Given all the chatter around The God Who Weeps and Letter to a Doubter, the quasi-official endorsement of their thesis, and Brent’s excellent response to the latter, it seems appropriate to share a realization that’s been dawning on me over the past few months:
I could do it. I could choose to believe.
In part, this freedom has root in my evolution over the past year or so from an atheism of managed uncertainty to a post-atheism of acknowledged ambiguity. Three years ago I would have argued that theological questions are mostly issues of uncertainty. Make a few modeling assumptions, feed all the evidence into the statistical machinery of your choice, and out comes the probability that the Book of Mormon is a divine work or that Thomas Monson presides over something other than an ecclesiastical corporation. Of course you could never be sure about anything, but between the mountains of evidence and Bayes’ rule you could make reliable inferences.
But after years of watching — and participating in — interminable debates between believers and skeptics, I’ve come around to the idea that theological questions are problems of ambiguity at least as much as they are of uncertainty. While the tools of probability cut easily through evidentiary problems once they are well defined, religious questions are frequently vague and the outcome turns crucially on prior assumptions. It’s true that with common-sense assumptions I can conclude with confidence that there is no God and that Mormonism is false. But with small tweaks to those assumptions I also can conclude the opposite. I could expand the acceptable definitions of “God” and “Mormonism” until they agree with difficult evidence. I could choose to privilege belief as the null hypothesis in need of refutation. I could revise the likelihood that my spiritual experiences are purely naturalistic. Whatever the details, the conclusion is sensitive to how you frame the question, and it is often difficult to choose between framings.
As I’ve written before, however, I have to hang my hat somewhere, and my current approach has so far served me well. I can admit that the methodology that brings me to atheism is in part only a heuristic. But if I’m to believe, I need a reason to change methodologies.
So I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d immerse myself in the bits of Mormonism I still find compelling. I’d bury my nose in the lived experience of Eugene England and the experimental theology of Adam Miller. I would join the local ward choir. I’d finally take out that subscription to Dialogue. I’d avoid anything that tries to defend Mormonism on empirical grounds, focusing instead on works that make Mormonism interesting. In other words, I would stack the deck. I’d become a man intoxicated on Mormonism, contriving an aesthetic incentive to believe, a counterbalance to my current methodology of disbelief.
In this balance, if recent experience is any guide, I could will myself back into belief. Here I lack precise language to describe it — I can no more tell you how I’d will myself to believe than I can tell you how I will my fingers across this keyboard — but inasmuch as choice is a thing, I could gently nudge myself off the epistemological fence and back into belief. It would be familiar and comforting, like mashed potatoes at Sunday dinner.
But it would be different from the belief I left behind four years ago. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not claiming that the will to believe is infinite. Many people cannot choose to believe at all, and I doubt I could muster belief in Mormonism as I used to know it. My reconstructed belief would admit neither singular claims to authority nor tidy prophetic narratives. Instead, it would be of a deistic or even a pantheistic Mormonism, finding a modest spark of divinity in the ambitious religious project of Joseph Smith.
It also would be a belief at tension with its surroundings. It would roll its eyes at the petty homogeneity of General Conference. It would chafe at being infantilized by a church unable to minister to adults. Most of all, it would despair at the trauma inflicted on those not able to choose against belief — those who see the injustices in mainstream Mormonism but who cannot bring themselves to walk away. It would not, as Terryl Givens suggests, be a choice “laden with moral significance.” On the contrary, it would be an aesthetic preference which I am free to indulge because privilege — being male, being straight, being an academic — insulates me from moral consequence. After the mashed potatoes are eaten, after the intoxication wears off, this belief would look around, see the modesty rhetoric and tolerance traps, and let out a groan of regret.
Sure, I could do it. I could choose to believe. But why should I?
“I’d finally take out that subscription to Dialogue. ”
I like this plan!
Now *there’s* a choice laden with moral significance, amirite?
I was worried for awhile. You wrapped it up perfectly with the last sentence though. Phew!
Glad to give you a scare, Asay.
Matthew, loved this post. I have always been baffled by the efforts of Terryl Givens and his ilk to tie themselves into intellectual knots in an effort to rationalize a theology which is, at its heart, utterly irrational.
