On the Anti-Religious Pursuit of Truth
I commend Pope Benedict for acknowledging that agnostics may be “pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace” who pursue truth and provide a voice of challenge and critique to both atheists and theists. But let’s not stop there. Militant atheists and people antagonistic towards religion may be on the same journey. The rejection of religion is no more a sign of truth’s abandonment than the embrace of God is a visible mark of truth’s pursuit. Intellectually rigorous minds that are passionately hungry for true knowledge consider the evidence and the arguments and conclude that God doesn’t exist. Pious souls devoted to true faith subconsciously cherish the idea of a loving God as an illusory consolation for a deep-seated and unrecognized dread of death. The false arrival of truth’s pursuit is not theism, agnosticism, or atheism, but a false certainty that brings the movement of the mind to a grinding halt and transforms the humble pursuit into a smug possessiveness.
Of course, in Catholic theology, Faith itself is a gift and a grace (and thus in some manner a grace-driven free CHOICE), is 100% certain by definition, and has nothing to do ultimately with “weighing evidence” or with my individual intellectual satisfaction in the face of this or that argument. To see Faith as that sort of rational satisfaction is the pride that will goeth before a Fall, and that same intellectual pride is the sin for which God most often revokes Faith (as only He can do).
On what basis should an atheist, agnostic, or anyone else accept this idea as true?
They will be given the infallible grace or they won’t be. Your very question is intellectually Pelagian, as it were.
Translation: don’t ask this question–it’s heretical! But while I’m on a roll down Pelagian lane, I’ll pose this follow up question: suppose someone believes they have this infallible grace of faith and experiences the certainty that goes along with it. Is it not conceivably possible that the experienced certainty isn’t, for this person, really the certainty of faith but the certainty of a delusion? How does one know that the certainty they experience really corresponds to faith and not to something else that’s mistakenly believed to be faith?
Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on Faith: “it is evident that this ‘light of faith’ is a supernatural gift and is not the necessary outcome of assent to the motives of credibility. No amount of study will win it, no intellectual conviction as to the credibility of revealed religion nor even of the claims of the Church to be our infallible guide in matters of faith, will produce this light in a man’s mind. It is the free gift of God. ”
Your question here is a good one though. It is clear, sometimes, that people think they have “Faith” when really they only have a sort of natural certitude or conviction preceding from their own intellect rather than a sheer grace of God. Really, though Faith itself is 100% certain supernaturally, we can only be sure that we have had Faith when it comes to fruition as Vision in Heaven. Before that, we can only have a sort of moral certitude.
One should first take the broad cultural view to say or note how different the Catholic view potentially is about all these matters, compared to more “primitive” evangelical ones. And I am not afraid to use the word “primitive” in scare quotes here, because I do not think the people are intrinsically primitive, but their views might be. Of course it all devolves ultimately to what view of “religious” you accept. As I see it we are just beginning to exit from a long period — that is most of human history so far — where “religious” meant ascribing to a particular set of beliefs. That of course was related to the fact that the very distinction is probably a product of the Enlightenment in some way. Previously to be a decent person, and allowed to even live (literally!) meant to ascribe to those beliefs, or at least not dispute them in public. So whatever changes in these conceptions will very likely have a strong relation to the conceptual schema of that long history. This is why it is necessary to keep using the vocabulary. This is also why mega-conservatives get away with the vast historical misprision of saying that atheistic communists had their own religion. That already, in a vast and famous way, obfuscates ever thing we could know about the matter, in reference both to that historical factor and more generally.
For often unnoticed is the fact that once you exit from the single- orthodoxy- view of society you have already exited from a locus where “religion” as a descriptor has any real broad meaning that diverse people can ascribe to. it only has a comparative meaning. We need a different word. I like the word “meaning”, even though it sounds rather Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I like it because it allows us to be clear what we are NOT talking about. A system of belief like communism which does not endorse the rights or destiny of individual persons is one in which the question of meaning is completely abandoned for the person per se. This is why it is a misprision to say that such a society would be crypto-religious, because they are truly anti-meaning. That is the nature of their anti-religion.
