The Double Refuge

Preface

Each and All - Introductions - Sections - Chapters - Objective & Subjective - Globalism - The Scarlet Pimpernel

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Each and All

In The Double Refuge I suggest bringing together doubt & belief in a way that allows a free flow from one to the other. I argue for an open theism in which one can believe in any religious or mythic idea and yet also remain open to other ideas. I also argue that open theism goes well with open agnosticism, which uses doubt not as a way to negate or deny, but as a way to explore all ideas and experiences. In this form of agnosticism, doubt also doubts itself, leaving us free to believe. Shelley gets close to this paradox in his poem, “Mont Blanc” (1816):

The wilderness has a mysterious tongue
Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,
So solemn, so serene, that man may be,
But for such faith, with Nature reconciled

Combining open agnosticism with open theism allows us to remain open to anything. It does this by freeing us from rigid reasoning on the skeptical side, and from exclusive dogma on the religious side. In this sense it’s a refuge from the ravages of skepticism and from the rigidity of doctrine.

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In a famous passage of his Pensées (1670), Blaise Pascal suggests that belief and disbelief are like two sides of a coin. He argues that we should choose belief because we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Double refugees would rather not flip such a coin. Instead, they’d set it on a table and spin it, so that the physical and metaphysical worlds whirl around each other so fast that it becomes impossible to say which is which.

We might also see belief and disbelief as winning or losing in a crap game. Double refugees would argue that instead of taking chances, we can opt not to throw the dice. Instead of betting on a line of materialistic or spiritual thinking — based on such limited knowledge that it might as well be based on chance — we keep ourselves open to what’s around us and within us.

The metaphors of the spinning coin and the spinning top make more sense to double refugees than deciding firmly on either doubt or belief. To them, both seems more reasonable than either / or.

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Introductions

The Double Refuge begins with five chapters of introduction. In 🍏 Agnosticism and 🧩 Butterflies Landing I introduce themes, arguments, and terms (Butterflies delves into more involved terms and concepts, such as zero-sum philosophy and Keats’ negative capability). In🍷 Bubbles Winking at the Brim I argue that the double refuge breaks down the dichotomy between sensuality and religion. The Introductions section also introduces my own personal experiences: in 🇲🇽 Señor Locke I explain how the double refuge helps me with the trauma of sense impressions (after having been abused, robbed, and briefly held captive); and in ☯️ Herr Jung I explain why empiricism and mysticism is of more use to me in dealing with nightmares than is the archetypal approach of Carl Jung.

In 🍷 Bubbles Winking at the Brim (starting with Half in Love With Easeful Death, I suggest that the open refuge is like wine. It takes us away from our normal sober state, where we want everything to go according to our vision of life, hoping to square our personal designs with the curves, loops, and arabesques of the world around us. Sip by sip, we slip into a less certain framework. The edges get blurry and we start to let loose of our definitions and guardrails. Whether some idea is true or untrue becomes less an argument than an invitation. We stop worrying about what we used to think, and let ourselves flow, perhaps even merge with other ideas, people, realities. It’s like a dream, but more solid and less fleeting. The wine may not take us as far as the mystic poets of Persia, and we may not clutch at the moon like Li Po, yet we each in our own way explore further, dipping our toes or diving head first, into the strong currents of life.

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While in the first chapter I use wine to suggest the intoxication of open agnosticism and open theism, in the second chapter, 🍏 Agnosticism (starting with Core Beliefs), I argue that open agnosticism, with its hold on tradition on one hand, and its reach for new ideas and experiences on the other, is complementary to open theism. Both are willing to grab onto new things without tightening the grasp so much that it becomes impossible to change. Neither is an aimless drift, for neither insists on drifting for the sake of drifting. Nor does either think that others must follow in their wake, as Dante so elegantly does in Paradiso, 2.1-6:

O voi che siete in piccioletta barca,
O you, eager to hear more, 
desiderosi d'ascoltar, seguiti
who have followed in your little bark [boat]
dietro al mio legno che cantando varca,
my ship that singing makes its way,

tornate a riveder li vostri liti:
turn back if you would see your shores again. 
non vi mettete in pelago, ché forse,
Do not set forth upon the deep, 
perdendo me, rimarreste smarriti.
for, losing sight of me, you would be lost.

Dante may be correct to warn his reader about embarking on the high seas, yet open theists, just as much as open agnostics, question whether we really need to follow in Dante’s particular wake. They’re more likely to heed the warning of Byron, who cautions that if we float “in a Sea of Speculation” we may capsize our little boat. Byron doesn’t tell his readers that they must follow him or they’ll be lost.

Open refugees see the danger. Indeed, what I mean by refugee is that existential and metaphysical winds can blow very rough. We often need a safe port, a refuge from the storm. Yet, to borrow from Shakespeare’s well-known “Sonnet 116,” the star to the sailor’s wandering bark (boat) is the pole star, not a specific philosophy or religion. By extension, the star is love in general;

it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his [its] height be taken.

Shakespeare’s love isn’t a particular form of love. It could be 1. the love of a mother, father, sister, brother, or friend, 2. the connection that Nature builds in each of us for survival and meaning, 3. a Neoplatonic love which urges us toward a transcendent Good, 4. the Christian love of Christ that redeems humanity, 5. the love of Krishna and Radha, 6. the Sufi love that annihilates the self and opens the tavern door to the intoxication of God, and 7. any other type of love on Earth or any other world. It’s certainly not restricted to Dante’s Medieval version of Christianity. To borrow from Dante’s mentor, the pagan Virgil, it’s the love that conquers all. Before Christ was born, Virgil writes, Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori; "Love conquers all things; let us yield to this love."

A key aspect of the double refuge is that it combines doubt with the option to believe. For instance, we can doubt the literal meaning of Dante’s words, yet at the same time we can work through them to reach a greater flexibility. To start with, we can recognize the necessity of following in the wake of a larger ship. Who among us can pretend to be the equivalent of the captain of Columbus’ Santa Maria or of Darwin’s Beagle? But we can still choose which ship to follow, and we still have the right to ask, “Does it have to be Dante’s wake?” It doesn’t have to be, but it can be Dante’s wake, as long as we’re willing to contend with a great deal of Medieval politics and theology. But even here, we don’t have to take everything Dante writes literally. So why not follow in Dante’s wake? And — rather than but — and why not follow in the wake of other ships that criss-cross the dangerous seas?

There are many ships on the oceans of science and religion, just as there are many mansions in the house of God. His Lordship is reputed to contain multiple dimensions and infinite space, so there’s bound to be room in his house for whatever good thing we might believe, or whatever good news we might hear.

We can follow in the wake of a mighty ship or we can take to the open sea and take our chances. In doing this we may find smooth seas and coconut isles of honey and light, or we may struggle like Melville’s Ahab against the Leviathan of Blind Chance in the Ocean of Doubt. Even if we go down with the ship, we may still find ourselves in amber light. The country beyond whose bourn no traveller returns is a mystery, and know one knows what we’ll find. We may find ourselves sailing back into a port, with a sign on a shop door that says “Wine Tavern.”

We stand on the door sill, one moment looking out at the turbulent winds blowing up from the Strait of Hormuz, and the next moment looking in at the bartender pouring a sparkling shiraz into the glass of a beautiful woman, her ruby lips touching the lip of the glass as the wine flows over her tongue.

We go in and out of the tavern, always stopping for a second at the door, examining its hinges and the strange fact that it exists between two worlds. The door divides the worlds at times, and connects them at others. We wonder about Plato and his world of Ideal Forms. What is this door, this gate between two worlds? And who is the Gatekeeper?

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Sections

The five introductory chapters are followed by two main sections: Pathways to Doubt and Currents of Religion.

The eight chapters of Pathways to Doubt emphasize the effect of science on religion, especially the way astronomy and natural science dismantled Medieval literalism, and led to Deism, agnosticism, and existentialism. I also look at examples of how existential and religious paradigms can complement each other, and sometimes merge.

