Philosophical Contributions Charles Goossens

 

CONTENTS

- On Relativity of Religious Truth (2022)

- On Relativity of Religious Truth [Summary] (15-06-2023)

- On Internal Truth of Religious Discourse (2020) 

- Truths about What is Invisible: An Elucidation of the Essay ‘On Internal Truth of Religious Discourse’ (15-10-2020)

- Over relativiteit van religieuze waarheid (02-06-2022)

- Waarheden over onzichtbare dingen: Een toelichting bij ‘On internal truth of religious discourse’ (25-09-2020) 

 

On Relativity of Religious Truth (2022) 

 

1. Introduction

 

What I want to do in this paper is to present two theories of religion, religious constructivism and religious nonconstructivism, which inquire into the philosophical implications of certain specific explanations of religion and which shed light on the question of relativity of religious truth.[1] In a special section, section 4, I’ll pay attention to the problem of reasons for religious belief. I want to argue neither for nor against any religious truth. In the present Postscript I focus attention on Christianity, even though in principle it concerns religions generally. Insiders and outsiders have to be distinguished as well as the object level compared to the metalevel. Outsiders will say that the people involved hold the higher, divine world to be real, that according to the insiders the higher world exists, or that the divine world is real for them. With respect to religious, including biblical texts, both in- and outsiders will distinguish different literary genres so that what is true in a text of one literary genre need not be true in texts of another. We may recall here overly literal interpretations of poetic passages of the Bible. Religious people say that they know their religious ideas are true. How do believers know that doctrines of their religion are true and which reasons do they have for accepting what their religious community holds to be true? Some of these reasons, which may indeed be termed ‘routes of access’ to a higher world, will be specified here below. The appropriate ways of access and the fundamental rules may appear at the metalevel. In religions there are not only religious doctrines, but also practices, traditions or more generally, religious ways of life, which include moral rules, principles and ideals of virtue. Therefore, reasons for participating in a religious community do not only concern religious doctrines. Please note, that when believers, that is, insiders deal with reasons for accepting religious belief, they deal with a question at the metalevel. Thus we see that the distinction between the point of view of insiders and the point of view of outsiders is not the same as the distinction between considerations at the object level and at the metalevel.

            Religious constructivism (= RC) and nonconstructivism, which regard ways of access to religion in past and present, are philosophical rather than empirical theories. Issues these philosophical theories are about, for example, are analysing the internal point of view of religions, differences between kinds of discourse, and relationships between religious truth and religious extrapolation. These theories will inquire into philosophical implications of certain empirical explanations of religion rather than trying to propose adequate empirical explanations.[2]

 

2. Religious nonconstructivism

 

We need a theory constrasting with RC which while performing philosophical inquiries, looks for empirical explanations of religion. In the present essay we study nonconstructivism insofar as it looks empirically for routes of access to a higher world. RC and nonconstructivism propose and analyse possible explanations of religion such as religious construction in the case of RC. Whereas RC and nonconstructivism do not reject claims to absolute religious truth, both theories present claims to truth of religious propositions in the same way as historians present religious propositions. Historians leave it an open question whether or not the propositions at issue are true. Nonconstructivist routes of access to a higher, divine world are those routes which in principle are recognized by religions as leading to the higher world concerned, although there may be religions in which it is recognized that their divine world has been designed and made by human beings. I consider nonconstructivist routes of access here as an outsider. Nonconstructivist routes to religion or to a higher world, for instance, are religious experience, visions, the argument of signs in the universe and metaphysical argument, interpreting empirical states of affairs as religious states of affairs, religious reflection, including reflection on religious doctrines, trustworthy testimony, and trustworthy tradition.

            First, one of the ways of access to religion is religious experience. In the case of religious experiences of a higher world insiders will say they see or perceive a divine reality. They will refer, for instance, to religious visions of immaterial things, persons or events. What is found or seen in visions, is relative reality in the perspective of religious visions. What is involved in visions may be a creator of the world who is its first, absolute cause. Visions may also concern resurrection of the dead or the resurrection of Jesus. As Johannes Lindblom writes: ‘“Visions” is understood in general as visual appearances of shapes, things or events, respectively perceptions of voices and sounds, which are not real in a sensory-objective sense, but which according to the view of the seeing and hearing persons stem from a different, invisible world’. Visions have an ecstatic character.[3] We may ask, having no well-documented answer: Was Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus a vision in Lindblom’s sense? (see Acts 9:1-19, 22:6-11 and 26:12-18, KJV). People having visions will say that they confront religious states of affairs, persons or events, for example, that they see a divine world. If people have visions of a higher world, that world is real in the perspective of the visions at issue and statements about that world are true for the insiders. After their visions they will continue to speak of that higher world as real. Religious nonconstructivism holds, that in the case of religious visions religious propositions are relatively true, that is to say, true in the perspective of visions.

            Second, I mention two texts relating to the argument of signs in the universe which point to a divine reality, namely, Psalm 19, KJV with Joseph Haydn, Die Schöpfung, I: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork’, and Quran, sura 10:6: ‘Indeed, in the alternation of the night and the day and [in] what Allah has created in the heavens and the earth are signs for a people who fear Allah’. In order to have a useful example, let us suppose that discovering signs in the universe, in prehistoric times a patriarch originated a religion. On the basis of these signs he thought he knew a higher, divine world existed. He appealed to the argument of signs in the universe as a valid argument and asserted, on the basis of the argument, that there is a divine world. Perhaps he recognized the existence of immortal souls as well. He believed and transmitted his beliefs to his people. More or less technically arguing for the existence of a unique divine being is fairly similar to the argument of signs in the universe. A well-known example of metaphysical argument is to appeal to a design which is discovered in the universe and points to a divine being that conceived the design. The argument of signs in the universe does not depend on the availability of valid metaphysical argument. The religious propositions concerned are ‘true in the light of signs in the universe’.  

          Third, interpreting empirical states of affairs as religious states of affairs. The almost infinite dimensions of space and time of the universe can easily be interpreted in religious terms. Fourth, we can point to religious reflection as a way of access. In order to make this more specific, mentioning the predicament of Jesus’ disciples after his death is helpful. Apart from Jesus’ apparitions, in the disappointed reflections of the disciples the idea of Jesus’ resurrection was something that evidently could contribute to putting an end to their despair. Thinking about what had happened, they realised that God could not have allowed Jesus’ mission to end in failure. And later, complicated theological reflection led to the doctrine of the Trinity. Fifth, reasons are to be found in what the doctrines of Christianity are about, for instance, the gift of the divine law, salvation to all people and revelation of divine truth. And sixth, stories about events of Jesus’ life are supported as real by trustworthy testimony and trustworthy tradition. However, trustworthy testimony in religious discourse is not the same as historical evidence in science of history. At the metalevel the routes of access will be mentioned by insiders as well as outsiders. Insiders will say: ‘We experience or see the relevant things, persons or states of affairs or know these realities on the basis of argument or trustworthy testimony’. Outsiders will say that insiders claim to have such knowledge on the basis just-mentioned.

          This enumeration of nonconstructivist reasons or ways of access can easily be complemented.[4] Given these reasons to believe in a higher world the religious propositions involved are ‘true in religious discourse’ and similarly the divine world is a reality. When Hindus think of the Christian doctrines and see Christians kneeling and praying, they hear they pray to ‘our father’. In the doctrines, moving situations are involved of birth, hope, love, despair, death. In the same way as Christians after their prayer go home and know their children are waiting for them, they feel, faced with an uncertain future, that their Father is there and cares for them. I want to stress that often it will not be easy or even possible to bring out the ways of access at issue to a higher world. Then outsiders will at least describe the religious doctrines of the believers. Moreover, for outsiders the question of whether a higher world involved is real, does not belong to their field of research either.

 

3. Religious constructivism

 

RC chiefly inquires into implications of the empirical hypothesis that the higher, divine world of Christianity has been created by religious extrapolation or construction. If we confront the question mentioned above of how believers know the doctrines of their religion are true, RC answers that believers themselves designed and made the higher world. In this sense Friedrich Nietzsche speaks about the Jewish people, ‘welchem allein die Schöpfung eines heiligen Gottes… gelungen ist’ [‘which alone succeeded in creating a holy God…’].[5] A higher, divine world can be designed and made in several ways, one of these ways being religious extrapolation. A useful characterisation of religious construction is, that it includes all empirical kinds of designing and making a higher world. Religious construction thus includes making the idea of a divine creation. RC also holds, that propositions about miraculous events have a truth-value in the perspective of religious constructions and from that perspective, are true.

            Religious extrapolation, which although it is an empirical, social phenomenon, cannot easily be identified as a matter of historical or social research, is quite different from ways of access to a divine world like ‘proving’ such a world exists. If some believers claim to be able to ‘prove’ the existence of a higher world and thus are going beyond the bounds of the empirical world, it may be objected that a higher world can be accounted for in another way. Such a world can be designed and made by means of religious extrapolation or construction. RC stays within the bounds of sense and goes beyond these bounds neither for asserting nor for denying a divine world exists.[6] Similar remarks apply in the case of any empirical explanations of religion. Whether for Christianity it is acceptable to say that the higher, divine world has been created by some kind of religious construction, is established in accordance with its own rules. Christian believers will probably reject this idea, meaning that the higher world reached by religious construction is not the same as the higher world reached by routes of access like, for instance, trustworthy testimony, trustworthy tradition or perhaps valid metaphysical argument. Some believers will, in their opinion reasonably, doubt on the basis of RC that the higher, divine world has not been created by religious construction or even accept that it actually has been created this way. In any case, if people extrapolate to a higher world, they can speak of that world as insiders.

          RC in offering an empirical explanation of religion does not change the religion it explains. It leaves unchanged the message and structures of authority in the religious communities as well as their religious practices. According to RC the conclusions of metaphysical arguments for the existence of a higher world as well as claims as to ‘finding’ a higher world are an explanandum rather than an explanans. The patriarch proceeded to the idea that a unique divine being exists. RC will try to explain in terms of religious extrapolation or construction the religion he introduced. Nonconstructivism will try to show the explanans belongs to its theoretical means. For certain, having access to a higher, divine world not only is a matter of intellectual vision but also of affectivity. Think of what happens to people performing Messiah or Die Schöpfung. The same applies to religious extrapolating or designing and making a higher world.

