Bad FaithI really wanted to or, in truth, felt. This question kept occurring
to me: like the atheist who refuses to see Anselm’s argument as a
meditation, and so misses the point of it, was my atheism refus-
ing all sorts of imaginative possibilities in life?
I recall being on holiday in Egypt and being truly amazed not
just at the remains of the temple at Karnak, but also at how they
inspired a sense of religious awe in me – and no doubt thou-
sands of other tourists – for all that we live 4000 years later in
time. In the guide book, I read about the social and economic
signifi cance of temple architecture and the religious system.
But this description, though interesting from the perspective
of the historian, seemed to miss the most signifi cant element
that strikes the visitor: the awesome spirit of the place. Did
I want to limit my appreciation of these other, ancient people
to essentially atheistic discourses? It is not that an agnostic or
theist could have an experience of ruins that is not open to the
atheist. But there did seem to me to be something in atheism
that would prefer to turn its back on such an experience,
because to embrace it would be to be embarrassed by the con-
fession of being so moved by an ancient people’s expression of
the transcendent.
I had a similar sense in relation to religious music – the music
that has an ability to speak, without words, directly to the soul,
suggesting at the same time that, through the senses, the soul is
being opened to that which transcends it. Clearly such an under-
standing of music can be debated. But it does express how I felt
that religious music seemed different from other forms of art,
even secular music. A Mozart aria of passionate intensity might
make you weep in the way it captures the longings of your heart;
a Hopper painting of solipsistic isolation might do as much by
reminding you of your own loneliness; a movie might make you
cry through empathic sentimentality. But sacred music need not
say anything that can be connected to your past or present, but
still it can move you to tears in apparently nameless ways.
I felt this as a result of playing the piano and organ myself.
I’ve never been very good, but I’ve been good enough to have