“Meaning” gives greater amplitude and simultaneously more precision to the matter of “religion”. Any viewpoint which ascribes some meaning to existence can also be a pursuit of truth. But I differ with this post, even though I appreciate where it is coming from, in saying that a viewpoint that is anti-meaning (thus anti-religious in this wider sense) cannot perforce be a good position and cannot be a pursuit of truth. Of course, this also presents the possibility of a more precise critique of some “religious” (in the previous sense) manifestations. For instance the grave evils of religious terrorism we see in the Middle East are NOT(!!!) really about religion. They are about a rejection of meaning. Anyone who could strap a bomb to an adolescent and send him to blow himself up, is someone who has utterly rejected any meaning to existence, and an utter nihilist. That he is “religious” and believes solidly in many things, is thus phenomenologically irrelevant to the deep question of “religion” (that is, meaning) by which heuristic he is utterly “anti-religion”, thus “anti-meaning”.
I see no exceptions to this. I am against dealing in any way with anyone I perceive as deeply “anti-meaning”. There can be zero trust there or respect. It matters not one wit if they are they claim one orthodoxy or another. That is itself meaningless. And I believe in treating it as such. Thus skeins of of meaningless rhetoric even endorsed by those those who are not thoroughly nihilistic can also justifiably be treated as such. And a whole group of Catholic reactionaries from Robert George, to Finnis to Robert Sirico fall into that benighted and uncritical camp, whatever their pretensions otherwise.
I am grateful for the the entire address which Pope Benedict made in Assisi. Regarding your post I am in agreement until your final statement in which you point to the dead end result being a ‘false certainty’ without reference to what the ‘false certainty’ is. The address is about the various paths of violence which are paths away from any search for ‘truth’. In the framework of this address there are two virulent forms in vogue today. One is based upon religious confusion about God and the other is based upon the denial of God and the resulting descent of man. If we want to construct a loose equivalence we could say that they both involve ‘false certaintles’. While the militant athiest and religious extremist may both be pilgrims, they are similarly at dead ends or the nadir of their journey, namely they’ve arrived at the source of violence.
I mean by “false certainty” an epistemological surety that puts a stop to thought, inquiry, and doubt.
This seems like deja vu of a prior conversation with you. Perhaps by definition ‘epistemological surety’ has no claim on faith. (I’m not a philosopher.) The end of religious inquiry is usually a better understanding of faith, and attentiveness to the gift of faith, rather than a working knowledge of God, truth or religion.
More to the point of your post, the Pope concluded that militant athiest had arrived at a ‘false certainty’ that robbed man of dignity and resulted in violence. In this sense they inhabited the same sphere as the religious extremist who contradicted God.
So are they still to be considered ‘pilgrims’? In the sense that each bears the image of God they might still be considered ‘pilgrims’. In the sense that their journey had departed from integrity and inflicted damage on mankind they become captured in their ‘false certainties’ and are no longer on a the journey toward peace.
In the context of the holy father’s message he was not addressing the journey toward ‘epistemological knowledge of Truth’. His embrace of the agnostic was in regard to the search for ‘truth’ as the search for God; a search that rightfully pursued can only lead to peace.
Because the search for truth as the search for God involves a journey toward epistemological knowledge of truth, I took the liberty of focusing on the latter even though the pope was focused on the former.
<<To see Faith as that sort of rational satisfaction is the pride that will goeth before a Fall, and that same intellectual pride is the sin for which God most often revokes Faith (as only He can do).<<
Is that right? I know Catholics often talk about *losing* their faith, but I didn't think God Himself ever took back a gift once given.
From Catholic Encyclopedia on “Faith”:
“From what has been said touching the absolutely supernatural character of the gift of faith, it is easy to understand what is meant by the loss of faith. God’s gift is simply withdrawn. And this withdrawal must needs be punitive, “Non enim deseret opus suum, si ab opere suo non deseratur” (St. Augustine, Enarration on Psalm 145 — “He will not desert His own work, if He be not deserted by His own work”). And when the light of faith is withdrawn, there inevitably follows a darkening of the mind regarding even the very motives of credibility which before seemed so convincing.”
