Alan Jacobs of Wheaton College has proposed a thought experiment whereby the problem posed to atheism by the existence and dominance of widespread religious belief is made clear. In his words, "if all religions are fundamentally mistaken about the thing that most concerns them, then why are human beings everywhere and in every time so overwhelmingly religious?" [source: The Future of Atheism]
Might the religious inclination of man be evolutionary? If it were, then the religious inclination couldn't be any less an aspect of human nature than the inclination to hunt and gather. Perhaps the atheist might admit that the religious inclination, as such, extends from a more fundamental tendency evolved by man: the thirst for the infinite. Even so, how such tendencies became dominant in human history would seem to be an important question to resolve before casting one's lot with Christopher Hitchens. I wish this explained why there seem to be so many people who are reading his book without becoming atheists. I suspect that there are more agnostics in his audience than believers; they enter into and emerge from his thought experiment as agnostics.
Alan Jacobs' thought experiment, on the other hand, looks at both sides of the proposition that religious belief is the outcome of human evolution. If the religious inclination of man is not evolutionary, then evolution is neither true about everything nor is it the basis for an intellectual position that can become "dominant." As he states it, "if the evolutionary account of religious belief that many atheists are now promoting is correct, then atheists don't have much of a future." Yet, if the account is incorrect, then atheism has a future; and judging from history, the future of atheism is as dark as its past. I recommend a reading of his article; the thought experiment is worth at least a few moments of consideration.
There are many, under the guise of humility, who flee from these questions for solace in agnosticism. Pope Benedict XVI comments on this "new form of intellectual devotion: "Of its nature, the question of God cannot forcibly be made an object of scientific research in the strict sense of that term, and this means that the declaration of 'scientific atheism' is an absurd claim - yesterday, today, or tomorrow. This, however, makes it all the more urgent to know whether the question of God does surpass the limits of human capabilities as such, so that agnosticism would in fact be the only correct attitude for man: the acknowledgement, appropriate and honest, 'devout' in the profound meaning of that word, of that which eludes our grasp and our field of vision, a reverence vis-a-vis something that is inaccessible to us. Might this not be the new form of intellectual devotion: to leave aside whatever lies beyond our grasp and be content with what we are permitted to know?"
[source: Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures
, p. 85-86]
The "absurd claim" of "scientific atheism" to which he refers is often accompanied by the same "atheistic science" that is, unfortunately, often behind the evolutionary claims exposed by Stephen Webb in a contribution to the First Things blog: "One cannot help but suspect that if evolutionary theory looks absurd, simplistic, and circular when applied to something as complex as religion, then it might look the same way when applied to biological organisms.
.
.
.
If evolution is true about everything, then we are doomed to live in a world without truth, beauty, and goodness. If we are not doomed, then evolution is not true about everything. And if evolution is not true about everything, then there is good reason to think that it is not true about anything."
Again, in fleeing from atheism, many embrace agnosticism as a new form of intellectual devotion. In response, Pope Benedict XVI helps us to focus on the most important point: 'But in it's essence, agnosticism is much more than a theory: what is at stake here is the praxis of one's life. When one attempts to 'put it into practice' in one's real field of action, agnosticism slips out of one's hands like a soap bubble; it dissolves into thin air, because it is not possible to escape the very option it seeks to avoid. When faced with
the question of God, man cannot permit himself to remain neutral. All he can say is Yes or No - without ever avoiding all the consequences that derive from this choice even in the smallest details of life."[source: Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, p. 89] Human history demonstrates the consequences that derive from both choices. Over the centuries, the intellectual devotion of some could have been more influenced by Pascal than by Darwin. As Bejamin Wiker has said, "It seems Darwin's doctrine of survival produced within the man a struggle that made him ever less fit." [Source: Architects of the Culture of Death
, p. 85] So too with mankind.
Relevant Reading:
An Idiot’s Guide to Evolution The Future of Atheism
“Mosul Christians are not theologians; some are even illiterate. And yet inside of us for many generations one truth has become embedded: Without the Sunday Eucharist we cannot live...The terrorists might think they can kill our bodies or our spirit by frightening us, but, on Sundays, churches are always full. They may try to take our life, but the Eucharist gives it back...There are days when I feel frail and full of fear. But when, holding the Eucharist, I say ‘Behold the Lamb of God, behold, who takes away the sin of the world,’ I feel his strength in me. When I hold the Host in my hands, it is really he who is holding me and all of us, challenging the terrorists and keeping us united in his boundless love.”