            Discourse dependent on construction or extrapolation can be characterised as follows. If the function of extrapolation or construction as opposed to its content is at issue, and apart fom the motives for religious extrapolation, making by means of extrapolation is similar to writing a novel. ‘In the perspective of extrapolation’ is similar to ‘in the perspective of inventing’ as novelists do. People will say about events, intrigues and so on in a novel, that they happen ‘in the story’ rather than ‘in the perspective of inventing’. But stories are products of inventing and belong to the category of fiction. Stories, texts, messages, and doctrines are what primarily catches our attention rather than inventing or construction. According to RC, in a view dependent on religious extrapolation or construction believers confront states of affairs, persons and events of a higher, divine world. The believers live, think and speak relying on the religious message, which sheds light on their lives, their past and their future. Thus, insiders to construction or extrapolation will be justified when they say in the internal perspective that a divine world actually or absolutely exists, and they will correctly assert they know there is a divine world. Insiders need not mention extrapolation or construction, since mentioning construction belongs to the metalevel of religious discourse. We have to stress the difference between the internal point of view of insiders and the point of view of outsiders. At the metalevel the routes of access will be mentioned by insiders as well as outsiders. Outsiders will point at religious extrapolation or construction as the basis of the religious contentions of the insiders, whereas the insiders will acknowledge such a basis of their religious contentions. Please note that now we understand that insiders speak of truth of religious propositions, while this discourse in terms of truth explains why believers will speak of revelation of religious truth and of supernatural realities.

            In the case of religious discourse as well as in the case of poetry we have both relative truth and relative reality. When immortal souls are the issue, we need not speak of religion, unless one takes religion in a broad sense, so that by definition immortality and a future life belong to religious discourse. A point of difference between nonconstructivist and constructivist ways of access is that in the case of constructivist routes there is indeed construction. Moreover, as opposed to constructivist ways of access, nonconstructivist ways reach a higher world, at least according to what is claimed by insiders to the kind of discourse involved. To say: ‘We see’, ‘we experience’ and ‘we prove’ implies, that we reach the respective objects and that, therefore, these objects belong to reality. Seeing, experiencing and proving are success words.[7] However, although in visions insiders see religious persons, states of affairs and events rather than psychological images or psychological processes, as some old-fashioned psychology of perception would have it, historically and empirically we cannot see that nonconstructivist routes of access reach a higher world. We cannot establish historically, whether religion came into being by valid argument and/or by visions which found a higher world. For nonconstructivism the same applies to the present here and now. Empirically we cannot see whether people find a higher world by valid argument and/or by visions, which reach such a world. This is a philosophical or theological issue. Outsiders will recognize at least reality and truth ‘in the internal perspective of the insiders’. Nonconstructivism points to argument and/or religious experiences or visions as ways of access to a higher world, where insiders claim to actually reach such a world. If, philosophically that claim is unjustified, nonconstructivist routes of access are a matter of extrapolation or religious construction after all, at least as far as argument and religious visions are concerned. Then a higher world is designed and made, rather than found. But why would people extrapolate to a higher, divine world in the first place? This question takes us back to what happened in early history of mankind and is covered by thick, dark clouds of our ignorance. So many situations and events possibly caused and even now cause people to believe in something more than what they could and can discover around them and in their history. Anyway, for accepting religious extrapolation and construction justification is needed in order to avoid arbitrariness.

 

4. The internal point of view and reasons for religious belief

 

When religious discourse as a distinct category is concerned, it is indeed useful to pay attention to this issue in relation to reasons for and ways of access to religious belief. Ideally speaking, routes of access to the Christian religion are either finding, or designing and making a divine world. Ideally, finding, seeing, perceiving, or detecting a higher world is opposed to making such a world. In the case of ‘finding’, a higher world is already there to be found. Saying in a strict sense that people ‘find’ a higher world, implies that what they find exists, ‘finding’ being a success word. Apart from making and finding there is logical deduction from propositions. This may be strictly logical deduction or some less strictly logical form of arguing. In this connection we can point to metaphysical arguments for the existence of a unique divine being, which I mentioned above when speaking of nonconstructivism. Claiming to have found a higher world by metaphysical argument is a case of going beyond the bounds of the empirical world. We proceed to a designer, maker or creator. Thus, we might consider nonconstructivism to be a theological theory in that it uses ways of access which do not remain within these bounds. The empirical world is quite different from an higher world and, therefore, proceeding from one to another has to be justified. Whether valid arguments for the existence of immaterial entities belong to the critical thinking of any human being, is philosophically controversial.

          Nonconstructivist arguments, even if valid, will reasonably be thought to differ from proof in a strict sense, contrasting nonetheless with religious construction. Even if strictly speaking there is no proof for religious doctrines, accepting a religious message need not be unreasonable, while it will not be a matter of ‘anything goes’ either with regard to motives for believing.[8] John Locke warns: ‘Every Conceit that throughly warms our Fancies must pass for an Inspiration, if there be nothing but the Strength of our Perswasions, whereby to judge of our Perswasions…’.[9] There are reasons for accepting a religious message such as signs in the universe and trustworthy testimony and trustworthy tradition. Nonconstructivist routes of access or reasons for accepting a religious message in a sense are similar to reasons justifying essential decisions we have to make in our lives. The routes of access often at the same time will be personal reasons to believe and matters not only of certainties but also of probabilities. Taking into account that ways of access to religion not always are arguments in a strict sense, these ways will appear to vary from strict argument to construction. Thus, successively we will have strict argument, less strict argument, argument with elements of construction, construction with elements of argument, and finally construction tout court. Insiders can take seriously any kind of route of access in order to have religious beliefs. Then, nonconstructivism and constructivism, developed with one another, can be successful theories of religion.

          If we have valid metaphysical arguments for the existence of immaterial entities, proceeding to a higher world is more like finding, whereas if we have no such arguments, proceeding to immaterial beings is more like designing and making. When we look at nonconstructivist ways of access other than metaphysical argument, arguments like that of signs in the universe are somewhat similar to religious extrapolation, since if we want to actually reach a higher world by means of these signs, we need something more than the argument of such signs. Then, religious extrapolation may fill the gap of our argumentation, so to speak. And there is a certain similarity between religious visions and religious extrapolations. ‘Interpreting’ empirical states of  affairs, which I mentioned above as a third possible route of access to religion, is slightly similar to religious construction. Calling divine the whole universe in the sense of pantheism is a kind of interpretation and is more than just finding religious reality. And trustworthy testimony and trustworthy tradition in a sense are localised between making and finding, precisely insofar as they are not historical evidence strictly speaking. In these cases of nonconstructivist routes of access to religion outsiders will speak of ‘religious truth and reality in an internal perspective’. I want to add that in religious extrapolation there are elements of nonconstructivist routes of access. When arguing for the existence of immortal souls is concerned, in the case of nonconstructivist argument and in the case of religious extrapolation the way of proceeding from the human mind to immortal souls is similar in a sense.

         It is useful to refer to the Roman Catholic Catechism, since it mentions ‘motives of credibility’ of the Christian message.

 

156 What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe "because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived". So "that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit." Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church's growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability "are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all"; they are "motives of credibility" (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is "by no means a blind impulse of the mind".[10]

 

In the present context I draw attention to the ‘external proofs’ of the revelation and to religious belief as in accordance with reason and as ‘by no means a blind impulse of the mind’. I have a few remarks. What is striking is the characterisation of ‘the chances of a miracle happening… [as] infinitesimally remote’ (Ehrman) and of some miracles as belonging to ‘the most certain signs of divine Revelation’. The external proofs are far from looking like scientific proof. Nonetheless, people may consider the motive to believe as something like scientific proof. Then they will anxiously inquire into the faith in which they have grown up and will be confronted with painful dilemmas of conscience. According to the catechism there are good reasons to believe, ‘adapted to the intelligence of all’. As I would like to say, this applies even to the faith of the charcoal burner, la foi du charbonnier, quite apart from scientific considerations. We find at this point reasonableness of religious beliefs, which are not subject to ‘blind impulse’, on the one hand, and are not justified by proof ‘in the light of our natural reason’, on the other.

          Generally speaking, reasons for accepting the Christian message are a matter internal to Christianity, that is, the questions of whether the routes of access to a higher world are reliable and whether accepting the Christian message is reasonable, are not questions mainly submitted to science or philosophy. Whether or not the truth of the Christian doctrines depends on the availability of sufficient philosophical or scientific evidence, is a matter of the fundamental rules of Christianity. This applies to the truth of doctrines about immaterial entities as well as to the truth of religious doctrines about the main miraculous events of Jesus’ life.

 

5. Is religious truth relative?

 

Religious discourse is a special kind of thinking and speaking. Not only are there different literary genres in the Bible, but religious texts can also be characterised as a distinct literary genre. Then we may apply to religious texts as a special category, what I said here above about literary genres, namely, that what is true in a text of one literary genre need not be true in texts of another. Reasons for ascribing a distinct character to religious discourse are that the objects of religious beliefs have their own character; that religious discourse follows its own fundamental rules and has its own routes of access, and that empirical science and scientific history establish in accordance with their own criteria whether or not some event is to be recognised as a fact. Religious discourse is distinct from empirical, historical-critical and logical discourse, that is, discourse about logical relationships between propositions, and religious texts belong to a genre different from the genre of novels and similar literary categories.

            Religious discourse is characterised by its own ways of access and identified by its own fundamental rules, namely, introduction rules or ‘rules of recognition’. Introduction rules establish how propositions can be introduced into religious discourse, while rules of recognition determine how propositions can be recognised as belonging to that kind of discourse.[11] According to the fundamental rules of the Christian community or communities the following two declarative sentences are true:

(1) A unique divine being exists, and

(2) Jesus is alive [after his crucifixion].

Here ‘sentence’ is taken as a declarative sentence uttered to make a statement. I speak of ‘sentences’ instead of ‘propositions’, since I want to leave it an open question whether or not in certain cases the same declarative sentence expresses the same proposition in different kinds of discourse. Religious sentence (1) has no truth-value in empirical discourse, that is, it is neither true nor false in empirical discourse. Both sentences regard a supernatural reality. The realities concerned are realities in the creed and the propositions are true in the creed. They are relatively true. Religious people will assert these propositions, which are true in the own perspective of religious discourse. Religious propositions are true for the insiders involved, that is, believers hold the religious propositions concerned to be true. They will not say that the propositions are ‘true in the message’ as outsiders would say but: ‘These doctrines are true’ or ‘A unique divine being exists’. A special sentential operator is ‘RD’ for ‘religious discourse’, put at both sides of a religious sentence:

RD A unique divine being exists RD.

          Outsiders to religious discourse will not contend that religious convictions are false but will prefer thinking that these convictions belong to a special kind of thinking and speaking. If strong RC were acceptable, that is, if exclusively religious construction were the route of access to a higher world, relativity of religious truth would be absolutely clear. Evidently there is relativity of truth in the case of religious discourse in the perspective of religious extrapolation. For in that special case religious entities and events belong to a world created by extrapolation and sentences about them often have no truth-value in science or scientific history. But the present essay does not argue for strong RC. Now let us consider in turn relationships between empirical, metaphysical and historical-critical discourse, on the one hand, and religious discourse, on the other, in order to shed light on relativity of religious truth and the special character of that relativity.  

(1) When empirical discourse is concerned, for Jesus’ disciples his death and resurrection were not a matter of history and of the past but of their own world and their own life ‘here and now’. Certain religious doctrines affirm the central miracles of Jesus’ life. This is not to say, that sentences about these miracles are true in critical-empirical discourse, or that these events themselves belong to the established facts of empirical science. The reason for this is that two different kinds of discourse are involved.