If Faith is “lost” it means that God has withdrawn it punitively (in the “medicinal” sense, we hope) for some sin. Usually this sin is the intellectual pride of thinking Faith is based on Reason rather than being a supernaturally infused gift, a choice made (under grace) for the sake of heavenly reward.
For St. Thomas, Faith is a gift that comes with sanctifying grace… it is always a thing given, never a thing taken, but it is a thing that can be refused or rejected. If one’s intellectual pride was such as to constitute a mortal sin, one could certainly lose one’s faith on account of it, but it would be because you rejected the grace of God (and with it faith), rather than God stripping you of it.
I’m curious as to the origin of Sinner’s statement as well.
While Hope and Charity are lost with mortal sin, Faith as a divinely infused intellectual habit remains albeit in a “dead” way. Obviously, a mortal sinner may still believe (why else would he go to confession?) This is different than when God withdraws even Faith itself on account of sin (and, I propose, it’s usually not just an arbitrary unrelated sin, but the sin of seeing Faith as based on ones own intellectual capacity rather than as a free gift of a graced choice for the sake of heavenly reward; in other words, intellectual pride).
Again, Catholic Encyclopedia (in its VERY enlightening article on “Faith”) explains:
“And at the risk of repetition we must again draw attention to the distinction between faith as a purely intellectual habit, which as such is dry and barren, and faith resident, indeed, in the intellect, but motived by charity or love of God, Who is our beginning, our ultimate end, and our supernatural reward. “Every true motion of the will”, says St. Augustine, “proceeds from true love” [...] If we regard faith precisely as an assent elicited by the intellect, then this bare faith is the same habit numerically as when the informing principle of charity is added to it, but it has not the true character of a moral virtue and is not a source of merit. If, then, charity be dead — if, in other words, a man be in mortal sin and so without the habitual sanctifying grace of God which alone gives to his will that due tendency to God as his supernatural end which is requisite for supernatural and meritorious acts — it is evident that there is no longer in the will that power by which it can, from supernatural motives, move the intellect to assent to supernatural truths. The intellectual and Divinely infused habit of faith remains, however, and when charity returns this habit acquires anew the character of “living” and meritorious faith.”
However, sometimes God may withdraw even the remaining intellectual and Divinely infused habit of Faith on account of sin, and I would propose that this is not arbitrary, but is usually specifically for the sin of intellectual pride.
I’m not sure who “militant atheists” are these days. Is the Pope referring to atheists who are physically violent or merely strident proselytizers for unbelief such as Richard Dawkins? I’d think the argument could always be made — however maddening to those against whom it’s directed — that they who “protest too much” are, in fact, more prone to believing than they who don’t give a rip, i.e., most agnostics. IOW, the Pope may have it backwards. Or maybe not. I guess I’m an agnostic on the subject. I’ve loved both kinds of people, and I think it’s long past time Catholics stopped thinking of unbelief in terms of sin, and atheists stopped thinking of belief in terms of cowardice, intellectual or otherwise. I don’t care who you are, how intelligent or brave, if you truly love another human being, death IS an issue; it is the first and last issue. If you have a faith that consoles you when a loved one dies, you’ve won the lottery. If you don’t, you have no consolation at all. Everything else is puffery.
I’m not sure who “militant atheists” are these days. Is the Pope referring to atheists who are physically violent or merely strident proselytizers…
The Pope is not referring to any set of individuals but rather a system that has developed from ‘post-Enlightenment critiques’ where religion is seen as a source of violence. To the extent that this is true (which the Pope acknowledges and repents on behalf of the Catholic Church) it has fed into an attack and denial of God (militant atheism is an expression of this). The result of this is not a liberated man, but rather a morally imporverished man absent God with false certainties about his true nature. As an example freedom is seen as a great good…including the freedom to create violence with ease of conscience. The absence of God is necessarily the loss of humanity in mankind and one of the common sources of violence.
