Introduction

This article was inspired by Pope Benedict’s recent pronouncement that the Catholic Church is the only true Christian church.(1) Given that one of the Pope’s primary academic and spiritual concerns is the strong relativism in the West, we should not be surprised to hear this. In contrast to the views of some who believe our task today to be the maintenance of doctrinal coherence, however, I believe we are being called today to a Christianity which stresses a “lived spirituality” as exemplified in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Some conservative Catholics may dislike a conception of Christianity which focuses on lived experience owing to a perception that stressing a “way of life” is overly subjectivist and too close to the relativistic ethos that is dominant in the West today. They may believe that a return to orthodoxy will buttress the Church in the face of the spiritual and moral crises the West faces today. I argue here that there is no essential relationship between relativism and a Christianity which stresses experience, and that in fact, such a Christianity is closer to the tradition than many cultural conservatives realize. The problems true religion faces today, moreover, have other philosophical roots.

Should we stress doctrine or spiritual experience?

One of the biggest "tensions" in the Church in recent decades has been between those who focus on doctrinal issues and those who stress what I am calling the "lived spiritual experience" of Jesus, as accounted for in the Gospels. Doctrinal issues are stressed, for example, when we focus on claims concerning Jesus' divinity; the reality of miracles; whether Jesus was born to a virgin; the nature of purgatory; the nature of an afterlife; the nature of the ascension, and so on. By comparison, we stress the "lived spiritual experience" of Jesus when we focus on the way he lived. An approach which stresses Christianity as a "lived spirituality" looks at the way Jesus interacted with the concrete people around him. In thinking about Christianity this way, I want to suggest that "relationship" is its key functional concept, and in fact the core component of any spirituality which makes lived experience primary. In response to this claim, one might ask: Relationship to whom? Fundamental to this understanding of Christianity, then, is the relationship to my true self, other concrete people in my life, and God.

The argument I am putting forth is not against doctrinal claims themselves, but a focus on doctrinal issues or metaphysics generally. The former is primarily a theoretical issue, while the latter is essentially a psychological and spiritual one. When we stress doctrine or the objective truthfulness of the various claims of Catholicism, we take the focus off what matters most for each of us: our inner spiritual condition. It is not the objective truth that immediately affects our moral and spiritual condition, but what we stress or focus on. While it is important to hold that various objects of the faith are true in the sense they are reflected in the objective makeup of the universe, St. Augustine himself makes it clear that we are to stress an inward attitude of faith rather than one which seeks certitude about the truthfulness of our faith-claims. He tells us, for example, to “seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand”. Much later on, the religious thinker Kierkegaard and the philosopher Rousseau criticize the Enlightenment for encouraging us to believe that getting our theories about life right is a paramount virtue. In short, a stress on certitude is foreign to pre-modern thinkers and prophets, and is not consistent with a spirit of faith. (2)

While there is a role for doctrine and metaphysics in institutionalized religion, when it is heavily stressed one effect is to take the focus of the members of the community off what Socrates calls “the most important things”. (3) What, we ought to ask, is “the most important thing” for us as Christians? As implied above, adhering to a conception of Christianity which stresses a lived spirituality means that “the most important thing” in a life is one's relation to their true self, other people, and God. Insofar as a stress on doctrinal issues or metaphysics tends to lead to a de-emphasis on living as Jesus did, we cannot practically stress both doctrine as well as live a transformed life. When we stress orthodoxy, we will tend to ignore the relational aspect of spirituality essential to Christianity. Another important reason to question a movement which places stress on doctrine or orthodoxy more generally is that in our time this will tend to invoke the Jansenist strands remaining in Western Catholicism, especially in its Irish form. Because Irish Catholicism has been so influential in the United States over the last century, and given similarities between Jansenism and particular aspects of any orthodox movement, we have good reason to be concerned about any remaining influence of this heresy, one that has no place in the life of the Christian. (4)

The Role and View of Religious Belief in Modern and Pre-Modern Western Civilization

