Working with the grain of the universe

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Readwise reminded me of this today:

“Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto. This belief and this adjustment are the religious attitude in the soul.” (William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature) [Emphasis added]

Back in my Christian days I read a lot of doctrine, and I would come across this idea occasionally. Stanley Hauerwas called it “working with the grain of the universe.” Looking through my Readwise highlights I also see this:

“a murder does not belong in the world, no matter what its author thinks of it. The murder of a human being is not the way it’s supposed to be. This act is out of order. It is a senseless act because it saws against the grain of the universe, because, as Christian believers would say, it doesn’t fit the design for shalom.” (Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin)

In Plantinga’s book shalom is living at peace with the created order:

“The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight — a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.” (Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin)

From Robert Richardson’s intellectual biography of William James:

“The reader toils up the mountain after James, who toils after Fechner. The view from the top is “that the constitution of the world is identical throughout . . . The whole human and animal kingdoms come together as conditions of a consciousness of still wider scope . . . The more inclusive forms of consciousness are in part constituted by the more limited forms . . . We are closed against its [the earth soul’s] world, but that world is not closed against us. It is as if the total universe of inner life had a sort of grain or direction.”” (Robert D. Richardson, William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism)

In Presence in the Modern World, Jacques Ellul writes:

God may act, or He may not act, and when God wishes to act He ought to find instruments which are supple and obedient, ready for his use. We ought to remind ourselves constantly of the lesson given us in the Scriptures, that God rarely acts in a transcendent manner; on the contrary, as a rule He chooses a human instrument to accomplish His work. Now in this work of God, which is actually decisive, will God find the people He needs?

If the word obedience bothers you, this from non-Christian Stephen Jenkinson may help:

“Etymologically, obedience has nothing to do with being some kind of slave. It means instead a willingness and an ability to listen to what is, to attend to it. Obedience is following the grain of things. With that skill of obedience, every natural thing knows above all how to be itself, come what may.” (Stephen Jenkinson, Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul)

Even though I ran across this thought time and again, it was always a (pleasant) surprise, since it is far from a central doctrine. Though it ought to be! The practice — working with the grain of the universe, embracing the created order, knowing that there is a way things ought to be and contributing to making things so, becoming a supple and obedient instrument ready for God to employ in increasing shalom — was one that resonated with me, continued to guide me even as my faith ebbed.

I don’t remember exactly when I ran across the James quote, but it sums up a recognition that took me out of Christian faith altogether, namely: if the core of religion is “the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto” … then maybe that by itself is enough to live by? I looked hard at what Christian doctrine was bringing to the party, along with the doctrines of other religions, and found them superfluous. True or not, simply doing what I could to discern the grain of the universe, understand it, and align myself with it, was more than enough to keep me busy for several lifetimes.

If you and I are both devoted to this practice, I’m not sure it’s worth comparing and contrasting the deeper philosophies (if any) that brought us to this place. I’ll learn what I need to as I work with you on the project.

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This might be what has confused / broken so many folks since COVID…the fact that they lose faith in the unseen order and became unmoored. I know I experienced that, to a degree

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@scout Harmoniously adjusting to an unseen order. I like that. I’ve also been lacking a good word for “shalom” so I’m going to hang on to that word. Thanks! But what kind of unseen order are we talking about? I think the “unseen order” idea is a little reductive. The trappings of religion tells the participants what the nature of the unseen order is. It’s shape and color. That level of detail is necessary for a group of people to find community. Which is the name of the game. :slight_smile:

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This might be the critical dividing line — whether or not there is an unseen order. Never having believed that there isn’t (for better or worse I am one of James’s “once-born”) I haven’t experienced that kind of existential despair. For awhile I never really thought about the question. Then for a long time I embraced and lived by various detailed doctrines about the origins and nature of that order.

But eventually I noticed that those doctrines just weren’t doing any heavy lifting, that I wouldn’t be living any differently if I simply granted that there was an unseen order, but not one I needed to understand in depth. All I needed to know is how things worked, not why they worked that way.

I know more about why my car works than the average person. Sometimes that deep knowledge is useful, but it isn’t critical and only gives me a slight edge. Someone who through long experience has built up a highly inaccurate mental model of why their car works can still get by fine. Similarly, I can get pretty far worrying only about how the universe works and leaving the why aside. But I think I would flounder if I believed in my heart that there was no order at all, that what order we see is purely an illusion.

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Yeah but wanting to believe in an unseen order is like Lamarckism. In terms of evolution I struggle with it myself. I want to believe there’s something more, which I feel would be intangible, that can explain dog breeds for example. But as Kazantzakis wrote, our duty is to gaze into the abyss without hope and without fear.

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Useful, certainly. Necessary? I don’t know. I’ve been involved in several Christian communities, which never came close to meeting their own expectations. I ended up thinking that like-mindedness was overrated.

I would prefer to join in community with folks who hang out together simply because they find the interactions profitable — sometimes rooted in agreement, sometimes in sharing very different experiences, different conclusions reached as a result. I’m sort of hoping this may be one of those.

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When I said “necessary” I meant within the context of a religion, it’s necessary to have trappings.

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