John Locke, who published, Essay on Human Understanding in 1690, proposed that experience and empiricism are the only ways to know anything with certainty. He was an Enlightenment thinker who, following men like Rene Descartes (1596-1650) agreed that the order of the world corresponded with the order of the mind, but held, against Descartes, that anyone held any innate ideas with certainty--experience was required to know ANYTHING with certainty. Therefore, anything in religious discourse that involved revelation (such as Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai or Jesus walking on water) could never be known with certainty, since we were not there to witness it, nor are there any surviving archaeological data to support these stories. We can only conclude, based on revelation, what is most PROBABLE to believe, and Locke did conclude that Christianity was the most "reasonable" of all religions, but could not be proven. Other Enlightenment figures articulated similar thoughts, and many of them concluded that the one thing that seemed to be common to religions, regardless of their revelations, was a system of ETHICS that mandated certain codes of behavior. Because of this, Reform Judaism was born, and many other intellectuals in Christianity taught that the Christ of the Scriptures was not accessible, but Christ the Teacher was.
John Locke, British Empiricist (1632-1704)
John Locke's "Tabula Rasa," which presupposes that all humans are born with a "blank slate," and that our experiences largely determine who we are.
After going through these points, a student asked, what does it matter what one believes, if it gets us all to behave in the same way and get along with each other? It's a question I have heard before, but I decided to give it some serious thought for the sake of this student and the benefit of the class. I spent a day thinking about how I wanted to answer. Below is essentially what I said.
The question presupposes that all religions are essentially the same in substance, if not in practice or belief. The question presupposes that all religions are like ice cream, and the different manifestations are like different flavors, and human beings, being what they are, may choose one "flavor" over another, but at the end of the day, they are all the same, and provide the same results.
I have found that in the year 2010, many people in America share something akin to this opinion...religion is a belief system that satisfies a particular yearning in the human for meaning and understanding of the complexities and seeming caprice of the universe, and therefore, whichever one chooses, as long as it provides those things, is valid--Buddhism as much as Christianity or Judaism or Islam.
I began my response by asking, is it ALWAYS wrong for someone to violate a child sexually? I picked this subject with reservations, not because I am insensitive, but to illustrate a point. Of course, the class unanimously answered, yes, that is ALWAYS wrong. I asked, is it wrong, even if someone says they BELIEVE it is okay, for whatever twisted reason? They said, again unanimously, yes, it is ALWAYS wrong. I then asked, how can we have any statements of eternal import (that is, statements founded on ALWAYS) in a universe that is constantly changing? They were perplexed by this, so I proceeded.
I said that what they just demonstrated in their unanimous disapprobation of the molester is a seemingly universal claim to JUSTICE that seems to reside in the human in an acute sense. I then said that this need to see justice fulfilled can be manifested through three options, as far as I can tell, to answer this question. The first, Option "A," says, "Justice is taken care of NOW, in this life and in this world." The second, Option "B," says, "Justice is taken care of after this life." The third, Option "C," says that there is no justice, it's simply a human invention to ensure sociological peace among the species, for the universe is a random interchange of action/reaction, stimulus/response, and there is no rhyme or reason or meaning to it.
The first Option seems flawed, since many "wicked" seem to prosper, while many "good" seem to be persecuted. If Option A is true, then "justice," as we desire it in the human heart, is a chimera. However, that fails to explain its universality--even the hardest criminals in a prison know that the child molester is at the bottom of the societal ladder, thus seeming to support that even the wicked recognize an inherent code of right and wrong, and that some misdeeds are worse than others. This further supports the claim that justice, even if it is unfulfilled, is something humans share. This therefore debunks Option A.
Option C is compelling, but only so far. If the need for justice was something that was a result of chance in a materialistic universe, it would seem it would have not survived. Even Darwin's theories of Natural Selection provide that that which is most condusive to the survival of a species are adopted, but we still have not, at least publicly, adopted a system of a-morality. We deplore and despise those who cheat us, even though their chances of survival are increased by it. Moreover, we do not excuse our friend, the child molester, no matter what experiences he might have endured that led him to do such a heinous crime. Why is this so? Well, if we live in a close universe, the fact is, we could not blame him any more than we would blame a pen for falling if we dropped it. Let me explain what I mean.
In a closed universe, there is simply action and reaction, cause and effect (by the way, traditional Buddhism, being a "materialistic" religion, presupposes exactly this). In such a universe, what we do is not our fault, and we are not culpable for it. Let me explain by way of analogy.
