What’s Wrong with the World

The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark.

About

What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Sunday Thought: Worshiping the Mystery of the Mystery of Life

I visit Fred Reed now and then because he usually makes me smile when he's not drawing foolish moral and intellectual equivalencies (see his essay on patriotism). I opened up his recent piece on evolution because the truth that Darwinism deadens everything cannot be repeated often enough. In fact, I was smiling even before I started reading, until I ran into another of those equivalencies:

This agglomeration of everything under one theoretical roof appeals powerfully to minds that need an overarching explanation of everything. The great intellectual divide perhaps is not between those who believe one thing and those who believe another, but between those who need to believe something - I am tempted to say believe almost anything - and those who are comfortable with uncertainty and even the unknowable. Adherents of Christianity, atheism, scientism (as distinct from science) and classical evolutionism fall into the first category; the agnostic of every sort, into the second. Unshakable belief seems to alleviate unease with the unfathomed, the anxiety that naturally comes of not knowing where we came from, or why, or whither.

After that, Christians pretty much fade from view as Fred goes after the scientistic assumptions undergirding evolution, but are left to wonder why they should be grouped with such a crowd, especially since most Christians would agree with Fred on virtually every point of attack. We are left to suppose that the Christian's belief in Jesus (and all the depending dogma that implies) and the naturalistic scientist's belief in Darwin's fairy tale are reflections of the same need: to believe in something, even though the things they believe in are polar opposites.

This, says Fred, "is very different from seeing the world as profoundly mysterious, as in many ways being beyond our understanding, as containing questions that have no answers."

I wonder what sort of Christians Fred's been talking to. The ones I talk to, even the semi-literate ones, utter the word "mystery" with a compulsive regularity exceeded only by that of a Tourette's sufferer. All you have to do is ask this semi-literate Christian a few questions about what he believes:

"I hear you Christians believe in God. Is that right?"

"That's right. We believe in the Holy Trinity."

"What's that mean?"

"Three persons in one God." (semi-literate Christian smiles; he knows what's coming next).

"How can that be? Sounds like a contradiction in terms."

"Well, it's a divine mystery." (Christian's face is glowing.)

"How can you believe in something so illogical?"

"Jesus told me to."

And should you go on to ask about Jesus, your Christian will try to explain the "mystery" of the Incarnation, which means that he can't explain it but still thinks it was real. Get into more detail and you'll hear about that God-human's virginal conception in his mother's womb, about a Transfiguration, a Resurrection from the dead, an Ascension into heaven and, from you adherents of the True Faith, about an Immaculate Conception, an Assumption, and a thing called Transubtantiation, all prefixed and suffixed by the word "mystery." Of the great mystery which is the source of all the others, the Trinity, you'll be told that it can be known but is ultimately unknowable. Christians even write books with titles like The Cloud of Unknowing, in which you're likely also to hear stories about miracles through the ages which are in themselves plenty mysterious, but only to a mind disposed to entertain their possibility. Even the mere fact of biological life on earth strikes many people as miraculous. The naturalist is not so struck. But I've heard many a Christian claim that the existence of life is so unlikely, the mechanism of even the simplest cell so complex, that God must have reached down and kickstarted the whole thing. That is, He performed a miracle. Now, even if one is convinced that this is probably not true, how does the assertion that "God did it" make the origin of life any less mysterious? To the naturalist it is a mystery only in the sense that it's a problem he has not yet solved. He has theories about it, has a story to tell, but he can't tell all of it. It's hard to see how he can blame the Christian for pointing out that the mystery remains, and that it might be more impenetrable than the naturalist admits.

But what is Fred's objection? (I am assuming he would make one.) Is it that the Christian should not assign a cause to an effect without certain evidence that it (the miracle) is in fact the cause? Okay. But there is a level on which he should welcome the Christian's answer, even if it might be wrong, since it respects the mystery he is so adamant to retain. In fact, what such a Christian is saying is that the origin of life is so mysterious, that only another mystery can explain it. And, as I said before, the areas in which Fred finds Darwinism lacking explanatory power - concerning consciousness, volition, morality, and reproductive necessity - are the very same areas in which he will find the average Christian cheering him on.

