Language and Religion

This chapter explores the influence of religion and hegemony on language by concentrating on English, German and the Romance languages widely spoken in Europe and the Americas.Bible translations have helped to keep alive native languages. German and English are associated with the Reformation and have thus been highly influenced by the Bible. In turn, Roman languages are associated with the status quo of the Roman Empire, i.e. Roman Church-State. The Roman Church-State condemned—and sought to impede—any effort to bring the Holy Scriptures within reach of common people, in order to prevent what happened in Germany and England. Thus, the influence of the Bible on Latin languages has been limited.


LANGUAGE AND RELIGION '
by Leslie Dewart During most of the history of Greek-Western philosophy, all speculation has proceeded on the assumption of a certain concept of language, to which I will refer here as the semantic concept of language. 1 so call it because its es.senLial idea is that speech is the outward and bodily si gn of an inner, mental experience.
The key word here is sign, since it implies that human co nscious ness in general, and thought in particular, are complete in their own natures quite apart from speech ; it also implies, conversely, that speech is complete in its own nature quite apart from what. has been already experienced and thought. Therefore, it is also essential part of this view that speech can have no active role in the forma tion of thought: since speech expresses and signifies thought, speech is but the posterior manifestation and reflection of an anterior experience, just as thought is but the posterior manifesLatior. and reflection of an anterior reality. Indeed, the latter view of consciousness-that it is but the mind's reflection of reality, the inward reduplication and possession of that world which lies beyond the limits of the act of con sci ousness-is necessarily connected with the semantic concep t of language, and we might well call it, therefore, the semantic concept of the mind. If reality-in-itself is whatever it is in itself, and if reality-for-the mind is the same as whatever it is in itself, then consciousness is a sort of signifi cation and communication of reality to oneself : it is a kind of "inner speech," which "outer" or "real" speech b turn signifies. And it would be as absurd to suppose thal speech should have any bearing on the outcome of a process which is complete before speech begins, namely, thought, as it would be to suppose that Lhoughl can have any bearir.g on the outcome of a process which is com plete before thought begins, namely, the structuring of reality as meaningful ex istence. Thus, the final implication of the semantic concept of language and the semantic co ncept of mind is the semantic concept of reality, that is, the view that, in order to be real, reality must be structured by a signifiable content, so as to be meaningful in itself.
IL is not with this, however, but with the semantic concept of language that I am concerned here. The semantic con cept of language is im•ested with so much historico-kinetic energy-I define an idea's historico-kinetic energy as the pro duct of the number of words written about it multiplied by the square of the number of generations which have read them uncritically-that even today, long after the first rumblings of dissa: isfaction were voiced, al least a!' far back as Rousseau, it is difficult for most of us consistently to think of language or, for that matter, to speak of thought, in any but semantic terms. But, why should this continue to be the case, if it is true that better alternatives can be provided?
Well, part of the difficulty is that our very language about language and our very thinking about thought presuppose the sema ntic concepts of language and •All future publi<'ation rights reserved by the author.

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2 Philosophic Exchange, Vol. 3 [1972] The reason is rather that most of the ways of speaking and philosophi:dng ahout man which we have learned from the past Lend to confirm us in our ha bi l of thinking of man as if he were no more than an extremely intelligent dog-an animal so raLional, or so adept al survival. that, instead of just barking when he is hungry, he can order a fu ll course meal. in the poelic language of Racine. at a French restaurant.. BuL perhaps I shouM put the point less cryplically and more precisely. The difficulty is that we continue lo think of human experience as the activity of some self-<·o ntained, self-delimited real ity, usually called lhe mind, or else as I he activity of some organ of the body. like the brain. The �ence of the conscious act, from this viewpoint. is lo transcend the natural isolat ion of whale\'er it is thal thinks, whether it be a soul, a mind or a body, so that in addition to being ilself it. can, somehow and in some sense, acquire something which was origin· ally outside itself. Experience is thus conceived either as some ullimalely re ceptive process. or else as a digestive, reduplicalive or mimetic one. But regard· less of the specific form of lhe many traditional epistemologies, as long as ex perience is conceived as the transcen ding operation of an immanent ego. it is nol easy lo imagine how speech could be anything but the subsequenl expres· sion of what had previously reached Lhe slagc of being a thought in the mind.
