Mordecai Kaplan famously referred to religion as “belonging, behaving and believing.” [1] When we talk of traditional religion and believing , we ordinarily are referring to belief in the existence of God. But what about belief in the realm of the natural and our everyday? In this piece, I want to comment on the matter of belief and its opposite or skepticism.
Skepticism
George Santayana, the famous Harvard philosopher, was a dedicated naturalist. His elegant prose will aid us in understanding the matter of belief in a naturalistic sense.
Santayana calls himself a skeptic and explains that this does not mean disbelief but a creative and critical attitude toward alleged truth. As he puts it, “the true skeptic merely analyses belief, discovering the risk and logical uncertainty inherent in it.” [2]
Now I must confess that even in this limited sense, I am not a skeptic, I would term myself rather an instinctive believer. What I mean to say is that my natural instinct is to believe what the thinker I am reading tells me. I tend not to be as critical as perhaps I should be. I would call my attitude “understanding through acceptance.” In other words, in order to really learn from someone I value, I tend to identify with what they are asserting. Maximum learning is always my goal.
But skepticism has its place and is valuable even to the confirmed believer. Santayana forces me to question my assumptions and thereby to sharpen my beliefs. His skepticism, particularly with reference to religion is very valuable.
Santayana, who also calls himself a materialist and a naturalist, and offers us some deeply critical thoughts on the nature of religion — thoughts which are particularly troubling. (He also has some very positive thoughts on religion and its value.)[3]
I want to live in the harmonies, and that really is what religion is about.
Poetic Fiction
The most disturbing formulation he offers is when he refers to the fundamental religious concepts as “poetic fictions.” Fiction, not truth! I am appalled at the thought.
Applying this to my life, I am existentially dislocated. A long-standing synagogue attendee and a patient listener to a multitude of rabbis, I instinctively want to reject Santayana. Did any of these rabbis ever assume that they were dealing with fictions? Certainly not. They wanted us to believe. They wanted us to accept their insights as true and valuable and by implication, that the Torah and its lessons were true and valuable.
And yet, I think that Santayana is telling us something vitally important because he says elsewhere that world unity is the most profound product of the imagination, and, of course, a fiction and yet how ultimately valuable.
It may be that, in fact, some of our most exalted thoughts and ideals are fictions, and not literal truths. Accepting his notion will certainly lead us to be more tolerant and pluralistic. In other words, regarding about the basic questions, there are a plurality of truths. I must stand back from my ordinary way of looking at the world, evaluate it and consider the possibility of its being a fiction, but perhaps, a very useful fiction.
Harmony
Santayana rightly tells us many times that religion deals with ideals and, of course, the ideals are fictions. But whether truth or fiction, for Santayana, the most fundamental ideal in his poetic arsenal is harmony. In his words, “Harmony which might be called an aesthetic principle, is also the principle of health, of justice and of happiness.” Though the biblical Hebrew word for harmony is not apparent, we can certainly consider it the primary goal of our actions and thoughts.
Harmony generates all kinds of useful thoughts. I think of the possible harmony of my wishes and desires, of the harmony of my moods and ideas, of the harmony in my community, of the harmony among the several communities of our nation, of the harmony between nations. It is all idealistic, of course, but the ideal, as Jung tells us, though not attainable is yet a guidepost to action. I want to live in the harmonies, and that really is what religion is about.
In our prayers, we so often confront a world which is ideal, which does not yet exist and where we would like to be citizens. And so, we must work to create that world where the ideals are realities and not fictions.
[1] See, for example, Kaplan Diary, April 9, 1947.
[2] Santayana’s famous work “Scepticism and Animal Faith“ was published in 1923.
[3] George Santayana, ”Reason in Religion,” in The Life of Reason, or Phases of Human Progress, 1953.