-- Father Ragheed Ganni (1972 - 2007) [source: AsiaNews.it] Relevant Reading:
A Chaldean priest and three deacons killed in MosulFuneral
O Lord and Master
of my life,
take from me the
spirit of laziness,
meddling, ambition
and vain talk.
But give me a spirit
of prudence, humility,
patience and love.
Yes Lord and King
grant me to see my
own sins and faults
and not judge my
brother.
For You are Blessed
Forever and ever.
Amen.
(Prayer of St. Ephrem)
Have you been to a Catholic church constructed in America after the decades following Vatican II? If so, what qualities of its architecture and interior design are distinctly "Catholic?" What qualities might even be distinctly "sacred?" Ask yourself the same questions about a Catholic church constructed in America at least twenty or thirty years prior to the council. From which era can you list more qualities? If you've found the sacred architecture of the late twentieth century lacking, then we agree. So too does Michael Rose, who offers a handbook for those like-minded parishioners who would affect change. While Rose's contribution to the counter-reformation in sacred architecture has been essential and valuable, I would like to suggest that what we've done to so many of our churches can be understood very clearly following a thoughtful consideration of Gillian Crampton Smith's forward to Bill Moggridge's delightful new book entitled Designing Interactions:
"A design may communicate its purpose clearly, so that it's obvious what it is and what we should do with it. But its qualities, its aesthetic qualities particularly, speak to people in a different way. Consciously or not, people read meanings into artifacts. A chapel speaks a different architectural language than a supermarket, and everybody can read the difference. In a drugstore we can usually distinguish a medicine bottle from a perfume bottle even if we can't read the label. Artists and designers are trained to use the language of implicit meanings to add a rich communicative element over and above direct functional communication. If we only design the function of something, not what it also communicates, we risk our design being misinterpreted. Worse, we waste the opportunity to enhance everyday life. To designing for usability, utility, satisfaction, and communicative qualities, we should add a fifth imperative: designing for sociability."
Granted, Designing Interactions is a book about technology, and its message, delivered in a thorough exploration of the history of interaction design, is targeted toward technologists and those who design things for interaction with people. One might argue that I'm taking Smith out of context. To this I admit that she's not writing about sacred architecture; her point is at a general level to which the design of church architecture surely obtains relevance, even and especially toward the end of sociability as a design imperative.
so-cia-ble [French, from Latin sociabilis, from sociare, to share, join, from socius, companion]
(source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sociable)
We have intentionally designed many of our churches for a different kind of sociability than what existed prior to Vatican II. That more than a few Catholics see this as good thing illustrates the point. You can hear it in their parishes, even those designed and constructed in the pre-conciliar era of Latin rubrics, incense, and widespread concern for the poor souls. Where once the penitent believer knelt before the Blessed Sacrament to offer her prayers in silence minutes before Holy Mass, she now does so in the midst of much friendly chatter, reminiscent of the last cookout that she'd attended for the neighborhood block party. We Christians, after all, are not a glum lot. The line that has been drawn between the sacred and the profane isn't very clear, nor is the need for such clarity a shared value, least of all among those who would "turn our sacred places into meeting spaces," as stated in the fitting subtitle of Michael Rose's book, Ugly as Sin.
We would do well to recapture the proper balance between earthly and heavenly sociability. After all, it is in the Divine Liturgy that we enter into the liturgy of heaven where, among the angels and the saints, we offer the worship, prayer, and adoration due to God alone. Whether observing a Catholic church from the outside or from within, the design should "communicate its purpose clearly, so that it's obvious what it is and what we should do with it." In that bygone era left unexperienced by this blogger, Catholics routinely made the sign of the cross upon passing a Catholic church. They did so because they were attuned to heavenly sociability. And once inside, one might hear a pin drop before having their prayers disturbed by the mundane hum and titter that is encouraged by the communicative qualities, or lack thereof, in modern Catholic church architecture.
It is rather awkward to entertain idle talk in the midst of saintly statues, glowing votive candles, symbolically rich art, stations of the cross, and a shining, radiant tabernacle wherein earth connects to heaven in the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. The trappings of even the most modest church can incline one to the proper spiritual disposition, and the regal splendor of our greatest cathedrals will never attain to the glory of heaven, even though the creation and appreciation of such splendor in light of the fact forces upon us this indispensable realization.
