We are all familiar with the passage from the Book of Habakkuk that seems to have been a favorite of St. Paul (he cites it in three different letters – or four, for anyone who credits the Letter to the Hebrews to him): The righteous live by their faith. In Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis’s first encyclical (while also in some respects Pope Benedict’s last), it is said of religious faith: “It is impossible to believe on our own.” Indeed, faith is ecclesial; it is held together, in community. Yet in a certain sense it is also impossible to believe anything on our own, at all.
Almost thirty years ago, Pope St. John Paul II wrote in Fides et Ratio:
[T]here are in the life of a human being many more truths which are simply believed than truths which are acquired by way of personal verification. Who, for instance, could assess critically the countless scientific findings upon which modern life is based? Who could personally examine flow of information which comes day after day from all parts of the world and which is generally accepted as true?
This uncontroversial-seeming assertion cuts at least two ways. It can be understood as a rejoinder against a radical empiricism skeptical of anything not susceptible to material verification; in our social context, however, it seems even more to address a certain conspiratorial mindset, a suspicion of anything proposed on the basis of training, expertise, or consensus, much less lawful authority. This brings us to a deeper point, more directly pertinent to the beliefs by which we live, day by day.
Especially in his late work, the American analytic philosopher Donald Davidson increasingly emphasized the importance of the related concepts of coherence and triangulation in the adoption and formulation of beliefs. Coherence means that our beliefs exist, not like the unrelated 0-1 states in a computer, but contextualized within a network of other beliefs; triangulation entails that this network of beliefs extends such that it covers not only our own beliefs, but to some degree the beliefs of others, as well. In practical terms, the person whose beliefs are incoherent is irrational; the person who takes no cognizance of the beliefs of others in formulating his own is a crank.
The same year as Pope Francis published Lumen Fidei, the conservative Catholic pundit Ross Douthat published a book entitled Bad Religion: How we became a Nation of Heretics. My intention here is not to engage with his book – some of which I find valuable, much of which seems to me misguided – but rather to commend him specifically for the subtitle, which concisely expresses the culture I have been describing.
Anyone may deviate from orthodoxy, intentionally or unintentionally – it was almost a commonplace for many theologians of the past, the brilliant and the saintly included among them, to add to their writings a caveat retracting in advance any propositions contrary to the teachings of the Church. I would even go so far as to say (and, mind you, if I am in any way contradicting the teachings of the Church… well, you know the drill, but I am entirely serious in including this parenthesis) that someone adhering with reluctance and in extremity of conscience to a heterodox teaching because they, like Luther, kann nicht anders (in English, cannot do otherwise) – I can’t quite bring myself to call that person a heretic. No, to my mind the heretic is that individual who is unwilling to believe.
Now wait, you may ask: Aren’t you talking about an agnostic, or even an atheist?
Bear with me. If you examine the ecclesial and social aspects of belief, of belief as faith and belief as socially embedded conviction, you come to see the agnostic as someone who is (at least temporarily) incapable of believing; the atheist, in contrast, is someone who disbelieves, which in the sense of socially embedded conviction is of course itself a belief. The heretic is unwilling to believe; truth has become a casualty of an all-consuming fear of being deceived. Thus, he is obstinately committed to believing alone – whether in solitude, at the head of a mob, or embedded in the pack. He does his own research. He will not be taken in. He will not accept anything on the authority of another, except insofar as that other is invested with authority by his own choice – which renders him impervious to reasoning… and most of all to theological reasoning, which requires humility, docility and studious application to be understood and grasped in the first place. This unwillingness paradoxically leaves him uniquely vulnerable to conspiracists, frauds, charlatans, and yes, false mystics. He wants to be the sole curator and arbiter of his own potential for belief – and thus he will not believe.
All of the abovementioned contemporary conditions foster the heretic – the nomad-monad without stable familial, communal, or social bonds; the literate ignoramus bonded to the omnipresent stream of social media flowing through his smartphone; the prideful individualist who believes it a credit to his views and opinions that they are self-generated, perhaps even “original.”
And this is why the heretic will not believe: because, in the argot of the Horatio Alger-stamped American self-made man myth, he believes in himself. I recall this passage, from G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy:
Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I had heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing in it. The publisher said of somebody, “That man will get on; he believes in himself.” And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written “Hanwell.” [for Americans, read ‘Bellevue’-PJC] I said to him, “Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.” …. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one’s self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote: the man who has it has ‘Hanwell’ written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus.”
In fact, I suspect (again, with the requisite caveat; see above) that some good part of why you cannot believe by yourself is because, in attempting to do so, you will end up merely believing in yourself – and perhaps even praying to yourself. For example:
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity – greedy, dishonest, adulterous – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ [Emphasis mine!]
And this extends to social trust as well; for all the betrayals the American public has endured over the years (and they are not few), a key factor in the loss of social trust in this particular country (after all, haven’t Scandinavians been betrayed as well?) is the refusal to live by belief, the need to do it all for ourselves. We cannot trust each other; we cannot trust anything. Meanwhile, the ecosystem collapses; cultures (and churches) fragment and tribalize; world powers realign themselves for war. And what do we do in response? We do our own research.
I am not sure that orthodoxy, even if it is possible now, would be enough (caveat again, with extreme prejudice). I think we need humility, and docility, and repentance, and that orthodoxy will grow naturally therefrom. An orthodoxy of propositions alone will not save us; it will not even save us from becoming heretics. We need to find Christ, and we need to find each other as the Body of Christ on earth. We need family, community, ecclesia. We need to remember how to live by faith.
Image: Wikimedia Commons: Saint Mary in Hafnerberg ( Lower Austria ). “Fresco of the Assumption of Mary” ( 1743 ) by Joseph Ignaz Mildorfer – detail: A heretic with his books. Photo: Wolfgang Sauber.
Dr. Paul Chu is currently a philosophy instructor for CTState, the Connecticut Community College, and has previously taught philosophy in college, university, and seminary settings. He also served as a staff writer and editor for various national publications. He is co-founder of Sacred Beauty, a Private Association of the Faithful in the Diocese of Bridgeport dedicated to honoring the beauty and holiness of God through artistic and intellectual creativity founded in prayer, especially Eucharistic contemplation. He contributes regularly to https://questionsdisputedandotherwise.substack.com/.
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