The agnostic, growing in number, becomes the protagonist ‘pilgrim for truth and peace’ who scans his surrounds and finds a vast landscape of those who have accepted violence as the norm. The holy father’s real challenge is to those who claim adherance to religion. They distort even the faintest glimpse of God by justifying their violence in His name. The terrorist is the most extreme example. But, says Pope Benedict, “…they [agnostics] also challenge followers of religions not to consider God as their own property, as if he belonged to them, in such a way that they feel vindicated in using force against others.”
It is interesting how many people inveigh against the *individualism* of the free-thinking agnostic or atheist, but then also inveigh against antagonistic intellectual constructs (such as communism) for usurping the *individualism* of converts to those philosophical systems.
Strictly in terms of *individualism* what is the distinction between believing oneself to be a member of “the body of Christ” or a (small “c”) catholic church, on the one hand, or a member of the “international socialism” or the communist party, on the other?
The problem that I see with religions (and I don’t think that you can subtitute “meaning” for the word in any *meaningful* way), is that none of them deal with the rather obvious problems posed to the *individual* by materialism. Religion gives one some variation on the Book of Job, followed up by various complicated methods through which one can find consolation for the obvious truth that human life is short and often brutal.
Where *meaning* is sought, one must look to the existentialists, for whom the quest of meaning in the face of the absurdity that is death is the whole ballgame. There are, of course, Christian existentialists, and they do a somewhat better job than the orthodox of facing these contradictions and paradoxes with intellectual honesty.
The Gnostics (who were predictably brutalized for their efforts) also tried to merge religious *faith* with a quest for philosophically satisfying *meaning.*
I believe that God did not give us intellect in order that we would have one more thing to waste, along with most of our capacity to love.
“False certainty” is indeed the enemy of truth, and it’s good to hear a pope say so. It’s also good to hear a Pope admit the Church has been wrong in its violent treatment of religious opponents, an evil that was rationalized almost, almost, from the beginning.
Now, the idea that God will revoke the gift of faith from those who risk theirs through “intellectual pride” (or what? allowing oneself to doubt?) seems just a little too much like a blueprint for maintaining false certainty, or at least for being afraid to question, period.
I’ll let the lovely Simone do my talking for me:
“It seemed to me certain, and I still think so today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms. ”
― Simone Weil
And this, which is also pertinent, I think:
“The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.”
― Simone Weil
Please note that Simone Weil is here saying something negative about pride, rather than criticizing intelligence. She, far more than most people–including other intellectuals–questioned everything.
I don’t disagree, unless pointing out that, in her simile, intelligence is likened to a “large cell” constitutes a criticism of intelligence. I think it’s a realistic assessment of what intelligence is, ultimately speaking.
Except that no cell is really very large. And every cell is confining. An intelligence dominated by pride (or any other vice) has confined itself within the “cell” constituted by the perimeters of that vice. By contrast, how does one confine humility?
Rodak,
You wrote,interestingly: “The problem that I see with religions (and I don’t think that you can subtitute “meaning” for the word in any *meaningful* way), is that none of them deal with the rather obvious problems posed to the *individual* by materialism.”
It is very intriguing how you phrased this. Especially since you seem to include all religions generally in this observation. It would seem to be on two levels. First, the problem posed by a persistent philosophical materialism like “atoms and the void” a la Lucretianism down to more modern political materialists (Marxists, etc.) Second, there is a more cultural sense of materialism, as in being too materialistic about Christmas etc. Close study of the ancient variety produces a lot of evidence, somewhat surprisingly, that such materialists were actually given to strongly still maintaining a religious stance toward the gods. Which in itself raises an important question methodologically about the nature of religion vis-a-vis such a concept. Of course those of the modern political variety were stridently and, one could say loosely, dogmatically against religion. Thus they could not be more different from the ancient variety. What this shows is that materialism is only potentially related to the question of religious belief, not intrinsically.
