It has been said that philosophy is a blindfolded person in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. By contrast theology is a blindfolded person in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there, but finding it.
Human beings are meaning-seeking creatures. We are forever probing into mysteries where answers are scarce, if there is an answer at all. Philosophers seek to reason their way to the ever-elusive answer for the riddle of life, often doubting they have found it. Theologians tend to believe they have found it - through faith - though there is really no evidence. Philosophers tend to be skeptics; theologians presume to have the answer. Somewhere between skepticism and dogmatism live a group of people known as Unitarian Universalists.
No matter how we are distracted by the necessities of survival, we wonder about our origin and destiny, our purpose and meaning. In the cartoon series "The Small Society" two people are talking. One says to the other, "Of course we all want a purpose in life, Ethnic, but I promise you that after awhile you'll be too busy making a living to worry about it."
In the obsession with speed in today's world, that pursuit of purpose is falling into disuse and indifference. We are a society infatuated with the quick fix. We want it all and we want it now. Humanity's age-old quest for meaning is simply too hard for today's impatient American. That emphasis on speed is illustrated in Lou Marinoff's book, Plato, Not Prozac! Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems.
The flip title of the book belies the seriousness with which the author seeks to provide another way of dealing with basic human problems. While he appreciates the contributions of psychology and psychiatry, he believes there is a place for philosophy. The contrast of Plato with the popular drug Prozac is really a metaphor for suggesting that many of our problems are susceptible to long-term reasonable resolution - Plato. He believes we have relied too much on short-term medical remedies - Prozac.
In discussing what he judges to be overuse of the medical model, he tells the old psychiatric joke: "Patients who came early for their appointments were diagnosed as anxious; patients who came late, as hostile; patients who came on time, as compulsive."[1]
Marinoff, a 47-year-old philosophy professor at City College of New York, has launched a crusade for philosophical counseling. He recognizes the limits of his effort in these words: "The idea that every personal problem is a mental illness is itself a mental illness! Some people may not benefit from Plato, just as others may not benefit from Prozac. Some may need Prozac first, then Plato later, or Prozac and Plato together."[2]
It is one of the wonders of modern science that we have developed drugs that are little short of miraculous. I suspect every one of us has used pharmaceuticals to good effect in our lives. For some they help alleviate unnecessary pain and suffering; for others, whose systems have physiological imbalances, they help restore needed balance. There is no shame in taking such drugs; there should be no embarrassment, but rather thanksgiving for the blessings human ingenuity and science have bestowed upon us. "Better things for better living through chemistry," but there are limits.
For example, I have been reading about the debate surrounding drugs such as Prozac and Ritalin in treating children and youth. One teen-ager writes that "Close to half of the 15- to 18-year olds at my private San Mateo high school are on Prozac. . . . Prozac may be great for adults with chemical imbalances, but I think that giving it to kids who aren't doing well in school or who don't get along with their parents, is child abuse. . . . I hate seeing so many unique personalities lobotomized by Prozac."[3] Strong words!
In contrast a therapist writes that a doctor who doesn't consider prescribing Ritalin for children with Attention Deficit Disorder, could be accused of malpractice. Millions of American children and adults are using these drugs. There seems to be consensus about the need for more research on efficacy and side effects. But at how young an age must we rely on drugs for solving problems posed by the young? And what does this ever-increasing use of pharmaceuticals among the young say about our culture? The debate rages on.
I know that without drugs, including Morphine, I would not have been able to get through my recent back pain. I know a hyperactive child who drove his parents to distraction until a wise pediatrician suggested a drug which enabled a healthy growth. The young man, long since off this wonder drug, now teaches pharmacology to medical students. I know another young man, an alcoholic, who now is a drug counselor. I know many people who have been given a new lease on life through proper medication for depression.