Maybe the problem with Christians is that, like physicalists, they have a creed. The latter avow that there is nothing beyond the physical, while the former claim that beyond the physical hides the Source of all the nothing. Fred will have no truck with those materialists, but I don't know exactly where to pin him on the religio-philosophical specimen board. With his love of mystery, I thought he might be an adherent to mysterianism, a central tenet of which is that some problems are unsolveable, which is what Fred seems to prefer. It's a - I don't know what to call it - 'category of thinking' that I believe John Derbyshire embraced when he kicked Chrisianity to the curb. But I don't think it fits Fred because it's mostly drawn into service by the very materialists Fred despises, and usually in reaction to the mind-body (consciousness) problem. Ed Feser made mention of it at his blog:

...the conception of the Trinity as a "mystery" finds a parallel in the view of some contemporary philosophers of mind (e.g. Colin McGinn) that while an adequate naturalistic explanation of consciousness exists, our minds are too limited to understand it. This view even goes by the name "mysterianism," and it is motivated not only by a desire to sidestep the various philosophical objections to materialism, but also by the idea that natural selection is unlikely to have shaped our minds in a way that would allow us to discover everything there is to know about the world. It is far more likely, mysterians contend, that the contingent forces of evolution so molded our cognitive faculties that they are useful only for understanding a fairly narrow range of truths, and that there are barriers beyond which they cannot push. This is certainly a very reasonable view to take if there are good reasons to think naturalism is true in the first place. (There aren't, but let that pass...)

In other words it's a physicalist's trojan horse. We can't know everything there is to know about the relationship between mind and matter, but that doesn't prevent us from asserting that matter is all there is. (But since we can know only a narrow range of truths, how do we know that this very broad truth is one of them? Sorry, I got distracted.) No, that description won't fit Fred. As he says of its parishioners, "They are not immoral. They just can't explain why they are not."

Fred must be some sort of agnostic. Yes, there are different sorts. I just don't know much about them, except that they're always telling me how open-minded they are. I believe they are allowed to have morals, but can they explain why they have them, any better than a materialist can, by appealing to a vague sense of mystery? I had an agnostic in class this semester (I'm sure there were others), of Iranian extraction but with all the scales of Islam having fallen from his eyes, who wrote a paper full of resentment about having Christian (or any religious) values imposed upon society. I told him I didn't know what society he thought he was living in, but that over a million babies were slaughtered in their mothers' wombs in America last year against the wishes of most Christians, and wondered if he resented having atheist values imposed upon society. Because that's the fallback position, the default. I told him that the agnostic wish to be free of imposition was a fantasy freedom that existed only in his mind, and that most agnostics of my acquaintance were, in public policy terms, functional atheists. Remove Christian values and the atheist's "neutrality" will be substituted for them. Neutrality on certain issues is another way of issuing a death sentence. Was he okay with all that? I told him that Christians want to "impose" their values only because they cared about him, about his infinite worth as an individual in the eyes of God. That's the bottom line, the foundation stone on which all their other "culture war" positions are built. That's why those awful Christians don't like a law that would have allowed his mother to abort him, because that law doesn't care about his worth, does not consider that with his conception he occupied a purpose in God's plan, nor did it in any way allow for the possibility that his destiny is one belonging to eternity rather than the world. I asked him which vision he preferred, because it will be one or the other and the choice is rather stark.

Well, uh, he saw my point but, uh, he didn't want anyone's values imposed on him, and he hadn't really thought it all out yet, but uh...

But, uh, I'll tell you whatuh. Next Fall he'll walk into the booth and pull the lever for the Christian-atheist Obama, that's what. I can't tell you how hard these nuts are to crack.

