January 2, 2005
NO, YOU'RE DELUSIONAL!:
The Illusion of Disillusionment (Christopher Lasch, July-August 1991, New Oxford Review)
In the commentary on the modern spiritual predicament, religion is consistently treated as a source of intellectual and emotional security, rather than as a challenge to complacency and pride. Its ethical teachings are misconstrued as a body of simple commandments leaving no room for ambiguity or doubt. Recall Jung's description of medieval Christians as “children of God (who) knew exactly what they should do and how they should conduct themselves.” Joseph Wood Krutch, the early-twentieth-century critic, took the same view of religion. Medieval theology, according to Krutch, made the conduct of life “an exact science.” It offered a “plan of life” that was “delightfully simple.” Medieval Christians “accepted the laws of God in a fashion exactly parallel to that in which the contemporary scientist accepts the Laws of Nature”; this unquestioning obedience to an authoritative science of morals was the only alternative to “moral nihilism.” As soon as one begins to doubt either the validity of the laws of God...or as soon as one begins to raise a question as to the purpose of life,” one begins to slide down the slippery slope to relativism, moral anarchy, and cultural despair.What has to be questioned here is the assumption that religion ever provided a set of comprehensive and unambiguous answers to ethical questions, answers completely resistant to skepticism; or that it forestalled speculation about the meaning and purpose of life; or that religious people in the past were unacquainted with existential despair. The famous collection of songs written by medieval students preparing for the priesthood, Carmina Burana, should be enough in themselves to dispel this notion; they give voice, these disturbing compositions, to an age-old suspicion that the universe is ruled by Fortune, not by Providence, that life has no higher purpose at all, and that the better part of moral wisdom is to enjoy life while you can.
Or consider the varieties of religious experience analyzed by William James in his book of that name, a book that is distinguished by a complete indifference to issues of historical chronology. To readers formed by the self-consciously modern tradition, such an indifference might appear to be a weakness of James's book, but it is essential to his point—that the deepest variety of religious faith always, in every age, arises out of a background of despair. Religious faith asserts the goodness of being in the face of suffering and evil. Black despair and alienation — which have their origin not in perceptions exclusively modern but in the bitterness always felt toward a God who allows evil and suffering to flourish — often become the prelude to conversion. An awareness of “radical evil” underlies the spiritual intoxication that finally comes with “yielding” and “self-surrender.” If nothing else, the shadow of death hangs over our pleasures and triumphs, calling them into question.
The modern world has no monopoly on the fear of death or alienation from God. Alienation is the normal condition of human existence. Rebellion against God is the natural reaction to the discovery that the world was not made for our personal convenience. The further discovery that suffering is visited on the just and unjust alike is hard to square with a belief in a benign and omnipotent creator, as we know from the Book of Job.
But it is just this comfortable belief — that the purposes of the Almighty coincide with our purely human purposes — that religious faith requires us to renounce. Religion reminds us of the inescapable limits on human power and freedom. Far from endorsing comfortable superstitions, it undermines the most important superstition of all — that the human race controls its own destiny. According to its critics, religion provides the security of childlike dependence on a father figure who answers all our prayers. But the naive belief that our wishes govern the universe is precisely what religion attacks. We have no special claim on the universe, and our prayers are answered only when we surrender that claim: Such is the true meaning of religious faith, as it has been understood by a long succession of prophets through the ages.
The religious critique of pride ought to speak directly and compellingly to modern men and women, who find it galling to be reminded of their dependence on powers beyond their own control or at least beyond the control of humanity in general. Such people find it difficult to acknowledge the justice and goodness of these higher powers when the world is so obviously full of evil. They find it difficult to reconcile their expectations of worldly success and happiness, so often undone by events, with the idea of a just, loving, and all-powerful creator. Unable to conceive of a God who does not regard human happiness as the be-all and end-all of creation, they cannot see the central paradox of religious faith: that the secret of happiness lies in renouncing the right to be happy.
What makes the modern temper modern, then, is not that we have lost our childish sense of dependence but that the normal rebellion against dependence is more pervasive today than it used to be. But this rebellion is not new, as Flannery O'Connor reminds us when she observes that “there are long periods in the lives of all of us...when the truth as revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive.” If “right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul,” it is because the normal rebellion against dependence appears to be sanctioned by our scientific control over nature — the same progress of science that has allegedly destroyed religious superstition.
Those wonderful machines that science has enabled us to construct have made it possible to imagine ourselves as masters of our fate. In an age that fancies itself as disillusioned, this is the one illusion — the illusion of mastery — that remains as tenacious as ever. But now that we are beginning to grasp the limits of our control over the natural world, the future of this illusion (to invoke Freud once again) is very much in doubt — more problematical, certainly, than the future of religion.
