“If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you”

Gospel of Thomas

I would state my takeaway from the above passage as “man may not understand what or where the kingdom is, but if he is pointing to it, he is surely wrong.” There is a connection here to Iain McGilhrist’s idea of “re-presentation” in his book The Master and His Emissary. Here is a summary of his concept of “re-presentation” courtesy of ChatGPT3 (so cool!).

“In The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist argues that the left hemisphere of the brain is particularly adept at “re-presentation,” which refers to its ability to take in information and then manipulate it, analyze it, and create a representation of it in the mind. This can be useful for tasks such as problem-solving and decision-making, but it can also lead to a narrow and distorted understanding of reality. McGilchrist suggests that the left hemisphere’s tendency towards re-presentation is a key factor in its tendency to dominate the right hemisphere, which is more attuned to the present moment and the holistic context of a situation. He argues that re-presentation is a crucial element in the left hemisphere’s capacity to create a simplified and abstracted version of the world, which can lead to a fragmented and partial understanding of reality.“

– ChatGPT3

The Catholic church has been its own worst enemy at times (although we may have some disagreements over the reasons why). The religion seems to consistently lose track of core ideas and has been watered down. Examples of this include:

• Turning a blind eye to the consistent message in the Bible of renunciation of wealth: Whenever I hear theologians trying to explain away critiques of wealth in the Bible, it sounds like mental gymnastics.
• Allowing Christmas to turn into a commercial holiday focused on consumer lust: A story of gifts being given to the savior was taken as a license for Christians to focus on giving gifts to each other. This misses the point of devotion to the sacred, and we see too close of a connection between the human and the sacred in Christianity (more on that later).
• Holding the clergy in too high esteem: Catholics seem to treat priests, and even more so the Pope. in a way that approaches idolatry. They thus become protected from criticism allowing great moral transgressions such as the sex abuse scandal to be committed without resistance.

All religions are vulnerable to idolatry, but Judaism and Islam are somewhat protected against this because of their prohibition of icons of Yahweh/Allah. Christianity fosters a connection between humans and the sacred. This connection, which may have developed in part because their God lived/is living amongst humans, has positive aspects but also puts the religion at risk for idolatry. Idolatry (including priest worship), iconography, and even our attempts to understand the divine are “re-presentations.” While iconography may help Christianity spread, it also waters down the religion. If there is such a thing as the supernatural, we should not expect to understand it. If we think we understand it or that we have created an acceptable representation of it, we are wrong.

Over time I have become more open to the idea that our brains are not to be considered simple information-processing systems. Simple information processing systems fail because of computational limitations, random errors, task irrelevance (being asked to perform a task that the system has no relation to [e.g., asking your Roomba to play the drums]), or a lack of training. However, human minds fail in predictable ways on tasks that we have experience with and have the computational capacity to solve. Our brains are designed/evolved to solve certain problems, and there are cognitive biases shared among humans.¹A nice example of this is as follows. In the Wason Selection Task, participants are given a conditional of the form “if P, then Q” (e.g. If it is raining (p), then it is cloudy(q)), along with four cards. Two cards, one of which says say “P” and the other “not P,” can both have either  “Q” or “not Q” on the other side. The other two cards, one of which says say “Q” and the other “not Q,” can both have either  “P” or “not P” on the other side. Participants then are asked which cards they would need to flip to look for violations of the rule. In the standard case, almost all participants will flip over P, some will also flip over Q, but few flip over “not P” and/or “not “Q”. However, the cards they have to flip over are “P” and “not Q” as these are the only cards that could potentially produce a violation of the rule. However^2, when the conditional is presented as a social exchange (e.g., if I cook, you must wash the dishes), participants perform dramatically better. So, the human brain is particularly adept at violations of social exchange, not because of our rationality but in spite of our irrationality, and some believe that instead of social cognition being an offshoot of reason, it may be the reverse.

Even if rationality is, as I would claim, the operating system that would run on the ideal information processing system, rationality may not be the operating system that we are most fit to run. Secular rationalists like myself demand defendable explanations for all positions held, which (for better or worse) leaves no room for faith. Religious traditionalists are more likely to accept mystery through faith in God, and this mystery seems vital to the success of religion. In the Catholic Church, the Latin Mass seems to offer the mystery that was lost when the mass began being explained to the people, especially when the same ritual is repeated week after week. Through “re-presentation” in the Novus Ordo, religion became prioritized over spirituality, and I think they must be treated as equals. My initial view of the Latin Mass (which I still partially hold) was that if your religion makes more sense when you can’t understand it, then it probably doesn’t make sense. However, just because it doesn’t make sense doesn’t mean it does not have value, and it might not even mean that it is not true because of our limitations on rationality.

Over-rationalizing the Catholic tradition eliminates the potential for mystery, thus stripping the religion of its meaning and forcing its members to create “re-presentations” of the divine. McGilchrist notes that the first line of the bible shows the heavens and earth to be distinct. To succeed, Catholicism must reintroduce a distance between the human and the sacred. A distance that is covered by devotion.

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  A nice example of this is as follows. In the Wason Selection Task, participants are given a conditional of the form “if P, then Q” (e.g. If it is raining (p), then it is cloudy(q)), along with four cards. Two cards, one of which says say “P” and the other “not P,” can both have either  “Q” or “not Q” on the other side. The other two cards, one of which says say “Q” and the other “not Q,” can both have either  “P” or “not P” on the other side. Participants then are asked which cards they would need to flip to look for violations of the rule. In the standard case, almost all participants will flip over P, some will also flip over Q, but few flip over “not P” and/or “not “Q”. However, the cards they have to flip over are “P” and “not Q” as these are the only cards that could potentially produce a violation of the rule. However^2, when the conditional is presented as a social exchange (e.g., if I cook, you must wash the dishes), participants perform dramatically better. So, the human brain is particularly adept at violations of social exchange, not because of our rationality but in spite of our irrationality, and some believe that instead of social cognition being an offshoot of reason, it may be the reverse.