The Cognition, Religion and Theology Project at Oxford University recently completed a major study of the human disposition to believe in gods and an afterlife. At one level, the study appears to have been an exercise in spending large amounts of time and money on proving the blatantly obvious: humanity is incorrigibly religious.¹

The £1.9 million project involved 57 researchers who conducted over 40 separate studies in 20 countries representing a diverse range of cultures. The studies (both analytical and empirical) conclude that humans are predisposed to believe in gods and an afterlife, and that both theology and atheism are reasoned responses to what is a basic impulse of the human mind.

Project Co-Director Professor Roger Trigg:

We have gathered a body of evidence that suggests that religion is a common fact of human nature across different societies. This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, such as the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.’

This last quote is particularly telling and appears to confirm the results of the most rigorous and widespread multi-generational studies of the phenomenon of human religiosity, namely, those undertaken in the systematically atheistic societies of the USSR and China. These cases both provide remarkable data: the USSR unparalleled for geographical expanse and cultural diversity; China for sheer size of population. Both these projects in atheistic social engineering encountered remarkable resistance, and I don’t simply mean that some ‘religious’ people clung fiercely to their beliefs and chose martyrdom rather than apostasy. There were two more innate and (ultimately) more subversive forms of resistance, both of which tend to support the claim that humanity is an inherently religious species.

The first was demonstrated by the persistence of religiosity despite the destruction of its organisational forms. The natural focus for opposition to religion in both the USSR and Communist China were formal religious institutions: Churches, temples, shrines, monasteries, places for the training of the professional religious classes. Many were dealt with brutally. It seems to me that we could frame this an an experimentation upon the hypothesis, that “religiosity is propagated and sustained by religious institutions/classes of people.” The hypothesis was tested with exceptionally severe rigor. I assume that the hypothesis was generated out of the intuition that religion functioned within society as a means by which power was exercised by a few over the many (certainly, Marxist thinkers expressed their intuition in these terms). Religion was a mechanism, alongside private property, access to capital, access to education, through which societies structured their power relations. But if the essence of religion is social control, when one removes the ability of religion to provide this function (by destroying its organisational form and organising ability), religion should die, its superstitious garments simply withering away. But does religion without control implode, like the unmasked Wizard of Oz?

As stated above, this theory was tested. Rigorously. And shown conclusively to be wrong. The human impulse to religiosity is not imposed, generated or sustained by ‘external’ modes of control.² As the atheistic regimes in the USSR and China discovered, the result of the suppression of religious organisations was not the destruction of religion but the destruction of theology or its equivalents: the destruction of rationalised forms of religion. Religiosity continued, even rapidly expanded in some places, but frequently in the form of ‘folk’ religion. The atheist regimes found themselves increasingly battling against cults (and ironically, increasingly found themselves being turned into cults). It became apparent that the religious organisations that had been suppressed were primarily modes of systematisation of religious impulses, not the cause of them.³ And when the various religious organisations were suppressed, the result was not the destruction of religion but its disorganisation. The conclusion appears to be that while the forms in which the religious impulse is expressed may be dependent on systematic religious organisation, and these religious organisations may function as a vehicle of social control (as was recognised with great clarity in Tudor England),  the religious organisation is not the source of general religiosity, it is the result.⁴

The second form of resistance that ‘religiosity’ demonstrated against atheistic attempts to destroy it has been already mentioned: it was the remarkable way in which religious forms insinuated themselves into purportedly ‘atheistic’ social structures and organisations. The more fiercely anti-religious the various Marxist reformation movements became, and the more they were successful in their destruction of organised religion, the more they began to resemble civil religions themselves. The most powerful symbol and example of this atheistic cult was perhaps the embalmed Lenin in Red Square (a source of embarrassment to many of Lenin’s more rigorously Marxist comrades, including his wife). The atheist cult extended to the canonisation and study of particular texts; the posthumous ‘deification’ of particular leaders; Communist Youth Groups (who directly lifted their organisational structures from prior Christian versions); most profoundly, ‘religious’ narratives about time and space, history and country, which were ultimately, religiously constructed narratives of identity. The more vigorously ‘Religion’ was suppressed, the more religion returned. The State increasingly found itself at the centre of popular worship.

I’d like to take some time (at some stage) to explore what this ‘sense of god/the gods’ might be: I don’t propose to leave my opening questions completely unresolved. But even if we set that investigative project to one side, there are a number of interesting implications that flow from the conclusion that humans have a disposition toward religiosity.

