Steve said to dmb:
Author Tim O'Brien: "A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may
not happen and be truer than the truth." If you agree, can you unpack O'Brien's
claim for me?
dmb says:
Never heard of him but I guess he just means that real and true are two
different things. What happens in general is real but truth and falsity is what
happens to an idea. Although, I don't really understand how something can be
true or real if it didn't happen.
Steve quoted Paul Tillich's The Dynamics of Faith:
"Neither scientific truth nor historical truth can affirm nor negate the truth
of faith. The truth of faith can neither affirm nor negate scientific or
historical truth." and "Philosophical truth consists in true concepts
concerning the ultimate; the truth of faith consists in true symbols concerning
the ultimate." and "The philosophical implications of the symbols of faith can
be developed in many ways, but the truth of faith and the truth of philosophy
have no authority over each other."
That stuff is all gold to me. Recall that my current project is to carve out a
space where religious beliefs need not submit to demands for evidence. A
concept of faith as Tillich describes it needs not necessarily frustrate the
needs of others, so it need not submit to demands of evidence.
dmb says:
Gold? I think it's so vague that it's virtually meaningless. Maybe it wouldn't
look that way if I knew what Tillich meant by "the truth of faith" and "the
ultimate". Since Campbell's view is that myth evokes experience, faith is
unnecessary. So it's hard to imagine they could be making the same case. Also,
the idea that art, science and religion can be united on an empirical basis
seems to be very much at odds with Tillich's assertions about their autonomy.
They're already autonomous. Their distinction and separation is one of the main
features of modernity and in the fact the problem now is that they have become
hostile to each other. Part of that is a kind of scientistic literalism wherein
poetry is mistakenly treated as fact, as Campbell points out, but this doesn't
mean that science and history have to be factual and empirical while art and
religion get off the hook. They still have to be "factual" and empirical in
ways that are appropriate to those domains.
And I don't like this idea that we can hold beliefs in the absence of evidence
just so long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. What if you have diabetes and
you're convinced that boston creme pie has the right combination of chemical to
cure you. Because of the belief, you're filled with hope and joy as you eat and
of course the "medicine" itself is quite a pleasure ingest. Now why should some
busy body know it all ruin his "faith"? It makes him happy. He's not hurting
anybody else. He's even made friends with his local pastry chef. Obviously,
religion won't kill you like cake will kill a diabetic but there is a
psychological theory that says faith is often used as a coping mechanism for
people who are deprived a some basic needs, like a sense of purpose or meaning,
social needs for companionship, self-esteem problems and the like. The problem
is not that people so afflicted get some comfort there, it's that the comfort
forestalls any actual healing. This can even be a dangerous situation in the
case of cults. For people like that, the analogy is not much of an
exaggeration. For people like that, faith is like candy to a diabetic or booze
to an alcoholic. He'll love you for supplying it even though your generosity is
killing him.
Steve said:First I should say that Tillich's whole deal in this book is to
unpack his description of faith as having an "ultimate concern." That's
important. As a hint to what this can mean, for the Communists, the ultimate
concern is the state. (Note how such faith fails criterion 2.)
dmb says:
What? I would have thought "justice" was the ultimate concern of communism.
Anyway, I get the idea of ultimate concern. It's something like the highest
priority or the most important thing. I see that faith has one of these, but
I'm still not sure what "faith" means. Does it mean something like "dedication"
so that one is dedicated to their ultimate concern? Sound tautological to me.
Tillich: > Criterion 1 "Faith has truth in so far as it adequately expresses an
> ultimate concern." ... "But the life of symbols is limited" ... "Symbols
> which for a certain period, or in a certain place, expressed truth of faith
> for a certain group now only remind of the faith of the past. They have lost
> their truth, and it is an open question whether dead symbols can be
> revived. Probably not for those to whom they have died!"..."...the criterion
> of the truth of faith is whether or not it is alive."
>
> Criterion 2: "The other criterion of the truth of a symbol of faith is that
> it expresses the ultimate which is really ultimate. In other words, that it
> is not idolatrous."..."The criterion of the truth of faith, therefore, is
> that it implies an element of self-negation. That symbol is most adequate
> which expresses not only the ultimate but also its own lack of ultimacy."
> (This is why he favors Protestantism over Catholicism. It's the whole
> infallibility thing.)
Steve said about Tillich:
This sounds like some pretty cool shit to me. If I were going to be religious,
this is how I would like to think of faith. But I suspect there is no hope for
me in that regard. It's a criterion 1 problem. The symbols are dead to me.
dmb says:
Really? I think it sound like nonsense. Faith has truth if it expresses
concern? Expresses the ultimate that really ultimate? Sorry, but that literally
means nothing at all. Without some kind of explanation of his terms, it reads
like pure drivel.
Steve said:
Okay, now I'd like to offer a concrete example of an assertion that we might
think of as being true, but not true in the scientific historical sense:
Tillich: "Faith can say that the reality which is manifest in the New Testament
picture of Jesus as the Christ has saving power for those who are grasped by
it, no matter how much or how little can be traced to the historical figure who
is called Jesus of Nazareth." Again, this sort of shit is dead to me. But is it
true in some way nevertheless?
dmb says:
What does he mean by "saving power"? Saved from what? Religious people really
do seem quite insane to me. And he's one of the more reasonable theologians.
The idea that the story of Christ should be read as myth instead of history
doesn't mean we can have beliefs in the absence of historical evidence. It
means that the historical evidence shows that myths like the Christ story
existed long before the historical Jesus lived or was supposed to have lived.
And both can be true. Actual historical figures can later be mythologized and I
think that's probably true in this case. I mean, the truth of myth as Campbell
conceives it is not at all at odds with historical evidence and can actually
find support there as well as in psychology, sociology, comparative religions
and other human sciences. But faith? I just can't get past Mark Twain's
definition. It seems to obtain even here. "Faith is believing what you know
ain't so". I realize it's a stingy, ungenerous reading but it does kind of look
like he's saying faith has power regardless of whether it's true or not, that
the "power" is the truth. Yuk. No thanks.
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