole civilizations. I don't know how to account for its survival through persecution, schism, wicked Popes, ideological opposition and the utter changing of the world. What keeps the show on the road? I believe it is the Holy Spirit.
9) Because of the banality of secularism. I cannot believe that the goal of mankind is that we should all have more leisure time to visit museums and art galleries whose masterpieces no longer mean anything to us. "Well, maybe the universe is banal!". But if it is, where did we get this overpowering thirst for the sublime and the transcendental?
10) Because of G.K. Chesterton. I think every open-minded agnostic and atheist should read Chesterton's Orthodoxy. They could read it in a day, and it might change their whole view of the universe. It changed mine.
Showing posts with label apologetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apologetics. Show all posts
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Monday, August 19, 2013
Challenging God...but not the Audience
I love debates. I really love debates. There are some activities which, I believe, make human life more civilized by their very nature. The reading, writing and reciting of poetry is one example. Urbane and serious debate is another.
In serious debate, human beings step back from the flux of events and survey life, or some element thereof, from a higher vantage point. Not only this, but they accept the responsibility of making their ideas and beliefs public property, of translating them into terms that other people can grasp. Prejudices must become propositions, and assumptions must become arguments. Debates also make us more aware of the dignity of being human. Badgers don't have beliefs. Computers don't have convictions.
But that is all analysis, which only goes so far. Ultimately, I can't say why the spectacle of serious debate thrills me so much, but it does. Nothing is more exhilarating than to see people who care passionately about a subject, and who know a reasonable amount about it, arguing the case with each other. (I am talking about civilized debate here. Hostile and acrimonious discussion I would call argument, not debate, and witnessing it makes me want to curl up and die.)
So I was rather excited, last night, to come upon the second episode of Vincent Browne's new series on TV3, Challenging God. Although you can have a cracking debate about a highly specific subject, the general tendency is that broader topics tend to make for more exciting debates-- and no topic could be broader or more significant than the question of God.
As well as this, I think that "talking heads", despite being a rather pejorative term in TV producing, actually make for the best television. No amount of clever camera-work, in general, is as compelling as a long and in-depth interview with somebody who has something to say. I wish there were more serious panel shows and in-depth interviews on television.
Unfortunately, Challenging God has been a massive disappointment. Instead of intellectual fireworks, we have had a long series of damp squibs.
God, it has to be said, has been especially poorly represented. When I look at the guests that have appeared on the show to defend the Deity, I have to ask: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
On the first episode, we had theologians Fainche Ryan and James Mackey, challenged to answer the question: "Did God make man or did man make God?". In the second episode, transmitted last night, we had an Augustinian priest named Michael Mernagh and a rabbi whose name I've spent ten minutes looking for on in the internet, but can't find anywhere, defending God from crimes against humanity.
All four of the God squad-- with the occasional exception of James Mackey-- seemed to be copying the tactics of the Russian generals during Napoleon's invasion of their country-- that is, to retreat, retreat and retreat again. The difference being that the Russian generals had a sound strategy, whereas the supposed defenders of God on Vincent Browne's show seemed to have no strategy whatsoever. In fact, the atheist guest on each episode-- the ubiquitous Michael Nugent on the first, and a young atheist lady-journalist on the second-- had nothing to do but fold their arms and watch the religious believers make their case for them.
Christian apologetics in our day have truly become apologetic, in every sense of the word. These are the standard moves:
1) To stress the unknowability of reality and the limits of science.
2) To complain about a perception of God that makes him "an old man with a long white beard".
3) To contrast "religion" with faith, to the detriment of "religion".
4) To insist that the Bible is to be understood allegorically.
5) To vie with atheists and secularists in attacking the Catholic Church, the Christian churches, and organized religion in general.
6) To concede that religion does not make you a better person.
Now, there is something to be said for all of these points. But if this was all that was to be said, I would never darken the door of a church again.
Yes, ultimate reality is unknowable, and the scientific method can only discover empirical truths. But we do have other tools for the discovery of objective knowledge. There is, most importantly, metaphysics, which tells us (especially through the Five Ways of Aquinas) that our universe has a First Cause that is all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful. We also have historical knowledge, which tells us (less rigorously, but still objectively) that Christ rose from the dead and that the apostles handed down this truth, for which they were willing to die, in an unbroken tradition down to today's bishops.
Yes, God is not an old man with a beard. He is not a creature at all, but the ground of all being-- he is Being himself. And yet, as Edward Feser explains, his prophets and his Son describe him as a Father, and so should we.
Yes, religion is part of our sublunary world and is inevitably corrupted by idolatry and unworthy passions. But it is still simply the term for the organized worship of God and as such is a good thing. The Bible uses the term "religion" a lot. (James 1:27: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." I have no idea what word the original text used, but my guess is that "religion" is a perfectly adequate translation.)
Yes, the Bible has many allegorical elements and cannot be understood in a literal, fundamentalist sense-- nor was it so understood through the long history of Christian exegesis, as the Confessions of St. Augustine tells us. Nevertheless, it is not all allegory, and to scream "literalism!" every time an unbeliever challenges us about some difficult passage of the Bible is a total cop-out. (As for myself, there are many passages in the Bible which I simply don't understand, and cannot explain-- such as the apparently genocidal instructions that God gives in the Book of Joshua, and which were raised by Vincent Browne last night. Just as I don't expect to understand a scientific theory, or even that scientists should fully understand a scientific theory, I don't expect to fully understand the Christian explanation of reality. I think it is more honest and more convincing to shrug and say, "I really don't know. What I know of Christianity is enough to convince me that it is true and that there is some explanation for these dark corners of the Bible. Besides, I don't really want a God or an explanation of the univese that isn't mysterious or challenging." Or, as St. Peter said: "To whom would we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life.")
Yes, terrible crimes have been committed in the name of Christianity; burning of witches, religious wars, persecution of Jews, and so forth. But nothing irritates me more than the craven eagerness of many Christians to outstrip militant atheists in their condemnation of Christian history. Taking the history of Christianity as a whole, and comparing it with the rest of world history, I don't think Christians have all that much to apologize for. What other force in human history has brought so much good into the world? Who can take the merest glance at antiquity, and especially the classical world-- a world of tremendous sophisitication, in many ways-- and not feel struck, like the blast of heat from a furnance, with the great cruelty, vainglory, bigotry, misogyny, ruthlessness and ambition which was entirely unabashed at that time? Why should Christians apologize for making a great part of the world accept that charity, humility, chastity, forgiveness, and chivalry were noble things? Why should Christians apologize for all the hospitals, schools, universities and refuges that Christians brought into being-- often when there was no equivalent anywhere? Why should Christians apologize for the contribution of monastic orders to scholarship, sanctuary, provision for the poor and the preservation and advance of Western civilization?
(It was especially cringe-inducing to see Father Michael Mernagh straining every nerve to endear himself to the female atheist, glancing over at her ingratiatingly as he lambasted the Church for its treatment of women and pointed out, over and over, that it was men who were mostly to blame for the crimes of Christianity. I know that these are strong words, and I use them advisedly. I am sure Father Mernagh is a much, much better human being than I am, and a fine priest, but this spectacle was simply painful to watch.)
Yes, an atheist can be (and often is) just as good a person as a Christian. But it's not as simple as that. The Christian has (most probably) a higher standard of morality to live up to. He is expected to forgive his enemies, to extend his charity to all, to never lie, to aspire towards sexual purity, and to strive to be morally perfect. No matter how far he falls short of this, the ideal itself tends to have an elevating effect. And it could easily be argued that society has declined in many measurable respects along with the decline of Christianity-- the murder rate, for instance, or the prevalence of easily-accessible pornography.
Having spent so long bashing the religious believers (for bashing religious belivers), I should also mention that the other guests on the show-- and the bould Vincent himself-- were not exactly scintillating. Michael Nugent, the head honcho of Atheist Ireland, is always civilized and courteous, and he dutifully made the obvious and fair arguments against religious belief. But he also made the futile and cheap argument that Christianity was partly to blame for the rise to power of the Nazis, as centuries of Christianity had schooled the Germans to unthinkingly obey authority. But what society is without authority? The same argument could be made against any social system whatsoever-- Christian, Nazi, communist or Confucian. The female atheist who appeared last night (I'm sorry I can't find her name, either) was also civil, but said nothing of any great insight or originality. Vincent Browne himself was playing the role of the bewildered plain-speaking atheist, desperately trying to pin the believers down to some definite statement of belief. His religious guests played into his hands admirably.
Worst of all, perhaps, none of the participants seemed to have prepared for the discussion to any appreciable extent. The whole thing had the air of a pub debate. Everything was discussed in the most general of terms, with hardly any focus upon specifics.
All in all, a huge disappointment. A series of intelligent televized debates on the subject of religion would be a wonderful addition to the Irish airwaves. Challenging God is not that series.
In serious debate, human beings step back from the flux of events and survey life, or some element thereof, from a higher vantage point. Not only this, but they accept the responsibility of making their ideas and beliefs public property, of translating them into terms that other people can grasp. Prejudices must become propositions, and assumptions must become arguments. Debates also make us more aware of the dignity of being human. Badgers don't have beliefs. Computers don't have convictions.
But that is all analysis, which only goes so far. Ultimately, I can't say why the spectacle of serious debate thrills me so much, but it does. Nothing is more exhilarating than to see people who care passionately about a subject, and who know a reasonable amount about it, arguing the case with each other. (I am talking about civilized debate here. Hostile and acrimonious discussion I would call argument, not debate, and witnessing it makes me want to curl up and die.)
So I was rather excited, last night, to come upon the second episode of Vincent Browne's new series on TV3, Challenging God. Although you can have a cracking debate about a highly specific subject, the general tendency is that broader topics tend to make for more exciting debates-- and no topic could be broader or more significant than the question of God.
As well as this, I think that "talking heads", despite being a rather pejorative term in TV producing, actually make for the best television. No amount of clever camera-work, in general, is as compelling as a long and in-depth interview with somebody who has something to say. I wish there were more serious panel shows and in-depth interviews on television.
Unfortunately, Challenging God has been a massive disappointment. Instead of intellectual fireworks, we have had a long series of damp squibs.
God, it has to be said, has been especially poorly represented. When I look at the guests that have appeared on the show to defend the Deity, I have to ask: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
On the first episode, we had theologians Fainche Ryan and James Mackey, challenged to answer the question: "Did God make man or did man make God?". In the second episode, transmitted last night, we had an Augustinian priest named Michael Mernagh and a rabbi whose name I've spent ten minutes looking for on in the internet, but can't find anywhere, defending God from crimes against humanity.
All four of the God squad-- with the occasional exception of James Mackey-- seemed to be copying the tactics of the Russian generals during Napoleon's invasion of their country-- that is, to retreat, retreat and retreat again. The difference being that the Russian generals had a sound strategy, whereas the supposed defenders of God on Vincent Browne's show seemed to have no strategy whatsoever. In fact, the atheist guest on each episode-- the ubiquitous Michael Nugent on the first, and a young atheist lady-journalist on the second-- had nothing to do but fold their arms and watch the religious believers make their case for them.
Christian apologetics in our day have truly become apologetic, in every sense of the word. These are the standard moves:
1) To stress the unknowability of reality and the limits of science.
2) To complain about a perception of God that makes him "an old man with a long white beard".
3) To contrast "religion" with faith, to the detriment of "religion".
4) To insist that the Bible is to be understood allegorically.
5) To vie with atheists and secularists in attacking the Catholic Church, the Christian churches, and organized religion in general.
6) To concede that religion does not make you a better person.
Now, there is something to be said for all of these points. But if this was all that was to be said, I would never darken the door of a church again.
Yes, ultimate reality is unknowable, and the scientific method can only discover empirical truths. But we do have other tools for the discovery of objective knowledge. There is, most importantly, metaphysics, which tells us (especially through the Five Ways of Aquinas) that our universe has a First Cause that is all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful. We also have historical knowledge, which tells us (less rigorously, but still objectively) that Christ rose from the dead and that the apostles handed down this truth, for which they were willing to die, in an unbroken tradition down to today's bishops.
Yes, God is not an old man with a beard. He is not a creature at all, but the ground of all being-- he is Being himself. And yet, as Edward Feser explains, his prophets and his Son describe him as a Father, and so should we.
Yes, religion is part of our sublunary world and is inevitably corrupted by idolatry and unworthy passions. But it is still simply the term for the organized worship of God and as such is a good thing. The Bible uses the term "religion" a lot. (James 1:27: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." I have no idea what word the original text used, but my guess is that "religion" is a perfectly adequate translation.)
Yes, the Bible has many allegorical elements and cannot be understood in a literal, fundamentalist sense-- nor was it so understood through the long history of Christian exegesis, as the Confessions of St. Augustine tells us. Nevertheless, it is not all allegory, and to scream "literalism!" every time an unbeliever challenges us about some difficult passage of the Bible is a total cop-out. (As for myself, there are many passages in the Bible which I simply don't understand, and cannot explain-- such as the apparently genocidal instructions that God gives in the Book of Joshua, and which were raised by Vincent Browne last night. Just as I don't expect to understand a scientific theory, or even that scientists should fully understand a scientific theory, I don't expect to fully understand the Christian explanation of reality. I think it is more honest and more convincing to shrug and say, "I really don't know. What I know of Christianity is enough to convince me that it is true and that there is some explanation for these dark corners of the Bible. Besides, I don't really want a God or an explanation of the univese that isn't mysterious or challenging." Or, as St. Peter said: "To whom would we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life.")
