"Is Your Heart Right?" And/Or "What Do You Believe?" 

It is easy to laugh at (or with) others’ what-we-consider-to-be-different-than-our-own beliefs. It is harder to laugh at our own. Born of a virgin? Come on, what hocus pocus are you talking about? Feeding multitudes with just a few loaves of bread and a coupla fish? Walking on water? What have you been smoking? American exceptionalism? Democracy? Free enterprise? The right to bear arms includes taking them into schools? OK, sometimes, laughing at our own beliefs is too difficult. I call this ability to laugh at ourselves - to question ourselves - “self-irreverence”, and it is a key I think to developing depth of perspective in the world. But it isn’t easy. It requires a humility deeper than most of us carry.

Let me repeat that. It is easy to laugh at others’ what-we-consider-to-be-different-than-our-own beliefs. It is harder to laugh at our own ... I call this ability to laugh at ourselves “self-irreverence”, and it is a key to developing depth of perspective in the world, but it isn’t easy. It requires a humility deeper than most of us carry.

Satire pokes fun, and holes in, our own beliefs and the humor makes it easier to laugh at ourselves for being so presumptuous as to think that we have a monopoly on truth. In our day-to-day lives, however, it is much harder to question those beliefs, especially if all those around us – patriots or parishioners – are pressuring us to stand, unquestioningly, for something.

Beliefs allow us to operate in the world. They are key to our survival and thrival and, at their best , are core to who we are and how we identify ourselves. Beliefs motivate us to action and are a source of passionate living and social change. At their worst , beliefs result in close-mindedness, defense of untenable positions, rejection of new information, and polarization. Beliefs have been the cause of heinous crimes against humanity. So what roles do reverence and irreverence, play in relationship to belief?

Reverence is not belief, though beliefs can develop from reverence and reverence can be the result of belief. Reverence is deep respect, awe for something greater than ourselves or what we can imagine, and in its highest and best use honors the mystery and the wonder of that which created and which creates and will create the earth, the sky, and the universes-beyond. Reverence at its best is steeped in wonder, and impels us to ask more questions. Beliefs, in contrast, are a line in the sand (Carse, 2008). They are an “Are you with me or are you against me” proclamation, a litmus test for inclusion or exclusion. Beliefs are always based on incomplete information (when will the next set of scrolls be found in some archaeological dig?), and are therefore incomplete and are subject to revision or rejection. Beliefs, though assertions of truth, are more than simple logic and facts, they are saturated with emotion and self-identity and self-interest.

Let me repeat that. Reverence at its best is steeped in wonder, and impels us to ask more questions.

I watched when Tony Campolo, a beloved evangelical Christian, came under attack from other evangelicals when he wrote that he had changed his views, after considerable prayer and reflection, about same-sex marriages and the inclusion of the LGBT community in the church (Otto, July 20, 2015). Campolo’s beliefs had evolved and were no longer in alignment with those of other evangelicals so he was castigated by them. Reverence had nothing to do with it. Though Campolo’s attackers claimed, under the guise of being caring Christians, to love the sinner and hate the sin, I do not believe ad hominem condemnation of the person, calling into question his character and calling him names, represents loving the so-called “sinner”. What I would expect of someone who did love someone who had gone through a trying time as Campolo did, would be expressions of appreciation and care for the personal struggle he went through as he reflected upon his own core beliefs. At the least, I would expect the “lover” to be respectful of the “loved”, even if disagreeing completely with his conclusions. Such is the negative power of beliefs that people - that's all of us - cannot see their own duplicity and hypocrisy when they defend them.

“I am in no degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was alive in 1909 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed?”

~Bertrand Russell The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell (2010)

The current beliefs we hold about God should not be the reason to stop further questioning about God. Freezing those beliefs and calling them truths cannot be justified, for it would be the height of arrogance to presume we know and understand all of that-which-is-God. As Richard Rohr says, “How silly to think that God must or could fit inside our human-made theologies! Would you respect a God you could understand with your little mind?”

Reverence should be the reason we question, seek to understand the mysteries all around and within us, and not the reason we cut ourselves off from the spirit of inquiry and exploration.

Frozen beliefs are just as powerful and just as dangerous in the world of science as in the world of religion. When is the last time your doctor used bloodletting as a medical procedure? Leeches part of your latest prescription? Your doctor an expert in trepanning? How about phrenology? Anyone out there still worrying about walking off the edge of a flat earth? Astrology? Alchemy? (OK, I know some of you still check your sign every day. I’m a Virgo.) Beliefs should change as we learn more, but sometimes they don't, even in the scientific community.

Thomas Kuhn’s seminal book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions exposed the beliefs that many, scientists included, carried that science is immune from the stultifying effect of paradigms that close minds and reject data contrary to existing beliefs. Objectivity, he said, can never be the complete basis for scientific understanding of what constitutes “truth”, he said, because objective conclusions are affected by the subjectivity of those associated with the research and the views they bring into the process. Their conclusions will be skewed, therefore, by the beliefs they had about the world even before they began to gather data. True scientists recognize this built-in bias and also that they possesses incomplete knowledge and so theories and conclusions they reach must always be considered provisional, incomplete, and, hopefully, more insight into what the truth might be. The whole scientific process is based on questioning conclusions, challenging findings, revising and extending and refuting theory, and is generally a rebellious activity (Dyson, 2006). But that does not make even scientists, as Kuhn says, immune to the hardening of beliefs into perceived "truths".

Simultaneously, both sadly and providentially, usefully and un-usefully, each of us, in one form or another rely upon belief. Belief gets us through each day. But reliance on belief is an excuse for intellectual and spiritual laziness; it breeds dependence on others – writers, leaders, pundits – for our own understanding; it divides us; and is a substitute for truth-seeking. Belief in the guise of “truth” starts wars, murders, and political battles. Belief is used as a weapon to skewer others, to polarize, to be a litmus test, and to include or exclude people. Belief creates blasphemers and heretics, it incites passion and accumulates power, it stops inquiry.

But belief is also how we negotiate the day. Our belief that others will honor laws give us the confidence to roll through an intersection when we have a green light. Our belief that the law of gravity will prevail give us confidence to punt a football and expect that it will fall into the hands of the returner. Our belief that hard work done well leads to professional success motivates us even during difficult times. Beliefs are foundational to success in our daily activities and in our pursuit of deeper spirituality.

But beliefs are not truths. They are, rather, Resting Places On Our Journey toward deeper understandings of truth if we will let ourselves keep walking forward.

Call me a heretic for saying so. I understand.

Having said all of that, if I'm honest with myself, everything I just wrote could change or evolve as I add to my knowledge and experience.

Sigh...

Actually, I hope it does change, evolve, become deeper, more informed, more questioned, more tested, more nuanced.

Testing our own beliefs, being a little self-irreverent, doesn't mean tossing out our beliefs or belief system. It could just as easily lead to more depth of understanding, another step or two into the mystery we haven't yet touched, deeper and more substantive "truths" that we already have found and rely upon.

This exploration and self-questioning can be an exciting adventure or just painful.

Sigh...and double-sigh.

The Religious Case Against Belief

I was immediately intrigued by the title of James Carse’s book, The Religious Case Against Belief (2008) , because it sounded so irreverent, so paradoxical, just from the get-go. The religious case against belief? That idea ran counter to all of my preconceived ideas about religion. After all, I grew up in a church (where am still a member) in which the price of admission was a public statement of “I believe”. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and so on.

Yet, Carse says, “Quite simply, being a believer does not in itself make one religious; being religious does not require that one be a believer. This improbable distinction has been hidden by the tenacious notion that religion is chiefly a collection of beliefs” (2008, p. 2). Religions, he says, are not just sets of belief systems. He calls the historic religions, such as Islam or Christianity, ones that have at their center a mystery that they can’t understand completely, and it is one that they must ceaselessly try to comprehend. This unknowable is at the heart of these traditions. And though the unknowing can be hid “behind the veil of a well-articulated belief system” (p. 4), “when ‘true’ believers claim that their convictions have been validated by a given religion, they are patently unaware that in doing so they have just rejected it. The certainties that led Christians to the Crusades, or Hindus to the universal imposition of a caste system, or Muslims to truck bombs all constitute a repression of the tradition they claim as their own” (p. 4). And in fact, he goes on to say, some belief systems or ideologies – like Nazism, Maoism, nationalism - try to give themselves the equivalence of religion. “Given the violence that originates in the absolutism of belief systems,” he says, it is urgent to better understand that the “unmatched vitality of the great religions” comes from the relationship of knowledge to wonder. (italics and bolding added)

“Aristotle wrote that knowledge begins in wonder. By thoughtfully assessing

the unmatched vitality of the great religions, we can begin to see that

knowledge also ends in wonder.”