Nol surprisingly, then, it has been mostl� since Kant that the classi<'al, 5eman tic concept or language has been found ever more radically unsatisfactory. sjnce il was only with Kant that the foundations of an alternative view of experience were laid. On lhe other hand, let us remember that even in the philosophy of Kant that which structures the sensible data of the material world are the a priori forms of human consciousness, which are fixed in number and kind, and which are as universal and invariable as human nature ilself. Even in his philos ophy, therefore, language was still assumed to be the expr�ion of thought, Lhal i s , a system of signs whereby lhat which lhe mind thinks can be exteriorited.
Nevertheless, the proLo-pbenomenologlcal method adopted by Kant, if l may so call what Kanl himself referred to as "transcendental philosophy," would e\'en· tualJy lead to the view that human understanding does not consist in recehing an intelligible content from rea lity. any more than in giving rea lity such a content, but. in establishing an intelligent, I mean, a specifically human, relationship with it. Understanding is neither grasping the intelligible meaning or things in them· selves, nor granting to things in themselves, or making believe that things in lhemselves have, an intelligible meauing which structures their realit.y. The essence of understanding is rather to exist as a self in regard to reality-for it is only in its relation to another that a self can be present to itself as consciousness.
Hence, lo understand is lo behave intelligenllly towards every "other," that is, if I may be fo rgi\ten the triteness, so to conduct oneself towards the non-self as lo ha\'e a meuninlfful relat ior6hip with 1t. Now, the exploralion of the implications of this view of man was one of the principal tasks of philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century. And the LESLIE DEWART first implicalion to have received attention was that, ir understanding is nol the grasping or representation of an objective meaning, lhen reality cannot be said Lo be meaningful in itself. As It.his conclusion was first understoo d, and as it is still widely understood, namely. as revealing the absurdity of all reality as such and, therefore, of human existence itself-this was a disturbing development. Tl seemed not only lo rob man of his own meaningful esse nce, bul also Lo condemn him Lo the perpetual frustration of his apparently inborn desire for meaning.
Actually, as I have suggested elsewhere, the pessimism and nihilism of much re cent philosophy may be U1nwarranted and even inconsislenl. But l will leave this aside; l have only menlioned iL in order lo suggest thal these preoccupations of cxistentiaEism may explain philosophy's relative neglect. during the earlier part of the twentieth century. of the second implication of the redefinition of consC'iousness to which I have alluded. This is the implication that, if cognition is not the inward and intentional acquisition of an outer and objective intclligib�e structure, and if reality itself is not constituted by an objective intelligible stl'UC· ture, then it follows that language cannot be the signification of such an expe·r· ience of such a reality. That is, if reality is not constituted by a signifiable mean· ing, and if cognition is not Lhe mental acquisition of such a signifiable meaning, language cannot very well be Lhe signification of the experience of reality. But it was only in the third quarter of the century that attention Cinally veered in this direction.
With whal results? This is more difficult Lo answer, partly because we are still loo close lo the evenL'i. But it would be fair lo suggest that mosl of the novel suggestions made in this matter in recent times converge on t.he view that Ian· guage, instead of the reflection or expression of a prior relationship between re aliL) and human consciousness, creates such a relationship-a relat ionship, more over, which is not superad ded to human consciousness from Lhe outside, bul a relationship which is itself constitutive of the humanity of human consciousness.
Language is, thus, not unlike the light of a match which one strikes in the dark and which permits one to see the world about one, including the match itself.