Doctrine is made up essentially of various beliefs. In order to better understand the role of doctrine in religion generally as well as the development of Catholic doctrine in particular, we need to understand the central role the concept of belief and opinion plays in the history of Western thought. We can begin to gain insight into the role of belief in Catholic spirituality in particular and Christianity more generally by looking to Plato. Plato argued in The Republic that knowledge of what he called “the Idea of the Good” was necessary to living a deeply good life. (5) He also held, however, that there is a second kind of opinion which constitutes a force which holds the members of a community or nation together. (6) This second kind of belief does not have the same status, and does not fill the same role, as the former kind. The “Idea of the Good” becomes the model for the first kind of belief as it comes to exist in Western civilization, constituting the ground of the moral and spiritual life, while the second kind of belief functions to support getting the basic needs of society met. We are witnessing the presence of the first kind of belief when an individual enters a religious order and devotes his life to doing God’s will, or who devotes his life to helping others out of some kind of calling. Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul would be exemplars of living on the basis of this kind of belief. The second kind of belief is in play when we see an individual starting a business in order to make a profit or going into politics in order to have influence and make a name for himself. In The Apology, Socrates underscores the contrast when he tells us that Meletus, his accuser, is motivated merely by the desire for a good reputation, and not the desire for the good itself. Donald Trump would be an example of someone who lives primarily on the second kind of belief. Whereas the pre-moderns tend to blame individuals if they are heavily motivated by the second kind of belief, the moderns will tend to accept this to be the motive which is in fact dominant in all societies in all times. Getting a sense for this distinction, between two kinds of belief constituting two qualitatively distinct kinds of motives; two grounds of being and acting in the world, is necessary for an adequate interpretation of the renewed stress on doctrine, and as such requires more discussion.

When we are considering the role and nature of belief in society generally, the only relevant issue is that some beliefs are in fact operative. On the other hand are those beliefs whose purpose is not primarily to maintain group cohesion but which constitute the inner or subjective condition of what various traditions call “spiritual seeking.” Christianity uses the expression “the way” to capture this latter concept. It is in regards to the difference between belief as a means of maintaining group unity and belief as an inner condition of “the way” that I want to challenge Catholics today to reflect on the renewed stress on doctrine.

Plato portrays the individual who is motivated to seek the Good as being infused with a moral and spiritual quality as a direct result of that seeking. When we are aiming to increase our inner spiritual life, the subjective intention to do so matters greatly. As an illustration, one cannot be said to have done a morally good deed if they have the wrong kind of reason. For example, society finds it useful to motivate individuals to give to charity with the use of tax deductions. When someone gives to charity for the reason that they want a tax break, the action supports the basic needs of society as a whole, but it does not have any effect on the individual’s spiritual condition; on his “heart,” if you will. When it comes to the beliefs which help society run smoothly, the subjective or inner relationship of the individual to those beliefs is not at issue. All that is important is that most individuals do in fact hold the particular belief in question and act more or less accordingly.

One of the weaknesses of the Church as a large institution is that it invariably at times treats its core beliefs as if their primary function is to maintain group unity, rather than constitute the subjective, or inner grounds, of spiritual seeking. In modernity especially, religious institutions in the West have not done a good job at keeping front and center the above distinction and maintaining the primacy of the right kind of belief within their own denominations. Although this distinction may seem very theoretical, this is not an “academic” matter. We who care about the vitality of the religious impulse in the West need to ask: Why has the conflation between the conditions of peace and stability with the grounds of spiritual seeking gone on for so long, a distinction articulated clearly and forcefully by the ancients? Why, moreover, have our religious leaders seemed to have encouraged this conflation? If a certain kind of believing is integrally related to true spiritual seeking, a kind initially articulated so well by Plato and later by St. Augustine, and if an inner state of “heart” has always been core to Christian spirituality in the West, why would we not keep the substance of this distinction front and center when thinking about ways to support and strengthen our Catholic tradition? Why today are so many in the American Catholic Church agitating for a stress on what is more properly understood as political in nature rather than spiritual?

