*There was a lot in the James writings here that I did not understand, or didn’t strike a chord, but here are a few thoughts:...he (James) identifies a sense in which, in spite of whatever may be happening in their communities, individuals remain free to build a relationship with the universe on their own terms. Along with Emerson, James believes that one's influence over others is always a matter of inspiration, provocation, bearing witness -- but never, especially where ultimate things are concerned, commanding agreement. You can lead a horse to water, as they say, but you can't make him drink. Absolutely! (if I may use such a word?)...and even faith groups must watch out lest the whole group goes awry...thus the checks and balances of the church: the Bible, the community’s discernment, and the leading of the Holy Spirit within each person (and, in the more well-organized churches, people from outside who come in to observe and advise). None of those things alone are adequate.I’d be interested in what the concern is about “commanding agreement”...in the case of managing children, for instance, some rules are necessary for the safety of all...but those rules are simply a “scaffolding,” if you will, set up to protect and nurture the children because we care for them and love them. The same can happen in “institutions,” such as schools or workplaces, and the same thing happened in ancient Israel as they struggled to forge a community in a wild and hostile environment.We often shrink at the idea of “commands,” usually because we don’t trust whoever the “commander” is, and often because in this sinful world there have been way too many “commands” that have been issued from prideful, self-serving, and even cruel humans. It is a reminder to us all (any one of us who could find themselves in a position of “commander” for various reasons) to stay humble and compassionate and to always act out of love....Emerson would say that each group has built a different scaffold to reach what is ultimately the same truth (once you look past the different particularities); thus each group is right to the extent that it takes its teachings loosely and symbolically, and wrong to the extent that it takes them too literally. James, on the other hand, would say that the different groups have reached really different ultimate truths, all of which are valid for those who believe in them, despite their contradictions. Clearly James's position is the more paradoxical and complex.This reminds me of the “many hands on the elephant” analogy in which several blind people are feeling an elephant and saying “an elephant is a trunk” or “an elephant is a tail” or “an elephant is a tusk”, etc., not realizing that they are all simply experiencing different aspects of the same thing. So, people use this as an analogy of different people explaining what God is like. So, Emerson would probably agree with using this analogy for all religions, whereas James would say that there could also be different animals being touched, such as fish or cheetahs, that feel even MORE different, but that all these “animals” are just as real as the elephant. Christianity would say that there is only one true elephant - let’s say a special pack elephant that alone knows the way up the mountain - and that fish or cheetahs just won’t fit the bill. (I guess this analogy breaks down in that Emerson interprets all animals as being elephants??? : ) : ))When you use the words “valid for those who believe in them,” it sounds like relativism...so, no absolute truth? (...and if that’s the case, are you absolutely sure?? : ))No one of us ought to issue vetoes to the other, nor should we bandy words of abuse. We ought, on the contrary, delicately and profoundly to respect one another's mental freedom: then only shall we bring about the intellectual republic; then only shall we have that spirit of inner tolerance without which all our outer tolerance is soulless, and which is empiricism's glory; then only shall we live and let live, in speculative as well as in practical things.I feel sad that this no longer seems to be the case in public discourse. It just seems like people on BOTH sides of various debates ENJOY bashing each other (makes them feel superior) rather than approaching such discourse “delicately and profoundly.” This lack of love and empathy for others of differing viewpoints does not bode well for future public discourse. …(James quotes from Fitz James Stephen:) “If a man chooses to turn his back altogether on God and the future, no one can prevent him; no one can show beyond reasonable doubt that he is mistaken. If a man thinks otherwise and acts as he thinks, I do not see that any one can prove that he is mistaken. Each must act as he thinks best; and if he is wrong, so much the worse for him. We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? 'Be strong and of a good courage.' Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes.... If death ends all, we cannot meet death better."This analogy of being on the road of life in a winter storm seems grim in the sense that we are given little hope of discerning the right road, and that we are totally alone with no one else to tell us if we are on the right road or not. Although we can’t totally lean on others in these matters, we are not alone either. I believe the Spirit of God is available to any one of us who asks for help in choosing the right path, and that that spirit, as well as a community of true believers, can provide help and reinforcement in following the road ahead.and saying “an elephant is a trunk” or “an elephant is a tail” or “an elephant is a tusk”, etc., not realizing that they are all simply experiencing different aspects of the same thing. So, people use this as an analogy of different people explaining what God is like. So, Emerson would probably agree with using this analogy for all religions, whereas James would say that there could also be different animals being touched, such as fish or cheetahs, that feel even MORE different, but that all these “animals” are just as real as the elephant. Christianity would say that there is only one true elephant - let’s say a special pack elephant that alone knows the way up the mountain - and that fish or cheetahs just won’t fit the bill. (I guess this analogy breaks down in that Emerson interprets all animals as being elephants??? : ) : ))When you use the words “valid for those who believe in them,” it sounds like relativism...so, no absolute truth? (...and if that’s the case, are you absolutely sure?? : ))No one of us ought to issue vetoes to the other, nor should we bandy words of abuse. We ought, on the contrary, delicately and profoundly to respect one another's mental freedom: then only shall we bring about the intellectual republic; then only shall we have that spirit of inner tolerance without which all our outer tolerance is soulless, and which is empiricism's glory; then only shall we live and let live, in speculative as well as in practical things.I feel sad that this no longer seems to be the case in public discourse. It just seems like people on BOTH sides of various debates ENJOY bashing each other (makes them feel superior) rather than approaching such discourse “delicately and profoundly.” This lack of love and empathy for others of differing viewpoints does not bode well for future public discourse. …(James quotes from Fitz James Stephen:) “If a man chooses to turn his back altogether on God and the future, no one can prevent him; no one can show beyond reasonable doubt that he is mistaken. If a man thinks otherwise and acts as he thinks, I do not see that any one can prove that he is mistaken. Each must act as he thinks best; and if he is wrong, so much the worse for him. We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? 'Be strong and of a good courage.' Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes.... If death ends all, we cannot meet death better."This analogy of being on the road of life in a winter storm seems grim in the sense that we are given little hope of discerning the right road, and that we are totally alone with no one else to tell us if we are on the right road or not. Although we can’t totally lean on others in these matters, we are not alone either. I believe the Spirit of God is available to any one of us who asks for help in choosing the right path, and that that spirit, as well as a community of true believers, can provide help and reinforcement in following the road ahead.*
On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 4:51 PM, Jesse Raber jesse.raber@gmail.com wrote:
Ultimately we are responsible for our own personal choices. However, we
also have a responsibility to engage in community. If nothing else, those of us who become parents are responsible for “training up a child in the way he(she) should go.” We don’t have perfect knowledge, but we are accountable for what small knowledge we may have, which may not be so small in the grand scheme of things (tipping point and all that). But even beyond that, we are designed to live in some sort of community, not as lone individuals as might have been the ideal in the United States at one time. We need to help each other out. Mental instabilities such as may occur with people who commit violent acts can be prevented with the help of a community of trusted friends and family. If we see someone suffering with such delusions, and don’t seek to lead them out with a spirit of compassion, we are neglecting our duty.
I agree, and I think you've hit on a -- maybe the -- central weakness in James's philosophy. He goes too far in his elevation of the individual above the community, or culture. (As I mentioned in my introduction email, developing a pragmatist theory of community fell to others such as Dewey.) The value that remains in James's position, though, is that he identifies a sense in which, in spite of whatever may be happening in their communities, individuals remain free to build a relationship with the universe on their own terms. Along with Emerson, James believes that one's influence over others is always a matter of inspiration, provocation, bearing witness -- but never, especially where ultimate things are concerned, commanding agreement. You can lead a horse to water, as they say, but you can't make him drink.
Is the Bible like a scaffolding that will “fall away” or more like a
skeleton which by itself has no life but without which we vertabral animals will not survive? It is clearly not enough by itself, but for many people it is a solid platform on which to stand in life. In the African American church that I attend, there is never any question about this. For many people it is enough just to keep body and soul together; they don’t have the leisure to debate what is or is not true about the Bible. They just seem to have an inner knowledge, passed down perhaps through their virtuous mothers and grandmothers, that what will make for a satisfying life is the God of the Bible. They don’t consider any other options...they trust in the community in which they were raised, because they have seen the fruits (past tense) and know the best path to follow.