'The trouble, however, is that the first time one sees the lighl b} which every· lhing else becomes visible the very visibility of the light is apt to blind one lo the fact lhat.. before it is a visible object, light is Lhe condition of the possibility of all vision. Suppose that someone \Vho has always lived in lhe dark should happen, quit.e by accident, while toying with bits and pieces about him, to strike a lighl, which now rev�als to him a new dimension of realit.y, the visible world.
Suppose. however, Lhal as he examines this new and wond rous world he becomes so entranced with its objects that he should fail t.o remember that it was only when he struck Lhe match tllat the world became visible. Such a person would be likely to look al the light itself and, failing to grasp its instrumental significance, consider the light simply as a visible object. Likewise wiLh language.
Language has a significative aspect only afler it has come into existence. Sul its es.<.;cntial and basic aspect is not that of signifying: it is that of es�ablishing a significant relationship. ll is only once human consciousness has eome inlo being through the birth and development of-if I may so call il-linguislicality, lhal language can be envisaged as an object in itself. that is, as a system of signs.

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4 Philosophic Exchange, Vol. 3 [1972], No. 1, Art. 4 https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/phil_ex/vol3/iss1/4 LANGUAGE ANO RELIGION l have recalled here at some length Lhe current state of philosophical dis cussion about the nature of language because it seems Lo me that the ulLlmate impact of this new approach t.o the study of language may well turn out lo be as far reaching and revolutionary as any yet witnessed in the history of human evo lution. The reason is that, if the suggesti ons I have made so far are correct, then the modern redefinition of language amounts to man's redefinition of himself.
But man's definition of hi:nself is the basis on which he proceeds to establish his conscious relationships t-0 reality. Therefore, the redefinition of language ulti mately must involve the redefi nition of the entire world of human experience including, therefore, the world of religious life and truth, that is, the world of man's ltllimate commitment and significance. In the remainder of this paper I wish to iltiustrate, with reference Lo a single, specific instance, the sort of reli gious question to which the study of the nature of language can be expected to make a decisive contribution.
l need scarcely remind anyone that one of the most significant facts of West ern life in recent centuries has been the conflict between science and religion.
Actually, the couOict might be better described as an inner division within the collective Western perso nality between its modern experience generally, bul especially insofar as its experience is coloured by science and technology, and its religious tradition, namely, Christianity. Now, one of the cardinal points of this conflict is the concept: of causality. Nol only the professional scientist. but also many people who ha\"e been only indirectly affected by the scientific tem per of modern times, find it difficult, once they are committed to viewing the world in terms of natural causality, to lend much significance to the possibility that there might be another, supernatural order of causality which is supposed to have the capability of interfering with the first but which somehow does not usually do so under scientifically verifiable conditions. The apologetic Christfan arguments (for instance, that the human intellect is limited in its understan ding of nature, and that there is no self-contradiction in the idea of a supernatural order of reality) even when admitted lo be logically valid somehow fail to carry effective persuasion. The reason is that, even if the supernatural order is granted to be a logical possibility, it remains hardly more than a gratuitous and some what purposeless hypothesis, especially when faith in man himself holds out a more natural, consistent. and congenial appeal. If nature is truly self-sufficient in its own order, what prac�ica! difference could the supernatural make lo lhi s world'?
Curiously, Christianity's dilemma is that it cannot simply disagree with t.he scientific wellansclw uung: Christianity is condemned to the perhaps impossible task of maintaining a different wellanschauung despite its adoption of the self same category of causality. Indeed, it might even be said that causality is yet more vital to the traditionaJ Christian theologies than to science, for the Chris tian viewpoint not only shares with science the idea of natural causality but makes use of it for its own theological purposes as well. IL is probably not by chance that in the very Cirst article of the Christian Creed God is called the "maker of heaven and earth." The Christian God is the creator of man, the first cause of reality, the first. mover of all creation, the transcendental cause of all LESLIE DEWART natural causality. And he is the first cause not only in relation to nature, but also in himself, for he is omnipotenL in himself; he is, as it were, causality its-elf.