Modern Political Foundations and Two Views of Religious Belief

The confusion between beliefs which are social and political in nature and those which are spiritual owes in great part to the modern political project. To understand the changed nature and role of belief in religious institutions in the West, we need to look to the origins of modernity. By the time of early modernity, religious beliefs had changed from being like the “Idea of the good” Plato spoke of to being like those beliefs which held the society together, simply. This “decline” was furthered with the coming of the political philosophy advanced by such thinkers as Hobbes and John Locke, two of the most important thinkers for American foundations in particular. Somewhat later, the Danish philosopher and religious thinker Kierkegaard argued that northern European Christianity had declined to existing merely as a social custom. (7) In recent times, American conservatives themselves have at times too easily assumed that the American political foundation and Christianity have similar moral ends in mind. While “living well” is the end of true religion and Americanism both, the definition of “living well” changes radically with the advent of modernity. To assume that American foundations aim at the same ends morally and spiritually as Christianity is to assume that the core beliefs that serve to support a smoothly running political-economy and unify a large nation are essentially no different from spiritual or religious beliefs. No thinker or prophet of repute in the history of the West would agree that the moral ends of American political-economy have the same status as the ends of true religion. The prevalence of this assumption in our society underscores the success of the modern political project’s goal of minimizing the social role of religious beliefs, a goal which grew out of the assumption that these beliefs contributed heavily to the religious wars of early modernity. (8)

The tendency to confuse the distinction Plato made between the two kinds of belief discussed earlier, a distinction running throughout Western religion and philosophy, has lead many today to assume that a use of belief which is in the service of group unity can serve simultaneously to increase our spiritual living and implicitly, that there is no essential tension between the two ends. The way a given belief is treated by religious leaders, however, impacts the spiritual life of those who eventually live by it. Simply holding a belief, even one which is directed to moral or spiritual matters, does not suffice to increase the spiritual well being of adherents, for the reason that the belief in question may be being used for essentially political reasons. The following example may help to make the point clearer. If a significant majority of our society holds the belief that one must believe in Jesus Christ to gain salvation, then this belief can function both as a force that holds society together as well as the inner way that the individuals in the society move closer to their highest end as human beings, e.g. salvation as understood by Christians. A belief can function, then, both as the political and social “glue” as well as the inner ground of a spiritual path. When it comes to the Church as an institution, owing to the particular role it plays in propagating the religious self-understanding of Catholics and owing to the necessary role intention plays in living a deeply moral life, the particular use the Church makes of its basic beliefs will impact on the moral meaning of those beliefs as they prevail in the group in question. For this reason, the Church cannot make use of its core beliefs primarily to maintain group unity if we also expect these beliefs to function as inner conditions of spiritual living for the faithful.

Conflict in Early Modernity: How Essentially Political Beliefs Got Labeled “Religious”

Above I pointed to the paradox of American conservatives often conflating the two kinds of belief discussed in this paper. How are we to explain this? Recall that a primary concern of the founders of modern politics was to respond effectively to the problem of religious conflict growing out of the Reformation. There was a strong tendency at the time to assume that the beliefs that were causing this conflict were essentially religious beliefs. I want to propose that the beliefs which caused religious conflict in England and France are more appropriately understood as political and social beliefs which allowed their adherents to experience a sense of unity in opposition to those they saw as different. The founders of modern politics, however, assumed that those beliefs whose function was to maintain group unity were in the same category of beliefs as those concerning “the most important things”. For Christians, the latter regard salvation as well as the means to it. In fact, the beliefs that the founders took to be religious were not the kind of belief Plato and the prophets tell us we need to hold in our heart in order to seek salvation in the right way. In other words, the beliefs that the founders of modern politics saw as causing conflict had nothing to do with the beliefs which were like in kind to the Idea of the Good discussed above. To the extent that the founders of modern politics conflated these two kinds of beliefs, the success of their project had a significant cost to the spiritual well being of Western civilization. Ever since they succeeded in privatizing beliefs which were seen to have been causing violence, true religious belief is judged by Western civilization to have the lower status of those beliefs which are simply reflective of the dominant opinions of society and which serve to give a sense of unity to its members. The beliefs which in fact caused the conflict at the time of the founding of modern politics had little if anything to do with beliefs which ground and motivate the heart which seeks to live a truly good and moral life; a spiritual “way”. If this analysis is essentially on track it helps explain why Western intellectuals and artists are so often dismissive of what those of us who read journals such as First Things and Commonweal believe to be essential to the good life, namely, true religion. They have been brought up in a culture whose dominant ethos reduces true religious belief to merely social and political opinion.