Yes, terrible crimes have been committed in the name of Christianity; burning of witches, religious wars, persecution of Jews, and so forth. But nothing irritates me more than the craven eagerness of many Christians to outstrip militant atheists in their condemnation of Christian history. Taking the history of Christianity as a whole, and comparing it with the rest of world history, I don't think Christians have all that much to apologize for. What other force in human history has brought so much good into the world? Who can take the merest glance at antiquity, and especially the classical world-- a world of tremendous sophisitication, in many ways-- and not feel struck, like the blast of heat from a furnance, with the great cruelty, vainglory, bigotry, misogyny, ruthlessness and ambition which was entirely unabashed at that time? Why should Christians apologize for making a great part of the world accept that charity, humility, chastity, forgiveness, and chivalry were noble things? Why should Christians apologize for all the hospitals, schools, universities and refuges that Christians brought into being-- often when there was no equivalent anywhere? Why should Christians apologize for the contribution of monastic orders to scholarship, sanctuary, provision for the poor and the preservation and advance of Western civilization?
(It was especially cringe-inducing to see Father Michael Mernagh straining every nerve to endear himself to the female atheist, glancing over at her ingratiatingly as he lambasted the Church for its treatment of women and pointed out, over and over, that it was men who were mostly to blame for the crimes of Christianity. I know that these are strong words, and I use them advisedly. I am sure Father Mernagh is a much, much better human being than I am, and a fine priest, but this spectacle was simply painful to watch.)
Yes, an atheist can be (and often is) just as good a person as a Christian. But it's not as simple as that. The Christian has (most probably) a higher standard of morality to live up to. He is expected to forgive his enemies, to extend his charity to all, to never lie, to aspire towards sexual purity, and to strive to be morally perfect. No matter how far he falls short of this, the ideal itself tends to have an elevating effect. And it could easily be argued that society has declined in many measurable respects along with the decline of Christianity-- the murder rate, for instance, or the prevalence of easily-accessible pornography.
Having spent so long bashing the religious believers (for bashing religious belivers), I should also mention that the other guests on the show-- and the bould Vincent himself-- were not exactly scintillating. Michael Nugent, the head honcho of Atheist Ireland, is always civilized and courteous, and he dutifully made the obvious and fair arguments against religious belief. But he also made the futile and cheap argument that Christianity was partly to blame for the rise to power of the Nazis, as centuries of Christianity had schooled the Germans to unthinkingly obey authority. But what society is without authority? The same argument could be made against any social system whatsoever-- Christian, Nazi, communist or Confucian. The female atheist who appeared last night (I'm sorry I can't find her name, either) was also civil, but said nothing of any great insight or originality. Vincent Browne himself was playing the role of the bewildered plain-speaking atheist, desperately trying to pin the believers down to some definite statement of belief. His religious guests played into his hands admirably.
Worst of all, perhaps, none of the participants seemed to have prepared for the discussion to any appreciable extent. The whole thing had the air of a pub debate. Everything was discussed in the most general of terms, with hardly any focus upon specifics.
All in all, a huge disappointment. A series of intelligent televized debates on the subject of religion would be a wonderful addition to the Irish airwaves. Challenging God is not that series.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Faith Communities Have A Right to Have Their Voices Heard on How the World Should Be
That is the headline of an opinion piece by Fr. Patrick Claffey, a theology professor in Trinity College Dublin, in today's Irish Times.
The piece itself is entirely unobjectionable, but the headline makes me grind my teeth. "Faith community?" When did this word slip into currency? I suppose it is an effort to avoid using the term "church", since this rather excludes non-Christian religions. But what on earth is wrong with the noun "religion?". "Faith community" is a wishy-washy word.
But then again, I object to the way the word "community" has been captured, knocked about, dragged through the dust on the back of a donkey cart, and generally abused. Why couldn't we have kept the word "community" to mean a group of people who live in the same place, and share a common life? It has been stretched to mean any group of people whatsoever, rendering it meaningless. Now we have the gay community, the science fiction community, the diabetes community, the Scrabble community.
To my mind, a community is something very specific and very special. It means people who share all the casual, banal experiences of life as well as (possibly) the more intense and purposeful ones; people who hear the same birdsong and building work; who have all seen the eccentric fellow who stands outside the pub shaking everybody's hand; who will all be plunged into darkness if there's a local blackout. A shared interest or a shared plight with somebody who lives on the other side of the world just isn't the same thing. It may be more meaningful, but it's not the same. It's not a community.
Nor do we need to abuse the word "community" in this way. When it comes to Christianity, we have an equally beautiful word to describe the commonality that a Roman Catholic in Palmerstown shares with a Roman Catholic in Peking. That word is communion.
As for the sentiment of the headline, I find myself exasperated by the plea that religious believers "have a right to be heard". Christians should not speak to the world on the ground that they have a right to be heard; they should do so on the grounds that they are right. The "right to be heard" rhetoric suggests that Christians "bring something to the table", possibly a kind of folk wisdom that comes sugared with mythology and allegorical tales, and which will complement the other "voices" in the "conversation". I don't think Christians should be strident or pugnacious, but I do think that the only hearing we deserve is based on the claim that we bear a revelation from God. The more gingerish we are about that, the less the world will want to hear us-- and rightly so.
The piece itself is entirely unobjectionable, but the headline makes me grind my teeth. "Faith community?" When did this word slip into currency? I suppose it is an effort to avoid using the term "church", since this rather excludes non-Christian religions. But what on earth is wrong with the noun "religion?". "Faith community" is a wishy-washy word.
But then again, I object to the way the word "community" has been captured, knocked about, dragged through the dust on the back of a donkey cart, and generally abused. Why couldn't we have kept the word "community" to mean a group of people who live in the same place, and share a common life? It has been stretched to mean any group of people whatsoever, rendering it meaningless. Now we have the gay community, the science fiction community, the diabetes community, the Scrabble community.
To my mind, a community is something very specific and very special. It means people who share all the casual, banal experiences of life as well as (possibly) the more intense and purposeful ones; people who hear the same birdsong and building work; who have all seen the eccentric fellow who stands outside the pub shaking everybody's hand; who will all be plunged into darkness if there's a local blackout. A shared interest or a shared plight with somebody who lives on the other side of the world just isn't the same thing. It may be more meaningful, but it's not the same. It's not a community.
Nor do we need to abuse the word "community" in this way. When it comes to Christianity, we have an equally beautiful word to describe the commonality that a Roman Catholic in Palmerstown shares with a Roman Catholic in Peking. That word is communion.
As for the sentiment of the headline, I find myself exasperated by the plea that religious believers "have a right to be heard". Christians should not speak to the world on the ground that they have a right to be heard; they should do so on the grounds that they are right. The "right to be heard" rhetoric suggests that Christians "bring something to the table", possibly a kind of folk wisdom that comes sugared with mythology and allegorical tales, and which will complement the other "voices" in the "conversation". I don't think Christians should be strident or pugnacious, but I do think that the only hearing we deserve is based on the claim that we bear a revelation from God. The more gingerish we are about that, the less the world will want to hear us-- and rightly so.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Red C commission an opinion poll that finds...
...that Irish people have become less religious, John Waters questions whether it's possible to define "religion" for the purpose of an opinion poll, he once again quotes the Pope's speech comparing the modern European mind to a rationalistic "bunker" (at this stage Mr. Waters is developing a bunker mentality himself) and the usual zombie army of twitching Church-bashers and militant atheists rush to the comments section to make their howlingly obvious and banal points.
And a good time was had by all.
Personally, I find it irritating when religious people duck and dive around terms like "religion" and "God". Yes, they are incredibly loaded and philosophically dense terms. But so is "time" and that doesn't stop me looking to see what time the next bus arrives. I am sure that two Nobel-winning economists could argue over the precise definition of the term "money" for hours, but both of them have a pretty similar working definition when it comes to getting paid.
I'm really not attacking John Waters. I'm a big fan. I just wish he would stop talking about that bunker.
Can we talk about God in Ireland? I often think about the different audiences there are for God talk out there. As far as I can see there are four groups, and four attitudes to take:
1) The Dawkins-adoring atheists who seriously believe that all their anti-religious arguments either haven't occurred to believers already, or that all believers are hiding behind a barricade of self-deception. Is there any point in talking with these? Perhaps only that, if believers don't engage them, those on the sidelines will think we have no answers. The actual engagement itself is completely stalemated within a handful of moves.
2) The convinced believers. It is always pleasant to converse with those who agree with you, and believers encourage and support each other. But if we are only talking to each other, we can't evangelize the culture.
3) The religiously apathetic; those who don't believe but also don't think about religion very much. Does it seem strange that people can be indifferent to the biggest questions in life? Is the thirst for the sacred within these people simply repressed? Perhaps. I think this group reacts badly to being hammered over the head with religion, but you never know how a stray phrase or snatch of a song or the sight of someone saying a quiet prayer could take them by surprise.
4) The genuinely uncommitted, but interested; the seekers; the true agnostics. I think these are the "floating voters" of the spiritual realm, and they should be the intended audience of our discussions; even when we are talking to each other, or arguing with atheists. The chances are that they have thought deeply about this subject and it could be some very specific argument, consideration or even image or phrase that will make all the difference. They will not be impressed by bluster or rhetoric. But they will be impresesed by graciousness, quiet confidence and composure.
It's the first group that makes all the noise. But it's in the last group that all the real action is happening.
And a good time was had by all.
Personally, I find it irritating when religious people duck and dive around terms like "religion" and "God". Yes, they are incredibly loaded and philosophically dense terms. But so is "time" and that doesn't stop me looking to see what time the next bus arrives. I am sure that two Nobel-winning economists could argue over the precise definition of the term "money" for hours, but both of them have a pretty similar working definition when it comes to getting paid.
I'm really not attacking John Waters. I'm a big fan. I just wish he would stop talking about that bunker.
Can we talk about God in Ireland? I often think about the different audiences there are for God talk out there. As far as I can see there are four groups, and four attitudes to take:
1) The Dawkins-adoring atheists who seriously believe that all their anti-religious arguments either haven't occurred to believers already, or that all believers are hiding behind a barricade of self-deception. Is there any point in talking with these? Perhaps only that, if believers don't engage them, those on the sidelines will think we have no answers. The actual engagement itself is completely stalemated within a handful of moves.
2) The convinced believers. It is always pleasant to converse with those who agree with you, and believers encourage and support each other. But if we are only talking to each other, we can't evangelize the culture.
3) The religiously apathetic; those who don't believe but also don't think about religion very much. Does it seem strange that people can be indifferent to the biggest questions in life? Is the thirst for the sacred within these people simply repressed? Perhaps. I think this group reacts badly to being hammered over the head with religion, but you never know how a stray phrase or snatch of a song or the sight of someone saying a quiet prayer could take them by surprise.
4) The genuinely uncommitted, but interested; the seekers; the true agnostics. I think these are the "floating voters" of the spiritual realm, and they should be the intended audience of our discussions; even when we are talking to each other, or arguing with atheists. The chances are that they have thought deeply about this subject and it could be some very specific argument, consideration or even image or phrase that will make all the difference. They will not be impressed by bluster or rhetoric. But they will be impresesed by graciousness, quiet confidence and composure.
It's the first group that makes all the noise. But it's in the last group that all the real action is happening.
Friday, August 3, 2012
What Would Prove Catholicism False?
Critics of religion often complain that it is immune to evidence. They say that religious claims simply don't open themselves up to proof or disproof in the same way that other claims do. Religious believers, they say, would cling on to their delusions no matter how much data was brought to bear against them. In fact-- or so many of these critics go on to claim-- religion holds out special praise and rewards for those who believe without evidence, or in the teeth of counter-evidence. After all, didn't Christ himself say "Blessed are those who have not seen, but have believed?"
I think there is certainly a case to be answered here. There may be rare individuals, such as C.S. Lewis, who are dragged kicking and screaming into religious belief against their strongest inclinations. But I think it is true that most religious believers want to believe. They are, to be blunt, prejudiced in favour of God, and in favour of their particular creed.
But is this really so strange? Is there any human being on this earth who is not similarly biased? It is true that there are plenty of people who (as they admit) would like to believe in God, but don't. (I was one of those people myself once; or at least, I thought I was.) Nevertheless, I think even those people would have various pet theories of their own-- perhaps socialism or libertarianism or the dangers of dairy products. And they probably welcome evidence that supports those theories and are suspicious of evidence that doesn't.
(Of course, almost everybody alive has one specific pet theory; the implicit theory that they are somehow special, more insightful, more deserving, especially unfairly treated, and so forth-- and this particular theory is more tenacious than weevils.)
Those who reject religion in favour of a scientific worldview often claim that the existence of God is a hypothesis like any other, and should be treated in the same objective manner. I don't think this is fair. I think it would make more sense to compare theistic belief, not to this or that scientific hypothesis, but to the scientific worldview itself. The corresponding question for those who demand scientific proof is; What would it take you to abandon the scientific worldview? It is obviously conceivable that the most important truths might not be the kind of truths you can prove or disprove in a laboratory. It is at least conceivable that these ultimate truths have been deliberately placed beyond empirical testing. The scientific worldview, at least in its rationalist and anti-religious sense, is in this sense a hypothesis itself.
