Religious Life and Critical Thought: Do They Need Each Other?

William Reinsmith

The title of this piece is deliberatively provocative. For, at first glance, one would surmise that religion and critical thinking have nothing in common and thus little to say to eachother. One could even argue that they cancel each other out. Holders of firm religious beliefs do not merely resist attempts at critique, they are often impervious to them. Critical thinkers, at least in the academic community, have long since given up the effort to apply critical principles in the religious realm, not because it can't be done, but because the application usually falls on deaf ears. So they have turned to greener pastures.

The occasional defection or "conversion" to religion by members of the academic profession, especially among scientists, is met with silence or quiet embarassment ("He must have become unhinged during the last few years.") in much the same way that Edmund Gosse's father's desperate attempt at reconciling natural selection with religion, Omphalos, was received after its unfortunate publication in 1858.1

On the other hand, many of those with religious convictions attribute to critical thinkers an unswervingly skeptical bias that closes them off from being touched by religious experience. They cannot possibly understand since they do not even try. Edmund Wilson's remark-that the critical 20th century can't seem to muster much enthusiasm for religion-is viewed as simply another example of this recalcitrance. Thus, attempts to communicate about such matters are a waste of time. One either believes or one does not.

Before going any further it would be best to set about clarifying the terms "critical thought" and "religion." Critical thought may be the easier of the two since its aspects have been presented and discussed at length during the last fifteen years. I think of the term on two levels: informally, critical thinking is something available to anyone with an "operative intelligence" and some education. It works almost automatically: One sees the flaw in the explanation, the empty verbiage in the politician's speech, the inaccuracy in the factual data, the slickness in the advertiser's hard sell. This is the faculty that comes into play when buying a car, dealing with a real estate agent, making a point to our spouse. It notices incorrectness and egregiously bad reasoning. Critical thinking in the formal sense is the more studied power of assessing, critiquing, analyzing, understanding, evaluating, deciding, reformulating-generally part of what is called discoursive reasoning. For this one needs exposure to more sophisticated contexts in which these activities can take place, as well as a certain amount of training. The skills can be field-specific (McPeck), while some of them (critical listening) can be used within a more general attitude or frame of mind. For example, I am listening critically in a general sense when I listen to my child play the piano surprisingly well-yet imperfectly. I am listening critically and being field-specific if I happen to be the child's piano teacher.

Religion is harder to get a grip on-largely because during human history it has come to include so much: raw experience, belief, dogma, ritual, law, morality. But despite its meanderings and vicissitudes, religion seems founded on a need for an ultimate meaning to life. At its base, religion has to do with a longing for connection with a transcendent principle. The origin of the dispute between religious need and the critical mind may lie here: whether this need or longing is based on the desire for connection with something real or merely conceives ritual practices in acts of illusionary wish-fulfillment.

Eliade has noted that in even the most fundamental way "on the most archaic levels of culture, living, considered as being human, is itself a religious act, for food-getting, sexual life, and work have a sacramental value."2 In other words, the living of life itself can be a sacred act with a certain ultimate significance. Carl Jung has said that while it cannot be scientifically proven, "all religions with a supramundane goal are eminently reasonable from the point of view of psychic hygiene."3

The core of religious experience (as distinct from practice or belief) through the ages has to do with the breakthrough of a dimension beyond ordinary space and time, a dimension which is intuited as the source of all reality. Experienced subjectively, such breakthrough or disclosure takes place within the self-"as if the self were part of that dimension."4 Karl Jaspers, in crossing the lines of philosophy and religion, characterizes the phenomenon as different aspects (subjective and objective) of "the Encompassing" (das Ungreifende) which "underlies all our scientific and common sense knowledge and which is given expression in the myths and rituals of religion."5

Thus I believe religion can be defined in two ways: 1) In its more common meaning as a particular individual's set of beliefs regarding some kind of ultimate principle or transcendent reality (more often than not recieved through demoninational affiliation); 2) More profoundly, as those set of inner experiences or encounters which define one's connection or involvement with the transcendent. In the first definition, we are dealing with a set of rules or religious truths which one may or may not think about. The second definition deals with religious experience itself-something not easily accessible to discursive thought. In both cases we are dealing with what I will call the "faith factor." But the former represents merely an act of allegience or belonging with some residual effect on one's life at best; the latter involves a committment of one's total being, often resulting in a transformation of consciousness with profound effects on one's entire life. The one is extrinsic and conventional; the other inward and deeply existential [experimental]. As Huston Smith puts it in his introduction to his study of the world's great religions:

"When religion [in this sense] jumps to life it displays a startling quality. It takes over. All else, while not silenced, becomes subdued and thrown into a supporting role.6 ....authentic religion is the clearest opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos enter life."7

Having established these lines of clarification we can now ask what relationship (if any) critical thought might have with religion. Certainly, the most obvious connection is a longstanding adverserial one which has been in vogue in the West since the Enlightenment. It is that of the rational, skeptical mind debunking the various conventions and abuses of established religions. I would identify this as the "slash and burn" effect of critical thought. It seeks to disengage religion from its hold on people's untutored minds by pointing out its corruptions, inconsistencies, contradictions, as well as the sheer fallaciousness of many of its teachings and pronouncements. Examples abound: contradictions in the Bible, anthropomorphic descriptions of God, the silliness of the creation story when taken literally, Divine election of only a few, the arrogance behind institutional pronouncements, the demeaning of women, anti-semitism of the Christian religion, the blithe disdain for science. Close behind is the demolition exercise by which the critical mind will point out (and often deride) obvious discrepancies that exist between what a religion claims to believe (often laudable) and what its adherents actually do. This launches us into the wide problems of institutional religion with which even informal critical thought has had a field day since the Middle Ages. Mark Twain's indictment in his famous Letters From Earth is probably the most extreme example of the slash and burn approach. In it, his critical mind, in the name of reason and common sense, attacked human ignorance, critiquing the human propensity to accept religious dogmas uncritically.

To see if critical thought can dialogue with religion in a more positive and dynamic way, we have to look at the nature of religious experience itself, not at the institutions that enshrine. For only after we examine the genuine article (albeit briefly) can we have any idea as to whether critical thought can play a part that is something other than adversial.

The religious quest is for those who have come to realize, or at least suspect, that existence has a spiritual dimension beyond that covered by the conventional trappings of religious institutions-i.e., an active inner motive replaces an outer passive one. This path is one in which faith and understanding work hand in hand.8 One major key to progress on this path is meditation, which I will describe here as the attempt to deepen one's perspective through practices designed to focus the habitually scattered mind, to establish inner peace and emotional calm and to allow thought that is sustained, clear and lucid-practices which, if strengthened and perfected through diligent practice, set the stage for an expansion of the mental faculties and purification of the usual confusions of undisciplined mental life.

Most of us have fleeting experiences of meditative states-through activities as diverse as a formal relaxation practice, an open-hearted walk in nature, or even deep attention to a text or the creative process. Persons on this level of religious experience attempt to create such an inner state as a regularity in their daily existence. At this point, there may not even be a connection to an external or communal religious practice, or if there is, the practitioner will see the original implications of ritual and ceremony as a pointer inwards; he will appreciate their symbolic content on a deeper level. This level of understanding has been called the mystical by some authorities, but it is a term with a wide range of meanings and is thus one easily misunderstood.9 Let us just say that, at this level, the individual consciously seeks to further develop the spiritual and mental capacities that exist within. There is a broad spectrum of practices on this level, including everything from the use of techniques to calm the mind (with no overt religious intent at all) to the cultivation of states involving trance and withdrawal from the distractions of everyday life.

In this phase, especially in spiritual traditions like Buddhism, mental clarity is valued as paramount and one seeks to understand (establish insight) this new orientation to existence in a non-egoic way. One also cultivates "faith" in the sense of trusting what Zen calls "the Universal Principle" which operates in everything.10 Progress at this level is both emotional and mental. An inner stability is established whereby as waits for one's innate understanding to mature.11

What role, if any, does critical thought play on this level, a level on which we can now see authentic religious or spiritual development taking place? It has a very decided role, for precisely here can the critical faculty be of great service. We have noted above that the meditative level also has a corresponding intellectual side. One has "faith" even as one also seeks to understand. (St. Augustine's "fidens querens intellectum.") The seeker here engages in three basic activities of critical intelligence. The first is the practice of observation.: one learns to look at something in a detatched way, to stand back and observe the dynamics of a situation or of personal behaviour. One observes the energies of the mind itself, but not in the usual self-conscious way; rather one seeks to understand how these mental dynamics proceed. Walpola Rahula, in his manual on Buddhism explains it thus:

It is simply observing, watching, examining. You are not a judge, but a scientist. When you observe your mind and see its true nature clearly you become dispassionate with regard to its emotions, sentiments and states.12

This detatchment is very important in order to see things as they are. This is critical examination of a kind that can lead to self understanding.