In much of the commentary on the tsunami you get a clear picture of just how vacuous the secularist view of religious faith is, in particular their perplexity over how disaster can be reconciled with God. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 2, 2005 3:25 PM
Wonderful. Lasch single-handedly keeps me from casting all leftists onto the dungheap of history. The man was a bird of paradise.
Posted by: Peter B at January 2, 2005 5:23 PM"But the naive belief that our wishes govern the universe is precisely what religion attacks."
As do the vagaries of everyday life.
Much of the commentary you refer to as a vacuous expression of the secularist view of religion indicates you might have missed the point. The ones I saw had nothing to do with faith in general, but rather what Nature reveals about the God that is: some amalgam of absent, unconcerned, malevolent, ignorant or impotent.
While it is, in general, a very well written essay, it would be better without strawmen such as the quote above.
I doubt the author can identify even one person who holds such a belief.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 3, 2005 7:21 AMJeff:
That's all this is:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/019069.html
Posted by: oj at January 3, 2005 8:04 AM"But the naive belief that our wishes govern the universe is precisely what religion attacks."
I doubt the author can identify even one person who holds such a belief.
That's the problem with strawmen. Pose them often enough, lose sight of the real thing.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 3, 2005 11:43 AM"But it is just this comfortable belief that the purposes of the Almighty coincide with our purely human purposes that religious faith requires us to renounce."
Religion has no purpose if you acknowledge that God, or Fate or the Universe, has different purposes in the end than human purposes. If you truly believed that, then you would disregard God and get about your own purposes. It is well and good to pretend that you acknowledge this disturbing realization, but you expect to be made happy and satisfied in the end, when you get to Heaven. You can't acknowledge that God is indifferent to Man and at the same time believe that Man is created in God's image. How can two beings made from the same image be at cross purposes?
It is the atheist that truly acknowledges this, that there is no afterlife, that the universe is totally indifferent to his purposes.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at January 3, 2005 12:39 PMAre your sons' purposes always the same as yours?
Posted by: oj at January 3, 2005 1:40 PMOrrin:
Isn't it fascinating how the same people who insist no benevolent deity could possibly create such a cruel and awful world are the same ones who are so adamant that everything gets better year after year? Oh, right. I forgot. They are correcting His work.
Robert/Jeff:
Ever pruned a tree or tended a garden? I hope you felt guilty for the wanton, meaningless havoc and destruction you wrecked along the way.
Posted by: Peter B at January 3, 2005 4:33 PMYes, and I also pull weeds. The tree may come to thank me someday for making his life better, but I can forgive the weed for considering my actions toward him a crime. Unless he has some delusion that I will find a nice sunny spot in my greenhouse for him someday.
As far as believing things getting better and better, you've obviously not been paying attention to my posts on the economy. Orrin is the hopeless optimist around here.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at January 3, 2005 5:35 PMRobert:
What does the growing economy have to do with things getting better, except to materialists?
Posted by: oj at January 3, 2005 5:45 PMMy Robert, My Robert, why hast thou plucked me from the ground?
Posted by: 4Saken Weed at January 3, 2005 9:54 PMMy Robert, I long to hear your voice say unto me, "come into greenhouse," but you are silent. How have I offended thee? why art thou silent and unmoved by my plea? Speak your words of life to me, I beg of thee.
Posted by: 4saken Weed at January 3, 2005 9:57 PMI thank you, O my Robert, for thou hast been good to me; you have made my life better. I am grateful that you do not consider me as a weed, but as a thing of value and worth. All you have done in my life has been for my good, and I rejoice in that.
Posted by: The Tree at January 3, 2005 10:01 PMPeter, I never met anybody who thought that everything was getting better, but I'm not too worried about dying of plague this year or next, and I'd say that's definitely an improvement over the 14th century.
Even an honest Christian would say the same -- despite Orrin's disapproval, they used to pray for deliverance from plague, you know.
Now we have it.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 4, 2005 12:14 AMWe have it because of Christian men who believed in universe of divine order. Here is a short list (courtesy of a commenter on another blog) of some men of science who not only believed in God but respected the authority of Divine Revelation:
Joseph Lister (Antiseptic Surgery) Johann Kepler (Physical Astronomy, Celestial Mechanics) Robert Boyle (Chemistry) Georges Cuvier (Vertebrate Paleontology, Comparative Anatomy) Charles Babbage (Computer Science) Lord Rayleigh (Model Analysis, Dimensional Analysis) John Ambrose Flemming (Electronics) James Clerk Maxwell (Statistical Thermodynamics, Electrodynamics) Michael Faraday (Electromagnetics) Lord Kelvin (Thermodynamics, Energetics) Henri Fabre (Entomology) George Stokes (Fluid Mechanics) William Herschel (Galactic Astronomy) Robert Boyle (Gas Dynamics) Gregor Mendel (Genetics) Louis Agassiz (Ichtyology, Glacial Geology) Matthew Maury (Oceanography, Hydrography) William Ramsey (Isotopic Chemistry) John Ray (Natural History) Bernhard Riemann (Non-Euclidean Geometry) David Brewster (Optical Minerology) Rudolph Virchow (Pathology) James Joule (Reversible Thermodynamics) Nicholas Steno (Stratigraphy) Carolus Linnaeus (Systematic Biology) Humphrey Davy (Thermokinetics).
