There are many ways that Kursheed’s book touches on issues of importance to me. In this second and final post I will focus on just three of them: reductionism, religion and science, and the importance of our recognising the transcendent.
Reductionism:
It was in a way no surprise to find that Khursheed[1] shares Plantinga’s perspective, though expressing it in different terms: ‘religious literalism and scientific empiricism share many of the same psychological characteristics.’ He makes an additional observation drawn from another writer:[2] ‘Reductionism, according to Roszak, is responsible for “the turning of people and nature into worthless things”.’
This blocks any chance of our searching for[3] any ‘universal truth because it implies that such truths do not exist.’ This, he feels is a somewhat paradoxical ‘contradiction in modern thinking, which in other instances prides itself on its openness.’
Unfortunately but predictably, my own discipline of psychology does not escape criticism:[4]
[There is] a strand in modern psychology that tends to dismiss the non-factual or the non-mathematical as unscientific. It reflects the prevalent mood advocating rejection of non-observable, non-quantifiable aspects of our experience, believing them to be less important than what can be directly observed and quantified.
A poem I wrote some years back attempts to capture some of the consequences of that error.
He goes on to draw out some less commonly noticed implications of the reductionism/fundamentalism relationship:[5]
One can draw a parallel between positivist science and fundamentalist religion – both de-emphasise the role of the individual in their pursuit of objective truths.
He explains where that takes us:[6]
Like the religious fundamentalist who denounces any attempt to draw wider meanings from Scripture, positivists shun all efforts to go beyond what the facts reveal.
He picks up on the way this expands upon Plantinga’s point that the conclusions of naturalism cannot be trusted:[7]
The strict empiricist denies the self-knowledge of others while relying on his or her own self-knowledge, while the Calvinist denies salvation to others while being assured of his or her own route to salvation. Both show caprice and self-centredness.
We end up[8] where ‘Religion reaches the point where the spirit of the law is forgotten, and the letter is scrupulously followed,’ and[9] ‘the religious zealot who condemns all faiths outside his own is just as spiritually impoverished as the scientist who denounces religion altogether as non-empirical or illogical.’
One of his most trenchant ways of describing an aspect of this impoverishment comes when he declares:[10]
. . . to base an understanding of God on human empirical notions would be like demanding that an ant crawling across a concert-hall floor name the piece of music the orchestra is playing.
Faith and Science
This discussion naturally leads on to an examination of the true nature of the relationship between religion and science.
Religion is not only often regarded as irrational in our modern world, but is also seen as bad. In The Waste Land Hollis writes:[11]
‘All religions are evil,’ Pound had written in the months before Eliot’s arrival in France. ‘Whether or not a religion is founded upon sound ideals, it eventually resorts to unsound principles.’
This is a not uncommon example of the problem that people like Phillip Pullman also demonstrate in his Dark Materials trilogy – they dismiss the vital, originating and core spirit of religion because of the misguided malpractices that tend to obliterate it over time.
To do so is as much an act of faith as espousing a religion in the first place. I appreciate this can be a bitter pill for a convinced atheist to follow. I found this out during a meeting of the Hereford Death Café many years ago. I was making what I felt was the simple and self-evident point that the only completely rational position, i.e. reconcilable with reason alone, is agnosticism because both theism and atheism are acts or leaps of faith. The response of the atheist present can, I think, be fairly described as outraged, perhaps even incandescent. I was shocked.
Khursheed is essentially on the same page and believes that belief is inescapable:[12]
… there is no by-passing the act of faith by being sceptical. If one says ‘I doubt p’, this is equivalent to saying ‘I believe p is not proven’. There is always a belief content in our thinking, and the positivist attempt to eliminate the element of faith from science arises from a misunderstanding of science and the way human minds do their thinking.
He quotes Einstein, who essentially articulates the Bahá’í position almost as succinctly as it is possible to do:[13] ‘Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.’ I say almost because ‘Abdu’l-Bahá uses an equally powerful image:[14] ‘We may think of science as one wing and religion as the other; a bird needs two wings for flight, one alone would be useless.’
In fact, Khursheed is of the view that, in science, without an element of faith great discoveries would seldom if ever be made:[15]
. . . it is only when courageous leaps of faith are made that extraordinary scientific advances result. The larger of the leaps of faith, the greater the advances are likely to be. There is always a risk element in science.
As something of a side issue here, but intriguing nonetheless, is the extension of Greyson’s point about the ineffability of a near-death experience to experience in general:[16]
. . . since we can only describe natural phenomena with our everyday language, we can hope to grasp the real facts by means of these images. . . . We are forced to speak in images and parables which do not express precisely what we mean.
And his conclusion, quoting Max Plank, is that an ultimate and complete grasp of reality will be ultimately elusive:[17]
‘Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature,’ he wrote. ‘And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of nature, and therefore, part of the mystery we are trying to solve.’
Fundamental propositions of science have much in common with truths in religion – they can only be conveyed in the form of ‘images and parables’.
In addition, we can never therefore be completely certain that our scientific paradigm is true:[18]
The notion that science proves theories to be true is a naïve conception of science: a finite number of observations can never establish the certainty of a theory, and there will always be a residual leap of faith involved in ‘proving’ the theory to be true.
