There was a cartoon by the Naked Pastor about how existential loneliness continues to exists even among devout church-going Christians. Many people get along reasonably well without tightly embracing specific religious-philosophical beliefs. All they need to get by are some hopeful thoughts concerning the afterlife. While others grab tightly to highly specific beliefs and grow uneasy at the thought that maybe the afterlife wont be like they believe, or even that it might not exist. Either thought induces unease. (I suspect that a belief in only two destinations, eternal damnation or eternal bliss, magnifies the unease.) Let me put it another way, there are NOTHING MOREs, POSSIBLY SOMETHING MOREs, and NOTHING LESSERs. Some are comfortable with the thought that this life is probably all these is, they are the NOTHING MORES. A larger number are comfortable living with a little hope that there may be SOMETHING MORE, some sort of afterlife or a more beautiful future. But then there are the apologists, who have to prove to themselves and others that a particular system of beliefs and doctrines are so true that there can be NOTHING LESS than their particular beliefs. That seems to lead to crises of faith -- that supposedly apologetics can cure. Though I suspect no apologetic work can relieve doubts when ones beliefs are so highly specific. Rather, the questions and answers all become part of a cognitive dissonance cycle. To quote C. S. Lewis late in his life: I envy you not having to think any more about Christian apologetics. My correspondents force the subject on me again and again. It is very wearing, and not v. good for ones own faith. A Christian doctrine never seems less real to me than when I have just (even if successfully) been defending it. It is particularly tormenting when those who were converted by my books begin to relapse and raise new difficulties. -- C. S. Lewis to Mary Van Deusen, June 18, 1956 Or, consider sayings of Alan Watts (ex-Anglican priest whose journey into the history of Christian mysticism led him further east, similar to journeys taken by others, including C. S. Lewis lifelong friend and fellow convert at Oxford, Dom Bede Griffiths). Clinging to beliefs is like clinging to a rock in the middle of a vast ocean, but having faith is different, it involves letting go of the rock and learning to swim in that ocean. And indeed we all live on a rock flying through a vast sea of space. [my paraphrase of something Watts said] It must be obvious... that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you dont grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. If this world is a vicious trap, so is its accuser, and the pot is calling the kettle black. Religions are divisive and quarrelsome. They are a form of one-upmanship because they depend upon separating the saved from the damned, the true believers from the heretics, the in-group from the out-group. Even religious liberals play the game of were-moretolerant- than-you. Furthermore, as systems of doctrine, symbolism, and behavior, religions harden into institutions that must command loyalty, be defended and kept pure, and-because all belief is fervent hope, and thus a cover-up for doubt and uncertainty-religions must make converts. The more people who agree with us, the less nagging insecurity about our position. In the end one is committed to being a Christian or a Buddhist come what may in the form of new knowledge. New and indigestible ideas have to be wangled into the religious tradition, however inconsistent with its original doctrines, so that the believer can still take his stand and assert, I am first and foremost a follower of Christ/Mohammed/Buddha, or whomever. Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, open-ness-an act of trust in the unknown. An ardent Jehovahs Witness once tried to convince me that if there were a God of love, he would certainly provide mankind with a reliable and infallible textbook for the guidance of conduct. I replied that no considerate God would destroy the human mind by making it so rigid and unadaptable as to depend upon one book, the Bible, for all the answers. For the use of words, and thus of a book, is to point beyond themselves to a world of life and experience that is not mere words or even ideas. Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency. I think the Bible ought to be ceremoniously and reverently burned every Easter. We need it no more, because the Spirit is with us. Its a dangerous book, and to worship it is of course a far more dangerous idolatry than bowing down to images of wood and stone. Nobody can confuse a wooden image with God, but you can very easily confuse a set of ideas with God, because concepts are more rarified and abstract. I had a discussion with a great master in Japan... and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, Thats a waste of time. If you really understand Zen... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because... the sound of the rain needs no translation. Or, to quote someone else, Albert Schweitzer, What Christianity needs is that it shall be filled to overflowing with the spirit of Jesus, and in the strength of that shall spiritualize itself into a living religion of inwardness and love, such as its destined purpose should make it. Because I am devoted to Christianity in deep affection, I am trying to serve it with loyalty and sincerity. In no wise do I undertake to enter the lists on its behalf with the crooked and fragile thinking of Christian apologists, but I call on it to set itself right in the spirit of sincerity with its past and with thought in order that it may thereby become conscious of its true nature.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 18:56:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015