Category Archives: Religion

The Waters of Meaning

Christianity, Culture, Meaning, Myth

I was recently reading, in Amy Jeffs’ excellent book ‘Saints’, a remarkable pair of stories about the 6th century Irish Saint Scoithin (pronounced Skuh-heen).

In the first, a man is walking across a field when a ship sails by – across the field. The field remains simultaneously both water and land as the two worlds intersect, while the man has a conversation with a man called Barra on the ship. As he disappears, Barra gives the man the name of Scoithin, which means ‘flower’.

In the second story, Scoithin comes over from Ireland to visit the inspirational St David in Wales. When he is ready to go back, however, there is no ship, so St. David gives him a horse instead. The horse is miraculously able to walk on water, to carry Scoithin back across the sea to Ireland. In the middle of his journey, too, he encounters an island which turns out to be a tamed Leviathan, inhabited by St Brendan, the famous voyager. Brendan first encountered the sea monster on his journey as a threat, but later returned to make his peace with it, and to dwell on it in friendship.

I have been writing much about meaning in my books, and these stories reminded me strongly of the symbolic relationship between meaning and water. We take a ‘deep dive’ to understand something fully; we become ‘immersed’ in a subject; baptism is a symbolic immersion in new meaning, to change the direction of one’s life; the nagas of Buddhist mythology, symbols of wisdom, live deep in the sea. I expect you can find your own parallels. The properties of water lend itself very well to this recurrent metaphor. It is much more flexible than solids, but nevertheless has weight and coheres. It sustains life, but can also threaten it without the context provided by any solidity at all. If water is meaning, then earth (or solidity) is belief. We rely on earth to provide us with practical support and sustenance, but it can easily dry out and become rigid. We may assume it is permanent and final because of its solidity, but it, too, keeps changing form.

In human experience, meaning is all the potential associations that we engage with through the imagination. Words, sounds, and images are meaningful to us because we associate them with other experiences or other symbols. Neurally, meaning is a massive set of links in our brains and nervous systems. Belief is a subset of meaning, a set of associations and links that we have made (or could make) into propositions as the basis of action. However, people constantly confuse meaning and belief by assuming that belief is necessary to meaning, rather than the other way round. Much of my writing about meaning involves a protest against the entrenched representationalist tradition in our thinking, which relentlessly bases meaning on belief rather than belief on meaning. To come back to the metaphor, however, water suffuses earth and allows it to adapt and change: earth is practically dependent on water’s flexibility, but water does not always depend on earth.

Water is thus a potent symbol for the inspirational role of the imagination, allowing us to return to that underlying flexibility when we have become stuck in attitudes that are in conflict with conditions. The first story of Scoithin reminds me particularly of the way that that inspiration is always present, as long as we can maintain a connection to it. Thus although we may have very sophisticated beliefs about the world formatted by our goal-driven and representationally dominated left brain hemispheres, we also need these beliefs to be constantly connected to new possibilities through the sensual and imaginative openness of right brain hemisphere functions. As we walk across the functional, dry field, the flexible sea is always there potentially, sometimes bursting through dramatically. It’s also striking that Scoithin gains his name through a connection with this underlying meaning, not through any construction of beliefs.

In the second story, of Scoithin crossing back to Ireland on a horse, we are also reminded of the ways that meaning can provide us with new beliefs to fit a new situation. The flux of meaning can be ‘firmed up’ at any point so that we can cross into a new situation when we need to do so. This is a practical need in human life. We need the left hemisphere to formulate beliefs about the world and about our actions in it, for entirely practical purposes. The mistake we often make is to assume that the beliefs come first, that they are basic and permanent. The inspiration for this comes from Christian religious tradition in this case, as represented by St. David. It’s also striking that in his encounter with St. Brendan in the middle of his journey, Scoithin encounters an integrative application of such inspirational meaningfulness. Brendan has returned to the Leviathan, not to beat it, but to make peace and develop friendship with it. What we take to be most threatening and uncontrollable only requires new imagination to be reframed in a way that helps us to begin to address the conflict. If two parties to a conflict are dried out and stuck, they remain opposed indefinitely, but to make peace, they need the fluidity to start thinking differently.

The waters of meaning are a crucial aspect of the Middle Way, with both extremes in any conflict locked in by their lack of fluidity. The Five Principles of Middle Way Philosophy all involve making a connection to the waters of meaning rather than only appealing to ‘true’ or ‘false’ beliefs – scepticism critiques solid stuck beliefs by reminding us of watery uncertainty, provisionality formulates new adequately fluid beliefs, incrementality involves thinking in degrees (as water moves), agnosticism defends the sources of the spring against those who would block it up, and integration dissolves the conflict between two solidly dried-up positions.