Imagine a jar that is vacuum sealed, where gravity is removed, that is full of marbles. That represents the closed universe. Now, imagine that of these billion marbles, there is marble "3" and marble "10056." Now, if you took a video camera and kept it on the jar, you would see that, as soon as you shake the jar (because our universe is clearly kinetic, though the materialists are hard pressed to explain WHY), you could see how marble 1,005,784 touches marble 3456 which touches marble 2,009,894 and so on, until the chain of events strikes marble 10056, which touches marble 3. In such a scenario, marble 3 simply reacts to stimuli over which it had no control, and touches another marble. If that reaction was child molestation, is it really his fault? Is he culpable? After all, he was acting as an agent who was influenced by a nearly infinite chain of cause and effect, of which he is a part.
And yet, we still want the molester prosecuted...is this simply a malformation in our evolutionary sense of justice? That is possible...perhaps we are uncomfortable admitting that the universe operates on so much chance, but that does little to comfort us, and little more to explain how murderers and thieves in the prison detest him. It seems, then, that the probability of such an assertion of a closed universe is weak. It is possible, but weak. The anthropology does not seem to support it.
That leaves us with Option B. This option says that justice will be meted out after this life. Well, if, as my student says, religion is simply a question of beliefs that prepare you for that eventuality, let us see if she was right.
Let us say I blow up my school and film it. I have hard evidence that proves I did it. I killed over a thousand people. Now, I have been arrested and am about to go to court to answer the charges that I am a mass murderer. The odds are that I will receive the death penalty in short order. Now, at this point, I have some options: I can choose to defend myself, or I can hire a lawyer. I think, in something as important as this, that I need to hire a lawyer, but we all know, lawyers come with a varying degree of competence and acumen. So, I probably need to hire a very good lawyer, not just the cheapest, that is, the one who perhaps partied his way through law school or just barely passed the Bar. If I am to have any hope of being acquitted, I need the very best--remember, there is a video I made in my maniacal attack, to immortalize it in my narcissism, so the prosecuting attorney has EVERYTHING he needs to convict me.
At this point, it seems that I need to do a little investigative "shopping." I need to find the best lawyer to "get me off." If we are subject to some kind of judgement for our misdeeds after this life, doesn't the same hold true?
Of course, my student stated (to my great pride), that our "sins" are not the same as blowing up a building full of people--a lie is not the same as that. I agree. Then I asked, if you were out on a pristine ski slope, and thirsty, and decided to pick up some snow to eat it, but you found that there was the slightest infinitessimal drop of yellow in it, would you still eat it? I asked, if you were at a pool party with a hundred other people, and you felt a slight increase in the water temperature when you swam near someone else, would you get out? I asked, if your house was robbed, how would you feel coming in later? The answer was essentially the same for all three questions: the object in question was TAINTED, and it didn't matter how much--the tainting ruined the whole. Now, such a claim presupposes that there is not a closed universe, but an open one, and that this open universe has some kind of "Owner," for after all, the owner of a house determines its rules, and, as stated above, most humans seem to agree that the rule forbidding child molestation is just. Well, the only way you can have such ETERNAL laws, in a universe that is constantly in flux, is to have an ETERNAL LAW-GIVER OUTSIDE of the universe giving such laws. Otherwise, the laws of behavior would change with the times. Now, I am not talking about laws pertaining to business or political borders, which necessarily change as borders or technology do. I am talking about the statement that child molestation or rape is ALWAYS wrong. That means that even 10,000 years ago it was wrong, and will continue to be, 10,000 years from now. The only way that is true is if there is an eternal Law-giver. Well, if there is such a law-giver, it seems he/she/it would also be the one, naturally, to do the judging upon our death, if Option B holds. Therefore, if he/she/it is TRULY just, then we must pay for the smallest offenses, the smallest taints, or else, as I said before, our quest and inherent yearning for justice is a chimera. How do we pay for it?
If we are the one in the pool who tainted it, and everyone at the party knew we did it, how do we escape the ridicule and scorn that must necessarily follow, as well as the banishment from the party? We need an advocate, the BEST advocate.
Or, to take it a step further, let's say we were at the pool party at a wealthy friend's house. Let's say we just couldn't hold it in, we taint the pool, everybody knows it, including the owner. He wants us thrown out as some disrespectful cad, but his son comes up and says, "Dad, let him stay--don't embarrass him." Wouldn't that be a great example of an advocate?
Well, if Option B is true, then we have some further options...Hinduism says that at the end of this life, we are destined to repeat its trials and sufferings in another life, in a cylce known as "samsara." The only way we can get off this cycle is through a sufficient accumulation of karma. Question: how do you clean the pool after you tainted it?
Buddhism says we live in a closed universe, which has serious issues explaining our penchant for justice, but regardless, Buddhism demands that we live in a disciplined state to enjoy the present AS-IT-IS, and, depending on whether you are speaking of Theravadin or Mahayanan Buddhism, you can, after multiple lifetimes and sufficient accumulations of karma and goodwill toward others, a release from suffering. The question this raises is, how is there a judgment of "good" or "bad" in a closed universe?
