Here are some questions that need to be asked. Eventually, I want to ask them in connection with the work of C. Brunner and M. Blondel.
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1. Is there a difference between religion and superstition, or is religion by its very nature superstitious? There seem to be two main views. One is that of sceptics and naturalists. For them, religion, apart perhaps from its ethical teaching, is superstitious in nature so that there could not be a religion free of superstition. Religion just is a tissue of superstitious beliefs and practices and has been exposed as such by the advance of natural science. The other view is that of those who take religion seriously as having a basis in reality. They do not deny that there are superstitious beliefs, practices, and people. Nor do they deny that religions are often interlarded with superstition. What they deny is that religion is in its essence superstitious.
Indeed, a philosophically sophisticated religion such as Roman Catholicism specifically prohibits superstitious beliefs and practices. One way it does this is via the prohibition of idolatry which derives from the First Commandment's prohibition on 'false gods.' It should be noted that a sophisticated religionist can turn the tables on the sceptic and naturalist by accusing the latter of idolatry. Some sceptics appear to worship Doubt Itself, or else the power of their minds to doubt everything — except of course the validity of their own sceptical ruminations. Others like Carl Sagan appear to worship science. Humanists often enthrone Humanity, as if there were such a thing as Humanity as opoosed to just a lot of human beings. Futurists expect great things from the Future: does not that smack of idolatry? Our human past has been wretched; why should we think that our future will be any better? The quasi-religious and idolatrous nature of Communist belief has often been noted. Environmentalists often appear to make a god of nature. One thinks of Edward Abbey in this connection. Naturalists can be found who attribute divine attributes to nature such as necessity of existence and supreme value.
Superstition, in the form of idolatry, therefore, can be found in the opponents of religion as much as it can be found in its proponents.
2. If there is a difference between religion and superstition, what exactly is it?
3. Logically prior questions: What is religion? What is superstition?
4. Let's consider an example. A believer places a plastic Jesus icon on the dashboard of her car. It seems clear than anyone who believes that a piece of plastic has the power to ward off automotive danger is superstitious. A hunk of mere matter cannot have such magical properties. Superstition in this first sense seems to involve a failure to understand the causal structure of the world or the laws of probability. A flight attendant who attributes her years of flying without mishap to her wearing of a rabbit's foot or St. Christopher's medal is clearly superstitious in this first sense. Such objects have no causal bearing on an airplane's safety.
But no sophisticated believer attributes powers to the icon itself. The sophisticated believer distinguishes between the icon and the spiritual reality or person it represents.
Well, what about the belief that the person represented will ward off danger and protect the believer from physical mishap? That belief too is arguably, though not obviously, superstitious. Why should the Second Person of the Trinity care about one's automotive adventures? Does one really expect, let alone deserve, divine intervention for the sake of one's petty concerns?
But what if the icon serves to remind the believer of her faith commitment rather than to propitiate or influence a godlike person for egoistic ends? Here we approach a form of religious belief that is not superstitious. The believer is not attributing magical powers to a hunk of plastic or a piece of metal. Nor is she invoking a spiritual reality in an attempt to satisfy petty material needs. Her belief transcends the sphere of egoic concerns.
5. To round out today's rumninations, let us consider the materialist who ascribes to the grey stuff in our skulls the magical property of giving rise to consciousness, self-consciousness, conscience, and intentionality. Can we not tax such a materialist with superstition? Is he not ascribing magical powers to matter, powers that material objects cannot possess?
Brains exist and consciousness exists. (Dennett be damned; his eliminativism, not the man himself.) It is natural to wax Searlean and say that brain activity causes consciousness. But if we have no idea HOW brain activity could cause consciousness, then how is saying that it does differ from saying that the St. Christopher medal causes safe passage through the friendly skies?
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Related Posts (on one page):
- Idolatry, Desire, Buddha, Causation, and Malebranche
- Idolatry and Iconoclasm: A Weilian Meditation
- Questions About Religion and Superstition
To believe that God has an interest in, and the power to provide for, a person's protection is not superstitious, because of what is revealed Biblically about God's character and power. The causal connection you've mentioned here is certainly present if there is such a God. (One might argue there is no God, but that's a discussion on another topic, not about superstition.)
God has also revealed that one's belief fits somehow into the chain of his actions in one's life, which is why, as you said, an image employed just as a reminder of faith can have a non-superstitious function.
There is superstition, however, if it is believed that the mere presence of the plastic image will invoke the power and will of God. One could trace an imaginary causal connection (the image impresses God, so God responds by giving the image's owner special favors) but that's an infinity away from any theist's conception of God's character, so we can reject it.
Your point about the materialist's superstition is interesting and well-stated. Dennett's causal connections are as imaginary as the one I've suggested here.
An excellent, thoughtful post. I was right with you all the way up to this bit:
To quote Travis Bickle, "You talkin' to me?"
To answer your question, here's one way it differs, and a very telling and important difference it is, too: tampering, altering, or interfering with my St. Christopher medal will have no impact on my chances for a safe landing, whereas doing the same to the activity of my brain will affect my consciousness, both objectively and subjectively, in conspicuous and increasingly predictable ways.
I do admit (again) that my confidence that the problem of consciousness will yield to scientific inquiry involves a bit of faith, but, I would say, so does the belief that it won't. Also, I am still curious to hear a more detailed account of the dualist model - all we physicalists ever seem to get from across the aisle is incoming fire. How about the objections I raised here?
I can see this is going to be interesting. Is scientism the de facto intellectual standard in the West? If it is, can religion in our neck of the woods extricate itself on intellectual grounds from the charge of being inherently superstitious?
This whole line of thought interests me in part because I've been thinking about what C.S. Lewis was driving at in his confrontation between Puddleglum and the Queen of Underland in The Silver Chair.
Tom,
"There is superstition, however, if it is believed that the mere presence of the plastic image will invoke the power and will of God. "
I think we have to go farther than this.
To me there is still some superstition in believing that God's love for me will cause him to prevent an auto accident. This is just backing the causal chain up one step. How much difference is there between believing the image will invoke the power and will of God and that our faith will invoke the power and will of God? Doesn't the very word invoke imply a superstition?
Suppose we are worried about the accident but are not actively trying to manipulate God into helping us. There is still a current of superstition even here. I am not conciously trying to manipulate God but unconsciously there is still an indication of a doubt of God's goodness. We still do not understand entirely how it is that God would help us, we do not fully understand the causal chain from God to us. Believing God prevented the auto accident would still contain a small elelment of 'magic' because of the seed of doubt contained within our faith.
To get out of superstition entirely we must move out of trusting God to prevent an auto accident and into a total trust in God's goodness completely independent of circumstances. Our focus,our awareness, not just our will must be totally out of ourself. God's goodness becomes a fact when we percieve the causal chain from God to us, His intention toward us, Himself. At this point belief is not superstitious anymore.
Of course this means that although the Christian ideal is not superstitious many of our acts are still superstitious.
Once someone believes in a God who cares about what happens on Earth, it is perfectly to believe in a God who answers prayer, even if you can't give the details of how he does it. And once someone believes that everything is reducible to the physical, it is reasonable, for the reasons Malcolm gave, to believe that consciousness arises in the brain, even if he can't explain how it happens.
some commentary ruminations (nothing more and nothing less):
I agree with Celinda - I'd say that God has something more important 'in mind' than literally (!) helping us with our daily affairs, even in the case of dying. As I see it, as a Christian, we lose loved ones, get involved in accidents, make it through divorces, etc. etc., just as much as non-Christians do. God is not making life any easier for us. God is instead giving us strength to deal with it, learn from it and see what really matters in the end. What that may be, we entrust to God. I believe receiving strength, insight and wisdom are much stronger indications and experiences of God than His helping us by avoiding an accident. God transcends human superstition.
I feel that prayer is too often seen as a questioning of God instead of a questioning of ourselves. The latter being, in my view, much more demanding - the former often leaning towards superstition. When critically questioning ourselves, we naturally cannot avoid probing deeply into the matter of Gods relation to us. Quoting Celinda therefore:
"God's goodness becomes a fact when we perceive the causal chain from God to us, His intention toward us, Himself. At this point belief is not superstitious anymore."
But this is leading towards other subjects...
Tom: Your response is reasonable, and touches on the difficult question of how to make sense of divine intervention in a natural world that one has reason to think is causally closed. It also touches on the question of petitionary prayer. Should one, in prayer, make mundane petitions? Should one pray to get a job, or be cured of an illness? Or should pray only for things like the ability to bear patiently one's mundane reversals such as losing a job and being diagnosed with cancer? I don't need to point out to you that the Pater Noster already contains this question in nuce: "Give us this day our daily bread" versus "Thy Will be done."