James Carse, The Religious Case Against Beliefs , p. 5. (2008)

But Carse, in this insightful and illuminating book, goes much further in his discussion of belief and specifically its relationship to religion, considerably more than I can summarize here. Beliefs, he says, fall along a scale that ranges from casual beliefs on the one end to beliefs of passion and conviction, those that one would die for, on the other end. At the conviction end there is no room for debate – you are either with me or against me. When people have such strong beliefs they see the world through them, and are likely reject evidence that doesn’t align with those beliefs. And it doesn't matter if you are conservative or liberal, feminist or populist, communist or libertarian, gay or straight, Christian, Buddhist, non-dualist, pagan, atheist, or flower child - when we believe we own truth we've stopped learning and growing and questioning. And believe everyone else is wrong.

For years my approach to belief has been that beliefs are assumptions about truth and that I consider my assumptions about the world to be provisional. They are what-I-believe-today, and are subject to review or revision as I learn more about the world. I call these assumptions working-beliefs, or beliefs-in-progress. With that approach, I can operate the in world, yet also be open to and to seek new information and understandings. We need these "working-beliefs", "beliefs-in-progress". But beliefs are not truths. They are, rather, Resting Places On Our Journey toward deeper understandings of truth if we will let ourselves keep walking forward.

Unless you believe you are God, how could you ever believe you have the infinite knowledge of God? Unless you believe you are more Einstein than Einstein (and even he didn't get everything right), how could you ever believe you have truth about the material world? Therefore, our knowledge is limited, and our beliefs about truth are at best partial.

From John Wesley’s Sermon, A Catholic Spirit , (Wesley, 1771/1872/2013 [edited version])

Although every man necessarily believes that every particular opinion which he holds is true (for to believe any opinion is not true, is the same thing as not to hold it), yet can no man be assured that all his own opinions, taken together, are true. In fact, every thinking man is assured they are not, seeing humanum est errare et nescire: "To be ignorant of many things, and to mistake in some, is the necessary condition of humanity." This, therefore, he understands, applies to himself as well. He knows, generally, that he himself is mistaken; although in what particular opinions he is mistaken, he does not, perhaps he cannot, know.

5. I say "perhaps he cannot know;" for who can tell how far invincible ignorance may extend? Or, which amounts to the same thing, invincible prejudice, which is often so fixed in tender minds, that it is afterwards impossible to tear up what has taken so deep a root. And who can say, unless he knew every circumstance attending it, how far any mistake is culpable, seeing all guilt must suppose some concurrence of the will. Only He who can judge and search the heart can know.

6. Every wise man, therefore, will allow others the same liberty of thinking that he desires they should allow him, and will no more insist on their embracing his opinions than he would have them to insist on his embracing theirs. He is patient with those who differ from him, and only asks him with whom he desires to unite in love that single question: "Is your heart right, as my heart is with your heart?"

This is one of the reasons I love Wesley....

References

Carse, J. P. (2008). The religious case against belief . New York: Penguin Press.

Dyson, F. J. (2006). The scientist as rebel . New York: New York Review Books.

James, W. (1997). Varieties of Religious Experience . New York, NY: Touchstone.

Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Otto, T. (July 20, 2015). Why Crucifying Tony Campolo Does Not Serve the Cause of Christ. Retrieved from http://www.redletterchristians.org/why-crucifying-tony-campolo-does-not-serve-the-cause-of-christ/

Russell, B. (2010). The basic writings of Bertrand Russell . London ; New York: Routledge.

Sagan, C. (2006). The varieties of scientific experience: a persontal view of the search for God . New York: Penguin Press.

Wesley, J. (1771/1872/2013 [edited version], 6-28-15). A Catholic Spirit, from http://www.crivoice.org/cathspirit.html