12 – Sofia 12

So SoF's "Statement of Intent" stands accused by Tim Miles (SEA Of FAITH 11) of being "philosophically confused and unnecessarily abrasive". "Why obfuscate our religious language with all this bad philosophy?" we are asked, while being treated to an exposition of Hippocrates, Berkley and Ryle with passing references to Hylas, Philonous and Descartes!

And what is to stand in its stead? The supposedly unprovocative statement: "Talk of God should not be understood literally". Well who says so? And why should anything be understood literally?

Tim Miles' statement is no better than what we have. It stands condemned by his own argument in suggesting that there is, in contrast to religious language, some neutral, "unprovocative" language. Something that is "in fact" and unarguably the case. Something that can be "literally" understood. Maybe, even, something with which people can become "knowledgeable experts" and command our attention and obedience.

Some of us suggest that it's better to talk in a different way. A way which sees all language as metaphor through and through. A way in which everything is argued for and agreed. Two chapter headings from a current recent collection of essays by Richard Rorty (Objectivity, Relativism and Truth, Cambridge 1991) give the flavour: "Solidarity or Objectivity?" and "The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy". We go for democracy and solidarity.

And that's why we advocate this way of talking. Not because it's true or in fact the case but because it seems useful in trying to provoke us towards achieving certain goals. Goals to do with democracy and human solidarity.

Secondly, then, I dare to suggest there is an avoidance of responsibility in this and two other articles (in the same issue). Seeing ourselves as totally responsible for our world means starting to take responsibility for our language and the metaphors we use. We do not pass off that responsibility on to something literal, factual, God- or Reality-given.

Gerard Sullivan would also have us deaden our sense of responsibility in alcoholic befuddlement. His equation "REALISM - GOD = NON-REALISM" may have something going for it. But only if, with that God, goes the image of privilege, authenticity and superiority of taste promoted by the advertisers of real ale and peddlers of realism.

But worst of all, I suggest, is A G Alger's question: "What does SoF have to say to the wretched and dispossessed, struggling to stay alive with no time to seek meaning and fulfilment?" Surely the question is not "What shall we say...?" but "What shall we do...?" What we say, if we are forceed to speak (and silent action must be more appropriate) is something like this: "We have failed you. We have not been the sisters and brothers we ought to have been. We have failed to respond to your needs because of our addiction to notions of 'objective truth' and the power and privilege we took for ourselves from them. We have failed to notice your needs as we deluded ourselves with ideas of evolutionary progress 'towards excellence and security'. "But even at this eleventh hour, in whatever time is left, may we, in communion with you, through a sense of human solidarity, in conversation and sharing, create together something that is infinitely precious to us in this last hour? "If you are angry and bitter because of the past, we can only respond with shame and repentance, but let us together, in the present, work to set our children free." What SoF needs is not a new "Statement of Intent" but a new and passionate discussion as to the goals we should be seeking to achieve in our world and arguments as to why our way of talking about religious faith is helpful in the achieving of those goals. Ronald Nicholson's talk at the 1992 SoF Conference on realism versus non-realism in South Africa set us a fine example. - Stephen Mitchell, The Rectory, 27 Cotes Road, Barrow-on-Soar, Leicestershire LE12 8JP.

— Stephen Mitchell, Barrow-on-Soar, Leicestershire

Between theism and atheism Tim Miles argues that our formula "religious faith as a human creation" is philosophically confused and needlessly abrasive. It presupposes and so foments a distinction we don't want, between god-given and human, supernatural and natural; and it suggests we are ready to campaign abrasively against "the other side". These are serious matters. Right, Tim, we certainly don't want to obfuscate or abrade if we can help it.

But is there a satisfactory alternative? I tried hard to think of one, and so far can't. Tim's suggestion - "talk of God as non-literal" - seems to me still a partisan formula, capable of rubbing traditionalist and fundamentalist believers up the wrong way.

As I see it, we are planting in the middle ground between a realist theist tradition and its correlative atheism, both of which, though withering, are still powerful. This is another malign distinction we would like to do without: thcism and atheism feed on one another to keep alive, like the "Yes it is, No it isn't" argument of children.