To add to the difficulty, the bread verse can be read spiritually rather than materially: give us the spiritual wherewithal to cope with life and get through it, employing material means to secure legitimate material ends, and not trying to use God to secure material advantage here below.
My tendency is to say that a purified religion does not make use of the divine to do mundane jobs that we ought to be doing ourselves, and that to think otherwise is to flirt with something like superstition. But I have no well-worked-out view.
Wasn't Travis Bickle the character in "Taxi Driver"? Actually, I preferred The earlier Scorsese film, "Mean Streets." The Little Italy stuff, with the processions, ties directly into the superstition theme. Go down to Little Italy and eat a connoli for me.
But of course none of this is personal. You represent a position and it is that position that I am am addressing myself to, to avoid the word 'attacking.' You write:
You're right. So my analogy limps, at least on that one leg. (By the way, I liked your use of 'impact' above.) Still, the naturalist who claims that consciousness arises or emerges from brain activity is ascribing a power to a physical system unlike any power of any other physical system, and that smacks of magic. If I say to the nat'list: why are you so sure that cs. arises from the brain when we have no understanding of how that is even possible, and he says: It just does! then how is that different from saying that medals properly blessed with the right incanatations just have the power to prevent crashes and perhaps even secure a favorable hereafter?
Admittedly, there is something like faith on both sides of the aisle. And I hope to get to your objections. My problem is that I suffer from a fascination with two many different topics -- which is why I like blogging. I can spout off on anything.
Thanks. As for scientism, that is one of my critical targets and will continue to be. Scientism, not science. Scientism could be characterized as the philosophical, not scientific, doctrine that all genuine knowledge is scientific knowledge.
Does it not follow that the claim of scientism cannot claim to be knowledge?
Celinda's comment caught the drift of my post nicely.
I agree, starting with Celinda's thought that we need to go farther to define the limits of superstition in our relationships with God. Bill, the whole matter of petitionary prayer is a knot to untangle, but the best approach I know of is to come to God as Father; to ask him anything at all but to be content with his will in answering. There is nothing superstitious in this. It certainly does not imply a direct cause-and-effect, magical outcome, as Celinda said, but it does lead to a developing personal relationship with God.
There's another piece of it, which is that God "knows our frame." Even if we don't pray correctly, as I'm sure is usually the case, he gives us grace as we trust him for it. Our fumbling attempts--even those with superstitious elements--become learning experiences as we develop relationship with him.
Aristotle was said to have been that way too. He would always give an answer to a question, even if it was something he had never even thought about before. I'm guilty too, I think. I've been interested in so many different things over my life that I can make up some plausible B.S. on almost any topic.
Little Italy is actually uptown from my office, but I'll nibble a cannolo for you next time I'm there.
Back to business. You wrote:You're right, we are "ascribing a power to a physical system unlike any power of any other physical system", but it is not just a random or idolatrous choice. First of all, the brain is not just any physical system, being far more complex than any other physical system that we know of (and inside our heads, to boot). Second, we didn't just settle on the brain by throwing darts at an open copy of Gray's Anatomy, we zeroed in on it experimentally (ex-peri-mentally, even, you might say), and having done so, are able to zoom in further, down to particular brain modules and even single neurons, to associate them with subjective mental phenomena.
The analogous process would be to study St. Christopher medals, remove parts of them, alter the incantations, wear them in different ways, etc. and observe repeatable effects on airline safety. Not likely to happen.
Also, the naturalist can turn right back around and say:
"We have studied the brain intensivley for a while now, with ever-more-powerful tools. It is such a deucedly complex thing that we are a long way from knowing in full what it does and how, but we do know that our consciousness is affected very directly, in increasingly predictable ways, by tampering with it, and that subjective reports of conscious states seem consistently to correspond with patterns of excitation in particular brain modules. How do you know, ye anti-naturalist, that creating consciousness is NOT what the brain is doing, in some way that we just haven't figured out yet?"
And of course the dualist says:
"It just isn't!"
M
Are you operating with a fixed definition of 'superstition'? What I am trying to do is figure out what superstition is, and what religion is, and what the difference between the two is. So I am not assuming any theory of superstition. (He wrote as he gazed out the window at Supersition Mt.)
One thing I am pretty sure about: religion is not just superstition.
What is religion?
What is superstition?
I would add a third: What are we to make of the vast amount of human testimony about supernatural phenomena? There are many possible answers to this question, for example:
1. The phenomena are not objective and entirely the product of the human imagination.
2. The phenomena are not objective, but arise from a flawed interpretation of real but unusual psychological states.
3. The phenomena are objective, but wrongly interpreted as supernatural.
4. The phenomena are objective and really supernatural.
5. Some mix of the above.
Etc.