As I say, I can understand why non-believers sometimes become impatient with believers. It does often seem as though we are having our cake and eating it. Let's say that I pray to find a job during a long spell of unemployment. The next morning I am called to interview for my dream position. I thank God for answering my prayer. But, the sceptic complains, I wouldn't have held it against God if the prayer had apparently gone unanswered. I would have decided that my unemployment was a spiritual testing ground, or something like that. Heads God wins, tails unbelief loses. And isn't this true enough, as far as it goes?
Another example is the famous "criterion of embarrassment" which Christians sometimes apply to Bible criticism. There are undoubtedly passages in the New Testament that are embarrassing to Christians, such as Christ's apparent claim that he would return before one generation had passed. Christians often point out that the very existence of these texts, and their survival through the centuries, shows that the whole Jesus story wasn't one cooked up by the disciples. Because why would the disciples give ammunition to their critics?
At this point, the sceptic throws his hands in the air and says, "You can't have it both ways. You can't leap on evidence when it suits you and then say sacred things are above evidence when it doesn't suit you. You can't jump on Bible verses that seem to contain fulfilled prophecies and then take an unfulfilled prophecy and claim that as support as well. There's just no arguing with you. The deck is rigged from the start."
How to respond, now that I have accepted the prima facie case of the exasperated unbeliever?
One response is that it is ridiculous to expect a settled worldview to be open to revision at every moment. A man or woman's religious faith is usually the result of long experience and reflection. Often it is based upon some insight or event that the believer deems to have been mystical. Why should such a commitment be perpetually tested? What prisoner is permanently in the dock? What friendship is always hanging in the balance?
Another thing I would say is that faith, even faith in the face of apparently hostile evidence, is often seen as a virtue in purely secular contexts. If we go to see a "buddy movie", and we see that one character continues to believe in his friend's honesty and integrity even when the rest of the world has him written off as a villain, we are touched. If we read of an artist who has faith in his own talent in the face of rejection and ridicule, we are inspired. And when we read Anne Frank's famous words, "In spite of everything, I still believe people are good at heart", we are moved to tears. Who could take such a beautiful sentiment as simply a correct or incorrect evaluation of the available evidence-- a good or bad "call"?
I have to be honest. I don't think anything could shake my belief in God. I don't think any scientific discovery or natural disaster or historical event could make me an atheist. The universe seems too beautiful, too marvellous, too intricate to require no explanation. The existence of consciousness, of man's thirst for the sublime and the transcendent, also seems to point to a Divine Creator. And, yes-- I admit it-- I would be desolate without God.
But I can imagine situations in which my faith in the Catholic Church might be strained or even shattered. I don't for a moment expect such situations to come about, but I can conceive of them.
If Pope Benedict released an encylical tomorrow morning in which he denied that abortion was always a mortal sin, or that Christ's resurrection had been an historical event, or that eternal damnation was not possible, I would cease to be Catholic. Even if the Pope or the magisterium were to change Church doctrine on a non-dogmatic matter-- for instance, the ordination of women-- my faith would be shaken.
I believe the same is true of many thousands, perhaps millions, of Catholics around the globe. The Church's iron refusal to change its message, in the face of all persecution and tyranny and unpopularity, is compelling to us. And I believe this is why-- to use language that some might find offensive or at least ridiculous-- Satan and his angels are constantly pushing at the door of heresy, just as he urged Christ to turn stone into bread.
There are other eventualities that might undermine my Catholic faith. If the canonisation process no longer required a certified miracle-- as John Cornwell, and possibly other liberal Catholics, recommend-- my confidence in the Church would be rather diminished. If the Church ceased to produce saints and martyrs, that too would make me anxious. If there was a spectacular reversal in the miraculous spread of the Church across the world, that would also-- to a lesser extent-- give me pause for thought.
If one of the visionaries that the Church has declared worthy of belief was proven to be a fraud (and I feel dirty even typing those words), that would seriously compromise my Catholic faith.
I don't have the slightest expectation that any of those things will happen. I only mention them to counter this claim, which is so often made, that religious belief is immune to evidence or disproof.
And what if the sceptic says, "Come on, you are making it easy for yourself! You know and I know that none of these things will ever happen!"?
Then I think I would reply: "My friend, I believe that your own words prove that-- deep down inside-- you also have faith."
I think there is certainly a case to be answered here. There may be rare individuals, such as C.S. Lewis, who are dragged kicking and screaming into religious belief against their strongest inclinations. But I think it is true that most religious believers want to believe. They are, to be blunt, prejudiced in favour of God, and in favour of their particular creed.
But is this really so strange? Is there any human being on this earth who is not similarly biased? It is true that there are plenty of people who (as they admit) would like to believe in God, but don't. (I was one of those people myself once; or at least, I thought I was.) Nevertheless, I think even those people would have various pet theories of their own-- perhaps socialism or libertarianism or the dangers of dairy products. And they probably welcome evidence that supports those theories and are suspicious of evidence that doesn't.
(Of course, almost everybody alive has one specific pet theory; the implicit theory that they are somehow special, more insightful, more deserving, especially unfairly treated, and so forth-- and this particular theory is more tenacious than weevils.)
Those who reject religion in favour of a scientific worldview often claim that the existence of God is a hypothesis like any other, and should be treated in the same objective manner. I don't think this is fair. I think it would make more sense to compare theistic belief, not to this or that scientific hypothesis, but to the scientific worldview itself. The corresponding question for those who demand scientific proof is; What would it take you to abandon the scientific worldview? It is obviously conceivable that the most important truths might not be the kind of truths you can prove or disprove in a laboratory. It is at least conceivable that these ultimate truths have been deliberately placed beyond empirical testing. The scientific worldview, at least in its rationalist and anti-religious sense, is in this sense a hypothesis itself.
As I say, I can understand why non-believers sometimes become impatient with believers. It does often seem as though we are having our cake and eating it. Let's say that I pray to find a job during a long spell of unemployment. The next morning I am called to interview for my dream position. I thank God for answering my prayer. But, the sceptic complains, I wouldn't have held it against God if the prayer had apparently gone unanswered. I would have decided that my unemployment was a spiritual testing ground, or something like that. Heads God wins, tails unbelief loses. And isn't this true enough, as far as it goes?
Another example is the famous "criterion of embarrassment" which Christians sometimes apply to Bible criticism. There are undoubtedly passages in the New Testament that are embarrassing to Christians, such as Christ's apparent claim that he would return before one generation had passed. Christians often point out that the very existence of these texts, and their survival through the centuries, shows that the whole Jesus story wasn't one cooked up by the disciples. Because why would the disciples give ammunition to their critics?
At this point, the sceptic throws his hands in the air and says, "You can't have it both ways. You can't leap on evidence when it suits you and then say sacred things are above evidence when it doesn't suit you. You can't jump on Bible verses that seem to contain fulfilled prophecies and then take an unfulfilled prophecy and claim that as support as well. There's just no arguing with you. The deck is rigged from the start."
How to respond, now that I have accepted the prima facie case of the exasperated unbeliever?
One response is that it is ridiculous to expect a settled worldview to be open to revision at every moment. A man or woman's religious faith is usually the result of long experience and reflection. Often it is based upon some insight or event that the believer deems to have been mystical. Why should such a commitment be perpetually tested? What prisoner is permanently in the dock? What friendship is always hanging in the balance?
Another thing I would say is that faith, even faith in the face of apparently hostile evidence, is often seen as a virtue in purely secular contexts. If we go to see a "buddy movie", and we see that one character continues to believe in his friend's honesty and integrity even when the rest of the world has him written off as a villain, we are touched. If we read of an artist who has faith in his own talent in the face of rejection and ridicule, we are inspired. And when we read Anne Frank's famous words, "In spite of everything, I still believe people are good at heart", we are moved to tears. Who could take such a beautiful sentiment as simply a correct or incorrect evaluation of the available evidence-- a good or bad "call"?
I have to be honest. I don't think anything could shake my belief in God. I don't think any scientific discovery or natural disaster or historical event could make me an atheist. The universe seems too beautiful, too marvellous, too intricate to require no explanation. The existence of consciousness, of man's thirst for the sublime and the transcendent, also seems to point to a Divine Creator. And, yes-- I admit it-- I would be desolate without God.
But I can imagine situations in which my faith in the Catholic Church might be strained or even shattered. I don't for a moment expect such situations to come about, but I can conceive of them.
If Pope Benedict released an encylical tomorrow morning in which he denied that abortion was always a mortal sin, or that Christ's resurrection had been an historical event, or that eternal damnation was not possible, I would cease to be Catholic. Even if the Pope or the magisterium were to change Church doctrine on a non-dogmatic matter-- for instance, the ordination of women-- my faith would be shaken.
I believe the same is true of many thousands, perhaps millions, of Catholics around the globe. The Church's iron refusal to change its message, in the face of all persecution and tyranny and unpopularity, is compelling to us. And I believe this is why-- to use language that some might find offensive or at least ridiculous-- Satan and his angels are constantly pushing at the door of heresy, just as he urged Christ to turn stone into bread.
There are other eventualities that might undermine my Catholic faith. If the canonisation process no longer required a certified miracle-- as John Cornwell, and possibly other liberal Catholics, recommend-- my confidence in the Church would be rather diminished. If the Church ceased to produce saints and martyrs, that too would make me anxious. If there was a spectacular reversal in the miraculous spread of the Church across the world, that would also-- to a lesser extent-- give me pause for thought.
If one of the visionaries that the Church has declared worthy of belief was proven to be a fraud (and I feel dirty even typing those words), that would seriously compromise my Catholic faith.
I don't have the slightest expectation that any of those things will happen. I only mention them to counter this claim, which is so often made, that religious belief is immune to evidence or disproof.
And what if the sceptic says, "Come on, you are making it easy for yourself! You know and I know that none of these things will ever happen!"?
Then I think I would reply: "My friend, I believe that your own words prove that-- deep down inside-- you also have faith."
Saturday, July 21, 2012
To Own and to Own Not
Sometimes I find the rhetoric that some Catholics use rather trying. I am not entirely sure that I am in the right here. Perhaps I am being over-sensitive. But if I find it trying, perhaps there is a possibility that non-Catholics-- more importantly, potential Catholics-- are alienated by it.
"Truth", said Pilate, "what is that?". "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." "I am the way, the truth and the life." The New Testament rings with the word "truth". Is it any wonder that Catholics use it as a banner?
Perhaps not, but I can't help finding its totemic brandishing rather wearisome. Of course, it is important that we make the point that we are making truth claims, that the Bible is not just one protracted pretty metaphor, that faith is not simply a kind of poetry or symbolism. It is also important to explain that we are not fideists-- that is, that we do not rely on a blind faith indifferent to evidence-- and that the Church itself has officially rejected fideism.
Yes, we are Catholics because we believe Catholicism is true. But do we have to clobber our listeners over the head with this constantly?
You see, I think most people hold their opinions because they think they are true. There may be a small number of postmodernists out there-- I've never actually met one, but I have read about them-- who apparently believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth, that the very concept is offensively patriarchal and imperialistic and dead-white-male-ish. I suspect that these people exist mostly, if not entirely, within the pages of novels that satirise university life.
But let that pass. Let's say there are some honest-to-goodness relativists out there.
My point is that very few people fall into that category. I do feel that we should accept the good faith of our intellectual opponents, that questioning their commitment to truth is not a good start to a discussion. Not only is it begging the question, in most cases. It is also rude.
I also feel that Catholics (and Christians in general) have a nasty habit of aiming their fire at the motivations of unbelievers, rather than their arguments. I am sure that many atheists reject a belief in the Divine because they have a problem with cosmic authority, because they are reacting against their religious upbringing, because they think religion is stuffy and repressive and a drag. Perhaps that is even at the back of all unbelief, deep down. But I see no clear evidence of this, and even if it is true, it seems something of a cheap shot.
I have met many atheists and non-religious people who seem to have no animus against religion at all, who have a high regard for tradition and authority and reverence, who are not drawing up plans for the worldly utopia. Are the emotional roots of their atheism or agnosticism simply buried deep? Perhaps. If unbelief is wicked-- and the Catechism tells us that atheism is a sin-- then surely there must be a moral failing involved in it (at least, from a Christian perspective).
Nonetheless, I don't see the benefit in stressing this. Once again, it is begging the question, and rather rude.
Worst of all are the bullish internet apologists who crow over how they, or somebody else, "owned" this or that atheist or secularist of Protestant speaker. I don't see how anything good can come of this. I think those who witness such behaviour will conclude that the Truth has made some people obnoxious rather than free.
"Truth", said Pilate, "what is that?". "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." "I am the way, the truth and the life." The New Testament rings with the word "truth". Is it any wonder that Catholics use it as a banner?
Perhaps not, but I can't help finding its totemic brandishing rather wearisome. Of course, it is important that we make the point that we are making truth claims, that the Bible is not just one protracted pretty metaphor, that faith is not simply a kind of poetry or symbolism. It is also important to explain that we are not fideists-- that is, that we do not rely on a blind faith indifferent to evidence-- and that the Church itself has officially rejected fideism.
Yes, we are Catholics because we believe Catholicism is true. But do we have to clobber our listeners over the head with this constantly?
