practice and belief
by havoc
This NYTimes blog post scrolled past the other day, a discussion of an article by John Gray. John Gray has this to say:
The idea that religions are essentially creeds, lists of propositions that you have to accept, doesn’t come from religion. It’s an inheritance from Greek philosophy, which shaped much of Western Christianity and led to practitioners trying to defend their way of life as an expression of what they believe.
The most common threads of religion, science, and philosophy I learned about in school shared this frame; their primary focus was accurate descriptions of outside reality. Which is fine and useful, but perhaps not everything. In some very tiresome debates (atheism vs. religion, “Truth” vs. “relativism strawman”), both sides share the assumption that what matters most is finding a set of words that best describe the world.
There is at least one alternative, which is to also ask “what should we practice?” not only “what should we believe?”
If you’re interested in this topic, I’ve stumbled on several traditions that have something to say about it so I thought I’d make a list:
- Pragmatist philosophy, for example this book is a collection of readings I enjoyed, or see Pragmatism on Wikipedia.
- Unitarian Universalism, which borrows much of the format and practice of a Protestant church but leaves the beliefs up to the individual. I’ve often heard people say that their belief is what matters but they don’t like organized religion; UU is the reverse of that. (Not that UU is against having beliefs, it just doesn’t define its membership as the set of people who agree on X, Y, and Z. It is a community of shared practice rather than shared belief.)
- Behavioral economics and psychology. For example, they have piled on the evidence that one’s beliefs might flow from one’s actions (not the other way around), and in general made clear that knowing facts does not translate straightforwardly into behavior.
- Buddhism, not something I know a lot about, but as explained by Thich Nhat Hanh for example in The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. Themes include the limitations of language as a way to describe reality, and what modern bloggers might call “mind hacks” (practical ways to convince the human body and mind to work better).
I think this is definitely barking up the right tree.
Modern atheism and fundamentalist religion have a lot in common. They’re both obsessed with being right, they both think they know the one true way (to / not to) relate to god, and neither of them really care about what works for others as long as those others say the right words.
Even once I realized that neither worked for me, it took me a long time to get past the “but I’m wrong” hangup, and realize that neither of them really know what they’re doing anyway. Especially if following their ideas makes me miserable.
I’d even say that most religions besides Christianity care more about practice than belief. Judaism is one of the prominent examples: The religious vs. secular divide in the Israeli society is not about whether to believe in God, but whether to follow the (religious) law.
I’m not interested in (2), but definitely my appreciation of (1), (3), and (4) in the past decade or two has altered my actual outlook in life, my everyday actions, my goals.
As a practicing Christian, I would add that Christianity (and I believe we have it originally from Judaism) in its mainstream form (of course, any form of silliness was invented during the centuries) always believed that both are important. Practice and belief cannot be separated. It actually does matter what you belief for your action, but in the same time, as the famous quotation says, “faith, if it has no works, is dead,” Belief for Jews (and I hope for most Christians) is not only about acceptance of set of prepositions (that really is a Greek idea), but it very strongly relates to one’s action.
I’ve read and heard this viewpoint multiple times. Each time I hear it it is usually from a person who has given up the belief in the doctrines of his/her religion and wishes to maintain the practices. Indeed, this is probably fitting. Futher present is the accusation of the corruption of religion by Greek Philosophical methods.
But I can never get a satisfactory answer when I bring up things like the Shema or the Four Noble Truths. Both of these clearly predate any influence by Greek Philosophy and yet they are foundational kataphatic and dogmatic assertions. Further, the practices of these religions are intrinsicly wrapped up in these assertions. For instance, the practices of the various strains of Buddhist meditation all have as their aim the cessation of dukkha. Similarly, the passover seder has as its express purpose the rememberence that:
1. There is one God
2. He is the God of the Patriarchs
3. He led the Hebrews out of Egypt
4. God will eventually conquer death
We can definitely agree that there is a modern strain of pragmatism (which is an ideological descendant of nominalism) and that it clearly rejects Greek metaphysics. And perhaps this viewpoint is even correct. But I do think you’ve confused post-enligtenment with post-socratic. Ancient people of every time and culture, both Hellenes and non-Greeks, used religious practice intentionally in order to express, articulate and enculcate what they believed to be foundational truths.
The culprit Gray points out is far more the result of the enlightenment with all its Cartesian undertones than it is the fault of Plato or Aristotle.
I do think that the major problem the groups you mention need to solve is how to avoid tribalism. Unitarian Universalism does this by actually having first principles: there is One God and all people “go to Heaven.” It is this universal “truth” that permits the variety of expression. Further, to be a Unitarian Universalist and suggest that some people won’t “go to Heaven” is both dogmatically and practically incorrect.
In short, I don’t think it is so easy to separate practice from truth claim. Modern attempts to read this into religious histories have to ignore significant evidence. I think the question then is precisely the question that Socrates asks in his Dialogue with Euthyphro: what is the proper first principle? It is from this first principle that all human practice flows. And I think no one proves this better than Siddhartha: all is suffering, and the Buddhist system descends from this first principle.
Hi! Just read that post on planet gnome. In case you do not alread know him, you might want to check out Richard Rorty. Particulary “Irony, Contingency and Solidarity” or if you are more into philosophical arguments about the illusion of the necessity of doing epistemology (finding out what is the case) instead of considering pragmatic approaches: “Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature”. Bot easily accessible yet dense books.
And why not ask “What do I want to practice” or “What do I want others to practice”? “What should I/we practice” with the answer “One should practice X in case of Y” is just another question that is answered with an assertion that tricks you into believing it has a (universally) intersubjective or even objective truth value – when there is really no rule that lets you determine its truth value. And if there seems to be such a rule it is based on premises that are everything but self evident and much rather personal taste or simply: one’s will. This thought seems less careless if you consider that most persons do care about other persons and therefore don’t want them to suffer.
Good article by John Gray, thanks for your post!