Personally, I am not a materialist in either sense. Though maybe my husband would disagree in the second sense given my continued search for too many old classical lps. But just as materialism is not intrinsically implied as negation by materialism, statements about religion are not delimited by meaninglessness. In other words, religion does not need to be strictly “meaningful” for it to have meaning. I would say that a lot of what people entertain as religious belief has no meaning for me at all. I very often think it is just silly at this point, especially given the lock-step ignorance of religious history that often goes along with it. But even there I wouldn’t dispute it still provides a meaning for their lives, and some mode of personal organization and morality. Further, I grant great value to that fact. And this is the important distinction from a societal point of view. As I see it, one of the reasons “meaning” IS a good word for religion is because it is NOT delimitable into particularities of what one may find “meaningful” from the point of view of a particular religious viewpoint.
This is an especially important distinction in the Catholic context. The influence of Thomistic thought on all Catholics is vast, even though scarcely any of them understand why or what it is about. It serves to circumscribe even potential orthodox responses within the Catholic realm in what seems to be a peremptory manner. The word “meaning” may seem a bit shopworn by all the existentialist blandishments, but it is, I believe a useful moniker that avoids a lot of lack of precision and religious gridlock.
@Peter Paul Fuchs–
The sense of materialism at the foundation of what I’m getting at is the existential dilemma posed by the fact that everything composed of matter disintegrates and ceases to have physical being. I am getting at the philosophical “Problem of Evil,” which no religion (of which I am aware) satisfactorily confronts. I named a couple that have made the attempt. None of those allow for the existence of a perfect deity, as does mainstream Christianity in all of its variations.
Rodak,
This case is more complicated than that. In the ancient world some who were drawn to one kind of explanation in one realm of consideration could entertain another in a different sense. Thus, given the permeability of different philosophies in ancient times, it would not be impossible for someone to hold the view that “everything composed of matter disintegrates
and ceases to have physical being, ” combined with something like a proto-Neo-Platonic view involving reference to a “perfect being” (Neo-Platonism of course being and enormous influence on Christianity) . As a recent writer as said more generally, but I think perfectly, “Plato’s Platonism is everywhere complicated by his own anti-Platonic skepticism.” If the skeptical element was there from the start, and often closely related to more materialists conceptions, then the question is begged. If everything was a footnote to Plato, when talking of perfect beings, is not the whole issue much more complex?? Further, since the Pope has declared a Regensburg that Greek philosophy was intrinsic to God’s revelatory plan, there is reason for looking at the matter more broadly in the Catholic context.
@Peter Paul Fuchs–
I find that the etymology of the word “religious” makes it unsuitable as a meaningful synonym for what I mean by “meaning.” In my way of thinking, the search for meaning does not take the place of religion in the life of the individual; rather it sets him on an altogether different kind of project.
This is probably more an aesthetic dispute than a linguistic one. But I copied part of an Oxford etymology for “religion” which contains later notions of “binding” and that goes pretty well, in my book, with being “bound by meaning” in life. Or the notion of “care” which makes one think of Heideggarian Sorge, in relation to meaning-of life issues.
“However, popular etymology among the later ancients (and many modern writers) connects it with religare “to bind fast” (see rely), via notion of “place an obligation on,” or “bond between humans and gods.” Another possible origin is religiens “careful,” opposite of negligens. Meaning “particular system of faith” is recorded from c.1300.”
Finally, I respect what you say that it could be an “altogether different kind of project.” I leave that open as a possibility. But I would stipulate that if such a “project” involved rejection of meaning, it is likely to some sort of dangerous delusion. But that danger is small in the Catholic realm where fides quaerens intellectum. But it should be a problem for other types of Christianity, and a real problem for another faith altogether.
I would say that the “binding.” as it actually manifests itself in the observable acts of persons self-defined as “religious,” is a tying of oneself to the mast of a specific, and exclusive, set of preordained beliefs. Its foundation is the rote learning, and Pavlovian regurgitation on command, of the given.
Most people who are believers, but not members of any congregation, are careful to self-identify as “spiritual,” rather than as “religious.”
This is necessarily a generalization, but I would say that “religion” stifles a creative quest for Truth and provides a false security based on notions which often refer to quantity, rather than quality.