(2) When metaphysical discourse is at issue, truth of doctrines about a higher, divine world is established in accordance with the fundamental rules of religious discourse. If something is a real, immaterial entity according to religious doctrines, reasons for accepting its existence, including the argument of signs in the universe, are a matter of the religion involved. From the fact that doctrines about immaterial entities are true in religious discourse, it does not follow that sentences about these entities are true for any critically thinking human being, or that the entities themselves belong to the established realities of critical thinking. But for Christians God is a reality and adoration and prayer are natural practices for them.

(3) When history is the issue, the main miraculous events of Jesus’ course of life, of which we find descriptions in biblical texts, are fundamental events in the Christian message. According to this message the miracles happened in real space, in Palestine, and in real time, in the first century and they happened to people of flesh and blood. Thus, for believers the miracles are empirically and historically localised events. The concept of historical text is ambiguous between text about the past and text of historical-critical science. A religious text about a miraculous event in the first century is historical in the former but perhaps not in the latter sense. Moreover, if some event of the past is real according to religious discourse, reasons for accepting it as real are a matter of the religion concerned. Now, by definition the central miracles of Jesus’ life are historically improbable. Bart Ehrman writes: ‘Since historians can only establish what probably happened in the past, and the chances of a miracle happening, by definition, are infinitesimally remote, historians can never demonstrate that a miracle probably happened’.[12] Establishing or denying the reality of miracles is outside the scope of this essay. Religious discourse is a special kind of discourse and texts about the events just-mentioned belong to religious texts as a distinct literary genre. From the fact that doctrines about the central miraculous events of Jesus’ life are true in religious discourse, it does not follow that sentences about these events are true in historical-critical discourse, or that the events themselves belong to the established facts of historical-critical science. One objection is that in miracles the rules of the empirical world are rendered inoperative, while an answer to this objection is, that nevertheless historians have to establish facts applying the rules of their profession. Historians, including Christians speaking as historians, will neither affirm nor deny the miraculous events given exclusively the internal truth of religious doctrines, even though if they are believers, they may hold the events to have actually happened in the past.

          The doctrines of Christian communities, which are true according to their fundamental rules, are ‘true in the message’, ‘true in the creed’ and ‘true in religious discourse’ rather than in accordance with criteria of philosophy or science. In other terms, the doctrines are relatively true. The persons, things, events and states of affairs involved are realities in the religious message. Let us proceed, first, from religious discourse to other kinds of discourse. From the fact that the doctrines of Christian communities are true in religious discourse, it does not follow that they are true in scientific, empirical discourse, in historical-critical or in philosophical discourse. This does not follow, irrespective of whether or not there are valid metaphysical arguments for the existence of immaterial entities and irrespective of whether the route of access to religion is finding or designing and making. Empirical science, historical-critical inquiry into events and states of affairs of the past as well as philosophical discourse have their own criteria of acceptability. They have their own introduction rules. Second, we proceed from other kinds of discourse to religious discourse. Even if metaphysical entities cannot philosophically be shown to exist, and even if the historicity of the central miracles of Jesus’ life cannot convincingly be argued for by historians, religious doctrines are true for the insiders. And even if there are valid metaphysical arguments for the existence of immaterial entities, truth of religious discourse does not depend on the validity of metaphysical argument. Religious discourse has its own routes of access and its own fundamental rules.

            The question of whether what is seen in religious visions is objective reality, can be put differently. Assuming that the object of some religious vision is a unique divine being, and also assuming that there is valid metaphysical argument for the existence of such a being, is that being then the same as what is found by metaphysical argument? Then, deciding the issue of whether what is seen in religious visions is objective reality, or taking a decision in the controversy about validity of metaphysical arguments, including arguments about immortal souls, or again reporting results of historical-critical inquiries into the main miracles of Jesus’ life is outside the purpose of this essay.[13] There may be and may have been miraculous events, and there may be metaphysical entities, immortal souls, for instance. And contending that religious truth is relative, does not imply holding that construction exclusively is the route of access to a divine world. Instead of trying to answer the threefold question about whether we reach a higher world by religious visions, about validity of metaphysical argument and about the historicity of miraculous events, I asked the question about relativity of religious truth. If religious discourse is independent of answers to the threefold question just-mentioned, the question of relativity of religious truth appears to be aptly put forward, together with the issue of less strict argument for endorsing religious doctrines. This issue can usefully be presented as supporting the idea of religious truth being relative. It might seem that nonconstructivism applies to finding a higher world, whereas constructivism applies to making such a world, and that if that world is found, truth in discourse about it is not relative. However, I argued that this idea is inadequate.

          Relativity of truth in a religion shows itself in that the religion independently decides at least on truth of religious propositions, on the answer to the question of whether religious, ecstatic visions reach a higher, divine world, and on the acceptability of the argument of signs in the universe, of metaphysical arguments as decisive reasons for agreeing to the religious message, on the acceptability of trustworthy testimony and trustworthy tradition, and on the acceptability of miraculous events like Jesus’ resurrection.

 

6. Conclusion

 

My conclusion, given all this, is that religious truth in several respects appears to be relative. I also conclude that religious discourse is a unique kind of discourse. Both the ways of access to religion and the points of doctrine of religion appear to be quite unique.

            The fundamental doctrines of Christianity cannot easily be changed, even though believers may try to extrapolate to new doctrines. When generations after generations of believers have gone by, the message will look quite different from what it was long ago. It will prove to be a crystalisation of traditions, developments, experiences, emotions, practices, and slowly grown religious insights. But religious people mainly believe in what is presented to them in their communities. They are not looking for symbolic meanings of religious doctrines and realities, that is, for symbols of life and death, tragedy, love, hope, justice or happiness.

            Religion is what it says it is.

 

[1] A general reference for the present postscript is the last essay of Goossens (2020), namely, Goossens (2020a).

[2] For an empirical explanation of religion see Boyer (2002).  

[3] Lindblom (1968), p. 32, text. cit. ibid. (my translation).

[4] See, for instance, Catechism of the Catholic Church, second edition, # 156, Google Chrome in ‘Motiva credibilitatis Catechism’, consulted 14-10-2021; and see text quoted in section 3 here below; for a different viewpoint, see Herman Bavinck, Gereformeerde dogmatiek, vol. 1, fourth printing (Kampen, NL: Kok, 1928), par. 16 and 21; English translation: Bavinck (2003); cf. Locke (1979), Book IV, Ch. XIX Of Enthusiasm, pp. 697-706.

[5] Friedrich Nietzsche, Morgenröthe [The Dawn of Day], book 1, section 68, Nietzsche (1980), p. 65.

[6] Cf. Strawson (1976).

[7] Success word: `A word whose application entails the truth of an embedded clause, or the achievement of some result. I remember, know, realize, perceive that p all imply the truth of p. Many words describing our knowledge of things presuppose success or achievement. We can only know what is true, remember what happened, or perceive what is there. Other words have to be found for illusions of knowing, remembering, or perceiving, suggesting that success is a kind of default state'  (philosophy.enacademic.com/success word, consulted 11-03-2021; cf. G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind, chapter 5; Frans van Zetten’s reference to Ryle).  

[8] For a general orientation, see Aubert (1950) and Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol.1. 

[9] Locke (1979), p. 704.

[10] See reference above. The catechism refers to the dogmatic constitution Dei Filius of the first Vatican Council.

[11] On rules of recognition, cf. Hart (1975), pp. 92-93.

[12] Ehrman (2004), pp. 228-229; italics in original text. 

[13] Cf. Insole (2006); for an early example of critical biblical inquiries, see Hermann Samuel Reimarus [1694-1768], Apologie (= Reimarus (1972)); and Hugh B. Nisbet, Lessing: Eine Biographie, translated by Karl S. Guthke (München: Verlag C.H. Beck, 2008), chapter XVIII, pp. 703-705; English edition: Nisbet (2013). 

 

On Relativity of Religious Truth [Summary]

 

Charles Goossens   ---   15-06-2023

 

In the Bible we find different literary genres and what is true in a text of one literary genre such as poetry, need not be true in texts of another such as biographical stories. These literary genres are mainly independent of one another. We may recall mistaken literal interpretations of poetic biblical passages. Not only are there different literary genres in the Bible, but religious texts can also be characterised as a distinct literary genre, different from other literary categories. Religious discourse is a special kind of thinking and speaking. And what is true in a religious text, need not be true in texts of a different category. I want to focus attention here on two examples, the existence of immortal souls and the miraculous event of Jesus’ resurrection. According to the Christian message Jesus is alive again after the crucifixion and the resurrection was an event in real space, in Palestine, and in real time, in the first century, while Jesus’ disciples were people of flesh and blood. But this is not to say that the resurrection belongs to the data of empirical and historical-critical research. Whether or not the message about Jesus’ resurrection belongs to the doctrines of Christianity, depends on the fundamental rules of Christianity, the Bible, the ecumenical councils etc., whereas truth of the propositions of empirical and historical reports depends on the own, strict rules of scientific research. The same applies to the doctrine about the existence of immortal souls. From this Christian doctrine it does not follow that according to a critical philosophy such immaterial beings also exist. Critical philosophy itself establishes whether in principle the existence of such entities can be known, and if it can be known, whether we can effectively show the truth of such metaphysical claims. Even if immortal souls cannot philosophically be shown to exist, and even if the historicity of the central miracles of Jesus’ life cannot convincingly be argued for by historians, the religious doctrines at issue are true for the insiders, that is, for believers. This is an aspect of the idea of relativity of religious truth.

          Religious people do not accept their truths arbitrarily. Accepting these truths need not be unreasonable or a matter of ‘anything goes’, where motives to believe are concerned. John Locke warns: ‘Every Conceit that throughly warms our Fancies must pass for an Inspiration, if there be nothing but the Strength of our Perswasions, whereby to judge of our Perswasions…’.[1] Religious people have certain ways of access to their religious message or in other terms, they have certain reasons for accepting this message. There are several possible routes of access. Ecstatic visions belong to these possibilities, while we may ask ourselves whether the religious experience of Paul on the way to Damascus was such a vision. Furthermore, Joseph Haydn, Die Schöpfung, I: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge’, and ‘Indeed, in the alternation of the night and the day and [in] what Allah has created in the heavens and the earth are signs for a people who fear Allah’ (Psalms 19:1-2, KJV and Quran, sura 10:6). A well-known attempt to argue for the existence of a unique divine being appeals to a design which is discovered in the universe and points to a divine being that conceived the design. For understandable reasons trustworthy testimony and trustworthy tradition are also mentioned as routes of access. A quite different possibility would be that people design and make rather than discover or find an immaterial world. For indeed we may find or discover a higher world and we may design and make such a world. In the latter case we might say like the Dutch poetess Hella Haasse: ‘… this heart which is burning within me / will never give up its sweet delusion / that something of myself will remain…’.[2] And then it certainly would be obvious why religious ideas cannot simply be accepted in critical philosophy and in scientific research, since immaterial entities and miraculous events would have been created by human beings. In religions there are not only religious doctrines, but also practices, songs, paintings, traditions or more generally, religious ways of life, which include moral rules, principles and ideals of virtue. Therefore, reasons for participating in a religious community do not only concern religious doctrines.

