MysteriousFaith

Spheres of Influence

Man, as a species, faces an uncertain future unless he can learn to think collectively, posing answers to our deepest questions that are balanced between the good of the individual with the good of the whole. If we can not soon learn to mix our inborn need to strive in the mastery of medicine and science with the naked materialism and resulting rape of the environment this crass consumerism has produced, we will fail to survive and thrive.

Spheres of Influence

Those who would argue against any positive contribution of religion through the course of human history must come to terms with the realization that the force of reason they so desire religion’s truth claims be formed around must be equally applied to politics, science and philosophy. Such a magnanimous spirit is rarely to be found within communities dedicated to purity within any of these areas, the unfortunate consequence being an attempt to find and maintain symmetry between each of them rarely occurring. Once the realizations that all ideologies have mistakes to ask forgiveness for, and excesses from which they should withdraw, it becomes obvious that to argue wholly against any inherent value in religion is as senseless as would be arguing against any value found within other schools of thought. It should then stand to reason that a perfectly tenable and profoundly valuable contribution to mankind’s search for truth would be the belief that we can select those ideas from the panorama of human ideology that can be proven to have inherent and unique value. From such a perspective, we can discern that religion has much to teach us when its boundaries are comfortably established within that which it speaks best to, and that which can be proved it provides of unique value to humanity.

In a previous essay, I have argued for two kinds of belief: those of identity and those of transcendence. Within these same essays I have posited my belief that we should not give primacy to beliefs of identity for three reasons. First, beliefs of identity establish a position of inevitable discrimination; even where unintentional, beliefs of identity by definition classify people into “us versus them” realms. Second, beliefs of identity have not felt it necessary to establish equality between the uniqueness of their truth claims and the uniqueness of their salvific outworking. This is to suggest it seems reasonable that if God were to intervene in mankind He would choose to give and leave behind for us such truths whose uniqueness can be measured not only by doctrine but by results. Last, too many identity beliefs are, in their adherent’s own words, unknowable, unspeakable yet somehow must retain their position of unique superiority.

This last point is why religion’s impact on the world has had moments of profound darkness, essentially because it requires reason (that which can be said to be obvious at face value) to be immediately and forever subjected to faith. If what is unknowable and unspeakable is most important, what standard will be set for what is knowable and able to be spoken of? I will again say this does not mean various truth claims within religion are not true, only that it is rightfully questionable as to why we give such concepts primacy in our belief constructs. It seems inevitable in concluding this point that we come full circle to the realization that too many beliefs are for the implicit purposes of defining community (said most kindly) or identifying who is in and who is out (the implications of which are much darker).

No attempt at deconstructing another’s philosophy has merit if it does not, at some point, shift from attacking others to building its own belief system. I will go a step further and argue that the theory this essay will argue for is one of the most inherently responsible, positive and constructive means of building a new philosophy as it looks to find the good (which does necessitate establishing that which is bad) from religion, science, and all of modernity. To show my hand slightly, it is harmony, balance and unity that we must seek if we are to make real progress.

It would appear we have three options when encountering beliefs: we can choose the path that argues for beliefs of identity, we can choose to argue for belief itself to be destructive (the ultimate in contradictions), or we can choose to argue for beliefs of inherent good - what I have elsewhere labeled beliefs of transcendence. I would humbly suggest that we should argue for beliefs of transcendence to be given primacy because their most basic presupposition is that they must constructively and uniquely transform. If we conclude (incidentally as all but fundamentalists do) that the goal of religion is to engender a constructive community built on love, joy, peace, grace, humility and forgiveness, then we will make our primary emphasis only on those beliefs and practices that can be proven to accomplish this. While writing this, the limitations of language become painfully obvious: religion has argued that it is uniquely effective at building love and grace before, so by proposing that it does have some unique value in these areas, what am I arguing for that is unique from that which has been said before? I am willing to stretch myself and argue that in general, we have exhausted certain religious ideas, language and concepts through past abuse and patent shortcomings. If we are to propose a new understanding of religion, we must blend old language with new, passed over concepts for more vibrant ones. Contrary to Sam Harris (An End to Faith), an author whose intellect, ardor and honesty I appreciate, I see unique value within religion for exactly those reasons he does not: I believe the underlying transcendent ethos of religion is one of our few hopes for surviving into the next millennia because only religion can teach the values that will make it possible for man to survive. What is this key lesson?

Man, as a species, faces an uncertain future unless he can learn to think collectively, posing answers to our deepest questions that are balanced between the good of the individual with the good of the whole. If we can not soon learn to mix our inborn need to strive in the mastery of medicine and science with the naked materialism and resulting rape of the environment this crass consumerism has produced, we will fail to survive and thrive. At the most profoundly simple of levels, the excesses of a market economy (excesses I would argue will soon by obvious to all) must be corrected without removing man’s desire to strive to better ourselves. It seems to me that only a value system teaching peace and meaning through living beneath our means has this potential. Socialism taught the good of the collective as being most important without incorporating an allowance for our seeming in-born need to strive. Capitalism has encouraged our need to strive, but done so at any semblance of an idea on the common good. Nothing is as simple and yet currently out of reach as to propose that we must find a point to balance ourselves on between the selfish needs of the market economy and the collective goals of community. This, to me, is the what religion offers the world - an emphasis on plain and simple living - what religion has couched within the words humility and meekness, words that have long ago lost their ability to argue for something deeper, instead becoming echoes of their deeper truths. Religion is wrong to argue, as did Francis of Assisi, that poverty is an inherent good. It is not. Poverty of spirit that teaches I have no unique set of rights over others simply because of birth is what we should strive for. This same ethic should not apologize for a desire to better ourselves, secure additional comforts, or enjoy more of creation. By diminishing these things, an emphasis only on poverty tears us away from that which is good and healthy within our being and our world. Such humility reaches into the world and begs we never take for ourselves without balancing against the needs of others. This is a dynamic tension that begs questions of reasonableness; I would argue that a proper poverty of spirit coupled with pragmatism will effectively guide such questions. It is only within this ethic that we may hope to both harness our desire to strive with the need to think of our responsibilities to one another.

