Recently, with some reference to “weak theology” lurking beneath the surface, I’ve been hearing a lot of folks defending religion on the grounds that it’s really some form of mytho-poetic thought and not to be taken as a set of ontological statements about the world. The idea seems to be that those who reject religion get it entirely wrong because religion is not a theory of reality, causation, the self, the afterlife, and why things are, but rather religion is really just a set of very powerful stories that help us interpret and understand the world around us. In one recent discussion about these issues, a friend accused me of being unimaginative and overly literal for failing to understand that these are just potent stories through which we interpret the world, and instead treating them as a theory of our selves, being, the world, and the origin of things.
Before responding to these claims, it’s first important to get clear on some points. The ontological nihilist like me doesn’t deny that we experience all sorts of meaning in the world. The idea that we would think this is one of the oddest ideas to ever sprout from anyone’s mind. We’re wired to find meanings, purposes, and motives in everything that takes place in the world? Why? As Alex Rosenberg suggests, probably because being able to predict the behavior of others, how they would respond to this or that, was a life or death matter when we were back on the savannah. You had to have some reliable way of deciding who would help you, who wouldn’t, who was a potential enemy, who might be a friend, who was a potential mate, and all the rest. Of course, the blind watch maker of natural selection, random variation, and heritability doesn’t do such a good job at being distinguishing. It gave us the capacity for thinking in terms of narratives, motives, and purposes, but didn’t restrict the use of this capacity to speculations about other humans and animals. As a consequence, we would inevitably come to see faces in clouds, anger in storms, and favor when something surprising and good happens to us. So it goes. That’s how our lizard brains are wired. Fortunately we’ve begun to develop techniques for getting around this in the last few centuries or so.
Nihilist that I am, I’m no different in this respect. When something randomly bad happens to me, the thought flits through my mind that perhaps I’m being punished. When a nice thunder storm happens as I was wishing for a couple days ago, the thought flits through my mind that perhaps I pleased the divinities in some way and they answered my prayers. When I look at the barks of trees, I sometimes think I see faces or animals. Us nihilists are wired the same way as everyone else and thus have the same fleeting thought. The only difference is that we don’t take these speculations about motives that occur to us when we think about nature as veridical statements about the natural world. We say “that’s a trick of my cognition, not something that’s really there.” It’s the same with a nicotine fit. Once you become aware that the absence of nicotine changes your brain chemistry, you no longer say “that person is being a bastard!”, but instead say “my brain chemistry is a mess at this moment leading me to think this person is being a bastard.” Sure, we still experience the other person as driving like an asshole, but we know this is coming from us not them. We consequently moderate our response to the other driver because we recognize this is a peculiarity of our cognition of the other person, not a motive on the part of the other person.
So back to the “religion as mytho-poetic thought” line of argument. Here are my problems with this line of argument:
1) It’s simply not true that belief is experienced in this way for 99% of the people that have it. Folks don’t say “the story of Job is a potent story that teaches me a valuable lesson about life”. No. They say this is a theory of reality that explains why this or that happens. I’ll never forget a discussion with an evangelical friend of mine. A few years ago there was a string of bizarre weather events here in Texas. We were talking about this and I alluded to climate change. She chuckled knowingly and said “I don’t worry about such things because I know how the world will end” (alluding to end times theology). For her– and I’ve heard this countless times since —Revelation is not merely a potent set of poetic stories, but is something like an insurance man’s actuarial table. It’s a real prediction about what will happen. It’s a theory of reality and causation and why events are happening. This effects her entire politics and attitude towards things like climate change. Outside of the United States, I’m sure there are a lot of folks have a hard time understanding US foreign policy concerning Israel. What they don’t understand– and don’t believe when they hear it –is that there is a huge voting block that relates the Jews returning to Israel with Biblical prophecy and that any policy that interferes with that means a tremendous loss of votes and campaign donations. Ergo, certain issues just can’t be discussed here. I kid you not. And don’t even get me started on the impact of these beliefs on science education and embodied politics here in the States.
I loves me some John Caputo, but I just can’t share his view that these myths are potent stories that help us to make sense of the world. They’re full blown theories that make truth claims about the nature of reality, what will happen, why what has happened has happened, and what sorts of policy and practices we should adopt. These are theories that have had a profound effect on our ability to respond to climate change, science in the states, as well as all sorts of gender politics. It’s hard to escape the mytho-poetic theory of religious belief is a lot of hand waving by well meaning academics and enlightened people who just can’t bring themselves to believe that their neighbors really believe these things, that have sentimental feelings about the ritual they grew up with in their churches, and that have the misguided view that they can somehow persuade these people if they just talk about their beliefs in a nice way. They don’t seem to realize that the lay will always bristle at the thought that their theory of reality is just a set of potent myths to be interpreted after the fashion of Levi-Strauss or, gag, Joseph Campbell.