       It is fairly obvious that no strict proof is available for religious ideas. Otherwise religious ideas would be a matter of knowledge rather than belief. Proof in a strict sense is not needed when we want to take essential decisions in our lives. We rely on probabilities as well as on certainties. In philosophy it is controversial whether in principle we can know a higher world, and whether we can actually show such a world exists. Now, reasons for accepting as trustworthy the Christian message are not primarily a matter of science or philosophy. They are matters of Christianity itself and depend on its fundamental rules. Truth of religious discourse about immortal souls does not depend on valid philosophical argument. In any case, the Christian doctrines at least are true from an internal point of view of believers, apart from the question of whether exclusively internal or relative truth is at issue. I want to add, that in this short essay I am not trying to argue for or against the truth of a religious message.

       The fundamental doctrines of Christianity cannot easily be changed, even though believers may try to extrapolate to new doctrines. When generations after generations of believers have gone by, the message will look quite different from what it was long ago. It will prove to be a crystalisation of traditions, developments, experiences, emotions, practices, and slowly grown religious insights. But religious people mainly believe in what is presented to them in their communities. They are not looking for symbolic meanings of religious doctrines and realities, that is, for symbols of life and death, tragedy, love, hope, justice or happiness.

          Religion is what it says it is.

 

[1] John Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. by P.H. Nidditch, paperback ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), Book IV, Ch. XIX Of Enthusiasm, p. 704.

[2] Hella Haasse, ‘Ik hief mijn hand op tussen mij en ’t licht’, Microsoft Edge, “DBNL Hella Haasse Ik hief mijn hand” (consulted 02-02-2022), my translation.

                                                                                                ______      ______      ______

 

On internal truth of religious discourse (2020)

 

Charles Goossens 

 

In this essay I want to carry out a short inquiry in the context of religious projection. Religious projection is a kind of creating or making a higher, religious world. The central position in my essay will be, that if we extrapolate to a religious world, such a world exists in the perspective of the extrapolation and statements about that world are true in that perspective. What religious extrapolation or construction is will have to be worked out, but I will explicitly avoid the terminology of religious projection. Han Fortmann now approximately half a century ago criticized the idea of religious projection relying on phenomenological insights. In a way worthy of consideration he pointed out that religious experiences do not have psychological processes as their objects but rather ‘things themselves’. I want to emphasize that religious extrapolation too concerns religious states of affairs and events rather than psychological processes.[1] By extrapolation people create a religious world. This is practically the case by definition of ‘religious extrapolation’. I want to consider what a world in the internal perspective of or ‘under’ religious extrapolation is and what truth in that perspective is. The central position of the present essay may be called moderate religious constructivism.[2] Strong religious constructivism would contend that some, most or all religious propositions of the main world religions are true exclusively in the perspective of religious extrapolation. As a matter of method I will neither assert nor deny this kind of strong constructivism. Not many publications exist about religious extrapolation but in relation to it much has been said about religious projection.[3]

 

1. Religion

A religion is about a world of things, persons, states of affairs, and events. I will call it a ‘religious world’. Just take the story of the Creation ‘In the beginning’. God speaks his words of creation and the world comes into existence. A prophet speaks about threatening punishment, while for him any doubt about it is excluded. The core of religion is that people are a vulnerable, defective, small element in the immense universe. We are part of a long time and a large expanse of space. But every human individual is a thinking reed (Blaise Pascal) and valuable. That religious core has been worked out in the varying states of affairs and events to be found in world religions. This results in richly variegated religious worlds. Religious people will pronounce on their religious world and will say their statements are true. If they sincerely accept the creed, they will have found religious truth. In a context of religion believing means firmly living in the religious world and remaining committed to the ‘facts’ and events of the creed. Showing sincere conviction people in each of the great religions will assert the truths of their religion: ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD’ (Deuteronomy 6, KJV), ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’ (Handel’s Messiah; Job 19, KJV) or ‘It is You we worship and You we ask for help’ (Quran, sura 1). We find the great events of history in the holy books of the world religions. Creation, paradise, Moses’ encounter in the burning bush, reception of the law, the missions of the prophets, expectation of the Messiah, redemption, the resurrection of the Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgement, paradise again, and so many more events.

      Let us think of a community in the Mexican countryside having traditional religious ideas and practices. We arrive dusty at their baroque church. We enter into the semilit space and smell the scent of candles and incense. The Padre is giving a fiery, flaming sermon on heaven and hell. From the songs to the Madre de Dios the worshippers draw comfort and hope. The 12 Articles of the Creed have more or less found their way into heads and hearts of the worshippers, that with devotion celebrate the age-old rituals of a moving and frightening universe of power. Generally speaking religious people do not easily realize that other, different religious worlds exist. To many insiders the idea of a religious world belonging to them compared to a world of religious outsiders will be incomprehensible. Their religious world for them is the religious world. Within their own views religious people often will not feel any need to put forward justifications for their religious beliefs and will hardly know anything about their way of access to the religious world. They do not concentrate on questions about that access nor on any reasons to choose it. In our chilly analysis, for the universal religious community a religious universe exists thanks, for instance, to religious experience.

 

2. Religious extrapolation as access to religion

Religious extrapolation provides us with access to a religious world. In extrapolating to a religious world people confront the religious states of affairs and events involved. What they will say when expressing religious extrapolation is: ‘A unique divine world exists’ rather than: ‘We extrapolate to a divine world’. Somewhat similar is the difference between: ‘This is lovely’ compared to: ‘I love it’. People involved will talk about the objects of their extrapolations rather than about extrapolations themselves and will say that those objects exist. Precisely this point has a central position in my argument, since what people while extrapolating are confronted with, is a religious world fairly similar to the religious worlds of the main religions. In their religious world paradoxically no religious extrapolation has a place. Believers will hold that a certain religious message is true absolutely and tout court: ‘And the dead in Christ shall rise first’ (1 Thessalonians 4, KJV). But a religious statement which is true in the perspective of extrapolation is true tout court too, since the extrapolation appears only at the metalevel. This is a reason why religious extrapolation can play a part as an explanation of religious discourse, although I will not take it to be the explanation. I will not support strong religious constructivism. At the metalevel of religious statements the difference will be obvious. Christian believers will mention revelation or trustworthy tradition, for instance, instead of religious extrapolation.

      If we want to shed light on religious extrapolation, we may use steps within rational arguments for the existence of a unique divine being as helpful. As is well-known, many old as well as new studies about such arguments exist. We can better not speak of ‘proofs for the existence of God’ in the present context. ‘Ways of access’ is a better expression to use. What is involved in religious extrapolation is a step from causal relationships between events to the maker as their last, absolute cause, from possibilities in a contingent world to a necessarily existing being, from limited, finite things to unrestricted, infinite existence, from means-to-ends relationships in the world to a person that devised the universal design. If the world always has been there, its cause is the person that supports the world. The person who created or supports the world is an individual being having a proper name. Mercy, love and feelings of hatred against evil as well as feelings of guilt belong to the world starting from which in extrapolation a way is found to the religious, infinite world. Proceeding from imperfect to perfect things appears to be a Platonistic or Neo-Platonistic step. The higher, perfect, absolute and infinite world either is a world dependent on metaphysical extrapolation or independent of extrapolation. Strong constructivism is intent on denying the existence exactly of such a world independent of extrapolation and in this regard it is Anti-Platonistic. Moderate constructivism is neither Anti-Platonistic nor Platonistic. It is about a higher world in the perspective of extrapolation. Extrapolation may also proceed from human laws to a divine law, from death to the resurrection of the dead, from the death of Jesus to his resurrection, from guilt to salvation to all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, from ignorance and lack of knowledge to revelation of divine truth.

      Thus, religious extrapolation starts from elements of our observable environment in order to proceed to a higher, religious world. Conversely, if we look at religion as it presents itself in many cultures and in a history of many centuries, outsiders to religion will ask whether religion includes messages about our human condition. They will say: ‘If religion does not include messages about our condition, that is, if it is only about a divine world, what is the use of religion at all?’ What religion has to say about suffering and death in mankind, is one answer to the questions of such outsiders. That religious messages indeed have much to say about our human condition as well as about a divine world, is fairly obvious. I will quote only a few lines. ‘… for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted’ (Isaiah 49, KJV). ‘So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy’ (Romans 9, KJV). ‘In the name of Allah, the infinitely Compassionate and Merciful’ (Quran, sura 1).

      A world of a novel or play largely differs from a world in the perspective of religious extrapolation. The world of a novel often will have been conceived on the basis of the author’s experiences. Often too it will be a projected kind of observable world full of recognizable persons, relationships, and possibly tragic developments. A religious world is not recognizable in that sense and is above or beyond the domain of empirical experience. Different religious worlds exist and religious people living in one religious world usually will remain strangers to the worlds of other religious communities. From the sad fact that we so often see religious people fighting one another by fire and sword, it may be gathered that for religious insiders religious worlds are a deeply felt reality. Religious extrapolation need not be something happening once and in isolation. It may be a complicated process during long developments in a community of religious people guided by religious leaders and within traditions of religious ideas and practices. If the origins of Chistianity are seen in this light, religious extrapolation has to be taken in a broad sense of the term extrapolation. I mean that religious extrapolation is an instrument in trying to explore, what happened when that religion came into being, a process of experiences, visions, emotions, and tentative expressions of deeply felt new insights. Theologians and preachers will explain that divine revelation was given to mankind, whereas many philosophers will consider revelation as part of the religious message which the latter will try to understand.

      Insiders to religious extrapolation may try to justify extrapolation by pointing out the reasons why they engage or in the past engaged in extrapolation as a way of access to religion. In cases like this, reasons for believing or not believing concern extrapolation rather than directly religious states of affairs or events themselves, because according to moderate constructivism the latter are created by extrapolation. But religious states of affairs and events or religious doctrines and practices provide us with motives to take seriously religion as it is created by religious extrapolation. For religious doctrines and practices concern not only messages about a divine world but about our human condition as well. Thus the object of religious extrapolation gives us motives for accepting extrapolation. These considerations explicitly belong to moderate rather than strong religious constructivism.

 

3. Religious experience as access

 Religious experience is another way of access to religious discourse compared to religious extrapolation. I want to consider this kind of access since it may shed light on ‘truth in the perspective of religious extrapolation’. On religious experience, including the concept of religious experience, many publications exist.[4] If we consider ‘finding something’ as opposed to ‘making something’, experience will often be on the side of finding or establishing facts. Extrapolation is on the side of making. Moreover, insiders and outsiders have to be distinguished as well as the object level compared to the metalevel. Religious people as insiders to religious experience will say: ‘We see an almighty, loving Father exists,’ or: ‘An almighty Father exists’. Take the pericope of Acts on the stoning of the martyr Stephen: ‘… he… looked up stedfastly into heaven,… and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God’. An outsider too, Flavius Josephus for instance could have written this about Stephen. But in the same pericope the author of Acts says: ‘… he… saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God…’. Exegetical finesses apart, Flavius Josephus just as an outsider would probably not have written this. Here a Christian, therefore an insider writes that Stephen saw the glory of God (Acts 7, KJV). In cases like this the religious experiences themselves belong to religious discourse in the same way as the experienced religious states of affairs and events belong to it.

