Questions of Faith: A Skeptical Affirmation of Christianity

195 Pages·2004·0.76 MB·English

by  Peter L. Berger(auth.)

Questions of Faith
RELIGION IN THE MODERN WORLD
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Questions of Faith
A Skeptical Affirmation
of Christianity
Peter L. Berger
© 2004 by Peter L. Berger
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First published 2004 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berger, Peter L.
Questions of faith : a skeptical affirmation of Christianity / Peter L. Berger.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-4051-0847-9 (alk. paper) – ISBN 1-4051-0848-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Apostles’ Creed. 2. Theology, Doctrinal – Popular works. I. Title.
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Contents
Preface vii
1 “I believe...” 1
2 “...in God” 14
3 “...the Father Almighty” 31
4 “...Creator of heaven and earth” 43
5 “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord” 53
6 “He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and
born of the virgin Mary” 69
Excursus: On Prayer in Christ’s Name 81
7 “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and
was buried” 85
Excursus: On the Empty Tomb and Other Miracles 97
8 “He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven, and is seated on the right hand
of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and
the dead” 103
9 “I believe in the Holy Spirit” 115
10 “...the holy catholic church, the communion of saints” 130
11 “...the forgiveness of sins” 144
Excursus: On Christian Morality 156
12 “...the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting” 163
Bibliography 177
Index 180
Preface
This book is an exercise in what used to be called “lay theology.” That is,
its author is not a professional theologian, and the intended audience
is assumed to consist, in the main, of similarly unaccredited people. If
some professional theologians should read it, they will undoubtedly
find various errors and misinterpretations in the discussion of religious
thinkers and doctrines. That is a risk that must be taken by a lay person
who ventures into a field in which he is not academically accredited. Evi-
dently, I think that the risk is worth taking. And if I look at the works
that many professional theologians have regaled us with in recent years,
I become even more convinced that a lay intrusion into their precincts is
fully justified.
The structure of the book is very simple. Each chapter (with the excep-
tion of a couple of excursi) is based on a phrase of the Apostles’ Creed.
This document, alas, does not date from the time of the Apostles. It was
composed early on in the history of the western church, probably in
Rome, and was subsequently adopted in the east as well. It is the most
compact statement of Christian faith and, along with the Nicene Creed,
the one that is most often recited in worship. Obviously it does not cover
everything that Christians have believed. But it covers most of it and is
thus a convenient guide for a tour d’horizon of Christian beliefs.
My subtitle combines the words “skeptical” and “affirmation.”
This is not an oxymoron. My argument is skeptical in that it does not
presuppose faith, does not feel bound by any of the traditional
authorities in matters of faith – be it an infallible church, an inerrant
scripture, or an irresistible personal experience, and takes seriously the
historical contingencies that shape all religious traditions. Nevertheless,
my argument eventuates in an affirmation of Christian faith, however
viii Questions of Faith
heterodox. Of course the reader will be free not to follow me to this
conclusion.
In the name of honest advertising, I should state my own location on
the theological map. I feel uncomfortable with all available theological
labels and ecclesial affiliations. My biographical roots are in Lutheranism,
and I would still identify myself as Lutheran, albeit with great reserva-
tions. I attend services in an Episcopal church, not because I am in any
sense on the road to Canterbury, but because the two Lutheran churches
located at convenient distances from my home are impossible for oppo-
site reasons (one belongs to the Missouri Synod, which adheres to a quite
stifling orthodoxy; the other is a parody of “political correctness,” which,
if anything, is even more stifling). I most feel at home in the tradition
of liberal Protestantism, going back (in attitude, not in substance) to
Friedrich Schleiermacher, because this tradition embodies precisely the
balance between skepsis and affirmation that, for me, defines the only
acceptable way of being a Christian without emigrating from modernity.
I should emphasize, however, that I do not consider this book to be a
liberal Protestant manifesto. Readers who do not so locate themselves
may find themselves able to go along with me at least part of the way.
Some of my best conversations in recent years have been with Catholics
– the kind who are prone to say, “I am Catholic, but...”
This “but” is important. Quite a few years ago, in a book by that title,
I used the phrase “the heretical imperative” to describe the situation of
religious believers in the contemporary world. The Greek word hairesis,
from which the English “heresy” derives, means “choice.” That is, a heretic
is one who picks and chooses from the tradition, retaining some parts of
it and giving up other parts. I argued (correctly, I continue to think) that
such exercises of choice are inevitable in a situation in which no religious
tradition is any longer taken for granted. The individual now must make
choices. And even if he defines himself as an orthodox adherent of this
or that tradition, that too is the result of a choice. This situation is both
liberating and burdensome. All in all, I think that this is good. I cannot
see how taken-for-granted religion is superior to religion that is
chosen. Kierkegaard, in his passionate attack on the taken-for-granted
Christendom of the Danish established church of his time, urged us to
become “contemporaneous” with Jesus. That is hardly feasible. The
Christendom which he attacked hardly exists anymore (certainly not in
Denmark). Its taken-for-granted status has been exploded by modernity
and pluralism. What this means, however, is that in a strange way we
