This is the paper from January of 2007 that gave me the title for this blog, "Worshiping at the Church of Non-Realism." Your comments are appreciated.
At the conclusion of his recent book, "The God Problem: Alternatives to Fundamentalism," Nigel Leaves asks whether God is real or simply a (non-real) symbol of our ultimate concern. He finds the non-realism advocated by Don Cupitt and Lloyd Geering more intellectually compelling, but the realism upheld by Marcus Borg and Bishop John Spong more emotionally appealing. Like them, many of us feel the need for a real God.
However, today even in the face of this yearning, Cupitt writes in "The Old Creed and the New," the great faith traditions, including Christianity, are rapidly breaking down and melting away, particularly in the West. Many people are no longer moved and motivated by traditional religion. The upsurge in virulent fundamentalism that would maintain the old supernatural religion with its real God is a clear sign of the challenge of non-realism. However, many people are dissatisfied with fundamentalism or other forms of traditional religion, because they no longer provide reliable answers and assurances in daily life or a convincing picture of a life after this one. As a result, non-realism is a popular default religious position for many people who have left the churches.
That said, thoroughgoing non-realism has been a hard sell, and Cupitt’s sales pitch can seem bleak: Nothing exists outside this world except (following Nietzsche) the Void. We are of this world and live and die in it. We can not observe God outside this life or demonstrate God by scientific experiment. No better (or worse) otherworld with promises of a perfect, everlasting life after this life, as conjured up by traditional religion’s supernatural picture, can shield us from the Void. To think that we can know God in heaven or in another realm not of this world in the way we know facts here in this world is an illusion. With the rise of rational enquiry from within the religious traditions, science and technology have come to dominate our thinking, leaving little inclination for supernatural explanations. And yet, along with Peggy Lee, we ask: “Is that all there is?”
The Church as the Theater of Feelings
Cupitt has been a reformer, not a despiser of the Church, such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, or Sam Harris. Cupitt has always encouraged us to become more consciously religious; he urges us to remain in the Church, but keep our eyes open, making, as he writes in "Radicals and the Future of the Church," the church our (his emphasis) work of art. He writes that the church is needed because “It is a theatre in which we solemnly enact our deepest feelings.”
The theatre analogy points to how non-realism could work in real churches. When we go to the theatre we usually naturally and easily suspend disbelief to enter into the world of the actors who by speech and action on stage in turn evoke in us actions, feelings, experiences and thoughts. So, likewise, during a religious service we may also suspend disbelief, and have religious feelings and experiences.
Calvin wrote that each of us is an actor and God is the audience, but with the death of God and the disappearance of the supernatural from our scientific world, there is now no audience for the plays of our lives. But what if, instead, we are both actors and audience? What if, like Judy and Mickey and all the other kids, young and old, we run down to the old barn of the church and put on a play? We create the play of and about God and perform our creation for ourselves and the others with us who are also creators and performers? Then, God, who only lives if we manifest God, in the words of the old prayer, by our life and conversation, can appear again: this time in our play, both as playwright and performer. Of course, to encourage God’s appearance in our post-modern production, we will have to sprinkle ourselves liberally with the fairy dust of Paul Ricoeur’s post-critical naïveté to screen awhile our critical thinking.
That worship produces belief is an old idea. In "On Liturgical Theology," Aidan Kavanagh reminds us that orthodoxy means first “right worship” and only secondarily doctrinal accuracy. This implies that worship conceived broadly is what gives rise to theological reflection rather than the other way around. In the phrasing of Prosper of Aquitaine (c. 390 - 465), it is the law of worship which founds or establishes the law of belief. Belief does not come first, then worship, but rather worship produces belief.
Today, psychology is providing evidence that behavior, e.g., worship, produces feelings. For example, in "Feelings," James D. Laird argues that feelings do not cause behavior, but rather follow from behavior, and are, in fact, the way that we know about our own bodily states and behaviors. James W. Pennebaker points out that emotions, motivation, and other private feelings are inferred from our behaviors rather than being directly perceived. Stuart Walton writes in "A Natural History of Human Emotions" that this idea goes back at least to Charles Darwin, who in "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" (1872), contended that all humans everywhere have the same basic set of innate and constitutive emotions that are expressed by two kinds of muscular action: facial expression and bodily movement. We communicate these emotions to others often quite involuntarily as the result of instinct, rather than by learned behavior. Everyone worldwide recognizes and “reads” them similarly. Thus, we and those observing us may sense particular emotions while performing particular actions in worship, and, as Joseph Ledoux writes in "The Emotional Brain," emotions can produce conscious feelings, which, in turn, can lead to belief.
Viewing liturgy through the lens of non-realism, then brings meaning, a hallmark of belief, into focus. God can be the name and the marker for the meaning we find together in worship. God, as meaning, appears horizontally among worshipers; we understand that God in the vertical, supernatural direction is an exciting special effect produced as we together find God in our church of non-realism, in our theater of feelings.
But aren’t our feelings an unreliable basis for a real God? Yes, indeed. Feelings are erratic and fleeting, i. e., often they are over before they are identified or named. They come and go; they are conscious, but represent only some of our emotions, most of which are unconscious and not subject to our control. Thus, feelings, and more so, emotions, can be dangerous, which can heighten our anxiety. Furthermore, feelings can be hard to conceptualize, verbalize, and understand. They, like emotions, are virtually impossible to stop or control while happening and, once gone, may be hard or impossible to summon up again. Thus, feelings are like life as Cupitt describes it: finite, time-bound, contingent, unpredictable, transitory, and impermanent. Our feelings, quick, acute, and intuitive, tell us we are alive, and as insubstantial as feelings are, they are the basis of our life, our experience. They suffuse our experiences, including our religious experiences.
However, if our awareness of God comes from our feelings and experiences, we soon learn that supernatural ways of thinking “improve” our God experiences, preserving them perfectly and unchanging, as Peter would have done on the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus’ light shone before the disciples. But, of course, as Jesus knew, experiences can’t be preserved, but must be lived, even to death.
We yearn to be sure of something other than death, and, indeed, Cupitt writes, language is a sure basis for our philosophy and religion. Ordinary language (heightened in popular songs) is necessary for us to function as humans in society. Although language is the basis of society and religion, language is totally contingent, developing by trial and error, and open to continuing future change, evolving over (a long) time by consensus. We are born into a world where our language is a given, but it is a given hammered out by agreements arrived at by society’s members over the years, changing as new needs arise and old ones fade.
Therefore, using the theatrical analogy, our play of God is always in rewrite with many varied incarnations. One scenario, sketched here, presents some Christian concepts through the facial expressions, movements, and language of the actors, who thereby convey Darwin’s six basic, facially legible emotions -- happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise – using some of the physical indicators he identified. Other emotions or states of mind, including contempt (which Darwin gave indicators for), love, hope, and joy are mentioned, and even though the presentation of these may not be as clear as that of the basic six, they may be suggested with the addition of dialogue. The emotions, feelings, and experiences produced in church may be thought of and spoken of as religious. In keeping with Cupitt’s contention that people use ordinary language for their religious experiences, ordinary, non-religious, in preference to “religious,” language and songs are used as much as possible.
A Play for the Theater of Feelings
In this scenario, the play has a prologue, two acts, and a conclusion. In the prologue, we see God happy: smiling, laughing, dancing, and clapping, while drawing our attention to the nifty supernatural set, painted by the likes of Michelangelo and Chagall, and at the same time singing the anthem to non-realism: “Say, it's only a paper moon, Sailing over a cardboard sea, But it wouldn't be make believe, If you believed in me.”
In Act I, “By the River,” a presentation of feelings aroused by Rom 6: 3-11, we first see a roiling, fast moving, and apparently deep river with many people on the shore and in the water. Bullies are pulling, pushing or dragging others into the water and holding them under.
We sense the bullies’ contempt. They uncover their canine teeth on one side, snort, and turn up their noses as they manhandle their weaker fellows. We also know that the bullies are angry. Their faces are flushed, their eyes wide open, and their breathing accelerated. They grind their teeth, clench their fists, and incline their bodies towards their victims. We also see the bullies’ disgust by their wide opened mouths, their spitting, their blowing through protruded lips, and the retraction of their upper lips.