      If what we have to say at the metalevel is concerned, it is to be recommended not to characterize religious experience as a kind of perception of a divine world. For if we use the expression ‘perceiving’, we imply the object being perceived actually exists or is over there.[5] If religious experience is conceived of as seeing, finding or establishing, the same applies as in the case of experience taken as perceiving. We can even speak of religious ‘intuition’ by analogy with moral intuition. When at the metalevel we use ‘experience’ in the sense of seeing a divine world, we imply that the object of experience actually exists, that is in the present case, that a divine world indeed exists. On the one hand, religious experience is not about psychological processes but about religious states of affairs and events. On the other hand, in scientific or philosophical studies we methodologically rather refrain from asserting religious propositions proper. So if we mark out religious experiences at the metalevel, we are well-advised not to imply the existence of a divine world. At the metalevel we will use ‘religious experience’ as outsiders do, without claiming the experienced religious world at issue exists. If we speak as outsiders about that world, we will speak about it as found in religious stories, testimonies or messages. We have to put ourselves at a certain distance, namely by saying certain religious people state that they experience divine reality or in other words, by saying that they claim they see a divine world. Outsiders will mention or quote religious statements of religious people or a religious community.

      Religious discourse can be marked out among other things by using quotation marks, indirect speech or by putting words in brackets along with characterizations outside the brackets, that is, at the metalevel. When people have an experience of a higher, religious world or in other terms, when they experience that a higher world exists, they will say correctly as insiders, that this higher world exists, while at the metalevel religious experience will be mentioned. Religious experiences may be marked out at the metalevel as perceiving, seeing, or finding a divine world. In these cases those speaking at the metalevel must themselves be insiders to religious discourse. But those speaking at the metalevel need not be participants in religious discourse. Outsiders will say that the people involved tell us they experience, see, or have an intuition of a divine world or of elements of it.

 

4. Internal experience

Apart from meaning ‘seeing’ or ‘perceiving’ the expression experience can be taken as meaning ‘having an internal experience’. Excitement in composing or creating a piece of music, for instance, is a kind of internal experience. Thus we can take ‘religious experience’ to mean ‘internal religious experience’. We can usefully clarify what internal religious experiences are about, for example in the case of Paul Claudel. The story of his conversion is a striking story about a religious experience. Claudel describes what was happening to him in his experience of conversion and he mentions some elements of that experience: ‘How happy are people that believe! If it were true, though? It is true! God exists, He is present. It is someone, it is a being as personal as I am! He loves me, He is calling me’.[6] Perhaps in an affective experience he became deeply convinced that given the limitless universe a Creator had to be accepted, a Creator that made the world and conceived its design. Or perhaps what at the moment of his religious conversion emotionally struck him, was the age-old tradition of the Church, in which the truths of the Christian faith were passed on. This is a natural, recognizable way of access to religion indeed. Outsiders that remain onlookers, however, need not adopt the new convictions of the converts.

      An ‘internal religious experience’ may follow the steps of arguments for the existence of a unique divine being. Remember the step from the empirically given world to the creator as its cause. This need not be one of the steps in a technical argument but may be an element of religious extrapolation. Thus we find an ‘internal religious experience’ which carries with it religious extrapolation. Moreover, certain religious experiences may be creative, that is, they may create a higher, divine world. Then they are similar to religious extrapolations. In such cases the insiders to the experiences will say the religious world exists, while truth of their statements will depend on the creative experiences and will be internal truth just as truth under religious extrapolation. Furthermore, a religious experience may be an ‘internal experience’ having as object a religious extrapolation. In these three cases experience and extrapolation largely coincide as ways of access to religion.

 

5. Unasserted propositions

Light can be shed on the idea of an internal religious perspective by considering that propositions true in the perspective of religious extrapolation are correctly taken to be unasserted propositions, unless insiders to religious extrapolation are concerned. In other words, religious statements involved are similar to statements in quotation marks. The concept of unasserted proposition may be explained by bringing out that when we quote statements, we do not assert the propositions in question. We do not claim they are true but literally take the statements at issue to be in quotation marks. Using the word God provides us with an example of unasserted propositions. Theology, terminologically or semantically speaking, is problematic as a department at contemporary universities. For when we use the word God this way, we imply that a divine person having that name indeed exists. This differs from the case in which outsiders mention discourse about God or quote from the Bible or the Quran. ‘Adonai’, ‘God’ or ‘Allah’ are  proper names.[7] If we speak about Thomas Hobbes or Thomas Cromwell we imply we somewhere could meet a person called by that name. So as an issue of scientific and philosophical method we would rather speak about ‘God’ using only unasserted propositions.

      We have a similar case of unasserted propositions when value judgements are at issue. If Pablo Picasso, let us suppose, at a certain moment calls the situation at Madrid horrendous, as outsiders exclusively on the basis of his value judgement we are not allowed to say the situation is horrendous. Here quotation marks are in order and comments such as: ‘Picasso thinks it horrendous’. This way we deal with the awful character of the situation as with a feature as far as his feelings go. In The Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus, who was a religious Jew though not a Christian, an interesting passage is the Testimonium Flavianum, in which Jesus of Nazareth is mentioned. A Christian interpolation in the text reads: ‘This one was the Christ’, written in direct speech. Another Christian interpolation in the Testimonium says: ‘for he appeared to them on the third day, living again’. In the version of the Testimonium published in 1971 by Shlomo Pines the following is said about disciples of Jesus: ‘They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive’. So according to the second Christian interpolation in the Testimonium Flavius Josephus states that Jesus after his death appeared and was alive, whereas in Pines’ version Flavius Josephus writes in indirect speech about appearance and resurrection. An outsider would write that way indeed.[8]

      Miracles belong to religious discourse and to religious worlds. Following their methodology scientists or historians would rather talk about miracles in indirect speech and outsiders precisely as outsiders will do the same. Here a problem presents itself, however. For according to the Bible miracles are signs witnessing for the truth of the religious messages or in other terms, they are means by which people can proceed from the empirically observable world to a higher, religious world (on signs, Mark 16, for instance). So in that respect miracles appear to belong to our observable world. Otherwise people could not come across miracles as part of the observable world, they could not take that part as a starting point nor proceed from there to the higher world. Nevertheless, insofar as miracles appear in religious discourse, they will be put in quotation marks by outsiders. Outsiders will receive or read such stories in the way of unasserted propositions. Notice that ‘unasserted proposition’ is a technical philosophical expression and does not mean the same as ‘unconfirmed message’.[9]

      Historical or geographical statements can be used in indirect speech in obvious ways. Value judgements are a special kind of judgement as compared to historical statements. People often will want to avoid supporting value judgements of other people. They will quote them or signal them at the metalevel by pointing to attitudes or feelings of those involved or by saying that ‘they think that…’. Religious propositions are a special kind of proposition too. The bounds between a religious world and empirically observable states of affairs and events are rather vague and undetermined. Religious people have their own, specific ways of access to religious discourse, revelation, religious experience, religious tradition, or trustworthy testimony, for instance. Traditional arguments for the existence of a unique divine being may be added to these ways of access accepted by believers. Meditations on a design of the universe is an understandable example of such arguments. If religious extrapolation as a way of access to religion is concerned, extrapolation provides us with bounds between what is within the perspective of religious extrapolation and what is outside of it. The question of whether by rational argument we have access to a religious or metaphysical world, is philosophically controversial and religious mysteries such as the fall of man or redemption cannot be reached by rational argument at all. Scientists and often also philosophers as a matter of methodology would rather leave religious propositions unasserted. Generally, outsiders speaking of religious insiders will say the latter ‘are convinced that…’.

 

6. Truth under religious extrapolation

In the case of religious extrapolation religious propositions not only will remain unasserted as far as outsiders are concerned, but the propositions will also be marked out at the metalevel as propositions which are true in the perspective of construction or extrapolation. As a terminological or semantical point in this essay I am using the term religious ‘perspective’ exclusively when religious extrapolation is at issue. When other ways of access to religion are concerned, we may speak of religious convictions or use similar expressions. Religious extrapolation is aimed at situations in which those involved will think, speak and act as religious people, that is, as insiders to religious discourse. As insiders they will assert the religious propositions at issue and consider them to be literally true. For asserting the propositions and calling them literally true comes to the same thing. Confronted with one of the world religions both in- and outsiders may look for explanations and use religious extrapolation for that purpose.

      At this point of my argument some strong versions of religious constructivism assert that religious discourse of the main world religions is discourse exclusively in the perspective of religious extrapolation. They do not claim the doctrines of the world religions are false but rather that people cannot have access to these doctrines except by way of religious extrapolation. As opposed to this, moderate religious constructivism holds, that if scientists, historians and many philosophers contend, that religious propositions are created by something like extrapolation, then their contention does not imply believers mistakenly profess these religious propositions. For according to the moderate version of constructivism believers may have specific ways of access to a higher world. As to constructivism a similarity can be shown between religion and metaphysics, keeping in mind that several metaphysical propositions belong to both religion and metaphysics. In religious discourse we find metaphysical religious propositions as well as propositions on mysteries such as the fall of man or redemption. In the case of metaphysics moderate constructivism is similar to the moderate ideas on religious extrapolation I am defending in this essay. If we extrapolate to a metaphysical world, the propositions about such a world are true in the perspective of metaphysical extrapolation.[10] As regards metaphysics too, apart from moderate constructivism, some stronger versions of constructivism present themselves. They contend that some, most or all metaphysical propositions are true exclusively in the perspective of metaphysical extrapolation and that any metaphysical world is a world created by metaphysical extrapolation. So, according to them, metaphysical systems should be explained in terms of metaphysical extrapolation. These versions of constructivism about metaphysics are similar to strong religious constructivism. If strong constructivism about nonobservable worlds were acceptable, such worlds would be inaccessible except by means of religious or metaphysical extrapolation.