A very good question to ask here is why simple reason predicated on the greater good is insufficient to accomplish this task. In other words, why do we need to use the mechanism of religious truth to accomplish a sense of selflessness and communal values? Because reason (argued for within along similar lines by Ayn Rand in her classics The Virtue of Selfishness and Atlas Shrugged) has proven quite capable of its own serious mistakes, we must subject it to the same retrenchment we are asking religion to make. The idea that reason alone can accomplish the goal of teaching us about the collective good comes up short for a number of reasons, most importantly perhaps because it refuses to acknowledge the dualistic spirit / body reality we live in. As such, reason alone has given birth to the origins of the shades of oligarchy we now find ourselves in, and the potential tyranny of the individual history warns us to fear. Consequently, reason breeds a pure form of reductionism which ridicules hope, calls mercy to be secondary to the survival of the fittest, and whose capacity of insight can never be anything but economic.

Because I hold that the sensibilities and rights of the individual must become increasingly understood and actualized as equal to the rights of the group, I must ask the question of what means are most efficacious towards accomplishing this objective. If we are to move beyond tribalism, which manifests itself currently as the belief that the rights of citizenship are greater than the rights of humanity, we must have an empowered view of humanity that is above our view of patriotism. Again, this is not to say patriotism is to wrong; merely that it must be properly balanced against our understanding of the natural rights of being born human. To not accept this truth is to implicitly justify an eternal caste system, with the implied belief that some are not worthy of the rights we argue are always ours. If we are to see a shared environment as being truth and not verbiage, we must recognize that our economic motives have driven less industrialized countries to become sources of low cost manufacturing because they will damage their environment in ways we are unwilling to. If we are to make our solemn words “never again” spoken in memory of the Holocaust no longer ring hollow, we must elect statesmen that will stand for human rights in the form of international law at the expense of American hegemony and who will require of us to sacrifice in the interests of those who do not share our country, color, or capacity for immediate improvement. Held in common through each of these “ifs” is a realization that only by coming to terms with our inner-connectivity - one born of our spiritual, natural, and physical natures - can we move forward as a species. Philosophers have argued for the primacy of each of these arenas at various times, but what I would propose that we have missed is the most simple of concepts that unites these areas: the principle of harmony.

This harmony is unfortunately tenable only when we accept two things that both fundamentalists and progressive moderates within the religious community struggle to accept. First, we must make primary those beliefs that stand to reason, not those whose appeal to authority is based on Divine revelation. No issue illustrates this as effectively as does the current debate over homosexuality. In the face of obvious reasonable arguments that normal homosexual relationships are possible and desirable for those predisposed to such affections, religious extremists and moderates agree that because God made homosexuality wrong, man must bend his will to God’s for no compelling moral reason other than Divine revelation. This has been beaten to death in other places and serves no purposes in being further elaborated on here; however, the point as to what should be emphasized - religious revelation or reason, can be made. The second dimension to what makes an emphasis on harmony untenable for some is that it argues for equality and not primacy. By doing so, it again fights against the primacy religious moderates wish to ask religion be given. This realization is perhaps why Sam Harris so violently calls for intolerance towards even moderate religious voices. While I appreciate his perspective, I would propose that humanity has proven fundamentally unable to live in only the world of the physical, needing the spiritual world for very elemental reasons, one of which may very well be our soul’s calling to be united with the intangible truths of our Creator - truths that science alone can not provide. It is only within harmony between each set of principles - the reason of philosophy, the reductionism of science, and the transcendence of religion - that we can hope to advance ourselves. This mutual respect, this dynamic harmony is what I call the “Sphere of Influence Theory.”

Of all the unique claims history begs we address, few are greater than the realization that ideologies out of balance with those things they can uniquely speak towards over-reach, and fail to accomplish that which they say they can offer. The Sphere of Influence Theory is characterized by a belief in no one set of ideas being wholly serviceable in the cause of humanity, nor serving to explain all questions of meaning. In addition, the theory presupposes that each sphere is uniquely efficacious in a particular area. Religion argues best for those ideals involved with spiritual transcendence and the good of the whole over that of the individual; politics (government) best addresses means of civil governance, the role and rule of law, economic principles, and preservation of public goods and assets; science best represents medicine, our need to harness natural laws, and the birthplace of reason.

What I have laid out here, and will further develop in future essays, is not radical or overly humanistic. It is, as some may accuse me of, a form of syncretism. For that I make no apology and in point of fact argue such a pursuit should be of primary importance to us. To seek that which builds unity secondary to a cold pursuit of truth for its own sake is to again roll back humanity into the feudalism and false morality of philosophical excess we have so recently broken ourselves free from. But harmony may be misread as a form of tranquility that asks for peace at the expense of struggle. Unity of ideals may seem to make our need to sacrifice personally seem less important than an obtuse idea of catholic good. If such seems to be my point please hear me clearly: the pursuit of transcendence, the love of reason, the dedication to community, and living harmoniously with each is not to be taken lightly or to be achieved without travail. Man is born to struggle and no idea will relieve him of this reality.

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• May 11, 2005

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