Moi-eover, if it can be maintained, according to Christianity, that God is more than a simple possibility or the object of a human need projected by human de sire or emotion, but rather an actual, objective reality, it is certainly not because God is directly and immediately evident to man: he is knowable through his effects. As SL. Paul put it, "what can be known about God is plain ... because God has shown it ... Ever since I.he creation of the world his invisible nature ... has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made,'' (Rom.1:19-20) -In short, the traditional Christian theologies depend upon the concept of causality not only in order to view the reality of nature, but also to envisage the reality of God and, moreover, to refer to the relationship of man and God, and even to support the very idea of the reasonableness of the Christian faith.
IL is not surprising, however, that Christian theology and Western science flnd themselves in this situation. We have to do here with two somewhat divergent lines of development, two aspects of the evolution, of one and the same civiliza tion. But if H is true, as ][ will now argue, that causality is not a category of thought which characterizes a universal and ne<:essary human nature, but one which is characteristic of a certain contingent and regional linguistic pattern, perhaps we shall begin to understand the real nature of the conflict between science and religion in the Western world and, more generally, the real nature of the conflict between lhe developing Western mentality and the traditional Chris tian faith-and, if so, perhaps we shall then be in a position to begin to do some thing about il. Now, the Western languages-in deed, the languages of the Indo-European family as a wlhole-do possess certain characteristics which makes it necessary for someone who thinks in these Languages to conceive reality as if causal relation ships were the elementary bond among all entities, the bond which makes a cos mos out of the chaos of multiplicity, and as if the ability to cause, if not. also that of undergoing causation, defined in part the essence of whatever is real.
What are these linguistic characteristics and why do they imply these philosoph ical views?
Allow me, in order to begin my reply, to coin the term rheme to refer to the unit of linguistic assertion. I mean: a rheme is the unit of speech which, as con trasted with the grammatical sentence , envisages the intentionality or, as it were, the saying-something-ness of conscious linguistic behaviour. In any language whatever, for a speaker to speak is lo say-som ething. But whatever is said, as contrasted with that which may be merely mouLhed or voiced (as by a parrot) is meant, or intended. But meaning or intending what is said implies in turn a con text or situation in relation to which one can mean what one says or intend to say something. To take the simplest instance: a jack-in-the-box pops up and I say "Oh!" Now, what I say is "Oh!", and this is all I say. But the meaning of whal I say, the meaning of "Oh!", is strictly relative to the situation to which I say it. Note well, [ don'L merely say il in a sit.uation, but Jo that situation.
Grunts, exclamations and Lhe like are, of course , vague and generalized rhemes they assert an undifferentiated and diffuse experience-or, rather, they are the 39 6 Philosophic Exchange, Vol. 3 [1972] form of an experience that remains diffuse and relalively undifferentiated. ··The ral is on II.he mat" is , by conlrast, a rheme which embodies a highly differenliaL ed mode of consciousness; it bespeaks a fairly highly organized system of mean ingful experience and a well-developed level or thought. This is wh} most things we say are said in what grammarians call a •·complete scnlenl' e,·· lhoJgh it is clear lhal a gasp in response to a sudden surprise is, in its own way. a complete thought: I don't need to say anything else in order lo mean precisely what 1 say.
Most Inda-European rhemes, however, are ullered not only in grammalically complete sentences, but in complete sentences of a specific type. namely, "S is P." IL is al this point that the peculiar thought paltem of the lndo-European mind begins lo appear. For when we say, in any of the Western languages. that "S is P," we are not merely saying something in relation lo something else: we are saying it in a specific way or modality of ass ertion. What r will try to show here is that this modality is not universal, but may vary from one linguistic fam ily lo another. But. before I Lake up this matler, let us agree Lo use the term predicalio12 to designate that which so far I have called "saying something Lo a situation" or "saying someLhing in context" or "saying something about some· thing else." Well, then, my suggestion is that not all languages predicate in the same way and, moreover, that a speaker's wellanschauung-and in par.icular a speaker's most fundamental categories-are es sentially related Lo the modaJi ty of predication which gives form to his Lhinking aboul reality.
