This was all the more generous of him for the fact that he really was very much attached to the Classics, and especially Plato, and he would have liked all of us to catch some of that infection. And yet this infection--which, in my eyes, was nothing short of deadly--was something I resisted with all my will. I do not exactly know why I hated Plato: but after the first ten pages of The Republic I decided that I could not stand Socrates and his friends, and I don't think I ever recovered from that repugnance. There can hardly have been any serious intellectual reason for my dislike of these philosophers, although I do have a kind of congenital distaste for philosophic idealism. But we were reading The Republic in Greek, which meant that we never got far enough into it to be able to grasp the ideas very well. Most of the time I was too helpless with the grammar and syntax to have time for any deeper difficulties.
Nevertheless, after a couple of months of it, I got to a state where phrases like "the Good, the True, and the Beautiful" filled me with a kind of suppressed indignation, because they stood for the big sin of Platonism: the reduction of all reality to the level of pure abstraction, as if concrete, individual substances had no essential reality of their own, but were only shadows of some remote, universal, ideal essence filed away in a big card-index somewhere in heaven, while the demi-urges milled around the Logos piping their excitement in high, fluted, English intellectual tones. Platonism entered very much into the Headmaster's ideas of religion, which were deeply spiritual and intellectual. Also, he was slightly more High Church than most of the people at Oakham. However, it was no easier to find out, concretely, what he believed than it was to find out what anybody else believed in that place.
I had several different Masters in the one hour a week devoted to religious instruction (outside of daily chapel). The first one just plodded through the third Book of Kings. The second, a tough little Yorkshireman, who had the virtue of being very definite and outspoken in everything he said, once exposed to us Descartes' proof of his own and God's existence. He told us that as far as he was concerned, that was the foundation of what religion meant to him. I accepted the Cogito ergo sum with less reserve than I should have, although I might have had enough sense to realize that any proof of what is self-evident must necessarily be illusory. If there are no self-evident first principles, as a foundation for reasoning to conclusions that are not immediately apparent, how can you construct any kind of philosophy? If you have to prove even the basic axioms of your metaphysics, you will never have a metaphysics, because you will never have any strict proof of anything, for your first proof will involve you in an infinite regress, proving that you are proving what you are proving and so on, into the exterior darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. If Descartes thought it was necessary to prove his own existence, by the fact that he was thinking, and that his thought therefore existed in some subject, how did he prove that he was thinking in the first place? But, as to the second step, that God must exist because Descartes had a clear idea of him--that never convinced me, then or at any other time, or now either. There are much better proofs for the existence of God than that one.
As for the Headmaster, when he gave us religious instruction, as he did in my last year or so at Oakham, he talked Plato, and told me to read A. E. Taylor, which I did, but under compulsion, and taking no trouble to try and understand what I was reading.
I think Merton is around 14- or 15-years-old when he is grappling with Plato and Descartes and proof of the existence of God. While I can say that I had delved into Plato and Descartes when I was around 15 or so, I certainly didn't grasp any of the nuances of their ideas about the ideal or divinity. No, being a cradle Catholic, I didn't ever really question the existence of God. My view on religion was straight out of the Baltimore Catechism. Question: Who made you? Answer: God made me. Question: Who is God? Answer: God is the Divine Being who made all things. Period. End of discussion.
Of course, throughout my adult life, I have seriously grappled with questions about God and faith and goodness. As a human being, subject to the slings and arrows of the world, I struggle with doubt. It comes with the territory of spirituality, I believe. I think a faith that is blind is dangerous. It can lead to terrible acts committed in the name of religion. If you don't believe me, check out Jonestown, the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, Salem witch trials, and 9-11 attacks. Blind faith taken to the extreme with disastrous results.
What I have learned in my years on this planet is that talking about God and faith in the abstract means absolutely nothing to me. It's the actual action of God (some people call it grace) that compels me, invigorates my belief. So, if you call yourself a follower of God or Yahweh or Buddha or Muhammad or Jesus, prove it. Live a life of compassion and love and acceptance. Don't judge people. Help them. Feed the hungry. Respect the environment. Care for the ill. Shelter the homeless. That is the true proof of the existence of a Creator. When we do things that are bigger than ourselves.
Today, I had another miracle happen to me. A huge act of grace and compassion from friends who know my family's struggles. It humbled me and filled me with a true belief in grace. I know this couple will read this post, and I want them to know that I am thankful beyond words (which is quite a statement, coming from a poet). This wasn't an act of blind faith. It was an act of mindful love. And I am truly and devotedly speechless.
For those of you who are curious about what this miracle was, you are missing my point. Be aware that there are people in this world who are prisms of compassion. Testaments to the human action of God (in whatever form you believe) in the world. That is my point.
And for that, Saint Marty is deeply, profoundly thankful.
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