First, the common atheistic call for the abandonment of religious education in schools is incredibly naïve. The contemporary militant proponents of atheism routinely argue that religious education is an abuse of religious/parental power, children should not be indoctrinated with religion until their critical faculties have matured to a point where they will be able to (inevitably) reject it as superstitious foolishness. The underlying hypothesis appears to be a version of the one I mentioned above: that “religiosity is propagated through religious institutions (religious education)”, and that humans, if left to their own devices, would be irreligious. Simply put, the best science is against this position. The removal of religious education would not remove religiosity from our children, it would simply deprive them of any contact with collective, systematic, rational reflection on their religiosity. Removing religious education will not make people irreligious, just religious and uneducated.⁵

Secondly, the ‘decline of religion’ in contemporary Western societies is a myth. What we have witnessed is not a decline in religion, but a shift in its expression away from the organised (and sometimes enthusiastically disorganised) modes of reflection that have served our societies over the past century. Christians shouldn’t be particularly shocked by this, while human religiosity is constant, the form in which this is expressed shifts constantly.⁶ Any reading of the Old Testament would establish this claim from the experience of Israel. What is perhaps unusual and interesting about our contemporary situation is the colossal bad faith in which our worship is undertaken. We live in a time, perhaps not unlike the period during which ‘atheistic’ Christianity rose to prominence in the Roman Empire, when the dominant forms of religiosity in our society refuse the label ‘religion’. Where that will end is a matter for others to divine.

All the nations may walk in the name of their gods; we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever. (Micah 4:5 NIV)

Image by Vicki Wolkins

Footnotes
1. It must be said, however, that the Oxford Study was very instructive, not least for the methodology employed and the diversity of samples taken.↑
2. What we mean by ‘external’ at this point is questionable, but probably something along the lines of, not universally shared but imposed by a distinct (minority) group upon the society as a whole↑
3. I do not mean to deny by this that religious organisations can serve other purposes, including social control↑
4. The Chinese communist party has shown itself to be significantly wiser (and more pragmatic) by seeking to control religious organisations rather than simply banning them.↑
5. Those arguing against contemporary forms of religious education would be better advised to bite the bullet and own up to the fact that what they really desire is not a religiously neutral education but an atheistic one, and that atheism (at its best, which is hardly ever) is just as much a systematic, rational reflection on human religiousity as any other form of developed theology.↑
6. I recently came across a fascinating book entitled Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon, a study of Oprah as the embodiment of ‘spiritual capitalism’.↑

There is an interesting little dynamic created within the classroom:
Everybody knows that the teacher already knows the answer, and the answer that the teacher knows is the right answer. The question (as question) is thereby subverted, transformed from an expression of relational dependence (asking for help) into an invitation to seek affirmation.

1. Even if Plato had a correct understanding of how knowledge and learning function, we are not Socrates, nor pupils of Socrates: the relationship dynamic we share between teacher and pupil is nothing like Socrates and his interlocutors. Plato is careful to present those who dialogue with Socrates as conceiving themselves as his intellectual equals, or as too frivolous to care – either way, there is no consideration of seeking affirmation in giving an answer to his questions. In our contemporary situations, the power balance has significantly shifted, creating a very different illocution (communicative act) out of a superficially similar locution (communicative form).

2. This change in the force of the question creates a whole host of resonances within the dynamics of the classroom:
students feel they are either need to have learned all the material before they come to class, or that they are a very poor students and incapable of class participation. They become involved in a very difficult attempt to already know what they are there to learn. They are placed in situations of ethical conflict within themselves, and in political conflict with each other – showing off, tall-poppy syndrome, all the rest.

At the end of the day though, what fascinates me about the Socratic Method is the way is the way in which it throws open for us the question of The Question – the way in which the kind of beings we think we are, and the kind of world we think we dwell in, resolves itself concretely into the types and lines of questions that we ask.

Socratic Pedagogy buys into an epistemology and anthropology that is incompatible with Christianity, and therefore results in classrooms that fail to be characterised by love, grace, and mutual dependence.
What difference does it make that we believe in a substantial, knowable creation – as well as an unseen eternal?
What difference does it make that we believe epistemic maturity consists in faith and dependence upon The Knower, rather than participation in It/Him?
What do we believe about the complex matrix of the teacher/student relationship? what is its goal? what is the effect of sin upon this? what is its redemption? how can it be conformed to the image of The Son?
For we have “one teacher, The Christ.” (Matt 23:10).

