The Case for God (56 page)
Authors: Karen Armstrong
As Basil explained, we can never know the ineffable
ousia
of God
but can glimpse only its traces or effects
(energeiai
) in our time-bound, sense-bound world. It is clear that the meditation, yoga, and rituals that work aesthetically on a congregation have, when practiced assiduously over a lifetime, a marked effect on the personality—an effect that is another form of natural theology. There is no dramatic “born-again” conversion but a slow, incremental, and imperceptible transformation. Above all, the habitual practice of compassion and the Golden Rule “all day and every day” demands perpetual
kenosis
. The constant “stepping outside” of our own preferences, convictions, and prejudices is an
ekstasis
that is not a glamorous rapture but, as Confucius’s pupil Yan Hui explained, is itself the transcendence we seek. The effect of these practices cannot give us concrete information about God; it is certainly not a scientific “proof.” But something indefinable happens to people who involve themselves in these disciplines with commitment and talent. This “something” remains opaque to those who do not undergo these disciplines, however, just as the Eleusinian “mystery” sounded trivial and absurd to somebody who remained obstinately outside the cult hall and refused to undergo the initiation.
Like the ancient Sky Gods, the remote God of the philosophers tends to fade from people’s minds and hearts. The domineering God of modern “scientific religion” overexternalized the divine and pushed it away from humanity, confining it, like Blake’s Tyger, to “distant deeps and skies.” But premodern religion deliberately humanized the sacred. The Brahman was not a distant reality but was identical with the atman of every single creature. Confucius refused to define
ren
(later identified with “benevolence”) because it was incomprehensible to a person who had not yet achieved it. But the ordinary meaning of
ren
in Confucius’s time was “human being.”
Ren
is sometimes translated into English as “human-heartedness.” Holiness was not “supernatural,” therefore, but a carefully crafted attitude that, as a later Confucian explained, refined humanity and elevated it to a “godlike”
(shen
) plane.
8
When Buddhists contemplated the tranquillity, poise, and selflessness of the Buddha, they saw him as the avatar of the otherwise incomprehensible Nirvana; this was what Nirvana looked like in human terms. They also knew that this state was natural to human beings and that if they put the Buddhist method into practice they too could achieve it. Christians had a
similar experience when their imitation of Christ brought them intimations of
theosis
(“deification”).
Certain individuals became icons of this enhanced, refined humanity. We think of Socrates approaching his execution without recrimination but with openhearted kindness, cheerfulness, and serenity. The gospels show Jesus undergoing an agonizing death and experiencing the extremity of despair while forgiving his executioners, making provision for his mother, and having a kindly word for one of his fellow victims. Instead of becoming stridently virtuous, aggressively orthodox, and contemptuous of the ungodly, these paradigmatic personalities became more humane. The rabbis were revered as avatars of the Torah, because their learning and practice enabled them to become living, breathing, and human embodiments of the divine imperative that sustained the world. Muslims venerate the Prophet Muhammad as the “Perfect Man,” whose life symbolizes the total receptivity to the divine that characterizes the archetypal, ideal human being. Just as the feats of a dancer or an athlete are impossible for an untrained body and seem superhuman to most of us, these people all developed a spiritual capacity that took them beyond the norm and revealed to their followers the untapped “divine” or “enlightened” potential that exists in any man or woman.