Appearances aside, I don't mean to pick on Fred per se, but as a representative of a certain 'type.' Fred, as he avers, has morals. He doesn't like gay marriage, I don't think he likes abortion, he lauds homeschooling, and he despises feminism and all its rotten fruit. But why? I can't help but wonder. The 'type' I'm talking about won't be a materialist and won't be a Christian, but stands always in the middle. He will tell you that he cannot, "in good conscience," claim to believe what he cannot believe, and thus is bound to keep the proverbial 'open mind,' a stance that seems not quite akin to the purpose Chesterton thought it should serve: to close on something. Fine. I'm not here to attack anyone's conscience but to question his courage. How does a very vague appreciation for the "mystery of creation" (Charles Darwin claimed to have as much) lead to the conviction that gay marriage (or abortion, or any number of things,) is wrong?

I admit that a man who is willing to look at the world straight on (that is, with intellectual honesty) can come to the right conclusion. But what will bind his soul to this principle that he thinks he discerns? For what reason will he surrender his job, give up his friends, or lay down his life should circumstances ask it of him? That he perceives there is some great inexplicable mystery behind it all? I suppose it's possible. Aside from his great courage, Socrates may have had more than this, but by how much I'm not sure. But I do believe that had he an acquaintance with Christian revelation, he'd have known better than to lump its believers' mode of thinking in with the materialist sort. Even if he'd rejected the revelation, I think he would have seen us as brothers.

Since Fred can be neither a materialist nor a mysterian (since too many of the former are also the latter), maybe we should call his sort "mysterialist." It's the worship of the mystery of mystery, weekly club attendance and participation in rituals of obscure origin not required. There is no dogma attached except the core tenet: It's all a great mystery. That is all ye know and all ye ever need know.

But at least one disciplinary rubric ought to be required of members of this communion: drop the resentment against Christian certainty. All those Christians are saying is that the mystery has content; that, within limits, it can be delineated; that it is a definite thing, though not of this world (and, if it were, you would not stand in awe of it); that it is worth revering because it is the source of all other things, which includes you. It is neither an indifferent nor impersonal "creative force", because such a phantasmagoric creature could never give birth to anything, never create. We know this (hold on now) because it has spoken to us, and it is trying to speak to you. And what the mystery has told us is that you instinctively revere it because it brought the world into being with a purpose, and that you are a part of that purpose. Thus it has a grip on your mind, your soul, that cannot be severed no matter how much you kick and scream. That, in essence, the Mystery loves you, and that this gratitude you feel for the creation in which you find yourself, and this reverence you feel for its unseen existence, is the impulse to love it back.

So, for God's sake, take a stand, and tell me once more how I think like a Darwinist.

Comments (29)

Wow. The whole thing is excellent and thought-provoking, but the next-to-last paragraph is sheer brilliance. A good thing for me to read this gloomy morning when depression threatens again. I may not be able to avoid the darkness, but I don't have to give in to it; I can assert the truth:

We know this (hold on now) because it has spoken to us, and it is trying to speak to you. And what the mystery has told us is that you instinctively revere it because it brought the world into being with a purpose, and that you are a part of that purpose. Thus it has a grip on your mind, your soul, that cannot be severed no matter how much you kick and scream. That, in essence, the Mystery loves you, and that this gratitude you feel for the creation in which you find yourself, and this reverence you feel for its unseen existence, is the impulse to love it back.

Thank you. I believe I can get through the day with a better will now.

I hate to say it, but I think Fred's "objection" to Christians is that they aren't just like Fred, because if some attitude is Fred's attitude it must be the only right or rational attitude. Mind you, I used to like reading him too until I got fed up with him. And he can be very funny, and he sure knows how to be contrarian and skewer the feminists. But after a while the relentless gloom and smart-aleckiness got me down, and I gave up. He's the sort of agnostic who doesn't want to be convinced, because he thinks agnosticism is cool and the only way to be cool. I honestly don't think there's anything deeper to it than that.

