I am sure that 144 comments does not qualify as “going viral” in the real blog world. But in my little corner of blog land the 144 comments accumulated on my December 10, 2010 post, is a firestorm of attention.
For the past three weeks, a small cyber community of believers, agnostics and atheists from around North America have carried on a remarkable conversation attached to my “Talking With Atheists” post – http://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/talking-with-atheists/
For the most part the conversation has been conducted with gratifying respect, mutual tolerance, and openness. The tone of the discussion provides a refreshing model of the possibilities when people come together with a genuine desire to learn from one another and to grow in their understanding of different ideas.
The conversation was most intensely triggered by my comparison of atheists with fundamentalists. Clearly, the comparison was unfair. Atheists come in varied hues as do people of faith. There are close-minded, narrow, bigoted, aggressive atheists, just as much as there are people of faith who could be described the same way. As is clearly evident in the comments section of my original post, there are also open minded, accepting, thoughtful atheists, agnostics, and believers.
No matter what our faith, we all fall somewhere on the spectrum between fixed convictions at one end and complete uncertainty about everything at the other. It is most difficult for those at either end of the spectrum to enter into deep conversation with those at the opposite extreme.
Having observed the conversation on my blog, it seems there is a challenge for people of faith entering into conversation with people who reject belief in anything beyond the physical material realities that can be perceived by the five senses through which we normally process the world.
The foundational conviction for people who believe in the existence of a transcendent reality we call “God,” is that there is a dimension of existence beyond that which can be perceived by taste, touch, sight, sound, or smell. This dimension of reality transcends the realm that can be adequately explored by reason, thought, intellect, or human language. God can never be contained by verbal formulations, or rational constructs. God cannot be reduced to human logic.
This makes conversation difficult between those who perceive no reality beyond the rational and those whose experience leads them to the conviction that existence is not confined to the material, physical, rational plane.
The person who affirms a realm beyond the material is always open to the criticism of being irrational and failing to apply rigorous laws of logic. On the other side, the person who, simply because it is not their experience, rejects the deep inner experience of those who affirm the divine, risks appearing narrow-minded and bigoted.
Mystical tradition has always understood the inadequacy of language and reason to capture the deepest realities of life.
Bede Griffiths the great Benedictine monk who spent his adult life in southern India attempting to forge links between Christians and Hindus, spoke well for all spiritual traditions when he wrote,
We can use words and thoughts to point towards the unmanifest but we cannot properly express it, and all sacred doctrine is of that character. The truth itself cannot properly be expressed. The Spirit, the Self, the ultimate Reality, is beyond words and thoughts and beyond change. (River of Compassion: A Christian Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita)
The great divide in the conversation about “ultimate Reality” is between those who believe their thoughts, words, and logic are adequate to encompass the totality of reality, and those who accept the profound limitations of all human knowing. For those who acknowledge the limits of the intellect and the parameters of logic, the horizon of mystery begins to open and we find ourselves traveling in the expansive terrain of faith.
In the beautiful introduction to his anthology of Western mysticism, English literature scholar Patrick Grant, writes powerfully of this other dimension of life that people of a spiritual bent believe they perceive.
If it is true, as the mystics claim, that there is knowledge beyond discourse and vision beyond images, then such knowledge is impossible to describe, and it is often compared to a kind of darkness. Thus we are to discover at the heart of our abandonment in the spiritual night a wholly other kind of apprehension, which so enables us to find our way around in the dark that the heart of darkness itself becomes bright.(A Dazzling Darkness: An Anthology of Western Mysticism)
This “other kind of apprehension” contains truth and wisdom not totally knowable by reason, logic, or science. The terrain of “the spiritual night” does not contradict reason; it is not contrary to human logic, but it cannot be navigated using only these faculties. There are other faculties required to find one’s way to that place where “the heart of darkness itself becomes bright.”
