The Double Refuge 🍷 Bubbles Winking at the Brim

Refuges Here & There

Two Refuges - Iconoclasts - Overview - Objective & Subjective - Globalism

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Two Refuges

In The Double Refuge I explore the relation between doubt and belief. I suggest that each can help in understanding the other, and that each can be a refuge for the other. Belief can be a refuge from fear, alienation, angst, and meaninglessness, and doubt can be a refuge from pride, dogma, religious conflict, and the feeling of being boxed in.

Doubt and belief are often seen as distinct, even as irreconcilable opposites. I however think of then as complementary, especially in the sense that they can strengthen and temper one another. Belief can soften the hard edges of doubt, and doubt can soften the hard edges of belief. This complementary relation relies on one thing: openness. For my double refuge system to work, doubt must remain open to doubting its own doubt (which creates room for belief), and belief must remain open to different beliefs and ways of thinking (which creates room for doubt), even to the point of accepting those who have no belief at all.

The conventional scenario is that we leap from doubt to faith, or we fall from faith to doubt. Yet these scenarios often involve a great deal of psychological angst, and leaves us divided between what we were and what we are. This invites internal fracture, a chasm in the psyche. I suggest instead that we get used to sliding back and forth between doubt and belief, until the mix of the two isn’t just a part of our thinking, but is instinctual, living inside the nerves that move our muscles and bones. I suggest going back and forth so often that the invisible ligaments between doubt and belief become strong enough to support running at full speed or darting like a hummingbird. In this way, we can leap from place to place without leaving our past behind.

In The Double Refuge I go into the nature of agnosticism in depth, given that it’s a reliable, time-honoured bridge between logical and scientific perspectives on one hand, and mystical and religious perspectives on the other. I should note here that while there are two basic types of agnosticism — hard or open (see Types of Agnosticism) — I focus on open agnosticism. As its name suggests, hard agnosticism is less flexible: it insists on doubt, and doesn’t apply its main principle, doubt, to doubt itself. Hard agnostics would see such an application as a contradiction, whereas open agnostics would see it as a paradox, that is, as something that seems like it can’t be done, but in fact can be done.

In The Double Refuge I emphasize the different ways that the doubt of the open agnostic might interpenetrate open belief. By open theism or open belief I mean a belief that’s open to all philosophies and all faiths, all places and all times. This is the belief of 🔺 the Buddhist who thinks of God ‣ as an Absolute beyond definition, ‣ as a full void into which all minor voids evaporate, and ‣ as a destination beyond this ocean, and beyond the ocean that lies beyond this one, and the ocean beyond that, ad infinitum. It’s also the belief of 🔺 the Sufi who finds the atoms of our existence finely spun in a mystical dance of Love, or 🔺 the Daoist who can’t say where spirit is, or where God is, but is content with the notion that they’re nowhere and everywhere.

It’s the belief of 🔺 the Hindu who ‣ has his own deity, ‣ is happy that others have their own deities, and ‣ imagines that all deities merge somewhere in the ether. Whether this merging occurs in the Holy Ghost of Jehovah or in the akasha of Brahman seems a too delicate point, an overly refined distinction, so fine that it disappears in the merging of fine mists.

This is also the belief of 🔺 the Christian who believes in what I call Christianity 2.0. This new Christian discards dogma and exclusivity, and believes instead that Christ is an open, loving, inclusive spiritual force or being. I was tempted to write that Christ is a higher power, even to capitalize it, Higher Power, yet this Christ wanders among the prostitutes and the outcast, sits in the dust like a sadhu among the Untouchables, and leans back in a chair like Strider in a dark corner of The Prancing Pony.

Strider may in fact be the once and future king, yet he’s content to live like a pauper, not just to better understand and assist the people of the realm, but because there’s no essential difference between the king and the pauper. The paupers can barely understand this, and the elite has no idea what he’s talking about. In taking this lower position, Strider is like the Dao, which Laozi says is like water, descending to the lowest places to nourish the life-blood of animals and the sap of trees.

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People often talk about matter and spirit as if they were separate, as if a Great Wall has been built, and as if innumerable traps are set on both sides — and in some places gun turrets! They often talk as if there was in fact a solid border, impenetrable on the scientific side because of verifiable facts, and impenetrable on the religious side because of time-honoured doctrine. Both sides appear to have different types of gravity and magnetism, attracting us in different ways and pulling us apart so that we see the two as completely separate. Yet what if the same gravity and magnetism operated in both? What if the border doesn’t really exist, but is just a way of dividing up the same Whole? How many ways can we divvy up what we can’t see?

In The Double Refuge I focus on the unifying notion of refuge, which refers to an escape or refuge from the trap of isolation, alienation, & exclusivity that we can fall into when we divide the physical world from the invisible beauties of emotion, art, mysticism, and religion. In this sense the double refuge is a safe haven from both the alienation of existentialism and the dogma of religion.

Notwithstanding this notion of refuge, I’m still agnostic enough to admit that I don’t really know if I’m right or not. So I look as widely and as deeply as I can into the question of how the most open versions of agnostic realism might connect with the most open versions of religious mysticism.

