When I profess belief in God, people are often either baffled or they misconstrue what I mean.
Things get weirder when it turns out that my beliefs and attitudes can diverge from or even clash with those of some religious believers, while harmonizing with those of some atheists. I will frequently tell atheists “I share your disbeliefs.” But then I will seem to agree with with theists. Because of my esoteric orientation which accepts the necessity and relative validity of approximate understandings, I avoid contradicting good-faith simple (even simplistic) understandings. I do this not only because such conflicts are nearly impossible to resolve but because I believe creating this kind of conflict is wrong. Despite theoretical differences, at an infra-theoretical intuitive level, I believe they are right, and that their beliefs inspire good action. And this is what I emphasize.
So depending on context, it can look like I agree with everyone, or it can look like I agree with nobody at all. Everything is fuzzy or endlessly qualified. My yesses do not mean yes and my noes do not mean no.
I’ve mentioned before that the pragmatic maxim is useful in theological discussions.
C. S. Peirce formulated the maxim several different ways. My favorite is:
To ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should consider what practical consequences might result from the truth of that conception—and the sum of these consequences constitute the entire meaning of the conception.
(I love these words so much, I plan to enshrine them in a letterpress piece.)
When someone states belief or disbelief in God, this tells us nearly nothing. But when we ask what follows from one’s belief or disbelief in God, an entire world begins to unfold. Let us make an attempt to unfold my world.
Pragmatic consequences of an essentially divine reality:
- Reality transcends the grasp of reason. “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Reality is inexhaustibly surprising.
- Each and every person is a minutely bit divine reality, and each transcends the understanding of every other person. Every person is a source of surprise, both in who they are and what they can show us about reality.
- Morality is one aspect of reality that transcends truth. Reason cannot and must not veto conscience; it can only make appeals to conscience and pursue positive judgment. Reason is a lawyer before the judge, conscience.
- Morality obligates us to live in accordance with transcendence. We must invite, welcome and extend hospitality to surprise and the judgment of conscience, not only intellectually, but in our being: emotionally, intuitively and practically in our being — heart, soul and strength.
- The consequence of immorality is alienation. We have the freedom to wall ourselves up inside our reason, acknowledging only realities that reason reasons is reasonable, but this cannot be accomplished without a felt loss of reality. It only feels like punishment.
Above I linked to an earlier post, and I prefer my earlier, simpler expression:
I believe in God, and therefore we are morally obligated to live toward alterity. We must live as a part of a reality that includes and exceeds us, and requires us to do so.
But honestly, the sequence is backwards. A friend and colleague of mine has been preaching the gospel of critical realism, which I vulgarly interpret as pragmatism in reverse. It encourages us to ask: “if things are such and such a way, what conditions are necessary?”
I believe — and cannot sincerely disbelieve — that we are morally obligated to live toward alterity. I believe in the reality of this obligation more immediately and deeply than I believe in evolutionary psychology theories that treat this conviction as a by-product of instinct. A reality that can morally obligate us in such a way is divine. That is the condition of a morally-obligatory reality. Therefore, I cannot sincerely disbelieve in God. My intellectual conscience forbids suppressing this fact, so I will not suppress it.
I will close this mess with another favorite C. S. Peirce quote:
We cannot begin with complete doubt. We must begin with all the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon the study of philosophy. These prejudices are not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which it does not occur to us can be questioned. …
A person may, it is true, in the course of his studies, find reason to doubt what he began by believing; but in that case he doubts because he has a positive reason for it, and not on account of the Cartesian maxim. Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts.