Shake up your unexamined worldview -- it's fun!

I used to cling to a quasi-fundamentalist view of the cosmos. Now, I don't.

I've come to enjoy a deliciously exciting sensation of feeling rigidly settled ways of looking at the world transform into a more naturally fluid vision of reality.

"Naturally," because if there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that we can't be sure we know everything about anything. So I love someone who comes along with a Paradigm Shaker which busts up worldviews that are widely accepted without good reason.

Don Cupitt, for example. I read his book "After God" a few years ago. I liked it then. Taking another look at it the past few days, I like it even more now.

It's tough to encapsulate Cupitt's take on religion and God briefly. He was a minister in the Church of England who lost faith in a "realist" view of God. (Non-realism basically says, "our understanding of the world helps produce the way it is." You can listen to Cupitt discussing this in an interview.)

This Library Journal review of his book that I found on Amazon does a pretty good job of summing it up.

Cupitt (philosophy, Emmanuel Coll., Cambridge) redefines what it means to believe in God while accepting that God does not exist. He argues that there is indeed an unseen intelligible, or spirit world, among us. But this world is made up of words and symbols. The world of religion is a mythical representation of the world of language.

Cupitt's is a postmodern religion that sees God not as a transcendent reality but as a reflection of human selfhood. According to Cupitt, this conception of religion frees one from the belief in absolutes, which, he says, spells the death of religion. Human beings themselves are the only source of meaning and value. Belief in God, Cupitt holds, is a valuable and interesting form of consciousness. While Cupitt's analysis will not be accepted by many, his book offers a well-wrought argument.

Below is part of his argument: a wonderful description of how most people, overtly religious or not, perceive reality. Largely, it's taken for granted as being the way things really are.

But when it comes to reality, taking things for granted isn't justified.

When you read the following excerpt from "After God," consider how easily someone -- perhaps you -- could agree with these propositions. And also how easily they could be refuted.

As I read each of the twenty-two brief assumptions, I experienced a increasingly pleasant sensation of vertigo, of falling from a belief-perch that previously seemed solid, but used to, and in some ways still was, preventing me from floating freely in the warm waters of reality.

Cupitt says that he came up with this schema after a senior Fellow in his college died. His successor said, "Well, he knows now, doesn't he?"

Those words are a window. I thought about them for a few days, analyzing them backward, and came up with this:

Life

1.  Truth is not manufactured by us; it is discovered by us, or dis-covers (the Latin vela, "veil," gives us the word re-veals or un-veils) itself to us.

2.  The answers to all properly framed questions, both questions of fact and questions of value, preexist out there, objectively.

3.  There is a great and final Answer to the mystery of our existence, out there, awaiting us.

4.  All these truths and answers (2, 3) are, so to say, tailored to our faculties and our requirements. They are in principle accessible and intelligible to us, so that we may reasonably hope and expect to discover them, or have them reveal themselves to us.

5.  There is then something quite dazzling, namely a preestablished harmony between thought and being, language and reality; between the questions we want to ask and the Answer that the nature of things is waiting to give us. (Notice that this most astonishing doctrine is also the one most profoundly taken for granted.)

6.  The final Answer will be revealed to us in or through death.

7.  Our life is a pilgrimage toward death, the moment of truth, the moment of absolute knowledge.

8.  Our life is a journey, then, from

(a) the relative to the absolute; from
(b) time to eternity; from
(c) the changing, sensuous world of becoming to the realm of pure timeless intelligible Being; from
(d) the particular to the universal; and from
(e) the mediated, discursive, through-a-glass-darkly sort of knowledge, to pure face-to-face unmistakable vision.

9.  Each person's life is a story scripted beforehand, and there is a great Story of Everything whose plot has been revealed to us in a Book.

The Binary Contrasts

10. The binary contrasts (in #8 a-e), and a number of other related contrasts, are all analogously asymmetrical.

11. In each of the cases cited, the second of the pair:

(a) is prior;
(b) is superior (that is, greater in both value and reality, and therefore standard-setting); and
(c) in some way governs or produces or brings about the first.

12. Thus the spiritual world above is in every way better and greater than this material world below.

Being and Value

13. There are degrees of reality, and of value.

14. The scale of degrees of being is also a scale of degrees of value, or goodness, or perfection.

15. The Most Real is therefore the Most Good, and vice versa: for the Highest Good is -- has to be -- the Supreme Reality.

