historical error
06 Aug 2007Instead of reviewing books I think I’ll just start quoting at length from them. Best blogger ever. From God and the State:
But from the moment that this animal origin of man is accepted, all is explained. History then appears to us as the revolutionary negation, now slow, apathetic, sluggish, now passionate and powerful, of the past. It consists precisely in the progressive negation of the primitive animality of man by the development of his humanity. Man, a wild beast, cousin of the gorilla, has emerged from the profound darkness of animal instinct into the light of the mind, which explains in a wholly natural way all his past mistakes and partially consoles us for his present errors. He has gone out from animal slavery, and passing through divine slavery, a temporary condition between his animality and his humanity, he is now marching on to the conquest and realisation of human liberty. Whence it results that the antiquity of a belief, of an idea, far from proving anything in its favour, ought, on the contrary, to lead us to suspect it. For behind us is our animality and before us our humanity; human light, the only thing that can warm and enlighten us, the only thing that can emancipate us, give us dignity, freedom, and happiness, and realise fraternity among us, is never at the beginning, but, relatively to the epoch in which we live, always at the end of history. Let us, then, never look back, let us look ever forward; for forward is our sunlight, forward our salvation. If it is justifiable, and even useful and necessary, to turn back to study our past, it is only in order to establish what we have been and what we must no longer be, what we have believed and thought and what we must no longer believe or think, what we have done and what we must do nevermore.
So much for antiquity. As for the universality; of an error, it proves but one thing - the similarity, if not the perfect identity, of human nature in all ages and under all skies. And, since it is established that all peoples, at all periods of their life, have believed and still believe in God, we must simply conclude that the divine idea, an outcome of ourselves, is an error historically necessary in the development of humanity, and ask why and how it was produced in history and why an immense majority of the human race still accept it as a truth.
Bakunin sure had a way with words for a guy who went around starting fights. He’s definitely not afraid of a few run-on sentences, though.
Bakunin is writing in the “golden age” of revolutionary socialism and materialistic thought in the late 1800’s. Too bad he wasn’t around to see the fruit of societies that totally embraced this type of thought such as Lenin’s little experiment or Pol Pot or Mao who together, throwing away all thought of anything divine or eternal, made an unconvincing argument for the superiority of a godless society and engineered the slaughter of more human beings than man has ever witnessed. (How’s that for a run-on sentence?)
But his progression observation bears some thought: Man undoubtedly has moved through numerous stages of the “divine idea”. However, like the patent clerk in 1897 who declared there was nothing left to invent, I think it would be unwise to think divine ideas have run their course.
What if man, leaving his animality and marching gloriously into his humanity, is also progressing in the development of his faculties to sense the divine and, as they say, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet?
The spiritual senses, like any other faculty, are senses that must be exercised if they are to be improved.
The history of man indicates that we are just now coming into an age in the last 100 years of seeing the rapid development of man’s own ability to comprehend his physical surroundings, his true physical and emotional makeup, and the surroundings that are not seen. Our sense of objectivity and freedom of thought is increasing as we are able to see the true state of our situation in minute detail.
Should we then wield this new sense of objectivity and determine that the divine root is not even in the realm of possibility?
Is there not sufficient proof that our perception of God and the basis of religion is going through a similar shaking as did the natural and physical sciences in the 1800’s and 1900’s?
If our spiritual senses and understanding are undergoing a renaissance similar to the current blooming of man’s knowledge and scientific depth, is it logical to prematurely conclude from our supposed new found height that the divine idea is in fact, no idea at all? This sounds similar to the patent clerk’s premature observation that, based on current observation, there is nothing left to invent so let’s just close shop.
What if Bakunin’s observation of the antiquity of the divine belief is really an indicator of the a root divine essence of man and not some mental magic hatched through the ages to soothe the human conscience and explain the unexplainable?
What if, at the end of road, the physical, mental, and spiritual faculities of man develop to the point where, like Sherlock Holmes following a trail with his magnifying glass, he stumbles upon the feet of God?
When His existence is no longer in question, then we will really get to the heart of the debate.
Until then, I suggest we keep exercising… Peace, PVH