This makes a lot of sense. The trouble that Emerson, and to some extent James, would have is that Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc., can all arrive at the same conclusions about their sacred texts and traditions. On what pragmatic basis can one say that one of these groups is right and another wrong, if each group finds good fruits in its own things? In answering this question I think Emerson and James would part ways. Emerson would say that each group has built a different scaffold to reach what is ultimately the *same* truth (once you look past the different particularities); thus each group is right to the extent that it takes its teachings loosely and symbolically, and wrong to the extent that it takes them too literally. James, on the other hand, would say that the different groups have reached really *different* ultimate truths, all of which are valid for those who believe in them, despite their contradictions. Clearly James's position is the more paradoxical and complex. Rather than continuing to try to paraphrase "The Will to Believe," let me just paste in the climactic section (which will make more sense in the context of the whole essay, but time and attention span are finite):
Religions differ so much in their accidents that in discussing the
religious question we must make it very generic and broad. What then do we now mean by the religious hypothesis? Science says things are; morality says some things are better than other things; and religion says essentially two things.
First, she says that the best things are the more eternal things, the overlapping things, the things in the universe that throw the last stone, so to speak, and say the final word. "Perfection is eternal,"—this phrase of Charles Secrétan seems a good way of putting this first affirmation of religion, an affirmation which obviously cannot yet be verified scientifically at all.
The second affirmation of religion is that we are better off even now if we believe her first affirmation to be true.
Now, let us consider what the logical elements of this situation are in case the religious hypothesis in both its branches be really true. (Of course, we must admit that possibility at the outset. If we are to discuss the question at all, it must involve a living option. If for any of you religion be a hypothesis that cannot, by any living possibility be true, then you need go no farther. I speak to the 'saving remnant' alone.) So proceeding, we see, first, that religion offers itself as a momentous option. We are supposed to gain, even now, by our belief, and to lose by our non-belief, a certain vital good. Secondly, religion is a forced option, so far as that good goes. We cannot escape the issue by remaining sceptical and waiting for more light, because, although we do avoid error in that way if religion be untrue, we lose the good, if it be true, just as certainly as if we positively chose to disbelieve. It is as if a man should hesitate indefinitely to ask a certain woman to marry him because he was not perfectly sure that she would prove an angel after he brought her home. Would he not cut himself off from that particular angel-possibility as decisively as if he went and married some one else? Scepticism, then, is not avoidance of option; it is option of a certain particular kind of risk. Better risk loss of truth than chance of error,—that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field. To preach scepticism to us as a duty until 'sufficient evidence' for religion be found, is tantamount therefore to telling us, when in presence of the religious hypothesis, that to yield to our fear of its being error is wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true. It is not intellect against all passions, then; it is only intellect with one passion laying down its law. And by what, forsooth, is the supreme wisdom of this passion warranted? Dupery for dupery, what proof is there that dupery through hope is so much worse than dupery through fear? I, for one, can see no proof; and I simply refuse obedience to the scientist's command to imitate his kind of option, in a case where my own stake is important enough to give me the right to choose my own form of risk. If religion be true and the evidence for it be still insufficient, I do not wish, by putting your extinguisher upon my nature (which feels to me as if it had after all some business in this matter), to forfeit my sole chance in life of getting upon the winning side,—that chance depending, of course, on my willingness to run the risk of acting as if my passional need of taking the world religiously might be prophetic and right.
All this is on the supposition that it really may be prophetic and right, and that, even to us who are discussing the matter, religion is a live hypothesis which may be true. Now, to most of us religion comes in a still further way that makes a veto on our active faith even more illogical. The more perfect and more eternal aspect of the universe is represented in our religions as having personal form. The universe is no longer a mere It to us, but a Thou, if we are religious; and any relation that may be possible from person to person might be possible here. For instance, although in one sense we are passive portions of the universe, in another we show a curious autonomy, as if we were small active centres on our own account. We feel, too, as if the appeal of religion to us were made to our own active good-will, as if evidence might be forever withheld from us unless we met the hypothesis half-way. To take a trivial illustration: just as a man who in a company of gentlemen made no advances, asked a warrant for every concession, and believed no one's word without proof, would cut himself off by such churlishness from all the social rewards that a more trusting spirit would earn,—so here, one who should shut himself up in snarling logicality and try to make the gods extort his recognition willy-nilly, or not get it at all, might cut himself off forever from his only opportunity of making the gods' acquaintance. This feeling, forced on us we know not whence, that by obstinately believing that there are gods (although not to do so would be so easy both for our logic and our life) we are doing the universe the deepest service we can, seems part of the living essence of the religious hypothesis. If the hypothesiswere true in all its parts, including this one, then pure intellectualism, with its veto on our making willing advances, would be an absurdity; and some participation of our sympathetic nature would be logically required. I, therefore, for one cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule. That for me is the long and short of the formal logic of the situation, no matter what the kinds of truth might materially be.
I confess I do not see how this logic can be escaped. But sad experience makes me fear that some of you may still shrink from radically saying with me, in abstracto, that we have the right to believe at our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough to tempt our will. I suspect, however, that if this is so, it is because you have got away from the abstract logical point of view altogether, and are thinking (perhaps without realizing it) of some particular religious hypothesis which for you is dead. The freedom to 'believe what we will' you apply to the case of some patent superstition; and the faith you think of is the faith defined by the schoolboy when he said, "Faith is when you believe something that you know ain't true." I can only repeat that this is misapprehension. In concreto, the freedom to believe can only cover living options which the intellect of the individual cannot by itself resolve; and living options never seem absurdities to him who has them to consider. When I look at the religious question as it really puts itself to concrete men, and when I think of all the possibilities which both practically and theoretically it involves, then this command that we shall put a stopper on our heart, instincts, and courage, and wait—acting of course meanwhile more or less as if religion were not true[4]—till doomsday, or till such time as our intellect and senses working together may have raked in evidence enough,—this command, I say, seems to me the queerest idol ever manufactured in the philosophic cave. Were we scholastic absolutists, there might be more excuse. If we had an infallible intellect with its objective certitudes, we might feel ourselves disloyal to such a perfect organ of knowledge in not trusting to it exclusively, in not waiting for its releasing word. But if we are empiricists, if we believe that no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp, then it seems a piece of idle fantasticality to preach so solemnly our duty of waiting for the bell. Indeed we may wait if we will,—I hope you do not think that I am denying that,—but if we do so, we do so at our peril as much as if we believed. In either case we act, taking our life in our hands. No one of us ought to issue vetoes to the other, nor should we bandy words of abuse. We ought, on the contrary, delicately and profoundly to respect one another's mental freedom: then only shall we bring about the intellectual republic; then only shall we have that spirit of inner tolerance without which all our outer tolerance is soulless, and which is empiricism's glory; then only shall we live and let live, in speculative as well as in practical things.
I began by a reference to Fitz James Stephen; let me end by a quotation from him. "What do you think of yourself? What do you think of the world?... These are questions with which all must deal as it seems good to them. They are riddles of the Sphinx, and in some way or other we must deal with them.... In all important transactions of life we have to take a leap in the dark.... If we decide to leave the riddles unanswered, that is a choice; if we waver in our answer, that, too, is a choice: but whatever choice we make, we make it at our peril. If a man chooses to turn his back altogether on God and the future, no one can prevent him; no one can show beyond reasonable doubt that he is mistaken. If a man thinks otherwise and acts as he thinks, I do not see that any one can prove that he is mistaken. Each must act as he thinks best; and if he is wrong, so much the worse for him. We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? 'Be strong and of a good courage.' Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes.... If death ends all, we cannot meet death better."
Moving on to other things ...
It seems to me that there is way too much emphasis on results here. Does
pragmatism mean that the ends justify the means? I thought we had all learned from the various world wars that this is simply not true and is in fact a dangerous idea.
Pragmatism is definitely against the idea that the ends justify the means. Pragmatism cares for consequences, but while ends are consequences, so are means. People sometimes say "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" to illustrate the idea that the ends justify the means -- but the broken eggs are just a much consequences as the omelette itself. What pragmatism excludes are ideas that seem to have no consequences at all, or ideas that one embraces *despite* the net balance of their consequences. This doesn't mean, of course, that the pragmatist can't be principled in a certain way. To go back to your earlier example of going to jail for one's beliefs, the pragmatist reading of that situation is that one has chosen to care about some types of consequences -- consequences for one'e sense of self, and for the well-being of others -- more than other consequences -- consequences for one's body.
As Clara pointed out in her Moomers Journal article on chaos, it is
practically impossible to predict the outcomes of a given action. There are just too many variables. It also seems presumptuous. Who are we to know what will or will not happen as a result of a given action? But to simply do what is right to the best of our knowledge is really all we can do.
Relative to a standard of absolute certainty, any prediction about the future is presumptuous. Even saying that the sun will rise tomorrow would be presumptuous -- some unpredicted asteroid might stop the rotation of the earth, who knows? This is why pragmatism dispenses with the standard of certainty (one of Dewey's books about what is wrong with most philosophy is called *The Quest for Certainty*), and thinks in terms of bets with reality. Predicting how actions will affect the world is a chancy thing; pragmatism counsels us to accept that element of chance as part of the fabric of reality. But, of course, this means acknowledging that our lives are ultimately at the mercy of forces beyond our control -- and for James this acknowledgment is where religion begins.
Does James think that the “will to believe”, being an “unsafe bet,” is a
wrong choice?
Hopefully the excerpt above answers this question, but in case it doesn't, I'll try to summarize. In religious matters, including *both* belief and unbelief, we have no choice but to make an unsafe bet. Atheism is just as unsafe, for James, as theism. And yet make a choice we must. The one idea that comes out worst in "The Will to Believe" is wait-and-see agnosticism. Basically James has arrived at a proto-existentialist position in which we must make the supremely important choice about what life and the universe ultimately mean, even while knowing that nothing can ever prove to us that our choice is better than the choice of our neighbor, provided that our neighbor is just as satisfied with her view as we are with ours.
On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 1:27 PM, Ruth Raubertas ruthraubertas@gmail.comwrote:
*Here are some responses to Jesse’s last couple of emails...I hope this is not too wordy. ...it's important for James that religion continue to base itself on this *personal* experience of surrender to the divine, which can certainly affect our judgments and actions, but which cannot presume to dictate the nature of religion to other people, much less to directly lay down rules for their behavior. (This gets back to James's denigration of religious institutions of all kinds as less significant than individuals' direct experiences of the divine.) Not to put too fine a point on it, but James would not approve of, say, today's Religious Right trying to translate specific biblical commandments into laws that apply to everybody. Ultimately we are responsible for our own personal choices. However, we also have a responsibility to engage in community. If nothing else, those of us who become parents are responsible for “training up a child in the way he(she) should go.” We don’t have perfect knowledge, but we are accountable for what small knowledge we may have, which may not be so small in the grand scheme of things (tipping point and all that). But even beyond that, we are designed to live in some sort of community, not as lone individuals as might have been the ideal in the United States at one time. We need to help each other out. Mental instabilities such as may occur with people who commit violent acts can be prevented with the help of a community of trusted friends and family. If we see someone suffering with such delusions, and don’t seek to lead them out with a spirit of compassion, we are neglecting our duty. But who do we trust? That is a good question. We also have a responsibility to choose a worthy community to help us through life. Again, ultimately we are responsible for our choices as individuals. But we also have the power to influence and be influenced by others, and that is another choice we must make. No one is an island. If we can find a community in which people truly strive to love one another, and are not just out for themselves alone, that is a first step. But we also are responsible to teach others, when called to do so, with humility and compassion. We need to have compassion and forgiveness for everyone, not just the people we agree with. Whether the various moralities of various groups should be legislated is not the main question. True morality does not rest with any particular political party. **************** ...Emerson sees the bible in this way, as a kind of inspired scaffolding that helps people approach religious experience but whose particularities fall away once the experience is truly grasped -- and this is one of the views that cost him his Unitarian ministry and sent him down the road of freelance prophesy. Is the Bible like a scaffolding that will “fall away” or more like a skeleton which by itself has no life but without which we vertabral animals will not survive? It is clearly not enough by itself, but for many people it is a solid platform on which to stand in life. In the African American church that I attend, there is never any question about this. For many people it is enough just to keep body and soul together; they don’t have the leisure to debate what is or is not true about the Bible. They just seem to have an inner knowledge, passed down perhaps through their virtuous mothers and grandmothers, that what will make for a satisfying life is the God of the Bible. They don’t consider any other options...they trust in the community in which they were raised, because they have seen the fruits (past tense) and know the best path to follow. *********** ...The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to any one if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other’s being right. It seems to me that there is way too much emphasis on results here. Does pragmatism mean that the ends justify the means? I thought we had all learned from the various world wars that this is simply not true and is in fact a dangerous idea. As Clara pointed out in her Moomers Journal article on chaos, it is practically impossible to predict the outcomes of a given action. There are just too many variables. It