Another Kind of Heaven II

Karen Armstrong thinks that there is much that the contemporary religionists  may learn from the older ways of thinking about religion: "The early Jews, Christians and Muslim all knew that revealed truth was symbolic and that the scripture could not be interpreted literally and that sacred texts had multiple meanings and could lead to entirely fresh insights" and that the divine would always remain beyond our ken.. Today, basic religious terms are viewed differently, unfortunately in a way which made faith more problematic: "belief" does not mean "trust, commitment and engagement" but merely intellectual assent to some dubious propositions rather than living out one's beliefs. Thus the word "myth" is now synonymous with false or ficitious and the word "mystery"is no longer associated with  a ritualized initiation but is equated with mental laziness and meaningless "mumbo-jumbo". The word "dogma" used to mean in Greek times a truth whose meaning could only be understood after long immersion in ritual and which would change from generation to generation according to the development of the relevant communities in which the word is used but today, "dogma" has come to mean " a body of opinion formulated and authoritatively stated" and a "dogmatic" person is one who "asserts opinions in an arrogant and authoritative manner". The Greek word "theoria" used to mean a contemplation but now means "theory" or a body of opinion whose truth need to be proved by evidence. Thus religion has become more a matter of the head than a matter of the heart. As a result of such changes of attitude, the leaders of various monotheistic religions spend rather  more time policing doctrinal conformity to their dogma than in creating spiritual exercises that make the official "beliefs" a living faith. Instead of using the Bible to help people move forward and embrace new attitudes, they quote ancient scriptures to prevent any further progress in making people's faith more relevant to their daily lives and hence more meaningful.

Armstrong thinks that now that quantum physics is becoming less determinate and more statistical than Newtonian physics, "it is perhaps time to return to a theology that asserts less and is more open to silence and unknowing" and for followers of various religions to dialogue more with the more Socratic atheists so as to wean themselves from ideas which have become "idolatrous". The word "atheist" used to mean something different. According to Armstrong, Euripides and Protagoras were accused of being "atheists" when they denied the Olympian gods in favour of a more transcendental theology and also, when the first Christians and Muslims started moving away from traditional paganism, they were persecuted as "atheists" by their contemporaries. It may be good according to Armstrong for the modern day theists who treat God as a rational external fact to return for a while to the mystical way of knowing, through contemplation in the dark night of the soul and to grope again through the cloud of unknowing, understood not as a kind of "fervid emotional piety" and "exotic raptures" but in the way suggested by Friedrich  Schleiermacher ( In Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1958), Rudolf Bultmann (Jesus Christ and Mythology 1958), Karl Rahner ( Theological Investigations 1966) and Father Bernard J F Lonergan ( Insight: A Study of Human Understanding 1957 and Method in Theology 1972) by studying the "normal" workings of our mind and discover how often they propel us towards "transcendence" so that we may learn to look for God not "outside" of ourselves (foris) in the cosmos but to turn inwards into our own hearts and minds and there find how quite "ordinary" responses segue into "otherness" and in the silence of contemplation, encounter our God beyond the furthest limits of speech, rather like what we do when we listen to music alone, when our mind "experiences a pure, direct emotion that transcends ego and fuses subjectivity and objectivity".

We should learn from Basil of Caesarea or St Basil the Great, Armstrong tells us, that we can never know the ineffable ousia of God, only glimpses of its effects (energeia) in our time-bound, sense-bound world and that a lifetime of assiduous practices of yoga, meditation and rituals etc. will inevitably leave its mark on our personality and work subtle changes there--which she thinks may be another form of "natural theology": not a dramatic "born again" conversion, but "a slow, incremental and imperceptible transformation", a constant "stepping outside of our preferences, convictions and prejudices (a kenosis which results in a kind of ekstasis that is not a glamorous rapture") but is nonetheless a kind of "transcendence" that we say we are seeking, or through the mindful performance of rituals restore to our everyday action a little of that primal magic of our religious myths so that they would once again be imbued with the presence or a rebirth of a sense of wonder and freshness and help us experience a little of what our forebears first discovered or as Thomas Moore put it, to "re-chant" our everyday world through such ritual practices. There is something uncertain, ineffable about such practices. As Armstrong says,  "The effect of these practices cannot give us concrete information about God; it is certainly not a scientific 'proof'. But something indefinable happens to people who involve themselves in these disciplines with commitment and talent. This 'something' remains opaque, however; to those who do not undergo these disciplines, just as Eleusinian 'mystery' sounded trivial and absurd to somebody who remained obstinately outside the Cult Hall and refused to undergo the initiation." This is something that I think many followers of various monotheistic religion ought never to forget.

At the end of the day, Armstrong tells us, "The point of religion was to live intensely and richly here and now. Religious people are ambitious. They want lives overflowing with significance. They have always desired to integrate with their daily lives the moments of rapture and insight that came to them in dreams, in their contemplation of nature and in their intercourse with one another and with the animal world." The key is an integrated and self-actualised life and at its peak, what Abraham Maslow calls "self-transcendence", which requires a kind of meta-integration. Religion is supposed to be man's creative solution to facing the inevitable uncertainties and the pains and sufferings of life, especially pains about lack of love, compassion and death and for lack of  "meaning".  To Armstrong, such people " sought to retain their peace and serenity in the midst of their pain" instead of being crushed and embittered by sorrow of life....instead of being grasping and mean-spirited, they aspired to live generously, large-heartedly and justly and to inhabit every single part of their humanity. Instead of being a mere workaday cup, they wanted, as Confucius suggested, to transform themselves into a beautiful ritual vessel brimful of sanctity that they were learning to see in life. They tried to honour the ineffable mystery they sensed in each human being and create societies that honoured the stranger, the alien, the poor and the oppressed.... Those who applied themselves most assiduously showed that it was possible for mortal men and women to live on higher, divine or god-like plane and thus wake up to their true selves."

I think that Armstrong has got it right. Religion is not really about after-life, no matter what a lot of theologians think. Religion is really about how to live an abundant and fulfilling life, here and now within such limitations as Nature may impose upon our terrestrial life which we must accept, if we wish to avoid the ineluctable price we must otherwise pay for our hubris.