          Let us go back to religious discourse specifically. If some strong versions of religious constructivism were acceptable, the Jewish and Christian messages would have to be marked out at the metalevel as being discourse under religious extrapolation and the Jewish and Christian religious worlds would be worlds exclusively under religious extrapolation, that is, they would have been created by that kind of extrapolation. Strong versions of religious constructivism will explain the differences between the ‘truths’ of the main religions by assuming important differences in the religious extrapolations at issue. If strong versions of religious constructivism were acceptable, convictions as well as practices of religious people might stay unaffected. In a world religion some people, including some religious leaders, may keep to their religious practices and may sincerely appreciate religious life, even though they accept strong religious constructivism. Strictly speaking, religious extrapolation is a way of access to religion and insiders are not directly concerned with religious extrapolation. Religious people will have reasons for keeping to traditional doctrines and practices. Confronted with hardship, suffering and death they find in religion hope, faith and confidence and confronted with desolation and despair they are given by religion the opportunity to belong to a community here, now and in the future. Therefore, while accepting strong religious constructivism some religious people need not play a game of dissimulation in accordance with the maxim ‘Within as you wish, in public behave as is the custom’, in Latin ‘Intus ut libet, foris ut moris est’, a maxim attributed by Gabriel Naudé (1600-1653) to Cesare Cremonini (1550-1631).[11]

      Obviously some arguments support strong constructivism. The striking similarities which may be found between a religious world under extrapolation and the religious world seen by one of the main religions, present one such argument supporting strong forms of religious constructivism. Religious extrapolation itself does not appear in the religious discourse of insiders nor as far as they see, will the extrapolations be part of the worlds created by religious extrapolation. A religious world in the perspective of extrapolation may show many, varying religious things, persons, states of affairs and events and to the insiders such a world may look quite the same as any other religious world whatsoever. This is not to say that religious people belonging to one of the great religions, that are living and acting within their own religious discourse, will have sufficient reasons for thinking that their familiar religious world is a world exclusively in the perspective of religious extrapolation. Nor does it mean that all religious worlds are correctly considered to be worlds under religious extrapolation. In other terms, moderate religious constructivism does not imply strong religious constructivism.

      Moderate constructivism does not pretend to offer the explanation of the messages of the world religions, as strong religious constructivism would do, thus rejecting traditional ways of access to the higher world, ways accepted by believers. Nor do I pretend that religion originated in religious extrapolation or that moderate religious constructivism has been sufficiently tested empirically or historically. Religious extrapolation is one of possible explanations of religion. Just as the position of the Bible’s ‘fool’ the position of Anselm’s fool is: ‘There is no God’, period (the Bible’s fool: Psalms 14).[12] Then a choice has to be made between this position and accepting a religious world. Even a religious world under extrapolation is not acceptable as seen from the fool’s position. Therefore, why choose for religion in the perspective of religious extrapolation rather than for the position of Anselm’s fool? What is the use of religious extrapolation at all? The gift of the divine law, Jesus’ resurrection as victory over death, salvation to all people, the resurrection of the dead, revelation of divine truth may be reasons people have for engaging in religious extrapolation. These are objects of religious extrapolation and provide us with justifying reasons both for extrapolation and for belief in a religious world in the perspective of extrapolation.

      To conceive of truth as truth in the internal perspective of extrapolation is relativistic in certain respects insofar as here, so to speak, truth is put in quotation marks and is seen as relative, namely as truth under religious extrapolation. According to moderate constructivism several religious worlds under extrapolation are possible at a time. But this is not a matter of agnosticism. We have an issue of agnosticism if one is talking about a religious world and then asks whether or not that world exists. Agnosticism is involved if in that situation we say we do not or cannot know. Similarly, if as a matter of method we rather refrain from asserting religious propositions, in doing so we do not act as agnostics. Saying: ‘I want neither to confirm nor to deny this’ is not the same as saying we do not know.

      The attitude of scientists, historians and many philosophers confronted with religious truth and a religious world is a kind of epochè. As a methodological matter they would rather refrain from giving their opinion about the truth of religious propositions proper or about the acceptability of traditional ways of access to the higher, divine world, in other terms, about motives for accepting the faith of believers. They will neither support nor reject these ways of access but focus on nontheological theories of religion. As to the present case, I do not assert strong religious constructivism, that is, I refrain from asserting, that all religious worlds are worlds exclusively under religious extrapolation. Neither do I deny strong religious constructivism, by this I mean I refrain from asserting that some religious worlds are worlds independent of religious extrapolation. Similar remarks can be made about versions of strong religious constructivism mentioning ‘some, most or all religious worlds’. And similar remarks apply to strong metaphysical constructivism as well. No cowardice need be involved in this attitude of restraint. For among other considerations well-known methodological problems about the border between empirical and metaphysical discourse are reasons for epochè in my essay. These problems were discussed by Hume and Kant. As to the origins of Christianity the border should be heeded between, on the one hand, empirical, historical discourse with regard to the historical Jesus, for example, and on the other hand, religious discourse such as that regarding ‘the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory’ (Mark 13, KJV). Historians respecting the criteria of acceptable research in their discipline at the same time will be aware of their professional restrictions. Deciding on truth or falsity of religious propositions proper does not belong to their competence.

      Consider the contention, as applied to the origins of Christianity, that the new religious world was created by religious extrapolation. Apart from describing early Christian doctrines and practices, historians will try to understand how the new, Christian message came into being and will speak of a creative process which resulted in the message about the new religious world. Perhaps some of them will explain the entire new religious world as a world created by something like religious extrapolation. But in doing so, even the latter historians at the same time would rather reject strong religious constructivism as violating the demands of their professional methodological restraint. They will refrain from denying, that the new religious message was found by ways such as revelation or religious experience conceived of as perception or as intuition, that is, by ways of access which believers themselves accept. Suppose these historians contend that the resurrection of Jesus was created by extrapolation from his death to his resurrection. Then according to moderate constructivism the contention of these historians does not imply the believers were wrong in saying that ‘really’ Jesus after his death was alive again. The beliefs of the latter belong to religious discourse independent of extrapolation.[13]

          For certain, Christian believers will reject strong religious constructivism too. They will claim they have specific ways of access to the higher world, for instance, trustworthy testimony or trustworthy tradition or even something similar to philosophical argument for the existence of a unique divine being. At the metalevel of the Christian message the appropriate ways of access will appear. According to the believers the higher world has not been created by some kind of religious ‘construction’. Their religious discourse is not only identified by the fact that it is nonempirical but also by their specific ways of access to it. This is similar to the fact that discourse under religious extrapolation is identified by religious extrapolation as way of access. Christian believers will claim their religious beliefs are true. Outsiders will not contend that the religious propositions at issue are false but will prefer thinking that these propositions belong to a special kind of religious discourse, identified as one can say by specific ways of access.

          As I brought out in the present postscript, if we extrapolate to a religious

world, that world is real in the perspective of the extrapolation concerned.

In that respect religious extrapolation should be uncontroversial as way of

access to a religious world. In view of the considerations of this essay my

conclusion is, that moderate constructivism is a balanced, nontheological

theory of religion or scheme of such a theory which should be developed

further. It refrains from rejecting traditional ways of access to a higher,

religious world such as traditions. According to this theory,

as far as religious extrapolation is concerned, religious truth is relative and

internal truth, that is, truth in the perspective of religious extrapolation.

 

          In this essay I tried to shed light on religious constructivism, which

remains at the metalevel of religious discourse. In religious discourse itself

the way of access to the religious world need not be mentioned. Jesus

of Nazareth lived in the Jewish religious world. By his mission a new,

enriched religious universe took shape. The Christian message concerned

moving and dramatic facts and events, life and death, paradise and its loss,

guilt and expiation. Divine revelation played a part in this message just

as faith was part of it. The inspiring words of the message not only were

about a divine world but also about ordinary things, persons and events. By their faith the believers shared in the spiritual wealths of their Saviour.

 

[1]             Fortmann 1974.

[2]             Cf. Goossens 2000, pp. 41-58 (“Exploring a Theory of Metaphysical Ethics: Moderate Constructivism”).

[3]             On religious projection, see for instance the authors discussed by Fortmann 1974: Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, and others. On religious extrapolation and on the subject of the present paper generally, see Goossens 1990, pp. 47-75 (“On the Logic of Religious Experience”), 105-126 (“Morality as Fact: Exploring Relativity of Truth in Morality and Religion”) and 128-133 (‘Religious truth’).

[4] On William James and religious experience, see Boyer 2002, pp. 353-358.

[5] The study Han Fortmann wrote in the context of religious experience, has the subtitle: ‘A study in cultural psychology on religous perception and so-called religious projection’.

[6] Google: ‘La conversion de Paul Claudel, Dieu Maintenant’, consulted on 05-04-2020. Text. cit., Claudel 1973, p. 1010 (my translation).

[7] On the divine names in the Old Testament, see Barton and Bowden 2005, pp. 42-44.

[8] What I am saying here, is based on Meijer 2016 and Whealey 2008, text. cit. of Pines, p. 574.

[9] On miracles, cf. Ehrman 2004, pp. 227-229 (‘The historian and historical method’).

[10] See Goossens 2000, pp. 51-53 (‘Metaphysics’).

[11] See Forlivesi, p. 10; my translation of the maxim.

[12] For Anselm’s ‘fool’ and his ontological argument, see Anselm, Proslogion, 2.

[13] Compare what was said in section 5 above on miracles.

 

Truths about What is Invisible:

An Elucidation of the Essay ‘On Internal Truth of Religious Discourse’

 

Charles Goossens   ---   15-10-2020

 

‘Do they exist or do they not? That is the question’. The discussion is about whether immortal souls exist. The answer to this question is, that as believers people will say that indeed immortal souls exist. ‘But, an adolescent remarks in the classroom, perhaps people themselves invented these souls’. The understanding teacher replies: ‘Let us look then, how people make immortal souls’. The idea of making or devising higher things may be applied more broadly. That would be a question of devising or ‘constructing’ a religion.

    Just a few weeks ago in 2020 a book of mine was published on ‘Moderate Constructivism’, as the subtitle reads. It is a reprint of my book from 2000 supplemented by a new essay. This essay and the rest of the book were written for philosophers. The present elucidation of the essay is less technical. The paper is about religion. A higher, religious world may be devised and made by what I call religious extrapolation. Religious extrapolation may be explained by means of circles. Circles around us are not perfect circles. But we can devise perfect circles. Then from imperfect circles we extrapolate to perfect circles. Similarly from the visible world we may extrapolate to a higher world and from our finite lives to never-ending life.

   If people devise and make an immortal soul or a higher, religious world, they are like authors of a play or a novel or like poets. Comparisons often fall short and this comparison falls short indeed. But the important thing here is what the comparison is actually about. In a novel all kinds of people appear and are involved in a variety of plots. Many statements about what is happening in the novel or play are true in the story. We see Hamlet confronted with the jester Yorick’s skull. In the case of religious extrapolation we find something similar. Many statements are true in the texts about the higher world, that is, the world created by extrapolation. This is internal truth.

   Devising or making a religion would in reality be a complicated, lengthy process in societies with traditions of ideas and old practices. Devising a religion would be a process of experiences, visions, emotions, and deeply felt new insights. People would have reasons for creating a higher world by extrapolation. For religion can be valuable to people, even though it is about a higher world in the perspective of religious extrapolation.

    Believers think and speak about the higher world as insiders. Their religious texts belong to a special literary category, so that it is important to pay attention to different literary categories: novels, plays, poetry, research of historians, religious texts in the perspective of religious extrapolation, religious texts independent of extrapolation, and so on. In religious texts dependent on extrapolation the same assertions may appear as in texts of the three monotheistic religions; that God created heaven and earth, for instance. Whether or not religious statements depend on extrapolation, appears at the metalevel, that is, when we speak from the outside about these statements. Extrapolation is mentioned at the metalevel. Moreover, certain assertions which are true in one literary category, need not be true in another. This applies when research of historians on the one hand, and religious texts on the other, are concerned, to mention just one case.