2) If the mytho-poetic theorists are right, then they’re saying nothing different than the social constructivists and literary critics have been saying all along. They’re saying that these things aren’t representations of reality or the way things are, but are social constructions, effects of the play of the signifier, creations of cognition, and all the like. In other words, they’re rejecting the referential dimension of these things and giving culturalist explanations. But this is what secular-naturalistic orientations have argued all along. One then wonders why the mytho-poeticists continue to defend religion if they really believe all these stories are referentially false as theories of reality. Why aren’t they busily deconstructing them?
3) If it is true that these stories or theories of reality are just potent literature, why do they still continue to privilege sacred texts which have historically caused so much mayhem. If religion was really just great literary works all along, why not instead find mytho-poetic meaning in great literature like Kafka, comic books, television shows, films, paintings, music, and so on? Why hang on to these particular stories that were written by sheep herders that barely understood anything of the universe 6000+ years ago. It’s bizarre that one would hold the theory that these things are just a way in which people create meaning in the world through narrative and then not consider just abandoning those particular stories that have been taken as theories of reality for so long. After all, no one ever burned a witch, stoned a woman, or sacrificed a daughter over Kafka, but they certain did over these stories and have justified slavery and a variety of other egregious things to boot based on this particular literature. Let’s make a clean break
4) The mytho-poetic theory of religion just muddies the waters. As I said, the vast majority of believers don’t advocate this theory. Women, GLBT folks, scientists, etc., are all oppressed in very real ways by these things, and they affect American climate policy, scientific research (evolution, stem cell research, etc), and a variety of other things too. The mytho-poetic theorist comes along and says “but that’s not really what they mean, these are just powerful stories that give life meaning!” In doing so they provide cover for the worst manifestations of mytho-poetic thought (even though that’s not their intention). These folks should be looking to what the lay believes, not what they read in their sophisticated journals and by theologians.
Yes, I too find the story of Jesus very potent and inspiring (as I do with Buddha and a lot of Greek and Roman mythology as well; especially the story of Apollo and Daphne). Moreso, however, his life and not his death. I’m also all for reading the Bible in exactly the same way as we read Homer, Hesiod, Virgil, and in the way ehtnographers interpret the religious beliefs of other cultures.
Larval Subjects . 
May 17, 2013 at 1:58 am
Levi, I agree with you that religion is more than just a set of interesting stories that can guide human life. I consider myself a Buddhist but I do think that the Bible expresses a great deal of existential truth. I see many of the same insights in the Bible, and in Christian writers, that I see in the Buddhist sutras, and the writings of Zen masters, etc.. However, I think that those existential truths require a certain ontology. This is where I disagree with someone like John Caputo (and I have read almost no Caputo so this might not be a fair representation).
I think, for example, that the Buddhist doctrine of enlightenment only makes sense within a certain ontology. Buddhists believe that the ultimate nature of reality is emptiness. Because we are deluded human beings we misunderstand the nature of reality and that is the cause of our suffering. All of the ethical precepts and existential truths expressed by Buddhism are based on that ontology. It is not just literature. Christian theology, similarly, requires a notion of God and a Christology that allows for the possibility for human beings to participate in divinity, or unite with God through love, etc.. Take all that away and you just have literature with ethical messages, etc.. I think religion at least claims to be something more than literature.
And you are are right that most Christian believers take Christianity to imply certain things about the nature of reality, the forms of causality operative in the world, etc.. that are flatly contradicted by modern science. The notion, for example, that storms are punishments of God, is obviously ridiculous. But it often seems to me like you are saying, 1) Either you have to accept those obviously ridiculous ontologies where God intervenes in weather patterns to punish the wicked, etc., or 2) You have to reject religion entirely.
I am not convinced that those are the only two options. The fact that religion involves ontological claims does not mean that religious people have to base their ontologies on what the random believer on the street thinks. It is perfectly possible to say “The random believer on the street has it wrong” even if the random believer on the street represents 99% of believers. Why can’t a person say “I agree that religion implies ontological claims but I see no reason to identify those ontological claims with the implicit ontologies of the random believer on the street”?
May 17, 2013 at 2:42 am
Brian,
I guess my position would be why treat these things as *religious* at all. I don’t disagree with your point about the Bible at all. However, how is this any different than finding existential truth in Homer? When we talk about homer we don’t say we’re defending *religion*, we say it’s literature. Why not the same with the bible?
May 17, 2013 at 5:08 am
Levi, that is a good question. Why do we call something religious? Well, let me first say that I agree with you in this regard, if someone says “The Bible is just a piece of literature that helps us to live” then they are no longer treating it as a religious text. In that case, it makes no sense to me to say that you are defending “religion”. Just because there is wisdom in the Bible does not mean that it is religion.
