Authority of Mystic States
Since religion is such a grey topic, any evidence supporting the supposed religious ideal is held in very high esteem and placed above almost other things regarding the belief structure. For example, in Christianity, the greatness of Jesus is not measured predominately by what he taught, but who he was by the things that he did. Healing the sick, raising the dead, etc. Simply being a guy teaching about how to live well and be nice to other people wouldn’t really make him that special, because there are many others who live such lives. Instead, Jesus had a certain mystic quality, and it certainly helped that his coming had been prophesized. However, James postulates “mystical states have the right to be absolutely authoritative over the individuals to whom they come. But no authority emanates from them which should make it a duty for those who stand outside of them to accept their revelations uncritically.” (James, pm. 416). Or in other words, how are we supposed to believe you just because you say you have seen/felt/heard God?
It is a predicament, no doubt about it. I myself have problems with simply taking what others tell me for face value. I had to research the postulate, find credible evidence before investing my belief into an assertion. The same for a mystic state. It is hard for me to just say, “ok, I believe” when there is no way to prove as such. The only way to take such an assertion is just to take it, questioning it would defeat its purpose.
However, there are some advantages to the statements of the mystics. First off, mystical visions have extreme epistemic value to the individual: they allow the individual to know something with a great deal of certainty, at least as much certainty as one can muster without having hard evidence. There is a definite difference between hearings about God and knowing that he is logically feasible and having God speak to you, much like there is a difference between knowing about the President and actually talking to him. In this regard, we rely much on priests for the “interpretation of the will of God” much like we rely on reporters to give us the Presidents intentions. There is a high level of trust required in this relationship.
Second it has no value to others because they lack that same epistemic certainty. The visionary can describe the mystical experience all he wants, but it will still be unknown to the listener. Our means of communication between humans is inferior. Of course, the means I am speaking of is language. It is a faulty thing, one that can hardly be relied upon to convey our actual meanings, as so much can be misunderstood during the point of communication. In this regard, when a person experiences God even if he wished to tell the whole world about it, he would fall short, because words only go so far in explaining the inexplicable. Also, on the note of empirical evidence, it cannot be repeated and tested. God is not a lab rat to run through the mazes of our making, therefore we cannot physically show the mystical experience to others. It is ours to have, if we are lucky enough to have it.
The skeptics will shoot down my argument and scream at me “EVIDENCE!! WE WANT EVIDENCE!” Sadly, I cannot oblige, for the reasons stated above. Actually, when one disregards the evidence, he finds himself more susceptible to such a glorious occurrence. He may see God, feel Him. When they cry for proof of veracity, I am sad to say that the mystics and their supporters will fall short, because it is not in the nature of it to oblige to something almost as arrogant as proof. We humans want thing explained to us, we feel that we deserve to understand. We don’t realize that we could never truly understand.
James would say that St. Teresa believed she understood the Holy Trinity as she claimed (pg. 410) but she didn’t actually. She
just believed she did. My question is, how can something be if it isn’t believed to be so? Something in itself could be true, but would not
be recognized as true if no one believed in it. There is strength in belief, which is why I believe religion is so strong today.
Belief in terms of WHY
Religion in this world is a wonder to me. It inspires so much doubt and anger, and has been the cause of many wars spanning many years. Similarly, it has given a large amount of people strength and resolve in the face of adversity. So what can we resolve religion is and, more importantly, why?
Religion has always in some way or another defined society all the way back to the earliest known organized religion, and perhaps even further. Societies were small, and those who answered the questions were powerful. These could generally be the priests of the villages. They put the questions of “why are we here?” and “what happens when we die?” to rest using their “powers”. It became a general consensus that there was a higher power in life, that he/ she/ they put us here, they created everything around us, etc. We as a species began to invest more time into glorifying this higher being, and many different cultures came together to make their own specific interpretations of the same concept. For example, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity are among the most major. I am sure I would be struck where I am standing by many fellow Christians, but I believe that all religion is different cultural interpretation of the same God. It all would make for a happy family, wouldn’t it? Would that it could be like that.
So fast-forward a couple thousand years. Religion has evolved, and so have people. Yet the same problems remain. We still question the nature of belief, and for good reason. It is an elusive thing, especially for the logical. It requires one to almost completely disregard mathematical probability for the object of belief. Taylor states, “the reason the Christian believes that story…is simply that he cannot help it…one neither seeks nor needs grounds for the acceptance of what he cannot help.” (Taylor pg. 337).