The second activity is the pactice of presence or mindfulness which is the unencumbered awareness of one's present state; in Zen Buddhism this is called the cultivation of fresh or empty mind, "beginner's mind" or "don't-know mind." Central to this activity is the almost relentless discipline of attention, of keeping the mind clear of wandering, of disallowing memory, feelings, images from cluttering the field of detached openness. The task here is quite subtle, and in order not to create new difficulties born of over-vigilance, practitioners are warned not to be too severe in resisting the mental interferences; rather they should gently be allowed to follow one another without concern until the mind gradually settles down of its own accord. Anyone who has engaged in the practice of mindfulness meditation or has attempted to extend it to daily life knows just how demanding such effort can be.13

The third service that the critical faculty can offer to the seeker on this level is that of healthy doubt, a kind of ongoing surveillance process which keeps a constant watch out for ways our habitual thinking tries to infiltrate meditation practice. The critical faculty is employed in a very constructive manner here, setting up a self-doubt of a unique kind: one which is in contrast to both self-conscious criticism (by which the ego seeks surreptitiously to promote its own agenda) and nihilistic doubt (which destroys any incipient insight that might offer an opening to spiritual truth.)

The Tibetian Buddhist teacher, Sogyal Rinpoche, calls this third activity of the critical faculty "noble doubt"-the positive doubt that tests something "like analyzing gold, scorching, cutting, rubbing it to test its purity."14 He even suggests that we enlist its aid to skewer modern nihilistic doubt and its unquestioned reductionist assumptions.15 Healthy or noble doubt is an
integral part of the path toward true understanding and functions in our daily life by keeping a wary eye out for imposters-both internal to our minds and "out there" in the world.

Connected with healthy doubt is the persistent asking of our deepest questions in a spirit not satisfied with easy answers. Behind all is the faith that progress will be made along the path, that despite the numerous problems and failings, things will, in the end, be resolved. In time, with patient seeking, the answer comes.

These activities, then-observing, watching, examining, keeping mindful, evaluating, questioning-are all integral to what I have been calling the level of mystic religious experience. They are really all part of the same weave, indispensable tools in the movement toward clariy and detachment. How unfortunate that the mental aspect of this "mystical" level has either been ignored, subverted or denied in much religious writing. Rahula, in his text on Buddhism, actually uses the word "mental culture" as an equivalent for "meditation." He laments how the word "meditation" come to denote escape from daily activity or absorption in mystic trance and withdrawal from society. He acquaints us with the word's linguistic source:

The word "meditation" is a very poor substitute for the original term "bhavana" which means "culture" or "development", i.e. mental culture or mental development. The Buddhist "bhavana," properly speaking, is mental culture in the full sense of the term.16

Dr. Rahula then describes its purpose:

It aims at cleansing the mind of impurities and disturbances, such as lustful desires, hatred, ill-will, indolence, worries and restlessness, skeptical doubts, and cultivating such qualities as concentration, awareness, intelligence, will, energy, the analytical faculty, confidence, joy, tranquility, leading finally to the attainment of highest wisdom which sees the nature of things as they are, and realizes the Ultimate Truth.....17

Thus, we see that critical thought serves an extremely positive function at this level of religious development.

Conclusion

It should be clear to the reader by now, even from this overly brief (and sketchy) discussion of one form of the religious quest, that critical thought is no enemy to it. On the contrary, the critical faculty, when employed properly, is its most useful ally. Thus, to the question of whether a religious persons can also be truly critical, especially in regard to their religious practice, the answer is: There will be no real abiding in that realm if they cannot be, only self-deception and self-imposed ignorance. In regard to the second question- Can a critical thinker be religious and at the same time remain critical?-again, the answer should be clear. If a person is authentically relgious he will have no other choice than to remain viginlantly critical in the positive sense that seeks to separate what is true gold from its counterfeit.