Religious faith has never been anything else than a human creation: the whole realist-theist edifice of Christendom, and of Orthodox Judaism, and of Islam, was a human construct, a fiction claiming to be the exact opposite - a divinely revealed gift of literal truth. (To think that faith both was and is a human creation is to sce the ground of continuity between the old and the new).

But planters in the middle ground, however peacefully they work, are liable to draw fire from powerful vested interests on either side - hostility from conservative theists, scorn from anti-religious atheists. The fire can be murderous.

Think, for example, of Salman Rushdie. In The Satanic Verses he set out to explore religious faith as a human creation. He examined the nature of revelation from the secular viewpoint of postmodern humanity. He wrote, explaining his purpose: "If we accept that the mystic, the prophet, is sincerely undergoing some sort of transcendent experience, yet we cannot believe in a supernatural world, then what is going on?" To an interviewer he said: "I used to put the question this way: 'Can human beings have access to the spiritual life without having to call that access to God'? I had 'immortal longings' but thought of myself as an unbeliever. But I now think it was a stupid argument, because the way human beings have access is by calling it God. It makes the attempt to reach what is spiritual in us easier." Of course, other grounds for complaint were alleged. But I suggest the case of Rushdie illustrates the problem, and how intractable it can be. In an ideal world, we could debate dispassionately, without offence. The real world (sorry, the world we experience) is more complicated and dangerous. - John Challenor, 8 Fairwood Road, Llandaff, Cardiff CF5 3QJ.

— John Challenor, Llandaff, Cardiff

God is the Universe After reading Don Cupitt's address to the 1992 Conference, I was tempted to cry out "Bravo!" I think, though, that we can go further in defining what we mean by God. I realise that the essence of faith is the trust or belief in something that cannot be known, but for God simply to be accepted as some image in human form or akin to some "manner of speaking" is to belittle a conception that surely has to be way beyond a cosy personal relationship, that protects and loves and transforms.

We have to go to the more positive requirement of meaning and purpose. This is possible by thinking of God not as Creator but as Creation. God is the state of the evolution of the universe at any given time. This is descriptive of its first moment, of the millions of years before life, of the time of the dinosaurs, of the time maybe when due to some planetary change the human race will be extinct as the dinosaurs, and of all time beyond that.

Above all, though, it means the present, and if we think of the universe, and within it our own planet, we have a vast encompassing actuality in which the supernatural has no part, yet for which one must have the most profound awe. We have no idea as to its course of evolution, but this is God and it is fact. What happens is not by the will of some image in human form. It will be scientifically explicable - assuming there is someone around to do the explaining.

Our planet is our treasure, a very special part of the universe with life in many forms and the natural means to support that life. We have to manage this treasure to create the greatest harmony for all life. To damage the physical quality and health of the land, sea and air is sacrilege. Our trusteeship extends from the example of our personal way of living to our families and those around us, and the care of our immediate surroundings, to the international concerns of peace, oppression and starvation and the conservation of the planet.

We have the wisdom of the prophets over the centuries to guide us and we have the startling resources of modern science to improve the lot of the living. We do what we do to leave the world a better place, and not for any heavenly reward. I think this all follows on from the Jesus of the Gospels, and he, just as much, from that cave dweller who put paint to his cave wall and created art and beauty with pictures of the animals he knew. And he?

Who knows?

We are part of this tremendous story. What greater meaning and purpose to life can there be? - W J.Milne, Woodbine, Brackenfield, Derby DE55 6AR.

— W J Milne, Brackenfield, Derby

Goodbye God, Hello Holy Spirit I wish that in the context of SoF the word "God", which is inextricably bound up with the concept of "creation", could be replaced by "Holy Spirit", this being much more adaptable to our cause. It needn't even be labelled "non-real" as it will apply to our "spirit" at its best and what we aspire to.

I don't even like the sound of the word "God". Cold, rigid, enclosed. - Vivien Gibson, 60 Gordon Road, Ealing, London W5 2AR.

— Vivien Gibson, Ealing, London