Relevant Reading:
Designing Interactions
The Renovation Manipulation: The Church Counter-Renovation Handbook
Ugly As Sin: Why They Changed Our Churches from Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces and How We Can Change Them Back Again (Forthright Edition)
In Tiers of Glory: The Organic Development of Catholic Church Architecture Through the Ages
I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.
I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.
I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.
I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.
I bind to myself today
God's Power to guide me,
God's Might to uphold me,
God's Wisdom to teach me,
God's Eye to watch over me,
God's Ear to hear me,
God's Word to give me speech,
God's Hand to guide me,
God's Way to lie before me,
God's Shield to shelter me,
God's Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.
I invoke today all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.
Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ in the poop [deck],
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity,
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.
- St. Patrick's Breastplate (source: New Advent)
Relevant Reading:
Exodus 28:13-30 Exodus 39:8-21
Isaiah 59:17
Ephesians 6:14
Archbishop Brady Urges Irish to Imitate Patron"The twelve stones of the breastplate and the two stones of the shoulder-ornaments seem to have been considered by the Jews as the most precious; they undoubtedly serve as the standard of whatever is beautiful and rich beyond measure..." (source: Precious Stones in the Bible)
Recently I finished reading Paul Collins' SixPence House: Lost in a Town of Books. It is an amusing memoir of the author's experience living in Hay-on-Wye, a small village in the Welsh countryside known for its disproportionate number of rare and antiquarian bookstores. Collins had me chuckling on every other page, and smiling in between.
This quote from page 132 of the book seems representative of a major theme: "The damaged past, artfully reused, is all most of us ever have to work with anyway." (p. 132)
Collins resurrects numerous quotes from some of the many artifacts of the damaged past, books and magazines long forgotten and left to rest (or rot) in Hay-on-Wye, and uses them artfully to decorate his reflections. While Paul and I probably wouldn't agree on a lot of points regarding religion, I found his cynical commentary on the damaged past of England's religious sensibility interestingly stated on page 171-172:
"There has been, for some time now, a billboard visible from the Amtrak line as it enters New Jersey. It reads: 'Jesus Christ: The Lord of Newark' To which the only appropriate response, really, is: 'Yeah, well, he can have it.' But he cannot, I think, have Britain any more. It is not so much that the forces of atheism have triumphed in the land of Darwin, it is just that theologians have withered away in public irrelevance. Great Britain has one of the lowest rates of church attendance in the world, and every year more churches are shut down. The monks working here at our hotel have become the exception rather than the rule. You cannot find a town here that hasn't either a ruined church, an abandoned priory, or a vicarage long gone to seed or converted into a condo, a bed-and-breakfast, or an art gallery. Such conversions are so common that they hardly elicit notice."
Oh, Darwin had something to do with it, and a few more of Europe's afflictions. Insofar as atheism proposes fewer answers to fewer questions than theism, its triumph will be short-lived among inquiring minds, but the damage is long-lasting and not easily repaired. Atheism had its day in Europe. But soon, if not already, those ruined churches may more likely be converted into Islamic mosques than art galleries or bed-and-breakfasts, a development that I hope will elicit more notice than the decline of English Christianity.
Further along on page 172, Collins contrasts such a decline in America with that of Great Britain, and here I take great pleasure in contemplating his point:
"There is something more shocking about the death of a religious space in America, more haunting. Britain, by all rights, should be the more haunted place; religion is ancient here, and old Christian churches squat on the sites of even older chapels, which were themselves built over druid ruins and the like. And yet, when you see an aged and crumpled chapel here - the roof caved in, the windows empty, the graves long overgrown and the memorial slabs worn away by wind and water - you are moved by the aesthetic sublimity of it all. Wordsworth might have been made wistful and mournful by many things at Tintern Abbey, but the death of a religious order wasn't one of them. But a religious space in the United States, once abandoned, has the acrid whiff of blasted hope, the pathos of ardent belief destroyed."
Unlike Collins, I haven't been to England, let alone taken up residence there. If I'm ever there, I might have a different take on it. Perhaps the death of a religious space in the midst of so many "living" religious spaces makes all the difference? What is an abandoned church in a land of abandoned churches? When I contemplate, however, the true loss that is the decline of Christianity in England, I cannot help but sense that "acrid whiff of blasted hope, the pathos of ardent belief destroyed." All this in the land of Newman, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Thomas More, Chesterton, Belloc, and a host of others through whom the light of Christ still shines on the west.
Relevant Reading:
