Addressing Life’s “Big” Questions: The Inherent Necessity of Religion
In a recent essay in the Boston Globe, Yale law professor Anthony Kronman decries the fact that “our top universities have embraced a research-driven ideal that has squeezed the question of life’s meaning from the college curriculum, limiting the range of questions teachers feel they have the right and authority to teach.†This abandonment of asking, and attempting to answer, the “big†questions – why are we here, what living is for, what should we care about and why – has left the rising generations “directionless and vulnerable to being hijacked for political ends.†He exhorts his fellow educators to take up once again the calling to be “shapers of souls,†to address the big questions of life “in all their sprawling grandeur, without reticence or embarrassment,†and offers as an example his own Directed Studies class at Yale, which begins with readings in Herodotus, Homer, and Plato and concludes with Wittgenstein, Eliot, and Arendt.
Kronman’s recommendation comes with an interesting twist: He proposes that we address the big questions independently of religion, providing a meaning-and-morality-seeking alternative to our spiritually impoverished culture: “spiritually serious but nondogmatic, concerned with the soul but agnostic about God.â€
Surely Kronman is correct in his diagnosis of modern higher education with its abject failure to provide moral meaning and vision for its technically competent “products.†For us at Covenant, the pursuit of meaning and morality is not an addendum to the curriculum, as if it were enough to add one course in business ethics to a long list of courses taught without reference to the big questions. Deep issues of meaning and value, of ultimate ends, and of the heart as well as the mind surface everywhere in every class, and we take seriously the task of formation not only of thinking but also of feeling and believing and loving and living.
With his proposal to pursue such a task independently of religion, however, Kronman finds himself, perhaps unintentionally, in company with more strident others (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris) who in recent years have proposed that religious faith is not only unnecessary but is in fact largely responsible for the horrors of our world. According to these hugely popular writers, if only we could eliminate religion, including belief in the supernatural and in transcendence, the odds of eliminating poverty, war, and evil of many kinds would go way, way up.
Assigning blame for all that is wrong with the world is an intriguing and undoubtedly important project, and I have some views on that! But I want here to raise a question about the criticism of religion and the proposal to exile it both from the soul-shaping calling of education (Kronman) and from all of life (the others).
Why do the “big questions†come to our minds in the first place? What sort of universe must this be for issues of meaning and morality to arise with such compelling force? Kronman’s own questions – what are we living for, how ought we to live, what are our ultimate ends – presuppose a frame of reference, a perspective on human life which is – well, religious. Without a sense of transcendence, an inkling about a source of moral conviction, a longing for something beyond ourselves, we would never have come up with Kronman’s questions in the first place. What, on his view, is this “soul†that he desires so earnestly to shape?
Similarly with Dawkins et al: From whence comes their moral outrage at religion? Apart from some moral framework, grounded even poorly in some conception of the universe which provides foundation for their claims, their angry outbursts would be little more than emotional yelps carrying no morally compelling freight.
The point is this: Both Kronman’s and these writers’ projects are parasitic for their meaning and power on the very framework which they propose to abandon. Kronman’s big questions matter only if the religious impulse indeed exists; whatever force Sam Harris’s moral outrage has, for his readers as well as for himself, depends on deeply residual and ultimately religious convictions about the nature of the universe. Without these convictions — which these writers continually manifest whether they acknowledge them or not — their claims would be gibberish.
Can we make sense of Kronman’s project apart from the underlying and inescapable substratum of religious conviction? In an on-line response to Kronman’s essay, Steven Garber calls our attention to the more candid assessment that Nietzsche offers of the consequences of the death of God: “God is dead. But we must be honest about the cost of that claim, viz. we will no longer be able to speak about meaning and morality.†Garber makes reference to Vaclav Havel’s thesis that, “if we lose God, then we lose access to meaning and purpose, accountability and responsibility.†To attempt to ask the big questions independently of religion is, at the end of the day, futile.
Here’s the summation of the matter: We cannot give up religion if our questions and concerns about meaning and morality are going to make any sense; Garber refers to T. S. Eliot’s argument that it is “not possible to disconnect meaningful learning from meaningful life – and that inevitably leads one to questions of transcendence and truth, to God himself.†And we must not give up religion if we want to live, and lead others to live, meaningful and moral lives. In another on-line response to Kronman, poet and Covenant alumnus Aaron Belz (’93) writes, “Great thinkers like Augustine and Pascal warned at length of the folly of humans trying to live well and be good without acknowledging God – not only acknowledging him, but loving him.â€
The curious but undeniable agreement between the likes of Nietzsche, Havel, Augustine, and Eliot on the connection between religion and religious belief, on the one hand, and living with meaning and morality, on the other, ought to prompt us toward (1) skepticism about Kronman’s irreligious proposal to shape the souls of his students in productive ways, and (2) confidence in our biblical faith and framework in the face of simplistic and self-defeating attacks from the Dawkins/Harris camp.
And for us at Covenant, whose frame of reference is not just religion in general but the Christ-centered truth of the Scriptures, we enjoy the privilege of shaping souls according to the glory and grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the obedience of faith, because of which we are able not only to withstand the critiques of doubters and dissenters but also to live fruitful lives for his Kingdom.
Published on 16 Oct 2007 at 11:14 am. 5 Comments.
Dr. Niel Nielson, Glad to meet you in cyberspace.
Instead of following Jesus, I am following my daughter Jessica Chen to the Covenant Blogs. And incidently I run into your thought provoking blog.
Thank you for doing this sidebar for Covenant Community and I am so glad to be instrumental to help Jessica chen to choose Covenant. The Biblical based Christian Worldview minister to her very well (including your blog), which in part to contribute her sharing to us during fall break. She told us that she never like study that much and never have a joy that much. Glory be to Him, and hopefully to see you in next April on the mountain.
Biao Chen
Biao Chen on 17 Oct 2007 at 4:53 pm.
Thank you for this most significant and thought-provoking insight. As Youth Group leaders in our church, we will use your blog tomorrow night with our kids in our discussion on their on-going search for significance.
Drew & Jane Jelgerhuis on 20 Oct 2007 at 9:40 pm.
Dr. Nielson,
I am a pastoral intern at Park Cities Presbyterian Church. I heard you preach this morning on Psalm 2, “Kiss the Son.” Thank you for a wonderfully thought-provoking, heart-orienting, Christ-exalting message! It was a blessing.
Jay Bennett
M. Jay Bennett on 21 Oct 2007 at 2:14 pm.
Dr Nielson,
This is a perfect illustration of the common question, “what’s the point”? What is the point of education, what is the point of life, what is the point of working hard and achievement? This question is age-old as outlined in Ecclesiates where Solomon endeavors all of life’s pursuits asking “what’s the point”. He pursues pleasure, beauty, success, wealth, philosophy and more. And in the end has this conclusion in chapter 12
13 Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.
To take time for each person to ask these questions and get an answer is well and good. But to debate them for a lifetime is wasteful. The goal is not in the debate, but rather in living the answer.
Thanks to Covenant, their faculty and staff who live out these truths and also discuss them with those who are truely seeking answers.
dana sherbondy on 29 Oct 2007 at 8:30 am.
Dr. Nielson: Thank you for your blog. My colleagues and I in the secular “trenches” at East Georgia College were amazed that a college president would seriously address philosophical issues.
Reid Derr on 29 Apr 2008 at 12:33 pm.