You see, I think most people hold their opinions because they think they are true. There may be a small number of postmodernists out there-- I've never actually met one, but I have read about them-- who apparently believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth, that the very concept is offensively patriarchal and imperialistic and dead-white-male-ish. I suspect that these people exist mostly, if not entirely, within the pages of novels that satirise university life.
But let that pass. Let's say there are some honest-to-goodness relativists out there.
My point is that very few people fall into that category. I do feel that we should accept the good faith of our intellectual opponents, that questioning their commitment to truth is not a good start to a discussion. Not only is it begging the question, in most cases. It is also rude.
I also feel that Catholics (and Christians in general) have a nasty habit of aiming their fire at the motivations of unbelievers, rather than their arguments. I am sure that many atheists reject a belief in the Divine because they have a problem with cosmic authority, because they are reacting against their religious upbringing, because they think religion is stuffy and repressive and a drag. Perhaps that is even at the back of all unbelief, deep down. But I see no clear evidence of this, and even if it is true, it seems something of a cheap shot.
I have met many atheists and non-religious people who seem to have no animus against religion at all, who have a high regard for tradition and authority and reverence, who are not drawing up plans for the worldly utopia. Are the emotional roots of their atheism or agnosticism simply buried deep? Perhaps. If unbelief is wicked-- and the Catechism tells us that atheism is a sin-- then surely there must be a moral failing involved in it (at least, from a Christian perspective).
Nonetheless, I don't see the benefit in stressing this. Once again, it is begging the question, and rather rude.
Worst of all are the bullish internet apologists who crow over how they, or somebody else, "owned" this or that atheist or secularist of Protestant speaker. I don't see how anything good can come of this. I think those who witness such behaviour will conclude that the Truth has made some people obnoxious rather than free.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
The Human Need to Affirm
Why do most of us want to be optimists, or at least to be considered optimists? Is it a by-product of the desire for self-preservation? Is it an evolutionary mechanism?
There is a commitment that virtually all human beings hold in common, one that cuts right across divisions of religion, politics and even temperament. It is the belief that life and the world are good, or can be good, or should be good. When you think about it, you realise that this commitment is shared by everyone but the darkest of pessimists. A pessimist would have no reason to hold a gloomy view of the world unless he was measuring it against some ideal, some possible or even merely conceivable state of more desirable affairs. To that extent, even the pessimist has a kind of faith.
Unless we believed that the good of life outweighs the evil-- even if that good is simply, as it might be for an existentialist, our own heroic protest against futility-- then we would hardly continue to live, to refrain from committing suicide, to feed and care for ourselves, to stop at red traffic lights, go to work and shelter from the cold.
But for most of us, our faith in existence goes way beyond this minimal calculation. Human beings seem to harbour an insatiable urge to affirm. It is as though we cannot rest in regret or rejection. A man who loses his sight or his legs or his livelihood will, almost inevitably, struggle to "come to terms with it", as we say. Sometimes it even seems that, the worse the ordeal, the greater the reluctance to give up on life's intrinsic goodness. We even seek to find meaning in our sufferings, to discover some redemptive element to them.
I remember once, when channel-hopping late in the small hours of the morning, catching the last few minutes of a documentary about people with facial disfigurements. I always remember one of the talking heads-- a man whose misshapen face must have drawn stares wherever he went-- smiling gently at the camera and saying that, since he had "grown into" the way he now looked, he wouldn't even want to look "normal" again.
This human tendency for affirmation bears some thinking about. It is, in fact, more than a little strange. I could easily imagine a world where things were otherwise. I can imagine a world where human beings sought pleasure, distraction and stimulation, but felt no craving for the sublime, the transcendent or the meaningful. We would, essentially, seek to pass the time before our death as pleasantly (or perhaps as excitingly) as possible.
Nobody would care about the state of the world after their own demise. Nobody would invest emotionally in any great cause-- a cause such as a nation, a party, an ideology, an interest group, or a church. History would simply be a catalogue of names and events, perhaps interesting and instructive as a subject for study, but not a story in which the living felt they had a stake. Nobody would feel a debt to their ancestors, or be inspired by their own tradition and heritage. So long as the intellect was kept stimulated, nobody would feel any urge to understand the universe or their place in it.
But how different things are in reality! Even the worst of us seem to share this drive towards affirmation. No matter how badly people behave, they usually offer some justification for their actions. The excuses and rationalisations may be feeble, but the point is that nearly everybody acknowledges the need for justification. In the same way, it seems to me that every artist-- no matter how bleak, nihilistic, hopeless and squalid his productions-- claims to be ultimately on the side of the angels. Thus we are told that Beckett's plays drip with compassion for the human condition, that Franz Kafka displays a deeply religious sensibility, and so on.
Why this ingrained human urge to say an unconditional "Yes" to life, in spite of everything? And not only a "Yes" but a "Hallelujah"?
Well, you can guess my answer, can't you?
There is a commitment that virtually all human beings hold in common, one that cuts right across divisions of religion, politics and even temperament. It is the belief that life and the world are good, or can be good, or should be good. When you think about it, you realise that this commitment is shared by everyone but the darkest of pessimists. A pessimist would have no reason to hold a gloomy view of the world unless he was measuring it against some ideal, some possible or even merely conceivable state of more desirable affairs. To that extent, even the pessimist has a kind of faith.
Unless we believed that the good of life outweighs the evil-- even if that good is simply, as it might be for an existentialist, our own heroic protest against futility-- then we would hardly continue to live, to refrain from committing suicide, to feed and care for ourselves, to stop at red traffic lights, go to work and shelter from the cold.
But for most of us, our faith in existence goes way beyond this minimal calculation. Human beings seem to harbour an insatiable urge to affirm. It is as though we cannot rest in regret or rejection. A man who loses his sight or his legs or his livelihood will, almost inevitably, struggle to "come to terms with it", as we say. Sometimes it even seems that, the worse the ordeal, the greater the reluctance to give up on life's intrinsic goodness. We even seek to find meaning in our sufferings, to discover some redemptive element to them.
I remember once, when channel-hopping late in the small hours of the morning, catching the last few minutes of a documentary about people with facial disfigurements. I always remember one of the talking heads-- a man whose misshapen face must have drawn stares wherever he went-- smiling gently at the camera and saying that, since he had "grown into" the way he now looked, he wouldn't even want to look "normal" again.
This human tendency for affirmation bears some thinking about. It is, in fact, more than a little strange. I could easily imagine a world where things were otherwise. I can imagine a world where human beings sought pleasure, distraction and stimulation, but felt no craving for the sublime, the transcendent or the meaningful. We would, essentially, seek to pass the time before our death as pleasantly (or perhaps as excitingly) as possible.
Nobody would care about the state of the world after their own demise. Nobody would invest emotionally in any great cause-- a cause such as a nation, a party, an ideology, an interest group, or a church. History would simply be a catalogue of names and events, perhaps interesting and instructive as a subject for study, but not a story in which the living felt they had a stake. Nobody would feel a debt to their ancestors, or be inspired by their own tradition and heritage. So long as the intellect was kept stimulated, nobody would feel any urge to understand the universe or their place in it.
But how different things are in reality! Even the worst of us seem to share this drive towards affirmation. No matter how badly people behave, they usually offer some justification for their actions. The excuses and rationalisations may be feeble, but the point is that nearly everybody acknowledges the need for justification. In the same way, it seems to me that every artist-- no matter how bleak, nihilistic, hopeless and squalid his productions-- claims to be ultimately on the side of the angels. Thus we are told that Beckett's plays drip with compassion for the human condition, that Franz Kafka displays a deeply religious sensibility, and so on.
Why this ingrained human urge to say an unconditional "Yes" to life, in spite of everything? And not only a "Yes" but a "Hallelujah"?
Well, you can guess my answer, can't you?
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Review of The Hungry Sheep by John D. Sheridan
The Hungry Sheep by John D. Sheridan
Arlington House
1974
Where are the writers, the artists, the intellectuals who will proclaim Christ's gospel today? Christianity remains a force in Irish and English society-- sometimes, it even seems to be a kind of official opposition to the liberal consensus, and even to be widely recognised as such. In many ways, being pushed out of the mainstream of society, having its respectability questioned, seems to have been a shot in the arm for Christianity in the British Isles. A Christian today is almost more likely to be questioned by police than to be invited to speak to schoolchildren or to give an inspiring talk on the radio, and this has had something of a galvanising effect.
But where are the modern equivalents of CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, Malcolm Muggeridge, JRR Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers? It is true that JK Rowling is a declared Christian, and the Harry Potter books have a pretty strong Christian flavour. But it is difficult to imagine her writing a straightforwardly religious work, or actively using her prominence to evangelize. On the other hand, irreligious writers like Philip Pullman are more than happy to thump the tub for atheism.
In Ireland, the situation seems even worse. John Waters is perhaps our only Christian writer who can claim a standing independent of his religious beliefs, who is immune to the accusation of being a hired pen, and whose talent was recognized before he shocked the nation by going all churchy.
So I felt more than a little nostalgic when I read The Hungry Sheep by John D. Sheridan, a book from a time that is really not all that long ago-- less than forty years-- but which seems a world away in this regard at least, that Sheridan was a nationally-known columnist and author who, in this book, took up the cause of Catholicism in a work of unabashed apologetics. And, unlike the religious writings of John Waters, which are determinedly idiosyncratic and personal, John D. Sheridan is content to roll up his sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty of explaining, and arguing for, definite doctrines of the faith.
The title is from Milton's Lycidas (ironically, from a Papacy-bashing passage of the poem): The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed. Sheridan's time had this at least in common with ours; that Catholic catechesis was already inadequate by then, and that the faithful were being sent out poorly armed against the assaults of the infidel. This is how he describes the atmosphere after Vatican II:
"The man in the street, who in the days when the Church spoke with one voice might have got official rulings by knocking at any presbytery, is utterly confused on such issues as papal infallibility, freedom of conscience (every man his own theologian), and "co-responsibility". Young priests in polo-neck sweaters (and old ones who should know better) tell him that things are managed more democratically in Holland, advise him to read Teilhard de Chardin (though the Monitum of the Sacred Congregation on the dangers of Teilhard's 'theology-fiction', as Maritain calls it, is still in force), and bewilder him by saying that he need not worry unduly about his own inner spiritual life so long as he loves his neighbour and is concerned about starvation in the Third World."
I like the spirited tone of this book. It is not a "plea", or an "invitation", or "the beginning of a conversation", as so many religious works of today tend to style themselves. It is a call to arms, plain and simple. I really do believe that secular culture will respect religious writers more if they drop the Uriah Heep impression. The "Jesus freak" sketches of the Fast Show ("that's a bit like Jesus, isn't it?") mocked the sort of Christian who is always trying to sneak faith under the radar. Being unabashed might not make you friends, but at least it wins you respect-- even if it's grudging respect.
Sheridan begins at the beginning, which is so often-- and so surprisingly-- left out of discussions about religion. That beginning being, of course, the very existence of the Man Above (as Sheridan terms him), and the reasons we shouldn't assume that the physical world is all there is. Surely this should be the starting point of all apologetics, and all debates with unbelievers? And yet, religious believers seem rather coy on the subject, tending to concentrate instead on the psychological benefits of religion, or our culture's debt to Christianity, or some other topic.
The immateriality of the mind is the entry-point Sheridan chooses:
"Impressions come to me through my senses, but there is something which uses these impressions as raw material for absorption, as the data for that mysterious activity which we call thought. Is this something a part or a function of my material body? Obviously it is free from the limitations of my material body. It can project itself to the stars or to the days of the Roman legions in the twinkling of an eye; and this instancy, this independence of time and space is not a property of material things, which are either here or there, and which take time to move from one to the other."
Philosophers of mind might wince, but surely Sheridan has captured the essence of the problem here. Thought is "about" something in a way that physical matter can never be "about" anything. This simple fact makes a nonsense of all philosophical materialism. If religious believers would drive this point home more often, surely the sceptic would be on the backfoot from the start?
The evolutionary theory of human origins is given short shrift in this book, though Sheridan adds that he would be happy to change his mind if he was given compelling evidence, and points out the freedom of thought that the Church allows on this matter. (The Church never condemned the theory of evolution. The current Pope and his predecessor seem to have accepted it, but a Catholic is not bound to follow their example. For my own part, I claim no knowledge of science, but I am officially agnostic on the subject of Darwinism. What I understand of it seems very questionable to me, and the attitude of witch-hunting hysteria displayed towards proponents of "intelligent design" speaks volumes.) The literal truth of the Adam and Eve story is staunchly defended by Sheridan, which made me reflect on how seldom this is even discussed in today's Catholicism.
Sheridan makes a grand tour of all the battlefields on which Catholic teaching and the modern world contend; attitudes towards death, the existence of conscience (and its implications for a material view of the world), the Scholastic proofs of God's existence, the life of Christ and the evidences of the Resurrection, Papal supremacy, free will, original sin, the Virgin Mary, humour and its implications for materialism (a very interesting and original chapter), the sexual revolution, liberal clerics, the spectre of overpopulation, euthanasia, social decline, the Reformation, and Hell. All this in a book of 175 pages, printed in rather large type, and written in an easy, conversational style. I doubt if even Chesterton (though a much more brilliant writer) has produced such a handy one-stop apologia for the Faith.