Remember that passage (don't have time to find it and type it out now) in _The Great Divorce_ about the Episcopalian bishop? It would surprise Fred, but he's a lot like that bishop. He doesn't want answers, because they would spoil his pose. The young spirit sent to try to convert the bishop says, "Once you were a child and asked questions because you wanted answers." (Words to that effect.) And the bishop smiles in a superior way and says, "Ah, but when I became a man, I put away childish things." He (the bishop) talks continually about "freedom of inquiry" and things like that but doesn't inquire to know.

It's a sad intellectual position for someone to get entrenched in, because such a person usually doesn't want to get out of it, ever.

I'd curse the darkness, Beth, if I thought it would do you some good.

Lydia, don't think I'd change a word of your appraisal.

Well, perhaps he should actually read science. He writes:

Grave problems arise when you take the observer—the scientist, you, me—into consideration.

Has he read nothing of contemporary science? Quantum mechanics is nothing BUT the role of the observer. The Anthropic principle in astronomy is nothing but the uniqueness of the observer (man) as the reason for the universe.

Your brain is a complex structure undergoing complex reactions, but all of these reactions follow the laws of physics. Yet nonetheless you are conscious. Is this something outside of physics? If so, then we have the sciences on one hand, and Something Else on the other, and the question becomes how they interact.

Again, a false dichotomy. This is a both/and, not either/or problem.

The same determinism applies to chemistry: mix identical quantities of identical chemicals under identical conditions, and you get statistically identical results. If this weren't true, chemical engineers would be in a helluva fix.

He thinks you can produce identical conditions?? One can, at best, produce identical +/- some epsilon, but to produce identicality, one would have to in control of the system, which the scientist never really is. Chaos is real.

Perhaps the most flawed dichotomy is this:

The great intellectual divide perhaps is not between those who believe one thing and those who believe another, but between those who need to believe something—I am tempted to say believe almost anything—and those who are comfortable with uncertainty and even the unknowable.

Uncertainty and unknowability are not the same things. What he seems to be saying is that there is no objective truth. God is unknowable, in toto, but there is not necessarily uncertainty because of this, since God has revealed those things we ought to know.

Parts of his post are based on the tired old problem of confusing faith as mere belief and faith as a supernatural gift of assent to truth. The idea of being comfortable with uncertainty is foreign to a relationship between a rational man and a rational God, since love seeks to remove that uncertainty since God wishes to be loved by men. God is infinite and a finite creature can never be said to completely know him, but they can be certain that all truth is contained in him.

The Chicken

@The Chicken:

Has he read nothing of contemporary science? Quantum mechanics is nothing BUT the role of the observer.

I would say that this so-called observer problem arises in Quantum Mechanics, not because of Quantum Mechanics per se, but because of the role the observer takes in the Copenhagen *Interpretation*. This role, which makes QM smack too much of subjectivism for my tastes, is just one among many reasons why I dislike Copenhagen intensely. To be entirely honest, it is not like I have any coherent proposal to put in its place.

Thanks, Bill! Probably it wouldn't, but I appreciate the thought!

Better day today, thankfully.

I would say that this so-called observer problem arises in Quantum Mechanics, not because of Quantum Mechanics per se, but because of the role the observer takes in the Copenhagen *Interpretation*. This role, which makes QM smack too much of subjectivism for my tastes, is just one among many reasons why I dislike Copenhagen intensely.

Amen and amen, Mr. Rodrigues.

To be entirely honest, it is not like I have any coherent proposal to put in its place.

Non-local variables? :-)

It is neither an indifferent nor impersonal "creative force", because such a phantasmagoric creature could never give birth to anything, never create.

Why is an impersonal force prohibited from creating something else? Examples: gravity creates a waterfall, electrical current controls many cellular action potentials, tectonic pressure creates volcanoes, sunlight creates heat.

We know this (hold on now) because it has spoken to us, and it is trying to speak to you.

