This is what human life is like
I'm used to reading political stuff at Andrew Sullivan's blog but sometimes he talks about religion too. Here was a post today that I found interesting .....
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Dissent Of The Day
A reader writes:
You wrote:
"I do not experience being Catholic as a choice any more than I experience being gay as a choice."
But as you must know, these are completely different things. It is one thing to have one's thoughts influenced or shaped by the tradition one was brought up in; I would think no one could avoid that. But affirming the truth of a particular faith is always a choice, and you always have the power and right to affirm the faith you were brought up in, or another, or none. I cannot understand any reason for pretending that one has no choice in the matter -- and to me it is pretending, and morally unserious, and in fact, dangerous.
Simone Weil wrote that Jesus wants us to prefer the truth to him, because before being himself, he is the truth. When we think we see a contradiction between the truth and Jesus, we have misunderstood one or the other, and should sort it out: Weil said that when we think we see Jesus standing apart from the truth, we must turn aside from Jesus, and toward the truth; but when we do so, we do not take more than a step toward the truth without falling forward into his arms, realizing that he was standing at the truth all along, and where we thought he had been standing apart from the truth was an illusion or a mistake.
Weil's view is my own. What I meant by the lack of choice is that there have been moments in my life when I have indeed sensed the loss of faith or its slackening or, at one moment, its inversion. But even in its inversion - fifteen interminable minutes when I didn't wonder if God existed, but if God really was evil - the despair was lifted by a force greater than my own.
What has kept me believing is not, as I have experienced it, a conscious act of will. It is more an acceptance of God's grace. My experience of Jesus will not let go of me, however much I would like to let go of it. This element of faith - its involuntary pull as well as its voluntary push - is how I have found it.
One can only describe here and say: this is what human life is like.
I mean no more than that, but the internal wrestling never ends. The search for truth must always be first; and religion is nothing if it is not true. Which is why doubt can never be a danger. Banishing doubt is the danger.
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****************************
Dissent Of The Day
A reader writes:
You wrote:
"I do not experience being Catholic as a choice any more than I experience being gay as a choice."
But as you must know, these are completely different things. It is one thing to have one's thoughts influenced or shaped by the tradition one was brought up in; I would think no one could avoid that. But affirming the truth of a particular faith is always a choice, and you always have the power and right to affirm the faith you were brought up in, or another, or none. I cannot understand any reason for pretending that one has no choice in the matter -- and to me it is pretending, and morally unserious, and in fact, dangerous.
Simone Weil wrote that Jesus wants us to prefer the truth to him, because before being himself, he is the truth. When we think we see a contradiction between the truth and Jesus, we have misunderstood one or the other, and should sort it out: Weil said that when we think we see Jesus standing apart from the truth, we must turn aside from Jesus, and toward the truth; but when we do so, we do not take more than a step toward the truth without falling forward into his arms, realizing that he was standing at the truth all along, and where we thought he had been standing apart from the truth was an illusion or a mistake.
Weil's view is my own. What I meant by the lack of choice is that there have been moments in my life when I have indeed sensed the loss of faith or its slackening or, at one moment, its inversion. But even in its inversion - fifteen interminable minutes when I didn't wonder if God existed, but if God really was evil - the despair was lifted by a force greater than my own.
What has kept me believing is not, as I have experienced it, a conscious act of will. It is more an acceptance of God's grace. My experience of Jesus will not let go of me, however much I would like to let go of it. This element of faith - its involuntary pull as well as its voluntary push - is how I have found it.
One can only describe here and say: this is what human life is like.
I mean no more than that, but the internal wrestling never ends. The search for truth must always be first; and religion is nothing if it is not true. Which is why doubt can never be a danger. Banishing doubt is the danger.
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posted by crystal | 12:58 PM
8 Comments:
There have been personal experiences in my life that, if I am to remain sane, force me to make certain decisions, to believe certain things. There are times when I forget those experiences and try to believe something else, but then the memory comes back and I am forced to go back to my original belief.
Is this what you are talking about?