The faculties that have the ability to lead us into the land of the divine are closer to the ways of knowing exercised by a child than the tight analysis of the academic world. It is not a mistake that Jesus once said,
unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.(Matthew 18:3)
Recently, I watched my three-year-old granddaughter in her swimming lessons. She was seated on the side of the pool. The teacher was in the water encouraging her pupil to jump into her arms. My granddaughter’s father stood in the water beside the teacher. I could not hear the words being exchanged but I watched my granddaughter wag her little finger persistently at the teacher and point to her father. She knew that jumping into the arms of a stranger did not feel safe. She had a deep inner wisdom that her wise parents had taught her to heed. Although she could not articulate it in words, this three-year-old knew that her father was safer, more reliable, more secure. So she clung to the truth that grounded her little being, until the teacher finally gave in and allowed her pupil to jump to daddy.
I see this wisdom again and again in small children. They perceive the importance of beauty in the world. They relish the realm of the imagination. They have no problem knowing that there is a reality beyond themselves. They accept that there is a force of goodness at the heart of the universe that holds them with tenderness and compassion. Their hearts are open to another way of knowing. They may not have the tools of reason and logic, but their knowledge is deep and profound. It burns with the brightness of wisdom that is their birthright.
The tragedy of aging is that we lose touch with the skills of this deep intuitive inner knowing. We become disconnected from that wisdom that beholds a truth that transcends reason and has the capacity to open us to the reality in the deep heart of the universe. There is no logical proof by which to persuade a person who no longer experiences this reality. There are no words that can pry open the door. The person of faith will always lose the argument when the conversation depends upon reason and logic.
It may be that the greatest failure for people of faith has been to allow ourselves to feel insecure and afraid because the realm of life in which we travel most deeply, is not entirely at the disposal of empirical evidence and scientific proof. When we attempt to defend a reality that cannot be known by reason, using the inadequate tools of the intellect, we will always be forced on the defensive.
When people of faith try to compete in the realm of reason, they abandon the territory to which their experience has brought them. There is no way, using the tools that the rational scientific “Enlightenment” has provided, to cross the great divide that rises up when we finally acknowledge the limitations of human reason. We can only live deeply in the mysterious terrain of the spirit to which generations of faith have born witness. We can only strive to open more fully to the reality of the ineffable and embrace our atheist friends with the love and compassion we discover in this place of the spirit.
People of faith need to recover the skills of a child. It is time to stop feeling bashful about our awareness that there is more to life than can be summed up in the small intellectual formulations of our brains. We need to open to the wonder and the beauty of life that can ultimately only be fully known when our words lead us to the place of mystery and silence. Here we will find God and discover that, despite our differences, we are one even with the atheist with whom we appear so to deeply disagree.
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December 31, 2010 at 9:42 am
thekeyofatheist
This is a very thoughtful post, I’d just like to clarify one thing. You say:
“For those who acknowledge the limits of the intellect and the parameters of logic, the horizon of mystery begins to open and we find ourselves traveling in the expansive terrain of faith.”
You also say:
“it seems there is a challenge for people of faith entering into conversation with people who reject belief in anything beyond the physical material realities that can be perceived by the five senses through which we normally process the world.”
The implication here is that atheists/materialists do not acknowledge the limits of human understanding and that we reject belief in anything that we cannot directly perceive. I don’t believe either to be the case.
The limits of our senses and understanding our precisely why we seek to be so discerning in about belief. Our use of the scientific method has revealed countless things to us that our five senses never could– radio waves, microbiology, infrared and ultraviolet spectra, and much more. Our understanding of quantum mechanics now pushes the boundaries of our logical understanding.
We have learned all of this by following the evidence. We don’t believe that we are finished learning or that everything we think we know now will turn out to have been right in light of new information. I think that acknowledging this is important in fairly representing a rationalist world view.