From almost the very beginning, men and women have repeatedly engaged in strenuous and committed religious activity. They evolved mythologies, rituals, and ethical disciplines that brought them intimations of holiness that seemed in some indescribable way to enhance and fulfill their humanity. They were not religious simply because their myths and doctrines were scientifically or historically sound, because they sought information about the origins of the cosmos, or merely because they wanted a better life in the hereafter. They were not bludgeoned into faith by power-hungry priests or kings: indeed, religion often helped people to oppose tyranny and oppression of this kind. The point of religion was to live intensely and richly here and now. Truly religious people are ambitious. They want lives overflowing with significance. They have always desired to integrate with their daily lives the moments of rapture and insight that came to them in dreams, in their contemplation of nature, and in their intercourse with one another and with the animal world. Instead of being crushed and embittered by the sorrow of life, they sought to retain
their peace and serenity in the midst of their pain. They yearned for the courage to overcome their terror of mortality; instead of being grasping and mean-spirited, they aspired to live generously, large-heartedly, and justly, and to inhabit every single part of their humanity. Instead of being a mere workaday cup, they wanted, as Confucius suggested, to transform themselves into a beautiful ritual vessel brimful of the sanctity that they were learning to see in life. They tried to honor the ineffable mystery they sensed in each human being and create societies that protected and welcomed the stranger, the alien, the poor, and the oppressed. Of course, they often failed, sometimes abysmally. But overall they found that the disciplines of religion helped them to do all this. Those who applied themselves most assiduously showed that it was possible for mortal men and women to live on a higher, divine, or godlike plane and thus wake up to their true selves.
One day a Brahmin priest came across the Buddha sitting in contemplation under a tree and was astonished by his serenity, stillness, and self-discipline. The impression of immense strength channeled creatively into an extraordinary peace reminded him of a great tusker elephant. “Are you a god, sir?” the priest asked. “Are you an angel … or a spirit?” No, the Buddha replied. He explained that he had simply revealed a new potential in human nature. It was possible to live in this world of conflict and pain at peace and in harmony with one’s fellow creatures. There was no point in merely believing it; you would discover its truth only if you practiced his method, systematically cutting off egotism at the root. You would then live at the peak of your capacity, activate parts of the psyche that normally lie dormant, and become a fully enlightened human being. “Remember me,” the Buddha told the curious priest, “as one who is awake.”
9
As always, I have so many people to thank. First, my agents, Felicity Bryan, Peter Ginsberg, and Andrew Nurnberg, who have given me indispensable encouragement, affection, and support for so many years, as well as my wonderful editors, Jane Garrett, Robbert Ammerlaan, Louise Dennys, and Will Sulkin. I know how fortunate I am to have each one of you as a beloved friend and colleague.
But I must also express my gratitude to Michele Topham, Jackie Head, and Carole Robinson in Felicity Bryan’s office for their unfailing patience, kindness, and practical help, and to Leslie Levine, Jane Garrett’s assistant at Knopf. Many thanks, too, to the host of people who have worked on the text and production of this book with such skill, dedication, and commitment: Louise Collazo, Wesley Gott, Ellen Feldman, Claire Bradley Ong, Gabriele Wilson, and Jörg Hensgen. Finally, my thanks to the publicists, some of whom have become old and valued friends after our years on the road together: Sheila O’Shea, Kim Thornton, Sheila Kay, Laura Hassan, and Francien Schuursma. It is a joy to work with each and every one of you.
In the autumn of 2007, I had the good fortune to give the William Belden Noble Lectures at Harvard University, which gave me the opportunity to present some of the ideas that I have developed in this book. I also aired some of these themes at the Chautauqua Institution in the summer of 2008. I want to thank all my friends at the Harvard Memorial Church (especially the Faith & Life Forum) and at Chautauqua, who have listened to me so loyally and kindly over the years and given me such encouragement.
During the last year, it has been a great delight and privilege to
work with TED Conferences on the Charter for Compassion, an attempt to implement practically the thesis of this book. Thanks especially to Chris Anderson and Amy Novogratz, and to all the TED-sters who have contributed to this project with such extraordinary generosity, creativity, and awe-inspiring commitment. It has been an inspiration.
Finally, a big thank-you to Eve, Gary, Stacey, and Amy Mott and to Michelle Stevenson, who make it possible for me to do my work by looking after Poppy so devotedly during my many absences.
I could not have managed without any of you.
Introduction
1.
Johannes Sloek,
Devotional Language
, trans. Henrick Mossin (Berlin and New York, 1996), pp. 53–96.
2.
I have discussed the role of mythology more fully in
A Short History of Myth
(Edinburgh, 2005).
3.
Mircea Eliade,
Patterns in Comparative Religion
, trans. Rosemary Sheed (London, 1958), pp. 453–55.