The nine chapters of Currents of Religion emphasize the diverse history of religion, as well as aspects of mysticism that survive the collapse of certainty. I take a look at the clash between Mesoptamian and Judaic religion, the fusion of doubt and belief in Daoist and Transcendentalist writers, and the clash between secularism and fundamentalism in Rushdie’s early novels. Throughout this section I argue that the double refuge, with its open borders and its lack of doctrine, can act as a conduit between doubt and belief, and can also act as a refuge from the ravages of both.

Throughout The Double Refuge I use historical timelines, yet my arguments are more about the nature of doubt and belief than about the historical development of either. I highlight literature that’s especially relevant to the relation of doubt to belief. For instance, in 🦖 At the Wild & Fog (starting with A Misty Maze, But Not Without a Plan) I look at proto-agnosticism and Christianity in Dickens’ Bleak House, and at Modern agnosticism and mysticism in Forster’s A Passage to India.

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Chapters

The first section, PATHWAYS TO DOUBT, follows a rough chronological order. I start by looking at the revolutionary impact of astronomy in 🔭 The Sum of All Space (starting with Third Spinning Rock from the Sun), and at the parallel rise of science and skepticism from the 16th to 20th centuries in 🔬 Science & Mystery (starting with Overview) and in ♒️ A River Journey (starting with Mountain Springs). I then look at the skeptical and empirical strains in agnosticism, from the Greeks to the 19th century (❤️ Three Little Words, starting with Critical Distance), after which I look at the shift from pre- to post- Darwinian thinking in Dickens’ England in 🦖 At the Wild & Fog (starting with A Misty Maze, But Not Without a Plan), at the relation between agnosticism and theism in the 20th century French existentialists Sartre and Camus in 🎲 Almost Existential (starting with Poor, Bare, Forked), and at a mystical version of the contemporary existential heroine in the song, “A Lighter Shade of Pale” in 🧜🏽‍♀️ The Mermaid: Existential & Then Some (starting with The Heroine).

The second section, CURRENTS OF RELIGION, also follows a rough chronological order, beginning with an overview of religious history in 🌎 Many Tribes (starting with Overview and Six Versions of Infinity). I then look at the influence of Mesopotamian civilization on Judaism & Christianity in ♒️ The Currents of Sumer (starting with Introduction & Overview), at changing religious paradigms in ⏯ Systems (starting with Mere Religion?) and in ✝︎ St. Francis (starting with Rapt Angel), at mysticism in Classical China & Whitman’s 19th Century Transcendentalism in 💫 Believing in the Mystery (starting with Introduction: Daoism & Whitman’s Transcendentalism), at the battle against dogma in the Indian subcontinent in the 20th century in 🇮🇳 The Fiction of Doubt (starting with Rise of the Simurg), and at the age-old puzzle of death in ☠️ Ars Moriendi (starting with Teeing Off).

For a list of contents for each page of each chapter, see Detailed Contents.

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Objective & Subjective

For the sake of convenience, one might divide the chapters into two types: non-fiction which aims at objectivity and fiction which stresses subjectivity.

First, there’s the non-fiction of history, geography, natural science, astronomy, philology, politics, and philosophy. For instance, in 🔭 The Sum of All Space and 🔬 Science & Mystery I look at how astronomy and science approach the notions of doubt and infinity. In 🔬 Three Little Words I look at the development of skepticism, focusing on Montaigne’s three little words, which aren’t I love you, but What know I? or Que sais-je? In 🌎 Many Tribes and ♒️ The Currents of Sumer I look at the history of religion, and at how Judaeo-Christianity has borrowed from, and, all too often, belittled other philosophies and cultures, including the Mesopotamian civilizations from which it largely derived.

While much of The Double Refuge is focused on non-fiction, I also bring in creative writing, literary criticism, and autobiography. In particular, I use literary criticism in four chapters. In 🦖 At the Wild & Fog I argue that Charles Dickens is a sort of proto-agnostic, and that his novel Bleak House is a powerful reflection of the years immediately prior to Huxley’s coining of the term agnosticism. In 🧜🏽‍♀️ The Mermaid: Existential & Then Some I explore the mix of existentialism and mysticism in the lyric “A Lighter Shade of Pale.” In 🇮🇳 The Fiction of Doubt and 💫 Believing in the Mystery I look at how the mysticism of Whitman and Zhuangzi includes doubt, and at how the skepticism of Rushdie includes mysticism.