However, drugs can be abused as well as used. Whether it be the dread disease of alcoholism, drug addiction or the use of recreational drugs to get high, misuse can be disastrous. But as a minister of religion my purpose is not to delve more deeply into the controversies surrounding the use and abuse of drugs - vital as that debate is. As one who deals with ordinary people with ordinary human problems, I think much of our ennui is treating the normal problems of living as illnesses. While I am a strong believer in mental health services, psychotherapy and psychiatry, and while I know that pharmaceuticals like Prozac have helped many, I remain convinced that it is lack of a religious vision that explains so much of the psychic and spiritual pain in our midst.
That view is nothing new. The venerable psychiatrist Carl Jung, in a widely quoted passage, wrote, "Among all my patients in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was that of not finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain their religious outlook."[4]
Viennese psychiatrist Victor Frankl, who spent several years in a Nazi concentration camp, developed a method of probing such deep human problems with what he called logotherapy. The "will to meaning" was critical in mental and spiritual health.
These two psychiatrists create a bridge between philosophy and theology, which are two related but distinct approaches to life. To illustrate the difference, I remember when my Building Your Own Theology program came out. There were some who asked why I did not call it Building Your Own Philosophy, as in philosophy of life. But, to me, philosophy is essentially a rational pursuit of truth in the abstract. Theology is much more existentially based - what I believe about the world and my place in it matters to me in a very concrete way.
When a philosopher critiques the rational arguments for the existence of God, that is very interesting. However, it may or may not make any difference to me. While it is intellectually stimulating to discuss such matters, it really does not affect the way I live my life.
When a theologian argues about God, it is out of a personal confrontation with Ultimate Reality and what that confrontation means for one's life. Is this an honest universe? Can I expect life to be fair? Will virtue always succeed and vice fail, or is it true that no good deed goes unpunished? These are questions about Ultimate Reality that affect the way I live my life.
Unitarian Universalists I think tend to be more philosophical than theological. We tend to like to keep truth at arms length and are a bit timid in understanding theological issues as affecting us. We are rightly proud of being theologically skeptical - of being religious doubters. We have philosophically dissected our orthodox religious past and found it wanting. However, we are not as adept at constructing a theology that feeds our spiritual hungers.
In philosopher Mortimer Adler's autobiography there is a fascinating account of his debates with philosopher Bertrand Russell, the great skeptic. They had a public debate where Adler took the affirmative on an issue, Russell the negative. Russell reveled in it: he poked fun, taunted, ridiculed, laughed. He felt so superior in tearing every proposition to shreds. Later, the two men were asked to have a return encounter. Adler agreed, on the condition that this time he take the negative. That was the accepted plan, but it was exceedingly hard to schedule Bertrand Russell. Speaking of him, Adler said: "It took over a year to find something he could affirm!"
Something to affirm. We all need something to affirm. After we have done the doubting of rational beings; after we have critiqued the creeds; after we have ridiculed empty ritual we need something to affirm. And reason is not enough.
We Unitarian Universalists sometimes are like mountain climbers "who work their way to timber line then stop and never reach the summit." Religion is more than philosophy, more even than theology. It is the best in us reaching for the loftiest in the universe. It is grappling with the big issues. Why is there something, and not nothing? What are space and time? Why do people suffer? What is the purpose of human existence? What is the meaning of living in this world? In the midst of a finite life, what can I affirm?
My religious affirmation is that life has meaning; furthermore, my own life has meaning. That meaning is not something I discover by reading philosophers, though I do find them helpful. It is not something I find by studying theologians, though I do find them instructive. That meaning is not written in the stars. In fact, I do not believe that the universe by itself has any meaning. I believe in the benign indifference of the universe. It is good, but it is not made for my personal benefit. It is I who must wring meaning out of this indifferent universe.
This need to create meaning is seen in the observation that every culture seems has found patterns in the random constellations of stars above our heads. Unless one believes in a cosmic creator who has deliberately thrown the stars into Orion's belt or Cassiopeia or the Big and Little Dippers, it is we who connect those cosmic dots and make a pattern, a picture of them. We need to see our lives as part of a pattern - even if it may seem to the outside observer to be a series of random acts. When we sense a pattern in our lives, we have created meaning. "We live below the senseless stars and write our meanings in them."[5]
And so I believe we create our own meanings. That is our purpose as human beings. That is why we are here. Meaning comes from a basic religious faith in the worthwhileness of existence. Life matters. And here's why.