Posted by: Paul Cella at January 4, 2005 4:51 AMPaul:
Impressive list, but it is the fact that they engaged in secular rational inquiry, not mysticism, that we don't worry about the plague today.
Taking that point one step further, the religious beliefs men of science hold are irrelevant to the discoveries they produced.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 4, 2005 7:10 AMNope, it's just improved hygeine.
Posted by: oj at January 4, 2005 7:34 AMYup. Those antibiotics are nothing but improved hygiene.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 4, 2005 11:49 AMYou think antibiotics stopped the plague?
Posted by: oj at January 4, 2005 12:23 PMGet thee to the compost heap, accursed weed! I know thee not! When I was hot, you shaded me not, when I was hungry, you bore me no fruit. When in my hour of need the Appraiser cometh, you addeth no value, nay, your presence mocked me as an owner of questionable stewardship. Thou shalt never enjoy the bliss of my heavenly Greenhouse, for thou art ugly and lacking in aesthetic purity.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at January 4, 2005 12:39 PMYup. Antibiotics are just improved hygiene.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 4, 2005 2:02 PMAh, but it was hygeine, not antibiotics?
Posted by: oj at January 4, 2005 2:06 PMI have medicinal qualities, O my glorious and merciful Robert, and my foliage wouldst flower in splendid hues of yellow if thou wouldst but let me live in the light of your garden, or just off to the side (away from the footpath and the driveway please).
Posted by: 4saken Weed at January 4, 2005 10:02 PMMr. Guinn writes, "The religious beliefs men of science hold are irrelevant to the discoveries they produced."
Nonsense. The religious beliefs of any sincere and serious man cannot be irrelevant to the fruits of his life.
Posted by: Paul Cella at January 4, 2005 11:21 PMPaul:
The last time I checked, the scientific method had no element favorable to any one religion, or any religion at all. One could make an equally long list of Hindu, deistic, agnostic, or atheistic scientists.
OJ:
Apologies for the repeat post--the two+ hour time lag faked me out.
Antibiotics didn't stop the plague, but they pretty nearly stopped death from plenty of other infections. The first person helped by antibiotics was dying of a blood infection following a scratch from a rose thorn. He had nearly recovered when the test supply ran out. Sadly, no more could be made before he died.
There is no doubt hygiene and clean water are the two most important contributors to longer lives, but they aren't the only ones. And the knowledge of that importance, nor the means to attain them, were not the fruits of mystical inquiry.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 5, 2005 7:49 AMWashing out cuts was more important an advance.
Posted by: oj at January 5, 2005 8:39 AMKilling rats stopped the spread of the plague.
Antibiotics made it possible to successfully treat people (usually) who already had it.
Antibiotics made it possible for people who were not saints to nurse persons with the plague.
McNeill (in 'Plagues and Peoples') noted that the bubonic form, while serious, is not itself the cause of enormous mortality.
What he called 'very simple nursing,' by which he meant giving the sick food and water, by itself dropped mortality from around a third to a tenth.
During the Age of Faith, 'very simple nursing' occurred, but about as often, the sick were walled up in their houses -- and the well with them.
That's the intersection of religious belief, ignorance and Yersinia pestis.
Add science and you get a different outcome.
Even today, scientific medicine does not manage to save every infected person. But today we do not wall up the well and the sick to starve.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 5, 2005 5:48 PMAs usual that's nearly all nonsense.
Posted by: oj at January 5, 2005 6:06 PMBring out your dead ...
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 6, 2005 7:51 AMHarry:
Good points all, further substantiated by including vaccines.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 6, 2005 11:51 AMThe vaccine for the plague?
All we had to do was clean up and it solved the rat problem, which got rid of the plague.
Posted by: oj at January 6, 2005 1:43 PMNo, in general. Ever hear of smallpox? Or tetanus? Perhaps measles, mumps, rabies, polio?
Vaccines make it possible to treat sufferers without catching the disease. Until, on occasion, the vaccine eliminates the altogether.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 6, 2005 3:28 PMthey're largely just functions of hygeine (and nutrition).
The phrase "cleanliness is next to Godliness" contains more truth and has achieved more in medicine than any scientific breakthrough.
Richard Lewontin--I know, an apostate in Darwinian eyes--is good on the subject:
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people3/Lewontin/lewontin-con4.html
Posted by: oj at January 6, 2005 4:05 PM