If we need stories to remind us of the values of the Middle Way, they can be found in the most unexpected places, because practical wisdom can be expressed in the context of any complex human tradition, even if those same traditions have got stuck in their formal expressions of belief. I draw a lot of inspiration from early Christian sources, though I can never subscribe to what are widely understood as ‘Christian beliefs’, which I think miss the point of the meaning that the Christian tradition has tapped into. The underlying symbolism of meaning as water can also be found in all sorts of other contexts.

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My understanding of meaning is discussed in my forthcoming book (Sept 25) Embodied Meaning and Integration, and the inspirational understanding of meaning in religion was also explored in my previous book Archetypes in Religion and Beyond. Amy Jeffs’ book ‘Saints’ is linked here.

Susan Averbach on the Jewish Middle Way

Judaism, Middle Way Philosophy, Religion, Video,

Here’s a lovely talk given by Susan Averbach for an online celebration of the Jewish festival of Shavuot with the International Institute of Secular Humanistic Judaism. It begins with Tyler Perry’s speech about the Middle Way at the Oscars, includes a brief introduction to the Middle Way in general, some extracts about ‘Living Room Conversations’ that offer a way to put the Middle Way into action, and some reflections for Jewish practices that may support the Middle Way.

Network Stimulus 8: Agnosticism

Middle Way Philosophy, Network Stimulus, Religion, Video

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Sun 30th August at 7pm UK time on Zoom. This is the fourth of the series looking successively at five principles of the Middle Way (scepticism, provisionality, incrementality, agnosticism and integration), followed by three levels of practice (desire, meaning and belief).

There’ll be a short talk on agnosticism, followed by questions and discussion in regionalised breakout groups. Some other regionalised groups will meet at other times. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. To catch up on the previous session, on incrementality, please see this post.

There is already a short introductory video (9 mins) on agnosticism as part of Middle Way Philosophy, which is embedded below. You might like to watch this for an initial orientation before the session.

Here is the video of the actual network talk, followed by Q&A:



Agnosticism

Agnosticism is an aspect of Middle Way practice that is interdependent with scepticism, provisionality and incrementality, but involves the distinctive challenge of decisively resisting absolute beliefs on both sides. Once we recognise that we ‘don’t know’ and can’t know anything perfect or infinite, the challenge is that of not being either unnerved or seduced by those with absolute beliefs who will constantly try to either dismiss or appropriate any kind of Middle Way position. These absolute beliefs may be about God, or about a whole range of other claims of infinite scope. Resisting these absolute beliefs requires having confidence in our embodied experience as a basis of judgement, as well as the application of critical thinking skills.

Agnosticism, like scepticism, has been much misunderstood and straw-manned by many philosophers and theologians, who then influence others’ views of it. It has been unfairly associated with indecisiveness, when it actually requires a good deal of decisiveness. It has been appropriated by those on both sides, who use its arguments, but then over-extend them into a claim that it positively supports their own absolute position. Agnosticism about God’s existence has also often been appropriated by atheists, who conflate the mere failure to believe in an absolute with belief in the opposite, often by redefining the terms in a way that tries to make any Middle Way unthinkable.

Alongside the avoidance of belief in absolute claims, we can maintain even-handedness by also having a full acceptance of their meaning. This means that we can engage as fully as we wish with the archetypal power of absolute ideas, or of the images and concepts associated with them, as we encounter them in experience. In our attitude to religious traditions, a Middle Way thus allows us to combine a resolute agnosticism with a practical appreciation of all the valuable inspiration and practical guidance that can be found in these traditions. A further video exploring the distinction between absolute belief and archetypal meaning can be found here.

Some suggested reflection questions:

  1. What are the absolute beliefs that you need to be most decisive in remaining agnostic about?
  2. Are there some negative absolute beliefs you may hold that you need to separate from agnostic ones?
  3. Have you experienced the difference between strong and weak agnostic positions?
  4. Do absolute beliefs remain meaningful to you even when you avoid belief in them? How could you make them meaningful if they aren’t?

Suggested further reading:

Truth on the Edge  chapter 2

Middle Way Philosophy I: 1e: Distinguishing Negative Metaphysics from Agnosticism

The Buddha’s Middle Way: 3.f: Agnosticism: The Elephant and the Snake

Cutting the Gordian Knot

Current Affairs, Middle Way Philosophy, Politics, Religion

The ability to cut through complexity and reach a simple resolution has an obvious appeal, yet ‘shortcuts’ can also be very damaging because they fail to engage with complexity. Are shortcuts always absolutisations? The story of Alexander the Great cutting through the Gordian Knot has always appealed to me. Here were lots of people arguing with endless complexity about how to untie the knot, and Alexander saw intuitively that all this complexity was unnecessary and unhelpful – so he cut the knot! Can this be justified?