Perhaps the most obvious way they connect is through humility. In the double refuge of open agnosticism and non-doctrinal mysticism we see that we’re only a tiny part of the universe and that we know only a tiny part of what there is to know. We can’t claim to speak for the Great Whole, whatever that may be. Scientifically and rationally we may think of the Cosmos; poetically and mystically we may think of the One and the Good. Yet however we approach the topic, the Great Whole may well be infinite and therefore beyond our conception. And yet, while we may not be able to reach conclusions or clear definitions, we can still imagine a God who is infinite and omnipresent and eternal, a Unified Field, a Universal Mind, an Absolute, a Full Void, a Goodness, a Mystical Union, a Yoga of body and spirit, a Holy Spirit connecting everything. It may not make perfect sense, but there it is.

In Adonais, his 1821 elegy on the death of Keats, Shelley does a great job of defining the undefinable: “Rome’s azure sky, / Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak / The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.”

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Iconoclasts

As I see it, both open agnosticism and open theism are dogged by probabilities & improbabilities, arguments & counter-arguments, ifs & buts, maybes & perhapses, conundrums & coincidences, ambiguities & paradoxes. Because agnosticism focuses on doubt and counter-argument, I’ll begin by exploring this many-sided beast, noting the ways it’s compatible with yet also distinct from atheism and theism. My main goal, however, is to explore the way that open agnosticism and open theism relate, differ, connect, and strengthen each other. If I were to boil my point down to one paragraph, it would go like this:

I’ll explore how the double refuge — the open space that embraces doubt and belief — allows us to freely access existential and spiritual aspects of our lives. This refuge opens up a non-judgmental space to breath and to be who we are. Because it’s a sort of void or pivot, it avoids fixed ideas and predetermined outcomes. It thus can be very helpful in allowing us to allow ourselves to explore new ideas and beliefs. It also suggests that there may be connections between the physical world and that elusive Something Greater, which remains beyond our ability to grasp, define, or control.

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In the next chapter, 🍏 Agnosticism, I’ll argue that agnosticism is neither a stasis of indecision nor a philosophy that lacks historical depth. On the contrary, it has deep roots, strong reasons, and an endless number of applications. Few knew the deep roots of doubt better than Byron, whose meandering epic Don Juan (1824) champions questioning and critical thinking in all sorts of ways. Even the form of his long poem urges a rethink of old literary norms: upending the structure of the epic, he says he’ll write 12 books (like Homer), yet continues past 16. He also says he’ll tell the secrets of the afterlife (like Homer and Dante), yet does no such thing. In Canto 9 he argues that because our understanding of reality is so uncertain, the thing that most closely corresponds to our experience is doubt. In this sense, doubt is more certain than doctrine, proof, or certainty:

There's no such thing as certainty, that's plain
     As any of Mortality's conditions;
So little do we know what we're about in
This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting.

Like epicureans, open agnostics strive to live in the moment, even to relax into it. They want to savour the fluid truth of living naturally, spontaneously, and authentically. They refuse to live in fear of cracking the golden frame of an icon someone nailed to their wall.

Yet agnostics differ from atheists in their iconoclasm — that is, in their breaking of icons. This is because they question both revelation and reason. They’re not reluctant to question the doctrines of either, figuring that if these doctrines are true then they can’t be broken. In sounding the depths of reason and revelation, they go as deeply as possible into both. They refuse to worry about being called unreasonably emotional or coldly rational. They aim to leave that name-calling behind, and instead follow the moment’s slippery truth, whether they glimpse it in the methodology of the scientist, the exegesis of the priest, or the imagination of the poet.

Open agnostics (as opposed to closed agnostics — again, see Types of Agnosticism) also question their own philosophy. At times, they even accuse themselves of setting up an impossible ideal of infinite exploration, much as theists set up an unchanging and invisible Truth, and atheists and positivists set up repeatable verification according to the scientific method.

The agnostic notion that we can simply go on thinking and feeling without deciding on a particular truth may seem impractical or undesirable. Yet this is what agnostics believe: we can keep stretching our emotional and intellectual horizons, as if we were walking towards the horizon on a planet that grows larger every day.

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Overview

Introductions

The Double Refuge begins with three introductions. In the first, 🍷 Bubbles Winking at the Brim, I illustrate my philosophical point and my literary approach, and I use the metaphor of wine to discuss an intoxication that may be both physical and spiritual. 🍏 Agnosticism highlights the role of agnosticism as an intercessor between atheism and theism, and also defines some of the terminology I use throughout. 🧩 Butterflies Landing delves into more involved terms and concepts — such as zero-sum philosophy, paradoxes of doubt, the philosophical implications of infinity, T.S. Eliot’s unified sensibility, Keats’ negative capability, etc.

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Sections

The main body of The Double Refuge is comprised of two sections: Pathways to Doubt and Currents of Religion. The eight chapters of Pathways to Doubt emphasize the effect of science on religion, especially how astronomy and natural science eroded Medieval certainties, and led to the formulation of agnosticism in the late 19th century. 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’ll argue that this mysticism, with its open borders and lack of doctrine, can act as a conduit between agnosticism and theism — as well as a refuge from the ravages of both.

Throughout this exploration I use historical timelines, yet my arguments are more about the nature of doubt and belief than about the historical development of either. My range is quite wide and varied — from early expressions of doubt and belief in Mesopotamia, India, China, and Classical Europe, to the empiricism and agnosticism of 18th and 19th century England and France, to the liberalism and existentialism of the 20th century. I highlight literature that’s especially relevant to the relation of agnosticism 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 large 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 17th and 18th century empiricism in light of my personal experience while visiting Guanajuato in the year 2000 (🇲🇽 Señor Locke, starting with The Gringo Takes Stock).

I then 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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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: 🍷 Doubt + Belief

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Contents - Detailed Contents - Core Beliefs - Overview