What does he mean by this statement? It seems almost antagonistic right off the bat. This statement implies that beliefs are not subjective creations of the believer but instead are irrevocable and, in some senses, unchangeable by the believer. Basically, the believer doesn't decide what he wants to believe. Who decides? Perhaps circumstances of the said believers life causes him to reach out to God and religious belief in general.
There is something to be said for the human need to have the answers. That is, I suppose, the allure of religion. Just like science, it attempts to find ways to solve problems larger than we can convince. While science chips away at the problem question by question, and in turn, finding more questions, it seems as if a religious believer merely is required to swallow everything without question. With faith. It is hard for some to do this. Humans question what they cannot know, and they cannot know for absolutely sure with every fiber of their being that God exists. Scientists deem religion as silly and outdated, a primitive way to explain existence.
I would presume to call every attempt to know the HIGHER TRUTH a silly and outdated way to go about explaining. We humans have a large opinion of ourselves, thinking that we are meant to know of such grandness when our brains couldn’t even comprehend the answers if they were given to us. Human ego stands in the way of happiness. I suppose we believe as a way of consolation. We can’t know, but we believe in one who DOES know. Therefore by transitive, we sort of DO know. I’ll take it.
Paradise and Religion
The concept of God is baffling. He is, by his own design and nature, more than we could ever imagine. As humans, we try our hardest to assign to him a purpose, perhaps to give our own lives a smallest increment of meaning. However, Hick postulates that in Christianity, we never assumed to think of God’s purpose as merely creating a paradise for where humans experience a maximum of pleasure and a minimum of pain. As you can imagine, Christians do not take kindly to such an argument, as it presents the image of God being subordinate to humans and acquiescing to their wishes for an after life of comfort. However, for the purposes of illustration, I will not refer to Christianity as such, I will instead discuss religion in general.
Religion, to many skeptics, is an opiate of the masses. It provides easy answers to large questions. For instance, life occurred because an all powerful being willed it to be so. These thinkers shun the religious mind frame, and take their questions head on, grappling with the many possible answers that sometimes have nothing to do with any given belief system. I suppose that is the way they like it.
On the other side of the spectrum we have the religious believer. They adhere very closely to their religion of choice. They dislike the questions and the questioners. They wish the world would revolve around faith, specifically THEIR faith, and feel the life we are giving would run more smoothly if everyone did so. In a logical paper, it is hard to present the religious believer in a positive light because the nature of their beliefs is so far from logic itself. However, this is not to say that the religious believer is an idiot. In fact, I would presume to say that many times, those who develop a close relationship with their God live lives that seem less empty than the skeptic.
I had previously thought there to be just these two sides to the argument, but upon reading Hick’s paper, I found there to a third. This position states that the purpose of God is to provide us with a satisfactory afterlife with a maximum of pleasure and a minimum of pain.
What is any religious believer such as myself to think? This point of view is very insulting to those with religion, especially Christians, to whom the statement was directed. It implies that God’s only purpose is to cater to humans, specifically, to provide a nice cozy place to hold our souls if we were good in life and did as our specific religion required us to do. One has the mental image of a butler, preparing the home for his masters. It is insufferable to think that God makes paradise for us.
But as an objective person would try to explore this concept to its depths without getting offended. So here we go!
Right away, when I think of God’s “purpose” I think of the creation of human beings and the earth. Religiously, we are told that God’s purpose is simply to be. He did all of these wonderful things perhaps almost as a whim, and of course, he didn’t owe it to anybody. But logically, we have God to explain the human creation. We have Him to feel as if we have our own purpose. We are here because a larger force deemed us to be as such. The other reason or purpose for God is explaining the afterlife. So in terms of logic, it really isn’t such a bad thing to attribute God’s purpose to creating a paradise for humans.
I am thinking this point of view is just a guised version of atheism because it deviates from religious thinking, especially in Christianity. God doesn’t need a purpose, as I stated above, He just is. That is all there is to it. Paradise exists for God, and if we’re lucky and live right, we get to hang up there with Him for eternity.
i know dan is the only one who is going to read this stuff, but sweet. its all good in the hood. however, it any of you other cool smart people want to take a stab at judging an ENTRY LEVEL philosophy class, be my guest. actually, i really want input. read one, read them all. whatever.
and its kindof cool that i'm almost done with this semester. i'm in my really messy dorm room, listening to music and reading. just like me. that is just how i am, huh? rudy is supposed to get in touch with me about this gig we are doing sunday, but he's out doing finals now, i presume. oh well..