The tormented, struggling to the surface and breathing again, show, after the shock of the cold water, surprise at breathing again. They open their eyes and mouths wide and inhale suddenly. Of course, their flailing limbs and contorted expressions convey mainly fear. They are pale, breathe fast, and have dilated pupils and contracted neck muscles.
We in the audience empathize. We either cheer on the bullies or yell to those drowning to resist more vigorously. Of course, others may be drowning on their own without any bullying. Some, by their bold move into the river, convey misplaced self-confidence. Others look sad. The corners of their mouths are drawn down, they are pale, and their muscles and eyelids droop; they seem to be seeking drowning.
As this scene unfolds, we become aware of another group near the shore. By their calm expressions and open stance, they convey empathy for all, including the bullies, the tormented, the confident, the despairing, and all the rest in danger of drowning. They don’t turn away to avoid the perils of the river, but gesture in invitation to act as supporting guides for all those who would enter the river. Many of the guides are singing: “Yes, we’ll gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river, Gather with the saints at the river, That flows by the throne of God.” Some whom the guides put down into the river come up screaming at the shock of immersion. Others, before going in, show fear, cringing back from the deep, cold, rapidly rushing river and tensing up with possibility of going under, losing control, not being able to breath, suffocating, and dying. But some, who accept the invitation, show by their relaxation into their guides, a tentative, but growing trust and confidence that their loving guides, while putting them under, won’t abandon them as they are drowning. And, yes, some of these, upon being brought up, may show, by their tears of joy, happiness at being able to breathe again, to live again. Thus, this non-real drowning can engender as toward God real emotions and feelings of happiness and gratitude that people might feel upon being brought back to life from death.
Act II, “Walking, Talking, Breaking,” describes feelings upon reading Luke 24: 13-32. The first scene shows two people walking along a dusty road. Their slow pace, slumped shoulders, downcast expression, and desultory talk convey sadness. They are joined by a man who asks what they are discussing. The two continue to show sadness while telling him about the crucifixion of Jesus but soon show flashes of anger as they point out that his death, at the hands of both the Jewish and Roman authorities, has dashed their hopes that he would free Israel.
Now, added to their anger, is the memory of their surprise at the tale of some female followers of Jesus, who said that early that morning they saw his tomb empty and angels who said he was alive. The two walkers tell the stranger that other followers of Jesus also went to the tomb and found it empty but hadn’t seen him. As the walkers recount the women’s story to this male stranger, contempt replaces their surprise (“You know how these silly women are. They’re always seeing things.”) But they are still bewildered that the others have confirmed the empty tomb.
The stranger’s response is tinged with anger. He is provoked and irked by the walkers’ slowness to perceive the meaning of the crucifixion in light of the promise of Israel’s redemption. He shows exasperation at their distrust and refusal to imagine the Messiah’s glory. Their critical thinking has reinforced their fear of death and prevented them from entering into the women’s vision. For them, the promise is unreal; not yet non-real. They have not yet embraced their post-critical naïveté to allow them to experience the promise in their theater of feelings, where hope might contend with fear.
However, in the second scene, later at the walkers’ home, as they see the stranger breaking bread, their eyes are opened, and they know Jesus again, even as he vanishes. They have yet to name the emotion they sense: It is happiness, the physical indicators of which are the brightening of the eyes, a quickening of the circulation, and the coloring of the complexion. This is a good description of the physical correlates to their experience, described in Luke, of “our hearts burning within us,” as Jesus opened the promise to them.
But, of course, their experience was deeper than happiness; it was joy. As Huston Smith remarks about the early Christians in "The Soul of Christianity," “...they had laid hold of an inner peace that found expression in a joy that was uncontainable.” They radiated joy as the sun radiates light. Their post-critical naïveté, no longer fairy dust, now lit them from within. Cupitt writes that we, like them, should emulate the sun, which shines now without regard to whether it will shine in the future or whether it will shine again when it dies. So, in joy, we attempt to make Jesus’ words real: “...do not worry about your life...but strive first for the kingdom of God...”
As Jesus vanishes and our play concludes, we hear a voice: “The play is over.” The doors of the church swing open, and, as we leave, we look back and see the empty set where just awhile ago God sang and danced. Back in the real world, we will again grapple with sadness, anger, fear, disgust, contempt, surprise, and happiness. But, feeling God singing within us, we radiate joy.
Showing posts with label non-realism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non-realism. Show all posts
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Friday, March 30, 2007
On TV: “Kingdom of David: The Saga of the Israelites”
Last night on PBS, we watched “Kingdom of David: The Saga of the Israelites,” a PBS documentary. In about three and a half hours, the stories of the Jews are re-told, using fairly lively mise-en-scènes, voiceovers of actors reading biblical passages, and commentary from on-screen experts who provide context and insights. We move from the calling out of Abraham, to the Exodus, to Mt Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments, to the stories of David, to the Babylonian exile, to the return to Jerusalem, to the rise of the Pharisees, to the life of Jesus, to the destruction of the second temple, to the development of rabbinic Judaism and the Talmud, and to the growth of the Jewish Diaspora, fueled first by the Romans who expelled the Jews from Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple and then by Christians who became progressively more anti-Semitic as they sought to discredit and destroy Judaism, which they saw as a rival religion. The last section, “The Gifts of the Jews” shows how rabbinic Judaism with its emphasis on scripture study and vigorous debate about scripture’s meaning led to Judaism’s great gifts to the world: the rights of the individual and the rule of law.
This is not a conventional history about events, rulers, and dates although these themes are present. Instead the program focuses on how the telling of stories in a group can forge the group’s identity. In exile in Babylon, the Judeans from Jerusalem no longer had the temple as the center of their religious devotion, so, as not to lose their stories, they told them to each other and then wrote them down, beginning the development of the Hebrew Bible. When they returned to Jerusalem, they brought the stories with them and continued to tell them, even as the second temple became the center once more of Jewish devotion. With the destruction of the second temple, the teachers of scripture and tradition, the rabbis, realized slowly that if the Jews were to survive it would be as a people who followed the God brought to life through the stories in the Book, the Bible. So the Jews wherever they found themselves were the People of the Book.
The modern, almost Non-Realistic sensibility of the commentators was made clear by their pointing out that when the Temple stood, God was thought to be “really” present in the Temple. However, with the destruction of the Temple, where was God? The commentators suggest that in doing the will of God, particularly for others and, particularly for the most vulnerable in society, the “widow, the orphan, and the stranger,” we manifest God to ourselves and to others. So, by performing the commandants, we “re-present” God. The stories may indicate the God is “above the sky,” but we only experience God through performing and receiving acts of justice and mercy. This a great gift of understanding, indeed.
This is not a conventional history about events, rulers, and dates although these themes are present. Instead the program focuses on how the telling of stories in a group can forge the group’s identity. In exile in Babylon, the Judeans from Jerusalem no longer had the temple as the center of their religious devotion, so, as not to lose their stories, they told them to each other and then wrote them down, beginning the development of the Hebrew Bible. When they returned to Jerusalem, they brought the stories with them and continued to tell them, even as the second temple became the center once more of Jewish devotion. With the destruction of the second temple, the teachers of scripture and tradition, the rabbis, realized slowly that if the Jews were to survive it would be as a people who followed the God brought to life through the stories in the Book, the Bible. So the Jews wherever they found themselves were the People of the Book.
The modern, almost Non-Realistic sensibility of the commentators was made clear by their pointing out that when the Temple stood, God was thought to be “really” present in the Temple. However, with the destruction of the Temple, where was God? The commentators suggest that in doing the will of God, particularly for others and, particularly for the most vulnerable in society, the “widow, the orphan, and the stranger,” we manifest God to ourselves and to others. So, by performing the commandants, we “re-present” God. The stories may indicate the God is “above the sky,” but we only experience God through performing and receiving acts of justice and mercy. This a great gift of understanding, indeed.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
“Why Do We Believe?”: The Theological Implications
In the March 4th “New York Times Magazine,” Robin Marantz Henig explores “Why Do We Believe?” Her illuminating article presents evolutionary explanations for peoples’ belief in God. She also makes clear early on that the article does not probe the question of whether God exists. The quest for an answer to this age old question, she rightly maintains, is a matter for philosophers and theologians, and, indeed, the article leaves unexplored the theological implications of the exciting scientific information she presents. However, make no mistake; the explanations for our belief in God clearly have theological implications. From the explanations, it is possible, I think, to gain a picture of what God might be like if God were to exist and, further, the explanations point to the role we play in shaping our beliefs and making them more helpful for us.