I find meaning in committing myself to that which transcends me - be it a cause or the creation of something worthwhile. Last Wednesday evening I led a simple ritual to inaugurate a fast (Invisible Workers - Hidden Abuses) calling attention to the plight of food service employees, janitors, health care aids and farmworkers throughout the state, the poorly paid people who do so much of the hard, important and unrecognized work in our society. There were only half a dozen people there as we affirmed our solidarity with the working poor of our state. Then we lit candles as each of us noted someone or ones we knew who worked at less than a living wage. I noted a person who spoke at our church during a hearing on the state budget and its woeful neglect of the disadvantaged. Another spoke of the murder of a case-worker who worked directly with the poor in a dangerous neighborhood. Such experiences may not do much to change the world, but they do change me.
And I like to think that some of the words I speak or write are like seeds which from time to time fall into fertile ground. Over the years I have generated many millions of words - flung out into the air or onto a page. With occasional exceptions I do not know what impact they may have on the lives of people. I only know that ministry is an act of faith which gives me meaning.
I find meaning in suffering and death, strange as that may seem. As I said two weeks ago, my life and career often find me thinking about the finitude of human life. I spend much time with people who have lost loved ones - some in the most painful of circumstances. Time after time I try to put into words the truth that death is a part of life - that whatever may lie beyond our deaths - this life is all we can know, so we had better make the best of it.
There is a Buddhist parable about a monk who kept a teacup by his bed. Every night before he went to sleep he turned it upside down. Each morning he righted it. When a puzzled novice inquired, the monk explained that he was symbolically emptying the cup of life each night to signify his acquiescence in his own mortality. The ritual reminded him that he had done the things he needed to do that day and so was ready should death come for him. Each morning, then, he turned the cup up to accept the gift of a new day.
"He was taking life one day at a time, acknowledging the wonderful gift of life with each dawn but prepared to relinquish it at the end of each day.[6] There is meaning in paying attention to the day in which we live.
I find meaning in everyday human experience. Every morning, though I struggle to get out of bed, I look forward to my walk around the neighborhood. Presumably this brisk walk is for my physical health - and, of course, it is. But primarily it is about my spiritual health.
I cannot stand the thought of a treadmill, or an exercise bike, or any of the other paraphernalia marketed to athlete wannabes. I like to be in nature, surrounded by nature, urban-tinged nature to be sure, but just as real as a walk along a lakeshore. I don't take along a walkman because I love to hear the birds singing. I don't try to read the newspaper while I'm walking (like one of my neighbors) because I love to see the eagerness with which the dogs out walking their masters greet me.
Every morning except Sunday - this is my mode of meditation. My mantra? I am alive. I am alive to birds singing and dogs walking and people greeting and clouds scudding and breezes blowing and rain falling. I am alive, and the intense realization of that simple fact is enough to keep me going no matter what. So, Prozac? Yes, if it enables people to restore equilibrium in face of the realities of life - sad and joyful.
Plato? Yes, if he can remind us that there is beauty in the inward soul.
Theology? Yes, if it comes forth from the real experiences of the theologian.
But meaning comes to me out of the warp and woof of my own experiences - as I understand the patterns of my own life, as I seek to weave a garment of truth and beauty and goodness.
It comes out of my desire to give something back to the world that has created me; out of my pain as I come to understand the finitude of being; out of my first hand experiencing of the beauty of this world which comes to me quite apart from my deserving.
I think the ultimate critique of philosophers and theologians and doctors and ministers is by poet e.e. cummings. In his La Guerre 2, he writes this delicious piece of verse that takes off all the blindfolds and illuminates the darkened room:
"O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
beauty how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring)"
We are meaning-seeking creatures. It is time to take off the blindfolds and behold the beauty of living in this time and in this place and with this people.
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