IV.
Thus our second hypothesis has been confirmed so far. Everything seems to point to the fact that Europe slipped into unbelief. However, given a more thorough analysis, some details surface which begin to confuse the picture.
First, the non-acceptance of the religious picture of the world by science is too categorical. It shows that under the smoldering ashes of simple disagreement coals of active ill will are smoldering. It is not entirely clear which oxygen feeds them. Atheism, by the very etiology of the world, is rejection; yet a purely purely rejecting position cannot inspire feelings of anger, such as those with which the two Darwinists pounce upon their fellow academic, Osborne, making no concessions even to his great scientific merits. If one believes Laplace, science simply "does not need the hypothesis of God." But why does every suspicion that such a hypothesis may become necessary give rise to such negative feelings in its supporters? Their behavior is much more akin, not to the words of Laplace, but to those of Proudhon: "I hate you, God, and will not rest until I make your name the laughing-stock of all people." But such passion usually arises only when that which is being rejected gets in the way of some positive program.
There is another strange fact: atheists claim universality for their theories. They constantly try to convince everyone that science, in principle, can explain everything explainable,and without it nothing can be explained which is explainable. And what about the question of the origin of matter? This question they answer thus: that cannot be explained, but everything else science has either found an answer to, or will soon find that answer. Overall atheism has staked a claim on all territories, regardless of acceptance, and bars entrance to anyone else.
It is also disconcerting to note that the concepts of science as a world view evoked the greatest enthusiasm among those who lacked the specialized knowledge necessary to be able to properly judge their purity. For example, The Origin of Species was a best-seller, but famous scientists such as Ber, Agassiz, Driesch, and Virshow criticized the book strongly. It becomes apparent that these theories were primarily needed not by scientists, but by the masses: scientists merely invented them, but the masses consumed them. Moreover, the trust of the public in these concepts was altogether limitless, simulating a religion. So it is today, and even the fact that "scientific explanations" of phenomena are constantly changing, sometimes directly opposing that which was claimed before, does not make the public waver. In particular, they believe in the promises of science to solve the problems of human existence: ecological, demographic, energetic, etc. Scientists say, just give us time, we will mull it over, perform a little magic, and everything will be all right. Even though such promises have not been fulfilled over and over again, they again give science another term and wait hopefully.
One does not need great discernment in order to see characteristic traits of religion in this. Many have made such an observation. However, by calling science "contemporary religion" they always understand this as something else, keeping in mind that here we have "inverse religion." And what, in essence, is in the way of understanding this term in its straightforward meaning? Naturally, the absence of deity. Religion is not religion if it is not a cult, and a cult is a cult of someone, who takes the central spot in the world, and organizes everything else around himself. But today's scientific world outlook is god-less, so to call it a new religion is, it seems, inappropriate.
But let us recall once more: what is important is not what people announce, but what actually directs their activity. We already saw to what misunderstandings non-critical acceptance of science's self-definition can lead. Shall we not repeat the same error if we assume that if someone announces himself to be atheist, he has no deity?
Caution is especially warranted here, since the identification of a deity has always been a complex matter. For some reason this question is very delicate, even painful. In many religions the name of their god was carefully coded, in others it was revealed only to the elect, in a third case it was prohibited to utter or write it. There were also religions where the name of god was unknown to anyone at the time, and to discover it was considered the goal of future generations. The attainment of this goal would be the culmination of human history. Is it not this variant that we have come up against today? The confessors of science, our contemporary atheists, indeed seem like the believers who do not know to whom their religion is dedicated. Let us try to discover the name of their god for them.
Let us again study the pan-European spiritual process of the second millennium of the Christian era. It consisted of three stages, each of which lasted three hundred years: the battle of nominalism with realism, resulting in the victory of nominalism [11th to the 14th century]; the Renaissance, first in Italy, then in Northern Europe, which gave way to the Reformation [14th to the 17th century]; rationalism, which developed into the contemporary scientific world outlook [17th to the 20th century]. Thus far we have studied only the first and third state. By comparing them it was possible to bring out that which is common to both of them – reductionism. This clarified much for us, but not everything. Now we must take the next step and contemplate the middle link. Usually the answer is "the cultural heritage of antiquity." Yet that answer is too general, and therefore incorrect.
Now we must take the next step and contemplate the middle link.
There was much from the past which was not taken and put back into circulation: the Platonic teaching concerning eidos [ideas, substantial forms, the original, the archetype of all things] was not reestablished, nor were the many archaic cults revived. There was no return to the harsh teachings and morals of the Spartans, nor to the use of oracles. What was merely renewed was the realistic depiction of the human body by artists and sculptors, and the favorable attitude toward human vices, which came through in the plots of the ancient myths depicting the antics of gods and heroes. But now, even to a greater degree than in ancient Greece and Rome, it was in vogue to admire the human being "as he is." This, of course, was an obvious provocation to Christianity, which considered that a human being can be praised only to the degree to which he had converted the Divine image given to him at birth to Divine likeness. The Renaissance proclaimed a completely new anthropology, based on the self-worth of a human being and the unconditional character of his merits.
Christianity considers that a human being can be praised only to the degree to which he had converted the Divine image given to him at birth to Divine likeness.
The controversy with Christianity was carried further and further. Literature began to praise carnal desires, overeating, swindling, etc., and to ridicule lofty longings of the soul, particularly asceticism. The main "anti-hero" of the epoch became the monk, and its manifestos Gargantuua and Pantagruela by Rabelais and The Decameron by Boccaccio – books that not only should be hidden from children, but are embarrassing even for adults to read. However, these books instilled the idea that everything inherent in man by his nature is wonderful, holy, and awe-inspiring, and that which Christianity considers holy is a false holiness.
