Third and Last in Series

I have been thinking about the main point of Mark Edmundson’s essay about Sigmund Freud “Defender of the Faith” which appeared in The New York Times Sunday Magazine (Sept. 9, 2007). In it, Edmundson claims that Freud thought belief in God might prepare someone for intense introspection. Belief in an invisible God, according to Freud, could predispose someone to reflect deeply about himself or herself. In other words, belief in God could help people be more at home with that which cannot be sensed directly, more at home in a spiritual realm.

I have been wondering if the opposite is true: can introspection and interest in the life of the mind by focusing attention on great literature, poetry, fiction, theatre, music, film, painting and sculpture predispose someone to be more ready for belief in God? The topic, which can raise a number of interesting questions, fascinates me. How one thinks about the topic can have important implications for education.

As I begin this column, I feel that I am not going to find any final answers but perhaps the column might stimulate readers to come up with some solutions which escape me.

First, I want to state clearly what I am not saying. I do not believe that involvement with intellectual activities, even intellectual activities of the highest order such as dealing with the classics of music, literature, theatre, painting, film, poetry and sculpture means that a person is necessarily growing closer to God nor does involvement with other activities that are not as intellectual mean that a person is moving away from God. I am wondering what the relationship is, if any, between the life of the mind and holiness.

In a small provocative little paperback entitled Escape from Scepticism, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1977) Christopher Derrick writes:

“I regard it as a misfortune or even a disaster to have a servile mentality… If I say that a man has a servile mentality, I mean that his thoughts and responses are narrow, small, petty, ignoble, and mean. He may be intelligent, or sharp and clever at least; but he lacks magnanimity, he is incapable of high thoughts and generous emotions, and he takes better men than himself to be fools when they display such thoughts and such emotions….

“But it seems to me clear that certain types of education foster this servility of the mind and that any liberal education which deserves the name will work hard – and, let us hope, successfully – in the opposite sense.”

I am thinking of some experiences which I have had that seem to be experiences that might open a person up to the mystery of God. Even if we claim that these experiences are only artistic or aesthetic experiences, they seem to be superior artistic and aesthetic experiences, the type of experiences which might help a person be more receptive to the presence of God.

One experience comes to my mind immediately. Years ago, I had a practice of reading a newspaper late at night. Frequently as I was reading the paper, the radio station to which I was listening would play its sign-off melody. The melody was my favorite: Rachmaninoff’s “Variations on a Theme by Paganini.”

Often I would put down the paper just to listen. I almost could not remain sitting. The beautiful melody took me to a different sphere. Its beauty captured not only my attention but, in some mysterious way, my spirit.

I could tell of similar experiences reading a novel or poetry or seeing a play or film. Great art can lift us into what seems like a new world, can provide us with experiences that in some ways seem more real than our ordinary daily experiences.

In an excellent essay in America (Sept. 6, 2000) entitled “The Apologetics of Beauty,” Father Andrew Greeley wrote the following:

“Human artists see things more clearly than the rest of us. They penetrate into the illumination of being more intimately than do the rest of us. They want us to see what they see so that we can share in their illumination. They are driven to duplicate that beauty in their work… The artist is a sacrament maker, a creator of emphasized, clarified beauty designed to make us see. Artists invite us into the world they see so that we can go forth from that world enchanted by the luminosity of their work and with enhanced awareness of the possibilities of life.”

I am upset when friends tell me that they are reading books that are junk or watching really awful films on video cassettes or DVDs. If the life of the mind is so wonderful, why not take advantage of the great works of art that are now accessible to most of us? Are we neglecting a treasure?