We’re back with one of my favourite quotes from William James. David Lamberth, in his book William James and the Metaphysics of Experience, reports:[19]
For James, then, there are falsification conditions for any given truth claim, but no absolute verification condition, regardless of how stable the truth claim may be as an experiential function. He writes in The Will to Believe that as an empiricist he believes that we can in fact attain truth, but not that we can know infallibly when we have.
So, John Donne was right.[20] We should ‘doubt wisely.’
Relationship to the Transcendent
In the end, it has to be acknowledged that it is impossible to discount the existence of God as though that were a fact. In a way that closely relates to some descriptions of the fruits of the process of reflection, Khursheed feels human nature is linked in some way to the divine:[21]
. . . human nature can be thought of as composed of many layers of different selves, and religion penetrates beyond the animal self, beyond the conditioned self, beyond the robotic self, beyond all possibilities of external observation, to an ineffable spiritual core – to God within.
On the subject of reflection a short detour might be worth making.
Before you read beyond them I would like you ponder on which of the following passages was written by a philosopher and which by a religious person.
Meditation, the first man says:
. . . releases consciousness from its objects and gives us the opportunity to experience our conscious inwardness in all its purity.
The second man states of meditation that it:
. . . frees man from [his] animal nature [and] discerns the reality of things.
Even though I tried to equalise the style you probably got it right. The first statement comes from Peter Koestenbaum[22] and the second from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.[23]
I think you will agree though that they are more complementary than in conflict.
What each goes on to say is even more intriguing. Koestenbaum ends by saying:
The name Western Civilisation has given to . . . the extreme inward region of consciousness is God.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s words are:
[Meditation] puts man in touch with God.
Khursheed feels, though, that we need to avoid[24] describing ‘God as all-powerful, as universal creator and so on’: these are ‘our poor substitutes for this inner spiritual experience of understanding God.’
The reflection parallels continue:[25]
The goal of religious experience can be understood in terms of becoming more like a perfectly polished mirror, moving towards a state of selflessness, and reflecting to a greater degree the light of God. The founder of a religion is our route to finding God, mirroring the attributes of God to us, which are none other than the attributes to God lying within us.
His conclusion is that[26] ‘human nature is composed of many layers of selves, but the most characteristic feature of humanity is the spiritual self.’
Why does it matter so much whether or not we believe this? Isn’t humanism sufficiently humane to help us achieve the necessary sense of connectedness to respond effectively to the challenges that confront us now? Isn’t Gaia consciousness enough to empower us to address the current global climate crisis?
Khursheed feels the answer to both those questions is ‘no’, and, for reasons I have explained elsewhere at length, I am inclined to believe him. He contends that:[27]
it is a difficult task to transform our values collectively and decisively when moral convictions are regarded as incoherently private, when human values are considered to be arbitrary, and when our minds are regarded as nothing but ‘ghosts in a machine’.
He quotes Einstein yet again:[28] ‘Man does not lack the intelligence to overcome the evils of society. What is lacking is his selfless, responsible dedication to the service of humankind.’
In the end:[29] ‘All means prove but a blunt instrument, if they have not behind them a living spirit. But if the longing for the achievement of the goal is powerfully alive within us, then shall we not lack the strength to find the means for reaching that goal and for translating it into deeds.’
Some kind of connection with a spiritual and moral core is essential:[30]
[T]he inner drama is animated by the different selves of human nature. All members of the cast have their respective parts to play, but it is only when the moral self takes centre stage that our lives take on meaning or can be of benefit to anyone else. . . . We must endeavour to uncover our eyes and ears, open our hearts and minds, so that we can recognise our role, play our part, and discover just who we really are.
If we do not connect in this way with our spiritual core, which in turn connects not just with a higher power but with all creation, it seems unlikely that we will have the relentless motivation and powerful sense of unity that meeting our current challenges demands of us.
I am grateful to Khursheed for articulating so many aspects of this reality so clearly.
References
[1]. The Universe Within – page 16.
[2]. Op. cit. – page 30.
[3]. Op. cit. – page 38).
[4]. Op. cit. – page 39).
[5]. Op. cit. – page 136).
[6]. Op. cit. – page 137).
[7]. Op. cit. – page 138)
[8] Op. cit. – page 139).
[9]. Op. cit. – page 140).
[10]. Op. cit. – page 146).
[11]. The Waste Land: a biography of a poem – page 131.
[12]. The Universe Within – page 101.
[13]. Op. cit. – page 106.
[14]. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks – page 130.
[15]. The Universe Within – page 113.
[16]. Op. cit. – page 122.
[17]. Op. cit. – page 122.
[18]. Op. cit. – page 144.
[19]. William James and the Metaphysics of Experience – page 222.
[20]. Satire 3, line 77.
[21]. The Universe Within – page 147.
[22]. The New Image of the Person: The Theory and Practice of Clinical Philosophy – page 99.
[23]. Paris Talks – page 175.
[24]. The Universe Within – page 148.
[25]. Op. cit. – page 149.
[26]. Op. cit. – page 156.
[27]. Op. cit. – page 14.
[28]. Op. cit. – page 131.
[29]. Op. cit. – page 132.
[30]. Op. cit. – pages 168-69.
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