PHILOSOPHY

RELIGION, ROUTE & BRANCH

John Bulman, Member, on 3 April 2001

It is surely a function of philosophy to think as clearly as possible about the roots of religion, and the validity of religious `routes' today.

The earliest humans explained much of the natural activity around them as motivated, like they were, by inner motivating selves, or `spirits'. Such animism was refined down the ages to the point where the Jews could conceive the universe as created by a single all-creative, omnipotent, judgmental and merciful spirit, or God. From this trunk of monotheism Christianity and Islam branched out with all their dividing twigs and decorative leaves.

The winds of changing world views blasted this tree. We now explain the universe in terms of maths and physics. We would invert Voltaire's famous dictum as: `If man had not invented God, He would no longer exist for us.'

We each remain, however, conscious of our own inner motivating spirit, or `self'. That `self' feels essentially alone, driven by its needs and desires, seeking pleasures that ultimately fail, suffering injustices, pain and death. and always without explanation of its existence or purpose.

Western religion reconciled us to this human situation by offering the hope of justice, mercy and joy in an after-life, and the moral guidance of a divine code. Yet while our science has robbed us of these consolations, it has begun to offer another. For as we learn that `mind' is the product of the brain, part of a material organism, we can conceive that its `self' and `free-will' are not its owners and drivers, independent of the rest of the universe, but are determined by it; that `The concatenation of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of our being'.

The boundary between the `self' and `other' vanishes. We are not struggling to assert or justify ourselves in face of the universe, but are the perfect expressions of it. We are, in warmer words, at every instant in some sense acceptable, forgiven, loved. The problem is to realise this, not just intellectually, but in our whole being.

Just as we can never be aware of falling asleep, but only dispose ourselves toward it, so with the loss of `self'. There are many routes to this goal, the essential religious goal, and our choice of route will depend on our individual culture and temperament. We may glimpse the `oceanic feeling' through the arts, in particular the abstractions of music. The whirling dervishes achieve it through physical motion, Zen Buddhists by the sheer exhaustion of all possible mental or physical endeavours.
Christianity, more familiar to most of us, opens us to its route by telling a story through all manners of arts, and inviting our participation in it. We kneel more comfortably than sitting cross- legged or prostrating ourselves, and the Christian allegories are powerful in translation.

God can represent the `Other' -all we conceive as outside our `selves'. Adam and Eve were the first creatures to become `self' -aware, and we have suffered pain and toil like them ever since. Jesus teaches us to `love' or become one with God (the Other) including all our fellow humans. To strive for this `love' or `at-one-ment' is to dispose ourselves towards the goal of `self'-lessness, and in the central Christian story Jesus showed how to achieve it, by `giving up the ghost' and reaching eternal joy.

John Bulman