Dennis Overbye, "Wisdom in a Cleric's Garb; Why Not a Lab Coat Too?," in The New York Times, June 2, 2009, at p. D2.
Mr. Overbye objects to warm fuzzy moments in cinema and (I guess) in life. In this article we are told of Ron Howard's pop thriller, Angels and Demons. The Tom Hanks character in this movie is on a mission to decipher a set of clues revealing the plans of a secret organization called "The Illuminati." These men were devoted to the destruction of the Vatican -- a worthy goal as far as this reporter is concerned, apparently -- and their nefarious plans are frustrated by "Robert Langdon's" (played by Tom Hanks) sleuthing.
The Cardinal who has obstructed "Symbologist" Langdon's' efforts throughout the film offers thanks to God for "sending" someone, Langdon, to save them all. Langdon doubts that he was sent by God. The Vatican's representative responds, "of course you were, you just didn't know it."
There is no such academic area as "symbology." A group of scholars who provided a detailed response to Mr. Brown's pulp novel The Da Vinci Code explain that: " ... there is no academic discipline known as 'symbology.' (As such, Harvard University -- where Langdon is supposedly a professor -- has no department of symbology.)" Mark Shea, Edward Sri, S.T.D., and The Editors of Catholic Exchange, The Da Vinci Deception (Pennsylvania: Ascension Press, 2006), p. 17. http://www.ascencionpress.com/
This gesture of accomodation by the Cardinal is interpreted by Mr. Overbye as a "pat on the head" by the religious cleric for the scientific person in the film and audience. The ongoing war in American middle-brow culture and trendy media circles between science worshippers (Overbye) and the hoi polloi (religious rabble) leads Mr. Overbye to complain:
"This may seem like a happy ending. Faith and science reconciled or at least holding their fire in the face of mystery. But for me that moment ruined what had otherwise been a pleasant two hours on a rainy afternoon. It crystalized what is wrong with the entire way that popular culture regards science. Scientists and academics are smart, but religious leaders are wise."
Dan Brown's book is the usual schlock-fest. The Illumaniti were far from a threat to the Vatican. Brown's chronology does not fit the historical record. What else is new? Bad books make for fun movies. On the other hand, the patronizing and pat on the head that I see comes from "Mr. Overbye" (Mark Leyner? James Wood? Jim Holt?), who fails to appreciate that scientists usually agree that it is not the province of scientific inquiry to decide questions of value nor to provide wisdom in life. Mr. Overbye is a respectable science writer who should sue his editor at the Times.
Albert Einstein, to whom Mr. Overbye makes reference, also disagrees with this author. Einstein offers a sharp distinction between knowledge (the concern of science) and understanding or wisdom (arts and religion). This distinction is enshrined in the work of Edmund Husserl and in the entire German phenomenological tradition which -- aside from Heidegger's accomodation -- mostly opposed Nazism. This dichotomy between knowing and understanding is powerful among hermeneutic thinkers, especially Gadamer.
For example, the relationship between rival disciplines was a subject of the works of Karl Jaspers. Incidentally, phenomenology is dominated by Jews. Both Einstein and Husserl happened to be Jews. Jaspers was married to a Jewish woman and was ostracized in Germany during the Nazi era. Undisputedly Jewish person, Stephen Jay Gould -- Harvard's superstar evolutionary theorist agreed -- science and religion need not conflict. Even a token gentile or two seems to concur on the happy coexistence of religion and science. For example, Paul Ricoeur accepted the "separate domains" of science and philosophy. Me too.
"Science searches for relations [see F.H. Bradley on relations] which are thought to exist independently of the searching individual. This includes the case where man himself is the subject. Or the subjects of scientific statements may be concepts created by ourselves, as in mathematics. Such concepts are not necessarily supposed to correspond to any objects in the outside world. However, all scientific statements and laws have one characteristic in common: they are 'true or false' (adequate or inadequate). Roughly speaking, our reaction to them is 'yes' or 'no.' ..."
Albert Einstein, "The Laws of Science and the Laws of Ethics," in Out of My Later Years (New Jersey: Castle Books, 2005), p. 114 (emphasis added).
Einstein was no "relativist" about knowledge or truth. Einstein insisted that the "theory of relativity" is true. Einstein was also an ethical objectivist. In order for relations to exist independently of the searching individual, there must be a consciousness or intellectual order containing or uniting them. I will allow you to draw the necessary conclusion. Hence, Einstein's acceptance of Spinoza's God. ("Is it rational to believe in God?") Einstein also accepts that mathematical concepts could have a real and objective validity, despite being "mere human" concepts or discoveries. These are matters of interpretation.
"Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience."
Ibid., at p. 115 (emphasis added).
Experience includes emotional wisdom and learning, as well as the mental experience of a priori truth, leading to the moral objectivity derived from human history. Indeed, Einstein feared an increase in knowledge with a loss of wisdom or understanding of human life due to the decline in religion and moral capacity.