Religion: a Byproduct of Evolution or an Adaptive Advantage?
Henig points out that although scientists studying the evolution of religion have different theories about how it came about, they mostly share one idea, namely, religion is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history. Beyond that, they tend to fall into two schools of thought when asking why religion evolved. Is belief itself adaptive, giving believers a better chance at reproduction and survival, or is belief a mere byproduct of certain other evolutionary steps in the development of the human brain. Henig presents these as opposing views, and they may well be, but I tend to think that we are at the early stages of the exploration of the evolution of religious belief. Maybe the more mature development of our thinking will in time contain elements of both points of view.
Religious belief is widespread among humans. One U.S. survey in 2006 found that 92% of those responding believed in a personal God. Darwin noted in his “The Descent of Man” that “A belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems universal.” Religions everywhere share certain supernatural beliefs: noncorporeal God or gods, an afterlife, and the ability of prayer to change the course of human events. And, in his “Varieties of Religious Experience,” William James asserted that “All of our raptures and our drynesses, and pantings, our questions and beliefs...are equally organically founded.” In other words, religion is deeply human; it’s part of our makeup for most of us. In fact, religious belief, and not a lack of it, appears to be the default position for the most human minds
But why? Those who maintain that religious belief is a byproduct of the evolution of our large brain propose that belief is a side consequence of the development of a structure of such complexity. Religious belief, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin have proposed, is a “spandrel,” a trait with no adaptive value of its own. A spandrel in architecture is the V-shaped structure formed between two rounded arches. It has no purpose on its own; rather, it comes into being when arches align.
But if religion is a spandrel, what is it a spandrel of? The byproduct explanation is that the hardships of early human life favored the evolution of certain cognitive tools, among which were the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm, to develop causal narratives for natural events, and to recognize that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires, and intentions. These abilities have been dubbed, respectively, agent detection, causal reasoning, and theory of mind.
Our ability to detect possible agents primes our brains to believe in the supernatural, even when such beliefs confound logic. For example, agent detection can cause us to detect, in a shape just outside our direct view, someone long dead or a spirit ready to help or harm us. A second cognitive tool, our causal reasoning, leads us to impose a narrative with chronology and cause-and-effect logic on whatever we encounter, no matter how apparently random, while the third tool, the theory of mind, lets us to posit the presence of minds in ourselves and others, even though we cannot see or feel them. Our belief that we and others have minds leads us to accept the visible body and the invisible mind as separate. From there, the religious step is to posit that minds need not be in bodies and that there is an immaterial soul and a transcendent God. Scott Atran, a researcher in the field of the evolution of religion, calls the theory of mind folkpsychology, and he proposes that we’ve used it since prehistory to get along in life. Using folkpsychology, we anticipate the actions of others and this leads us to influence others to believe what we want them to believe, as in marriage, office politics, or poker. People without this trait, for example, those with autism, are impaired, because they are unable to imagine themselves in other people’s heads. Folkpsychology clearly is necessary to succeed in life, but how or why does it lead so often to a belief in supernatural, omniscient minds? The proponents of the byproduct theory tend to think that these beliefs are of little use in finding food or producing more children, so why do they persist? Atran says that evolutionary changes that permit organisms to adapt better to their environment frequently are accompanied by byproducts. For example, blood is red not because red colored blood allows organisms to adapt better, but rather because the hemoglobin in the blood increases the chances for better adaptation. The redness of blood is a byproduct of the presence of hemoglobin, not an adaptive advantage. So, religion may be a byproduct of the three cognitive tools that have evolved allowing humans to adapt, survive, and reproduce and not an adaptive advantage in itself.
However, those who think that religion does indeed offer an adaptive advantage also point to folkpsychology to support their position. We try to make sense of other people partly by imagining what it is like to be them. This is adaptive, because it can help us to outwit our enemies and get more food and fitter mates. However, imagining being dead is essentially impossible; we can not fill our conscious with a representation of no-conscious. We can not think about nothing, nor can we imagine what it would be for us not to exist. It’s much easier to imagine that our thinking somehow continues after our death. Belief in the afterlife is prevalent because we are not able to simulate our nonexistence. Thus, adaptationists say, belief is our fallback position; it is our reflexive style of thought. We have the capacity to reason about unexpected natural events and to see deeper meaning where there is none.
Such a capacity could be adaptive because religious belief can make people feel better, less tormented by thoughts of death, more focused on the future, and more willing to take care of themselves. As William James wrote, religion fills people with “a new zest which adds itself like a gift to life...an assurance of safety and a temper of peace and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections.” Religion’s costs to the individual in time and devotion may be outweighed by the benefits to the individual’s group, which being cohesive and focused as a result of common belief, can better compete for scarce resources.
Scientist were at one time confident that science would in time answer all the questions that religion traditionally answered and God would become the “God of the gaps,” needed less and less to answer life’s questions. Now, however, science seems to be showing us that the real gap that God fills is the emptiness in our big-brained mental architecture that we interpret as a yearning for the supernatural. Our drive to satisfy this yearning, say both the adaptationists and the byproduct theorists, may be an inevitable part of what Atran calls the tragedy of human cognition.
Theological Implications of the Evolution of Religion
Atran’s invoking tragedy when referring to human cognition is significant. Perhaps he believes it’s tragic for humans to believe in God, someone who he believes doesn’t exist, who, he believes, the theory of evolution has shown to be nonexistent.
Atran’s remarks show us his metaphysical framework. Metaphysical frameworks are the trains of causal reasoning, the second cognitive tool discussed above, that we all use to impose a narrative with chronology and cause-and-effect logic on all we experience. The metaphysical framework from which many scientists work is called materialism. This position is essentially tragic because this framework does not supply meaning, purpose, or God to the workings of nature. In this view, life and the cosmos have no inherent meaning. Materialists have answered, “Yes” to Peggy Lee’s question, “Is that all there is?” God is dead, a relic from our collective childhood. Evolution is mindless with no guiding hand. For Atran, and many evolutionary materialists, time’s colossal reach, chance, and natural selection are all that is needed to provide an adequate picture of the universe. All natural occurrences can be deciphered exclusively in terms of a temporally prior series of mechanical causes. There is no need to look above to perfect Platonic ideal forms, we need but look to the cosmic past for the fullest explanation of all things.
Everyone has a metaphysical framework. Even maintaining that we have no metaphysical framework is to have one. Often our metaphysical framework comes out of unexamined assumptions, and, furthermore, our metaphysical framework is a choice we make, consciously or unconsciously, and we can change our metaphysical framework by re-thinking it. In “God After Darwin” (2000), John F. Haught presents a metaphysical framework for evolution that is an alternative to the common materialistic framework. Although his argument is nuanced, his metaphysics focuses on five major ideas: 1) There are orders of complexity in the universe, 2) information inheres in complexity, 3) novelty is possible because of contingency, 4) with novelty, evolution moves toward the future, 5) God “lets the world be,” so that evolution can occur.
Orders of Complexity: Nature exhibits hierarchies of complexity. Molecules contain atoms, organisms are made up of cells, and ecosystems are the contexts for lives of individual organisms. Furthermore, evidence is growing that the more complex cannot be completely understood by analyzing the simpler components of the systems. If we try to understand the more complex by merely reducing them to their simpler parts, we lose a crucial aspect of complexity: information.
Information: Haught uses “information” metaphorically as that which inheres in the ordering of entities, including atoms, molecules, cells, genes, etc. Information is something “more” than exchanges along the matter-energy continuum. Not physically separate, information is logically distinguishable from mass and energy, and, although it has neither mass nor energy, it patterns simpler components into hierarchically distinct domains. Obvious examples of information inhering in the chemical and physical “stuff” of life are DNA molecules. Chemically and physically the substance of all DNA molecules is more or less the same. The important differences among them are informational. The sequences of the four molecules making up the larger DNA molecules form a code, different for each organism, and this code provides the information to produce different individuals. The presence of information in nature is not mystical or supernatural, but it is distinct from the mechanical or material causes that most scientists have assumed until lately are the only causes needed to explain completely the operation of the universe. The presence of information in a system is verifiable, but cannot be reduced to a mechanistic model. It seems to abide in the realm of “possibility” waiting to be actualized in time.