January 2, 2011 at 9:14 pm
inaspaciousplace
I am sure you are right that there are atheists who “acknowledge the limits of human understanding” and do not necessarily “reject belief in anything that we cannot directly perceive.” But there are atheists who give the impression that they refuse to do first and do the second when it seems convenient.
I wonder what status is accorded the evidence of human experience. The experience of multitudes of people down through history, spanning all cultures, and across all social divides has led many intelligent, thoughtful, open individuals to the conviction that they perceive a dimension to existence they call God. Can this evidence simply be dismissed as facile self-delusion? Might it not be more intellectually credible to follow this strand of evidence before rejecting it as irrelevant?
January 4, 2011 at 12:06 pm
allogenes
I agree it isn’t likely to be “facile self-delusion.”
I’m just not persuaded that all these reported experiences add up to a coherent picture of an objective extra-mental extra-cultural reality either.
In fact I’m not persuaded that religion depends very much on anyone’s direct experience to begin with; it seems to me far more of a cultural construct with a life of its own.
If you have some particular experience(s) in mind, either your own or described by some source you trust, that’s one thing; we can talk about it if you like, or you can just say there is such a thing and I’ll truly profoundly respect it as a personal matter; but reference to unnamed multitudes doesn’t give the scientific mind (to which I humbly aspire) much to go on. It seems to me that science works largely by breaking down vague generalities into detailed observation of specific cases; there’s probably a lot that we’ll never learn that way, I freely admit it, but what we do learn by it we learn with a degree of assurance that we do not find in other procedures…
December 31, 2010 at 9:57 am
jaqueline
“For those who acknowledge the limits of the intellect and the parameters of logic, the horizon of mystery begins to open and we find ourselves traveling in the expansive terrain of faith.”
This is an interesting sentence Christopher,.
One of the things that became apparent in our conversation is that we can have this sense of the transcendent without having a belief in an actual deity.
If a faith journey depends on us opening up to” a dimension of existence beyond that which can be perceived by taste, touch, sight, sound, or smell.” what our friends have shared has made me think that a faith journey does not mean it has to look like religion …
“When we attempt to defend a reality that cannot be known by reason, using the inadequate tools of the intellect, we will always be forced on the defensive.”
This points to a fine distinction…perhaps the reality that we believe in cannot be known by reason …but it can be described and thought about and written about and explained by reason…
“The person of faith will always lose the argument when the conversation depends upon reason and logic.”
It’s work but hopefully good to come to a place of comfort with that. Maybe that is God’s wisdom…makes us dip deeper than logic and go beyond differences and find ground on which to relate that depends on who we are as people and how we treat each other instead of based on what we think…or believe….
However I would like to emphasise that the conversation had plenty of rational logic… the argument may not be won but the conversation can be had.
“She knew that jumping into the arms of a stranger did not feel safe. She had a deep inner wisdom that her wise parents had taught her to heed. Although she could not articulate it in words, this three-year-old knew that her father was safer, more reliable, more secure. ”
I think this describes what we believe as Christians…. for me this was an image of our faith..we are not just jumping into the water of the unknown world of mystery we jump into the arms of the origin of our being.
The story we attend to tells that God, who we cannot apprehend through our faculties of reason and material and intellect does not demand that we do. The story of Jesus represents a God that decided to take on that which we can know, that which we can experience. God bridged that gap between the world we are familiar with and the one that is invisible to us. God didn’t leave it up to us to see or understand or touch or apprehend what we could not.
Some of us might have faculty ( the history of mysticism is full of those who have ) but most of us don’t. God didn’t leave us to guess …in Jesus we are seeing and hearing and touching.. if we want to know what God is like …here it is..God is like this man Jesus.
All our interpretations of a righteous and vengeful God are proved incomplete at best and blasphemy at worst because of the witness of this humble and dying God.
January 1, 2011 at 2:46 pm
timberwraith
Christopher, that was a beautiful post. Thank you.
I’m sorry I haven’t had time to contribute yet.