16. To gain the highest knowledge, we must purify our souls and perfect ourselves; and one should, in particular, prepare for death.

Causality

17. Ex nihilo nihil fit ("Out of nothing, nothing comes to be").

18. Every change has a cause; or, every thing that is has a cause of its being.

19. The cause is prior to the effect; the cause is responsible for, or accounts for, the effect. 

20. The cause is superior in reality to the effect.

21. The qualities that are found in the effect preexist in a higher degree in the cause.

22. Our last end is the absolute knowledge of what is greatest, most real, and most perfect; a knowledge in which we shall enjoy perfect happiness.

This is brilliant stuff. Cupitt nailed me!

He managed to set down the core principles that used to prop up my worldview. And still does, in some respects, or I wouldn't have felt the previously-mentioned vertigo as I realized, "I've been holding tightly on to assumptions that are best grasped lightly."

But enough about me. How about you?

I bet most people who visit this blog, even many of the devoutly churchless, would still agree with a large share of the propositions Cupitt lists above.

Even more than agree, in this sense: these propositions tend to be unexamined and taken for granted, being part of a worldview that is so obviously true, few people stop to ponder how questionably true it is.

in my next post I'll talk about what Cupitt advises for an "After God" way of living happily and meaningfully.

Comments

[tucson]

1. Truth is not manufactured by us; it is discovered by us, or dis-covers (the Latin vela, "veil," gives us the word re-veals or un-veils) itself to us.

--There is no final Truth. Perception of self as an independent separate entity is a product of conditioning.

2. The answers to all properly framed questions, both questions of fact and questions of value, preexist out there, objectively.

--There is no objective final answer, just neither this nor that.

3. There is a great and final Answer to the mystery of our existence, out there, awaiting us.

--Same as the last one.

4. All these truths and answers (2, 3) are, so to say, tailored to our faculties and our requirements. They are in principle accessible and intelligible to us, so that we may reasonably hope and expect to discover them, or have them reveal themselves to us.

--It (actually no 'it') is unintelligible, inaccessesible, unknowable, unnamable. Alakh, Agam, Anami. OMG!! Sant Mat was right!!

5. There is then something quite dazzling, namely a preestablished harmony between thought and being, language and reality; between the questions we want to ask and the Answer that the nature of things is waiting to give us. (Notice that this most astonishing doctrine is also the one most profoundly taken for granted.)

--'It" can't be bound by that conceptual framework as good as it sounds.

6. The final Answer will be revealed to us in or through death.

--There is no answer to be revealed. Death is just death. When we die, no 'us' could remain for the mechanism that originates it is, well, dead. What a relief to be rid of that burden!!

7. Our life is a pilgrimage toward death, the moment of truth, the moment of absolute knowledge.

--Death is inevitable but the one who would have absolute knowledge is not there to have it.

8. Our life is a journey, then, from

(a) the relative to the absolute; from
(b) time to eternity; from
(c) the changing, sensuous world of becoming to the realm of pure timeless intelligible Being; from
(d) the particular to the universal; and from
(e) the mediated, discursive, through-a-glass-darkly sort of knowledge, to pure face-to-face unmistakable vision.

--No one is having any journey. All of the above are just ideas that have no bearing on anything.

9. Each person's life is a story scripted beforehand, and there is a great Story of Everything whose plot has been revealed to us in a Book.

--There is no 'beforehand' and no plot, so how could there be a Book about it?

[Blogger Brian]

tucson, right on. You're in almost perfect agreement with Cupitt. As am I. The guy, who knows a heck of a lot of philosophy (as he should, being a Cambridge professor), has done a great job zeroing in on usually unspoken assumptions in both Western and Eastern religions.

[George]

I am not sure i agree with these assumptions at all, regardless of where this guy comes from.

"7. Our life is a pilgrimage toward death, the moment of truth, the moment of absolute knowledge."

What happens if there is nothing when we die, simply a passing into death, nothing, almost akin to a deep sleep never to be awoken from. This means that the only knowledge gained is that there are no answers after death, but you won't know that, you will simply be dead. If there is no life after death or no persisitng consciousness or no oneness; then what answers will one discover, none. there would be no knowledge to learn, the most knowledge you could have amassed about the truth is that before your death.

"8. Our life is a journey, then, from
(b) time to eternity; from
(c) the changing, sensuous world of becoming to the realm of pure timeless intelligible Being;"

Again, how does he know this, based on what? When we die, it might very well be that that is it, there is no proof of passing on into a realm of timeless intellible being at all. Those are beliefs.

