The difference between a metaphysical and a religious narrative
Religious narrative: for example, the narrative of Jesus of Nazareth and his fellow apostles traveling around Judea saving people and bringing the "good news". Sin: the pervasive in the world (which is "fallen"), which is meant to explain why the world is as it is (shitty).
"Purely" metaphysical narrative: for example, the narrative of Philipp Mainländer: god existed, but got lonely and committed self-deicide by transforming into a pantheistic deity which slowly dies (entropy) over the course of trillions of years. There is an unconscious Will to Die (entropy, basically), which is meant to explain why things fall apart, why things spread out and lose energy, and that suicide is the only action that is explicitly compatible with the world. (He must have been fun at parties)
Or the narrative of Schopenhauer: there is a metaphysical Will (-to-Live) that is pervasive and always striving, which explains why the universe creates objects and then destroys them, why humans feel the way they do, etc.
So, what is the difference between these claims, other than that one has a religion based upon it and the others do not?
It seems to be the case that a religious narrative is a metaphysical narrative, but not all metaphysical narratives are inherently religious. Where is the demarcation? At what point does a metaphysical hypothesis begin to be a religious belief?
I have noticed that sometimes metaphysical narratives are invoked to suppose a thesis someone already has. Schopenhauer thought the world's value was pretty poor; and lo and behold he invokes the concept of a metaphysical "Will" that fills the explanatory role he required. Who knows, maybe there really is some mystical metaphysical Will, but in my opinion, the Will acts merely as a filler for ignorance and a nice and easy anthropomorphic tool for explanation.
From what I can tell, the difference between a metaphysical and an explicitly religious narrative is rather thin, and is measured by the amount of dogmatism created by these hypotheses.
"Purely" metaphysical narrative: for example, the narrative of Philipp Mainländer: god existed, but got lonely and committed self-deicide by transforming into a pantheistic deity which slowly dies (entropy) over the course of trillions of years. There is an unconscious Will to Die (entropy, basically), which is meant to explain why things fall apart, why things spread out and lose energy, and that suicide is the only action that is explicitly compatible with the world. (He must have been fun at parties)
Or the narrative of Schopenhauer: there is a metaphysical Will (-to-Live) that is pervasive and always striving, which explains why the universe creates objects and then destroys them, why humans feel the way they do, etc.
So, what is the difference between these claims, other than that one has a religion based upon it and the others do not?
It seems to be the case that a religious narrative is a metaphysical narrative, but not all metaphysical narratives are inherently religious. Where is the demarcation? At what point does a metaphysical hypothesis begin to be a religious belief?
I have noticed that sometimes metaphysical narratives are invoked to suppose a thesis someone already has. Schopenhauer thought the world's value was pretty poor; and lo and behold he invokes the concept of a metaphysical "Will" that fills the explanatory role he required. Who knows, maybe there really is some mystical metaphysical Will, but in my opinion, the Will acts merely as a filler for ignorance and a nice and easy anthropomorphic tool for explanation.
From what I can tell, the difference between a metaphysical and an explicitly religious narrative is rather thin, and is measured by the amount of dogmatism created by these hypotheses.
Comments (8)
As for me, I would say metaphysics is a broader category than religion such that religious dogma is contained in the set of metaphysics. Religion also typically involves ritual whereas metaphysics does not. Theistic belief can be irreligious insofar as it commits to a metaphysics but not ritual practice.
This error is not limited to religious claims though. Humankind has delivered many examples of this confusion about the world and metaphysics. Essentialism, Utopianism, etc.,etc. Basically, anytime someone says "this must necessarily be" when talking about a state of the world, they are committing some version of this error.
Both metaphysics and religion are matters of faith; they do not have truth-value but rather represent commitments - ways of being. Your short genealogy of metaphysics and religion is proof of exactly this. Schopenhauer's philosophy represents a way of being in the world. Christianity another. They are different in the practical commitments that they entail, and in the particular ways of relating to existence that they necessitate.
One does not choose a way of being based on reasons because a way of being is always already presupposed by any reasons whatsoever. One does not reason in a vacuum.
Because ways of being are a priori to reasons, it means, undeniably, as pointed out by Hume (later taken on by Hamann, Wittgenstein, Heidegger), that such ways of being are not amenable to rational criticism - rather the ways of being define what is taken to be rational criticism in the first place - they are the bedrock.
That the sun will rise up tomorrow is not a matter that can be determined rationally. It is a commitment - a faith. In-so-far as it is a faith, it has no truth-value, even though it relates to the empirical world - the proposition is neither true, nor false. It is your commitment - the sun will rise tomorrow, so I will go to sleep, wake up tomorrow, pull the curtains, and go out to enjoy the sun. That's what it means - the role it has in your language usage.
Narratives - religion, metaphysics, etc. - are prior to reason, and hence reason cannot question them, without putting itself into question - cartesian doubt - can't even get off the ground. It is a matter of aesthetic sensitivity, education, culture and language and the manner in which one desires to live that determines the choice of narrative each makes. But we all have a narrative - it is part of being a language-using animal.
Wittgenstein was smarter than Kant - Kant's Critique works, but it forgets that it only works if it has the very fine distinctions between synthetic a priori, analytic a priori, etc. But these distinctions are borrowed, and depend on language for their existence. By showing that language is prior to reason (and thus conditions reason itself), metaphysics is once again rendered a matter of faith.
Purely analytic metaphysics, which is sometimes derogatorily referred to as "neo-scholastic metaphysics" even if it deceptively purports to be "naturalistic" (and as such based on science rather than merely on commonsense "folk" intuitions) is pretty vacuous, although it is OK if it is considered merely as an exercise in modal logic or imagination (which amount to the same thing) not to be taken too seriously.
The only metaphysical narratives worth taking seriously are those that are consonant with and/or suggested by, our current scientific understandings.
Of these, only (3) appears to be metaphysical, in the sense of this thread.
Very few philosophers, I am aware of, have ever died for their faith in their metaphysics. Socrates, who could have gone into exile and G. Bruno, who unlike Galileo was burned at the stake (I had a little old, but rhetorically thunderous professor, who said Bruno was an idiot).
I don't think there is much to compare. Tell me how many Atheists have died for their 'faith'.
The difference is that metaphysical claims are critical and religious claims non-critical. They may share the same unverifiable status, but one proceeds by logical argumentation and the other by appeals to authority.
Quoting Agustino
The example of the claim that the sun will rise up tomorrow is convenient for your position, but is insufficient to prove your point. Many people rightly judge claims about what [I]will be[/I] the case in a different light to those about what [I]is[/I] the case.
If you are of the extreme position that any metaphysical claim, that is, any claim about what is the case, about the world, factual matters, necessarily has no truth-value, then I think that you're mistaken, and I think that the argument is self-defeating, because you can't consistently claim that it's true, and if you cannot do so, then you cannot commit to the position, and you're forced into a disingenuous position of extreme scepticism in which you only have your professed doubt, which your behaviour, day-to-day thinking, and conversations consistently betray.
Hume also wrote that a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence, and the evidence suggests that there are many truths. That I am alive, that I live on a planet called Earth, and so on.
Questions "beyond physics" still should be thought of in a logical rational way, even if we cannot get a proof or a theorem as an answer for a metaphysical question. That we cannot answer a metaphysical question, i.e. give a proof, still doesn't mean that the topic is something that is just a matter of belief.
Religion is first and foremost a matter of belief. No religion deducts it's faith from logic.