If so, it is difficult to tell where the ventriloquism ends and the true voice begins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE

My point was to disagree that science doesn't take into account the role of the observer, not to state a position on quantum locality. The Bohmian non-local variables idea is very contraversial, however, it doesn't concern the quantum mechanic in the street who only asks for the right number and doesn't think too much about why. Hope things get better, soon, Beth.

Agnosticism is the claim that, in the end, nothing at all can be known at all (while also, as you point out, being functionally equivalent to atheism). From your post, it sounds like Fred would agree that nothing can be known.

Your brain is a complex structure undergoing complex reactions, but all of these reactions follow the laws of physics. Yet nonetheless you are conscious. Is this something outside of physics? If so, then we have the sciences on one hand, and Something Else on the other, and the question becomes how they interact.
Again, a false dichotomy. This is a both/and, not either/or problem.
MC, generally, you analyse things very well. Not this time; in this instance, Fred has it exactly right -- unlike chemistry, 'mind' is neither explicable by, nor reducible to, physics.

Fred Reed isn't a deep thinker and doesn't claim to be. The reason he dislikes Christians is probably because he's met or known of many obnoxious ones, and they seem to give themselves over to the stupidest of causes (see: diehard evangelical support of GW Bush). He also grew up in the blandly secular post WW2 America. I don't think he thinks about religion much. On patriotism, what he's really describing is Americanism, but it is called patriotism so he's content to leave it at that. Once you get past the semantics, he ends up being right about 95% of the time.

Examples: gravity creates a waterfall

Step2, you and I are using the word 'creates' in vastly different ways.

MC, generally, you analyse things very well. Not this time; in this instance, Fred has it exactly right -- unlike chemistry, 'mind' is neither explicable by, nor reducible to, physics.

Thus, you need both physics and metaphysics, as I said. I think you misunderstood what I meant by both/and vs. either/or. Perhaps I misunderstood what Reed said and just said the same thing, but his sentence has the flavor of an either or, so I was commenting on the flavor if not the substance - which just happens to be how I choose food, as well, by the way! Well, not always...

The Chicken

I don't think he thinks about religion much.

Fine, then he shouldn't make pundit-y statements about what psychological needs all Christians have and what being a Christian is really about. Right? Because he should realize he doesn't know what he's talking about. Socrates, and all that jazz.

>Ilion: "Agnosticism is the claim that, in the end, nothing at all can be known at all."

Isn't this self-refuting?

You might have something there, Schierke. But that was Ilion's way of putting it, not Fred's. Fred would probably say that you can know the Something Else is real, but that it's so mysterious that's all you can know. The mystery is so mysterious that it's destined to remain a mystery. Which might just amount to the same thing.

Isn't this self-refuting?
It surely is, but "agnostics" generally aren't too concerned with such pedestrian considerations.

Perhaps I'm just not understanding the objection to Fred's point. It isn't that Christians or materialists have a total explanation - say, a complete understanding of the Trinity or of abiogenesis - but that they have an over-arching paradigm into which all explanations are presumed to fit and has well-understood, if not defined, boundaries. In other words, a world-view. I would certainly say that Fred is onto something here; some people do seem to have a psychological drive toward holding a world-view. Where Fred's thesis comes apart, I think, is in assuming that someone with a drive for a world-view can't be honest enough to refrain from holding one despite the pain or that someone comfortable without one wouldn't be honest enough to assent to one if he saw convincing reason to hold it.

I think Lydia described Reed perfectly in her first comment here. That was just exactly right.

I used to read his columns, but after a while I found myself stopping after a couple paragraphs, and now I think they're just unreadable. His writing is an example of what's been called "alcoholic prose," which by the way has nothing to do with his frequent references to drinking. His writing is self-indulgent, self-obsessed, self-aggrandizing (while pretending to be the opposite), and in general, self-self-self. It's like getting cornered by some wino who tells you boring stories of his life while explaining his philosophy of everything and constantly breathing into your face.

I would certainly say that Fred is onto something here; some people do seem to have a psychological drive toward holding a world-view.

If that's what Fred's onto, then he's got a nose for the obvious.