As for the modality of predication characteristic of the Western languages, it may be summarily described as follows. As we ha\'e se(m, when we say some thing in rela�ion to something else in the lndo-European languages, we oay il in the typical mode expressed by the formula "S is P." But this means: the grou nd of one's assertion of P h relation lo S, is that S i s whalever P signifies. When l say "the cal is on Lhe mat," what I do is lo attribute the meaning of "on the mat" Lo '"the cal,"' as its being; specificall�. the sense or my inlenlior is that what lhe term "on the mat" signifies is what "the cat" is. ln order lo emphasize the point, let me make clear what the grounds and meaning of this rheme are not. When 1 say "the cat is on the mal" 1 am not asserting ''on the mal , . in re lation to "the cal ,, on the grounds that being "on the mat" is a wa} in which l copula which, al the same time, signifies existence or reality, then existence or reality-that is, being-must appear as lhP grounds of predication and as de fining the sense of the very mode of predication. Now, il is precisely this two (old function, ex.istentiaJ and copulative, that distinguishes the lndo-European verbs "lo be." Moreover, if this modalily is vesLed in a verb. as il is in this Lin guislic family, lhen il also follows that existence itself must be envisaged as an act, and that anylhing which is predicated of a subject is predicable of it because of what the subject does. In short, the reality or the real is the act of being. And from this view emerges the ontological wellansclicw1mg or a cosmos populated by metaphysically atomic entities {for there are many individual subjects or predication), each separate d off from every other by its own reality, yet all of them related to each other by their accidental interaction and, thus, by a uni ver sal potential causality. Hence, every being as such is by nature apt to cause or to undergo causality in several accidental respects; and in relation to the order of reality it.self it is either an actual cause, or an actual effect, or possibly both.
Finally. it also follows that any human being who is so much as dimly aware of the foregoing implications will be bound lo think in the terms of a universal, a priori category of causality: that is, he will be bound Lo think that every reality is either an actual cause, or an actual effect, or both.
If we examine the modality of predication of a language such as Indonesian, paraphrase Kant, an "I think that" which lies in the background of every asser tion. But in the Western languages it is assumed that this ·'J think" is subse quent to one's aboriginal experience of reality, hence not essentially related to the assertion nor affecting the sense of the predication. In Indonesian, however, it is assumed, on the contrary, that it is only insofar as "l think" something that 1 assert it. Perhaps, then, I can best sum up these comparative observations in this formula: whereas the Western mode of predication is ontological, the Indo nesian mode is phenomenal.
