Sincerity, just for the sake of contrast...
I'm reading Process and Reality -- among other things -- with a friend this summer. I think Whitehead's pretty interesting and his command of language is rather astonishing -- though the density it affords him is sometimes exasperrating. But, any time I run across a philosopher whose thought has such an obviously metaphysical thrust, I have to read him (or her -- I guess it's possible). Metaphysics is what got me into philosophy, after all.
But his vision of the world is so seductive as to give me pause. I find myself -- though only occasionally and vaguely -- wanting to believe.
Just to clarify, the issues that fomented my loss of faith are decidedly not those that I find currently precluding my return to theism. The situation has actually gotten pretty complex, and I'm rather proud that my unbelief has infinitely more depth than I think it did at the time it initially dawned upon me. I simply do not understand how I arrived at religious belief in the past, and I haven't a clue what coming to believe now would entail.
Would a decision to believe be a decision? What kind of decision? Would it be honest? Is it a mistake to consider psychologically- and not rationally-motivated beliefs illegitimate, or accord them less respect? Why would I believe? Would the "edge" that invaded my every waking hour after my crisis of faith disappear? Would the loss of this "edge" -- which I consider one of the engines driving my efforts to succeed and be happy in the world -- mean the eventual loss of any ability I might have to do something great? Is a will-to-greatness -- and I mean a legitimate greatness, not celebrity, etc. -- compatible with a religious sensibility?
Maybe the most significant question is as follows:
What would have to happen for me to be compelled to believe (again)?
Now, this isn't a question necessarily of "returning to the fold," in the strict sense. I am not trying to rationalize finding solace in a religion -- or at least a form thereof -- that is no longer part of my life. I am no longer a Christian for a very concrete, indisputable reason: Christianity failed me. It ceased to fill me with what I then termed "the presence of God." It could not offer a sufficient explanation for the experience of waking up one morning and feeling like something inside me -- something infinitely important -- had died. It could not mask the putrid odor of that dead thing rotting in my heart.
To rephrase the question then, what would? What would awaken the dead or sleeping thing inside me? Would it even be the same thing? It seems that, after all that has happened the last 8 years, I could never believe what I did before my crisis. And, it's not even a question of my ability or willingness to hold any particular doctrine. Real belief never consists in adherence to a checklist of axioms. The quesiton is about the almost pre-conceptual -- or possibly, sub-conceptual -- picture of the world religious belief would necessitate, and in which it actually lives. Could I accept any worldview that has room and role for God?
I've always felt that experience is the only testimony that could bear out God. This suggests that I would have to undergo some overwhelming, transformative experience of God, in order to believe again. I don't know what behavior such a suggestion implies is proper. I don't know where this realization -- that God would have to lay his hands on me for me to know he was there -- leaves me. I can't allay a very palpable, very frightening fear that, even if some decisive moment revealed to me a way or reason to believe, I might later find that the act of aquiesence was also an act of the most profound self-betrayal.
In the end, I guess I'm still scarred by the crisis in my past. That crisis -- at least in some respects -- has been like a tear in my life, a kind of caesura, a breach in the phenomenological continuity of every day.
However, I don't want to give the impression that pain evident in the last few paragraphs has been the most prominent characteristic of my life for the last 8 years. The days have borne many a moment of sublimity and sunlight. Even my pain has been divine. I would not relinquish a second of it for any amount of "peak-and-valley"-less refuge.
Nonetheless, the question burns inside me. And, while it is no substitute for what used to burn there, it is certainly one of the hungers keeping me alive.
But his vision of the world is so seductive as to give me pause. I find myself -- though only occasionally and vaguely -- wanting to believe.
Just to clarify, the issues that fomented my loss of faith are decidedly not those that I find currently precluding my return to theism. The situation has actually gotten pretty complex, and I'm rather proud that my unbelief has infinitely more depth than I think it did at the time it initially dawned upon me. I simply do not understand how I arrived at religious belief in the past, and I haven't a clue what coming to believe now would entail.
Would a decision to believe be a decision? What kind of decision? Would it be honest? Is it a mistake to consider psychologically- and not rationally-motivated beliefs illegitimate, or accord them less respect? Why would I believe? Would the "edge" that invaded my every waking hour after my crisis of faith disappear? Would the loss of this "edge" -- which I consider one of the engines driving my efforts to succeed and be happy in the world -- mean the eventual loss of any ability I might have to do something great? Is a will-to-greatness -- and I mean a legitimate greatness, not celebrity, etc. -- compatible with a religious sensibility?
Maybe the most significant question is as follows:
What would have to happen for me to be compelled to believe (again)?
