Comments on Schopenhauer’s On Religion: A Dialog

 

Schopenhauer’s On Religion: A Dialog shows two friends (of sorts) discussing religion from different points of view: Philalethes (lover or friend of truth) and Demopheles (friend of the people, I think). Philalethes loves truth and has contempt for common people; Demopheles is an enlightened man but qualifies his contempt for illusions if they help the common people get through the day. Both assume that Christianity in particular, and the monotheistic religions in general, are not true: “a pack of lies” according to Philalethes; for Demopheles, they are “allegory.” I am not interested in the attitude toward the common people, who are incapable of philosophy and, indeed, are basically children who need comfort through stories. I don’t want to examine the idea that ordinary people are too limited to do philosophy or the role of priests in keeping culture in a primitive state; rather I want to reflect on the relation between religion and truth Schopenhauer has his two characters explore in this dialog.

 

     So here is Schopenhauer’s apologist for the common man, Demopheles, on the relation of religion to truth:

For, as your friend Plato has said, the multitude can't be philosophers, and you shouldn't forget that. Religion is the metaphysics of the masses; by all means let them keep it: let it therefore command external respect, for to discredit it is to take it away. Just as they have popular poetry, and the popular wisdom of proverbs, so they must have popular metaphysics too: for mankind absolutely needs an interpretation of life; and this, again, must be suited to popular comprehension. Consequently, this interpretation is always an allegorical investiture of the truth: and in practical life and in its effects on the feelings, that is to say, as a rule of action and as a comfort and consolation in suffering and death, it accomplishes perhaps just as much as the truth itself could achieve if we possessed it. Don't take offense at its unkempt, grotesque and apparently absurd form; for with your education and learning, you have no idea of the roundabout ways by which people in their crude state have to receive their knowledge of deep truths. The various religions are only various forms in which the truth, which taken by itself is above their comprehension, is grasped and realized by the masses; and truth becomes inseparable from these forms.

 

The people have no direct access to truth. The various religions are only various schemata in which the truth, which taken by itself is above their comprehension, is grasped and realized by the masses; and truth becomes inseparable from these forms.

 

But religion is not opposed to truth; it itself teaches truth. And as the range of its activity is not a narrow lecture room, but the world and humanity at large, religion must conform to the requirements and comprehension of an audience so numerous and so mixed. Religion must not let truth appear in its naked form; or, to use a medical simile, it must not exhibit it pure, but must employ a mythical vehicle, a medium, as it were.

 

The mythical, the mystical are understood as masks, ornaments – or perhaps to take something from Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, a “veil of Maya”, the world as seen not as it is but as distorted. But some truth can shine through the distortions – and that means the mythical elements: God, the angels, Christ as savior, life in heaven or hell after death, the immaculate conception and virgin birth, the resurrection: everything that Christianity means for most of the faithful. Throwing gasoline on the fires of the ego for Schopenhauer, giving the ego hope of everlasting life, of a God that has a good plan for it and will help it on its way, etc.  The mythical and mystical elements – the fairy tale elements, the supernatural elements – feed the ego while the diamond in the rough, the pure moral teaching, gets passed along with it, a diamond which usually gets lost.

     The disagreement between Schopenhauer’s protagonists involves the value of keeping what they both agree are the fantastic elements that constitute the core of religion. If they were understood to be allegories, Philalethes would have no problem with religion. Both agree that most people cannot grasp truth – they would need to grasp metaphysical philosophy, they would need to be able to grasp Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation. Myth, allegory can at best present an introduction to the truth for a child – much as a fable of Aesop can present a childlike or folk version of morality whose truth can only be intellectually understood in a treatise like Aristotle’s Nichomachaen Ethics. So the Christian stories give a child a way to grasp the truths contained in The Sermon on the Mound, which expresses the diamond in the rough.

     This misrepresents things in two ways. First, a metaphysical masterpiece like Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation has a lot more in common with myth and allegory than Schopenhauer allows his protagonists to admit. Schopenhauer claims that we have a metaphysical need – a need that comes with the knowledge of our mortality, the experience of the self as a separate and valuable being (from the species, from nature), and the experience of evil, of suffering. These and other facts of life give rise to the need to make sense of it all. Religions like Christianity or Hinduism as well as metaphysical philosophies such as presented in The World as Will and Representation give us interpretations of the world as a whole and our place in it.