An example from Taoism can illustrate the concept of information. Wu Cheng (1249-1333) wrote: “If it were not for the hollow space of the vessel to contain things, there would be no space for storage. If it were not for the vacuity of the room between the windows and doors for lights coming in and going out, there would be no place to live.” These ideas recall the spandrel concept discussed above. A spandrel can be neutral or it can take on a function. For example, building a staircase produces a space underneath it: just a blank triangular shape that is like a spandrel, i.e., a byproduct of the building of the intended object, in this example, a staircase. However, if a closet is built in that space, then the space takes on a function, and, although this function is unrelated to that of the staircase, it is useful, and, significantly, that added usefulness also increases the information inhering in the physical materials.
Novelty because of contingency: Contingency is a major aspect of evolution. Mutations, which are chance, contingent changes in organisms’ genetic make-up, make evolution possible. Those mutations that give organisms an adaptive advantage permit them to reproduce more and, with time and more advantageous mutations, their progeny become more dominant. However, the events of evolution cannot be predicted in advance for the very reason that they are contingent. Their contingency makes them novel, and the past is not a guide to new evolutionary events. For example, the emergence of life and consciousness could not have been predicted from even a close scrutiny of the early cosmic events. Contingency is not a mask for a hidden necessity dictated by past events but not yet understood. Rather, it is the way the cosmos breaks out of subordination to habitual routine and opens itself to the future.
With novelty, evolution moves toward the future: With the recognition of unpredictable novelty as a central feature of evolution, we can shift our metaphysical focus from the inexorable, predictable working out of necessary past conditions to the contemplation of the unpredictable, unknown future, filled with both threat and promise. This metaphysics of hope looks toward a future in which the apparent chaos now may resolve into more meaningful patterning in the “fullness of time,” in “God’s time.”
God “lets the world be,” permitting evolution: Haught is a theist, not a non-realist, but his theism is such that it has similarities with Cupitt’s non-realism. This is particularly apparent with regard to Cupitt’s solar ethics. Cupitt maintains that we are to shine in the world for others like the sun. The sun does not grasp but empties itself, living and dying at the same time, and in so doing serves us all. Such solar language recalls the great hymn to Jesus in Philippians 2 that starts in verse 5: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” Jürgen Moltmann argues that the creation of the universe itself is not so much a display of divine might as a consequence of God’s self-restraint. In order to create heaven and earth, God emptied Godself of God’s all-plenishing omnipotence, and as Creator took the form of a servant.
Calvin wrote that the world is a theater with God as the audience. This vision of God’s emptying is as if a “theater” has been provided where the drama of creation could take place. Like all good dramas, this play has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Science has sketched the outlines of the beginning of the world and the middle, our current time, but the future only God knows.
A view of God as the God of the future, suggests not a God “up there,” but a God “up ahead,” drawing the whole creation forward into the future. In being the God of the future, God does not “micromanage” as a designer, but rather gives the world room to be itself. The world emerges as separate from and uncontrolled by God. This metaphysical and theological framework provides a way of bringing meaning not only to our bewilderment about our broken world and our individual suffering, but also the apparent struggle, waste, and suffering occasioned by evolution through natural selection.
Emanuel
Judaism and Christianity are clear sources for the idea of God of the future. God beckons Abram out of Ur to he knows not where with a promise that he will be the father of a mighty nation. Abram trusts the Promise, even when at times it seems impossible.
God leads the children of Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The Israelites’ trust is less like that of Abram and more like ours. The difficulties of life make the promise hard to believe, harder to hold on to.
In Baptism, Christians hear the promises of God’s companionship through life. Thus, the biblical witness stresses not only that God promises, but that God is with us, Emanuel, and doesn’t abandon us and our world, as we struggle to trust the promise of the future.
Resurrection
In the Bible, God’s promise takes many forms, but always the promise has to do with life: Will Abraham and Sarah not forever be infertile, but be blessed with a son, a new life? Will the Israelites find a new life in the Promised Land? Will the Baptized find new life each day in the promises given at the font? The answer that the faithful give all too often is “Yes, but.” We will live, but we will die. Yes, the Bible is clear, as is biology, that all who live will die. Death is the natural end of life, but death is not the end of our life with God. Although Christians proclaim the resurrection of Jesus as the first fruits of the general resurrection, since the Enlightenment the supernatural nature of resurrection has been a stumbling block to moderns, both Christians and Jews. Now Jon D. Levenson has published a powerful new book, “Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life,” which places resurrection at the center of Jewish understanding. Levenson writes: “Given the reality and potency ascribed to death throughout the Hebrew Bible, what overcomes it is nothing short of the most astonishing miracle, the Divine Warrior’s eschatological victory.” The Divine Warrior in the Hebrew Bible is not a figure of religious fanaticism who urges believers to kill for the greater glory of their God, but rather One who “will rule the world justly and its people in faithfulness,” delivering the weak and victimized from the stronger hand of the oppressor. Thus, Israel’s God, sets us, who are made in his image, a vivid example of God-like living. We in the West can particularly take note of our oppressive overuse of the earth’s resources at the expense of our weaker neighbors.
The Hermeneutic Circle
Walter Brueggemann’s in reviewing “Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel,” in the February 6, 2007, “Christian Century,” comments that “...faith in resurrection, when we have the courage to overcome the intrusiveness of Enlightenment rationality, is vigorous and central to both Jews and Christians.” But how do we overcome the intrusive Enlightenment? Surely, we won’t by going down the dead-end road of fundamentalism. Perhaps a better route is suggested by Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic circle in “The Symbolism of Evil.” He suggests that we moderns have lost our immediacy of belief, but we can aim at a second, post-critical naïveté in and through critical thinking. By interpreting, we can hear again. In hermeneutics, the symbol’s gift of meaning and the endeavor to understand by deciphering are knotted together. In the circle: “We must understand in order to believe, but we must believe in order to understand.” In order to believe, we must practice religion, not merely think about it. In the phrasing of Prosper of Aquitaine (c. 390 - 465), it is the law of worship which founds or establishes the law of belief. Belief does not come first, then worship, but rather worship produces belief. By living in the circle of belief and interpretation, the future that God is leading us to will become ours.
Religion: a Byproduct of Evolution or an Adaptive Advantage?
Henig points out that although scientists studying the evolution of religion have different theories about how it came about, they mostly share one idea, namely, religion is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history. Beyond that, they tend to fall into two schools of thought when asking why religion evolved. Is belief itself adaptive, giving believers a better chance at reproduction and survival, or is belief a mere byproduct of certain other evolutionary steps in the development of the human brain. Henig presents these as opposing views, and they may well be, but I tend to think that we are at the early stages of the exploration of the evolution of religious belief. Maybe the more mature development of our thinking will in time contain elements of both points of view.
Religious belief is widespread among humans. One U.S. survey in 2006 found that 92% of those responding believed in a personal God. Darwin noted in his “The Descent of Man” that “A belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems universal.” Religions everywhere share certain supernatural beliefs: noncorporeal God or gods, an afterlife, and the ability of prayer to change the course of human events. And, in his “Varieties of Religious Experience,” William James asserted that “All of our raptures and our drynesses, and pantings, our questions and beliefs...are equally organically founded.” In other words, religion is deeply human; it’s part of our makeup for most of us. In fact, religious belief, and not a lack of it, appears to be the default position for the most human minds
But why? Those who maintain that religious belief is a byproduct of the evolution of our large brain propose that belief is a side consequence of the development of a structure of such complexity. Religious belief, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin have proposed, is a “spandrel,” a trait with no adaptive value of its own. A spandrel in architecture is the V-shaped structure formed between two rounded arches. It has no purpose on its own; rather, it comes into being when arches align.
But if religion is a spandrel, what is it a spandrel of? The byproduct explanation is that the hardships of early human life favored the evolution of certain cognitive tools, among which were the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm, to develop causal narratives for natural events, and to recognize that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires, and intentions. These abilities have been dubbed, respectively, agent detection, causal reasoning, and theory of mind.