To give a Halloween-ish example, a common practice among the folk religions was to appease the spirits of the dead by leaving offerings. The empirical basis for this folk belief was perhaps that people tended to see ghosts. (They still do around these parts of old Virginia.) Let's hypothesize along the lines of (2) that this phenomenon is explained by people misinterpreting some sort of unusual visionary experience.
So it could be false that ghosts are appearing to people. But it would not necessarily be false that there are appearances that people see as ghosts. Under these apparently universally occurring circumstances, it is not surprising that a "superstitious" custom of appeasing ghosts would arise. We might even think that the custom is based on a logical inference from the experiences. So before we can make a judgment about whether something is superstitious in a negative sense, it seems to me we would have to have a high degree of intimate knowledge of the phenomenology behind it.
Of course, if it turns out that an in-depth study of supernatural phenomena results in our not being able to rule out possibilities (3) or (4), it becomes a lot more difficult to dismiss superstition a priori.
In this scenario, don't ghosts become a part of nature? They may not follow the laws of physics as we know them, but they do follow some sort of natural laws, and those law that they follow do interact in a predictable way with the laws of physics.
What is supernatural about ghosts in this circumstance? Even if they are some sort of remnant of dead people?
Going back to Bill's logically prior questions, one possible distinguishing feature of some kinds of superstition is that they are remnants of an earlier religion. The interesting thing about that is that these beliefs can be used as bits of evidence for reconstructing what the earlier religion was like.
How about this - superstitions might be defined as beliefs that:
1) constrain our behaviour
2) do so in order to accommodate a feature of the world, often supernatural, that acts as either a malevolent or beneficent agent
3) are not joined into complex religious doctrines
That seems to catch some of the flavor that the word has for me.
Your definition captures the kind of superstition I was thinking of, as in taboos. I think the reason for your (3) is that the taboos descend from an earlier religion, so they have no obvious connection to the current religious culture. But in an earlier time they would have been a part of the rules of that earlier religion.
The rationale for many taboos seems to have been a widespread notion of unlike things being invisibly connected through metaphorical or symbolic association. So unless you are keyed in to the symbol system, the taboo might seem seem bizarre and irrational.
An early representation of invisible connections is the 20,000 year old Venus of Laussel. It seems to depict a connection between the 13 "moons" of the year with the cycles of the female body. If so, it is a most ingenious representation, since we can read it 20,000 years later.
So I propose the following definition of superstition: A superstition is a theory of cause and effect that has no empirical evidence and is not based on any rational paradigm. For example, thinking that women's periods are caused by the moon is not a superstition because there is some empirical evidence. Similarly, a theory that God punishes sin and rewards virtue is not superstition because, although there is no empirical evidence behind it, there is a rational underlying paradigm.
For examples from science: it was once considered superstitious to believe that there was a link between the tides and the moon, but it wasn't superstitious because there was some empirical evidence behind it (and now everyone agrees that the moon causes the tides). When Einstein proposed his theory of relativity, it was immediately accepted by many physicist even though there was no real evidence for it, on the grounds that it satisfied the paradigm of a unified physics (unifying Maxwell's equations and Newton's equations).
On the other hand, if you believe that by not watching your favorite team play, you are helping them to win, you have no empirical evidence to back this up, and there is no rational paradigm underlying it. (I suppose one could construct such a rational paradigm, but the person who refuses to watch his team during the playoffs is not relying on such a rational paradigm).
1 a : a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation.
We could parse out some logical weaknesses in M-W's definition, and I think yours is more on target.
Pashak: it sounds to me like Brunner is equivocating on the meaning of "relgion" in order to seem to say something profound when he is realy saying something quite mundane. It is blatantly obvious that both Judaism and Christianity oppose other relgions; however that isn't the same as opposing Religion. And the idea that Christianity has taken on too much of other relgions is an idea that goes back to the Reformation.
And Brunner is being downright dishonest in suggesting that pure Christianity neither knows nor wants to know about faith, worship, redemption, heaven, and the incarnation of God. Those things, at least, were directly taught by Christ. It is just silly to suggest that a follower of Christ should not believe them.
Thanks for dropping by. I will post something on Brunner before too long. He is obviously relevant to this discussion. You can tell mne whether I've understood him.
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