His writing is an example of what's been called "alcoholic prose,"

I've written some of that myself. I thought it was the best stuff I'd ever done, until I sobered up.

I would certainly say that Fred is onto something here; some people do seem to have a psychological drive toward holding a world-view.

Some people??

Even to assert something like, "The car is red," implies a world-view, since one must believe that there is a color called red and a construct called a car. In reality, there is an implicit aspect and an explicit aspect to having a world-view: every statement is an explicit revelation of one's world-view, but lurking behind it is a thousand implicit assumptions about how the world works, which taken, in toto, form a background world view. You simply cannot exist without one unless you are incapable of thought. The mind cannot really function with high levels of internal inconsistencies. Even children show this trait: if something doesn't make sense, they will make things up in their imagination until either the matter is no longer relevant or they have gained enough factual evidence to substitute a more consistent interpretation. To live in a world here nothing makes sense is one step away from a living death. Many of the prisoners in Auschwitz who could not make any sense in what was happening to them sucuumbed to what is called psychological surrender.

Holding some views contingently does not imply that one holds all views contingently or that it is a good idea. There may be contradictions on some issues, but it can't be inconsistencies and contingencies all the way down.

The Chicken

Surely, Chicken, you can see a difference between:

A. God brings the world into being and sustains it in being.
B. Culture and institutions supervene on the forces and relations of production.
C. All life, aside from a common ancestor, is the product of natural selection, mutation and genetic drift.

and

D. If I don't eat, I will die.

The difference between A, B, and C is that they provide explanations of a vast number of events in the world (or the fact that there is a world at all, in the case of A) - the explanations aren't total, since we can still ask what is God, how did the base influence the superstructure in nation X, how did abiogenesis happen, etc, but they do render entire classes of events intelligible. That is what makes A, B, and C paradigms. Simply having a consistent set of beliefs about the world which allows one to survive does not do that.

"Alcoholic prose" doesn't mean prose written while you're drunk, actually. I Googled the phrase, and apparently I got it from some feud-letter written by Camille Paglia to Julie Burchill:

A friend of mine calls a style like yours..."alcoholic prose". There is a heavy, grinding ponderous pull on the sinking syntax, a noisy blathering sound, a bitter, maudlin self pity breaking through the false bravado and cynical posturing.

Except for the "ponderous" bit, that's a pretty good description of Fred Reed's style.

Sorry, but you've skipped ontological classes. A man is a man because he can have a worldview endowed with a metaphysics; to eat to live is animals behavior, only.

The Chicken

I was just having some fun, Aaron.

John H., I think you missed the point of the essay, but that's okay. I'm used to it.

Fred Reed isn't a deep thinker and doesn't claim to be. The reason he dislikes Christians is probably because he's met or known of many obnoxious ones, and they seem to give themselves over to the stupidest of causes ...
Ah! The true mark of the Deep Thinker ... and my sarcasm is not directed at Fred.

Alcoholic prose; I can see where you'd get that from some of his columns, especially those that are blatantly just stream-of-consciousness reminiscences of his youth. But most of his columns are pretty topical, and not very long. He has two major things that will bother people. One, he is rather redundant, preferring the same 5 or 6 topics most of the time. Second is that he is an open curmudgeon, and curmudgeonry isn't for everyone. Extended curmudgeonry will even wear me out.

Nice post, Bill.

I do find it hilarious that our friend Step2 literally put a clip of The Wizard of Oz a comment on this thread.

Post a comment


Bold Italic Underline Quote

Note: In order to limit duplicate comments, please submit a comment only once. A comment may take a few minutes to appear beneath the article.

Although this site does not actively hold comments for moderation, some comments are automatically held by the blog system. For best results, limit the number of links (including links in your signature line to your own website) to under 3 per comment as all comments with a large number of links will be automatically held. If your comment is held for any reason, please be patient and an author or administrator will approve it. Do not resubmit the same comment as subsequent submissions of the same comment will be held as well.