Our ability to detect possible agents primes our brains to believe in the supernatural, even when such beliefs confound logic. For example, agent detection can cause us to detect, in a shape just outside our direct view, someone long dead or a spirit ready to help or harm us. A second cognitive tool, our causal reasoning, leads us to impose a narrative with chronology and cause-and-effect logic on whatever we encounter, no matter how apparently random, while the third tool, the theory of mind, lets us to posit the presence of minds in ourselves and others, even though we cannot see or feel them. Our belief that we and others have minds leads us to accept the visible body and the invisible mind as separate. From there, the religious step is to posit that minds need not be in bodies and that there is an immaterial soul and a transcendent God. Scott Atran, a researcher in the field of the evolution of religion, calls the theory of mind folkpsychology, and he proposes that we’ve used it since prehistory to get along in life. Using folkpsychology, we anticipate the actions of others and this leads us to influence others to believe what we want them to believe, as in marriage, office politics, or poker. People without this trait, for example, those with autism, are impaired, because they are unable to imagine themselves in other people’s heads. Folkpsychology clearly is necessary to succeed in life, but how or why does it lead so often to a belief in supernatural, omniscient minds? The proponents of the byproduct theory tend to think that these beliefs are of little use in finding food or producing more children, so why do they persist? Atran says that evolutionary changes that permit organisms to adapt better to their environment frequently are accompanied by byproducts. For example, blood is red not because red colored blood allows organisms to adapt better, but rather because the hemoglobin in the blood increases the chances for better adaptation. The redness of blood is a byproduct of the presence of hemoglobin, not an adaptive advantage. So, religion may be a byproduct of the three cognitive tools that have evolved allowing humans to adapt, survive, and reproduce and not an adaptive advantage in itself.
However, those who think that religion does indeed offer an adaptive advantage also point to folkpsychology to support their position. We try to make sense of other people partly by imagining what it is like to be them. This is adaptive, because it can help us to outwit our enemies and get more food and fitter mates. However, imagining being dead is essentially impossible; we can not fill our conscious with a representation of no-conscious. We can not think about nothing, nor can we imagine what it would be for us not to exist. It’s much easier to imagine that our thinking somehow continues after our death. Belief in the afterlife is prevalent because we are not able to simulate our nonexistence. Thus, adaptationists say, belief is our fallback position; it is our reflexive style of thought. We have the capacity to reason about unexpected natural events and to see deeper meaning where there is none.
Such a capacity could be adaptive because religious belief can make people feel better, less tormented by thoughts of death, more focused on the future, and more willing to take care of themselves. As William James wrote, religion fills people with “a new zest which adds itself like a gift to life...an assurance of safety and a temper of peace and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections.” Religion’s costs to the individual in time and devotion may be outweighed by the benefits to the individual’s group, which being cohesive and focused as a result of common belief, can better compete for scarce resources.
Scientist were at one time confident that science would in time answer all the questions that religion traditionally answered and God would become the “God of the gaps,” needed less and less to answer life’s questions. Now, however, science seems to be showing us that the real gap that God fills is the emptiness in our big-brained mental architecture that we interpret as a yearning for the supernatural. Our drive to satisfy this yearning, say both the adaptationists and the byproduct theorists, may be an inevitable part of what Atran calls the tragedy of human cognition.
Theological Implications of the Evolution of Religion
Atran’s invoking tragedy when referring to human cognition is significant. Perhaps he believes it’s tragic for humans to believe in God, someone who he believes doesn’t exist, who, he believes, the theory of evolution has shown to be nonexistent.
Atran’s remarks show us his metaphysical framework. Metaphysical frameworks are the trains of causal reasoning, the second cognitive tool discussed above, that we all use to impose a narrative with chronology and cause-and-effect logic on all we experience. The metaphysical framework from which many scientists work is called materialism. This position is essentially tragic because this framework does not supply meaning, purpose, or God to the workings of nature. In this view, life and the cosmos have no inherent meaning. Materialists have answered, “Yes” to Peggy Lee’s question, “Is that all there is?” God is dead, a relic from our collective childhood. Evolution is mindless with no guiding hand. For Atran, and many evolutionary materialists, time’s colossal reach, chance, and natural selection are all that is needed to provide an adequate picture of the universe. All natural occurrences can be deciphered exclusively in terms of a temporally prior series of mechanical causes. There is no need to look above to perfect Platonic ideal forms, we need but look to the cosmic past for the fullest explanation of all things.
Everyone has a metaphysical framework. Even maintaining that we have no metaphysical framework is to have one. Often our metaphysical framework comes out of unexamined assumptions, and, furthermore, our metaphysical framework is a choice we make, consciously or unconsciously, and we can change our metaphysical framework by re-thinking it. In “God After Darwin” (2000), John F. Haught presents a metaphysical framework for evolution that is an alternative to the common materialistic framework. Although his argument is nuanced, his metaphysics focuses on five major ideas: 1) There are orders of complexity in the universe, 2) information inheres in complexity, 3) novelty is possible because of contingency, 4) with novelty, evolution moves toward the future, 5) God “lets the world be,” so that evolution can occur.
Orders of Complexity: Nature exhibits hierarchies of complexity. Molecules contain atoms, organisms are made up of cells, and ecosystems are the contexts for lives of individual organisms. Furthermore, evidence is growing that the more complex cannot be completely understood by analyzing the simpler components of the systems. If we try to understand the more complex by merely reducing them to their simpler parts, we lose a crucial aspect of complexity: information.
Information: Haught uses “information” metaphorically as that which inheres in the ordering of entities, including atoms, molecules, cells, genes, etc. Information is something “more” than exchanges along the matter-energy continuum. Not physically separate, information is logically distinguishable from mass and energy, and, although it has neither mass nor energy, it patterns simpler components into hierarchically distinct domains. Obvious examples of information inhering in the chemical and physical “stuff” of life are DNA molecules. Chemically and physically the substance of all DNA molecules is more or less the same. The important differences among them are informational. The sequences of the four molecules making up the larger DNA molecules form a code, different for each organism, and this code provides the information to produce different individuals. The presence of information in nature is not mystical or supernatural, but it is distinct from the mechanical or material causes that most scientists have assumed until lately are the only causes needed to explain completely the operation of the universe. The presence of information in a system is verifiable, but cannot be reduced to a mechanistic model. It seems to abide in the realm of “possibility” waiting to be actualized in time.
An example from Taoism can illustrate the concept of information. Wu Cheng (1249-1333) wrote: “If it were not for the hollow space of the vessel to contain things, there would be no space for storage. If it were not for the vacuity of the room between the windows and doors for lights coming in and going out, there would be no place to live.” These ideas recall the spandrel concept discussed above. A spandrel can be neutral or it can take on a function. For example, building a staircase produces a space underneath it: just a blank triangular shape that is like a spandrel, i.e., a byproduct of the building of the intended object, in this example, a staircase. However, if a closet is built in that space, then the space takes on a function, and, although this function is unrelated to that of the staircase, it is useful, and, significantly, that added usefulness also increases the information inhering in the physical materials.
Novelty because of contingency: Contingency is a major aspect of evolution. Mutations, which are chance, contingent changes in organisms’ genetic make-up, make evolution possible. Those mutations that give organisms an adaptive advantage permit them to reproduce more and, with time and more advantageous mutations, their progeny become more dominant. However, the events of evolution cannot be predicted in advance for the very reason that they are contingent. Their contingency makes them novel, and the past is not a guide to new evolutionary events. For example, the emergence of life and consciousness could not have been predicted from even a close scrutiny of the early cosmic events. Contingency is not a mask for a hidden necessity dictated by past events but not yet understood. Rather, it is the way the cosmos breaks out of subordination to habitual routine and opens itself to the future.
With novelty, evolution moves toward the future: With the recognition of unpredictable novelty as a central feature of evolution, we can shift our metaphysical focus from the inexorable, predictable working out of necessary past conditions to the contemplation of the unpredictable, unknown future, filled with both threat and promise. This metaphysics of hope looks toward a future in which the apparent chaos now may resolve into more meaningful patterning in the “fullness of time,” in “God’s time.”
God “lets the world be,” permitting evolution: Haught is a theist, not a non-realist, but his theism is such that it has similarities with Cupitt’s non-realism. This is particularly apparent with regard to Cupitt’s solar ethics. Cupitt maintains that we are to shine in the world for others like the sun. The sun does not grasp but empties itself, living and dying at the same time, and in so doing serves us all. Such solar language recalls the great hymn to Jesus in Philippians 2 that starts in verse 5: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” Jürgen Moltmann argues that the creation of the universe itself is not so much a display of divine might as a consequence of God’s self-restraint. In order to create heaven and earth, God emptied Godself of God’s all-plenishing omnipotence, and as Creator took the form of a servant.