Judaism says acts of loving-kindness can ameliorate one's position with God. That has its own issues, since, if I blew up the school, I said I gave a million dollars to charity, it would still not wipe out my mass murder. The only hope here is some kind of forgiveness from the "owner" of the "house," which I certainly allow as a possibility, but then there is the issue of reconciling that with our concepts of justice.
Islam similarly holds that God is the judge of all our deeds, and holds, essentially, that if we follow the dictates and edicts of the Qur'an, especially our faithfulness to the Five Pillars, that God will admit those whom He wishes into Paradise, and condemn the rest. Again, however, this forces us to reconsider our definitions of justice, since any sin "taints the pool"--can God allow that without some kind of retribution?
Then there is Christianity, which holds that the son of the Owner, that is, the Creator, has paid the price, somehow, for our tainting of the pool, and has somehow cleaned it, so that the Owner is satisfied. Then, the son becomes our friend, in spite of our hapless accident in the pool.
These are the essentials of what I told my class. I hope you found it interesting.
Hi. A fair and honest question. It made me think of C.S. Lewis and his illustrations of the TAO in the appendix of The Abolition of Man. Permit a quote: "The following illustrations of the Natural Law are collected from such sources as come readily to the hand of one who is not a professional historian...It will be noticed that writers such as Locke and Hooker, who wrote within the Christian tradition, are quoted side by side with the New Testament. This would, of course, be absurd if I were trying to collect independent testimonies of the TAO. But 1) I am not trying to prove its validity by the argument from common consent. Its validity cannot be deduced...2) The idea of collecting independent testimonies presupposes that 'civilizations' have arisen in the world independently of one another; or even that humanity has had several independent emergences on this planet. The biology and anthropology involved in such an assumption are extremely doubtful. It is by no means certain that there has ever (in the sense required) been more than one civilization in all history. It is at least arguable that every civilization we find has been derived from another civilization and, in the last resort, from a single center---'carried' like an infectious disease or like the Apostolical succession."
ReplyDeleteHe then goes on to list natural laws found in most civilizations, such as the law of general beneficence, the law of special beneficence, duties to parents, elders, and ancestors, duties to children and posterity, the law of justice, the law of good faith and veracity, the law of mercy, and the law of magnanimity.
Locke harkens back to Aristotle and others on experiential knowledge, i.e. knowing only through experience or personal observation, but I think even that breaks down in many areas. Why is it so easy to believe in evolution--because we've SEEN it? The theories are as numerous as the scientists who purport them. But yes, we've seen a fossil, and yes, we believe what we're told. But some truths only become personal truths when we have practiced them and beheld the truths ourselves.
George MacDonald, who, through his writings, had the biggest influence on C.S. Lewis's conversion from atheism to Christianity, has always challenged me as well. He constantly wrote about DOING one thing Jesus said to do, BEFORE WE UNDERSTAND. To OBEY first, and then wait for revelation for the next thing. This, in effect, PROVES Christ to the true seeker. He stood firm on this, as firm as the evolutionist and the empiricist. The funny thing is that most people don't want it to be true.
Hope this wasn't a ramble. You said so much! And my mind flew in many directions.
Godspeed...
Of course, Lewis' whole argument in Mere Christianity is predicated on something that seems to transcend the apparent (though, as you say, not always provable) differences among civilizations, which of course is a deep sense of justice, or, to put it in the language of the Enlightenment thinkers, ethics. Many Enlightenment thinkers took this as an "out" from the "hard" doctrines that separate religions, for after all, Mohammed's assertions that Christ never died CANNOT be as true as the Apostles' assertions that he did in fact die and rose again--someone, or both, MUST be wrong, but both cannot be right. Many Enlightenment thinkers saw the common ethics as the thing we could all agree on. However, Lewis uses precisely this to argue that if there is such a "Law" of Morality, then we are all guilty of breaking it. That is the great dilemma--how do we, on one hand, wish that the person who cheated us gets his just dessert, while at the same time know that we have cheated others, and are therefore subject to the same "desserts?" It is for this reason Lewis says, at this point in our thoughts, God is "the greatest terror and the greatest comfort." Again, this is where the need for the advocate, the lawyer, the mediator, whatever term you wish, comes into play.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment--not a ramble at all!
Agreed! This is why I hesitate to scream too loudly (in my car, of course) at bad drivers, knowing that I have done the same at some point. I invent a scenario that something untoward has happened, to which they must respond. Somehow, this curbs my further slip into degradation and name calling.
ReplyDeleteBut, alas, not always. :)