      But on Schopenhauer’s own understanding, his vision of the world as a whole concerns a reality beyond human conceptual thought, beyond even the purest Ideas of reality. Thus in any attempt to interpret reality as a whole we run up against the limits of conceptual thought and representation. Schopenhauer’s philosophy contains an inherent tension: putting a vision of reality as a whole – by definition beyond thought and language of creatures bound to their experience and languages – in the language of philosophy. How can Schopenhauer’s work represent reality as a whole except symbolically – as language that represents the gap between a particular human interpretation and transcendent reality as it is in itself? He is trying to express in language what cannot be expressed in language – on his own account.

    Neither myth nor philosophy gives us a description of reality as it is in itself. At best, both can communicate an intimation of transcendence. Schopenhauer himself believes that such an intimation of transcendence is possible through the aesthetic contemplation afforded by (great) art. Great art – especially music, because it is non-conceptual, close to being non-representational – allows for a suspension of the individual will or as Iris Murdoch put it “the fat, relentless ego,” which Schopenhauer rightly interpreted as a suffering ego. It is like our ego (Schopenhauer’s principle of individuation, which is at the same time a veil of maya casting a distorting light onto the real world) is suspended when, in my case, I am lost in listening to a work of Bach, say the second movement of the Organ Sonata No. 4, like a solar eclipse. The light of the ego goes out and I can see the night stars beyond the everyday world i.e. I can feel the world as it is apart from my ego, my desires, wishes, striving, agendas, hopes, dreams, etc. I have an impersonal experience of reality sub specie aeternitatis, from the perspective of eternity i.e. not from the perspective of my distorting ego. It gives rise to a kind of compassion for the world itself and all the people in it - a feeling that has nothing to do with me. 

    Not all art can allow this prison break. Sentimental art idealizes and falsifies reality to feed the ego. Imagine a painting  called “Nostalgic Reverie.” "Nostalgic Reverie" is a painting that evokes a sentimental longing for the past, creating a romanticized depiction of reality that elicits a self-gratifying feeling in the viewer. The scene is set in a picturesque countryside, with rolling hills, lush greenery, and a quaint cottage nestled among trees. The sky is painted in soft hues of pink and orange, suggesting the warmth of a sunset. In the foreground of the painting, a young couple sits on a rustic wooden bench, holding hands and gazing lovingly into each other's eyes. A gentle breeze rustles the leaves of the trees, and the sound of birdsong fills the air, creating a sense of tranquility and serenity. The cottage in the background is adorned with blooming flowers and ivy-covered walls, exuding a sense of coziness and charm. Smoke rises from the chimney, suggesting the comfort of a warm hearth and home-cooked meal. The scene is imbued with a sense of nostalgia and sentimentality, inviting the viewer to escape into a romanticized vision of the past. As the viewer gazes upon "Nostalgic Reverie," they are transported to a world of idyllic beauty and romantic fantasy. The painting evokes feelings of warmth, nostalgia, and longing, allowing the viewer to indulge in a self-gratifying reverie of a simpler, more romanticized version of reality. Thus the ego escapes from its own everyday reality through a flight of fantasy it constructs for its own comfort. (Used to be one of my favorite past times, daydreaming.) It is all ego. Such art is not an escape from ego but a projection of it.

     So it is with religion and myth – and philosophy. It can be such that it allows an escape from ego and its fantasies or is reducible to the same. Of course, religion can be either like Bach’s sonata or the sentimental work “Nostalgic Reverie.” Both protagonists assume that because it is not plain, hard philosophy, because it is art or like art (myth, religious stories), it must be sentimental, ego construction.

     That is wrong on Schopenhauer’s own account. Philosophy too can be contemplation, can like music allow for escape from the ego and thus allow one to have an intimation (not a concept, a representation) of Being as such. But philosophies can be sentimental too. Not all philosophy is great philosophy. The question is: does one achieve a degree of emancipation from the ego, the principle of individuation? Does one eclipse the sun to be granted a glimpse of the stars beyond?

    Another way to transcend the ego for Schopenhauer is through compassion for the suffering of others. Again, compassion can be genuine, in which case it allows for a view of the world beyond what the ego affords – and thus all of conceptual language and thought as these have their source in the ego, in the principle of individuation – or it can be shallow or sentimental i.e. counterfeit, i.e. have its source in the ego (e.g. one enjoys thinking of oneself as compassionate, or feeling superior to those who are not compassionate, or presenting oneself to others on Facebook as compassionate, etc.).

   Philosophy is not inherently superior to myth or art. Religion is not untrue because it is not expressed in the language of philosophy. To me, Schopenhauer himself would have to grant this to be consistent.

 

I am not yet finished. I want to continue this reflection following this quote from C. S. Lewis:

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”