In any in-depth discussion of the origins of modern politics and the distinction between the two kinds of belief, we eventually come upon a dilemma all religious institutions must deal with continually if they are to maintain their integrity. This dilemma is their built-in tendency to decline to functioning as a political institution whose primary purpose is to maintain group cohesion and their own existence over long periods of time. Plato, Socrates and Jesus as well, in both word and deed suggested that we are not to expect those beliefs which function as conditions of spiritual seeking to prevail and dominate in the context of large groups, let alone whole nations. (9) What does this mean for us as modern Christians who in fact only are Christian precisely because of the long term existence of a large religious institution and who seek sincerely to live deeply spiritual lives? It clearly cannot mean that we should opt to do away with the Church as an institution, as some educated Westerners feel. To use a cliché, this would be to throw away the baby with the bath water. Rather, we who care about true religion and the spiritual life must contribute to keeping front and center of our collective consciousness that there are two kinds and respectively, two functions of belief. One has a specifically social and political function, while the other has a moral and spiritual function. At minimum, in our own lives we can aim to be diligent to treat our religious beliefs as helps to our spiritual improvement, and not as means of identification with a larger group.

An important question that we as members of the body of the Church today need to ask is: In light of the argument above that the kind of belief stressed determines the moral and spiritual condition of the Church, is the Church primarily political or primarily spiritual? To ask this question in the right way transforms it into two distinct questions: Is the Church supposed to be primarily political or spiritual, and is the Church in fact primarily spiritual or political? With these questions I mean to underscore the conflicting needs of the Church as a very large institution which is therefore always to some extent political in nature in a defacto sense, even as its primary purpose cannot ever simply be group cohesion or self-perpetuation. The primary purpose of the Church must always be the spiritual improvement of believers as well as their salvation.

Jesus as an Exemplar of One who Stressed “Lived Spiritual Experience”

Jesus and Socrates intentionally conveyed what is properly called a moral and spiritual teaching by living in a certain sort of way. We are told that this “way” can be discerned and distinguished from the usual way of life if we make a serious effort to do so. The Platonic assumption will be that the threshold for gaining insight into “the way” is extremely high. Within Christianity, gaining spiritual insight as well as salvation is both easier and more difficult than, for example, the fundamentalist sects in American society suggest. For example, spiritual seeking is facilitated by living in accord with external codes of conduct and harmed if one goes against them, but salvation is not directly attained by so living and living in accord with moral codes does not by itself constitute the end of true religion. Having the right attitude of heart towards others as well as myself matters much more than living in accord with the letter of the law. Such a way of life is conceptually very simple, but very difficult in practice. Those who can learn to accept their self as well as others in the way Jesus did have attained a degree of holiness which is statistically very rare. On the other hand, getting people to externally act in a certain sort of way with little or no attention paid to inner transformation is more properly understood as a political and social goal simply, which as we have seen above has a lower status from a moral and spiritual point of view. In short, defining Christianity solely or primarily in terms of a set of beliefs or consistent adherence to doctrine fails to respect the distinction between the two kinds of belief discussed throughout this paper. Such a conception of Christianity does not respect the central role of the “heart” in true religion.

Clearly, Jesus stressed “heart” over the “law”, a contrast which parallels the distinction between the two kinds of belief central to this paper. One of the best examples illustrating a conception of Christianity which stresses ones inwardly held beliefs as conditions of a lived spirituality is given by considering Jesus' claim that "it is harder for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven than a camel to go through the eye of a needle." (Mat 19:24) I believe we misinterpret Jesus’ remark about the rich man if we define "rich" as those with money or if we focus on the result of getting into heaven. To grasp the insight being passed along by Jesus here, one which seems to underscore ones “state of heart”, we need to ask a second-order question, namely: What question is Jesus implicitly posing with this parable? I do not believe the right question in response to the parable is: How do those who are financially rich get into heaven? It seems unlikely that the issue regards how much or little money one has, or even how generous they are with it, both being essentially external issues. Rather, it seems more likely that the meaning of “rich” involves ones inward understanding of their relation to their true self, others in their life, and God. Assuming that the challenge Jesus poses in this parable deals with how the financially rich alone will get into heaven conveniently leaves most of us quite comfortable, since it is very likely that not one among us subjectively feels we are financially rich. Instead of defining “rich” in terms of money, a more fruitful understanding holds the "rich" in this parable to be anyone who inwardly believes they already have all that they need, simply. At this point, we might note that self-reliance is a primary, if not the primary virtue, for us Americans. If we attempt to apply the parable of the “rich man” to our own society, we might define “the rich” as those who inwardly hold a definition of success or happiness which is fully attainable in the here and now. In this light, it suddenly seems possible that we in our own society may be those “rich” Jesus has in mind in the parable. In this light, it might take on a meaning for us. A new awareness of our own need might become a condition of transformation. In this experiential way of thinking about this parable, "the poor in spirit" are not simply those without money, then, but those who, in Socrates language, "know that they do not know", or know that they have need of “the most important things”. This subjective, or inner consciousness of ones need becomes in Christian spirituality a precursor to the experience of grace.

