I am currently enjoying a reread of Susannah Clarke's marvelous novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. The second title character, whom we meet first, has among his many quirks the marvelous, wonderful 19th-century naive conceit that it is possible to put upon a rational basis something as dangerous and wonderful as magic. Even as he violates his own rules, employing a fairy to assist in the resuscitation of the dead Ms. Wintertowne, betrothed to a minor member of the British cabinet, he seems to believe it possible to overlook the horrors he has already visited upon some "for the greater good", in this case restoring the glory of English magic.
It is that naive conceit I wish to talk about for a moment. At the same rough period of history as this novel is set - the first two decades of the 19th century, in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars - all western Europe was alive with the promise of Reason unleashed. Government Administration, the national economy, warfare, social relations, even religion - all would be served by the promise of being made rational, accessible to any literate adult. Mr. Norrell embodies this belief completely, having become a magician entirely through his own explorations of old books, ferreting out useful from useless information, finally demonstrating his power by making the stones of York Cathedral speak. In his quest to reestablish English magic as both respectable and important in the affairs of state, however, he unleashes the power of that nether world, Faerie, upon the poor, unsuspecting Mrs. Walter Pole, setting in motion a series of events that would undermine his desire even as he pursues it with that same naive desire to make it all modern, free of the fetters of such disgraceful, mystical notions as the importance of that legendary northern king who reigned for 3 centuries, the Raven King.
Religion, too, has suffered much from too many attempts to make it rational. Immanuel Kant wrote a book entitled Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, a remarkable little book, not the least for containing some of the most hate-filled passages in the German language (other than Martin Luther's or that Austrian guy's) concerning Jews. Hegel attempted to restore some of the mystery of religious thought even as he saw Reason as, in the end, overcoming religion's inherent limitations. It was, as he states in his lectures on religion, the Last Religion, to be replaced by Reason as the Idea of History makes itself ever more Real. Thomas Jefferson found the Bible held many remarkable ethical teachings, but was burdened with much nonsense about multiplying loaves and fishes and dead people rising and so on, so he removed those parts he found disagreeable and had a study Bible for his use. Friedrich Schleiermacher began his theological project by wondering what the word "God" might mean in an age in which belief, as it had been practiced and conceived in previous centuries, was no longer tenable. His On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers is a marvelous apologia for reimagining Christianity stripped of much of the (admittedly already by his time outdated) theological baggage that made it far too easy to dismiss.
While still with us, the ensuing two centuries of Christian thought (at least in the west, among Protestant theologians; Roman Catholic thought has only recently entered this territory, and Eastern Christianity continues on its own, remarkable, path) have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to make of the Christian faith something not only intelligible, but something reasonable. This is not to say that there is nothing reasonable or rational about it. On the contrary, precisely because it entails human beings understanding something, there is most definitely a role for reason, for understanding and comprehension. Yet, I think it a mistake to subsume all of religious life under the notion that we will ever capture it, or relate it, or explain it, or reduce it, rationally.
There is a limit to the ability of the human mind, and human language, and human understanding, in grasping and communicating what "it" is about the experience of religious life and practice that makes it vital to the life of the believer. We may take refuge either in the comfort of memorized Scripture, say, or the welcoming thoughts of this or that theologian, or the verses of a treasured hymn; yet, we make a mistake if we think we can reduce it all down to these formulae. On the contrary, we face the frightening prospect of losing our ability to make sense our experience at times. Whether the mystery and power of liturgy and sacraments that illuminate so much of the life of Catholics, High Church Anglicans, and Orthodox thinkers; the mysteries related by various mystics from the Anchorites to Thomas Merton; or the powerful and subtle thought of this or that theologian, all come up against the reality that we have to do with the unfathomable, the ineffable. God may indeed be Reason, as the medieval theologians insisted; but that is not the totality of who God is.
Like Mr. Norrell in Ms. Clarke's marvelous novel, we err greatly, and dangerously, when we trick ourselves in to thinking that our understanding begins and ends with the books about us, or even previous experience. If we are honest, we should say that all we can say is, alas, all we can say, or perhaps all we can say. There might be much more others can say; there might be more to be said. We, however, must also acknowledge that silence, too - holy, reverent silence in the face of the reality of our Subject - has its place, not least among its virtues an admission of humility.
We should acknowledge that, as powerful, indeed world-changing, as reason has been and will continue to be, it has its limits when it comes to the religious life. We stand on the shores of the eternal, and even our best cast tosses a stone within our site. We fool ourselves that we can see further than that.