4.
Joseph Campbell,
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
(Princeton, N.J., 1949).
5.
Sloek,
Devotional Language
, pp. 75–76.
6.
The Book of Zhuangzi
17.3 in Martin Palmer with Elizabeth Breuilly, trans.,
The Book of Chuang Tzu
(London and New York, 1996).
7.
Ibid.
8.
Denys Turner,
Faith, Reason and the Existence of God
(Cambridge, U.K., 2004), pp. 108–15.
9.
George Steiner,
Real Presences: Is There Anything
in
What We Say?
(London, 1989), p. 217.
10.
George Steiner,
Language and Silence
(London, 1967), pp. 58–59.
11.
Steiner,
Real Presences
, p. 217.
12.
Steiner,
Language and Silence
, p. 59.
13.
I have discussed this more fully in
The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism
(London and New York, 2000), and there is a more extended discussion of fundamentalism in
chapter 12
.
Homo religiosus
1.
Joseph Campbell,
Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God
, rev. ed. (New York, 1988), p. 305; Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers,
The Power of Myth
(New York, 1988), p. 79.
2.
Andre Leroi-Gourhan,
Treasures of Prehistoric Art
(New York, n.d.), p. 112. This rules out the suggestion that the paintings were simply a form of hunting magic.
3.
Ibid., p. 118.
4.
John E. Pfeiffer,
The Creative Explosion
(New York, 1982), p. viii.
5.
Andre Leroi-Gourhan,
Les religions préhistorique: Paléolithique
(Paris, 1964), pp. 83–84; Mircea Eliade,
A History of Religious Ideas
, 3 vols., trans. Willard R. Trask (Chicago and London, 1978, 1982, 1985), 1:16.
6.
Joseph Campbell,
Historical Atlas of World Mythologies, 2
vols. (New York, 1988), 1, 1: 58.
7.
Ibid., 1, 1: 65.
8.
Leo Frobenius,
Kulturgeschichte Africas
(Zurich, 1933), pp. 131–32; Campbell,
Primitive Mythology
, p. 300.
9.
Eliade,
History of Religious Ideas, 1
: 24.
10.
Campbell with Moyers,
Power of Myth
, pp. 85–87.
11.
Ibid., pp. 72–79;
Historical Atlas, 1
, 1: 48–49; Eliade,
History of Religious Ideas
, 1: 7–8.
12.
Walter Burkert,
Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth
, trans. Peter Bing (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1983), pp. 16–22.
13.
Walter Burkert,
Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1980), pp. 54–56; Burkert,
Homo Necans
, pp. 42–45.
14.
Campbell,
Historical Atlas
, I, 2: xiii.
15.
Ibid., 1, 1: 93.
16.
Campbell,
Primitive Mythology
, p. 66.
17.
Mircea Eliade,
The Myth of the Eternal Return, or Cosmos and History
, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, N.J., 1954), pp. 1–34.
18.
Huston Smith,
The World’s Religions
, rev. ed. (New York, 1991), p. 367.
19.
Eliade,
History of Religious Ideas
, 1:17.
20.
Mircea Eliade,
Birth and Rebirth: The Religious Meanings of Initiation in Human Cultures
(New York, 1958); Mircea Eliade,
Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: The Encounter Between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities
, trans. Philip Mairet (London, 1960), pp. 194–226; Campbell with Moyers,
Power of Myth
, pp. 81–85.
21.
Eliade,
Myths, Dreams
, p. 225.
22.
Herbert Kuhn,
Auf den Spuren des Eiszeitmenschen
(Wiesbaden, 1953), pp. 88–89; Campbell,
Primitive Mythology
, pp. 307–8.
23.
Abbe Henri Breuil,
Four Hundred Centuries of Cave Art
(Montignac, France, 1952), pp. 170–71.
24.
Campbell,
Primitive Mythology
, p. 311.
25.
Burkert,
Homo Necans
, pp. 27–34.
26.
