God as a Good Thing?
A. N. Wilson A CASE FOR RELIGION by Keith Ward Oneworld Publications. 185 Banbuty Road, Oxford 0X2 7AR, Tel: 01865 310597, 416.99, pp. 246, ISBN 1851683372 This is a brave moment in history to be making a case for religion. Looking forward to the future of
world religions, the former Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford predicts that 'religious traditions will be experiential seeing the heart of faith in distinctive experiences of Transcendence, rather than in political or metaphysical beliefs.' One can only say it would be wonderful were any of the major religions to transform themselves in this way. Just as this book is published, the world is convulsed in terrorism directly inspired by religion. The Middle East is in flaming religious dispute. Muslims and Hindus in the Indian subcontinent are involved in almost continual violence. Even the Anglican communion, the Christian group historically likeliest to have embraced Keith Ward's discarding of political or metaphysical beliefs, is in the process of dismantling itself over esoteric debates about sex.
The two strongest objections to religions are, first, that they appear to insist on proclaiming demonstrable untruths, and secondly that they abuse their position to exploit vulnerable or stupid or violent people. This is not to say that every religious statement is untrue, or that all religions are wholly false, or that all religions always and everywhere abuse people. But the two primary objections stand. All the major world religions in some manifestation peddle falsehood together with truth. Teaching children that the universe is only a few thousand years old, as some fundamentalist creationists do, is surely a wickedness, a sin against demonstrable truth. Or again, scholarship suggests that the trial of Christ, if it took place at all, would be very different from the depictions in the Gospel. Mel Gibson makes a film about Christ which depicts the trial as an historical event and the Pope is said to have endorsed it with words to the effect, 'This is exactly what happened.' The Jews were understandably enraged. Minds fed by such fictions allowed the rise of Nazism. On the other hand, if you were an Anglican or Muslim living in a refugee camp in Gaza, you might feel comparably peeved by the belief of Jewish literalists that they were entitled to live in certain bits of disputed territory on the basis of what it said in the Bible. First, you have the at best dubious truth-claims. Then you have stupid people moved by religious fanaticism to behave badly, even murderously.
Professor Ward's gentle argument reminds us of a different sort of religion, not blind dogmatism but a sort of quiet mysticism. Religious stories, he believes, tell us that 'there is a transcendent depth, underlying the visible and the tangible, to which we can relate, knowledge of which will bring a distinctive sort of fulfilment'. Moreover, locking into this recognition of transcendence will, or could, release the believer from egotism and selfishness, so long as it is done in a spirit of 'humility and respect for the best in other traditions'.
Those who believe that the world would be a poorer place without its temples, mosques and Haydn masses will fall on Professor Ward's book eagerly. This is because they will believe that to deny the religious impulse altogether is to stray into a falsehood about human nature itself. Our life, as individuals and as groups, loses depth when it loses religion.
It would be a happier world in which all religious people took the same enlightened and tolerant view of things as Professor Ward. But they don't. Religion, far from increasing tolerance, is a refuge for intolerance of the most bullheaded. Professor Ward recounts the story of a Buddhist who told him he shouldn't change his faith. Ward felt pleased at this tolerance until the monk added, 'Christianity is just right for a person at your stage of spiritual development.'
Professor Ward will convince most reasonable readers, that human nature would be poorer if the religious impulse were denied. He puts into more intelligent words than most of us could muster what it is which would be lost if we all became materialist atheists. He believes in 'the divine real', and a 'spiritual reality'. The chords of his faith sound as gently beguiling as a sequence by Hildegard of Bingen. But his conclusion that 'where truth-claims conflict it is clear that not all can be true' begs the very nub of the question. Many religious people do not recognise that their spiritual experiences are at best expressed in symbol or story. They believe they have the last word, and will take up pens, Bibles, swords, guns and bombs to prove it.
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