I agree with you in this regard as well: religion makes metaphysical claims. I think that all religions, or at least most religions, have a doctrine of salvation or liberation that is based on a view of the ultimate nature of reality. Buddhism believes that the fundamental nature of reality is emptiness and a person is enlightened when they have some direct insight into reality. The Christian believes that the world is a creation of God and the person is saved when they participate in God through the mediation of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Those metaphysical claims are essential.
Here is where I suspect our disagreement might lie: I think it is possible to express metaphysical truths symbolically. For example, in Buddhism there is an identity and a non-identity between the absolute and the relative. Buddhists often express that metaphysical truth symbolically by saying we are like drops of water separated from the ocean. In one sense we are the absolute (we are water) and in another sense we are not the absolute (we are not the whole ocean).
Buddhists really are making a metaphysical claim when they offer that symbol. There is what you call in your post a “referential dimension” to it. But it would obviously be ridiculous to treat it literally. If someone were to treat that truth literally and go jump in the ocean in an effort to be united with the absolute we would rightly say “You are misunderstanding the symbol and you are misunderstanding the metaphysical claim that is being made”.
I think that Christians can do the same thing. I agree that Christianity as a religion requires certain metaphysical commitments. I do not think that someone can be a Christian if they do not believe in God. God, in the Bible, is often presented as an anthropomorphic figure who literally speaks to human beings. God is also presented as intervening in the world through supernatural causality. I do not think it is necessary for the Christian to take the way that God is represented in the Bible literally. The Bible might be expressing metaphysical truths without expressing them literally.
I am not a Christian, and I have not studied the Bible extensively, so I am not sure how a Christian would go about interpreting the metaphysical truths in the Bible without taking them literally, but I think it is possible, and I think a lot of theologians are engaged in doing just that.
Perhaps the best way to put it would be this: it seems to me like you are presenting an either/or in your original post. Either, you agree that the Bible is making ontological claims about the world, in which case you have to interpret the Bible literally and join the science denying crowd, or, you read the Bible symbolically, in which case you are treating it as literature and there is no reason for you to even talk about “religion”. I agree that both of those are options. I also think there is a third option: you can agree that the Bible is making ontological claims about the world in a symbolic way. You can, in other words, read the Bible as a religious text without reading it literally.
May 17, 2013 at 5:44 am
For a different perspective that might offer some new ideas -see also some of the literature mentioned in the reference list:
“Rethinking Prayer and Health Research: An Exploratory Inquiry on Prayer’s Psychological Dimension”.
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, Vol. 30, Nos. 1-2, pp. 23-47,
2011
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1992323
Just a thought…
May 17, 2013 at 11:23 am
“Belief in the Second Coming means many Americans see efforts to tackle climate change as futile”
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/the-sceptic-tank-blog/2266073/apocalypse-wow
I’m not sure I agree with you entirely, Levi, but the above would seem to bear out the general point you’re making. Indeed, I had a similar reaction when reading through Latour’s Gifford lectures. He insists that the religious mode has nothing to do with the mode of reference — he says that religion is only really about spreading ‘Good News’ and thus converting strangers into kin within a religious community. But that simply isn’t true for the vast majority of Christians that I’ve ever met. Many and perhaps even most of them really and truly believe that God exists ‘out there’ and that various items of religious dogma are literally and straightforwardly true and incontestable — creation, the apocalypse, morality, etc.
Of course, Latour is arguing against mainstream Christianity as much as he is against scientism or atheism but the fact remains that his ‘religious mode’ doesn’t describe religious practice as it exists, it rather identifies an essence to Christian religion that is allegedly obscured by the intrusion of other modes, chiefly reference.
But the simple fact is that most Believers don’t hold intellectualised, philosophised, hermeneuticised religious beliefs but fairly straightforwardly literal beliefs about the actual structure of the world. In my experience, most people operate within a single mode for the most part; the multiple modes idea is more of a partially realised ideal than an accurate description.
This is an objection any atheist always runs up against in arguing positively for atheism: ‘oh but that’s just a caricature of religion, we don’t really believe that’. And to an extent that’s a valid objection because religion is an enormously varied and complex phenomenon. But at the same time it gives non-atheists unlimited leeway to shift the goalposts — they can never be pinned down to any particular belief, they can always shift the ground of conversation; from existence to meaning to belief, and so on.
So, yes I think you’re probably arguing against a caricature but (a) that’s unavoidable and (b) that caricature does apply quite well to an awful lot of people, as the above article concerning climate change demonstrates.
May 17, 2013 at 12:18 pm
We could just as easily say that Homer, for example, is a religious texts. Either we treat the Bible (etc.) as literature or as scripture. Or perhaps it’s a particular genre or literature that we could call religious. Key to the discussion is whether the text under consideration is considered ‘sacred’. Perhaps that the mark of religious literature and what distinguishes it from a Kafka novella, although I’m sure that there is someone whose love of Kafka is actually worship of him, in the sense that they take his stories to be referential in the sense used in this post.