Mircea Eliade,
Patterns in Comparative Religion
, trans. Rosemary Sheed (London, 1958), pp. 331–43.
27.
Alexander Marshack, “Lunar Notations on Upper Palaeolithic Remains,”
Scientia 1
46 (1964).
28.
Eliade,
Patterns in Comparative Religion
, pp. 146–85.
29.
Burkert,
Homo Necans
, pp. 78–82.
30.
Eliade,
Patterns in Comparative Religion
, pp. 1–124, 216–39.
31.
Mary Boyce,
Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices
, 2nd ed. (London and New York, 2001), p. 2; Peter Clark,
Zoroastrians: An Introduction to an Ancient Faith
(Brighton and Portland, Ore., 1998), p. 18.
32.
Boyce,
Zoroastrians
, pp. 9–11.
33.
Jan Gonda,
Change and Continuity in Indian Religion
(The Hague, 1965), p. 200; Louis Renou, “Sur la notion de
brahman,” Journal Asiatique
237 (1949).
34.
Louis Renou,
Religions of Ancient India
(London, 1953), pp. 10, 16–18; Michael Witzel, “Vedas and Upanishads” in Gavin Flood, ed.,
The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism
(Oxford, 2003), pp. 70–71.
35.
J. C. Heesterman,
The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship and Society
(Chicago and London, 1985), pp. 70–72, 126.
36.
Zhuangzi,
The Book of Zhuangzi
6:29–31.
37.
Mark S. Smith,
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts
(New York and London, 2001), pp. 41–79.
38.
Eliade,
Patterns in Comparative Religion
, pp. 367–88; Mircea Eliade,
The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion
, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York, 1959), pp. 50–54, 64; Mircea Eliade,
Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism
, trans. Philip Mairet (Princeton, N.J., 1991), pp. 37–56.
39.
Eliade,
Patterns in Comparative Religion
, pp. 38–63; Eliade,
Myths, Dreams
, pp. 172–78; Wilhelm Schmidt,
The Origin of the Idea of God
(New York, 1912), passim.
40.
Eliade,
The Sacred and the Profane
, pp. 120–25.
41.
Rig Veda 10.129.
42.
Rig Veda 10.90.
43.
Gwendolyn Leick,
Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City
(London, 2001), p. 268.
44.
Thorkild Jacobsen, “The Cosmos as State,” in H. and H. A. Frankfort, eds.,
The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on the Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East
(Chicago, 1946), pp. 186–97.
45.
“The Babylonian Creation” 1.1 in N. K. Sanders, trans. and ed.,
Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia
(London, 1971).
46.
Enuma Elish
6.19, in Sanders,
Poems of Heaven and Hell
.
47.
E. O. James,
The Ancient Gods
(London, 1960), pp. 87–90.
48.
Psalms 89:10–13; 93:1–4; Isaiah 27:1; Job 7:12; 9:8; 26:12; 38:7.
49.
Eliade,
Myths, Dreams
, pp. 80–81.
50.
Chandogya Upanishad (CU) 6.13; my italics. All quotations from the Upanishads are from Patrick Olivelle, trans. and ed.,
Upanisads
(Oxford and New York, 1996).
51.
CU 6.11–12.
52.
CU 6.10.
53.
Brhadaranyaka Upanishad (BU) 4.5.15.
54.
BU 3.4.
55.
BU 4.5.13–15.
56.
BU 3.5.1.
57.
Mircea Eliade,
Yoga, Immortality and Freedom
, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York, 1958).
58.
Women participated in Upanishadic spirituality and, later, in Buddhist practice.
59.
Patanjali, Yoga Sutra 2.42, in Eliade,
Yoga
, p. 52.
60.
BU 1.4.1–5.
61.
BU 1.4.6.
62.
BU 1.4.10.
63.
BU 4.3.21.
64.
Samyutta Nikaya 53:31. The quotations from the Pali Canon of Buddhist scriptures are my own version of the texts cited.
65.
Sutta-Nipata 43:1–44.
66.
Majjima Nikaya 29.
67.
Vinaya:
Mahavagga 1.6.
