Reason and Beyond

Reason, the second tenet of British Unitarianism, is strongly and fundamentally linked to freedom of religious belief – freedom requires responsibility, and responsibility requires reason. Humankind must accept responsibility for their choices and their acts. Every time we come across a new person, or a new situation, or a new way of thinking, we find that some things are better and others worse, by trial and error, by measurements of happiness and welfare, by comparison and reflection. This is how we cultivate responsible behaviour – by using reason as our guide.

image: catholic.org

But we need to be aware that it is not an infallible one. We are human beings, not automatons, so our reasoning is rarely completely based on logic; our desires will also influence our beliefs. In other words, we might believe that we are making an entirely reasonable decision about what to believe and how to act, but our reasoning mechanism can also be seduced by what we want to believe. We are also influenced by external factors - by advertising, by persuasive articles in journals and magazines and on the internet, by the desire to fit in with others, and so on.

And of course there are irrational elements in our experience of ourselves and our universe. But how else can we comprehend them, or understand them, at least in part, unless by using our reason?

The process is like this: find out what commends itself to your reason as truth and then accept that as your authority. If you work at it faithfully, your whole life long, with help from fellow pilgrims, you might become a better, wiser and more loving human being. If enough of us do the same, and put our beliefs into action, it might even lead to a better, wiser and more loving world.

But I also believe that there is more to life and how we respond to it than being perfectly reasonable and logical. I agree absolutely and completely that the final authority for an individual's faith should be their own conscience. But I think that this involves our hearts as well as our heads.

When I first became a Unitarian, I was "converted" if you like, by reading the first section of Alfred Hall's book Beliefs of a Unitarian, when he wrote: "Unitarianism is ... more than anything else an attitude of mind. It is a fresh way of looking at life and religion. ... Its method is that of appeal to reason, conscience and experience generally, and above all to elemental principles of truth and right which are implanted in the human heart at its noblest and embedded in the universe."

So Hall was saying that what is in our hearts is as important as what is in our heads. Yes. There are some things in life that are beyond reason - how we love, how we feel compassion for others, and also, to some extent, what we believe, what gives our lives meaning.  I believe that both reason and passion are important - I am increasingly finding that while I can reject beliefs on the grounds of reason, there are also some aspects of "doing religion" or having faith that are beyond reason. For example, I have a growing awareness of God or the Spirit at work in everyday life. This is on the basis of intuition, not reason, but I believe it is real, in so far as it makes sense to my deepest self.

Heart and mind together, reason and passion. We need to use all our faculties to find wholeness and completion and meaning in our lives.

The Unitarian Trinity

We Unitarians often refer to ourselves as "the faith without a creed." This is because we have always insisted that it is not necessary for the members and attenders of our churches and chapels to agree with a particular set of theological beliefs, in order to be accepted as Unitarians. So in the absence of a commonly-held creed, what is it that holds us together as a denomination?

image: all-languages.org.uk

Freedom, reason and tolerance are the underlying principles of Unitarianism, at least in the United Kingdom. They are also three pillars of a good society. A glance at any newspaper can show only too graphically how the lack of these values can lead to suppression, unreason and intolerance. What do Freedom, Reason and Tolerance mean to Unitarians?

If a British Unitarian is asked the question “What do Unitarians believe?” the immediate answer that springs to mind may be “We believe in freedom, reason and tolerance.” I’m not so sure. Our beliefs may be as diverse as ourselves: some of us believe in a personal God; some of us are religious humanists; some of us share beliefs with other world faiths; and so on, and so on.  So what is it that makes us Unitarians? What  binds us together? I would put it another way: I would rather say that freedom, reason and tolerance are the values that underlie Unitarianism, the principles and standards that make the rest possible. As Cliff Reed writes in Unitarian? What's that? “shared values and a shared religious approach are a surer basis for unity than theological propositions.” (10)

So how does this all work out within the context of a Unitarian congregation? What is it that keeps Unitarians coming together in fellowship, Sunday after Sunday, rather than attending another church, or relaxing with our families, or engaging in a touch of retail therapy?