But on a more practical level, I think there many in the church who dont really believe in the literal truth claims the church makes, yet they stay. Some thrive on the community, and for them that is enough. Others stay because it is such an integral part of their work, family and social life they choose not to incur the social costs of leaving — which can be great here on the Wasatch Front (as I am finding out). What do you say to those who do force themselves to believe at some level, or even just go through the motions of belief, because the social costs of leaving are so great or because they actually enjoy the communal benefits of Mormonism?
I’ve been trying to answer the question, “But why should I?”, for a couple of years now. Still haven’t found a satisfactory answer.
There’s a tipping point in belief. Once I tipped, I couldn’t go back — not without some huge mental gymnastics. And even with the gymnastics, there’s still the tolerance trap and the modesty and the earrings and the . . . and the . . .
Excellent post.
Matthew, if you could be convinced that the well-being of yourself and others would be greater if you chose belief, would you do it?
You did a good job of outlining the negative consequences that you would have to bear if you became that person, but you didn’t address any positive ones. Is that because you don’t think there would be any? I doubt that; there would likely be some. If you thought the positive outweighed the negative, would you attempt to “tweak the assumptions” and regain some semblance of nuanced, non-literal, heterodox belief? Would not this utilitarian approach convey some moral significance onto your choice?
I recognize there are many problems here, such as defining what is meant by “well-being” and then determining how your beliefs would have any bearing on it, but for the sake of argument, what would you say about such an approach?
“You did a good job of outlining the negative consequences that you would have to bear if you became that person, but you didn’t address any positive ones. ”
I’d say it differently: I outlined the negative consequences I would have to *observe* if I became that person. Privilege would mostly insulate me from experiencing them directly, which is part of my refutation of Givens’s insistence that belief is morally significant.
As for positive consequences, I hinted at a few in the previous paragraph. There’d be the aesthetic and intellectual enjoyment of my native religion, albeit reconstructed, and the joy of making amateur music with others. There are others: I’d regain community, I’d be pushed to be a better person (at least in the ways that Mormonism does push), etc.
Regarding utilitarianism, I can’t say whether I *would* choose to believe — there are all sorts of things that I should do from a utilitarian perspective. But yes, as a thought experiment, and realizing the instability of the concept of ‘utility’, if the benefits outweigh the costs in some global sense, then as a good utilitarian I ought to make the choice.
But since utility *is* unstable, I’m not sure how much that tells us.
Ah, thanks for clarifying. I obviously missed the point of that paragraph in my hasty reading. Whereas I read that paragraph as saying, “why would I subject myself to that?”, your real point was that since you, in your position of relative privilege, would be a mere observer rather than a direct victim of injustice, choosing to believe would not really be an action worthy of moral praise. Thus, it would take on about as much moral significance as the “choice” to prefer one piece of artwork to another, or cello music to electronica. Is that right?
For what it’s worth, I concur with your assessment that the choice to believe is not inherently a quesion of morality. I have tried to interpret the Givenses as charitably as possible, but I can’t seem to spin their position on the morality of “the choice to believe” into something I can buy into. However, I asked my above question because in my interactions with people who make the choice to believe in a similar fashion to that described in your post, I have observed that many of them do seem to be motivated by a sense that they are doing the right thing. They will typically stop short of saying that others should make the same choice as them, but they seem to believe that their choice to believe and to stay engaged with Mormonism is in some way the correct choice for them. Typical reasons cited for this are that they can be an agent for positive change, they can be there for others dealing with the trauma that comes with questioning, they can raise their children in a community of kind, service-oriented people, and they can maintain positive relationships with their friends and family who still believe more traditionally, some of whom might be utterly crushed to have a son/daughter/sibling stop believing. Often they cite the benefits that a religious life can provide, and they genuinely believe that by choosing belief they are in better position to maximize the well-being of themselves and others. While reading this post, it ocurred to me that perhaps there is some moral significance to their actions. Whether these believers are in fact maximizing well-being is debateable, and in my opinion, unknowable, but the fact that they think that’s what they are doing seems like the more relevant point.
See, I read your post as admitting that there is some flexibility in what we believe. Within certain limits, we can choose to which propositions about the nature of reality we will assent. So my question then is, what should be our guiding principles in making that choice? Most people answer that we should try as best we can to ensure that our beliefs mirror reality as closely as possible. This is a tactic used to justify both belief and disbelief. I’m skeptical of this claim because a) I don’t think that’s actually how people behave, and b) I don’t think we can know much about reality, particularly as pertaining to the religious sphere. That’s why I throw “well-being” out there as a starting place.
great post, as always.