As may be suspected, the Indonesian mode of predication affects vitally the way in which Indones\ans think about truth and about reality. I will not consider further the former, bul I will mention that the Indonesian word, llenja taan, which mosl closely corresponds to our "reality," has the structure of an abstract noun derived from an adjective, nja la, which has the meaning of "clear," "obvious" or "evident," and which in I.urn comes from the genderless third per son pronoun fo, so that its etymological meaning is, literally, "it-ish-ness." There is no implication thaL the real is being-Lhat is, that the real is what-is first of all in itself, and is only subsequently thought and signified, or that. it is actuated by an act of being. 'l'he implication is merely that the real is an "it," that is, some thing which appears or shows itself Lo one; the real is that which one can address in the third person, or that in relation to which one can say something which is Vol. 3 [1972] apparent or evident about il. Correspo ndingly, the terms which refer to "world" or "cosmos" do not carry the implication of a realit� envisaged as a whole bul actually composed of indhidual. ontologically isolated entities. The world is rather the environment or surrounding in which experience occurs, the location in which i s manifested whatever appears to man. Causality, therefore, does not occup)' in the Indonesian mind the same posi· lion it enjoys in the Western world. Though causal relat ionships are recognized, causality is nol reality's process par exccl/e11ce. Moreover, il cannot be asserted a priori, but only a posteriori: to the Indonesian mind there can be causes, but no principle of causality. That is, there is no compulsion lo think, for inst.ance . that all the things we meet and experience in the world have a cause, since there is no compulsion to think that the reaJity of anything, even if that thing happened lo be an effect, is itself an eff ecl. Causality does not come, as it were. in inter· mlnable chains which ultimately make up the world as a whole Lo be a coherent whole; il comes in discrete links, which one may artificially weld inlo more or less lengthy, but always finite, chains. Likewise, causality is not a process which does it.s work, as il were, behind lhe surface of reality, and which manifest.s i t.self only lhrough lhe appearance of effecLc;. Since there is nolhing behind the appear· ances of rea lity. there can be no causalily other than that which i s apparent. Hence, the cause of an effect is nol that "hich of it.s very nature must ba\e done il. but that which in fact makes lhe effect appear as an effecl. Therefore , one cannot search for causes as a matler of principle, that is, as if the qJeslion mangapa (wh}') were universally and a priori intelligenl and legitimate, or as if one could always be ce!"tain beforehand that there must be an answer lo it.
Rather, one musl have � good rPason for asking "'\h}." Now, one often docs have a reason: experience frequently provides it. But onl> e:xperience can lead one to wonder whether what one finds in reality is nol simpl} a fact. but also an effect. In other words, to be sure that there is a cause of a certain effect, oue must first. be sure lhat it really is an effect. Like any Westerner, an Indonesian sees a dented fender and knows that there must have been an acci dent. But he knows this not because he thinks that every effect must have a cause: he knows it because he is reasonably certain, on the basis of his experience, that bicycle s are not usually built with dented fenders. and thal bicycle fenders do iot. be come dented unless under impacl.
But, finally, �ince it is never enough to know the real as real in order to know it as an effect, il follows that. in Indonesian, t.o ask for the cause of the world of rea lity as a whole is an absurdity, If not also an impossibility. To do so one would have to have empirically derived reason Lo think that the world as a whole is an effecl. But thi s cannot be, among other reasons because to view the world as a whole as an effect it would be neces.5ary to stand outside the world as a whole; lhal is, one would have lo have some empirically derived reason to be· lieve that there is something extraordinary or abnormal about the world as a whole, which would in turn require prior empirical knowledge of an ordina ry or normal st.ate of affairs, namely, a world which was not as a whole an effecl of some cause. For instance, what God bestows upon man is not principally existence, but inner peace. And man comes into contacL with God n-ol by see ing him reflected in his creatures, but by experiencing his presence in the depth of human consciousness by means of meditation and mystical practices. Moreover, meditation and mysti cal exercises do not seek, as they genera lly do in such lndo-European religions as Hinduism and Christianity. Lo uncover or to expose to sight a reality which had been there from Lhe outset; there is no question, for instance, of setting veils aside in order Lo become united with some infinite reality, .nor of pas.5ing lhrough stages of perfeclion in order to ascend l.o a new le\'el of being, nor of selling aside one's indi\'iduality in order to become dissolved in a boundless ocean. The objective of Javanese mysticism is so to develop and improve one•s experience that one can ultimately enjoy a mode of life which otherwise one would not realize at all.
Since my aim here is not lo discuss the Indonesian conceptions of God for their own sake, but simply as an illustration or the close relaC.ionship between linguistic slructures and religious beliefs, I will not pursue lhis line further. Per haps, however, by way of conclusion 1 may be allowed to extrapolate a litile from the specific instance I have chose n to the wider question of the profou nd influence which the new approaches to the study of language may be expected to have at all le,·els of man •s religious consciousness. For instance, if what I have suggested 50 far is approximately correct. we can begin Lo envisage the possibili ty of healing the breach belween Western science and Western religion or, rather, between the modern WesLern mode of experience and lhe Clhristian failh. In· deed, we can envisage the possibility of doing so in a yet more satisfactory way than has so far been desi red by either science or religion. I mean: not by merely reconciling, nor by simply co-ordinating, science and religion, but even by in te grating them into a higher mode of �. uman consciousness.