For me it’s a matter of getting clear on concepts like religion, literature, and God. These names can’t refer to anything we want. This is where analytic philosophy is useful. If I say that Michael Jordan is a god, I’m misusing the term and probably misunderstanding the concept of god. If I say that ‘god’ for me means anyone who wears 23 for the Chicago Bulls, I haven’t identified the attributes of god, but rather the attributes of a human being who plays professional basketball. If the concepts of god, religion, or literature are going to make any sense then these need determinable parameters. In the case of religion, these parameters should take seriously how religion is understood and lived outside the academy, and begin the study of religion from there. Otherwise, the metaphyscis and ethics/politics of religious life cannot be understood.
This point about the academic/weak theological idea of religion as out of touch with how religion is conceived in the US by the majority of those who practice is an important one.
May 17, 2013 at 3:55 pm
Brian,
Sadly I don’t know nearly as much about Buddhism as I would like. I know that there are many different varieties, some of which involve the dimension of the supernatural, others that look pretty secular to me. Looking at Buddhism as an outsider, a lot of it strikes me as having a profound resemblance to the practices of the stoics and epicureans with respect to desire. I don’t see why we should deny that those practices have real effects. I don’t think the use of symbols is necessarily a bad thing. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze talks about flowers “contracting” differences from other things through “contemplations”. Taken at face value this is absurd, but at a symbolic level it’s one way of talking about organic processes and evolution that helps us to intuitively understand how things relate to the world about them. The problem arises when we begin taking these things literally.
May 17, 2013 at 8:46 pm
Rather than reject religion outright, how about rejecting the monotheism that requires inward directed souls/subjects to declare their belief in a perfect God? The internalized desire of the believer-subject is reproduced as well in Descartes who then can split himself from the external world of “Nature”, which is then in turn reproduced in the discourse of naturalist science. Both science and religion contain in their theories an ideal observer distinct from the external world; in one case an omnipresent God, in the other a complete world both external to the believer and total at once. Physics too has its religious pretensions in that elusive quest for the theory of everything.
The problem as I see it is rather in conceiving Nature as a whole and not working through its persistent aporias. We’re it not demanded to achieve a theory of Nature that matches or replaces a belief in Everything, scientists could be seen as producing accurate measurements without being hounded by deniers for being “just a theory”.
The mythico-poetic is of a different form than religions which force subjects to believe in a god. It is more like a background of cultural signifiers which make meaningful discourse possible just as much as the “wiredness” of our bodies. They contain many creation myths that do not explain in the same way as an individual explaining a foundational belief because they provide a foundational background for a common, shared cultural imagination.
The distinction I am drawing here is between subjective-belief in The universe and universes of symbolic reference as diverse as their are isolated cultures. This is possibly an ontological distinction, perhaps pertaining to the ground needed to have the the figure of a belief in general. I’m thinking now of the function of “the full body of the earth, the cosmic egg” in Deleuze and Guattari’s 3rd chapter of Anti-Oedipus. It plays the role of a territorial beginning from which flows and codings then implement primordial inscription. Still a rough draft of an interpretation of a massive work though.
May 17, 2013 at 9:17 pm
[…] This time from his latest God and Mythico-Poetic Thought. […]
May 17, 2013 at 10:24 pm
This may be more of a comment on your FB post, but I don’t see why grace, charity, hope, etc. must be seen as necessarily religious concepts, as if they’re something more than historically religious concepts. Reading the various deconstructions of religion, I get the impression that they think that wherever there is grace, there is religion. But isn’t grace a more general idea? Must charity always be seen as a pious act?
Can God be weak? Does the concept of God entail weakness? Or does that weakness depend on a certain reading of scripture, the Bible specifically?
May 17, 2013 at 10:57 pm
Bill, in a lot of ways that’s exactly what I’m arguing against. In my view religion *necessarily* refers to the supernatural and divine beings with will and intention. This is what it is for the vast number of people. It’s not just a collection of symbols. There’s no getting around this.
May 19, 2013 at 9:19 pm
[…] the entire discussion in the context of continental philosophy of religion, which has recently been critiqued at Larval Subjects. Dark Ecologies offers some commentary HERE and After Nature (Leon Niemoczynski) offers some […]
May 28, 2013 at 5:52 am
Reblogged this on Re(-)petitions and commented:
Levi Bryant adds more fuel to my smoldering interest in realism.
April 5, 2014 at 8:50 pm
[…] ramifications, of religious traditions (most specifically Christianity). Perhaps a year or so ago, Levi Bryant made a post at larval subjects calling out folks like Caputo for reducing religion to a …, suggesting this cuts its legitimate, if (on Bryant’s view) misguided, ontological […]