also seems presumptuous. Who are we to know what will or will not happen as a result of a given action? But to simply do what is right to the best of our knowledge is really all we can do. And how do we know what that is? I think it is here where the Bible comes to our aid: we are to love God with all of our being, love our neighbor as ourself, we are to pray continually, and we are to trust God to do what we cannot. These are the major themes that run through the Bible. All apparent contradictions can be resolved in this light. *********** Now for James what makes this idea religious, and sets it apart from philosophy, morality, and science, is that it can be accessed only by a leap of faith that nothing outside the self can corroborate -- in Jamesian terms, by an assertion of "the will to believe." The final section of "The Will to Believe" goes into this in more depth, but basically he argues that "we have the right to believe at our own risk any hypothesis [e.g., that God exists] that is live enough to tempt our will" (my emphasis). Wherever we rely on the will to believe, we are making a radically unsafe bet with reality. To say that God is the root of all things is such a radical bet. However, he argues, both theism and atheism grow out of the will to believe -- the will to believe can also be the will to disbelieve, and neither option is privileged over the other. I have not read “The Will to Believe.” Does James think that the “will to believe”, being an “unsafe bet,” is a wrong choice? Why? What would be a right choice? The so-called “leap of faith” is not necessarily made in a vacuum. It can be very much based on evidence: the evidence of the natural world, the evidence of humanity’s incessant search for meaning (as indicating that we have a missing puzzle piece in our hearts that can be found), the evidence of the intangible facts of love and appreciation of beauty. A detective or scientist, trying to solve a case, gathers the evidence, makes a hypothesis (leap of faith?), and then tests the hypothesis to see whether further evidence supports the hypothesis. Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” We’re all invited to the banquet to sample the goods and see how we like them. I suppose as we go along in the Varieties these issues will resurface. *
On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 4:23 PM, Jesse Raber jesse.raber@gmail.comwrote:
Thinking some more about this question, I don't think I addressed it head on:
Does he ever try to define God or recognize him as being at the roots
of all good fruits?
The answer I gave in my last email is really focused on the question of definitions. Language, for James, is a tool that we use to get to fruitful thoughts, and ultimately to a fruitful relationship with reality. If "defining God" is really a matter of asking "what should we mean when we say 'God'?" then, as with other words, that will be relative to the fruits that will result from our meaning one thing or another. But setting this definitional angle off to one side, there is a substantive question about what it means to attribute all things to one divine agency. That question would bring us back to Lecture I, where James writes:
Gods are conceived to be first things in the way of being and power.
They overarch and envelop, and from them there is no escape. What relates to them is the first and last word in the way of truth. Whatever then were most primal and enveloping and deeply true might at this rate be treated as godlike, and a man’s religion might thus be identified with his attitude, whatever it might be, towards what he felt to be the primal truth.
This sounds more or less equivalent to the idea of recognizing God as being at the roots of all fruits. Now for James what makes this idea religious, and sets it apart from philosophy, morality, and science, is that it can be accessed only by a leap of faith that nothing outside the self can corroborate -- in Jamesian terms, by an assertion of "the will to believe." The final section of "The Will to Believe" goes into this in more depth, but basically he argues that "we have the right to believe *at our own risk* any hypothesis [e.g., that God exists] that is live enough to tempt our will" (my emphasis). Wherever we rely on the will to believe, we are making a radically unsafe bet with reality. To say that God is the root of all things is such a radical bet. However, he argues, both theism and atheism grow out of the will to believe -- the will to believe can also be the will to disbelieve, and neither option is privileged over the other.
On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 12:20 PM, Jesse Raber jesse.raber@gmail.comwrote:
Ultimately, the "law" of God DOES lose its fixed, lawlike character by
the incarnation of Christ. ... Thus the "New Covenant" does not demand the following of laws, but rather the acceptance of the Spirit of Christ
This is much closer to what James think religion should be than the idea of following explicit divine commandshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_command_theory. As we've seen, the surrender of the self into the "willingness to be as nothing in the floods and waterspouts of God" is the basic religious act for him. However, it's important for James that religion continue to base itself on this *personal* experience of surrender to the divine, which can certainly affect our judgments and actions, but which cannot presume to dictate the nature of religion to other people, much less to directly lay down rules for their behavior. (This gets back to James's denigration of religious institutions of all kinds as less significant than individuals' direct experiences of the divine.) Not to put too fine a point on it, but James would not approve of, say, today's Religious Right trying to translate specific biblical commandments into laws that apply to everybody.