What was all this leading to? The answer to this question is given to us by today's tour guides. Taking their audience to a painting of that period, they solemnly pronounce the sentence: "Under the guise of the Virgin Mary the Renaissance artists began to depict Italian beauties – simple women, whom they saw around them." Out of the mouths of babes the truth has been spoken! The holiness of the Virgin Mary, giving her the right to be depicted on icons, is connected with the fact that she gave birth to God. "Italian beauties" gave birth to humans. Yet the tour guides, along with the artists of the Renaissance period, consider them more worthy of being portrayed than the Mother of God. Therefore, the essence of the Renaissance was that they began to put man in God's place. No wonder this period is also called by another name: "the epoch of humanism." "Humanism" is not translated here as "compassion toward mankind" but simply "belief in man."
Immediately we must stress that this was not a "settling down to earth," the lowering of the pathos of the perception of the world. It was not that the Europeans became tired of playing with the myth of an unseen higher being and switched their attention to a less lofty, yet visible being – to man. No, man began to be considered as a high being, even the highest of beings. The heavens were not brought down to his level, but he was raised up to the height of heaven. He was being prepared for God's place not as a secondary substitute, but as a full-fledged successor, possessing the same attributes. Therefore atheism, which turned to the services of the "scientific approach" later, was not a rejection of God as such, but the rejecting of a foreign god in the name of its own god. This is the source of its passion.
The Renaissance was not some sort of solitary incident. The 900-year period we are studying shows a characteristic unity in all of its three stages. During the second stage man was admired, during the first and third stages reductionism was being established. What is the connection here? If one is to assume that the glorification of man during the Renaissance was a religious cult, then the connection is a very close one. For only reductionism was capable of helping "man as God" to deal with the most difficult problem encountered by him: how to do without God the Creator. In other words, how to give an alternative answer to the question "Where did the world come from?" and at the same time endow man with equivalent creative powers, manifesting themselves in some other way, for man cannot create matter out of nothing.
"Man-worship" did not provide an optimal solution to this problem immediately. Hundreds of the sharpest minds in Europe offered different variants, which later passed through revisions and were tested. Some were rejected quickly, others were modified. It would be hard to find another intellectual problem requiring so much effort. And finally these efforts were crowned with the development of the "scientific world outlook." So the contemporary naturalistic scientific "creed" was literally an achievement of the sufferings of generations of volunteer laborers, who dedicated their lives to the formation of a new cult. In the course of these searchings three basic variants were put forth:
1. The world was created by God, but afterwards God withdrew and gave man eternal possession of the world. [deism]
2. The world is not an objective, external given, but only our perception of it; therefore, it can still be said that it has been created by man. [Kantianism]
3. No one created the world. [scientific world view]
Deism was popular in the seventeenth century. However, it contained a serious defect: if God the Creator voluntarily left the world, then He can return at any moment, and then man would need to give up the throne. No one wanted to live under the sword of Damocles, and eventually deism was rejected.
The Kantian construction was proposed in the 18th century and created much commotion at that time. Yet it also had it misuses. First, there loomed the "things in themselves" which introduced the element of agnosticism. Second, the precept that space and time are not the characteristics of the reality surrounding us, but of our psyche, made them seem somewhat unreal. Neither the first nor the second promoted the new cult. It is difficult to surround with the halo of divinity one who is unable to fully comprehend the world, and that which he does partially comprehend turns out not to be entirely natural. And toward the beginning of the 20th century Kantianism virtually left the stage.
The third variant turned out to be the most successful – "no one created the world." True, this variant held within itself an obvious Achilles heel – the principle of causality was ignored. Undefended, one cannot take it into battle. It was precisely reductionism that provided the defense. Hence its historical significance.
This is how it casts aside all difficulties. If the world developed from the lower to the higher, then in the distant past it was something extremely primitive – some gaseous cloud or "primary atom" – and for the appearance of something so elemental there is no reason to introduce the concept of a Creator: it can be born of itself. Then later, the "natural" laws of complexity come into play, bringing us to that picture of the world which we witness today. And the "universal theories" of the 19th century became the broad "basis" of reductionism's conception of the uncreated and self-developed nature of matter, "proving beyond a doubt" that God the Creator never existed. Thus, man as a the ruler of the universe need not fear anyone.
The "scientific world outlook" not only shuts the mouths of the ignorant who used to ask "if there is no God, then who created the world?" but also returns to man the full status of a creator, a status which was shaken by deism and Kantianism. True, the creativity of man does not extend to the past, but in the past everything appeared and developed on its own, so real creativity was not even required there. However, in the future it is entirely in man's possession and grows to grandiose proportions. In this light-filled future he travels abroad photocosmic planes, populates distant galaxies, transfigures nature and himself, extends the span of life to five hundred years ... The Russian philosopher Nicholas Fedrov, filled with the spirit of science, saw a universal Pascha in the future: the resurrection of all the dead of human history. Is this not a divine level of creativity?
This is why reductionism is vitally required by anthropocentrism. Without it, granting man divine honors would be unlawful. To stand tall, square one's shoulders, and look upon the world with the dominating gaze of an owner is possible for man only when this world came from who knows where and developed for some unknown reason, according to laws established by no one.