    Let us look at central doctrines of Christian believers as a special kind of discourse distinct from science and philosophy. I will use here the expression ‘the Christian message’. The higher, religious world the message is about, essentially differs from the world around us: ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD’ (Deuteronomy 6, KJV), ‘After that he appeared in another form unto two of them’ (Mark 16, KJV), ‘And the dead in Christ shall rise first’ (1 Thessalonians 4, KJV). Convictions of the believers belong to a special kind of thinking and speaking, having its own fundamental rules and characteristics. The fundamental law says that there is one God. And believers are provided with Bible, ecumenical councils and tradition to know whether or not some point of doctrine belongs to the Christian message. The fundamental rules have been developed further over the course of time. 

    Moreover, believers may be provided with special ways of access to the higher world: religious experience, trustworthy tradition and trustworthy testimony, for instance. Traditional proof of the existence of a unique divine being may be added to these ways of access. Thinking about the design of the universe as a way to a creator is an understandable example of such proof. This is not proof in the strict logical sense but indeed rather routes of access. All of these routes at the same time may be reasons or motives to believe. Believing is not something arbitrary and people while believing also know what they are doing. Google has something about this in ‘Motiva credibilitatis’! When such reasons or motives to believe are the issue, certainties as well as probabilities are important. This is the same in the case of other decisions we take in our lives, such as choosing a partner for example. Decisions to believe or not to believe are personal decisions for those confronted with these deep, important issues.

    As I already mentioned, I characterize my ideas as ‘moderate constructivism’. The core of this is: If we create a higher world, statements about that world are true for the insiders. That is a fairly uncontroversial idea. This way we understand that religious extrapolation is one of the possible explanations of religion. It is not the explanation. That possible explanation concerns two points. First, religion would have been created by ‘construction’ and second, and more precisely, the higher, religious world would have been designed and made by means of extrapolation.

   Outsiders of the Christian message are confronted with several critical issues. The central miracles of the life of Jesus (such as his resurrection) are improbable historically. Miracles are improbable by definition, otherwise they would not be miracles. But this does not imply that Christians wrongly accept these miracles. Moreover, from the fact that metaphysical entities like immortal souls are philosophically controversial, it does not follow that doctrines about these entities have to be rejected by Christian communities. Whether or not doctrines belong to the Christian message, depends on the fundamental rules of Christianity. This is similar to religious statements in the perspective of extrapolation. For in that special case the higher world is a world created by extrapolation and statements about that world are true independently of statements belonging to other literary categories just mentioned. Furthermore, explaining a religion by extrapolation does not change the religion to be explained. Whether Christians have reliable routes of access to the higher world, is not definitely decided by science or philosophy. This is so because the routes of access at the same time are personal reasons to believe. These are matters internal to Christianity.

   Certain arguments support explaining religion by extrapolation. The striking similarities which may be found between a religious world under extrapolation and the religious world seen by one of the main religions, present one such argument. Religious extrapolation itself does not appear in the religious discourse of insiders nor as far as they see, will the extrapolations be part of the worlds created by religious extrapolation. A religious world in the perspective of extrapolation may show many, varying religious things, persons, states of affairs and events, and to the insiders such a world may look quite the same as any other religious world.

    For many believers of the monotheistic religions, Jewish believers, Muslims or Christians these critical issues are a kind of external white noise. They themselves feel supported by age-old traditions and world-wide communities and concentrate on their own religious realities.

   ‘This old time religion. It is good enough for me’ (Song).

                                                                                            ______      ______      ______

 

Over relativiteit van religieuze waarheid

 

Charles Goossens   ---   02-06-2022

 

Er komen verschillende literaire genres voor in de Bijbel en wat waar is in een tekst van het ene genre zoals poëzie, hoeft niet waar te zijn in teksten van een andere literaire categorie zoals biografische verhalen. Zulke categorieën zijn grotendeels onafhankelijk van elkaar. We kunnen hierbij denken aan verkeerde letterlijke interpretaties van poëtische passages in de Bijbel. Nu komen er niet alleen verschillende literaire genres voor in de Bijbel, maar ook vormen religieuze teksten een apart literair genre, anders dan andere literaire categorieën. Die teksten behoren tot een speciale vorm van denken en spreken. En wat waar is in religieuze teksten, hoeft niet waar te zijn in andere soorten teksten. Ik wil hier werken met twee voorbeelden, het bestaan van onsterfelijke zielen en het wonder van Jezus’ opstanding. In de christelijke boodschap is het waar, dat Jezus na zijn kruisiging is opgestaan. Volgens die boodschap gebeurde dat wonder in de reële ruimte, in Palestina, en in de reële tijd, de eerste eeuw van onze jaartelling, en degenen die erbij betrokken waren, waren mensen van vlees en bloed. Maar dit betekent niet dat de opstanding ook thuishoort in een strikt-empirisch of strikt-historisch betoog. Dat het idee van Jezus’ opstanding waar is in religieuze teksten van het christendom, wordt bepaald door de eigen, fundamentele regels van het christendom, Bijbel, concilies enz., terwijl waarheid in een empirisch of historisch betoog bepaald wordt door de eigen regels van empirische of historische uiteenzettingen. Hetzelfde geldt voor het leerpunt van het bestaan van onsterfelijke zielen. Uit het feit dat er volgens de chistelijke boodschap onsterfelijke zielen zijn, volgt nog niet dat er ook zulke onstoffelijke wezens bestaan volgens een kritische filosofie. Een kritische filosofie bepaalt zelf, of mensen in principe het bestaan van zulke wezens kunnen achterhalen en als mensen dat al kunnen, of het dan ook in feite lukt, aan te tonen dat er zulke wezens bestaan. Zelfs als er geen doorslaggevende filosofische argumenten zijn voor het bestaan van onsterfelijke zielen en zelfs als het historische karakter van Jezus’ opstanding niet op overtuigende manier door historici beargumenteerd kan worden, kunnen gelovigen terecht blijven vasthouden aan die leerpunten. Dit is een aspect van het idee van relativiteit van religieuze waarheid.

          Religieuze waarheden worden niet volstrekt willekeurig aangenomen. Het aannemen ervan hoeft niet onredelijk te zijn of een zaak waar ‘anything goes’, als het gaat om motieven om te geloven. John Locke waarschuwt: ‘Every Conceit that throughly warms our Fancies must pass for an Inspiration, if there be nothing but the Strength of our Perswasions, whereby to judge of our Perswasions…’.[1] Religieuze mensen hebben bepaalde toegangswegen tot hun religieuze boodschap of anders gezegd, ze hebben bepaalde redenen om die boodschap aan te nemen. Er zijn nogal wat mogelijke toegangswegen. Extatische visioenen zijn een mogelijkheid, waarbij we ons kunnen afvragen of de ervaring van Paulus op de weg naar Damaskus zo ’n visioen was. Verder Joseph Haydn, Die Schöpfung I: ‘Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes. Und seiner Hände Werk zeigt an das Firmament. Dem kommenden Tage sagt es der Tag; die Nacht, die verschwand, der folgenden Nacht’, en ‘In het verschil van nacht en dag en in wat Allah geschapen heeft in de hemelen en de aarde zijn tekenen voor mensen die godvrezend zijn’ (Psalmen 19:2-3 resp. Koran, soerat 10:6). Ook zijn er bekende pogingen om het bestaan van een uniek goddelijk wezen te beargumenteren zoals op basis van de doelmatigheid in alles wat bestaat. Die doelmatigheid verwijst dan naar degene die het design heeft ontworpen. Bovendien worden om begrijpelijke redenen betrouwbare getuigenissen en betrouwbare tradities als toegangswegen genoemd. Een heel andere mogelijkheid zou zijn, dat mensen een onstoffelijke wereld niet vinden maar maken. Want inderdaad zijn er twee mogelijkheden: we vinden een hogere wereld of we maken die. In het tweede geval zouden we met Hella Haasse kunnen zeggen: ‘… dit hart dat binnen in mij brandt / doet nimmer afstand van zijn zoeten waan / dat er iets blijft van mij…’.[2] En dan zou het ongetwijfeld duidelijk zijn, waarom religieuze ideeën niet zomaar kunnen worden overgeheveld naar een kritische filosofie of naar wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Want hogere wezens en miraculeuze gebeurtenissen zouden door mensen gemaakt zijn. In religies zijn er overigens niet alleen religieuze leerpunten maar ook praktijken, gezangen, schilderwerken, tradities of algemener, religieuze ways of life, met inbegrip van ethische regels, beginselen en deugdidealen. Daarom slaan redenen om mee te doen met een religieuze gemeenschap niet alleen op leerpunten.

          Het ligt voor de hand dat er voor religieuze ideeën geen strikte bewijzen zijn. Anders zou het niet gaan om geloven maar om weten. Strikte bewijzen zijn ook niet nodig als mensen belangrijke beslissingen in hun leven willen nemen. Ze vertrouwen ook op waarschijnlijkheden, niet alleen op zekerheden. Filosofisch gesproken is het controversieel, of we in principe een hogere wereld kunnen kennen en ook of we in feite kunnen aantonen dat er zo ’n wereld is. Maar redenen om de christelijke boodschap als waar aan te nemen zijn grotendeels geen zaak van wetenschap of filosofie. Ze zijn een zaak van het christendom zelf en van de fundamentele regels van het christendom. De waarheid van de christelijke leerstellingen over het bestaan van onstoffelijke zielen hangt er niet van af, of er sluitende filosofische argumenten voor te geven zijn. In alle geval zijn de christelijke waarheden minstens waarheden in het interne perspectief van de gelovigen, afgezien van de vraag of het daarbij uitsluitend om interne waarheid gaat. Ik zeg erbij, dat ik in mijn opstel niet probeer de waarheid van religieuze leerstellingen aan te tonen.

        De fundamentele ideeën van het christendom zullen niet gemakkelijk veranderen, ook al wordt er voortdurend nagedacht over inhoud en samenhang van die ideeën. Als generaties na generaties van gelovigen voorbij zijn gegaan, zal de christelijke boodschap er heel anders uitzien dan tijden geleden. Dat zal zo zijn als gevolg van kristallisatie van tradities, ontwikkelingen, ervaringen, emoties, praktijken en langzaam gegroeide religieuze inzichten. Maar religieuze mensen nemen hoofdzakelijk gewoon aan wat hun in hun gemeenschap wordt aangereikt. Ze zullen niet, zoals meer dan eens gebeurt, op zoek gaan naar symbolische betekenissen van religieuze leerpunten en werkelijkheden als Jezus’ opstanding, ik bedoel, naar werkelijkheden als symbolen van leven en dood, van tragedie, liefde, hoop, rechtvaardigheid of geluk.