Conclusion

In this paper I have sought to shed light on what may seem to be a narrow theoretical issue, the role of two kinds of belief in Western philosophy and religion. The paper has also tried to show how the modern political project, culminating in the notion that religious beliefs ought to be private, conflated what were better understood as political and social beliefs with true religious belief. The distinction between beliefs which are subjectively held in the heart and which act as grounds of moral and spiritual striving and those which function primarily to maintain group cohesion was glossed over by the founders of modern politics. As a result of the success of the modern political project, many educated Westerners associate true religious belief with what is better understood as beliefs which unify us as members of a particular society simply. The modern political project has been very successful in creating a social foundation conducive to high levels of wealth creation and political stability, but which has not been so successful in creating a society which cultivates the higher ends of human existence, e.g. spiritual and moral ends. One of my hopes is that more of us will take the task of contributing to the moral and spiritual well being of our society more seriously, and not simply assume that our political structure alone will do this very necessary job for us.

When some in the Church seek today to stress orthodoxy and de emphasize a stress on a lived Christianity for the reason that such an emphasis seems similar to relativism, they act in a way that cuts their nose off to spite their face. Just because one way of being has similar traits to another does not mean they are in fact essentially the same. A community which conceives of Christianity as a lived spirituality and then lives in a qualitatively unique sort of way, by being present to self, others and God, can in no way be said to be morally relativistic. Rather, such a community reflects the dominant practice of Christianity prior to the advent of modernity. What is truly “conservative” is a view of Christianity which makes relationship central.

Endnotes

(1) Find the full text on Zenit.org, under “more documents”.

(2) See Kierkegaard’s Journals and Concluding Unscientific Postscript as well as Rousseau’s First Political Discourse. See too Cosmopolis, by Stephen Toulmin for a discussion of the specifically modern ideas which have led many Westerners to treat certitude like a moral virtue.

(3) See The Apology of Socrates, by Plato.

(4) I cannot go into any detailed discussion of Jansenism here, a view which holds that human beings are fundamentally bad. Wikepedia has a helpful discussion of the issue on the Internet.

(5) See Republic, Book VI. In Book VII Socrates says: “But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.” [emphasis added] Where Plato uses the Greek equivalent of “knowledge”, we would today use the term “belief”. Moreover, linguistically speaking, “faith” and not “knowledge” is the proper way of relating to this highest object of human striving. As such, in the rest of the paper, when called for, I use the term “belief” rather than “knowledge”. When speaking of the common beliefs which ground society, I use “opinion”.

(6) See The Republic, Book V especially.

(7) See Kierkegaard’s Journals as well as Concluding Unscientific Postscript.

(8) While I believe American civic religion has made the United States a better place to live, we shouldn’t reduce a rigorous spiritual way with being kind to others in public and hard work. There have been several books published in the last twenty five years which closely align the political and spiritual. A common thread is the notion that free markets have deep moral ends. See for example, George Gilder’s “Wealth and Poverty” and Michael Novak’s “The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism”. The problem with this thesis is that it reads a moral and spiritual intention into profit driven activity that is simply not there. While any single entrepreneur can also be a deeply spiritual and morally good person, an efficiently run business does not require that he be so. And if freedom in the marketplace is the highest operative value in the culture, then those with a weaker ethical standards will tend to “crowd out” those who adhere to a stronger ethic. The moral and spiritual good is not to be found in modern political foundations, as activists on the left and right wish, but in the hearts of single individuals who make up society as a whole and who intend the deep moral and spiritual good of the former.

(9) Plato shows intense doubt that the Idea of the Good will be taken seriously by any but a very few, and Jesus continually alludes to a strong tension between living comfortably according to the dominant social norms and following the “way” he prescribes. Plato also subtly suggestst that taking the Idea of the Good seriously can lead the one who is animated by it to try to use force to realize it, something which is contrary to philosophy, and we may add, true spiritual seeking. The West has seen the manifestations of this in the forms of Communism and Fascism, and earlier in the Inquisition.