At its best, a Unitarian congregation is a place in which each person can carry on his or her own religious and/or spiritual quest, in the company of others who not only respect, but also wholeheartedly accept, their right to believe what they will, on two conditions. Firstly, that this belief has been sanctioned by the individual's own reason and conscience. And secondly, that this belief does not cause harm to any other living beings. To be a member of such a congregation can be spiritually invigorating, and give a deep sense of belonging.

And yet, it is not an easy way to live. If you want answers, fair and square, set down in black and white with no contradictions, Unitarianism is not the place for you. Some people may find the lack of a creed, a denomination-wide accepted set of beliefs, daunting. Not me – I love the fact that Unitarians do not claim to have all the answers – every Unitarian I’ve ever known has been a spiritual seeker, just like me. We are all on the same journey, supporting each other along the way, and sharing our discoveries and spiritual breakthroughs, in our worship, and in our lives.

What holds us together is that we all have the same attitude to religion and spirituality. All of us believe profoundly in the necessity of personal freedom of religious belief  - the freedom to grow, and to act in accordance with our beliefs, to work out our own answers. We share a devotion to spiritual freedom, and find that the insights of others can enrich our own beliefs. What could be better?

Many members of other faiths find that their bond with others is in scriptural or creedal affirmations. That door is closed to us. Our bond is a belief that people can agree to work together for the deepening of spiritual life, the strengthening of moral character, and the improvement of society without agreeing to a set of theological doctrines. Ours is a fellowship in diversity, a band of pilgrims on the same spiritual seeking path, each having perfect freedom to follow the dictates of our individual reason and conscience to forge a living faith that will help us to follow the best that we know for the greater good of ourselves and the world.

A Different Way of Thinking

Hall wrote that “The chief bond of the churches included in the modern General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches is not doctrinal but devotional.” Unitarianism is a faith without a creed – we don’t ask anyone to subscribe to a particular set of beliefs, but we do share some important values, of which more on another occasion.

image: iarf.net

We are a sacred community, in which each person can explore what gives his or her life meaning and purpose. Each Unitarian congregation, each Unitarian society, and the movement nationally, is a faith community made up of individuals on a spiritual journey, who have come together because they share this open and inclusive attitude to religion and spirituality.

We believe that each person should be able to work out what they believe for themselves, and not be under any pressure to sign up to particular beliefs. (In practice, many Unitarians do hold many beliefs in common; but this is not a prerequisite for being a member of the Unitarian community). We believe that all individuals have the right to believe what seems good to them, so long as they have come to that belief using their reason and conscience. Another way of saying this is that we believe in the right of private judgement in matters of religion and spirituality - the movement does not dictate what its members should believe.

However, that doesn’t mean that we are free to believe whatever we like; as I have said, beliefs have to be submitted to our individual reason and conscience, made sense of in the context of our own life experience, and also be bounced off the other members of our Unitarian community. And so again, in practice, there are certain beliefs that are not acceptable in Unitarian communities - homophobia, racism, sexism and so on. Any belief that excludes or belittles another sector of humankind is unlikely to be welcomed in, or endorsed by, a Unitarian community.

And what we believe may change over time. Unlike most mainstream Christian denominations, which expect their members to sign up to a particular creed or set of beliefs, once and for all, Unitarians recognise that as people have new experiences and encounter new ideas, their beliefs may change. The beliefs of most long-term Unitarians will evolve over the years, according to what they see and hear and learn and experience and take to heart. We find this liberating.

Books That Inspire

[this blogpost appeared in a slightly different form on my other blog, Still I Am One, in March 2012. I am re-posting it to explain how my Unitarian faith is inspired and informed by the writings of others]

I have found a beautiful quotation by 19th century American Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, which sums up how I feel about books and reading:

"The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty."

