Varieties of religious experience
My mom just passed along this passage from Colm Toibin's novel, The Master, which is apparently about Henry James, although this bit is more about his brother, William:
"My brother," Henry said, "is to deliver the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh."
"On the new science of psychology?" Gosse asked.
"On the old science of religion," William replied.
"What position will you adopt?"
"I believe that religion, in its broadest sense, is indestructible," William said. "I believe the mystical experience of the individual, in any of its manifestations, to be a possession of an extended subliminal self."
"But what," Gosse asked, "if religion should be proved false?"
"I wish to argue," William said, "that religious feeling cannot be disproved since it belongs so fundamentally to the self. And if it is a belief that belongs so fundamentally to the self then it must be good, and, insofar as that goes, it must be true."
"But if you look at what Darwin and his supporters can show, surely they can prove that certain beliefs are untrue?"
"I am interested in religious feeling or experience rather than religious argument," William said. "I wish to make clear that even the very words I use are open and evasive and sometimes useless, that there are no precise words because there are no precise feelings. We have mixed feelings and complex sensibilities and we must allow for that in our lives and in our law and in our politics, but most important, in the deepest core of ourselves."
"In which the transcendental plays a part?" Gosse asked.
"Yes, but it may be more fundamental than that." William said. "The world beyond the senses, in which a sphere of life more powerful and larger than ourselves exists, may be continuous with our consciousness and we may know this and this may cause us to believe or have religious feeling, however vague, in a more satisfying way than we have religious argument."
"My brother," Henry said, "is to deliver the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh."
"On the new science of psychology?" Gosse asked.
"On the old science of religion," William replied.
"What position will you adopt?"
"I believe that religion, in its broadest sense, is indestructible," William said. "I believe the mystical experience of the individual, in any of its manifestations, to be a possession of an extended subliminal self."
"But what," Gosse asked, "if religion should be proved false?"
"I wish to argue," William said, "that religious feeling cannot be disproved since it belongs so fundamentally to the self. And if it is a belief that belongs so fundamentally to the self then it must be good, and, insofar as that goes, it must be true."
"But if you look at what Darwin and his supporters can show, surely they can prove that certain beliefs are untrue?"
"I am interested in religious feeling or experience rather than religious argument," William said. "I wish to make clear that even the very words I use are open and evasive and sometimes useless, that there are no precise words because there are no precise feelings. We have mixed feelings and complex sensibilities and we must allow for that in our lives and in our law and in our politics, but most important, in the deepest core of ourselves."
"In which the transcendental plays a part?" Gosse asked.
"Yes, but it may be more fundamental than that." William said. "The world beyond the senses, in which a sphere of life more powerful and larger than ourselves exists, may be continuous with our consciousness and we may know this and this may cause us to believe or have religious feeling, however vague, in a more satisfying way than we have religious argument."