The Harried Mystic

I was listening to National Public Radio (NPR) this afternoon and was especially interested in an interview Terry Gross had with Greg Epstein, Humanist Rabbi, who has written the book Good Without God. In recent years, there has been a spate of such titles ( e.g., God is Not Great, Goodness Without God Is Good Enough) all capitalizing on the fashionable assault on all things religious. Well, I listened very carefully to the gentleman’s argument and one particularly large logical flaw emerged for me.

Throughout the interview, he talked positively about our secular christian nation, complained of the rote recitation of scriptures during temple services, and  celebrated the ethnic and cultural dimensions of judeo-christian heritage. His fundamental argument is a that we no longer believe in the many things of faith and it is, therefore, proper to strive for intellectual integrity and be good without need of a god. He claims, furthermore, that there is no overarching purpose to our lives “assigned” to us by a divinity. Instead, he places a premium on dignity as the highest good and “relationships with people in the here and now”.

While there is much that I find reasonable and, in fact, commendable, about his argument, he characterizes theism several times as magical thinking involving belief in a deity that orders the world. This struck me as simplistic at best. In a particularly disingenuous moment, he said to Terry Gross:” We are not talking about what we do not believe, but rather about what we do believe.” The rest of the interview is an homage to the supremacy of a humanistic, secular world-view.

Epstein’s clear implication is that religion is principally about cultural identity. He regards celebration in that spirit as meaningful and satisfying, but the beliefs themselves are, he reasons, lacking in  rationality and unneccessary baggage (my words). Just there, under the surface of his argument, is the old saw about the lack of any compelling rationale for the existence of  God. He also suggests that meditation stripped of belief is just as powerful.

In other words, this is it. This is as good as it’s going to get. It’s all up to us, and “we just get one shot.” His biggest objection is to the use of the word “God.” Suffering and misery is just awful, and only community support and love make it all bearable, he suggests. There is nothing one can say to make it better than it really is or explain why bad things happen. They just do.

I find myself agreeing with a great deal of what Epstein says. His argument is nuanced and generally well-reasoned. I certainly agree that belief itself is unnecessary, but I take issue with the wholesale rejection of religious experience. He closes the interview by saying that the Santa Claus myth is a good exercise for children because, over time, they must face the myth and ask better questions: Is it really true?

The overall flaw, both in this book and the interview, is the notion of Jewish & Christian religious myth as “childish” magical thinking, and built on irrational beliefs. Often, belief may be as he suggests, but he lumps all religious experience together as if uniform. What Epstein fails to do in making his case is to apply sound rules of empiricism to his analysis.

The null hypothesis in science is that there is no effect of our manipulation, or that there is no evidence in support of our experimental hypothesis. The null can only be supported or unsupported, but never proved or disproved. To imply that there is no need of God is clearly based on the core belief that there is no God no matter how he spins it. He cannot see any compelling reason to believe in God, so he argues that it is a hollow myth.  In effect, he is saying that the lack of evidence of divine action proves the null hypothesis that there is no divinity operating in the universe.

On the contrary, as Hans Kung and others have shown, the “evidence” of transcendent experiences are many. It takes more than ideas and strong-willed leaders making definitive choices to change the world. It takes resilient and purposed personalities fed by a deep spiritual reservoir. The transcendent function is visible in poetry, art, all forms of revelatory writing, the religious experiences of people around the world in many traditions, and the tendency of all the sciences, especially the physical sciences, to see a movement toward grand unifying theories of all matter and energy.

Yes, we can reject the magical god as “big man in the sky” on the grounds that it shapes the Beloved in our image. It is much more subtle than that.

As I listen to Epstein’s interview, I leave dissatisfied. I hear in it a reductionism whereby Humanism reflects Man cut off from everything else in the Cosmos. I hear a hubris revolving around Man’s need for self-centeredness and a radical realism. I hear that purpose is something we author alone.

Again, he is half right. We author our purpose and our sense of self, but that set of choices interacts with many other dimensions of existence that work on us, through us, within us. The interactions are complex.

Jung’s discovery of the archetypes as emerging from the “collective unconscious” is relevant here. The archetypes work independently of each mind. They emerge as foundational to consciousness itself. In fact, the existence of Man and Woman is itself archetypal and pre-exists humanity acting as catalysts for the evolution of the universe toward ever greater degrees of consciousness.

The whole thing smacked of post-modern scientism, the myth of total self-control, and the proposition that goodness is, pure and simple, a matter of choice. I suggest, in objecting, that goodness and love under those circumstances is a tactic, a self-serving, self-aggrandizing motive. Instead, authentic compassion and divine love are inspired naturally through spiritual nourishment and Communion with the Beloved.

Epstein misses the essential message of religion in his intellectual scholarship and facile rejection of the authentic experience that grounds mature belief.  Absent the true mystical experience (apart from belief), beliefs themselves are empty containers with two- dimensional content. He dwells too much on that two-dimensional state as if that was all there is to the religious sensibility. Given human doubt, agnosticism appears more logically and experientially defensible.  Atheism is too sweeping a generalization and deviates from the established empirical method that proponents would seem to value.

I am attaching the YouTube interview with Epstein for those interested. What are your thoughts?

Defending the Faith and Morality of Non-Believers

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.