Religions come and go – their plurality and diversity representative of the complexity and mystery of the human mind. However, ‘faith’: that ability to believe beyond our knowing is a constant, intrinsic and universal trait we all share.
In this month’s blog I want to establish that ‘faith’ is an inherent quality and essential to our humanity. Whether you believe in God or not, our capacity for faith and its transcendental essence is an indispensable part of our personhood and as such should be respected. It is a quality that, arguably, sets us apart from all other sentient beings on Earth. However, that some folks want to compartmentalise, rationalise and indoctrinate that ‘faith’ into rules of being, acting and speaking is not obligated to be respected – only tolerated.
Back in the dusty days of 313AD – when Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs would not have substituted ‘Wifi and Battery’ for ‘Physical Needs’ the earth bound but thoroughly omnipotent Roman Emperor Constantine proclaimed that Christianity should be decreed ‘tolerant’ in the empire. Great news for the Christians who up until that point had been having a thoroughly awful time of it. Emperor Constantine (who, as powerful men go, has a belter of a name; far more magnificent than Jeff, Bill or Steve) ruled across continents and also claimed his own conversion to Christianity thus paving the way for this burgeoning monotheistic belief system predicated upon a God literally walking the earth to take a firm hold.
Some three hundred years later, in the deserts of Saudi Arabia – the prophet Mohammed (PBUH) also declared that all ‘peoples of the book’ should be tolerated
‘Do not argue with the followers of earlier revelations otherwise than in a most kindly manner…’
(Qu’ran 29:46)
Despite the affirmative announcements from these two men – the reality of tolerance never became a thing of permanency. In the Middle East, from Constantine’s century onwards, Sunni and Shi’ite divisions emerged in Islam and and in the west, schisms in Catholicism took hold – Western Europeans (in particular) endured burnings and torture as Catholics and Protestants bludgeoned it out across the centuries proclaiming the heretical nature of the other. John Locke, the 17thcentury English philosopher, who philosophised consistently if not prodigiously on toleration wrote in his ‘letter on toleration’ (against the backdrop of this religious fire and fury) that religious toleration was about allowing persons to be free to practice their faith without fear of persecution. Again, the jury remains out as to whether anyone paid attention.
This is where writing my own blog is such fun: I agree with Emperor Constantine The Great, The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and the Oxford Scholar and world renowned philosopher John Locke – we should tolerate religious belief in so far as it should be permitted without persecution. Where I disagree is on how much ‘respect’ I should be obligated to give it. That should be saved for ‘faith’.
Let’s start with ‘toleration’. I think there can be agreement that Locke’s definition of religious toleration is a good enough universal understanding of the term. Let’s allow fellow humans to worship in peace so long as that doing so contravenes no objectively held moral no-no’s (like, no-one should tolerate a return to Mayan sacrificial ceremonies – even if there’s ‘pot-luck’ afterwards). Subjectively speaking, toleration is about standing aside, but not following behind. It’s about taking a person’s way of practicing or speaking on a topic – recognising a connection to a more concrete aspect of our shared humanity but not necessarily committing to its values and beliefs. For example, I don’t necessarily agree or get behind views espoused by right-wing politicians…but I tolerate their opinions because I fundamentally respect free speech. Respect the intrinsic right, tolerate the subjective practice.
Respect is different from toleration. Respect requires you to not only allow but also recognize and give obligations to the necessary elements of a thing because those elements have an intrinsic worth (possibly because it is a universally shared trait or an objective moral good). For example, I always think that those who serve in the military are a good illustration of this. We would all agree that we must tolerate (to some degree) decisions made by democratically elected governments, even if their surface ideology isn’t aligned with ours. Even more divisive is when those governments vote for military conflict. All that said and however we may feel about those politicians who vote to using force, the men and women who serve their countries commit to an element of sacrifice to a higher cause, above and beyond their own lives, a transcendental sense of duty and that obligates our respect, that ‘oughts’ us to listen, respond and respect in that calling, irrespective of how we might feel about a governments’ decision.