Calvin wrote that the world is a theater with God as the audience. This vision of God’s emptying is as if a “theater” has been provided where the drama of creation could take place. Like all good dramas, this play has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Science has sketched the outlines of the beginning of the world and the middle, our current time, but the future only God knows.
A view of God as the God of the future, suggests not a God “up there,” but a God “up ahead,” drawing the whole creation forward into the future. In being the God of the future, God does not “micromanage” as a designer, but rather gives the world room to be itself. The world emerges as separate from and uncontrolled by God. This metaphysical and theological framework provides a way of bringing meaning not only to our bewilderment about our broken world and our individual suffering, but also the apparent struggle, waste, and suffering occasioned by evolution through natural selection.
Emanuel
Judaism and Christianity are clear sources for the idea of God of the future. God beckons Abram out of Ur to he knows not where with a promise that he will be the father of a mighty nation. Abram trusts the Promise, even when at times it seems impossible.
God leads the children of Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The Israelites’ trust is less like that of Abram and more like ours. The difficulties of life make the promise hard to believe, harder to hold on to.
In Baptism, Christians hear the promises of God’s companionship through life. Thus, the biblical witness stresses not only that God promises, but that God is with us, Emanuel, and doesn’t abandon us and our world, as we struggle to trust the promise of the future.
Resurrection
In the Bible, God’s promise takes many forms, but always the promise has to do with life: Will Abraham and Sarah not forever be infertile, but be blessed with a son, a new life? Will the Israelites find a new life in the Promised Land? Will the Baptized find new life each day in the promises given at the font? The answer that the faithful give all too often is “Yes, but.” We will live, but we will die. Yes, the Bible is clear, as is biology, that all who live will die. Death is the natural end of life, but death is not the end of our life with God. Although Christians proclaim the resurrection of Jesus as the first fruits of the general resurrection, since the Enlightenment the supernatural nature of resurrection has been a stumbling block to moderns, both Christians and Jews. Now Jon D. Levenson has published a powerful new book, “Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life,” which places resurrection at the center of Jewish understanding. Levenson writes: “Given the reality and potency ascribed to death throughout the Hebrew Bible, what overcomes it is nothing short of the most astonishing miracle, the Divine Warrior’s eschatological victory.” The Divine Warrior in the Hebrew Bible is not a figure of religious fanaticism who urges believers to kill for the greater glory of their God, but rather One who “will rule the world justly and its people in faithfulness,” delivering the weak and victimized from the stronger hand of the oppressor. Thus, Israel’s God, sets us, who are made in his image, a vivid example of God-like living. We in the West can particularly take note of our oppressive overuse of the earth’s resources at the expense of our weaker neighbors.
The Hermeneutic Circle
Walter Brueggemann’s in reviewing “Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel,” in the February 6, 2007, “Christian Century,” comments that “...faith in resurrection, when we have the courage to overcome the intrusiveness of Enlightenment rationality, is vigorous and central to both Jews and Christians.” But how do we overcome the intrusive Enlightenment? Surely, we won’t by going down the dead-end road of fundamentalism. Perhaps a better route is suggested by Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic circle in “The Symbolism of Evil.” He suggests that we moderns have lost our immediacy of belief, but we can aim at a second, post-critical naïveté in and through critical thinking. By interpreting, we can hear again. In hermeneutics, the symbol’s gift of meaning and the endeavor to understand by deciphering are knotted together. In the circle: “We must understand in order to believe, but we must believe in order to understand.” In order to believe, we must practice religion, not merely think about it. In the phrasing of Prosper of Aquitaine (c. 390 - 465), it is the law of worship which founds or establishes the law of belief. Belief does not come first, then worship, but rather worship produces belief. By living in the circle of belief and interpretation, the future that God is leading us to will become ours.
Friday, March 9, 2007
What is Non-Realism?
I thought it might be helpful to post this description of the theological stance, called Non-Realism. I picked it up from the Don Cupitt website, http://www.doncupitt.com/doncupitt.html
I'd appeciate your posts.
Pete
About Non-Realism
Don Cupitt's philosopy of religion is often described as non-realism, a word which has given rise to much confusion. What Cupitt calls non-realism is very much what Richard Rorty calls 'antirepresentationalism'. In Rorty's worlds our belief are not copies but tools. Before Kant philosophy usually tended towards dogmatic realism. Euclid's geometry and Aristotle's logic were thought of as being objectively true. There was an objectively-ordered intelligible Cosmos out there, independent of the human mind and copied or mapped by our descriptions of it. Religious thought too was usually dogmatic-realist: there was an eternal world 'up there', and a created, visible world 'out there'. Only one religion reported the cosmic facts correctly, namely Christianity. Our minds, being created by God, are made to know God, and can correctly track the cosmic and moral order he has pre-established for us. So, in the classic world-picture, the whole of religious truth was thought of as existing 'out there'.
After Kant we began more and more to see that our knowledge and our language are only human. In all our knowing, the mind conditions what it knows: the facts are profoundly shaped by the theories under which we view them and the language in which we decribe them. We are always inside our own language and our own human standpoint, and can never directly compare our vision of the world with the way the world is absolutely. We are only human. In short, we cannot claim to have purely-objective knowledge of THE world, but we can claim to have many very useful ideas about OUR world, the world we see and the 'life-world' we inhabit.
So, very briefly: realists think that mathematical truth is discovered, whereas non-realists about maths think that maths is a complex collection of useful games invented by us. Realists think that scientists discover 'the laws of Nature', whereas non-realists think that scientists invent theories that help us to tell stories about why things go the way they do, and to predict outcomes successfully.
Today, a realist is the sort of person who, when his ship crosses the Equator, looks overboard, expecting to see a big black line across the ocean. Realism tries to turn cultural fictions into objective facts. A non-realist sees the whole system of lines of latitude and longitude as a valuable fiction, imposed upon the Earth by us, that helps us to define locations and to find our way around. For a realist Truth exists ready-made out there; for a non-realist we are the only makers of truth, and truth is only the current consensus.
In brief, we don't know and we cannot know THE world, absolutely. We know only OUR world, a world shaped by our ideas, seen from our perspective, and built by us with our needs in view. Such is Cupitt's non-realist philosophy. It implies, by the way, that we have no privileged knowledge of ourselves either, hence Cupitt's phrase "Empty radical humanism". It means "We alone improvise our knowledge about everything - including even ourselves". There is no absolute or perspectiveless vision of the world: the best we can have is a slowly-evolving human consensus.
In religion, the move to non-realism implies the recognition that all religious and ethical ideas are human, with a human history. We give up the old metaphysical and cosmological way of understanding religious belief, and translate dogma into spirituality. We understand all religious doctrines in practical terms, as guiding myths to live by, in the way that Kant, Kierkegaard and Bultmannn began to map out. We abandon ideas of objective and eternal truth, and instead see all truth as a human improvisation. We should give up all ideas of a heavenly or supernatural world-beyond. Yet, despite our seeming scepticism, we insist that non-realist religion can work very well as religion, and can deliver (a form of) eternal happiness. Cupitt sees his religion of ordinary human life as the "Kingdom theology" that historic Christianity always knew it must eventually move to, after the end of the age of the Church and the arrival of a religion of immediate commitment to this world and this life only.
I'd appeciate your posts.
Pete
About Non-Realism
Don Cupitt's philosopy of religion is often described as non-realism, a word which has given rise to much confusion. What Cupitt calls non-realism is very much what Richard Rorty calls 'antirepresentationalism'. In Rorty's worlds our belief are not copies but tools. Before Kant philosophy usually tended towards dogmatic realism. Euclid's geometry and Aristotle's logic were thought of as being objectively true. There was an objectively-ordered intelligible Cosmos out there, independent of the human mind and copied or mapped by our descriptions of it. Religious thought too was usually dogmatic-realist: there was an eternal world 'up there', and a created, visible world 'out there'. Only one religion reported the cosmic facts correctly, namely Christianity. Our minds, being created by God, are made to know God, and can correctly track the cosmic and moral order he has pre-established for us. So, in the classic world-picture, the whole of religious truth was thought of as existing 'out there'.