In fact, seeing all the bases covered at such a strolling pace makes me feel rather frustrated-- at myself as well as other people. It's not so difficult, after all. Every Catholic should have the basic answers to questions and challenges from non-believers and seekers. We should be willing to engage the sceptics head-on rather than perpetually looking to strike glancing blows, or to win skirmishes. We should all, as far as we are able, be like the Catholic Evidence Guild members who stand at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park and are ready to give an answer to every objection. I am lamentably short of that ideal myself. I hope to move closer to it.
Sheridan's book is a pudding well worth tasting for yourself-- it can be bought cheaply on Amazon, second-hand-- but I will scoop out a few of the plums.
I particularly liked one passage where Sheridan shows up the folly of the classic existentialist response to human life, as articulated here by Bertrand Russell (hardly an existentialist, save in this regard): "Condemned to lose today his dearest, tomorrow to pass himself through the gates of darkness, it remains for Man only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that enable his little day...to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate for a moment his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power."
Sheridan exposes this, and all similar poses of noble defiance (like that struck by Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus) as sheer muddle-headedness:
"But if man is no more than a chance collocation of atoms, what meaning is there in his defiance, and what reason is there for thinking that the wanton tyranny that shapes his outward life leaves him an inner sanctuary in which he is free to think lofty thoughts-- since from Russell's premise it must shape his inner life also? For that matter, how can his thoughts be "lofty"-- or even his own-- if his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs, are shaped and determined by irresistible forces which have no prevision of the ends they are achieving?"
(I am constantly struck by the impression that atheists and humanists and liberals simply haven't thought their ideas out "to the absolute ruddy end", as CS Lewis once phrased it. Their daring challenges are simply never daring enough. Or as Sir Francis Bacon once put it: "A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth about men's mind about to religion." I am not here referring solely to Russell's rhetorical flourish above, but to a whole range of different problems.)
When it comes to philosophical arguments for God's existence, Sheridan writes: "The existence of God can be proved from reason, but the famous proofs of Aquinas, which are developments of the proofs advanced by greek philosophers sixteen centuries earlier, are not for everyone; and even for those who can follow them they are not coercive....An argument [like the argument from contingency, one of Aquinas's proofs] is not laced with fire. It inspires no passion of belief. Nor does it involve any commitment, other than an intellectual assent...it will buttress faith, but it will not inspire it unless God speaks when the thinking is done."
All of that is true-- and yet, how important buttressing can be! I know that accepting the argument from contingency (basically, the argument that this contingent universe must be rooted in something eternal and perfect) was a crucial moment in the formation of my own faith. After all, there is plenty of "fire" around us all, plenty of stimulants to religious feeling-- a baby's gurgle, the night sky, the poetry of the book of Job, the words of a Christmas carol drifting on winter air. But what the modern world requires-- and what the opponents of the Faith demand-- is steel rather than fire. Difficult as the proofs of Aquinas are, I wonder if it might not be a good idea to teach them in Catholic secondary schools.
Most of the subjects to which Sheridan devotes chapters are predictable, but one that is not is the subject of laughter. Sheridan was a professional humourist, so perhaps this inclusion shouldn't be that surprising. And perhaps it shouldn't be surprising at all, because I have often felt-- and I imagine the intuition is a common one-- that laughter and religious faith are strangely linked. As Sheridan puts it:
"It will be objected that laughter is not the monopoly of the Christian, nor does it mark him off from the materialist; but the Christian can offer a rational explanation of laughter, whereas the rationalist (who so often, unknown to himself, is drawing on the spiritual investment of his ancestors) is in difficulties at once; for if directed chance or molecular structure governs all our actions, there is nothing against which we can measure the unexpected or incongruous."
I think the point could be pushed further. I think the rationalist, if he was a consistent rationalist, would be in difficulties over pretty much every human activity and passion. The rationalist can never say "Best of luck!" (what does he mean?) or "Happy birthday" or "Get better soon!". He can never even say "That's odd", since "odd" and "ordinary" can't really have any meaning for him-- everything is what it is, and that's all there is to it. There are no true surprises in a rationalist universe, no occasion for amazement or awe. Statistical anomalies are only to be expected, after all. Nor can the rationalist invoke "the spirit of the sixties" or "the spirit of science" or "the Blitz spirit", since there is no such thing as a spirit in his universe, not even as a metaphor. Because what would it be a metaphor for, anyway? Does he really believe radicalism was unique to the sixties, or fortitude was unique to the Blitz? Or that either of those emotions are anything but a combination of glands, hormones and circumstances?
On the subject of the permissive society, Sheridan writes: "Today's children...will take their places easily and naturally in the brave new world; the world which regards contraception as "a sort of polio vaccine designed to deal with the disease of procreation" and sex as a game without rules; a world in which promiscuity is the accepted ethic...a world in which blue films get bluer and bluer and even the prestigious Sunday papers publish material which would have led to prosecution thirty years ago; a world which accords pornography the status of a legitimate industry supplying a clamant human need; a world in which copulation-- real or stimulated-- may be watched on stage and screen, and in which the sex motif sells everything from central heating to bubble gum. Whether the permissive society will become still more permissive in time (and as things stand it does not even stop short at murder) is an open question, but now that its recruiting sergeants are at work in the schools the future is anyone's guess."
I wonder what Sheridan would think of today's society? Have we become even more permissive? I think it's an open question. We are probably all increasingly educated about a whole range of perversions, but somehow I feel that the straight-faced seediness of the sixties and seventies has receded. I recently watched a film from the seventies-- The Fog by John Carpenter-- in which a female hitchhiker is picked up by a male driver, late at night. That we soon see them lying in bed together can be guessed; the fact that they only exchange names afterwards is rather more surprising. At least, it's surprising today. I'm guessing it might have been less so to an audience at the time.
I believe that the longing for love, romance and commitment continues to reassert itself, if only as an ideal. The romantic comedy heroine might sleep around, but the audience still demands that she swear faithfulness before the credits roll. And the oh-so-serious sexual radicalism of the Age of Aquarius has, in our day, been replaced by the smirking irony of Graham Norton and his ilk. I am grateful for small mercies.
We can guess what the defenders of Fr. Tony Flannery and Fr. Brian D'Arcy, both priests recently censured by the Vatican, would think of this passage (which concerns apostate rather than dissident priests):
"Since Vatican II the Church's attitude to deserters, and especially to priest deserters, has been one of the utmost compassion. One wonders, however, if this leaning backwards towards mercy and understanding has been altogether prudent, especially as many of those concerned have made full use of the printing press and the television screen to pose as heroic souls who have seen the light. Compassion for apostates must not blind us to the fact that apostasy is the most horrendous of treasons."
A chapter entitled "The Population Explosion", full of statistics, proved tough reading for me. I've always felt that statistics are the worst of all arguments, since they can so easily be disputed. And yet we cannot avoid them at times. The subject of "overpopulation" and the Catholic Church's supposed contribution to it is very tricky terrain, since it cannot be answered simply by analysing concepts, but must involve delving into demographics.
The next chapter, which takes in family planning, contraception, and euthanasia, contains a rather prescient passage: "If we may snuff out new life early without qualms of conscience, we are equally entitled to take steps to ensure that those who are so old that they have become a burden to themselves and to society should be snuffed out when they have outstayed their welcome and become a strain on our resources- preferably, but not necessarily, with their own consent, and in these twilight hours the question of consent will be misty on one side at least. Indeed, if the quality of life is what counts, the case for euthanasia is open and shut, for people are living longer nowadays, the number of pensioners are increasing, and there are limits to what wage-and-salary earners can provide for their support withotu disrupting the national economy."
And the last words of the chapter make the overall point with ringing clarity: "Either [life] is sacred, God-given, and inviolable, or it is not; and both abortion and euthanasia are logical corollaries of that death-wish we call contraception". There is an infinite gulf between the sacredness of life and its mere preciousness. A teddy-bear can be "precious".
The book is sprinkled with references to Communism and the Soviet Union, which obviously date it now, but also give us pause for thought. There was something strangely comforting in the existence of the Evil Empire-- though not, of course, for its citizens. It was a visible and tangible antagonist, the embodiment of all the forces that were assailing Christendom. Now the Evil Empire is gone, but the forces of anti-Christianity have lost none of their vitality. The conservative author Peter Hitchens believes that the West's radical left-- or cultural revolutionaries, as he terms them-- were actually liberated by the fall of the USSR. No longer need they be embarrassed by gulags and secret police and the spectacle of a real Revolution at work. No longer would they have to defend the indefensible.
Another regrettable legacy of the Cold War is that conservatism came to be equated with individualism, private enterprise and economic freedom above all else. Strangely enough, this tendency seems to have only increased since the fall of communism, as though the partisans of the free market and of unlimited personal license are still tilting against the ghosts of Stalin and Kruschev-- rather than the more real and impersonal forces of dissolution all around us, forces which often hitch a ride on the tailcoats of the free market.
The Hungry Sheep ends on an admirably Christological note:
"In seeing God, and in knowing and loving Him, we shall see what makes us different one from another, and how we are all-- in the mass and as individuals-- linked with Him and loved by Him. We shall also see ourselves for the first time, for we shall see ourselves in Him, and it is only in Him that we are really meaningful. He must increase and we must decrease, but our decrease will not be a shrinking nor a diminution. In Christ, our pilgrimage ended, we shall reach our full stature. Our selfhood will be complete and intelligible; and in the end, as Augustine says, there will only be one Christ, loving Himself."
Amen!
I fervently wish that we had more books like The Hungry Sheep. I think it is time for Veritas Publications, and other religious publishers, to stop putting out books with titles like What Being Catholic Means to Me and start putting out more books like the one recently written by Michael Coren, the Canadian broadcaster, under the title Why Catholics are Right.
Arlington House
1974
Where are the writers, the artists, the intellectuals who will proclaim Christ's gospel today? Christianity remains a force in Irish and English society-- sometimes, it even seems to be a kind of official opposition to the liberal consensus, and even to be widely recognised as such. In many ways, being pushed out of the mainstream of society, having its respectability questioned, seems to have been a shot in the arm for Christianity in the British Isles. A Christian today is almost more likely to be questioned by police than to be invited to speak to schoolchildren or to give an inspiring talk on the radio, and this has had something of a galvanising effect.
But where are the modern equivalents of CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, Malcolm Muggeridge, JRR Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers? It is true that JK Rowling is a declared Christian, and the Harry Potter books have a pretty strong Christian flavour. But it is difficult to imagine her writing a straightforwardly religious work, or actively using her prominence to evangelize. On the other hand, irreligious writers like Philip Pullman are more than happy to thump the tub for atheism.
In Ireland, the situation seems even worse. John Waters is perhaps our only Christian writer who can claim a standing independent of his religious beliefs, who is immune to the accusation of being a hired pen, and whose talent was recognized before he shocked the nation by going all churchy.
So I felt more than a little nostalgic when I read The Hungry Sheep by John D. Sheridan, a book from a time that is really not all that long ago-- less than forty years-- but which seems a world away in this regard at least, that Sheridan was a nationally-known columnist and author who, in this book, took up the cause of Catholicism in a work of unabashed apologetics. And, unlike the religious writings of John Waters, which are determinedly idiosyncratic and personal, John D. Sheridan is content to roll up his sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty of explaining, and arguing for, definite doctrines of the faith.
The title is from Milton's Lycidas (ironically, from a Papacy-bashing passage of the poem): The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed. Sheridan's time had this at least in common with ours; that Catholic catechesis was already inadequate by then, and that the faithful were being sent out poorly armed against the assaults of the infidel. This is how he describes the atmosphere after Vatican II:
"The man in the street, who in the days when the Church spoke with one voice might have got official rulings by knocking at any presbytery, is utterly confused on such issues as papal infallibility, freedom of conscience (every man his own theologian), and "co-responsibility". Young priests in polo-neck sweaters (and old ones who should know better) tell him that things are managed more democratically in Holland, advise him to read Teilhard de Chardin (though the Monitum of the Sacred Congregation on the dangers of Teilhard's 'theology-fiction', as Maritain calls it, is still in force), and bewilder him by saying that he need not worry unduly about his own inner spiritual life so long as he loves his neighbour and is concerned about starvation in the Third World."
I like the spirited tone of this book. It is not a "plea", or an "invitation", or "the beginning of a conversation", as so many religious works of today tend to style themselves. It is a call to arms, plain and simple. I really do believe that secular culture will respect religious writers more if they drop the Uriah Heep impression. The "Jesus freak" sketches of the Fast Show ("that's a bit like Jesus, isn't it?") mocked the sort of Christian who is always trying to sneak faith under the radar. Being unabashed might not make you friends, but at least it wins you respect-- even if it's grudging respect.
Sheridan begins at the beginning, which is so often-- and so surprisingly-- left out of discussions about religion. That beginning being, of course, the very existence of the Man Above (as Sheridan terms him), and the reasons we shouldn't assume that the physical world is all there is. Surely this should be the starting point of all apologetics, and all debates with unbelievers? And yet, religious believers seem rather coy on the subject, tending to concentrate instead on the psychological benefits of religion, or our culture's debt to Christianity, or some other topic.
