For the past several years, I have been on something of a spiritual journey. As I travelled, I discovered that the religious vocabulary familiar to me was inadequate to describe the new places, people, ideas, emotions, and stories that I encountered. I have found help with this language problem in many different places, some of them quite surprising. I have found that Zen and Taoist concepts caused me to see the life and teachings of Jesus with new eyes, for example. Once upon a time, I would have been afraid to even look into such things; but, as God grew larger to me, fear suddenly seemed a silly thing to adopt as a guide on this journey.
One source of help that I have mentioned on this blog before is the NPR program Speaking of Faith, hosted by Krista Tippett. When I found that Krista Tippett had written a book (also called Speaking of Faith), I immediately put it on the shortlist of books I wanted to read. I finally picked it up at Hastings yesterday, and I am finding it to be enormously helpful. The only bad thing is that I am devouring it so quickly I will not have time to post all of the quotes I like on my blog before I am done!
One issue that arose when I began to explore the world with less fear was the relationship between science and religion, a relationship that a very vocal minority on both sides would like us to believe must be oppositional, frightening, and even apocalyptic. The closer I looked, however, the less I believed that this antagonistic approach was necessary. Here is part of what Krista Tippett has to say about faith and reason in the chapter of her book entitled "Rethinking Religious Truth":
In many ways, religion comes from the same place in us that art comes from. The language of the human heart is poetry. Music is a language of the spirit. The metier of religious ideas is parable, verse, and story. All of our names for God are metaphor--necessary license, approximation, and analogy.
...we can't compare faith flatly to reason and declare it intellectually inferior. Its territory is the drama of human life, where art is more precise than science, where ideas are lived and breathed. Our minds can be engaged in this realm as seriously as in the construction of argument or logic, but in a different way. Life and art both test the limits and landscape of argument and logic.I think the debate about science or reason vs. religion is largely the result of confusion about what science and religion have to tell us. I'm aware that there are lots of people who disagree with me on this, but it seems to me that truth comes in more than one guise with more than one way to get at it. Science is one way. It uses tools like measurement and observation to explore truths that are measureable and observable. Those truths are defined, in fact, in terms of what is measured and observed. I agree with Krista Tippett that religion is more closely tied to art, using tools like metaphor and symbol to explore truths that are difficult to measure or observe, truths relating to mystery and emotion, humanity and God.
Of course, if we mistake one for the other, things can get confused. When we see the Bible, for example, as a book consisting only of literal historical truths, we tend to bump up against measurements and observations that suggest different conclusions about reality. Imagine someone trying to use Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall as a practical guide for stone masonry. Just because this is a bad idea does not mean that the poem contains no truth, just that the truth it contains is different from that being sought. On the other hand, the manual on masonry would likely have little to say on whether you should build the wall between you and your neighbor or why.
Krista Tippett expresses part of her perspective on the Bible below:
The Bible, as I read it now, is not a catalogue of absolutes, as its champions sometimes imply. Nor is it a document of fantasy, as its critics charge. It is an ancient record of an ongoing encounter with God in the darkness as well as the light of human experience. Like all sacred texts, it employs multiple forms of language to convey truth: poetry, narrative, legend, parable, echoing imagery, wordplay, prophecy, metaphor, didactics, wisdom saying.I think our confusion about the kinds of truth we are dealing with can have serious ramifications. When we treat all of the Bible, including poetic imagery, as presenting literal facts (a tendency that is comparatively modern, by the way), we open our truth to legitimate criticism through measurement and observation. We then either have to believe something that does not match observable facts, and therefore marginalize ourselves, or we have to abandon our claim of truth and stop taking the Bible seriously. When, instead, we realize that religion is the caretaker of a different sort of truth, we can pursue that truth in concert with other kinds of truth in a kind of symbiotic dance, science and philosophy and religion and art all twirling and leaping together to the music of the universe, more closely unified, ironically, than if we perceived all our truths the same.
This realization is a part of the new vocabulary I am learning. It does not make God smaller to recognize truth wherever we find it. On the contrary! The small God is the one held captive to human understanding, to our limitations and the boundaries we draw to keep out those who make us uncomfortable. The Jesus I meet in the Bible seemed to be constantly crossing the boundaries drawn for him, confounding human understanding, and opening eyes to the limitless love of God. That's the Jesus I want to know, the one who opens my eyes to the far horizons, far beyond my understanding, my failures, and my comfort.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi - 13th century
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.
4 Comments:
Thanks for sharing this. Your well thought through journey is inspiring to read about. Augustine held that when empirical truths and holy writ conflict, we have misinterpreted scripture. I think much of the trouble between science and religion you describe comes when people take the idea that when they conflict, we have misinterpreted nature. Some further part is surely from a feeling that people in lab coats are telling you what to think which is likely to raise the ire of anybody, especially Americans committed to their individual liberties.
I find the Greek myths and dramas very inspiring and think that there are lessons about humanity to be learned there, but no one has ever suggested to me that I need take Zeus literally to "really" understand or benefit.
Your book sounds interesting, I'll mention one I'm reading that you might enjoy. "Contemplative Science" by Alan Wallace. He looks at contemplative traditions and how they fit with contemporary neuroscience, especially where there is room for science and religion to work together for human well-being.
One last thing: I sadly missed the Rumi reading on campus the other night (which included traditional Turkish food). I would have been glad to make it and to have had you with me.
I think you (and Augustine) are right. Nature is something science is rather better at telling us empirical things about than religion is, and we should pay attention to that. Rabid individualism certainly plays a part too, I think.
Your book sounds interesting as well. I'll try to check it out (if I can understand it, that is!)
As for a Rumi reading (with food from another culture, yet!)--I have no doubt I would have loved it!
Hey Matt! I haven't been reading blogs in awhile. I had to live-out some things before I could speak about them. But, we have been thinking about some similar things. Because of my interest in what other religions have to say I've been accused of being a Bahai! I'll definately check the book out...
Roger,
Great to hear from you! I agree on the living thing out idea. I think it will take a lifetime, though!
Ever notice how most accusations are about labels and the lines they create between people? It's much like the categories the music industry insists on so they can market effectively (read "control the market"). I suspect the labels we accuse each other of wearing are also primarily about control.
Matt
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