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| Nicole Oresme, Wikipedia Commons |
As I said previously, my main complaint about the book is that it is a) largely diagnostic without being particularly prescriptive, and b) at times, Smith seems to be having an esoteric argument with other academics about points of philosophy and theology that are hard for a layman to grasp. I consider myself a reasonably well-read and educated person, and I struggled at times to follow where he was going.
That said, he does an excellent job of explaining our current age as described by Charles Taylor. "On [Taylor's] account, our secular age is haunted, and always has been. Certainly belief is contested and contestable in our secular age. There's no going back. Even seeking enchantment will always and only be reenchantment after disenchantment. But almost as soon as unbelief becomes an option, unbelievers have doubts--which is to say, they begin to wonder if there isn't something "more." They worry about the shape of a world so flattened by disenchantment" (61).
The medieval, premodern world had certain features that acted as "obstacles to unbelief:
1. The natural world was constituted as a cosmos that functioned semiotically, as a sign that pointed beyond itself, to what was more than nature.
2. Society itself was understood as something grounded in higher reality; earthly kingdoms were grounded in a heavenly kingdom.
3. In sum, people lived in an enchanted world, a world "charged" with presences, that was open and vulnerable, not closed and self-sufficient." (27)
Smith notes that even post-secular Christianity has been affected by disenchantment and unbelief. "Faith is fraught; confession is haunted by an inescapable sense of its contestability. We don't believe instead of doubting; we believe while doubting. We're all Thomas now" (4). We begin from a place of unbelief, of doubt, a much harder place to start from in the spiritual life.
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In short, we have all become, to one extent or another, secularists, arguing our case on the terms of the world, rather than on historic, mystogogical terms. "There is no ancien regine we can take for granted, no enchanted cosmos in which God resides and in which we are embedded. So religion (and religious identity) changes, too...Ours is an Age of Authenticity (AA)....[It is] the understanding ...that each one of us has his/her own way of realizing our humanity, and that it is important to find and live out one's own, as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from the outside" (85, emphasis removed from original).
We've lost our belief and faith in the world beyond that which we can see. And when we can see no further than that which is in front of us, there is little to drive us to anything but temporal pleasures. Writes Smith:
"[E]ven believers end up defending a theistic universe rather than the biblical cosmos. Eliminating mystery...even believers end up reading the Bible as if it were a treatise on such a universe;...Indeed, we only get the so-called war between science and religion once the modern cosmic imaginary has seeped into both believers and unbelievers....One can understand the trajectory that leads from this cosmic imaginary to materialism; if the immanent is going to be self-sufficient, as it were, then the material has to be all there is." (72).
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"If Taylor is right, it seems to suggest that the Christian response to such converts to unbelief is not to have an argument about the data, or "evidences" but rather to offer an alternative story that offers a more robust, complex understanding of the Christian faith." (77, emphasis removed from original)
Moreover, our secular age, The Age of Authenticity, haven given up moral absolutes and common good, has moved instead to radical atomization, where individual expression is king. "This contemporary social imaginary is crystallized in terms of authenticity. So the primary--yea, only--value in such a world is choice....And tolerance is the last remaining virtue....it has changed no just the conditions of belief but the milieu of our everyday lived experience." (85-86, emphasis in original)
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| Hildegard Von Bingen |
The spiritual world is always present, however, filling all things, both with good and evil. Because we live in a disenchanted world, we become overwhelmed by suffering and evil, and seek different ways to ameliorate them (pg 123). The worldly responses to this feeling of overwhelm are many but ultimately, of no effect, and certainly no spiritual good. Our response to evil and suffering in the world, as Christians, should be to plead God's mercy, to accept the suffering as part of the human condition, as the role of a winnowing flame to guide our souls toward God. This runs contrary to the therapeutic nature of our age, and even seems faintly ridiculous.
To fully reclaim the pre-modern mindset, we must also reclaim "a healthy sense of an expected "gap" between the ideals of the City of God and the realities of the earthly city" (page 134). We must know and understand that "all fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
In short, we must know and understand the multi-dimensionality of this life. We must know and believe that the angels and demons move amongst us, and that there are realms beyond our understanding. That we cannot know everything about the world. That we are fallen so far from the glory of God that we cannot hope to reclaim our place with Him without God's help. We can seek to alleviate suffering where we can, but be wary of falling into Utopian traps. I think it means a measure of aloofness from the world, from its cares and concerns. I think it means a certain level of remove from the consumption habits of the broader society. And I think it means cultivating a rhythm of life that circulates around the life of the Church, which nourishes us, and gives us spiritual food for this journey.
All book quotations taken from:
James K.A. Smith, How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014.
Please do not quote or copy without permission.
