You are on page 1of 3

Search

The question: Should we believe in belief?


The extraordinary and eccentric emphasis on "belief" in Christianity today is an accident
of history that has distorted our understanding of religious truth. We call religious
people "believers", as though acceptance of a set of doctrines was their principal activity,
and before undertaking the religious life many feel obliged to satisfy themselves about
the metaphysical claims of the church, which cannot be proven rationally since they lie
beyond the reach of empirical sense data.
Most other traditions prize practice above creedal orthodoxy: Buddhists, Hindus,
Confucians, Jews and Muslims would say religion is something you do, and that you
cannot understand the truths of faith unless you are committed to a transformative way
of life that takes you beyond the prism of selfishness. All good religious teaching
including such Christian doctrines as the Trinity or the Incarnation is basically a
summons to action. Yet instead of being taught to act creatively upon them, many
modern Christians feel it is more important to "believe" them. Why?
In most pre-modern cultures, there were two recognised ways of attaining truth. The
Greeks called them mythos and logos. Both were crucial and each had its particular
sphere of competence. Logos ("reason; science") was the pragmatic mode of thought
that enabled us to control our environment and function in the world. It had, therefore,
to correspond accurately to external realities. But logos could not assuage human grief
or give people intimations that their lives had meaning. For that they turned to mythos,
an early form of psychology, which dealt with the more elusive aspects of human
experience.
Stories of heroes descending to the underworld were not regarded as primarily factual
but taught people how to negotiate the obscure regions of the psyche. In the same way,
Metaphysical mistake
Confusion by Christians between belief and reason has created
bad science and inept religion
Karen Armstrong
The Guardian, Sunday 12 July 2009 20.00 BST
Metaphysical mistake | Karen Armstrong | Comment is free | ... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/12...
1 of 3 9/25/14 2:42 PM
the purpose of a creation myth was therapeutic; before the modern period no sensible
person ever thought it gave an accurate account of the origins of life. A cosmology was
recited at times of crisis or sickness, when people needed a symbolic influx of the
creative energy that had brought something out of nothing. Thus the Genesis myth, a
gentle polemic against Babylonian religion, was balm to the bruised spirits of the
Israelites who had been defeated and deported by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar during
the sixth century BCE. Nobody was required to "believe" it; like most peoples, the
Israelites had a number of other mutually-exclusive creation stories and as late as the
16th century, Jews thought nothing of making up a new creation myth that bore no
relation to Genesis but spoke more directly to their tragic circumstances at that time.
Above all, myth was a programme of action. When a mythical narrative was symbolically
re-enacted, it brought to light within the practitioner something "true" about human life
and the way our humanity worked, even if its insights, like those of art, could not be
proven rationally. If you did not act upon it, it would remain as incomprehensible and
abstract like the rules of a board game, which seem impossibly convoluted, dull and
meaningless until you start to play.
Religious truth is, therefore, a species of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we
cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to plunge into the pool and acquire the knack by
dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance,
and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga,
prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these
disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman
or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible
and even absurd.
But during the modern period, scientific logos became so successful that myth was
discredited, the logos of scientific rationalism became the only valid path to truth, and
Newton and Descartes claimed it was possible to prove God's existence, something
earlier Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians had vigorously denied. Christians
bought into the scientific theology, and some embarked on the doomed venture of
turning their faith's mythos into logos.
It was during the late 17th century, as the western conception of truth became more
notional, that the word "belief" changed its meaning. Previously, bileve meant "love,
loyalty, commitment". It was related to the Latin libido and used in the King James
Bible to translate the Greek pistis ("trust; faithfulness; involvement"). In demanding
pistis, therefore, Jesus was asking for commitment not credulity: people must give
everything to the poor, follow him to the end, and commit totally to the coming
Kingdom.
Metaphysical mistake | Karen Armstrong | Comment is free | ... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/12...
2 of 3 9/25/14 2:42 PM
By the late 17th century, however, philosophers and scientists had started to use "belief"
to mean an intellectual assent to a somewhat dubious proposition. We often assume
"modern" means "superior", and while this is true of science and technology, our
religious thinking is often undeveloped. In the past, people understood it was unwise to
confuse mythos with logos, but today we read the mythoi of scripture with an
unparalleled literalism, and in "creation science" we have bad science and inept religion.
The question is: how can we extricate ourselves from the religious cul-de-sac we entered
about 300 years ago?
2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
Get the best of Comment is free
The most shared comment, analysis and editorial
articles delivered every weekday lunchtime.
Sign up for the Comment is free email
Metaphysical mistake | Karen Armstrong | Comment is free | ... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/12...
3 of 3 9/25/14 2:42 PM

You might also like