A related issue is the status of religious scripture for James. He doesn't say much about scripture in the *Varieties*, but I think he would agree with what Emerson says, in his essay "The Poet,"http://www.emersoncentral.com/poet.htmabout all inspired texts:
[A] book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us
through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive at the precise sense of the author. [...] If a man is inflamed and carried away by his thought, to that degree that he forgets the authors and the public, and heeds only this one dream, which holds him like an insanity, let me read his paper, and you may have all the arguments and histories and criticism. All the value which attaches to Pythagoras, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardan, Kepler, Swedenborg, Schelling, Oken, or any other who introduces questionable facts into his cosmogony, as angels, devils, magic, astrology, palmistry, mesmerism, and so on, is the certificate we have of departure from routine, and that here is a new witness. [...] How mean to study, when an emotion communicates to the intellect the power to sap and upheave nature: how great the perspective! nations, times, systems, enter and disappear, like threads in tapestry of large figure and many colors; dream delivers us to dream[.]
[...]
The quality of the imagination is to flow, and not to freeze. The poet did not stop at the color, or the form, but read their meaning; neither may he rest in this meaning, but he makes the same objects exponents of his new thought. Here is the difference betwixt the poet and the mystic, that the last nails a symbol to one sense, which was a true sense for a moment, but soon becomes old and false. For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. Mysticism consists in the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one. The morning-redness happens to be the favorite meteor to the eyes of Jacob Behmen, and comes to stand to him for truth and faith; and he believes should stand for the same realities to every reader. But the first reader prefers as naturally the symbol of a mother and child, or a gardener and his bulb, or a jeweller polishing a gem. Either of these, or of a myriad more, are equally good to the person to whom they are significant. Only they must be held lightly, and be very willingly translated into the equivalent terms which others use. And the mystic must be steadily told, — All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. [...] The history of hierarchies seems to show, that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and, at last, nothing but an excess of the organ of language.
Inspired texts, for Emerson, are significant not because what they say is literally true, but because, by using symbols that the authors find to hand, they bring us to the gates of deeper experiences that cannot be comfortably lodged in language. "Dream delivers us to dream" by way of language, and it's a mistake to focus on the literal language rather than the only semi-communicable experience behind it. Emerson sees the bible in this way, as a kind of inspired scaffolding that helps people approach religious experience but whose particularities fall away once the experience is truly grasped -- and this is one of the views that cost him his Unitarian ministry and sent him down the road of freelance prophesy.
Fruits typically come from roots...so I'm wondering why James is
focused on the fruits but not that interested in the roots? Does he ever try to define God or recognize him as being at the roots of all good fruits?
You could say that what pragmatism *is* is the elevation of fruits over roots. That's one of the bedrock claims for James. He arrives at it not by an arbitrary decision, but by noting the inadequacy of the quest for solid roots, especially regarding ultimate questions. From "What Pragmatism Means":
The pragmatic method is primarily a method of settling metaphysical
disputes that otherwise might be interminable. Is the world one or many? – fated or free? – material or spiritual? – here are notions either of which may or may not hold good of the world; and disputes over such notions are unending. The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to any one if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other’s being right.
In that essay he introduces his famous squirrel example, about whether a man has gone around a squirrel or not:
The corpus of the dispute was a squirrel – a live squirrel supposed to
be clinging to one side of a tree-trunk; while over against the tree’s opposite side a human being was imagined to stand. This human witness tries to get sight of the squirrel by moving rapidly round the tree, but no matter how fast he goes, the squirrel moves as fast in the opposite direction, and always keeps the tree between himself and the man, so that never a glimpse of him is caught. The resultant metaphysical problem now is this: Does the man go round the squirrel or not? He goes round the tree, sure enough, and the squirrel is on the tree; but does he go round the squirrel?"
A roots-based approach would look to the past, to the origins and accumulated meanings of the word "around." What does "around" *truly* mean, the root-seeker asks; what is its fundamental significance? Clearly this approach is hopeless here. James can only resolve the dispute by dismissing the question of roots and asking the disputants to unstiffen their use of the word "around" and tie it to specific practical outcomes. They can make the word mean something that implies the man did go around the squirrel, or something that implies he didn't. They have had a specific experience, and they must adjust their ideas to that experience if they want to understand it and talk about it. Now, if this goes for a simple idea like "around," it goes even more for a big idea like "God."