In my study of the occult and magicks, I have come to a similar conclusion. But really, it was already there in the discussions we’ve had — even if changing beliefs is like gambling with the brain, the fact is you can as you yourself put it, “stack the deck”.
But as you point out, it would be different.
I will push back on your second to last paragraph:
In particular, from what I recall of the Givens stuff (it’s been a while since I last read it), I can’t help but sense that if you went up to them and juxtaposed “moral significance” with “aesthetic preference,” they probably might respond, “And what’s the real difference?”
I mean, is it just aesthetic preference to declare who your “team” is? Is it just “aesthetic preference” to stick with your team *despite* being “at tension with surroundings”
I mean, other than the fact that your grievances are less personal or less intense (e.g., because you’re “male…straight…an academic…”), what’s the difference other than in *intensity* between you rolling your eyes at the tension, and someone who is gay (but who has made the same ‘choice’) doing a little more than roll their eyes?
The reason I think that the Givens wouldn’t see much difference between moral significance and aesthetic preference (and the main reason I have an issue with what they are saying) is because I think their answer to the question of, “Why should I?” is something like, “because it’s beautiful and resonates with you”. I think that they assume far too much universality about what people consider beautiful or resonant. I don’t have a god-shaped hole, and they NEED me to for their entire thesis to make sense.
This is a good objection, and perhaps it gets a little more precisely at my mis-Givens-ings.
I read the Givenses as saying, however obliquely, that belief in Mormonism *is symptomatic of* being morally superior. If you are morally superior, you will want beautiful and merciful things for the world, so you’ll be predisposed to believe in beautiful and merciful things like weeping Gods, etc. So yes, by your last point, they assume that everyone has a God-shaped hole — everyone thinks the weeping God is beautiful — and you only reject it if you fail to want it for the world enough to believe in it. This line of argument is hard for me to take seriously, but I think you can make it without assuming that moral significance is interchangeable with aesthetic preference.
But if they are saying that moral significance is interchangeable with aesthetic preference, I’m not sure how to respond. Then it would seem that everyone has a different view of what’s beautiful, but some views are better than others. Your lack of a god-shaped hole is acknowledged but judged as morally inferior. I find this even harder to take seriously; what’s the point of a metaethics that hardly engages at all with consequences?
> I think their answer to the question of, “Why should I?” is something like, “because it’s beautiful and resonates with you”.
But it only resonates with me if I self-domesticate my mind. If I don’t, am I off the hook?
I think it depends on what you mean by “belief” when you make the argument that belief is morally insignificant.
I haven’t read Givens’ Letter to a Doubter, but if we’re talking Fowler’s definition of faith — which is, essentially, the centers of influence and power in which you place your trust and from which you find meaning — I’d argue that it has important moral significance in terms of the fruits, or attitudes and actions, it produces.
For example, I’d argue that believing everything that comes out of Mormon, Inc., or belief in a violent, hateful God, is morally inferior to believing in an all-loving God who transcends dogmatic boundaries. I don’t think it’s morally significant in the sense that there is One True Way To Believe and if you don’t, you’re a moral reprobate. But what you believe does have moral implications.
Certainly, generally speaking beliefs are morally relevant in that they inform our actions. Whether or not I choose to believe in a vengeful God is likely to impact whether or not I take vengeful actions, and of course this is morally significant.
But the Givenses, at least as I read them, are making a stronger claim: It’s morally relevant whether I believe in a heterodox, weeping-God Mormonism that’s coherent with modern liberal ethical sensibilities or in a secular atheism coherent with the same sensibilities. Since I’m largely divorced from the negative consequences of affiliating with Mormonism as an institution, I have a hard time agreeing this belief has much to do with morality.
I do agree that there is *some* moral dimension in the choice to affiliate. By affiliating I’m involved in the organization that’s inflicting these negative consequences, so I have to balance my implied (and financial) support for those consequences against the inherent positive consequences of Mormonism as well as my ability to improve that balance from within. But this, I think, it a moral question on a much smaller scale than the significance the Givenses want.