Theodore Parker

Reading has always been a passion of mine, to the extent that it has occasionally got me into trouble, when I have been too deeply buried in a good book to pay attention to life going on around me. Yet few things give me greater delight than the discovery of a new book that makes me think; that makes me see the world and everything in it in a new light. And so it has been on my journey into Unitarianism. My beliefs and my faith have been formed by reading the ideas and wisdom of others, by hearing it in Unitarian worship, and by discussing these matters in Unitarian communities. It is a rich and fulfilling process, and an ongoing one. The books I listed in the original blogpost have since been augmented, and will continue to change, as I come across new ideas. This is one of the wonderful things about Unitarianism, for me, that revelation is not closed.

In his introduction to Mister God, This is Anna, Vernon Sproxton speaks of Ah! Books, "those which induce a fundamental change in the reader's consciousness. They widen his sensibility in such a way that he is able to look upon familiar things as though he is seeing and understanding them for the first time. ... Ah! Books give you sentences which you can roll around in the mind, throw in the air, catch, tease out, analyse. But in whatever way you handle them, they widen your vision. For they are essentially Idea-creating, in the sense that Coleridge meant when he described the Idea as containing future thought - as opposed to the Epigram which encapsulates past thought. Ah! Books give the impression that you are opening a new account, not closing an old one down."

Everyone will have different Ah! Books. Mine include:

Beliefs of a Unitarian by Alfred Hall
Quaker Advices and Queries
Enough by John Naish
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
Rilke's Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke
The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life by Frederic and Mary-Ann Brussat
A Backdoor to Heaven by Rabbi Lionel Blue
A New Reformation by Matthew Fox
Eternal Echoes by John O'Donohue
Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives by Wayne Muller

And of course Mister God, This Is Anna. Each of these books has shown me the world in a different way, and made me think about myself in relation to it. They have influenced what I believe, and how I behave in very fundamental ways. What are yours?

Permission to Explore

 “Unitarianism rightly understood is the Religion of the Larger Affirmation.” When I first read these words of Alfred Hall’s more than thirty years ago, it was a very liberating experience. At the age of 18, I had started to question the tenets of the Christianity of my childhood, and had realised with some reluctance that there were some things about it that I found incomprehensible. The concept of original sin, salvation by the death and resurrection of Jesus, the idea of the Trinity - the list went on.

I was searching for a religion that would not force me to subscribe to a particular set of beliefs, a more open and inclusive faith,  which would give me permission to explore the beliefs held by others, Christian initially, but subsequently the sacred texts and writings of other faiths.

Then my father gave me Alfred Hall’s book, Beliefs of a Unitarian, to read, and I realised that I was home. According to Hall, Unitarianism was an affirmative faith, with great scope for exploration and questioning. He explained that Unitarians hold (or at least held when the book was published in 1962, for our ideas and beliefs are not set in stone) that God is a loving deity, who loves all of humankind, regardless of their religious affiliations; that there is a spark of the divine in every person; and that salvation is universal, not just for those who hold the 'right' beliefs. Furthermore, that divinity can be recognised in all living things, and hence the whole universe can be thought of as sacramental. And that the signposts to the divine can be found not only in the Bible, but also in the sacred texts of other faith traditions, and in poetry and other spiritual and religious writing.

Reading these (then to me revolutionary) ideas, on the first page of the book, made me realise that I was a Unitarian, that this was where I belonged, that here was the place I had been looking for, a base from which I could set out on my spiritual journey, in the company of like-minded people, whom I could bounce ideas off, and with whom I could build my own theology.

Hall also claims that Unitarianism is a new way of approaching life and religion, based on an appeal to reason, conscience and your own life experience. And it is an ongoing process - you don't just experience a one-off conversion, and then rest on those fixed beliefs for the rest of your life; every Unitarian has a duty to approach all new ideas and concepts reverently and critically, and take from them what speaks to your own reason and conscience, and what makes sense in the context of your own life experience, in order to live out our lives in the best and truest way we can.