Having been struck by James' description of the sick soul and the hope that a "sick soul" might be a route to authenticity, some years ago I began some theoretical and empirical work to discern if James' construct was viable.
My theoretical analysis was eventually published in: Beck, R. (2004). The function of religious belief: Defensive versus existential religion. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 23, 208-218.
This was followed up with an empirical test in: Beck, R. (2006). Defensive versus Existential Religion: Is religious defensiveness predictive of worldview defense? Journal of Psychology and Theology, 34, 142-151.
What follows is a summary of that work.
If William James is correct that faith configurations may be more or less existentially defensive (e.g., the contrast between the healthy-minded and the sick soul) then is seems worthwhile to speculate as to what a respective faith configuration feels like. In this we are following James' phenomenological approach. In Beck (2004, 2006) I attempted to do this descriptive work, pulling from diverse literatures regarding the religious experience to describe two modes of faith: A existentially defensive faith called defensive religion versus a more existentially aware faith called existential religion. Obviously, the defensive orientation parallels James' healthy minded type while the existential orientation parallels the sick soul.
Again, pulling from diverse theological, philosophical, and psychological literatures (theoretical and empirical) regarding defense mechanisms, I created the following descriptions of the defensive and existential orientations. First, we look at the faith configuration of the defensive orientation. Specifically, a defensive faith configuration will generally involve five themes:
Defensive Orientation:
Special Protection: The belief that you will fare better in life (physically speaking) than others.
Special Insight: The belief that you can discern God's will clearly today and tomorrow.
Divine Solicitousness: A "butler" view of God, where God helps out with even the most trivial of our inconveniences.
Special Destiny: The belief that God has a unique and specific plan for your life.
Denial of Randomness: Seeing each detail of life as Divinely intended and purposeful.
Why these features? Well, to feel that one is protected, guided, served, special, and living in a well-ordered world, is, to put it mildly, a very comforting worldview. A very cozy worldview. In short, faith systems configured in this manner appear to be operating defensively, repressing the confusions, pain, and difficulties of life.
To illustrate, think through each facet of the defensive faith configuration. Take special protection. Rather than living with the existential truth that Christians are not differentially more healthy or live longer, these believers think they are somehow "different." For example, they might pray for healing or travel mercies in the face of the evidence that Christians die of cancer or auto accidents at the same rates as everyone else. Insurance companies don't give Christians breaks. They simply are not protected. And that's scary. And unsettling. And that's my point. Rather than adopt a faith in the face of this existential reality, the faith is adopted to deny this reality. The faith is a defense mechanism.
We could do this for each feature. But I think one example is unsettling enough.
In contrast to the defensive configuration the existential believer denies or, more precisely, doesn't endorse the belief features of the defensive orientation:
Existential Orientation:
It rains on the just and unjust: The believer fares in life (physically speaking) the same as others.
Inscrutability: God's intentions are difficult to discern.
Divine Autonomy: God intervenes in life on his own unpredictable schedule.
Choice and Responsibility: God rarely guides life choices demanding responsibility from us.
Ubiquity of Randomness: God does not micro-manage the world. Most of the time accidents are simply that, accidents.
This, then, is the existential orientation. Many will be put off by it. But let me quickly hasten to say that this is only the start of the journey toward authenticity. This is a point of faith, or a gateway. It is not a final resting place.
Let me be more clear. For faith to be truly authentic at one time or another the faith system must pass through this existential gate. Why? For at this point the faith system is doing no existential work for you. Look it over. Nothing is being repressed. All the pain and randomness is endorsed while, at the same time, faith exists. The faith denies nothing. It is free from the voice of Freud's Ghost. It has stepped outside of the warm, cozy house of defensive faith into the icy wind of existential realization. And then it takes its coat off. And stands naked.
And in that moment, do you still believe?
For if you do, you have, to use the phrase of the existentialists, "the courage to be." Or, for our purposes, "the courage to believe."
After passing through the existential gate the believer may return to previously held convictions although it is doubtful that she will return to a naive faith configuration. There is no fully going back. You come back "frostbitten" to a greater or lesser degree. Some believers might force themselves to stay out in the cold, consistently demonstrating to themselves that they believe from free choice, not from existential comfort or solace. Really? Who does this? Here is Kierkegaard:
"Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith."
Many wander in and out of the cold throughout the life span, verifying over and over the authentic choice undergirding their faith.
Demonstrating again and again that they have not lost "the courage to believe."
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
-Wallace Stevens
2 comments:
I feel more often that I am too overcome by the nakedness and devouring frostbite that I don't know whether I am choosing faith or not. I am simply numb, and to take your analagy, my body is slowly becoming necrotic as the frostbite ensues. How do I continue to exist in this state - this state of choosing to believe, but failing to move foward or feel any clothing by the one I am choosing to believe in?
Anonymous, I'd be willing to be you speak for many people. Perhaps you have identified precisely why dangerous faith - arguably the only authentic kind there is - has throughout the church's history been viewed primarily in the context of communities, not individuals. I think I'd rather be adrift with a family of people I love than adrift alone.
qb
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