"The technological developments of the last few years have created a completely new military situation. Horrible weapons have been invented, capable of destroying in a few seconds huge masses of human beings and tremendous areas of territory. Since science has not yet found protection from these weapons, the modern state is no longer in a position to prepare adequately for the safety of its citizens."
Ibid., at p. 154.
Mr. Overbye says:
" ... I can't help being bugged by that warm fuzzy moment at the end, that figurative pat on the head. After all is said and done, it seems to imply, having faith is just a little bit better than being smart."
Mr. Overbye assumes, falsely, that "being smart" and "having faith" are incompatible conditions for persons. This is an error in logic. Now who is providing the pat on the head? Mr. Overbye?
Among the faithful who "experienced" God in the twentieth century are Ludwig Wittgenstein, Simone Weil, Malcolm Muggeridge, C.S. Lewis and many others. Among those who saw no conflict between religion and science are Albert Einstein and Iris Murdoch (though Murdoch was not a believer).
Are all of them idiots because they did not go to Yale University? William F. Buckley, Jr. attended that great school and was a devout Catholic until his death. I cannot call myself a religious believer. I only claim that religious belief is as rational as atheism and far more popular with all kinds of people in the world. The genuinely religious persons I have known -- including one Jewish scholar who was a survivor of the Holocaust -- are among the most integrated and peaceful as well as loving persons that I have encountered. Perhaps religious believers "experience" something that those of us accustomed to skepticism do not.
I am one expert on the subject of "pats on the head," censorship, disdain for my opinions and learning on the part of persons far less impressive than the "dazzling" Mr. Overbye. Irony? I know very well what it is like to be insulted, trivialized, dismissed by people displaying a fraction of the learning and experience accumulated in my humble life. I know about living with rage every second of the day. I appreciate and feel alarmed at the possibilities for persons in such a state. I am greatly concerned at the likely means of expressing rage by many men in the world with good cause for fury at injustice. These concerns are especially great when it comes to men who lack formal education and creative outlets for violent impulses. My advice is walk away from violence in order to create aesthetic or intellectual work that expresses what you feel. Unfortunately, for several days I have been unable to write, partly as a result of the usual harassments. Some day we will have genuine freedom of speech in America for everyone. ("How Censorship Works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")
Several sabotage and defacement attempts have only done slight damage, so far, to this essay. Let's see what New Jersey's hackers try next in order to generate a response from me. At any moment I may be unable to continue writing. (One of New Jersey's Highly Ethical Attorneys Has a Problem" and "New Jersey's Legal System is a Whore House.")
There are millions, if not billions of persons in the world insulted on a daily, moment-by-moment basis by persons not all that different from Mr. Overbye. I can assure Mr. Overbye that wisdom and patient understanding are essential to individuals who must bear such slights in this world. True religious devotion can help believers to cope with such suffering. Those of us without the "gift of grace" that is religious faith may be the poorer for it. At least, for us "slow types," there are the disciplines of philosophy, history, literature and art, not to mention science. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "What is it like to be plagiarized?" as well as the forthcoming "What is it like to be raped?")
I know a Palestinian man who works at a newsstand nearly 14 hours per day. His features during the Gaza events told the story of the sufferings of his people. The faces of many of his customers -- customers who happen to be Jews -- told an identical story of pain. In New York, it was possible for such different persons to exchange cordial words each morning. Perhaps this cordiality was made possible by their so-called "naive" religious beliefs or just being Americans and New Yorkers. I am also described as "naive" because of my respect for religions. No wonder they like to insert "errors" in these essays. ("Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")
We should be in awe of the European cultural tradition, Mr. Overbye, for it is our tradition as much as it is anyone's inheritance. We are the heirs of the intellectual project of humanity. Our ancestors -- all the way back to ancient Africa -- contributed to that tradition and to the wealth that made it possible -- through their labors and creative efforts. Science is one of those cultural achievements. Religion is another. The symbol of scientific hubris, as Einstein recognized, is the H-bomb. Is creation of the H-bomb "wisdom," Mr. Overbye? Auschwitz and the gas chambers were highly scientific. Behaviorists claim that they are highly scientific in their methods of "manipulation and control" of victims. ("Behaviorism is Evil" and "The Torture of Persons.")
In that search for wisdom or humane understanding to balance technological knowledge, Einstein was deeply atttracted to the Western philosophical tradition, to his Jewish inheritance, and especially to the speculations of Kant and Schopenhauer, together with the British empiricists and idealists:
"A human being is part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. [Relations, Absolute] He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest. [This separation] is a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, [Hegel] restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures [Confucious] and the whole of nature in its beauty." (Albert Einstein, dust jacket quote from Out of My Later Years.)