Having asked those questions, then what sort of questions would we ask?

The Socratic Method romances us with a vision of teacher and learner as partners in a quest for enlightenment. We are the happy few, the band of brothers standing before the walls of Harfleur or upon the field of Agincourt, ready together to storm the citadels of ignorance, to lay waste to the armies of incomprehension. The teacher is our general, our Alexander, marshalling the classroom forces for an expedition to extend the empire of The Known, even unto the Lands behind the rising of the Sun. Each probing question is a line upon our internal world-map, a trajectory for advance straight through the heart of darkness, through the twisted pictures of serpents, beyond the merely ‘uncharted’, and into the great Terra Incognita that spans the reverse of every chart.

Those Questions!

Isn’t it right that come the end, everyone stands on their desks and says, “captain, my captain”, while choking back sobs of gratitude for the privilege of taking part in such an educational experience?

[Actually, if there is anyone who could mount a challenge to Socrates as the most pervasive influence on the Imaginary of Education it would be John Keating (Robin Williams) in the film Dead Poets Society.
What teacher does not want to be loved like that? And what aspect of pedagogy is not directly affected by the need of a teacher to be loved? (There is a whole line of thought to be followed here, another time...)]

Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely something to be romantical about here. There is something wonderfully humble and wise about a teacher who asks questions. It is like a parent teaching their child to walk, gradually withdrawing support and setting greater challenges until the child is confident to progress on his or her own. In response to this skilful questioning, the students discover new dimensions and connections within their experience of the world and are helped to a greater sense of confidence in their ability to explore and learn outside the classroom. And further, the classroom becomes the site of free-flowing multiparty dialogue between the teacher and the students thus presenting opportunities for students to be challenged and provoked in their understanding, not only by the professional teacher, but also by their fellow students.
Still further, this loving questioning acknowledges something true: that there are kinds of knowing which are only given as experiences. There are no combinations of paragraphs or slides capable of communicating it.
The Question fires the imagination, and the imagination transports and orients us to the experience.
All Good. I think.

If it’s the right question.

You know when you’re in the presence of the Socratic Method when a teacher or lecturer adopts the “I’m a little tea-pot” pose (one hand bent so that dorsal side of wrist makes contact with waist, other arm extended with hand doing “eensy weensy spider” – although numerous variations have been observed). And then, while sawing the air, climbing the pipe, and summoning up a good head of steam, spouts something like:

“Who here can tell me what was the Prophet Jeffaniah’s motive for building a replica temple from toothpicks? Anyone?”

Don’t be fooled by the weird attempt to mash-up nursery rhymes, it’s a trick! They already know the answer (and if they don’t, they’ll pretend that they did anyway). Seek shelter under your desk! Stop up your ears! Look away! Just don’t answer the question.

Here’s why:
1. Socrates’ teaching method was part of his (or Plato’s) larger theory of human knowledge, which, through various exciting convolutions, derived from the belief that learning was essentially about remembering.

You see, back in the day, before our Souls became trapped in mortal flesh, we all beheld the naked truth of the Eternal Forms. Our fall from this state of perfect rational contemplation into darkness and error has caused us to forget those beautiful truths. And, because our souls are nourished by the Truth, not being able to contemplate the Forms makes us sluggish and stupid.

But all is not lost! Occasionally, we gain glimpses of the truth even through the distorted airs of this world, and these glimpses can stoke up memories of the Forms which can, in turn, nourish our souls and help us to ascend once again out of this body of flesh into the eternal, rational, world. Perhaps we should think of Socrates as a Philosopher-Evangelist who conceived of his task as liberation through remembrance.

Socrates thought that his theory could be proved by demonstrating that people could solve complex philosophical problems and come to the knowledge of the Truth simply by asking them the right series of questions. There was no need for input from a teacher or any external source of data, because your soul knew truth before you were born.
Everything you need to know about everything is already inside your head. Socrates’ particular voodoo was getting it out.

That, fellow critters, was why Socrates haunted the lane-ways of Athens, surprising unsuspecting artisans with bizarre thought experiments and generally minding everyone’s business but his own.

And this CRACKPOT is responsible for a method of PEDAGOGY!!!
I ask you…

More on the ill after-effects of the Socratic Method will be forthcoming.

photo by samantha celera