The immateriality of the mind is the entry-point Sheridan chooses:
"Impressions come to me through my senses, but there is something which uses these impressions as raw material for absorption, as the data for that mysterious activity which we call thought. Is this something a part or a function of my material body? Obviously it is free from the limitations of my material body. It can project itself to the stars or to the days of the Roman legions in the twinkling of an eye; and this instancy, this independence of time and space is not a property of material things, which are either here or there, and which take time to move from one to the other."
Philosophers of mind might wince, but surely Sheridan has captured the essence of the problem here. Thought is "about" something in a way that physical matter can never be "about" anything. This simple fact makes a nonsense of all philosophical materialism. If religious believers would drive this point home more often, surely the sceptic would be on the backfoot from the start?
The evolutionary theory of human origins is given short shrift in this book, though Sheridan adds that he would be happy to change his mind if he was given compelling evidence, and points out the freedom of thought that the Church allows on this matter. (The Church never condemned the theory of evolution. The current Pope and his predecessor seem to have accepted it, but a Catholic is not bound to follow their example. For my own part, I claim no knowledge of science, but I am officially agnostic on the subject of Darwinism. What I understand of it seems very questionable to me, and the attitude of witch-hunting hysteria displayed towards proponents of "intelligent design" speaks volumes.) The literal truth of the Adam and Eve story is staunchly defended by Sheridan, which made me reflect on how seldom this is even discussed in today's Catholicism.
Sheridan makes a grand tour of all the battlefields on which Catholic teaching and the modern world contend; attitudes towards death, the existence of conscience (and its implications for a material view of the world), the Scholastic proofs of God's existence, the life of Christ and the evidences of the Resurrection, Papal supremacy, free will, original sin, the Virgin Mary, humour and its implications for materialism (a very interesting and original chapter), the sexual revolution, liberal clerics, the spectre of overpopulation, euthanasia, social decline, the Reformation, and Hell. All this in a book of 175 pages, printed in rather large type, and written in an easy, conversational style. I doubt if even Chesterton (though a much more brilliant writer) has produced such a handy one-stop apologia for the Faith.
In fact, seeing all the bases covered at such a strolling pace makes me feel rather frustrated-- at myself as well as other people. It's not so difficult, after all. Every Catholic should have the basic answers to questions and challenges from non-believers and seekers. We should be willing to engage the sceptics head-on rather than perpetually looking to strike glancing blows, or to win skirmishes. We should all, as far as we are able, be like the Catholic Evidence Guild members who stand at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park and are ready to give an answer to every objection. I am lamentably short of that ideal myself. I hope to move closer to it.
Sheridan's book is a pudding well worth tasting for yourself-- it can be bought cheaply on Amazon, second-hand-- but I will scoop out a few of the plums.
I particularly liked one passage where Sheridan shows up the folly of the classic existentialist response to human life, as articulated here by Bertrand Russell (hardly an existentialist, save in this regard): "Condemned to lose today his dearest, tomorrow to pass himself through the gates of darkness, it remains for Man only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that enable his little day...to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate for a moment his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power."
Sheridan exposes this, and all similar poses of noble defiance (like that struck by Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus) as sheer muddle-headedness:
"But if man is no more than a chance collocation of atoms, what meaning is there in his defiance, and what reason is there for thinking that the wanton tyranny that shapes his outward life leaves him an inner sanctuary in which he is free to think lofty thoughts-- since from Russell's premise it must shape his inner life also? For that matter, how can his thoughts be "lofty"-- or even his own-- if his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs, are shaped and determined by irresistible forces which have no prevision of the ends they are achieving?"
(I am constantly struck by the impression that atheists and humanists and liberals simply haven't thought their ideas out "to the absolute ruddy end", as CS Lewis once phrased it. Their daring challenges are simply never daring enough. Or as Sir Francis Bacon once put it: "A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth about men's mind about to religion." I am not here referring solely to Russell's rhetorical flourish above, but to a whole range of different problems.)
When it comes to philosophical arguments for God's existence, Sheridan writes: "The existence of God can be proved from reason, but the famous proofs of Aquinas, which are developments of the proofs advanced by greek philosophers sixteen centuries earlier, are not for everyone; and even for those who can follow them they are not coercive....An argument [like the argument from contingency, one of Aquinas's proofs] is not laced with fire. It inspires no passion of belief. Nor does it involve any commitment, other than an intellectual assent...it will buttress faith, but it will not inspire it unless God speaks when the thinking is done."
All of that is true-- and yet, how important buttressing can be! I know that accepting the argument from contingency (basically, the argument that this contingent universe must be rooted in something eternal and perfect) was a crucial moment in the formation of my own faith. After all, there is plenty of "fire" around us all, plenty of stimulants to religious feeling-- a baby's gurgle, the night sky, the poetry of the book of Job, the words of a Christmas carol drifting on winter air. But what the modern world requires-- and what the opponents of the Faith demand-- is steel rather than fire. Difficult as the proofs of Aquinas are, I wonder if it might not be a good idea to teach them in Catholic secondary schools.
Most of the subjects to which Sheridan devotes chapters are predictable, but one that is not is the subject of laughter. Sheridan was a professional humourist, so perhaps this inclusion shouldn't be that surprising. And perhaps it shouldn't be surprising at all, because I have often felt-- and I imagine the intuition is a common one-- that laughter and religious faith are strangely linked. As Sheridan puts it:
"It will be objected that laughter is not the monopoly of the Christian, nor does it mark him off from the materialist; but the Christian can offer a rational explanation of laughter, whereas the rationalist (who so often, unknown to himself, is drawing on the spiritual investment of his ancestors) is in difficulties at once; for if directed chance or molecular structure governs all our actions, there is nothing against which we can measure the unexpected or incongruous."
I think the point could be pushed further. I think the rationalist, if he was a consistent rationalist, would be in difficulties over pretty much every human activity and passion. The rationalist can never say "Best of luck!" (what does he mean?) or "Happy birthday" or "Get better soon!". He can never even say "That's odd", since "odd" and "ordinary" can't really have any meaning for him-- everything is what it is, and that's all there is to it. There are no true surprises in a rationalist universe, no occasion for amazement or awe. Statistical anomalies are only to be expected, after all. Nor can the rationalist invoke "the spirit of the sixties" or "the spirit of science" or "the Blitz spirit", since there is no such thing as a spirit in his universe, not even as a metaphor. Because what would it be a metaphor for, anyway? Does he really believe radicalism was unique to the sixties, or fortitude was unique to the Blitz? Or that either of those emotions are anything but a combination of glands, hormones and circumstances?
On the subject of the permissive society, Sheridan writes: "Today's children...will take their places easily and naturally in the brave new world; the world which regards contraception as "a sort of polio vaccine designed to deal with the disease of procreation" and sex as a game without rules; a world in which promiscuity is the accepted ethic...a world in which blue films get bluer and bluer and even the prestigious Sunday papers publish material which would have led to prosecution thirty years ago; a world which accords pornography the status of a legitimate industry supplying a clamant human need; a world in which copulation-- real or stimulated-- may be watched on stage and screen, and in which the sex motif sells everything from central heating to bubble gum. Whether the permissive society will become still more permissive in time (and as things stand it does not even stop short at murder) is an open question, but now that its recruiting sergeants are at work in the schools the future is anyone's guess."
I wonder what Sheridan would think of today's society? Have we become even more permissive? I think it's an open question. We are probably all increasingly educated about a whole range of perversions, but somehow I feel that the straight-faced seediness of the sixties and seventies has receded. I recently watched a film from the seventies-- The Fog by John Carpenter-- in which a female hitchhiker is picked up by a male driver, late at night. That we soon see them lying in bed together can be guessed; the fact that they only exchange names afterwards is rather more surprising. At least, it's surprising today. I'm guessing it might have been less so to an audience at the time.
I believe that the longing for love, romance and commitment continues to reassert itself, if only as an ideal. The romantic comedy heroine might sleep around, but the audience still demands that she swear faithfulness before the credits roll. And the oh-so-serious sexual radicalism of the Age of Aquarius has, in our day, been replaced by the smirking irony of Graham Norton and his ilk. I am grateful for small mercies.
We can guess what the defenders of Fr. Tony Flannery and Fr. Brian D'Arcy, both priests recently censured by the Vatican, would think of this passage (which concerns apostate rather than dissident priests):
"Since Vatican II the Church's attitude to deserters, and especially to priest deserters, has been one of the utmost compassion. One wonders, however, if this leaning backwards towards mercy and understanding has been altogether prudent, especially as many of those concerned have made full use of the printing press and the television screen to pose as heroic souls who have seen the light. Compassion for apostates must not blind us to the fact that apostasy is the most horrendous of treasons."
A chapter entitled "The Population Explosion", full of statistics, proved tough reading for me. I've always felt that statistics are the worst of all arguments, since they can so easily be disputed. And yet we cannot avoid them at times. The subject of "overpopulation" and the Catholic Church's supposed contribution to it is very tricky terrain, since it cannot be answered simply by analysing concepts, but must involve delving into demographics.
The next chapter, which takes in family planning, contraception, and euthanasia, contains a rather prescient passage: "If we may snuff out new life early without qualms of conscience, we are equally entitled to take steps to ensure that those who are so old that they have become a burden to themselves and to society should be snuffed out when they have outstayed their welcome and become a strain on our resources- preferably, but not necessarily, with their own consent, and in these twilight hours the question of consent will be misty on one side at least. Indeed, if the quality of life is what counts, the case for euthanasia is open and shut, for people are living longer nowadays, the number of pensioners are increasing, and there are limits to what wage-and-salary earners can provide for their support withotu disrupting the national economy."
And the last words of the chapter make the overall point with ringing clarity: "Either [life] is sacred, God-given, and inviolable, or it is not; and both abortion and euthanasia are logical corollaries of that death-wish we call contraception". There is an infinite gulf between the sacredness of life and its mere preciousness. A teddy-bear can be "precious".
The book is sprinkled with references to Communism and the Soviet Union, which obviously date it now, but also give us pause for thought. There was something strangely comforting in the existence of the Evil Empire-- though not, of course, for its citizens. It was a visible and tangible antagonist, the embodiment of all the forces that were assailing Christendom. Now the Evil Empire is gone, but the forces of anti-Christianity have lost none of their vitality. The conservative author Peter Hitchens believes that the West's radical left-- or cultural revolutionaries, as he terms them-- were actually liberated by the fall of the USSR. No longer need they be embarrassed by gulags and secret police and the spectacle of a real Revolution at work. No longer would they have to defend the indefensible.
Another regrettable legacy of the Cold War is that conservatism came to be equated with individualism, private enterprise and economic freedom above all else. Strangely enough, this tendency seems to have only increased since the fall of communism, as though the partisans of the free market and of unlimited personal license are still tilting against the ghosts of Stalin and Kruschev-- rather than the more real and impersonal forces of dissolution all around us, forces which often hitch a ride on the tailcoats of the free market.
The Hungry Sheep ends on an admirably Christological note:
"In seeing God, and in knowing and loving Him, we shall see what makes us different one from another, and how we are all-- in the mass and as individuals-- linked with Him and loved by Him. We shall also see ourselves for the first time, for we shall see ourselves in Him, and it is only in Him that we are really meaningful. He must increase and we must decrease, but our decrease will not be a shrinking nor a diminution. In Christ, our pilgrimage ended, we shall reach our full stature. Our selfhood will be complete and intelligible; and in the end, as Augustine says, there will only be one Christ, loving Himself."
Amen!
I fervently wish that we had more books like The Hungry Sheep. I think it is time for Veritas Publications, and other religious publishers, to stop putting out books with titles like What Being Catholic Means to Me and start putting out more books like the one recently written by Michael Coren, the Canadian broadcaster, under the title Why Catholics are Right.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Lovely Article by Breda O'Brien in the Irish Catholic this week...
...although I think the headline, "The Church I go on Loving Despite it All", is rather inappropriate and doesn't reflect the text. Maybe it reflects the editorial outlook of The Irish Catholic.
I liked it for its frankness and even its vulnerability. I think Catholic writers certainly have to be able to mix it with anti-Catholic and anti-religious bruisers and there is a crying need for the bullish apologist. But I think that it is the still, small voice that often reaches where the bombardment of heavy-duty philosophical and historical arguments can't.
She begins: "Recently, I was asked to give a talk on being a Catholic in Ireland today. The request got me thinking about what Catholicism means to me, and why it would be extremely difficult to imagine my life without my Catholic faith."
She then goes on to make what I think is a refreshing and disarming admission: "If I had been raised as a Muslim, there is a high probability that I would have been a devout Muslim. I think some people are more inclined to a spiritual or religious outlook on life."
Sceptics so often present this argument as if it was devastating. "If you were born in Pakistan, you'd be just as confident that Islam was true as you are that Christianity is true! If you'd been raised a Mormon, you'd find excuses for all the anachronisms in the Book of Mormon and all the hypocrisies of Joseph Smith, just like you explain away all the dark parts of Catholic history now!"
Of course, counter-factual claims can never be tested, so the sceptic is taking rather a cheap shot. But I do in fact acknowledge the basic truth of the claim. I'd like to think that, whatever religion I had been born to, or even if I had been born into a secular family, I would have found my way to the Catholic faith. But I am not entirely confident of this. It seems to me it would take an enormous independence of thought to reach Catholicism from a devoutly Hindu or Sikh or Muslim background. It's impossible to know.