We can all speculate on what might be, but it is just that speculation, there is no objective evidemce.

[George]

A proper scientist and cambridge don like Dawkins would have a field day with this guy's beliefs. I mean which is it, you either believe in reason or you don't. I have no problem with anyone speculation, but it should be made clear by anyone that does it, that it is merely that, personal speculation.

These 20-odd statements have been presented as if fact, as if some sort of logical philosophy, but they are nothing of the sort, they are personal beliefs, some of which i agree with and others that i don't, but the key issue is that they are totally unsupported one way or the other by objective evidence.

[Blogger Brian]

George, Cupitt doesn't agree with these 20 propositions. Just the opposite. He came up with them in an attempt to show the source of his colleague's statement after someone dies, "Well, he knows now." I said:
--------------------
Below is part of his argument: a wonderful description of how most people, overtly religious or not, perceive reality. Largely, it's taken for granted as being the way things really are.

But when it comes to reality, taking things for granted isn't justified.

When you read the following excerpt from "After God," consider how easily someone -- perhaps you -- could agree with these propositions. And also how easily they could be refuted.

...Even more than agree, in this sense: these propositions tend to be unexamined and taken for granted, being part of a worldview that is so obviously true, few people stop to ponder how questionably true it is.
------------------

So actually you agree with Cupitt. These propositions are totally unsupported by objective evidence -- when they pertain to God and things metaphysical, at least.

[Roger]

"22. Our last end is the absolute knowledge of what is greatest, most real, and most perfect; a knowledge in which we shall enjoy perfect happiness."

---I would love to have an absolute knowledge of what is kinda sorta great, the partial real, and the some what perfect. This absolute knowledge, I can enjoy when I am slightly sad too.

[George]

Brian,
Oh right, fair enough.

[Roger]

"(Non-realism basically says, "our understanding of the world helps produce the way it is."

---Could someone explain what the framework of "our understanding" is? Is this a collective or individual understanding?
Thanks for any info,
Roger

[Blogger Brian]

Roger, if you listen to the fairly short interview with Cupitt (click on the "can listen" link in this post) you'll better understand what is meant by what I said -- which I cribbed from a comment by the interviewer, and Cupitt assented to.

It's both: an collective and individual understanding. Not long ago, when people looked up at the night sky they considered that what they saw was a window onto the whole universe, because our galaxy was all science knew to exist.

Then Hubble realized that some of those "stars" actually were entire giant galaxies. So now looking at the night sky involved a fresh understanding.

In ancient times people thought that the stars were part of glass spheres, or something like that, revolving around. And that gods were responsible for heavenly events. Objectively, the same seeing and sights. Subjectively, very different understandings.

The point is that our experience of the world is framed by what we already know, or believe. To us that device lying on the table is a cell phone, and when we see it we think "cell phone," which conjures up all kinds of associations. To someone who has never seen a cell phone and has no idea what they do, it would just be an object.

With God, of course, there is nothing to be seen. So Cupitt's non-realism becomes really non-real. In the interview, he speaks about how non-realism isn't solipsism. There is definitely a world that exists whether or not we do. It's just that our understandings shape how we see and know that world. Totally, when it comes to metaphysical "seeing," in his opinion.

[Roger]

Brian,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I am limited in my personal Internet use during the day. I don't have the Internet at my house. So, minimal time for watching Internet videos.

I looked up Solipsism.

Solipsiam is the philosophical idea that one's own mind is all that exists. Solipsism is an epistemological or ontological position that knowledge of anything outside the mind is unjustified. The external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist.

So, Solipsism doesn't allow for any kind of sensory-conceptual cognition?

Non-realism - basically says, "our understanding of the world helps produce the way it is." Therefore, knowledge of anything outside our mind is justified. So, this would embrace duality. I'm guessing.

I wonder how "non-realism" is different from realism? In addition, did Culpitt embrace non-dualism?

I can embrace non-duality and engage in dualistic activities. I have no problem with such.

Any further clarification on Culpitt's interpretation would be an interesting read.
Thanks,
Roger

[Blogger Brian]

Roger, the link is to an audio clip, not a video. But if you aren't at a computer where listening over a speaker isn't a good option, that could be a problem.

Cupitt doesn't appear to be a non-dualist. He views the natural world as the only real world, since it is the one we live in and know. As I'll describe in a post later today, embracing life fully and passionately is one of his watchwords.