68.
Confucius, Analects 17.19. Unless otherwise stated, quotations from the Analects are taken from Arthur Waley, trans. and ed.,
The Analects of Confucius
(New York, 1992).
69.
Analects 4.15.
70.
Analects 15.23.
71.
Ibid.
72.
Analects 12.1. Translation suggested by Benjamin I. Schwartz,
The World of Thought in Ancient China
(Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1985), p. 77.
73.
Ibid.
74.
Analects 9.10.
God
1.
Genesis 2:23. All quotations from the Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—are taken from Everett Fox, trans.,
The Five Books of Moses
(New York, 1993); all other biblical quotations are taken from
The Jerusalem Bible
(London, 1966) unless otherwise stated.
2.
I have discussed this at length in
The Bible: The Biography
(London and New York, 2007).
3.
Michael Fishbane,
Text and Texture: Close Readings of Selected Biblical Texts
(New York, 1979), pp. 21–22.
4.
Genesis Rabbah Ecclesiastes 4:4.10.
5.
Margaret Barker,
The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem
(London, 1991), pp. 26–29; R. E. Clements,
God and Temple
, (Oxford, 1965), p. 64.
6.
Psalms 89:9–19; 65:2; 78:69. Ben C. Ollenburger,
Zion, the City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem Cult
(Sheffield, U.K., 1987), pp. 54–58.
7.
Genesis 3:8.
8.
Genesis 3:24.
9.
I
Kings 6:15–38; 2 Chronicles 3:8–13.
10.
Numbers 21:8–9; 2 Kings 18:14.
11.
See, for example, Psalm 122.
12.
Psalm 42:4.
13.
Psalm 84:2, 3, 6, 10.
14.
William G. Dever,
What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel
(Grand Rapids, Mich., and Cambridge, U.K., 2001), p. 280.
15.
Frank Moore Cross,
From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel
(Baltimore and London, 1998), pp. 41–42.
16.
George W. Mendenhall,
The Tenth Generation: The Origins of Biblical Traditions
(Baltimore and London, 1973); N. P. Lemche,
Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Israelite Society Before the Monarchy
(Leiden, the Netherlands, 1985).
17.
R. E. Clements,
Abraham and David
(London, 1967); Fishbane,
Text and Texture
, pp. 64, 124–25; Peter Machinist, “Distinctiveness in Ancient Israel,” in
Mordechai Cogan and Israel Ephal, eds.,
Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography
(Jerusalem, 1991), p. 434.
18.
Exodus 14:21–22.
19.
Frank Moore Cross,
Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel
(Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1973), pp. 103–24.
20.
Exodus 15:1.
21.
Exodus 15:14–15. “Rams” was probably a technical term for “chieftains” in Canaan, as it was in Ugarit.
22.
Joshua 3:1–5:15; Cross,
From Epic to Canon
, p. 44; Cross,
Canaanite Myth
, pp. 103–5, 133–38.
23.
Joshua 5:1.
24.
Joshua 4:10–12.
25.
Deuteronomy 32:8–9.
26.
Mark S. Smith,
The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel
(New York and London, 1990), pp. 44–49.
27.
Genesis 28:10–19.
28.
Genesis 28:10–11.
29.
Genesis 28:12–13.
30.
Genesis 28:16–17.
31.
31. Genesis 18:1–22.
32.
Genesis 22:1–10.
33.
Martin Buber,
On the Bible: Eighteen Studies
, ed. Nahum Glatzer (New York, 1982), p. 42.
34.
I have described this in detail in
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
(New York, 1993), pp. 27–66, and in
The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions
(New York, 2006), pp. 86–101, 157–83, 211–20.
35.
Psalm 135:15–18; see also Psalm 115:4–8; Jeremiah 10.
36.
2 Kings 22:8.
37.
Deuteronomy 7:5.
38.
2 Kings 23:4–20.
39.
Deuteronomy 12:20–24; 16:18–20; 17:8–13; Bernard M. Levinson,
Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation
(Oxford and New York, 1998), pp. 50, 114–37.