Religion needs critical thought not merely as a debunking device, but as a cleansing tool to maintain clarity and to root out false views. Critical thought, in turn, needs religion to understand its own higher usefulness. True religious growth-at least for modern humans-must be critical at certain stages or it will founder in illusion and superstition. Critical thought must not see itself perpetually at odds with religion or spiritual practice; rather it must get to know and value its place within that domain. But, then, I suppose the modern critical thinker must first admit to the possibility of a spiritual dimension to human existence, the denial of which in the working lives of academics and intellectuals is one of the great biases and blocks of the 20th century.

I think it would be good to let a Western philosopher, William James, have the final say. In lecture XVII of The Varieties of Religious Experience, the great Pragmatist inquires whether we can invoke the mystic range of consciousness as authoritative. He divides his brief, but measured, answer into three parts:

(1) Mystical states, when well developed, usually are, and have the right to be, absolutely authoritative over the individuals to whom they come.
(2) No authority emanates from them which should make it a duty for those who stand outside of them to accept their revelations uncritically.
(3) They [mystical states] break down the authority of the non-mystical or rationalistic consciousness, based upon the understanding and the senses alone. They show it to be only one kind of consciousness.18

While all three statements are carefully and succinctly put, it is the third which is most enlightening. James reinforces that third point a little later:

Yet, I repeat once more, the existence of mystical states absolutely overthrows the pretension of non-mystical states to be the sole and ultimate dictators of what we may believe... It is the rationalist critic rather who plays the role of denier in the controversy, and his denials have no strength, for there never can be a state of facts to which new meaning may not truthfully be added, provided the mind ascend to a more enveloping point.19

It would be hardly possible to improve on those words.

Endnotes

1. Gosse's father was both a Christian and a naturalist who tried to find a resolution to the contradiction between "Genesis"and the theory of natural selection. His Omphalos presented the theory that "there had been no gradual modification of the surface of the earth or slow development of organic forms. Instead, at the catastrophic act of creation the world presented, instantly, the structural appearance of a planet on which life had long existed." (Intellectual Heritage Reader, Vol. 1. Acton, Mass.: Copley Publishing Group, pp. 466-67.) The scornful public reviews and the chilly silence of his scientific colleagues sent the father into a depression from which he never recovered.

2. Mircea Eliade, from preface to A History of Religious Ideas quoted in Landon Summers, "On the Education of Generalists: Religion, Public Schools, and Teacher Education," Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines (Autumn 1994, Vol. 14, No.1), p. 71.

3. The Portable Jung, ed. Joseph Campbell (New York: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1971), p. 20.

4. The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropedia Vol. 15, p. 593.

5. Karl Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), xv.

6. Huston Smith, The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions (SanFrancisco: Harper, 1991), p. 9.

7. Ibid., p. 9.

8. This changeover can develop out of ordinary theistic worship, or come after a period of bleak agnosticism-even atheism. It can also come through a reciptivity to beauty, either in the arts or nature. See Dr. Paul Brunton in his book, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga (York Beach, Maine:

Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1971), pp. 57-60.

9. Mysticsm connotes different things to different people. Brunton uses it to describe this second, meditative stage, of spiritual development, an equivalent to Yoga discipline. In the context of his overall discussion, it is not a confusing term. See chap. 3, "The Religious and Mystic Grades" in The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga.

10. Hubert Benoit, The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Encounters in Zen Thought (New York: Inner Traditions International, Ltd., paperback, 1984), p. 107.

11. Ibid., p. 128.

12. Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught. Revised edition. (New York: Grove Press, 1974), p. 73.

13. See Philip Novak's article in which he distinguishes between active and ordinary passive attention. The article also discusses the various spiritual traditions in which the discipline of attention is practiced. "The Practice of Attention," in Parabola, Summer 1990 Vol. XV, No. 2, pp. 5-12.

14. Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (Harper Sanfrancisco, 1992) p. 124.

15. Ibid., p. 124.

16. Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, p. 68.

17. Ibid., p. 24.

18. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, (New York: The Modern Library, 1929), p. 414.

19. Ibid., pp. 418-419.