After Kant we began more and more to see that our knowledge and our language are only human. In all our knowing, the mind conditions what it knows: the facts are profoundly shaped by the theories under which we view them and the language in which we decribe them. We are always inside our own language and our own human standpoint, and can never directly compare our vision of the world with the way the world is absolutely. We are only human. In short, we cannot claim to have purely-objective knowledge of THE world, but we can claim to have many very useful ideas about OUR world, the world we see and the 'life-world' we inhabit.
So, very briefly: realists think that mathematical truth is discovered, whereas non-realists about maths think that maths is a complex collection of useful games invented by us. Realists think that scientists discover 'the laws of Nature', whereas non-realists think that scientists invent theories that help us to tell stories about why things go the way they do, and to predict outcomes successfully.
Today, a realist is the sort of person who, when his ship crosses the Equator, looks overboard, expecting to see a big black line across the ocean. Realism tries to turn cultural fictions into objective facts. A non-realist sees the whole system of lines of latitude and longitude as a valuable fiction, imposed upon the Earth by us, that helps us to define locations and to find our way around. For a realist Truth exists ready-made out there; for a non-realist we are the only makers of truth, and truth is only the current consensus.
In brief, we don't know and we cannot know THE world, absolutely. We know only OUR world, a world shaped by our ideas, seen from our perspective, and built by us with our needs in view. Such is Cupitt's non-realist philosophy. It implies, by the way, that we have no privileged knowledge of ourselves either, hence Cupitt's phrase "Empty radical humanism". It means "We alone improvise our knowledge about everything - including even ourselves". There is no absolute or perspectiveless vision of the world: the best we can have is a slowly-evolving human consensus.
In religion, the move to non-realism implies the recognition that all religious and ethical ideas are human, with a human history. We give up the old metaphysical and cosmological way of understanding religious belief, and translate dogma into spirituality. We understand all religious doctrines in practical terms, as guiding myths to live by, in the way that Kant, Kierkegaard and Bultmannn began to map out. We abandon ideas of objective and eternal truth, and instead see all truth as a human improvisation. We should give up all ideas of a heavenly or supernatural world-beyond. Yet, despite our seeming scepticism, we insist that non-realist religion can work very well as religion, and can deliver (a form of) eternal happiness. Cupitt sees his religion of ordinary human life as the "Kingdom theology" that historic Christianity always knew it must eventually move to, after the end of the age of the Church and the arrival of a religion of immediate commitment to this world and this life only.
An email exchange with a new friend, Hershey
These are emails between Hershey and me about non-realism. "Sofia" is the magazine of the Sea of Faith movement in Britain, which tries, among other things, to put non-realism into practice.
An email from Hershey, March 8th:
Peter, I am glad to have read your blog, because it gets me better acquainted with you. Now I would like to know how you came to be in touch with SoF. Since I am asking you that question, it is only fair for me to tell you how I found SoF. It began in the mid-1980s with the reading of two books: 1) John Hick, ed. The Myth of God Incarnate (Westminster Press, 1977). Hick not only edited the book, but he also wrote one chapter. Hick was an English Presbyterian, teaching at the Claremont Graduate School of Theology (Methodist seminary) when I first read him. One of the chapters in the book is by Don Cupitt. It impressed me so much, that I began reading more by Cupitt, especially Taking Leave of God (1980). 2) Marcus J. Borg, Jesus, A New Vision (Harper & Rowe, 1987). I found this book enlightening. I soon found out that Borg was a member of the Jesus Seminar, sponsored by the Westar Institute of Santa Rosa, CA; so I began attending semi-annual lectures (spring and fall) sponsored by the Institute, where I heard Borg speak. While attending one of the meetings I fell into conversation with a man from First UU Church of San Francisco, who was also a fan of Cupitt. In our discussion of Cupitt, he asked me whether I knew about The Sea of Faith. When I replied that I did not, he told me about it. I then joined. At that time one had to pay in pounds sterling sent to England. I found this cumbersome and expensive, so after a couple of years I volunteered to represent SoF in the U.S. and receive for the network payment in dollar amounts that they would set. They set this up, and I have been doing it for several years. If you don't know about the Jesus Seminar and its sponsor, the Westar Institute, go to www.westarinstitute.org for full information. Since learning about the Institute, I have been an associate member, receiving its bi-monthly journal, The Fourth R. It's excellent, and I commend it to you.
Cordially,
Hershey
A response from me to Hershey, March 8th:
Hi Hershey,
Thanks very much for your very kind and informative email. I came to the Sea of Faith and to the Jesus Seminar via classes and retreats led by a wonderful pastor, Steve Wolfe, in the 1980s and 90s. Steve was from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, but since he was openly gay, LCMS had no use for him. He found a home at my parish, Saint Peter’s, in Manhattan, where there have been for many years out gay people. He was a “tent-making” pastor, making his living as a financial advisor in Greenwich, CT, and was a teacher and pastor when he wasn’t helping the rich get richer. He died a few years back, and all of us who knew him miss him.
Steve, although gay, wasn’t so much about being gay (at least as I experienced him), but rather he was deeply and passionately influenced by the historical-critical method and what that method could mean for our understanding of the Bible. We read Crossan, Borg, Elaine Pagels, the Gospel of Thomas, and much more. Along the way, I discovered Bishop Spong (I still find his newsletter helpful), and it was through him that I discovered Michael Goulder, Don Cupitt, the Jesus Seminar, and the Sea of Faith.
My thinking has been deeply influenced by Cupitt. I’ve read “Reforming Christianity,” “The Way to Happiness,” “Radicals and the Future of the Church,” “The Great Questions of Life,” and “The Old Creed and the New.” I’ve also read Nigel Leaves’s two books on Cupitt. I find “Radicals and the Future of the Church,” particularly helpful, and Leaves in his “The God Problem” put me on to Cupitt’s idea in “Radicals,” of the Church as the theater of feelings.
I think the way to religious experience is via our emotions and feelings. James Laird in his new book “Feelings” makes the point that feelings don’t cause behavior, but rather behavior brings about feelings. Darwin made much the same point in 1872 in “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.” Darwin was always ahead of the curve by virtue of his careful observations. He is my idea of a great scientist. The arc of behavior to feelings jibes nicely with classic understandings of the liturgy. Behavior, e.g., worship, produces feelings. In “On Liturgical Theology,” Aidan Kavanagh points out that orthodoxy means first “right worship” and only secondarily doctrinal accuracy. This implies that worship conceived broadly is what gives rise to theological reflection rather than the other way around. In the phrasing of Prosper of Aquitaine (c. 390 - 465), it is the law of worship which founds or establishes the law of belief. Belief does not come first, then worship, but rather worship produces belief. Furthermore, worship and belief can be experienced in a “circular” manner.
In an upcoming blog post, I’m going to comment on the article in last Sunday’s “New York Times Magazine,” “Why Do We Believe?” And I think that the insights of Paul Ricoeur on the “hermeneutic circle” are particularly germane to understanding the insights of the article. Ricoeur writes in the “Symbolism of Evil,” “We must understand in order to believe, but we must believe in order to understand.” “Never, in fact, does the interpreter get near to what his text says unless he lives in the aura (Ricoeur’s emphasis) of the meaning he inquiring after.”
Hershey, thanks again for your encouraging email. Would you permit me to post your email to me and my response on my blog? I hope that perhaps others would find them interesting.
Pete
An email from Hershey, March 8th:
Peter, I am enjoying our e-mail exchanges. Yes, you may quote as much of my posts to you as you wish. I have been reading Borg, Crossan, Pagels, Spong, and Leaves just as you have. I am surprised that you have not mentioned Lloyd Geering. He has become my favorite author in the area of theology and biblical interpretation. I am looking forward to reading his recently published autobiography. Of course I have enjoyed hearing him speak in Westar sponsored lectures. Other Westar lecturers whose books I admire are Karen Armstrong and Bob Miller.