Now, this isn't a question necessarily of "returning to the fold," in the strict sense. I am not trying to rationalize finding solace in a religion -- or at least a form thereof -- that is no longer part of my life. I am no longer a Christian for a very concrete, indisputable reason: Christianity failed me. It ceased to fill me with what I then termed "the presence of God." It could not offer a sufficient explanation for the experience of waking up one morning and feeling like something inside me -- something infinitely important -- had died. It could not mask the putrid odor of that dead thing rotting in my heart.
To rephrase the question then, what would? What would awaken the dead or sleeping thing inside me? Would it even be the same thing? It seems that, after all that has happened the last 8 years, I could never believe what I did before my crisis. And, it's not even a question of my ability or willingness to hold any particular doctrine. Real belief never consists in adherence to a checklist of axioms. The quesiton is about the almost pre-conceptual -- or possibly, sub-conceptual -- picture of the world religious belief would necessitate, and in which it actually lives. Could I accept any worldview that has room and role for God?
I've always felt that experience is the only testimony that could bear out God. This suggests that I would have to undergo some overwhelming, transformative experience of God, in order to believe again. I don't know what behavior such a suggestion implies is proper. I don't know where this realization -- that God would have to lay his hands on me for me to know he was there -- leaves me. I can't allay a very palpable, very frightening fear that, even if some decisive moment revealed to me a way or reason to believe, I might later find that the act of aquiesence was also an act of the most profound self-betrayal.
In the end, I guess I'm still scarred by the crisis in my past. That crisis -- at least in some respects -- has been like a tear in my life, a kind of caesura, a breach in the phenomenological continuity of every day.
However, I don't want to give the impression that pain evident in the last few paragraphs has been the most prominent characteristic of my life for the last 8 years. The days have borne many a moment of sublimity and sunlight. Even my pain has been divine. I would not relinquish a second of it for any amount of "peak-and-valley"-less refuge.
Nonetheless, the question burns inside me. And, while it is no substitute for what used to burn there, it is certainly one of the hungers keeping me alive.
posted by fockler at 11:47 AM
5 Comments:
More precisely, the definition veered into inadequacy. You are certainly right in that regard. The problem now is that I no longer have the kind of experience(s) for which the old definition ceased to suffice.
In all honesty, if those kind of experiences were still part of my life, the cosmology and theology inherent in Process philosophy would be more than good enough. They're rather beautiful.
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I can't help but relate to some extent with your experience. I've also had a sense of "the dead or sleeping thing."
I wonder if this isn't simply a matter of growth. That is, I wonder if it's possible or desirable to return precisely to our past selves.
If you're a person who can't help thinking, and you obviously are, then your understanding of what you turn your mind towards will necessarily grow and change. I was finally forced to focus my mind on metaphysics, and was unable to square faith with reality.
Your process seems perhaps to have been more unconscious--a sudden absence of the "presence of God," but in both cases I think it may be a case of innocence lost. There's really nothing like the pure emotion of the young. If we are to grow, some of this purity is by necessity complicated. The concept of an omnipotent being full of pure and endless love and acceptance for us is extraordinarily seductive. If you truly believe, the great weight of responsibility to make your way alone in an uncertain world is lifted, replaced by a blissful oneness with God. Experience and thought make us wonder, question, alter our perception of, and in a few cases abandon. I know many deeply religious people, but I know very few whose concept of God had not been modified by their life experience.
I think even for the theist, a return to that simple, early, joyful faith is at very least improbable. In my life, I find that I'm beginning to get in touch with a new sense of "oneness with the universe" for lack of a better phrase. Like you, I wouldn't trade the peaks and valleys for anything. They are a part of me, and more than simply fearing change, I want them for the strength and perspective they lend me. I find in myself a new joyfulness, perhaps not as overpowering as in younger days, but truly appreciative of the moment and possessing of a more mature understanding that the peaks and valleys are and will be a part of life to be experienced and accepted for what they are.
As you said, there's really no question of a return to a self I no longer am. Nor is there a question of regaining the same joyfulnes I had before the breach -- though I must admit that I retain a readiness (hope is not the right word), if not an expectation, for a recurrence of that species of joy.
One of the problems precluding even a simple revision of my concept of God is this:
My concept and intense emotional experience of God are so inextricably entwined, that any more subtle, nuanced contact with divinity doesn't even show up on my radar screen. I could be interacting with God this very moment. But, a dull headache and the distant, muted heartache I feel now -- and to which I'v grown entirely too accustomed -- don't suggest "the hand of God." (If you'll forgive the anthropomorphism.)
Really, the question is openness. For various reasons, I've shut myself off from all the dispositions that clear a way for religious experience. I'm beginning to internalize a truth to which I readily assent, mentally: "One who weds a worldview today, becomes a widow tomorrow."