I could decide it didn't really happen, or that I did not interpret the experience correctly, or even that I really was insane, but that would be denying the truth wouldn't it.
But then again my ex wife had spells of schizophrenia and I finally came to realize that what she experienced was what she experienced, and that was her truth, there was no way she could deny it. It took me a long time to understand that when she heard voices, she heard voices. She was not pretending, she was not play acting, she really heard voices. That was when I realized that she was acting very logically, not to what I experienced, but to what she experienced. I found it very scary, and also very comforting to realize that she was not free to do, or experience other than what she saw.
Hmmm, guess I am rambling on, but I do want to say I do not believe that we are always free to believe what we want to believe.
Love and hugs,
Mike L
Mike,
I'm not sure I really understand what Andrew Sullivan was saying, what he meant, except maybe that though he had an experience once that seemed undoubtable, he's usually in a state of doubt.
I had an experience like that once and I started doubting it as soon as it was over :)
The whole question of why we believe what we do is interesting. A lot of what we believe is probably not even understood to be belief but just knowledge of "facts" - assumptions that are so deeply held they aren't even noticed much less questioned. Ugh - the whole subject makes my head hurt :)
""I do not experience being Catholic as a choice any more than I experience being gay as a choice."
I think I know what Sullivan means.
I know you have ex-Catholics who post here who've gone elsewhere. I could never do that. I have nowhere else to go. For me, it'd be the Church or nothing.
Jeff,
Are there ex-Catholics who post here? I know what you mean, I think and I pretty much feel that way too. Not saying that it's the Best, just the bst for me.
I like Sullivan's last paragraph, but it's unclear what he means by "faith" and "believing." Faith in what, exactly? Believing in what? Catholicism, The "Church," Jesus, Christianity, God, a supreme being?
There's always been a side of Sullivan that sounds like a spoiled rich kid to me - intelligent, witty, but adolescent in many ways. He's had "one moment" of wondering if God was evil? Spiritually, he sounds somewhat immature. And the reader who wrote in is right to call him on his statement, which not only sounds weak in terms of spirituality, but also brings into question the whole concept of homosexuality as being a biological fact or a choice. If he had been born in Iran, it's highly doubtful he would be Catholic. But he would still be homosexual, according to the argument that it's biological.
And Jeff, don't you think if you'd been born in Iran, you'd be saying the same thing about Islam - "I have nowhere else to go. For me, it'd be Allah or nothing." I think your qualities of steadfastness and loyalty would remain a part of you as an Iranian more than your being Catholic.
Jeff, don't you think if you'd been born in Iran, you'd be saying the same thing about Islam - "I have nowhere else to go. For me, it'd be Allah or nothing." I think your qualities of steadfastness and loyalty would remain a part of you as an Iranian more than your being Catholic.
Yes, I think so. Intellectually I can grasp that, but it doesn't change anything for me. It is what it is.
William,
I think Andrew Sullivan meant that most he doubts and wonders about God's goodness, but that he once had an experience of about 15 minutes where he didn't wonder. And that doubt is what allows faith. Or at least that's how I read what he wrote.
Crystal,
Doubt allows faith. That makes sense.
I guess I should read all of Sullivan's article, as well as the one the reader commented on. Funny, I read Sullivan almost every day for the better part of two years. then ,about a week after the election, I stopped and haven't gone back to his web site since.
Jeff,
It is what it is.
Yes, it is. You're right.
But I think that knowledge can make us more expansive in our love and appreciation for people who practice other religions.
And after living in another culture, it's a question that both intrigues and challenges me. How does the Catholicism that I grew up with relate to the broader aspects of Christianity, and to other religions and cultures around the world? What of our faith is simply dependent on circumstance and what survives all cultures and environments?
I don't have any answers, really.
But it's certainly made me less inclined to believe that any particular religion is THE religion. One practices, it seems, because one chooses one path over another.
This, in fact, has probably been one of the main challenges in my own spirituality for the last ten years. I'm not sure how to live with this knowledge.
But I do know the world would be a much better place if the fundamentalists from all religions chilled out.
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