have become “contemporaneous” with the earliest Christians, who also
existed in the exuberantly pluralistic world of late Graeco-Roman civi-
lization, and for whom Christian faith was possible only as a deliberate
act of choice. I don’t think that we should deplore the fact that our situ-
Preface ix
ation, in this particular aspect, is similar to that of Paul as he preached in
the agoraof Athens, where a multitude of gods competed with each other.
Some sympathetic readers of the manuscript of this book have pointed
out that I do not engage with much of contemporary theology. I acknowl-
edge the point. But the purpose of this book is not to comment on this
or that theologian, contemporary or other. I refer only to such theolo-
gians as are directly pertinent to the argument I try to make. Put simply,
the book explains how one contemporary individual, skeptical in
temperament and reasonably well informed, manages to affirm the
Christian faith.
This book was written over a period of about two years, in moments of
time snatched from other busy activities as a social scientist. Conversa-
tions with a number of people helped me in this enterprise. I will here
mention only three. Brigitte Berger, as with other books of mine, was the
by no means passive audience of what she likes to call Dichterlesungen.
Robert Arida (of Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral in Boston) and Claire
Wolfteich (of Boston University’s School of Theology) were very helpful
in introducing me to authors and modes of theological thought with
which I was previously unacquainted.
Peter L. Berger
Boston, Autumn 2002
Chapter One
“I believe . . .”
This is a book on questions of religious faith. If one has no faith, is there any
reason why one should be interested?
Leave aside for the moment the question of why one may have faith:
There are good reasons why many people go through life, often very suc-
cessfully, without faith. It is more difficult to see how one could fail to
be interested in the matter. Religious faith, in whatever form, always
involves one fundamental assumption – namely, that there is a reality
beyond the reality of ordinary, everyday life, and that this deeper reality
is benign. Put differently, religious faith implies that there is a destiny
beyond the death and destruction which, as we know, awaits not only
ourselves but everyone and everything we care about in this world, the
human race and the planet on which its history is played out, and (if
modern physics is correct) the entire universe. One can reasonably say
that one does not believe in such a transcendent destiny; it is less rea-
sonable to say that one is not interested in it. Religion implies that reality
ultimately makes sense in human terms. It is the most audacious thought
that human beings have ever had. It may be an illusion; even so, it is a
very interesting one.
Most of the time, in the course of ordinary living, we assume that
reality is what it appears to be – the physical, psychological, and social
structures that provide the parameters of our actions. The philosopher
Alfred Schutz called this “the world-taken-for-granted.” There are excep-
tional individuals who question this taken-for-grantedness by way of
intellectual reflection, individuals like Socrates or Einstein; they are quite
rare. For most people ordinary reality is put in question by something
that happens to interrupt the flow of ordinary living. Often what happens
2 Questions of Faith
is something bad – illness, bereavement, loss of social status, or some
other individual or collective calamity. But the taken-for-grantedness of
everyday reality can also be put in question by some very good things:
an intense aesthetic experience, or falling in love, or being awed by the
birth of one’s first child. Either way, suddenly, it becomes clear that there
is more to reality than one had previously assumed. Minimally, this is
what is meant by experiences of transcendence. Such experiences are not
yet religious – atheists and agnostics too become ill, get to be parents,
become intoxicated by music or by love. But one could call these expe-
riences “pre-religious”: By relativizing ordinary reality they open up the
possibility of a reality – or, perhaps, of many realities – that are usually
hidden. One takes the step from a pre-religious to a religious perception
of transcendence when one believes that the reality that lies beyond ordi-
nary experience means well by us. Again, one need not believe this. But
it is certainly interesting to consider the possibility.
I used to know a psychoanalyst who was a very orthodox Freudian.
We had a number of conversations about religion. He found it hard to
understand that an intelligent person (he generously allowed that I was
such a person) could be religious. He, so he said, had been a convinced
atheist as far back as he could remember, and he was sure that religion
was nothing but a comforting illusion. I asked him once whether he ever
had any doubts about this conviction of his. He said no, he never had
any doubts. Then he hesitated and said, actually yes: He had moments
of doubt about his atheism every time he listened to the choral portion
of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the chorale based on Schiller’s “Ode to
Joy.” Thornton Wilder, in his novel The Ides of March, puts a similar
thought into the mouth of Julius Caesar. Wilder’s Caesar says that he
never believed in the gods (he only performed the religious rituals
demanded of a public official in Rome because he thought them to be
politically useful). But Caesar too admitted to occasional doubts about his
atheism. This happened in some moments in the midst of battle or of
some important political actions when he had the feeling that a greater
power was guiding him. It also happened during the so-called epileptic
aura, the acute sense of ecstasy which typically occurs just before a grand-
mal attack.
On the other hand, if one has faith, why should one ask questions about it?
There are people who have faith without feeling the need to reflect about
it. Sometimes one refers to this kind of faith as “child-like,” but it is not
necessarily something that one should look down upon. These are often
people who have grown up in a social environment in which their par-
ticular faith is taken for granted, or they have had a powerful experience