The myriad consequences of this truth are gradually occuring to me. Once I have a significant enough sense of them, I think I'll be able to turn myself toward whatever or whoever God is.
First of all, I am MUCH more an economist than philosopher, so I am not as talented in organizing my thoughts into words. In reading this blog and the ensuing comments, I have learned more about you than I have in the last 8 years! :) I just spent 10 minutes reading this stuff, so I will not attempt to address questions/topics one by one. Instead, I'll just type out some thoughts that were invoked as I was reading, and it may come across as random and chaotic, and definitely not on the same writing level as you guys.
There is definitely a difference in our spiritual maturity as we grow older and, of course, more mature. There comes a time when christianity simply can not be taught by paper Jesus' and disciples on a flannel board in Sunday School. When we are children, we believe what we are told, because we don't know anything different. However, as our mind matures, and we possess the ability and desire to question our beliefs, sometimes the only answer we can come up with is - "the only reason I believe this is because I heard the preacher say it in church, so until I find concrete evidence, I no longer believe this." My personal experience, as well as other people I have talked to, took place when I was about 18-20 years old. A spiritual identity crisis, if you will. It is very common. My experience was that I pretty much removed my entire foundation of beliefs and discounted almost everything I thought I believed. I never doubted the existence of God, but there was a time where that was about the extent of what I believed. I was raised southern baptist, and when I hit my "identity crisis", I quit going to church altogether. I became more interested in ignoring religious beliefs, or "churchianity", and getting down to the nitty gritty. Christianity to me is not about rules and laws and traditions and motions, the things that most fundamentalists measure their level of spirituality by...they're either a good or bad christian based on how often they read the bible, if they drink or not, how many they preach the gospel to, how often they go to church, etc. I knew at the core there had to be more to christianity than that, because I did not believe you could earn salvation or maintain a certain level of christianity by doing things, or being a "do-gooder". I thirsted for more, for a reason to believe in more. I asked a lot of questions for several years without getting any answers until I started attending and studying with a Bible Church. I began to learn about grace and how we were set free from the law. I went to church and I didn't feel guilty and I didn't have to listen to some man tell me what I should believe and how I should or shouldn't act. Instead, I listened to 2 of the most intelligent men I know, through exogesis, literally teach the bible from an intellectual standpoint, focusing on word meanings, Greek/Hebrew translations, context, etc, free from any "religious" shoulds/shouldn'ts, or an emotional rollercoaster that used to define my level of spirituality. I'm talking, really digging deep into the bible, with the sole focus being to learn about the bible, not a doctrine or religion. It was an amazing transformation. God is constant, though circumstances are not - tough lesson for me to learn. Over the years, I essentially shifted my spirituality from legalism to grace. We have so much freedom under grace, but it doesn't mean we have an excuse to sin. If our focus is on seeking God and God alone, then the natural result will be that we want to do good, but we don't measure our christianity by it...it's just our fruit. Conversely, legalism tells you that we must have good works or we are bad christians. Another important truth is that christianity is not a feeling. True, our experiences mold who we are, and God can use an experience to bring someone to Him, but if we accept God and seek Him, then we are making a conscious decision to do so. If you accept/reject or seek/ignore God based on your feelings, then how strong was your decision in the first place, and what was it based upon? I think it is natural for us when bad things happen to ask God "Why me? Where are you God? Why are you letting this happen?" However, again, faith shouldn't be circumstantial. Bad things happen because we live in a world where spiritual warfare is constantly taking place, and also because of certain natural laws. If a pregnant woman smokes crack her entire pregnancy, then it stands to reason that her baby will be very ill at birth, if not dead. Is this God's fault? God can not intervene in every instance, otherwise, it would be a world where laws of gravity and other natural laws did not always apply. I could throw a knife at you knowing God would not let it strike you. How silly does that seem! So, we don't live in a perfect world and God can not be our genie in a bottle and make our world perfect. OK, I've been rambling for some time now. I don't know. Dustin, maybe you are in a "spiritual identity crisis" and maybe you're not. My personal opinion is that there's a good chance you are called by God to be one of His chosen people (believer) because you have not abandoned it completely...there's still something inside of you that is searching for something. I believe in predestination, but I also believe we have a free will...I think that's called an antithesis - two apparant truths that contradict one another. Maybe I'll close with a question or two. Did christianity really "fail" you? Were you just trying to receive benefits of christianity, without truly seeking God? I'm simply posing questions to help process the events, I'm not accusing. Would christianity have to logically make sense, or could you accept it on faith, with the inability to explain it? I'd love to indulge in conversation with you about this sometime, if you'd like. I won't even pretend to know the answers, but it would be enjoyable to discuss with someone of your intelligence.
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