INSIDE America

The Study of God and the Study of the Real
God Is the Logic of the Cosmos. He Is the Basis of All that Is Real

Consider the following view of the relation between religion and reality: “God” is the name we give to the spirit that governs the world through movement and reason. He is the “logic” of the cosmos, so to speak. It is the basis of all that is real. What is real is an expression of the “infinite rationality” that we call God. The study of God is called “philosophy,”and it is entirely an exercise of the human intelligence. Others speak of “God” as the “ground” for behavior, for morality, for the organization of the world and the choice of behavior that best corresponds to the needs of human society. This “God” is in some way the “reflection” of the needs of particular societies. It corresponds to how a particular society understands itself, its common origin and destiny. It is the God to which a society’s authority (let’s say, the State) appeals to maintain the social, political, and economic order. It is not the God of “intelligence,” but of “behavior.” “Theology” is the study of God, the rational analysis of the divine. There are three types of theology: mythical theology, civil theology, and natural theology. The theologians of mythical theology are the poets. The theologians of natural theology are the philosophers, those who seek to understand reality. The theologians of civil theology are the “people” who seek ways to interpret their emotions and feelings. Mythical theology joins civil theology to form what is called “religion,” that is, to generate rites, myths, and symbols that express the people’s sense of identity, meaning, and purpose. Religion, as such, has nothing to do with rationality. Indeed, the natural theologians, devoted to rationality, are perceived as destructive of religion, since they seek to de-mythologize it and discover what “really” explains the cosmos. Religion and rationality thus constitute two different spheres of human thought, often in conflict with each other. Religious people defended their views by saying that the divine is always ineffable and, as such, it cannot be grasped by human intelligence (natural theology) but through mythical language and symbolic words and gestures that, however imperfect, still allow us some contact with the divine world. Sounds like the opinion of many today, doesn’t it? Maybe it needs some adjustments. Instead of God let us call it the “Unknown.” There is indeed a “rationality” or “logic” to it, but it is mostly imposed on it by the human mind and human needs. What we call “real” is what fits this logic or mind-created “rationality.” The study of the real is the work of philosophy (only if it affirms the absolute “unknowability” of the Unknown) and science. As to the three kinds of theology, we can eliminate the term “natural theology” and substitute for it science and philosophy, and perhaps combine civil and mythical theology into religion and “spirituality.” Now it sounds perfectly modern, doesn’t it? Well, of course, it isn’t. This is precisely the view of the man called the “most erudite among the Romans,” Marco Terenzio Varrone, back around the early second century AD. Amazing, isn’t it? This is what the debate between “science and religion” or “reason and faith” looked like when the Christian claim arrived in the pagan world. If it reminds us of so much of the contemporary discussion about faith and reason, about religion and truth, about politics and religion, etc., surely it is instructive to see how the first Christians dealt with this problem, how they responded to this challenge. In the debate between “religion” and “philosophy,” for example, with whom did the Christians side? The early Christians sided with the philosophers! There was a relation between religion and Christianity–Christianity also had its symbols and rites; but above all, the Christian faith provides access to the Truth, to the One Truth, the same for all. Christianity was not primarily interested in “religion” or “spirituality,” but in the real, in all of reality as grasped both by the mind and the heart through the encounter with the One who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” The consequences of this decision by the first Christians are enormous for us today, as we shall explore in future columns.