o04-02-16

Four of this conference’s six papers were supposed to explore differences on a particular issue between two religious traditions. Zayn Kassam of Pomona College lectured on "Islam and Hinduism: One God or Many?" Eliot Wolfson of New York University spoke about "Time and Eternity: Judaism and Buddhism." David Loy of Bunkyo University in Japan presented a paper on "Dying to Self? Buddhism and Christianity." Homer Noley of the National United Methodist Native American Center at Claremont School of Theology discussed "Land of Exile or Mother Earth? Christianity and Native American Religions." Each presentation stimulated a lively and beneficial conversation, first among a panel of specialists and then with the entire audience that filled the large and attractive amphitheater in Claremont’s Albrecht Hall.

Noley’s quiet but moving presentation highlighted the differences between Native American and traditional Christian views; however, the other three presentations emphasized the similarities, not the differences, between the traditions they explored. This bemused the jovial D. Z. Phillips and those who helped him organize the conference.

A presentation by P. J. Ivanhoe of Boston University on "Confucianism as a Worldview" focused upon variations within that one tradition. Differences between Confucianism, on the one hand, and Taoism, Buddhism and Christianity, on the other, swiftly surfaced in the discussion that followed. Much of this exchange centered upon how best to understand the intentional character of Heaven in Confucian thought without mistakenly depicting it as a personal deity. Some also wondered about Ivanhoe’s reluctance to depict Confucianism as a form of "secular humanism." Conversation centered as well on parallels between the Confucian idea of Heaven and the notions of Eternal Law and Natural Law in Christian thought, particularly in the writings of Thomas Aquinas.

Van A. Harvey of Stanford University, who described himself earlier in the conference as a "Protestant Nonbeliever," presented the final paper. Titled "Lucid Living: Living without Absolutes," it explored, and to some extent extolled, the lucid way of life commended by Albert Camus. Harvey summarized his appropriation of Camus’ exposition as "confessional agnosticism."

Those who live lucidly, Harvey contended, strive to stay in harmony with the way things evidently are, no more and no less. In my words, such persons stay close to what evidently is the case. They keep their inferences, generalizations and extrapolations tied by a very short conceptual tether to the available evidence. They strive to see clearly and to think and act circumspectly.

This way of life is "agnostic" because it refuses to hazard answers to large and notoriously controvertible questions, such as whether God exists and whether life has meaning. It is "confessional" in that those who live lucidly in this sense do so in order to be true to themselves without claiming that all others should see things similarly and act accordingly.

Harvey’s depiction of living lucidly was less defiant and strident than was Camus’ portrayal. Camus held that one enhances one’s life by repeated acts of courage that flout the chasm he saw between the human mind’s desire for certainty and meaning and the universe’s inability or unwillingness to provide it. In Harvey’s account of living lucidly, this note of courageous revolt against life’s meaninglessness is less audible.

According to Harvey, someone who lives lucidly, "simply wants to live with what appears evident to him without this evident reality being characterized necessarily as the absurd. He doesn’t revel in his own revolt. He does not even celebrate it as a higher form of life. He is simply saying that he wants to live lucidly, to base his life on what he can know."

Harvey’s presentation prompted diverse responses. Some thought that it did not acknowledge the extent to which we face forced choices, questions that we all must answer one way or another in practical life. Others held that Camus’ commendation of living lucidly in the face of life’s meaninglessness began with false expectations that a Buddhist orientation avoids. Still others probed the logical status of Harvey’s assertion that it is impossible to decide among many conflicting religious claims. What makes it possible to say that this is impossible? they wondered.

Still others held that the norm of lucidity makes sense only within particular ways of living and communicating; therefore, it cannot serve as an independent standard by which to evaluate alternative ways of life. I do not recall anyone commenting on the conservative cast of Harvey’s portrayal of living lucidly, as evident in his stated desire to stick with "that complicated nest of propositions which our community, bound together as it is by science and education, has taught us that it is reasonable believe."

My reactions to Harvey’s portrait of living lucidly were mixed. On the one hand, the possibility of sticking to the evidence, of being circumspect when making inferences, extrapolations and generalizations, appealed to me as a noble way of life. Nevertheless, the longer I listened to Harvey’s presentation, and the longer I followed the discussion that followed it, the more I gradually became aware that, for me, living lucidly, as I understood Harvey’s depiction of it, is a noble way of life, but not the only noble option.

So far, my thinking about this issue has passed through three stages. In the discussion at Claremont that immediately followed his presentation, I indicated to Harvey that a part of me finds living lucidly, as he described it, as safe, boring and dull, not much fun. He swiftly and humorously dismissed my observation by replying that if I wanted to believe something that is fun I should affirm the existence of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects)! His more serious response was that living a life that sticks closely to the evidence is not boring because what is actually happening around us and within us is never dull. True enough!

