I often wonder why we speak of the atheists as if they are our enemies. And I wonder whether that should matter if we call ourselves Christians.But it's interesting to think about the appropriateness of psychology (in whatever fashion directed) for discussions of belief.
I'm sure many say the words, "I am a Christian," and then wonder: "why does the earth not move?"; "why do the winds not whisper in my ear?"; "why do I still say stupid things?" I myself have wondered even though I supposedly know better. After all, that's just tempting God. But I think what often troubles an atheist -- especially one who has at some point said, "I am a Christian" -- is that some believers counter this non-change with excessive saying, with a constant and seemingly empty stream of religious jargon ("my personal Lord and Savior," "God has a plan for me," "Jesus is my friend," "I talked with Jesus," "Let's pray about it," etc.). On the other hand, how is it possible to say the words, "I believe," and then . . . nothing. Nothing at all. World keeps on spinning. None of that sounds the way it must have when Jesus spoke, when the saints spoke.
When I was little I read a ghost story about a rich man who, having taken an oath during his life to read the entirety of the Scripture, tarried long after his death waiting for someone to come to his home and hold a light by which he could read and fulfill his oath. I don't remember why he swore -- maybe it was meant as a repayment for the good he received in his life. Anyway, a young lad eventually came and held a candle or lamp for the ghost, who read the book all at once. Having finished it, he sighed, said something, and disappeared, leaving the boy all of his wealth. (It was done very well -- wonderfully -- but I don't even remember what book it came from.)
I never thought twice about that story until I read what Fr. Rutler said to Christopher Hitchens during a confrontation: that Hitchens would die either a Catholic or a madman. I can't answer the question Hitchens asked as he related the story -- "why do people think this is such a good point?" -- except to say that there was something at stake in Fr. Rutler's saying it. It is not so much that it was a challenge, and not just because it was an either/or, but maybe just because it didn't seem as if he thought it out beforehand (as if it were a venture into cognitive dissonance theory). I've always wondered what it would be like to be able to say that kind of thing to someone, not as a psychologist would say it, but as a confessor might say it, having sensed the either/or in the other, having known the other person is the kind to be either a Catholic or a madman and nothing in between. That, deep down, is probably why we think it's such a good point: it's a witness to nothing in between. We want to be either Rutler or Hitchens, either to say it or to do it, and to have it mean something even if it's rejection and madness.
That's probably why I've said some pretty shameful, blasphemous, petty things when I've been drunk, wishing it would mean something or that I could be the kind of person to make it mean something. Maybe some of us have to learn to accept that when it's our time to disappear, it will not be with a bang or a whimper, but maybe -- if we're lucky and if we've had enough time -- with a sigh.
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4 comments:
You've amazed me again.
Now when are you going to develop this into an article and send it to First Things?
Heh - The ol' develop part is the problem.
Balthasar on the mysticism of the modern solitary man:
Modern man in his solitude seeks passionately as every other generation for the absolute. But he will not let himself be caught either by absolute denominational claims or by idealistic and cosmological enthusiasms. He will not go one step beyond what he can justify with his existence, to what he can pledge himself entirely. Hence his silence. And his silence is neither wise not exalted nor mystical nor enjoined by responsibilities; it is rather cautious and discreet, springing from the probity of a man who will not say a word for which he is not prepared to risk his life.
The great Christian statements such as "God is love," "God is Trinitarian life," "God is the Word," "God has saved us," "God has become Man and has died on the Cross for us" are lying about in every street. Everybody can touch them with his foot and kick them into the nearest gutter. Surely it is better to avoid them and perhaps to seek that place in existence, in one's heart, where such great statements, or even a small one provided it is genuine, can full be realized. "Where, oh where is the place where the weights are still heavy?" These big notions are both too little and too much. They are too little because they offer too much; they offer things which one may not accept with impunity unless one is willing to pay for them with one's life. (The God Question, 108)
From Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death:
The God-relationship is an infinitizing, but in fantasy this infinitizing can so sweep a man off his feet that his state is simply an intoxication. To exist before God may seem unendurable to a man because he cannot come back to himself, become himself. Such a fantasized religious person would say (to characterize him by means of some lines): "That a sparrow can live is comprehensible; it does not know that it exists before God. But to know that one exists before God, and then not instantly to go mad or sink into nothingness!"
But to become fantastic in this way, and thus to be in despair, does not mean, although it usually becomes apparent, that a person cannot go on living fairly well, seem to be a man, be occupied with temporal matters, marry, have children, he honored and esteemed--and it may not be detected that in a deeper sense he lacks a self. (32)
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