(The second author is from Glastonbury...someone you know?? : ) )
No, I didn't even notice that! Crazy, small world.
On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 9:23 PM, Ruth Raubertas <ruthraubertas@gmail.com
wrote:
Of course, you could follow a good "law," such as the command to love one another (for instance, refusing to kill someone in war) and end up in jail or worse. So you wouldn't have "freedom" in the literal sense, but you would be free in a spiritual sense. (I believe Victor Frankl writes about this.)
Ultimately, the "law" of God DOES lose its fixed, lawlike character by the incarnation of Christ. Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. God sent us (who are in the Jewish tradition) the Law and the Prophets, but we didn't get it, so he send his own flesh and blood to teach us and to die in our (deserved) place. Thus the "New Covenant" does not demand the following of laws, but rather the acceptance of the Spirit of Christ (for some reason the image of "swallowing God" comes to mind) within which creates in us the desire and ability to do what is right. (I know that's a lot right there, and not well explained...)
Fruits typically come from roots...so I'm wondering why James is focused on the fruits but not that interested in the roots? Does he ever try to define God or recognize him as being at the roots of all good fruits?
Regarding the "Euthyphro Dilemma," both of the articles you quoted ended up resolving the "dilemma" satisfactorily to my mind. (The second author is from Glastonbury...someone you know?? : ) )
Some of this makes my head spin around and am tempted to just plead Psalm 131 (the second shortest chapter in the Bible):
Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.
Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.
Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever.
On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 3:43 PM, Jesse Raber jesse.raber@gmail.comwrote:
"The Psalmist seems to have encountered some kind of "law" that, rather than restrict freedom, actually BESTOWS it."
I think James would be sympathetic to this idea. But he'd probably insist that the law is good *because* of the fruit of freedom that it bestows ... meaning that if it stopped bestowing that fruit, it would no longer be good. If the fruit of freedom is really paramount, we therefore have to allow ourselves the possibility of abandoning the law in the name of that fruit. Once this caveat is admitted, the law loses its fixed lawlike character.
This train of thought is related to Plato's famous "Euthyphro dilemma." http://seattlecriticalreview.com/Volume4/Euthyphro.htmlMany Christian apologists have addressed Euthyphro's dilemma; one example is herehttp://augustinecollective.org/augustine/euthyphros-dilemma-and-the-goodness-of-god .
On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 1:37 PM, Ruth Raubertas < ruthraubertas@gmail.com> wrote:
> I just realized I made a significant typo a few days ago in posting > this: > > > >> (me)...Just wondering what folks think about whether James >> successfully shows that religion is "wholly debunked by science." >> > > ...I do understand that James is NOT trying to debunk religion, > quite the opposite, but anyway the conversation continues.... Sorry for > the confusion. > > (Jesse) Religion, too, must accept the common standard of judging > beliefs by their fruits. According to that standard one can never be bound > by eternally fixed commandments or creeds. ... You might say, then, that > for James science and religion humble each other (or "unstiffen" each > other, to use a Jamesian word.) > > Can fruits inform commandments, and can commandments produce fruits? > For instance, Jesus said "This is my commandment, that you love one > another as I have loved you." (John 15:12) One could argue which came > first, love or the commandment to love, but can't it still be an "eternally > fixed commandment"? > > I like the idea that science and religion can "humble" or > "unstiffen" each other. The word "commandment" perhaps turns people off > because it does have a "stiff" sort of sound to it. But listen to Psalm > 119:45-48: > > I will walk about in freedom, > for I have sought out your precepts. > I will speak of your statutes before kings > and will not be put to shame, > for I delight in your commands > because I love them. > I reach out for your commands, which I love, > that I may meditate on your decrees. > > The Psalmist seems to have encountered some kind of "law" that, > rather than restrict freedom, actually BESTOWS it. He goes on and on, for > 176 verses, singing the praises of the "law" of God. In James 1:25 we also > read: "But whoever looks intently into* the perfect law that gives > freedom*, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, > but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do." So, again, it is > possible for "law" to produce freedom (whereas "freedom" to do whatever we > like can sometimes lead to enslavement, another subject). > > > > > > > >