While we were riding in his car on our way back to our homes after the Claremont conference, Jay Digneo, my friend since we were first graders in Honolulu, observed that Harvey "had" me the minute I suggested that living lucidly might be "no fun." Jay was right. It is clearer to me now than it was at the conference that my reservations about Harvey’s account of living lucidly were more ethical than aesthetic or recreational. However inchoately, I experienced a growing sense that the way of life Harvey upheld for our consideration is somewhat lacking in courage, one of our culture’s cardinal virtues.

As Aristotle explained it, courage is neither foolhardiness (believing in UFOs?) nor cowardice (refusing to take any theological risks?) but the appropriate point in a specific set of circumstances between them. Because I found such courage insufficiently present in Harvey’s account of living lucidly, I also found myself admiring the positions of those at the conference, like the Buddhists, who were avowed atheists even more than I admired the position Harvey called confessional agnosticism. This was the second step in my developing reactions.

I continued to be troubled by this conclusion, however. After all, I was accusing Harvey’s account of confessional agnosticism, which must be close to his own preferred way of life, of theological cowardice! Because I have respected Harvey and his work over the years, neither of which I can regard as cowardly, this conclusion did not lie still for long. Like a lonely pup, it repeatedly jumped into my consciousness clamoring for more attention. When I finally gave this issue the direct thought it deserved, it occurred to me that perhaps "the courage to be," as Paul Tillich called it, emerges in a variety of forms, even if at its moral core it is just one thing.

Living lucidly, as Harvey portrayed it and as I now think of it, requires an abundance of "the courage to be alone," particularly in many families and communities in North America today. Many who are enthusiastic theists and atheists in our time are now doing everything they can to pull our communities apart. Because each side in this war of views and values is always seeking new recruits, it takes genuine courage to resist their pressures by sticking as close as possible to the available evidence on controvertible issues. It is probably difficult for others to appreciate how much direct and indirect pressure agnostics experience from both theists and atheists today. Standing up against this pressure takes large doses of one form of courage; it is truly noble.

Another form of courage may be at least as noble, however. This is "the courage to be disappointed." Theism displays it in greater abundance than does confessional agnosticism because the second option takes so few and such small risks. Accusing confessional agnosticism of cowardice seems imprecise and unfair; so does obscuring the difference between the "courage to be alone" and "the courage to be disappointed," however.

It seems to me that confessional agnosticism might be an overly cautious approach in many areas of life. Would one ever propose marriage, father or mother a child, launch a career, start a business or write a book if one entirely lacked the "courage to be disappointed"? Probably not! Is such circumspection, such close and cautious adherence to the available evidence, more fruitful in the religious realm? Again, probably not.

Risks differ in kind and degree, however. It is foolhardy, not courageous, to live as though claims we know to be false are true. Also, it is cowardice to take no risks at all. What Aristotle said about anger applies here as well: Anyone can take a risk—that is easy. Nevertheless, to take the right degree of risk for the right cause, with the right reasons and for the right purposes, at the right time and right place, and with the right people—this is not easy. "Faith" is the word many of us use for taking this kind of risk.

Understood along these lines, "faith" is truly and constantly mindful that it is risky and why this is so. This kind of faith does not eliminate uncertainty and possible futility, either by destroying the self that craves certainty and purpose or by claiming that human reason or divine revelation guarantees them unambiguously. This is why this kind of "faith" is neither "nostalgia" nor "hope," as Camus used these terms when describing two common ways of refusing to face the facts. It is the ability to accept some important risks and to keep on living with uncertainty and the possibility of profound disappointment without being overwhelmed by either.

Dear Mr. Larson: Thank you for sending me your reflections on whether or not living lucidly is a timid and non-courageous response to what Camus describes as the discrepancy between our desire for an answer to the riddle of life and the fact that the world yields none---or better, yields so many that it is clear we are dealing not with knowledge but faiths of different kinds. For a while, I thought you were going to settle for the judgment that my view is cowardly, lacking courage, but you seem to see that this may not be a proper criticism.

I would have been disappointed if you had so concluded because in my view the kind of minimal agnosticism I admire is under terrific criticism from all sides. I don't think an atheist could run for public office in this country where everyone seems to think that every person should have a faith, no matter what it is. (Eisenhower used to say that everyone should worship the god of his choice).

You seem to argue that theism involves risk and takes courage. Here we differ. (Well, everything depends on what you mean by theism: a providential deity that intervenes in history or something like Tillich's Ground of Being). I think the religious (theistic) option is so easy in America that it takes very little courage at all to make it. After all, it provides one with what one really wants (recognition by a divine other) and, for most, the promise of immortality. We all want to think that we are treasured and loved by the divine, that this same Other will grant us life after death.

Moreover, it is a belief that the culture wants us to make so as to conform with it. I think Camus was right when he argued that theism is an expression of nostalgia and I think it took courage on his part to reject it.

What is important about Camus' position, I think, is his view that the faith of Kierkegaard and others is really a surrender to nostalgia, to wish. He thinks that basically we all want a final and absolute answer. That is why it takes courage to resist the nostalgia of faith.

It is not faith which takes courage but revolt, since revolt goes against the instinctive desire of the self for some consolation, some finality, some absolute.