Is this simply admitting, tacitly if not explicitly, that all religions are basically the same and they are all-- at best-- clumsy but poignant attempts to express the mystery at the heart of life?
No, absolutely not. I believe unreservedly that Catholicism is the true faith, for all that other faiths contain glimmers of the truth. It is perfectly logical to believe that what you believe is true, while accepting that you might have believed differently if your circumstances had been difficult. A twenty-first century liberal could whole-heartedly believe that slavery is wrong while accepting that he would have thought differently if he had been a fifth-century BC Athenian.
But it goes further than this, for me. I never had sympathy with the sceptic's argument that a just Deity would have revealed himself to all mankind at once, and have given each human an equal chance to come to the Truth. How boringly rationalistic that would be! How great a loss it would be to miss out on all those thrilling tales of missionaries and revivals and Road to Damascus moments! I prefer the drama of the Acts of the Apostles to some kind of divine Public Service Broadcast screened all over the world at the same time.
Breda O'Brien goes on to write: "People who incline to intellectual atheism are often unable to identify with the mystical aspects of religion...attemps to talk about a relationship with God evoke a baffled response, akin to embarrassment, as if an adult still sucked her thumb. It's as if I were talking a different language. Perhaps I am."
How familiar a situation this is to most religious believers today! Outside the ranks of New Atheist boors, most non-believers are polite and respectful and recognize that a person's religious faith is of supreme importance to them. They tend to humour us rather than challenge us. There often even seems to be a kind of admiration or benign envy at play.
In a way, this reaction is more of a challenge to the religious believer than the zealotry of the New Atheist. The pathological Church-basher and antagonist of religion seems so obviously to be repressing a spiritual hunger that he is almost making our case for us. Encountering anti-Catholicism tends to buoy up my own faith. Encountering good-humoured unbelief is rather more disarming.
And yet, it usually seems to me that those who seem indifferent to religion feel the religious impulse in another form. Very often they are enraptured by music or art or perhaps devotion to some cause. I sincerely believe that, if they really thought about these insights into the sublime, they would realise that they are actually calls to worship. Nothing human, nothing historical or conditional, can take the weight of human yearning, or the human tendency to complete devotion. I think even a collector of vintage cars is ultimately seeking the sacred.
Futher in the article, Ms O'Brien makes another excellent point: "More importantly, I love churches for their sense of presence. It is not only the combined energy of all the human beings who have come to pray there, but a sense of a greater presence. Presence is a vital concept in our world, where so many people are scattered and distracted. People who are really present are rare, and precious. Naturally, a place with a sense of the presence of God is even more treasured."
Ironically, the writer who probably best expressed my own feelings about churches was the atheist, Philip Larkin, in his poem Church-Going. He hit the bull's-eye with the line: "A serious house on serious earth it is." Churches are serious places-- and how our souls cry out for seriousness! How much of the fun and hilarity and irony and pleasure-seeking in our society is, in reality, an expression of despair! There is certainly a place for mirth in this world, but joy-- true, deep and overwhelming joy-- is a serious, even a solemn thing.
Somehow, I feel that my joy in everything is centred in the tabernacle of a Catholic church. I quite often get bored during Mass and my mind regularly wanders during the liturgy. But, at the same time, I feel that this holy place is the hearth of all human life, that it spreads warmth and light and comfort through every other element of existence. (I eat my post-Mass breakfast with more relish than any other breakfast.) Somehow, the magic of the darkened cinema and the exciting gloom of early mornings in winter and the carnival atmosphere of a crowded, sun-spangled street in summer all seem to depend upon the existence of churches. My joy in a deserted beach or a cluttered second-hand bookshop or a cosy pub rests on the knowledge that, at that very moment, all over the world, the Lord's Supper is being celebrated. Knowing that raises all the fun and frivolity and feverishness to a higher level. It's a very difficult feeling to express.
Another excellent point that Breda O'Brien makes is that "human nature is such that unless it has something powerfully attractive drawing it beyond itself, it declines into hedonism, boredom and cruelty." Absolutely. There is no equilibrium. Those who attack Christianity think they are dealing it a crushing blow when they point out how pitifully short Christians fall of their own ideals. But should we really lower our moral standards to make it easier for ourselves? It is our nature to strive. If we are not striving to love God and our neighbour (and doubtless failing miserably) we are soon striving to outdo our neighbour and become God.
This paragraph is quite brilliant: "When I am gazing at my own navel, nothing makes sense, and the world is dull and painful. When I am gazing at the beauty of stars, nothing makes sense, either, but things do not make sense in a mysterious, reassuring, and fascinating way."
Religious people are often criticized for needing a cut-and-dried philosophy of life, for taking refuge from uncertainty in dogma. It seems to me that religion opens up the world more than any non-religious philosophy. It exposes us even more nakedly to mystery. Scientific materialism, liberalism, Marxism, anarchism, nationalism-- all those merely human outlooks seem so settled and tidy. But the voice of religion is like the voice of God in the Book of Job, or the apparently evasive answers that our Lord so often makes in the Gospels. It seems to explain the enigma of life by deepening it. And something deep within us responds; yes, this makes sense. This corresponds to the strangeness of life.
Breda O'Brien concludes: "It [the Church] is my still point in a turning world, and it is incredibly precious to me."
All too often, "spiritual" articles in Catholic publications are composed of little more than platitudes and "the warm fuzzies". That has its place, but it is too prevalent. It is so much more effective and powerful when a writer really examines his or her faith with an effort at objectivity. I also think articles like this might be better placed in the secular press, where I really think they might catch the attention of those who do not consider themselves religious, or who have drifted out of practicing their faith. In any case, hats off to Breda O'Brien!
And may the Holy Spirit shower graces on all of us this Pentecost!
P.S.: Holy cow! I just did an internet search on Breda O'Brien and was knocked over by all the vitriolic posts from left-feminist, secularist and otherwise embittered bloggers. Even the hatred heaped on David Quinn pales in comparison. I hope this post balances the ledger even a little bit-- in fact, that is one of the reasons I set up this blog. Far too many Irish bloggers seem to be consumed by hatred towards the Church. I'm hoping to provide some counterbalance.
I liked it for its frankness and even its vulnerability. I think Catholic writers certainly have to be able to mix it with anti-Catholic and anti-religious bruisers and there is a crying need for the bullish apologist. But I think that it is the still, small voice that often reaches where the bombardment of heavy-duty philosophical and historical arguments can't.
She begins: "Recently, I was asked to give a talk on being a Catholic in Ireland today. The request got me thinking about what Catholicism means to me, and why it would be extremely difficult to imagine my life without my Catholic faith."
She then goes on to make what I think is a refreshing and disarming admission: "If I had been raised as a Muslim, there is a high probability that I would have been a devout Muslim. I think some people are more inclined to a spiritual or religious outlook on life."
Sceptics so often present this argument as if it was devastating. "If you were born in Pakistan, you'd be just as confident that Islam was true as you are that Christianity is true! If you'd been raised a Mormon, you'd find excuses for all the anachronisms in the Book of Mormon and all the hypocrisies of Joseph Smith, just like you explain away all the dark parts of Catholic history now!"
Of course, counter-factual claims can never be tested, so the sceptic is taking rather a cheap shot. But I do in fact acknowledge the basic truth of the claim. I'd like to think that, whatever religion I had been born to, or even if I had been born into a secular family, I would have found my way to the Catholic faith. But I am not entirely confident of this. It seems to me it would take an enormous independence of thought to reach Catholicism from a devoutly Hindu or Sikh or Muslim background. It's impossible to know.
Is this simply admitting, tacitly if not explicitly, that all religions are basically the same and they are all-- at best-- clumsy but poignant attempts to express the mystery at the heart of life?
No, absolutely not. I believe unreservedly that Catholicism is the true faith, for all that other faiths contain glimmers of the truth. It is perfectly logical to believe that what you believe is true, while accepting that you might have believed differently if your circumstances had been difficult. A twenty-first century liberal could whole-heartedly believe that slavery is wrong while accepting that he would have thought differently if he had been a fifth-century BC Athenian.
But it goes further than this, for me. I never had sympathy with the sceptic's argument that a just Deity would have revealed himself to all mankind at once, and have given each human an equal chance to come to the Truth. How boringly rationalistic that would be! How great a loss it would be to miss out on all those thrilling tales of missionaries and revivals and Road to Damascus moments! I prefer the drama of the Acts of the Apostles to some kind of divine Public Service Broadcast screened all over the world at the same time.
Breda O'Brien goes on to write: "People who incline to intellectual atheism are often unable to identify with the mystical aspects of religion...attemps to talk about a relationship with God evoke a baffled response, akin to embarrassment, as if an adult still sucked her thumb. It's as if I were talking a different language. Perhaps I am."
How familiar a situation this is to most religious believers today! Outside the ranks of New Atheist boors, most non-believers are polite and respectful and recognize that a person's religious faith is of supreme importance to them. They tend to humour us rather than challenge us. There often even seems to be a kind of admiration or benign envy at play.
In a way, this reaction is more of a challenge to the religious believer than the zealotry of the New Atheist. The pathological Church-basher and antagonist of religion seems so obviously to be repressing a spiritual hunger that he is almost making our case for us. Encountering anti-Catholicism tends to buoy up my own faith. Encountering good-humoured unbelief is rather more disarming.
And yet, it usually seems to me that those who seem indifferent to religion feel the religious impulse in another form. Very often they are enraptured by music or art or perhaps devotion to some cause. I sincerely believe that, if they really thought about these insights into the sublime, they would realise that they are actually calls to worship. Nothing human, nothing historical or conditional, can take the weight of human yearning, or the human tendency to complete devotion. I think even a collector of vintage cars is ultimately seeking the sacred.
Futher in the article, Ms O'Brien makes another excellent point: "More importantly, I love churches for their sense of presence. It is not only the combined energy of all the human beings who have come to pray there, but a sense of a greater presence. Presence is a vital concept in our world, where so many people are scattered and distracted. People who are really present are rare, and precious. Naturally, a place with a sense of the presence of God is even more treasured."
Ironically, the writer who probably best expressed my own feelings about churches was the atheist, Philip Larkin, in his poem Church-Going. He hit the bull's-eye with the line: "A serious house on serious earth it is." Churches are serious places-- and how our souls cry out for seriousness! How much of the fun and hilarity and irony and pleasure-seeking in our society is, in reality, an expression of despair! There is certainly a place for mirth in this world, but joy-- true, deep and overwhelming joy-- is a serious, even a solemn thing.
Somehow, I feel that my joy in everything is centred in the tabernacle of a Catholic church. I quite often get bored during Mass and my mind regularly wanders during the liturgy. But, at the same time, I feel that this holy place is the hearth of all human life, that it spreads warmth and light and comfort through every other element of existence. (I eat my post-Mass breakfast with more relish than any other breakfast.) Somehow, the magic of the darkened cinema and the exciting gloom of early mornings in winter and the carnival atmosphere of a crowded, sun-spangled street in summer all seem to depend upon the existence of churches. My joy in a deserted beach or a cluttered second-hand bookshop or a cosy pub rests on the knowledge that, at that very moment, all over the world, the Lord's Supper is being celebrated. Knowing that raises all the fun and frivolity and feverishness to a higher level. It's a very difficult feeling to express.
Another excellent point that Breda O'Brien makes is that "human nature is such that unless it has something powerfully attractive drawing it beyond itself, it declines into hedonism, boredom and cruelty." Absolutely. There is no equilibrium. Those who attack Christianity think they are dealing it a crushing blow when they point out how pitifully short Christians fall of their own ideals. But should we really lower our moral standards to make it easier for ourselves? It is our nature to strive. If we are not striving to love God and our neighbour (and doubtless failing miserably) we are soon striving to outdo our neighbour and become God.
This paragraph is quite brilliant: "When I am gazing at my own navel, nothing makes sense, and the world is dull and painful. When I am gazing at the beauty of stars, nothing makes sense, either, but things do not make sense in a mysterious, reassuring, and fascinating way."
Religious people are often criticized for needing a cut-and-dried philosophy of life, for taking refuge from uncertainty in dogma. It seems to me that religion opens up the world more than any non-religious philosophy. It exposes us even more nakedly to mystery. Scientific materialism, liberalism, Marxism, anarchism, nationalism-- all those merely human outlooks seem so settled and tidy. But the voice of religion is like the voice of God in the Book of Job, or the apparently evasive answers that our Lord so often makes in the Gospels. It seems to explain the enigma of life by deepening it. And something deep within us responds; yes, this makes sense. This corresponds to the strangeness of life.
Breda O'Brien concludes: "It [the Church] is my still point in a turning world, and it is incredibly precious to me."
All too often, "spiritual" articles in Catholic publications are composed of little more than platitudes and "the warm fuzzies". That has its place, but it is too prevalent. It is so much more effective and powerful when a writer really examines his or her faith with an effort at objectivity. I also think articles like this might be better placed in the secular press, where I really think they might catch the attention of those who do not consider themselves religious, or who have drifted out of practicing their faith. In any case, hats off to Breda O'Brien!
And may the Holy Spirit shower graces on all of us this Pentecost!