I think it can. Absolutisations are always shortcuts, but shortcuts are not always absolutisations. Sometimes shortcuts are the best practical response to a situation in which continuing to try to address complexity is just creating more and more loops of conflict. Endless complex debate can also reinforce a certain limited framework within which a problem is being understood, with the boundaries strangely being reinforced by the complexity of discussion. Complexity is always there, and things are indeed likely to be more complex than we recognise, but that does not necessarily imply that a response that tries to limitlessly deal with complexity is the best one for us as agents within that system.

Alternative examples to Alexander cutting the Gordian Know can be found everywhere. For example, I think that agnosticism about God is a good example. The ramifications of theological debate about God’s ‘existence’ are endless, but their complexity depends on particular conceptual assumptions that do not actually help us address the complexity of conditions. Cutting the Gordian Knot here means pointing out that it’s totally irrelevant to our experience of phenomena (including religious experience), and of value, whether or not God ‘exists’ as a supernatural entity. The obsession with God’s ‘existence’ consists of a set of assumptions that we can simply cast aside. As long as we are caught up in the complexity of the arguments, that approach seems unthinkable, until one moment when it simply occurs to us that we don’t actually have to take a position on all of this. We can cast the burden aside and walk free.

But how can we tell when it’s justifiable to cut a Gordian Knot, rather than try to face up to complexity? I’d suggest that the key test is not about complexity at all, but about whether we’re facing up to alternatives. If we are offered alternatives that we simply ignore or dismiss because they are ‘off the map’ (not because of a reasonable judgement about their credibility), then the chances are that we are absolutizing, whether the alternative we’re ruling out is simple or complex. In the case of agnosticism about God, in most cases agnostics have tried out the arguments about God’s ‘existence’ and found them only productive of conflict, and have then recognised agnosticism as an alternative. Theists and atheists, on the other hand, routinely misunderstand, ignore or dismiss agnosticism: they have not engaged with it as a genuine option. On the other hand, many British attitudes to the EU routinely ignore its complexity, especially by jumping to the conclusion that it is ‘anti-democratic’, without examining the great complexity around the question either of what democracy means, or what it would mean for a supra-national body to be appropriately democratic. In this case, in my view the failure to face up to complexity is also a failure to consider alternatives to the easy view one has adopted, or to break out of the limited assumptions of a particular discourse.

My thoughts on this question have been especially stimulated recently by the Brexit impasse as it is continuing to ramify in the UK. I have taken a great interest in the complexity of these events, and am inclined at times to feel frustrated at the failure of most members of the public to engage with this complexity. However, I’m also beginning to think that one particular simple answer may in practice be the best one: that is, the recently adopted Liberal Democrat policy of simply revoking Article 50 and thus ending the whole Brexit debacle through one parliamentary action. It’s been pointed out to me that this would not be ‘simple’ at all, because it would create a lot of resistance, but this is where we also need to avoid the nirvana fallacy and compare different possible courses of action with each other rather than with an impossible ideal. The UK is deadlocked because there is great resistance to any possible course of action – so the choice seems to be between different actions that would all create great resistance: no-deal, deal, second referendum or revocation. Of these, the first three all threaten to prolong the impasse, because of the contradictions and impracticality in the case for Brexit itself. Only revocation seems to stand a chance of ending it in the long-term: but its simplicity seems to be one of the main barriers. Those who have been trying to engage with the complexity for so long can no longer believe that it might be that simple: just let go!

Part of the problem with discussing this topic also seems to be that people’s assumptions about what is ‘simple’ and what is ‘complex’ vary hugely with their background and perspective. If we are accustomed to dealing with complexity in a certain subject area, our handling of the concepts gets gradually easier, so it no longer seems ‘complex’ to us at all. Things that seem simple in one respect may also be complex in another – as I think is the case with Middle Way Philosophy in general, which is simple in its key idea, but complex in its application. However, we can probably all agree that cutting the Gordian Knot is a relatively simple action compared to trying to untie it. I expect lots of disagreement with my views on the two contentious examples I have used – God and Brexit, but the key point in my view will be not so much whether you are prepared to  cut Gordian knots on occasion, but what your approach is to judging those occasions. Can you face up to alternatives, even if those alternatives sometimes seem unacceptably simple rather than unacceptably complex? That is an ongoing practice for everyone.

Picture: Alexander cutting the Gordian Knot by Lorenzo de Ferrari (Wikimedia Commons/ Carlo Dell’Orto CCBYSA 4.0)