I would not want the wish to be the father of the thought, but it does seem to me that from the viewpoint of human evolulion this highly desirable possi bil ity stands a greater chance of realization today !than aL any pr,evious time, as it becomes increasingly clear lhal science does not necessa rily succeed where Christianity has failed. The trouble with Western civilization may lie deeper than the rights and wrongs of scientifico-lheological debates. Western consciousness has developed Crom an original form of human self-apprehension which charac-

LANGUAGE AND RELIGIO�
terislically splils the objective and the subjective. the world and the setr. reality and appearance. facl and value. feeling and intellect The split between reason and faith, belween science and religion. betw�n modern experiem·e and tradi· tional values, is but the ult imate, perfectly logical and self-cons1stenl r�ult or pursuin� to their biller end premises which are implicit in the basic slrut'Lure of the lndo-European languages. For, if language is nol Lhe subsequent signification of prior experience, but the form by means of which man emerges from the le,·el of animal sensibility into that of human consciousness , that is, into the sort or experience which is underlain by selfhood, it follows that the rundamenl.JI prop erties of any ghen mode of human speech embody a fundamental selr-concepl and, thus, a fundamental concept of real ity and of man's relationship to the real.
The lndo-European languages embody a fundamental self-concept which has been most thoroughly and consistently explored in the Greek and Western cul tures, with the paradoxical resulls that we have ever more clearly experienced in our history down to our own day: lhat is, to the very degree thal we have devel· oped our consciousness, directed the evolution of our selfhood, ruled the con ditions of our relationships with real ity, and prevailed in our transaclions with the physical world, we have rendered the silualion of human existence increas ingly hazardous; it is the very progres..c; we have mad<• that threatens the survival of our culture and indeed thal of man as a whole.
It would be a failure of imagination, therefore. to continue lo conceive Lhe possible solutions to the problem of science and religion as some sort of recon· ciliation-ror instance, in terms of carving out di fferent spheres of competence for each, or in terms of clearly delimiting respecti\'e areas or rele\ance. IL is the very division between fa ith and reason, between value and fact, between religion and science, between feeling and understanding, between the objective and the c;ubjecli\'e, that may be the real trouble. Thal is. it may be lhat both science and religion, both modern experience and the Christian tradition are esse ntially valid. but also essentially imperfecl, so that they bolh are al the same lime right. and wrong, useful and destructive, progre�ive and regresshe , ennobling and immoral, true and false, both in Lheir apprehension or themselves and in their estimate of each other. In other words, il may be that both the concept of nature and the concept of the supernatural are basi cally valid, but basically imperfect as well, and that they both mus1. be superseded by another concept, yet to be born but perhaps already under gesta tion, which will transcend both.
These hopes will surely appear fool hardy. Particularly with reference to science and religion, we have to do here with cultural forces which have accumu lated an enormous amount or historical momentum; they cannot be expected to take kindly Lo lhe proposition lhal they revise themselves in any such radical way as envisaged here. On the other hand, the dilemmas of human consciousness, the problems of human biological and cultural survival in the physical, mental and interpersonal environment brought aboul by human e\olution itself, have already reached such dire proportions. and porlend such yet gr�aler critical straiL�. that it is no longer lolally unreasonable Lo expect thal mankind may yet decide to lake heroic measures in order to survive. The fear of death, or at least the wish to avoid pain and suffering, may nol always be the most honourable or motives. but sometimes they can force the hesitant to take the first step on tbe road to wisdom.