The Intensity of Belief and Action

There are two questions that should be asked of any believer. The first is, simply, What exactly do you believe? The second, far less common, is, What exactly are you doing when you believe? The first is almost always asked, and if it isn't, the believer is likely to answer it for you anyway. To believe, after all, is to hold a public position. It is important to believers that you know what they happen to believe in.

The second question will likely confound a believer. It may seem obvious that what one does in believing is to consider the options to one proposition or another, weigh the evidence, then declare acceptance or rejection. In truth, the act is far more complicated, and for that reason, the second question is the more crucial. To understand why, we must look more closely at the phenomenon of belief itself.

Of course, what we are concerned with here are not those beliefs that have the trivial weight of mere opinion, but those held so powerfully that one would die for them, or kill for them. I might be persuaded that global warming is a dire issue for the human race, but still drive my SUV thirty minutes to the mall and bring my groceries home in disposable plastic bags. Or I may throw my body in the path of a giant coal shovel on a West Virginia mountaintop. Note that in this case the content of the belief remains the same; the intensity with which I hold it varies greatly. That is why an extreme act—walking into a crowded market wearing a vest packed with explosives—can appear to rise from a petty difference between two sects of the same religion, unless we understand the passion behind it.

From this it follows that true believers on the far end of the scale of intensity are obviously deeply focused on those who hold opposing beliefs. When they describe their own position, it will always include a catalog of opposing, and false, positions of nonbelievers. But this is not restricted to extreme cases. It is of the nature of all belief to be aware of a hostile opponent. Belief thrives in circumstances of collision. One would not make a point of believing in evolution were it not for those who claim it to be in profound error. Belief, in other words, is always belief against.

In fact, belief so depends on an antagonistic other that whenever it weakens it is essential to stir up opposition. Serbian nationalists, for example, regularly solidify their ideology by provoking anti-Serbian policies elsewhere. American patriots need an enemy to wave a flag against, else they can be written off as fools.This creates a paradox of a kind: every act of belief is also an act of unbelief. American patriots are to Iranian patriots exactly what Iranian patriots are to them.

Because opposition is so essential to belief it is of the greatest importance to know exactly where the line between the two sides is drawn—that is, where belief ends and unbelief begins. Belief systems, or ideologies, have carefully defined boundaries. Soviet Marxists were exceedingly sensitive to the slightest misstep of their believers. The merest hint of credal divergence could mean severe punishment. Wherever there are hostile neighbors, there are boundaries. Consider how differently we view our troubled boundary with Mexico than ours with Canada where issues are nearly nonexistent.

How does a boundary function for a believer? It obviously marks off a field to which the believer is intellectually and morally confined. This adds another element to the phenomenon of belief: not only is it against, it is the point where one’s thinking stops. Here we have a handful of subtle distinctions. It is not that thinking stops altogether. The Jesuits, for example, or Wahabis, are often brilliant thinkers—but within assigned limits. Even though we presume to have a thorough knowledge of the thoughts of our unbelievers, we do not actually think them. Those believers who keep their women veiled, know the risk of libidinous wishes, but the veil is a reminder to resist the thoughts. Jesus said, “If you right eye offends you, cut it out.” Repel those illicit ideas.
But how is the field of belief established and who maintains its boundaries? Belief systems require a single and undisputed authority. This can take many forms: a text, a person, an institution, an empire. The authority in this case is presumed to be all-knowing and to have provided all the knowledge necessary for its own adherents. (A bumper sticker observed in Oklahoma: “God said it, I read it, end of discussion.”) The response to authority is essentially that of obedience, both intellectual and moral. Intellectually there is a careful cataloging of proper literature and great attention given to proper education. Morality is determined not by the believer’s own reflection but by a set of principles or laws that can, and often need, to be interpreted, but never violated. One’s morality in that case is identical to the morality of the belief system as a whole. Moral purity was an unambiguous goal for Nazism’s believers, while Nazism as a whole was profoundly evil.

The fact that “true” beliefs are not casual and disconnected opinions points to the necessity that they must fit into belief systems. Belief systems are comprehensive. They are inherently logical. They are sufficient to answer any question whether personal or political or economic or religious. They have a reassuring, even comforting, quality. They are absent of mystery. Whatever is yet unknown can be known by the principles of its own philosophy, and its own science.

These observations of the phenomenon of belief illustrate the inadeqacy of the usual critique. Most critics simply assert that they are wrong, and proceed to provide arguments and evidence to back the claim. Doing so has several disadvantages. The most obvious is that such critics only strengthen the resolve of believers, even proving to them the high value of their own creed. Also, critiques of this kind overlook the thick cultural and social character of belief systems. What’s more, because they cannot “think the thoughts” of the believers under attack, they offer to their opponents a caricature of their views that seem trivial to believers. By showing the egregious errors in Das Kapital, nonbelievers only display to Marxists an appalling misunderstanding not only of Marx but of themselves and society.

The reader will notice that in the discussion of belief and belief systems, no reference to religion has been made. Is not religion little more than a highly authoritarian manipulation of believers’ thoughts and actions? It is certainly the case that countless ideologies have claimed religious authenticity. Hitler spoke of the Third Reich lasting 10,000 years. Marx’s vision of the final, irenic and just end of history resembles nothing so much as a secular kingdom of god. But the rude fact is that no belief system has risen to the level of religion. Christianity, like all the great religions, has spawned a long line of belief systems, but has been reduced to none of them. Ideologies, for all their absolutist claims, have short lives: Soviet Marxism held out for seven decades, Nazism for twelve years.

This raises the obvious question: what is religion? It can be safely said that all attempts to arrive at an acceptable definition have failed, and failed so decisively that scholars have largely given up the task. To claim that all religions can be “cooked down” to a common set of beliefs is irresponsibly ignorant. The proof of this lies in the stunning fact that the great religions have maintained their distinctive identity over great reaches of time; four millennia for Hinduism, two for Christianity, 14 centuries for Islam. They have all lived in close proximity to other religions, often speaking the same language and even using the same art forms—but have never mixed. No Jew has ever been confused over whether he or she is Jewish or Christian. Whatever they have in common is irrelevant to the core of their faith.

Moreover, if you search each religion for its core you will come to what might be a surprising conclusion: the religions themselves have never succeeded in coming to a final agreement on the quest. Indeed, each consists in the attempt to do just that. (Christians over the centuries have drawn up more than 200 major creeds, or statements of correct belief, each of them at odds with something in all of the others.) Disagreement with themselves is essential to their vitality—but only when it continues over centuries or even millennia.

What do we learn from this but that there is something at the heart of each religion that is distinct from all others, that the understanding of this core is elusive, and that the failure to reach a definitive understanding is provocative enough that the attempt to do so only magnifies over time. By contrast, because disagreement is anathema to believers, because all mysteries can be explained and all moral issues settled, the vitality rapidly drains out of belief systems. Aristotle said that knowledge begins in wonder; religiously speaking it also ends in wonder.

Prof. James P. Carse is the author of The Religious Case Against Belief.

By James P. Carse |  July 17, 2008; 11:44 AM ET  | Category:  Personal Religion
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