I just had a completely unpleasant interaction with another atheist. It was as though we were speaking two entirely different languages. Basically, it came down to me speaking from an intuitive place that resides deep within the heart and him wanting to boil down everything into pure, cold rationalism. It was a crystalline moment in which I realized that my thought processes sometimes have more common with folks such as yourselves than many atheists. Even though our spiritualities exist within very different contexts, we still have the experience of spiritual connection in common. How the heck do you express that to someone who is living completely “above the neck”? Basically, you can’t: not without them treating you as though you were a child, patting you on the head, and then smirking. I felt like an overly emotional fool and he came off looking like a cold hearted, empty individual.
Ugh.
Anyway, it’s nice to be able to share this side of myself because it’s one that’s not very welcome among a good number of atheists. Sometimes, it’s really annoying being a person who straddles these two ways of seeing the world.
January 2, 2011 at 8:59 pm
inaspaciousplace
This is a lovely, honest comment. My only desire is to encourage atheists, agnostics, and people of whatever faith to open to that “intuitive place that resides deep within the heart” and follow wherever that may lead. I love the image in William Blake’s “Jerusalem”
I give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.
(Plate 77 of Jerusalem)
Thank you for sharing your story and for your willingness to enter with us into that “intuitive place that resides deep within the heart.”
January 4, 2011 at 9:03 pm
inaspaciousplace
Reply to allogenes
comment of January 4, 2011 at 12:06 pm
(see above)
I am not sure that “a cultural construct with a life of its own” is any less dismissive than “facile self-delusion.” Nor am I convinced that even the most “objective” atheist can guarantee to be operating free of the influence of “a cultural construct with a life of its own.”
The “multitudes” to whom I refer who bear testimony to their experience of the ineffable, are mostly unnamed because they are ordinary people you pass on the street every day.
But they are not all unnamed. Some have struggled to frame their experience using human language. Sources I trust who attest to spiritual experience?
Begin with: the Apostle Paul, John the Gospel writer. Then the list goes on: Origen, Anthony of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzus, Evagrius Ponticus, John Cassian, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Isaac of Nineveh, Pseudo-Dionysius, Simeon the New Theologian, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assissi, Angela of Foligno, Meister Eckhart, Jan van Ruysbroeck, Gregory Palamas, Johannes Tauler, Marguerite Porete, Dante Aligheri, Julian of Norwich, the Anonymous Cloud of Unknowing, Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Catherine of Genoa, Menno Simons, George Herbert, Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales, John of the Cross, Brother Lawrence, Blaise Pascal, Jakob Spener, George Fox, John Milton, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, William Blake, Theophan the Recluse, Seraphim of Sarov, John Henry Newman, Jean-Pierre de Caussade, William Booth, Therese of Lisieux, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Simon Weil, Thomas Merton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Alfred Delp, Raimon Panikkar, Thomas Keating, James Finley, Richard Rohr, David Steindel-Rast, Bruno Barnhart, Cynthia Bourgeault
I apologize my list only includes Christians. It is the tradition I know best. I know equally extensive lists could be constructed from many other spiritual traditions.
Sadly, if you are looking for “a coherent picture of an objective extra-mental extra-cultural reality” you will search in vain. The experience is as individual as the person having the experience. Words can only hint at the hidden mystery of the experience of the Divine. Every writer listed above would testify that their words inadequately express that which they know within.
How can I convince you I experience love for my wife? You could watch my behaviour and you might be convinced. I hope, if you watched my behaviour you might also be convinced that I experience love for God, even if you do not believe in God’s existence.
January 7, 2011 at 3:24 pm
johnamccurdy
I want to share an extended quote from a short book I finished reading recently by the highly regarded historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto titled The Future of Religion (Phoenix, 1997), pages 40 and 42.