P.S.: Holy cow! I just did an internet search on Breda O'Brien and was knocked over by all the vitriolic posts from left-feminist, secularist and otherwise embittered bloggers. Even the hatred heaped on David Quinn pales in comparison. I hope this post balances the ledger even a little bit-- in fact, that is one of the reasons I set up this blog. Far too many Irish bloggers seem to be consumed by hatred towards the Church. I'm hoping to provide some counterbalance.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
My Letter in the Irish Times yesterday
I had a letter in the Irish Times yesterday, responding to a Fintan O'Toole article:
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole (Opinion, May 1st) is entirely right when he criticises the Catholic Church in Ireland for its former slowness to react to clerical child abuse, and entirely wrong when he criticises it for disciplining priests who question defined Catholic doctrine – this too, let it be noted, hardly done with lightning speed, considering how long many of these figures have been undermining orthodox teaching.
He calls the Catholic Church “stupid” and says “it is doing a far better job of destroying itself than its worst enemies could dream of.” But the truth is that the Catholic Church existed long before any of the fashionable causes O’Toole espouses, and will continue to exist and flourish long after those causes are a footnote in history.
Perhaps the church’s critics might open their minds enough to accept that such an ancient institution has learned to look beyond the catch-cries of the moment in favour of enduring truths? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole (Opinion, May 1st) is entirely right when he criticises the Catholic Church in Ireland for its former slowness to react to clerical child abuse, and entirely wrong when he criticises it for disciplining priests who question defined Catholic doctrine – this too, let it be noted, hardly done with lightning speed, considering how long many of these figures have been undermining orthodox teaching.
He calls the Catholic Church “stupid” and says “it is doing a far better job of destroying itself than its worst enemies could dream of.” But the truth is that the Catholic Church existed long before any of the fashionable causes O’Toole espouses, and will continue to exist and flourish long after those causes are a footnote in history.
Perhaps the church’s critics might open their minds enough to accept that such an ancient institution has learned to look beyond the catch-cries of the moment in favour of enduring truths? – Yours, etc,
Friday, April 13, 2012
Whatever Happened to the New Atheists?
William Reville has an article in this week’s Irish Catholic headed “Religion is not Anti-Scientific”. It goes over some very well-trodden ground indeed (has anybody anything original left to say on this subject?), but what struck me was the very first line: “The New Atheists claim that religion is inherently anti-scientific...”
The New Atheists! Remember them? Richard Dawkins, the biologist. Christopher Hitchens, the journalist. Dan Dennett, the philosopher of mind. Sam Harris, a professional atheist with no other obvious claim to fame. AC Grayling, the British philosopher. Philip Pullman, the writer of children's fantasies who drew on Milton and Dante to attack the central doctrine of those authors. PZ Myers, a particularly nasty science blogger who profaned the Eucharist for kicks. And a whole supporting cast of sympathizers, some of whom had been damning and blasting religious belief for decades, but who suddenly seemed to have caught the wind of the zeitgeist; the Amazing Randi, Stephen Fry, Ian McEwan, Ian McEllan, Terry Pratchett, Ricky Gervais, and a whole gaggle of other notables-- not to mention an apparently innumerable swarm of bloggers, protestors, letter-writers and lurkers on various internet sites.
To mangle Byron:
We counted them at break of day--
And when the sun set, where were they?
I shouldn’t be too flippant, as one of their luminaries (Christopher Hitchens) tragically died last year. But even before that the movement seemed to be losing steam, and now it seems downright quaint to hear the name invoked in the first sentence of a newspaper article. I think the New Atheists have joined the Y2K bug , video nasties and Swine Flu in the Museum of Failed Apocalypses.
And that they were an apocalyptic movement is beyond doubt. They may not have heralded a literal end of the world, but they certainly seemed to proclaim the end of one era in human history and the dawning of another (although backward people in poor, ill-educated parts of the world might have been expected to take some time to catch up).
Scientific rationalism was now the gold standard of knowledge, and reason was by definition anti-supernatural. Religion wasn’t just an embarrassment, it was potentially lethal. If someone thought they were in touch with a supernatural entity, after all, what limit could logically apply to their nuttiness? The apple-cheeked old lady at the parish cake sale was a not-so-distant relative of Osama Bin Laden.
Rudeness towards believers was not only permitted, it was positively a duty. There had been too much wishy-washy tolerance. The searing light of rationality would penetrate into all the murky corners of supersition, and soon nobody would get away with proclaiming a belief in the soul, miracles, Providence, or grace. It would not even be allowed as a pious fiction or a figure of speech.
What amazes me in retrospect is how much their clamour intimidated me. I was a religiously-inclined agnostic when I read Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, the anti-Bible of the New Atheists. Even at the time of reading it, before I started really delving into the arguments for and against religious belief, I found its logic unconvincing. (I also had no idea, before reading it, that the scientific case for religion was so strong—even in attempting to rubbish it, Dawkins couldn’t help publicizing it.)
But it wasn’t the logic or the arguments that hit me in the solar plexus. It was the bitterness of the rhetoric, and also its confidence. The message was stark: religion was to be driven beyond the pale. Faith in God was no longer intellectually, culturally or socially respectable.
And for a while, it really seemed like that.
But now, the spell seems to have been broken.
The would-be blockbuster film taken from Philip Pulman's atheistic fantasy, The Golden Compass, flopped at the box office, while Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia-- all fantasy franchises with an unabashed Christian message-- triumphed.
The Pope visited Britain and Germany, to almost universal acclaim. Predicted widespread protests turned out to be a damp squib.
The recent Irish census revealed that nine out of ten Irish-born people consider themselves Catholics. Not many more than five per cent described themselves as non-religious, and the high-profile campaign of Irish atheist groups encouraging respondents specify that they were atheist or agnostic (there was apparently no box for this on the census itself) only resulted in about three thousand such declarations.
All of the candidates in the Presidential election supported the broadcasting of the Angelus bells on RTE. Even the liberal candidates spoke of their spiritual values.
I visited the GPO over Christmas, and was happy to see the Christmas crib still enjoying pride of place, despite grumblings about this from God-bashers.
The closing of the Irish embassy to the Vatican has drawn a backlash from the public way beyond what might have been expected.
Every other day, it seems, there are lively discussions on religion, especially the Catholic faith, on the opinion page of the Irish Times. The topic seems an almost ever-present in the Letters to the Editor section. Is the interpretation of Christ's message, in our day, any less a matter for burning public debate as it was in the time of Newman and the Oxford Movement?
A new RTE radio show on religion, the God Slot, has proved very popular, while the BBC have produced an acclaimed documentary on the lives of Catholics that apparently (I have not seen it) is sympathetic and objective in tone.
Even in the field of British comedy-- apparently a New Atheist bastion if ever there was one, with the likes of Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, Simon Pegg, Alan Davies, David Baddiel, and many others making rather a meal out of their unbelief-- there has been a change in the wind. Frank Skinner has recently appeared on stage with the Archbishop of Canterbury, while the situation comedy Rev takes faith seriously and has won prizes and rave reviews, as well as cameo appearances from stars like Ralph Fiennes and Richard E. Grant.
So the mood seems to have changed, and to reveal that the moment of the New Atheists, after all, was only that-- a mood.
What lesson to draw? Simply, I think, that believers should not be too impressed by these ebbs and flows of public opinion. I am reminded of these lines by GK Chesterton, from a poem dedicated to his friend Edmund Bentley, in which he remembers the rationalism and decadence of the Victorian era in which he grew up:
A cloud was on the mind of men
And wailing went the weather,
Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul
When we were boys together.
Science announced nonentity
And art admired decay;
The world was old and ended:
But you and I were gay...
Life was a fly that faded,
And death a drone that stung;
The world was very old indeed
When you and I were young.
(...)
This is a tale of those old fears,
Even of those emptied hells,
And none but you shall understand
The true thing that it tells—
Of what colossal gods of shame
Could cow men and yet crash,
Of what huge devils hid the stars,
Yet fell at a pistol flash.
The New Atheists! Remember them? Richard Dawkins, the biologist. Christopher Hitchens, the journalist. Dan Dennett, the philosopher of mind. Sam Harris, a professional atheist with no other obvious claim to fame. AC Grayling, the British philosopher. Philip Pullman, the writer of children's fantasies who drew on Milton and Dante to attack the central doctrine of those authors. PZ Myers, a particularly nasty science blogger who profaned the Eucharist for kicks. And a whole supporting cast of sympathizers, some of whom had been damning and blasting religious belief for decades, but who suddenly seemed to have caught the wind of the zeitgeist; the Amazing Randi, Stephen Fry, Ian McEwan, Ian McEllan, Terry Pratchett, Ricky Gervais, and a whole gaggle of other notables-- not to mention an apparently innumerable swarm of bloggers, protestors, letter-writers and lurkers on various internet sites.
To mangle Byron:
We counted them at break of day--
And when the sun set, where were they?
I shouldn’t be too flippant, as one of their luminaries (Christopher Hitchens) tragically died last year. But even before that the movement seemed to be losing steam, and now it seems downright quaint to hear the name invoked in the first sentence of a newspaper article. I think the New Atheists have joined the Y2K bug , video nasties and Swine Flu in the Museum of Failed Apocalypses.
And that they were an apocalyptic movement is beyond doubt. They may not have heralded a literal end of the world, but they certainly seemed to proclaim the end of one era in human history and the dawning of another (although backward people in poor, ill-educated parts of the world might have been expected to take some time to catch up).
Scientific rationalism was now the gold standard of knowledge, and reason was by definition anti-supernatural. Religion wasn’t just an embarrassment, it was potentially lethal. If someone thought they were in touch with a supernatural entity, after all, what limit could logically apply to their nuttiness? The apple-cheeked old lady at the parish cake sale was a not-so-distant relative of Osama Bin Laden.
Rudeness towards believers was not only permitted, it was positively a duty. There had been too much wishy-washy tolerance. The searing light of rationality would penetrate into all the murky corners of supersition, and soon nobody would get away with proclaiming a belief in the soul, miracles, Providence, or grace. It would not even be allowed as a pious fiction or a figure of speech.
What amazes me in retrospect is how much their clamour intimidated me. I was a religiously-inclined agnostic when I read Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, the anti-Bible of the New Atheists. Even at the time of reading it, before I started really delving into the arguments for and against religious belief, I found its logic unconvincing. (I also had no idea, before reading it, that the scientific case for religion was so strong—even in attempting to rubbish it, Dawkins couldn’t help publicizing it.)
But it wasn’t the logic or the arguments that hit me in the solar plexus. It was the bitterness of the rhetoric, and also its confidence. The message was stark: religion was to be driven beyond the pale. Faith in God was no longer intellectually, culturally or socially respectable.
And for a while, it really seemed like that.
But now, the spell seems to have been broken.
The would-be blockbuster film taken from Philip Pulman's atheistic fantasy, The Golden Compass, flopped at the box office, while Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia-- all fantasy franchises with an unabashed Christian message-- triumphed.
The Pope visited Britain and Germany, to almost universal acclaim. Predicted widespread protests turned out to be a damp squib.
The recent Irish census revealed that nine out of ten Irish-born people consider themselves Catholics. Not many more than five per cent described themselves as non-religious, and the high-profile campaign of Irish atheist groups encouraging respondents specify that they were atheist or agnostic (there was apparently no box for this on the census itself) only resulted in about three thousand such declarations.
All of the candidates in the Presidential election supported the broadcasting of the Angelus bells on RTE. Even the liberal candidates spoke of their spiritual values.
I visited the GPO over Christmas, and was happy to see the Christmas crib still enjoying pride of place, despite grumblings about this from God-bashers.
The closing of the Irish embassy to the Vatican has drawn a backlash from the public way beyond what might have been expected.
Every other day, it seems, there are lively discussions on religion, especially the Catholic faith, on the opinion page of the Irish Times. The topic seems an almost ever-present in the Letters to the Editor section. Is the interpretation of Christ's message, in our day, any less a matter for burning public debate as it was in the time of Newman and the Oxford Movement?
A new RTE radio show on religion, the God Slot, has proved very popular, while the BBC have produced an acclaimed documentary on the lives of Catholics that apparently (I have not seen it) is sympathetic and objective in tone.
Even in the field of British comedy-- apparently a New Atheist bastion if ever there was one, with the likes of Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, Simon Pegg, Alan Davies, David Baddiel, and many others making rather a meal out of their unbelief-- there has been a change in the wind. Frank Skinner has recently appeared on stage with the Archbishop of Canterbury, while the situation comedy Rev takes faith seriously and has won prizes and rave reviews, as well as cameo appearances from stars like Ralph Fiennes and Richard E. Grant.
So the mood seems to have changed, and to reveal that the moment of the New Atheists, after all, was only that-- a mood.
What lesson to draw? Simply, I think, that believers should not be too impressed by these ebbs and flows of public opinion. I am reminded of these lines by GK Chesterton, from a poem dedicated to his friend Edmund Bentley, in which he remembers the rationalism and decadence of the Victorian era in which he grew up:
A cloud was on the mind of men
And wailing went the weather,
Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul
When we were boys together.
Science announced nonentity
And art admired decay;
The world was old and ended:
But you and I were gay...
Life was a fly that faded,
And death a drone that stung;
The world was very old indeed
When you and I were young.
(...)
This is a tale of those old fears,
Even of those emptied hells,
And none but you shall understand
The true thing that it tells—
Of what colossal gods of shame
Could cow men and yet crash,
Of what huge devils hid the stars,
Yet fell at a pistol flash.
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