I have been listening more than usual to my radio station of choice: LBC (Leading Britain's Conversation). It's talk radio, balanced, humane, and though it's British its coverage of world issues is quite good. On the novel coronavirus a call-in expressed confidence in outcomes because of their faith. Host Shelagh Fogarty (her show airs in the US at 9 am EST) responded, "Yes, I have faith too." The conversation moved on quickly, but I remained with the brief comments on faith and the pandemic.
Faith in what, I wondered? Faith that I will be OK? Faith that God will make the virus miss our home? Faith that a miracle will happen and the virus go away? None of those answers works for me. In different ways those answers suggest a belief in a somewhat arbitrary God; a God who saves some and dooms others. Is God is good to me because I prayed to be saved? What of those who prayed to be saved and became ill, and perhaps died? God as a cosmic puppet master pulling the strings of life I find unhelpful.
More helpful for me is a view that God is love, compassion and kindness and that wherever we find love, compassion and kindness there we find God. And I am observing love, compassion, and kindness in myriad ways in the pandemic. Walking the pugs I have notice that most people express kindness—of course from across the road. They are more ready to pause and ask how we are, neighbors asking if we need anything, concern evident in their voices.
Immanuel Kant, an Enlightenment philosopher, gave us the notion of universalizability. He suggested that a true moral principle is one that can be willed rationally to apply to all people in all situations. If telling the truth is a true moral axiom for me, then it is true for everyone. If I borrow the principle and apply it to an understanding of God, then what is true about God for me must also be true about God for everyone. If I pray and God saves me from the virus because God is good, then whoever prays to God to be saved from the virus must also be saved because God is good. And that doesn't happen. Such a view of God fails the universalizability test.
But if we find God wherever we find love, compassion and kindness—and we have faith in that kind of God—then in the care of the medics, the shop workers, the delivery folk, the chaplains, and everyone else who shows kindness, it is there we find God. God as love, compassion and kindness passes the universalizability test. When Shelagh Fogarty said "I have faith too," I hope that is what she meant.
Faith often means "what I believe to be true." And that is fine. What we believe to be true is a large element of wellbeing. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps us uncover false and unrealistic beliefs to be replaced by justifiable beliefs (back to Kant's universalizability principle, perhaps).
But, for me, spirituality as practice is more helpful than religion as "beliefs about." Spiritual practice aims to keep you well in body, mind/emotions, and spirit. Spiritual practice provides a framework and rhythm of life that keeps you in balance. Spiritual practice grows and supports a life of love, compassion and kindness. In the midst of pandemic, that's what we need more than anything else.
+Ab. Andy