        Religie is, wat zij zegt dat zij is.

 

[1] John Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. by P.H. Nidditch, paperback ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), Book IV, Ch. XIX Of Enthusiasm, p. 704.

[2] Hella Haasse, ‘Ik hief mijn hand op tussen mij en ’t licht’, Microsoft Edge, “DBNL [digitale bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse letteren] Hella Haasse Ik hief mijn hand” (consulted 02-02-2022), en Margot Dijkgraaf, Spiegelbeeld en schaduwspel: Het oeuvre van Hella S. Haasse (Amsterdam: Querido, 2014), pp. 109-115.

                                                                             ______      ______      ______

 

Waarheden over onzichtbare dingen: Een toelichting bij ‘On internal truth of religious discourse’

 

Charles Goossens   ---   25-09-2020

 

‘Bestaat ze of bestaat ze niet? dat is de vraag’. Het gesprek gaat over het bestaan van een onsterfelijke ziel. Het antwoord op de vraag is, dat je als gelovige zegt, dat die er echt is. ‘Maar, zegt de puber in de klas, misschien hebben de mensen die ziel zelf bedacht!’ De begrijpende leraar zegt tegen haar: ‘Laten we dan eens kijken hoe het maken van een onsterfelijke ziel in zijn werk gaat’. Het idee van het maken of ontwerpen van een hogere werkelijkheid kan natuurlijk algemener worden toegepast. Dan zou er sprake zijn van het maken of ‘construeren’ van religie.

   Najaar 2020 is er van mij een boek verschenen met de ondertitel ‘Gematigd constructivisme’. Het is een herdruk van een ouder boek met een nieuw opstel erbij. Het nieuwe essay en de rest zijn in het Engels geschreven voor vakgenoten. In dit digitale stukje wil ik een minder technische toelichting geven op het nieuwe opstel. Dat gaat over religie. Een hogere, religieuze wereld kun je maken door wat ik religieuze extrapolatie noem. Extrapoleren is te verduidelijken door te denken aan cirkels. Cirkels om ons heen zijn niet volmaakt. Maar we kunnen een volmaakte cirkel bedenken. Dan extrapoleren we van onvolmaakte cirkels naar een volmaakte cirkel. Zo kunnen we ook van de zichtbare wereld extrapoleren naar een hogere wereld en van een eindig leven naar een niet-eindig leven.

    Als je een onsterfelijke ziel of een hogere, religieuze wereld ontwerpt en maakt, ben je bezig zoals een toneel- of romanschrijver of dichter. Vergelijkingen gaan altijd mank en dat is ook hier zo. Maar het gaat om het punt waar de vergelijking op slaat. In een roman treden allerlei figuren op en gebeurt er van alles met die figuren. Veel beweringen over wat daar gebeurt, zijn waar in de roman. Bij religieuze extrapolatie speelt er iets vergelijkbaars. Ook in dat geval zijn veel beweringen waar maar waar in de teksten die gaan over de religieuze wereld in kwestie. Ik bedoel dus de wereld die gemaakt is door middel van extrapolatie.

   In feite zou het maken of ontwerpen van religie een gecompliceerd, langdurig proces zijn binnen gemeenschappen met tradities van ideeën en oude praktijken. Het ontwerpen van religie zou een proces zijn van ervaringen, visies, emoties en diepgevoelde nieuwe inzichten. Daarbij zijn er redenen om een hogere wereld te scheppen door middel van extrapolatie. Want mensen kunnen veel waardevols vinden in religie, ook al gaat het om een hogere wereld in het perspectief van religieuze extrapolatie.

    Laten we nu kijken naar de grote gedachten van christelijke gelovigen als naar een speciaal soort verhaal tegenover wetenschap of filosofie. Ik gebruik hierbij de uitdrukking ‘christelijk verhaal’. Die uitdrukking gebruik ik niet in een afwijzende, pejoratieve betekenis. Ik bedoel er de boodschap van het christendom mee. De hogere, religieuze wereld die daarin centraal staat, is in grote lijnen geen wereld zoals we die om ons heen zien. In religieuze teksten gaat het over allerlei onzichtbare, ongrijpbare dingen: ‘Luister, Israël: de HEER, onze God, de HEER is de enige!’ (Deuteronomium 6), ‘Daarna verscheen hij in een andere gedaante aan twee van hen’ (Marcus 16), ‘Dan zullen eerst de doden die Christus toebehoren opstaan’ (1 Tessalonicenzen 4). De overtuigingen van de gelovigen behoren tot een speciaal soort spreken en denken met eigen, fundamentele regels en eigen kenmerken, eigen spelregels dus. De grondwet is, dat er één God is. En om te weten, welke ideeën wél en welke niet tot het grote verhaal horen, hebben we bijbel, concilies en traditie. De spelregels zijn in de loop van de eeuwen verder uitgewerkt.

    Bovendien zijn er in het leven van christenen speciale toegangswegen tot de hogere wereld: bijvoorbeeld openbaring, religieuze ervaring, betrouwbare tradities en geloofwaardige getuigenissen. Traditionele godsbewijzen kunnen aan deze toegangswegen tot een hogere wereld worden toegevoegd. Mediteren over een plan of design van het universum is een begrijpelijk voorbeeld van zulke godsbewijzen. Dat zijn niet echt bewijzen in de zin van de logica maar toegangswegen. De hier genoemde wegen zijn voor gelovigen tegelijkertijd redenen of motieven om te geloven. Google heeft daarover iets bij ‘motiva credibilitatis’! Protestanten en katholieken verschillen vanouds van mening over dit onderwerp van ‘redenen om te geloven’, omdat er in deze gemeenschappen verschillend gedacht wordt over de waarde van de menselijke natuur en van het menselijke verstand. Maar geloven is hoe dan ook niet uit de lucht gegrepen of arbitrair. Mensen weten wat ze doen, als ze geloven! Merk op, dat bij zulke redenen om te geloven niet alleen zekerheden een rol spelen maar ook waarschijnlijkheden. Bij andere levenskeuzes zoals een partnerkeuze is dat ook zo. Het lijkt me een acceptabele gedachte, dat er voor welwillende mensen toegangswegen zijn tot het christelijke geloof in de vorm van motieven om te geloven. Daarbij zijn beslissingen om wél of niet te geloven persoonlijke beslissingen van degenen die met zulke diepgaande dingen geconfronteerd worden. 

    Als het gaat om de boodschap van het christendom, worden niet-gelovigen geconfronteerd met ongrijpbare dingen zoals een leven na de dood, met centrale wonderen zoals Jezus’ verrijzenis en met de zojuist bedoelde toegangswegen. Filosofisch zijn argumenten over zaken als een onsterfelijke ziel helaas controversieel en wonderen zijn per definitie onwaarschijnlijk, anders waren het geen wonderen. En het onderwerp van toegangswegen tot het christelijke geloof waarover ik het zojuist had, lijkt niet te liggen op het gebied van wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Dit is zo, onder andere omdat het bij die toegangswegen tegelijkertijd gaat om redenen om wél of niet te geloven. Het christelijke denken en spreken is op deze manier een eigen soort verhaal. Daarom zullen wetenschappers, historici en veel filosofen dit verhaal zien als een apart terrein en voor de rest de spelregels van hun eigen vakgebied volgen. Ze zullen vermijden zich uit te spreken over strikt-religieuze leerstellingen. 

   Gelovigen denken en spreken over de religieuze wereld van binnenuit, als insiders. Ze zijn niet primair bezig met toegangswegen tot hun geloof. Hun teksten behoren tot een eigen literair genre, waarbij het dus belangrijk is, de verschillende genres uit elkaar te houden: romans, gedichten, geschiedschrijving, religieuze literatuur afhankelijk van extrapolatie, religieuze teksten onafhankelijk van extrapolatie enz.. Als bepaalde mensen het hebben over een hogere wereld die feitelijk afhankelijk is van extrapolatie, kunnen we dezelfde beweringen tegenkomen als bij gelovigen van een traditionele religie. ‘Hemel en aarde zijn geschapen’, bijvoorbeeld. Het verschil tussen de beweringen is vaak alleen te zien als er over de religieuze teksten wordt gesproken, op metaniveau om het jargon te gebruiken. Op metaniveau wordt vermeld hoe de mensen aan die beweringen komen, zoals door extrapolatie of door betrouwbare getuigenissen. Bovendien hoeven beweringen die in het ene genre waar zijn, in principe niet waar te zijn in het andere. Dat geldt voor geschiedschrijving en religieuze teksten, om een voorbeeld te noemen. Daar gaat het om twee verschillende genres.

   Zoals ik al zei, duid ik mijn ideeën aan met ‘gematigd constructivisme’. De kern ervan is: Als we een religieuze wereld construeren, zijn beweringen over die wereld waar voor de insiders. Dat is een vrij oncontroversieel idee. Door het gematigde constructivisme blijkt religieuze extrapolatie één van de mogelijke verklaringen te zijn van religie. Het gaat niet om de of de enige verklaring ervan. Die mogelijke verklaring slaat op twee dingen, ten eerste dat religie ontworpen en gemaakt zou zijn en ten tweede, meer precies, dat de hogere, religieuze wereld gemaakt zou zijn door middel van extrapolatie.

   Is voor een christelijke gemeenschap het christelijke verhaal een echt apart terrein? Ik bedoel: Is het verhaal immuun voor beweringen die het ronduit tegenspreken? Bij beweringen in het perspectief van religieuze extrapolatie is dat beslist het geval. Want in dat speciale geval is de hogere wereld een gemaakte wereld en zijn beweringen over die wereld waar, onafhankelijk van beweringen uit een ander literair genre. Ik heb zojuist een aantal van die genres vermeld.

   Hoe gaat een christelijke gemeenschap nu om met de gedachte dat de grote, centrale wonderen van Jezus’ leven zoals de verrijzenis historisch onwaarschijnlijk zijn? Kan een gemeenschap zulke gebeurtenissen terecht in het christelijke verhaal handhaven? En breder gesproken, hoe gaat een religieuze gemeenschap om met leerstellingen zoals die over het bestaan van een onsterfelijke ziel en van een unieke goddelijke persoon, wanneer die gemeenschap geconfronteerd wordt met sceptische of zelfs vijandige reacties? Moeten de geloofswaarheden niet-letterlijk worden opgevat? Mogen ze door gelovigen worden gezien als waarheden die afhankelijk zijn van religieuze extrapolatie? Het antwoord op zulke vragen hangt af van de zojuist genoemde spelregels van de christelijke gemeenschap of gemeenschappen, nog afgezien van wat toonaangevende persoonlijkheden over die vragen denken en zeggen.

   Voor veel gelovigen van de wereldgodsdiensten, joodse gelovigen, moslims, christenen zijn zulke kritische problemen overigens gerommel aan de buitenkant. Ze voelen zich daarin gesteund door eeuwenoude tradities en wereldwijde gemeenschappen en concentreren zich op hun religieuze werkelijkheid.

   ‘This old time religion. It is good enough for me’ (Song).

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