Your writing of Darwin as "My idea of a great scientist" prompts me to comment that I recently read one man's estimate (I forget who) that Darwin was the greatest scientist who ever lived, surpassing even Newton and Einstein.Grace and peace,
Hershey
A response from me to Hershey, March 9th:
Hershey,
Thanks for your email. I’ve just received the March issue of "Sofia," and I see that Cupitt has an article. I’m looking forward to reading it. I did read Michael Morton’s review of the “God Problem,” by Nigel Leaves in preparation to writing a letter to the editor based on the review. Earlier, I had submitted a paper to “Sofia” for possible publication. Although the editor, Dinah Livingstone, didn’t accept it, she did suggest that I present some of the ideas in my paper in a letter commenting on the review. In the paper, Paul Ricoeur’s post-critical naivete figured prominently, so the letter will discuss that. So, the letter is in the works.
I’ve read Lloyd Geering’s “Christianity without God,” but it didn’t resonate with me as Cupitt’s books do. I read Karen Armstrong’s “A History of God” and found it very helpful. For example, what is the relationship of the void that mystics speak of and Cupitt’s Void? I think there may be an essay in that juxtaposition. What do you think?
All I can say about Darwin is that he was amazing and his influence is ongoing. I was particularly fortunate to see twice the “Darwin” show at the Museum of Natural History in New York. The show documents the artifacts of his life to show his careful observation, his hypotheses, and their working out into the full-blown theory of evolution by natural selection.
I’m going to post this email exchange on my blog without your last name. I hope you will follow the blog and post comments in response to my musings. There are a number of new posts up, and I’d really like your input. You understand non-realism; that makes you a rare bird.
Pete
An email from Hershey, March 8th:
Peter, I am glad to have read your blog, because it gets me better acquainted with you. Now I would like to know how you came to be in touch with SoF. Since I am asking you that question, it is only fair for me to tell you how I found SoF. It began in the mid-1980s with the reading of two books: 1) John Hick, ed. The Myth of God Incarnate (Westminster Press, 1977). Hick not only edited the book, but he also wrote one chapter. Hick was an English Presbyterian, teaching at the Claremont Graduate School of Theology (Methodist seminary) when I first read him. One of the chapters in the book is by Don Cupitt. It impressed me so much, that I began reading more by Cupitt, especially Taking Leave of God (1980). 2) Marcus J. Borg, Jesus, A New Vision (Harper & Rowe, 1987). I found this book enlightening. I soon found out that Borg was a member of the Jesus Seminar, sponsored by the Westar Institute of Santa Rosa, CA; so I began attending semi-annual lectures (spring and fall) sponsored by the Institute, where I heard Borg speak. While attending one of the meetings I fell into conversation with a man from First UU Church of San Francisco, who was also a fan of Cupitt. In our discussion of Cupitt, he asked me whether I knew about The Sea of Faith. When I replied that I did not, he told me about it. I then joined. At that time one had to pay in pounds sterling sent to England. I found this cumbersome and expensive, so after a couple of years I volunteered to represent SoF in the U.S. and receive for the network payment in dollar amounts that they would set. They set this up, and I have been doing it for several years. If you don't know about the Jesus Seminar and its sponsor, the Westar Institute, go to www.westarinstitute.org for full information. Since learning about the Institute, I have been an associate member, receiving its bi-monthly journal, The Fourth R. It's excellent, and I commend it to you.
Cordially,
Hershey
A response from me to Hershey, March 8th:
Hi Hershey,
Thanks very much for your very kind and informative email. I came to the Sea of Faith and to the Jesus Seminar via classes and retreats led by a wonderful pastor, Steve Wolfe, in the 1980s and 90s. Steve was from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, but since he was openly gay, LCMS had no use for him. He found a home at my parish, Saint Peter’s, in Manhattan, where there have been for many years out gay people. He was a “tent-making” pastor, making his living as a financial advisor in Greenwich, CT, and was a teacher and pastor when he wasn’t helping the rich get richer. He died a few years back, and all of us who knew him miss him.
Steve, although gay, wasn’t so much about being gay (at least as I experienced him), but rather he was deeply and passionately influenced by the historical-critical method and what that method could mean for our understanding of the Bible. We read Crossan, Borg, Elaine Pagels, the Gospel of Thomas, and much more. Along the way, I discovered Bishop Spong (I still find his newsletter helpful), and it was through him that I discovered Michael Goulder, Don Cupitt, the Jesus Seminar, and the Sea of Faith.
My thinking has been deeply influenced by Cupitt. I’ve read “Reforming Christianity,” “The Way to Happiness,” “Radicals and the Future of the Church,” “The Great Questions of Life,” and “The Old Creed and the New.” I’ve also read Nigel Leaves’s two books on Cupitt. I find “Radicals and the Future of the Church,” particularly helpful, and Leaves in his “The God Problem” put me on to Cupitt’s idea in “Radicals,” of the Church as the theater of feelings.
I think the way to religious experience is via our emotions and feelings. James Laird in his new book “Feelings” makes the point that feelings don’t cause behavior, but rather behavior brings about feelings. Darwin made much the same point in 1872 in “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.” Darwin was always ahead of the curve by virtue of his careful observations. He is my idea of a great scientist. The arc of behavior to feelings jibes nicely with classic understandings of the liturgy. Behavior, e.g., worship, produces feelings. In “On Liturgical Theology,” Aidan Kavanagh points out that orthodoxy means first “right worship” and only secondarily doctrinal accuracy. This implies that worship conceived broadly is what gives rise to theological reflection rather than the other way around. In the phrasing of Prosper of Aquitaine (c. 390 - 465), it is the law of worship which founds or establishes the law of belief. Belief does not come first, then worship, but rather worship produces belief. Furthermore, worship and belief can be experienced in a “circular” manner.
In an upcoming blog post, I’m going to comment on the article in last Sunday’s “New York Times Magazine,” “Why Do We Believe?” And I think that the insights of Paul Ricoeur on the “hermeneutic circle” are particularly germane to understanding the insights of the article. Ricoeur writes in the “Symbolism of Evil,” “We must understand in order to believe, but we must believe in order to understand.” “Never, in fact, does the interpreter get near to what his text says unless he lives in the aura (Ricoeur’s emphasis) of the meaning he inquiring after.”
Hershey, thanks again for your encouraging email. Would you permit me to post your email to me and my response on my blog? I hope that perhaps others would find them interesting.
Pete
An email from Hershey, March 8th:
Peter, I am enjoying our e-mail exchanges. Yes, you may quote as much of my posts to you as you wish. I have been reading Borg, Crossan, Pagels, Spong, and Leaves just as you have. I am surprised that you have not mentioned Lloyd Geering. He has become my favorite author in the area of theology and biblical interpretation. I am looking forward to reading his recently published autobiography. Of course I have enjoyed hearing him speak in Westar sponsored lectures. Other Westar lecturers whose books I admire are Karen Armstrong and Bob Miller.
Your writing of Darwin as "My idea of a great scientist" prompts me to comment that I recently read one man's estimate (I forget who) that Darwin was the greatest scientist who ever lived, surpassing even Newton and Einstein.Grace and peace,
Hershey
A response from me to Hershey, March 9th:
Hershey,
Thanks for your email. I’ve just received the March issue of "Sofia," and I see that Cupitt has an article. I’m looking forward to reading it. I did read Michael Morton’s review of the “God Problem,” by Nigel Leaves in preparation to writing a letter to the editor based on the review. Earlier, I had submitted a paper to “Sofia” for possible publication. Although the editor, Dinah Livingstone, didn’t accept it, she did suggest that I present some of the ideas in my paper in a letter commenting on the review. In the paper, Paul Ricoeur’s post-critical naivete figured prominently, so the letter will discuss that. So, the letter is in the works.
I’ve read Lloyd Geering’s “Christianity without God,” but it didn’t resonate with me as Cupitt’s books do. I read Karen Armstrong’s “A History of God” and found it very helpful. For example, what is the relationship of the void that mystics speak of and Cupitt’s Void? I think there may be an essay in that juxtaposition. What do you think?
All I can say about Darwin is that he was amazing and his influence is ongoing. I was particularly fortunate to see twice the “Darwin” show at the Museum of Natural History in New York. The show documents the artifacts of his life to show his careful observation, his hypotheses, and their working out into the full-blown theory of evolution by natural selection.
I’m going to post this email exchange on my blog without your last name. I hope you will follow the blog and post comments in response to my musings. There are a number of new posts up, and I’d really like your input. You understand non-realism; that makes you a rare bird.
Pete
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