So, what we tolerate – we permit, but we are not obligated to do any more than allow it to exist without persecution. What we respect, we are obligated to be party to some or all of its cause, aligning ourselves with some value – for there is some universally agreed element of that thing be it objectively ‘good’ or a shared human element that we must allow and accept. To this end, I tolerate the practice of religion – but save my respect for everyone’s capacity for faith.
What the theist will most likely struggle with here is my desire to bifurcate faith and religion (I’ll be honest, I wrote this blog more than partly to use word ‘bifurcate’…tick). Faith is a fundamental and indispensable part of religion. It is the engine that drives a belief system that a divine power: unobservable, untestable and unmeasurable can still exact force and cause on a natural world. Faith (in its religious context) is the belief in something that we cannot see, hear, touch or taste but that forces control over our lives and every single atom on the planet. So why do I respect ‘faith’ when I don’t necessarily agree that such a thing exists? For me, the intrinsic part of a person’s faith is the belief in something greater than themselves which, practiced at its best, is something which is a force for good. Examples can be found in Art and Music, particularly religious music. I respect those individual persons whose belief in a higher ‘good’ (and it must be ‘good’ to be worthy of respect) can move them to create music and art that transcends, inspires and invigorates. Faith moves us beyond the limits of ourselves.
I want to maintain the word ‘faith’ as narrowly defined in its spiritual understanding. I recognise we can ‘have faith’ in events yet unfolded that we hope will be positive or ‘faith’ in other people’s best selves – but for the purpose of clarity and semantic truth, I am using ‘faith’ to mean belief in an unseen deity (or deities). It’s a committed move on my account – because I must establish that ‘faith’ whilst differently perceived between persons, is an intrinsic element of being human – therefore, as we should respect human freedom, pursuit of happiness and our own and others physical fidelity ; we respect faith because it could be argued to be what makes us uniquely human. For the atheist or the phenomenologist – Faith is either illusory or a construct to make sense of a world out of our control and whose mechanical clicks and whirrs we are but witnesses too… but I wonder if the necessary presence of a capacity for faith, even faith that a mechanical universe can click at all – is power enough to make it worthy of respect? . Maybe that’s a topic for another blog.
To cleave ‘faith’ and ‘religion’ I am establishing that ‘faith’ is an intrinsic human quality that we all possess that allows us to doubt the limitations of our senses and believe in powers unseen. However, to categorize, rationalize and order this component of our humanity – humans turn to religion. Religion is the ordered and proselytized practice of the doctrine of scripture and its codes of conduct. It is the thing that takes the natural element of our ‘faith’ and utilitarianizes into ‘do such and such’ for a good outcome and ‘avoid such and such’ to negate a bad outcome. It is how humans have practiced their faith and has changed over the eons. From a panoply of Gods to the axial age of monotheism. From deities in your drinking water to deities in your dreams. And as prophets, seers and shamans have codified and sought to rationalize this unseen phenomenon so we are fraught with scriptural contradictions, contrary understandings and at worst, the appropriation of words of conduct twisted to make normal that which should be abominable. Such is the complexity and fallibility of religious teaching.
The constant unchanging form – is the faith that sustains them. Religion needs faith, more than faith needs religion.
Conclusion
If faith is a part of who we are and is what connects us as humans, then it is worthy of our respect. We should tolerate others’ views and practices (where doing so contravenes no civil or universal moral law) because in doing so we are ourselves lifted. However, never forget the essence which drives all of this – a capacity for faith. The essence which juices your self-belief when all things seem low, because maybe someone or something out there will provide for the best you can be. It’s what coaches your drive to be as good as you possibly can be – the faith that there could be a greater version of you existing beyond, though not impossibly beyond, your natural world. Let’s all respect that capacity for faith both within ourselves and others – and tolerate that joy and passion to be expressed by the clasping of hands, the removal of shoes, the bowing of heads, and the recitation of prayers.
StoatAubergine 
Leave a comment