Why do some believe whilst other do not? This is the first entry in what I hope is a series of entries on the this question.
Novelist Andrew Klavan argues that contemporary discussions of belief are rooted in a back-and-forth between the children of the Enlightenment and The Romantics. The Enlightenment being that period of European history from the late 17th century to the early nineteenth century. Romanticism being a reaction to The Enlightenment. Klavan describes the "enlightened" as scientists and philosophers. He describes The Romantics as poets and writers.
Klavan:
“The age of the classical, the epic, the grandly religious in art was passing away. Already, painter J.M.W. Turner, was moving to the very edge of impressionism. His landscapes existed at the nexus where object and observer meet. They weren’t really landscapes at all, really. They were merely images of light striking the mind. Soon, the subject of art would no longer be the reality we see around us but vision itself, not the grand stage of outer actions but the inner experience of man. With the coming of Romanticism . . .the role of the artist was no longer, as Hamlet said, ‘to hold the mirror up to nature’ but to illuminate nature with the lamp of the artists mind and its perceptions.”
Translation: traditionally, the role of the artist was to hold a mirror up to nature; this is a kind of objective enterprise. Art tells us something about reality; reality outside of our own minds. But in the aftermath of the conflict between the enlightened and the romantic, many came to believe that the artist told us something about his own mind.
Modern philosophers wrestled with similar questions. If you were to take a course on Modern (not contemporary) philosophy, you would study debates between continental rationalists and British empiricists; two groups of philosophers attempting to overcome the problem of skepticism. Philosopher Peter Kreeft, argues that in the Modern era, questions of metaphysics gave way to questions of epistemology. That is to say, epistemology overtook metaphysics as the primary concern of philosophy.
Whether we follow philosophy or art, Klavan and Kreeft argue that the specter of skepticism and unbelief crept its way into our thinking. Skeptics have seemingly always been around (see the Sophists in Plato's dialogues). Klavan, because of the conflict between the enlightened and the romantics, and Kreeft, due to the conflict between empiricists and rationalists, argue that skepticism has become de rigueur philosophically and culturally.
Klavan summarizes:
“When artists stopped holding the mirror up to nature, when they held the mirror instead to the mind of man, they were essentially holding up a mirror to a mirror. For man to see only what man sees is to see endless reflections of himself, empty of certainty and of certain meaning. As one of the greatest of the Romantic poets, William Blake, put it, ‘The eye altering, alters all.’ So, if all we know of reality is what we perceive in our minds, and if our minds are hampered by limited perceptions, and and our perceptions are distorted by feelings and prejudices and delusions, how can we now the true nature of things? If all we really believe in is the inside of our own heads, how can we know reality is real at all?”
Klavan’s insight reminds me of historian Paul Johnson. Johnson wrote tome on the history of the 20th century titled Modern Times. Johnson argued that the 20th century was relativistic century. Johnson wrote that:
“At the beginning of the 1920’s the belief began to circulate, for the first time at a popular level, that there were no longer any absolutes: of time and space, of good and evil, of knowledge, above all of value. Mistakenly, but perhaps inevitably, relativity became confused with relativism. No one was more distressed than Einstein by this public misapprehension. He was bewildered by the relentless publicity and error which his work seemed to promote.”
Relativity became confused with relativism. The theory of relativity has something to do with the relationship between space and time. The faster one moves, the slower time ticks for the mover. Time and space are linked. Relativism is the view that truth is not transcendental; it does not transcend time or place. According to Johnson, the 20th century also saw the (re)birth of gnosticism. Einstein was Time magazine’s person of the century. But in their top 100 was Sigmund Freud. Freud, along with Einstein, shaped the 20th century, argued Johnson.
Einstein wasn’t a relativist, but Freud, argued Johnson, was a gnostic. Gnosticism is the name given to a number cults in the ancient world. Gnostic is a greek word for knowledge. So an a-gnostic, or agnostic, is someone without knowledge. A gnostic is someone with knowledge. The gnostics believed they had secret knowledge. Johnson wrote that:
“Freud was a gnostic. He believed in the existence of a hidden structure of knowledge which, by using the techniques he was devising, could be discerned beneath the surface of things. . . . Gnosticism has always appealed to intellectuals.”
By the way, though Johnson thought Einstein and Freud were the two most influential minds of the 20th century, he didn’t think the two were comparable intellectually. Comparing the two, Johnson wrote that:
“Freud’s attitude to scientific proof was very different to Einstein’s and more akin to Marx’s. Far from formulating his theories with a high degree of specific content which invited empirical testing and refutation, Freud made them all embracing and difficult to test at all. And, like Marx's followers, when evidence did turn up which appeared to refute them, he modified the theories to accommodate it.”
Gnosticism and relativism, given new life in the 20th century, are not new. These ancient philosophies offer the seeker respite from the specter of skepticism and unbelief. The gnostic offers you hidden structures leading to knowledge. The relativist says there is nothing to know. Klavan writes that:
“This was not a new question. It was the question Pontius Pilate posed to Christ at his trial: what is truth? Christ said that he was - he was truth - that he testified to the truth and everyone who belonged to the truth listened to his voice. On Christ’s reply, the West had built a church and the church had helped form a civilization. As long as westerners believed in that reply, believed in Christ and his church, the civilization stood on solid ground or seemed to. But once faith in Christ was gone, only Pilate’s question remained. What is truth? That is the central problem of unbelief.”
Contemporary unbelief, if Klavan and Johnson are correct, is a deep skepticism which has lead to a rebirth of ancient relativism and gnosticism.
But why should unbelief arise in the first place? Perhaps that's the wrong question. Perhaps we don't arrive at unbelief. Klavan writes that:
“The truth, after all, is a kind of silence - a silent presence, like Jesus at his trial. Things simply are: being, perception, chains of events.”
Is unbelief the human confrontation with silence. Is unbelief our starting point? Are we any closer to answer to understanding why some believe and other do not? More to come.
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