You wouldn’t know it from the quote, but Fernandez-Armesto is, in fact, a devote and unashamedly opinionated Roman Catholic. I don’t entirely agree with what he has to say – if the universe appears purposeless it is because we lack eyes to see. But what he has to say is important on the whole. It doesn’t settle the faith question, in my mind, but it does demonstrate that the worship of rationality – and rationality is clearly an invaluable tool in a potentially dangerous and delusional world – rests on quick sand:
“Scepticism and relativism can … have equivocal effects, promoting religion by way of reaction. Religion was most threatened for a brief period in the West in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when science purported to make God an ‘unnecessary hypothesis.’ Now that new or resurgent forms of scepticism have made all claims incredible – including those of science and secular rationalism – belief is relicensed and all things, visible and invisible, herded together into the corral of uncertainty. We inhabit a civilization of crumbling confidence, in which it is hard to be sure of anything. The vast scientific counter-revolution [aka Einstein and after] has overthrown the ordered model of the universe we inherited from the past and substituted the chaotic, contradictory model we live with today, of incoherent data, imperfectly resolved into partial images, like a Cubist painting. Philosophy gradually lost confident in everything that had once seemed sure. Logic, once a guarantor of truth, was reclassified as an imperfect system. Language, once a guarantor of meaning, was reduced to a ‘means of misinterpretation.’ Existentialism destroyed belief in the object, deconstruction in the subject [or self]. Paradoxically, perhaps, this looking-glass world is one in which faith can thrive. Of all traditional sources of certainty, faith is, perhaps, the only one which is immune from its annihilating forces …
“Only in the compact and intelligible universe formerly favoured by science was God ‘an unnecessary hypothesis.’ When the universe looked manageable and intelligible, people could hope to manage and understand it. Not any more. By exposing its vastness, recent science has set itself an insuperable challenge. Both ends of creation have become undiscernible to human scrutiny: its magnitude is too vast to grasp; the particles of which it is composed are too small to imagine. All we can get at is a tiny range between the infinite and the infinitesimal. It was always a delusion that cosmic order betrayed God’s hand. If he existed, he would surely not be so easily mocked. The apparent purposelessness, which is all we can now discern, is more convincingly godlike. This is how a truly divine mind would create a world: to baffle merely human intelligence.”
February 9, 2011 at 6:27 pm
allogenes
I’m sorry, I only just now noticed this response to my earlier comment. Blogs aren’t always as transparent as one might like, and I think I failed to click the “notify” box on this post.
You site some impressive writers, a few of whom I have even read, at least in part… _So far_ I have seen no reason not to regard the experiences described as basically non-cognitive states of our individual nervous systems, interpreted through the varying lenses of culture; _but_ unlike the hard-core atheist, I see nothing wrong with this! Even if I am right and that is all that the experiences are, they are still part of the totality of what makes us human! I will heartily defend your right to pursue your investigations of these things, to speak of them and share them, and I will from time to time read of them with some interest; however, when anyone insists that some particular formulation or other has to be accepted as authoritative objective fact, then I will just as heartily take the side of Dawkins…
February 10, 2011 at 5:52 am
allogenes
Oh yes, to clarify the distinction I intended between “facile self-delusion” and “cultural construct:” the former, to me, suggests a kind of individual fault or weakness; the latter is my way of acknowledging that we all, all our thoughts, all our real or imagined “knowledge,” _are_ dependent on some level of reality larger than ourselves as individuals, even if, as I suspect, it turns out not to be a metaphysical “ultimate” level but merely something generated by the human collective. And yes, I agree, atheism and science are themselves implicated in this process, not exempt from it; Lindsay in a recent comment back on the original thread refers to the idea that “relativism” itself seems to be a product of a particular cultural background, and I quite agree with that.
If I had to choose between fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist “scientism” I would pick the latter without hesitation, because science does demonstrably “work” at least up to a point; it does make sense of at least a large part of our experience and does make tangible improvements in our lives, far more reliably (at least in my experience!) than the alternative.
You might choose differently, but I think we both agree it would be better not to have to make that choice.