Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington N.Z. Vol. 10, No. 5. May, 7, 1947

Religion and Education — Exchange Article calls forth protests

page break

Religion and Education

Exchange Article calls forth protests

Let it be clearly stated first that we agree with Professor Taylor on his fundamental point, that is—It is obvious that doubt is an integral part of the normal functioning of intelligence and that this intelligence is to be regarded as being effective in all spheres of thought. Religious dogmas, therefore, cannot be considered as exempt from critical enquiry. We make this statement in order that we may safeguard ourselves against misinterpretation.

Such misinterpretation is likely to be forthcoming in view of the fact that we believe that in disposing of religious dogma Taylor has not adequately dealt with the function of religious experience. To us there appears no necessary conflict between the "fundamental basis of religious faith" (rightly interpreted) "and of University Education."

Religious Experience

It is necessary then to consider what are the fundamental bases of religious faith. This takes us on to a consideration of the nature of religious experience, because faith is the outcome of such experience (as it is likewise the basis for further experience). Now it is the essence of the religious experience that it signifies both a passive and an active adjustment to the universe. There is a note of submission, but also one of inclusion. At the same time it is an outgoing attitude. There is in it, as Dewey would say, a change of will conceived as the organic plenitude of our being. It includes such feelings as reverence and abundance.

Such an experience becomes faith (in our interpretation) when it is used as the basis for the concrete workings of intelligence, the affairs of daily life. This faith is not based on supposed communication with some impossible, transcendental being but has its roots in the natural religious experience.

Doubt

As stated in the introduction we believe that doubt is an essential prerequisite for the concrete workings of intelligence. But, although the "dogma of doubt" is a healthy enough battle-cry its function is a restricted one. That is, while the open minded attitude is the best correlate to the wide-open universe, in itself it is insufficient. Doubt is not enough. The progress of intellectual inquiry in University Education is to be fostered as much by religious experience as it is to be made effective by doubt. It is just such experience which, transferred from dogmatic objects, makes the ideals of life a possibility. Without such a religious background these ideals will not become real for us.

It is only by the transference of such religious values as those of reverence and abundance that we can overcome our complementary impatience and selfishness in social dealings. Possibly there may come a time when we are purely rational (the aspiration of Freud). In those "Methuselan" days doubt may be sufficient. Meanwhile, it is not a case of too much faith, as Haldane asserts, but rather of misplaced faith. We need essentially the complementary and progressive adjustment of faith and doubt to objects we conceive as most worthwhile. Doubt alone is insufficient, unscientific. It is but a negative aspect of experience. Without the positive, the religious, it is as useless and one sided as the religious dogma it seeks to overthrow.

Just in case we be misinterpreted, however, we must assert again that we are speaking of a religious aspect of experience which is as natural as the scientific aspect. It is important that this be separated from a religion with its usual impossible supernatural claims.

Unless this religious experience be consciously and explicitly dealt with within education along with the claims of doubt it is likely to have unsatisfactory outcomes; either (1) by being connected with scientifically invalid dogmas, or (2) by being supposedly rejected from experience and then insidiously and surreptitiously exerting its influence on doubtful political or other dogmas.

In education not only doubt but the conscious acceptance of what is religious in experience is necessary. It is such experience which enables us to envisage our society as one "in which sensitive and responsible personalities seek to enter with sympathy and understanding into the lives of others as a pre-requisite of their own self-expression." (V. T. Thayer, "American Education Under Fire.") Doubt alone could not accomplish this.

Agnosticism

Professor Taylor's mistake is in confusing agnosticism and doubt. Agnosticism is, as Dewey would say, a shadow cast by the eclipse of the supernatural. We must doubt in order that we may find out, not because some Murry, inaccessible and super-natural being lurks behind whatever we can know. In this case our doubting is a function of our intelligence, not a sign of a pale and impotent scepticism. Obviously Taylor means the desirable use of doubt. He should be more careful, however, in the use of his terms. In equating the two he has not only thrown out the dogmatic idealistic bathwater but also the naturalistic religious baby.

As Whitehead says, "Exactness is a fake" (Ingersoll Lecture, 1941). But he also says: "The fact of our religious vision, and its history of persistent expansion, is our one ground for optimism. Apart from it, human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience." ("Science and the Modern World.")—

B. Sutton-Smith and P. S. Wilson.