I also use autobiography on many pages, such as Family, Man’s Best Friend, and The Scoundrels of Theology. In the chapter ☠️ Ars Moriendi I reflect on the death of my father and brother, and in⛱ Señor Locke I borrow Locke’s empirical theory of the mind to illustrate the relation between belief, doubt, and sense impressions. Drinking coffee in a colourful square in Guanajuato, I wonder how unbiased my thinking about religion can ever be, having been abused by a counsellor at a so-called ‘Christian’ camp. I also wonder if I can ever be free from fear, having been robbed at knifepoint in Mexico City and held captive briefly in Istanbul. Have such experiences made me less open to belief, or more willing to try new forms of belief?

This fictional and autobiographical veering away from exposition & argument is in keeping with my notion that while agnosticism and theism have abstract philosophical dimensions, they are based in personal experience.

This is especially true for agnosticism: at its heart it isn’t as much a system or doctrine as it is an open mode of operating and being. It urges us to think and feel critically, openly, and eclectically. Of course, religion can work in this open, critical way too, which is why I think of open agnosticism and open theism as the double refuge. Christian ecumenicalism goes some way in this, yet it often remains within the sphere of Christianity rather than becoming part of a global religious sensibility. Notable exceptions to this can be found in the writings of Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Merton, Raimundo Panikkar, Bede Griffiths, or, more recently, Richard Rohr.

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Globalism

The following poem I wrote exemplifies what I mean by a global religious sensibility. In it I try to combine this sensibility with the desire to burn away the chaff, that is, to remove whatever stops us from connecting more broadly, from exploring and empathizing, from loving and forgiving, from reaching the grain or valuable substance which is protected yet also hidden by the chaff. In my poem the names of God are many. God thus becomes Shiva, the God of destruction and creation, as well as Christ, the God who is killed and resurrected. In both agnostic and mystical thought, it doesn’t matter what the name is; it’s the principle of improvement and the experience of reconstruction that counts:

By and large religion is dominated by those who tend to think in exclusive terms, often promulgating the notion that their religion is the best. They set Christ against Krishna, Mary against Mahakali. Personal experience too often gets subsumed by the doctrine of a particular church, sect, or school — just as it does by the atheist doctrine of positivism, which argues that the only verification we can rely on comes from the scientific method. Agnostics, by the very nature of their philosophy, are loathe to make such claims to exclusivity and superiority. It’s why agnostics aren’t bothered in the least if an agnostic embraces faith or leaves it altogether — that is, if they stop being an agnostic and become a theist or an atheist. It’s the sincerity of the search and the honesty of the appraisal that counts.

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The Scarlet Pimpernel

While The Double Refuge has themes and threads, I have a laissez-faire attitude in the pages themselves, taking tangents wherever I think they might yield some insight. A certain amount of latitude seems appropriate in exploring the relation between poetic agnosticism and mystical theism, since both are rather sliding, floating endeavours. It may be that if you’re willing to explore everything, you’re likely to keep shifting your bearings, and at times quite abruptly. Even to include humour, as when I see God as the Scarlet Pimpernel. I see this as having fun with rather than making fun of what’s so often seen as exclusive, serious, and generally out-of-bounds:

In my exploration of doubt & belief I follow timelines and threads, but beyond these there are other trajectories and fabrics. Much as beyond Miró’s blue blob there’s a galaxy of gold and black lines with hints of stars and justice, of upside-down smiles and beings on faraway planets.

The lines we type onto the page or Internet stretch so far from us that eventually they become other, our scheme intersecting with other schemes, until we suspect that the universe is full of patterns and schemes. To impose a pattern or gospel on the universe says more about us than it does about the cosmos.

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Next: 🍷 Bubbles Winking at the Brim - Half in Love With Easeful Death

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Contents - Detailed Contents - Core Beliefs - Overview