God, it's been a terribly long time since I've written on this thing. Two things have prompted me to write again:
(1) Encouragement from a friend who said she actually enjoys reading my blog postings.
(2) Sheer embarrassment when I girl I like read one of my previous blog posts. Ironic that this would spur me on, but I think there is something important about owning one's thoughts, even when they might be embarrassing. Moreover, how can one correct one's thinking without making them explicit and subjecting them to criticism (both by oneself and others)?
With that, here it goes.
I've been thinking lately about Charles Taylor's recent book, A Secular Age, which tells a story about the decline of religious faith in the west. I think that Taylor leaves out a crucial element in this process: the gradual decline in the intelligibility of God-Talk. We are, it would seem to me, no longer certain what it means to speak about God or a belief in God. At least, there is no definite cultural consensus about what this sort of talk amounts to: what counts as belief in God. Certainly, there are communities that preserve certain understandings of what God-Talk means, but as we've become more self-conscious in the west about our conceptions of God, the number of interpretations has dramatically increased. Unlike in the pre-reformation period, when the Catholic Church provided for the public something like an authoritative interpretation of God-Talk, today there is no such centralized authority. The proliferation of protestant denominations and the presence of non-western and alternative religious traditions has creating a society that is vastly more pluralistic than a hundred years ago (not to mention 500 years ago). This pluralism cannot BUT put strain on the language-usage of particular communities: more than in the past, members of a community must preserve the criteria of correctness that correspond to their particular language-game.
In reading through Wittgenstein's On Certain today I was struck by this passage: "The other, if he is acquainted with the language-game, must be able to imagine how one may know something..." (OC, #18) We might replace the word "know" here with "believe." When read that way, the passage seems to point again to a difficulty with modern God-talk. In a pluralistic society, what criteria does one use in order to understand the meaning of another person's belief? That is to say, how can another person's God-talk be intelligible to us in the absence of a consensus about the criteria for belief in God? This becomes particularly poignant when we imagine two people who are member of different religious communities. The question is: what would it mean to make another person's God-talk intelligible, while at the same time holding onto the criteria of correctness that are part of one's own language-game?
6 comments:
The perspective suggested in the Kalama Sutta might be relevant:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html
Hi Swanditch,
Thanks for the pointer that's interesting. Other readers might be interested in this passage:
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As they sat there, the Kalamas of Kesaputta said to the Blessed One, "Lord, there are some priests & contemplatives who come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. And then other priests & contemplatives come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. They leave us absolutely uncertain & in doubt: Which of these venerable priests & contemplatives are speaking the truth, and which ones are lying?"
"Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas. Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering' — then you should abandon them.
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Although I don't know that this passage offers any DIRECT help, it does reveal a distinctly buddhist approach to the problem (which probably bears a great deal in common with Taoism: e.g. Chuan-Tzu's inner chapters).
See if you think this is right Swanditch: In the face of verbal squabbles, the buddha suggests we turn away from the debate and instead simply act. Not carelessly, but in such a manner that we are observant of the consequences of our action. Furthermore, we can observe the action of the wise as a guide for our own actions. Thus, the buddha suggests that it through action, rather than through proper doctrine, that one learns how to live.
The question to pose to the Buddhist, then, would be this. To what extent does proper action and a clear view of its consequences require a proper or precise employment of language?
P.S. I like the Buddha's "logic" here:
"Now, Kalamas, one who is a disciple of the noble ones — his mind thus free from hostility, free from ill will, undefiled, & pure — acquires four assurances in the here-&-now:
"'If there is a world after death, if there is the fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then this is the basis by which, with the break-up of the body, after death, I will reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world.' This is the first assurance he acquires.
"'But if there is no world after death, if there is no fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then here in the present life I look after myself with ease — free from hostility, free from ill will, free from trouble.' This is the second assurance he acquires.
"'If evil is done through acting, still I have willed no evil for anyone. Having done no evil action, from where will suffering touch me?' This is the third assurance he acquires.
"'But if no evil is done through acting, then I can assume myself pure in both respects.' This is the fourth assurance he acquires.
(The Buddhist version of Pascal's Wager?)
P.P.S. Swanditch, are you still at the monastery these days? I'd really love to get back, but it's hard since I'm on the other side of the country now. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it back sometime late this summer... (sept.?)
This is a pretty cramped space to be writing long posts in.
You've got it backwards: Pascal's Wager is the inferior version of Gotama's Gamble. The Wager only results in the adoption of a fixed view, whereas the Gamble issues in a moral life.
You are correct that for the Buddha action is central. This is in fact what the much-misused word "karma" actually means: intentional action. Action in the Buddha's analysis is of three kinds: bodily, verbal and mental. All three spring from either greed, aversion, confusion, nongreed, nonaversion, or nonconfusion, or some mixture of these. The question of the use of language is not as a important as the observation and clarification of one's intentions, one's motivations.
There are instances in the Nikayas in which he indicates that a simple pragmatic use of language is most fruitful: e.g. he tells his disciples to use local language when preaching in foreign lands. There are others. I highly recommend this book: http://tinyurl.com/dhgony - the first half presents a description of the main points of the Buddha's approach in Western philosophical terms. It's not unbiased but what is.
As regards your original question, it is my view that the breakdown in theological discussion is due to a paucity of mystical experience. As you know I've been practicing Buddhist meditation for a couple of years and have never really looked into any other way. But when I glanced through the Cloud of Unknowing (14th century English Christian mysticism) it was perfectly clear to me what the author was talking about. For those who have experience there is no disputing about theological truths. Mystics don't argue with each other. Gotama again: "My followers are those who do not dispute." "God-talk" is idle jabber if there is no gnosis.
Yes I'm still at the mon. Come back when you can.
"Thus, the buddha suggests that it through action, rather than through proper doctrine, that one learns how to live."
Is this not our actual experience? Who actually lives according to a fixed doctrine? No one I have ever met.
Yeah, not the best place for long posts, but it's what we've got.
I agree with you about Pascal's wager to some extent, but I'd be a bit more careful in dealing with him. Note the last part of his wager:
"Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing."
The idea is that the wager, too, will result in a moral life. Depending on one's interpretation of Christianity, this need not be a "fixed" view in an entirely unskillful sense. If one takes the Christ to be the embodied ideal of human life (i.e. sinless), and believes that one lives "imitates" this view at the behest of a certain mindfulness to the holy spirit and the law of agapic love, then the road outlined by christianity need not be as fixed as originally appears. Pascal, being himself somewhat of a mystic - "the heart has its reasons, of which reason knows not" - perhaps tended towards this direction (though I don't know... some, however, take him as a sort of predecessor of the existentialists though, which has an interesting connection to the buddhist rejection of "fixed" views). Anyway, I think the real problem with Christianity in terms of "fixed" views comes with a misinterpretation of Christ's teaching and the acceptance of Doctrine (particularly the belief in the afterlife) - though I think certain strands of Buddhism aren't without parallel problems.
I completely agree with you about God-talk in the west. In a very bizarre and paradoxical way, the protestant reformation severed experience from theological discourse. And, even more unfortunately, many of the modern attempts to reintroduce religious experience into christianity (charismatic movements) have focused on an unhealthy sort of ecstatic experience that (a) seems often more emotive than spiritual and (b) severs the holy from the ordinary.
Glad to hear you're still at GVZM.
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