The Creative Combination

January 1981
Location Unspecified

The Creative Combination

Creativity is our Program Committee's January emphasis. In reflecting on how I might deal with this, I present to you, "The Creative Combination." The Creative Combination, I believe, is and has been in the flow of our Unitarian Universalist heritage and principles. The primary element is doubt.

In using the word, doubt, I am applying the meaning whereby accepted propositions are questioned when they no longer make sense or fail to resonate with the human spirit in its better moments or in its reach for higher values. Doubt, in the sense I am using it, is critical inquiry to discover new truth, verify old truth, or, more likely, to refine both old and new "true" propositions offered for our assent.

Doubt can destroy; doubt can build. In attempting to deal with the presence of doubt, the ways we can respond to it, there is recognition that doubt, alone, can be barren unless it is combined with other elements of human experience.

Doubt has always been present in human thought. There are examples of the persisting problem of doubt in all religions, in all times. For example, in the 77th Psalm from the Jewish Scriptures:

"Will the Lord for ever discard us,
Will he never be kind again?
Has his love left us forever,
Has his faithfulness utterly failed?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger stopped his pity?
Yes, this is my grief, that the Most High
No longer has the strength he had."

Does not the Psalmist express a poignant doubt? And is this not a perennial anxiety, even among "believers" – that God is no longer gracious, forgiving – that the "strength of the hills" may not be "his"?

Then there are the verses from the Christian literature found in Matthew (21/21). As Jesus and his disciples returned to Jerusalem after spending the night in Bethany, they came upon a fig tree and saw it as a source of breakfast. When they found no figs, Jesus became irate, apparently, and uttered a curse which caused the tree to wither away. (I have never been able to understand why, if Jesus had this agricultural or botanical magic, he did not say, "let there be figs" and there would have been figs.) Anyway, the disciples marveled at what happened and Jesus answered, "Verily, I say unto you, if you have faith and doubt not, ye shall not only do what is done to the fig tree, but even if ye shall say unto the mountain, 'Be thou taken up and be cast into the sea,' it shall be done. And all things whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

More than one person, taking the gospel at its word, has looked toward a mountain and said, "Be thou cast into the sea." This left the faithful one in at least some state of doubt. Either he/she had too little faith, or Jesus was wrong about the way to move mountains. Other doubts arise, too, principally that this part of scripture accurately records either the words or attitude of Jesus.

For sixteen centuries, or more, in the Christian Church, doubt existed here and there. But doubt was more a vice to be squelched or concealed rather than a virtue to be cultivated and proclaimed.

But the Age of Enlightenment ushered in far-reaching change. The 17th Century experienced a maturing scientific revolution wherein thoughtful people began to draw conclusions, not from the dogmas and assumptions of authority, as the Church insisted, but from observation and experiment. The world began to appear like a marvelous mechanism designed by a Great Machinist planned to harmonize with Newtonian physics and Copernican astronomy. In time that scientific development cast doubt on the tightly-packaged dogmas of the Church about the nature of the Universe and the forces that prevail in it.

Then in the 18th Century there began to come to flower the development of rational, liberal, humanitarian ideas and ideals. These fitted well with the science of experiment. Rousseau wrote of natural man and the Social Contract. David Hume, the Scotsman, with penetrating logic created disturbance in comfortable beliefs about revelation and miracles. Voltaire wrote kindly, but cynically about God, saying even if He (sic) did not exist, we would have to invent Him (sic). Tom Paine was not only a savior of the American Revolution with his words of courage and freedom, but also brought upon himself the continuing anathemas of the orthodox because Paine's AGE OF REASON was a remarkable fore-shadowing of the biblical criticism to develop a few decades later.

These were the Deists, skeptical of all the old supernatural beliefs, critical of ancient authorities, doubting anything which could not measure up to reason and experiment.

They were a distinguished company of the best minds of their age, including not only the ones named, but also John Stuart Mill, Benjamin Franklin, Thos. Jefferson, Ethan Allen, John Adams, James Madison and others.

At least in intellectual circles, the Deists played a remarkable role in creating a respectable climate for doubt and an honored position not only for rational thought but also for freedom and human dignity.

The 19th Century showed the continuing growth of skepticism of old ways and the challenge of new ideas. Among many religious liberals it is not too far-fetched to say that new gods were deified: Science - Society - Culture - Humanity. Optimism prevailed. Human progress was destined to go onward and upward forever. Freedom would spread, kindness would grow under the powerful, but humanitarian leadership of science. Earth would become Paradise enough! The vision of the future was one of undiluted joy and undeterred progress.

Following this effervescent, intellectual celebration, there was a morning hangover as harsh realities dawned. The Age of Reason for all its fine professions and many deeds, never wrestled seriously with pervasive evils – war, starvation, imperial selfishness, exploitation, lust for power. In a sequence that may astonish future historians with the facts of human folly, came the bloody wars – terrible not only in carnage but also because many were essentially idiotic: Our Civil War, the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian, the Spanish American. Then the overwhelming tragedies – World War I, the growth of totalitarian powers, World War II, the atom bomb, the hydrogen bomb, Korea, Viet Nam and the looming threats of the present day.

Are such events the end results of our doubts, rationality and confidence in human progress?

These tragedies of our century have had the consequence of serious reconsideration of the old, revealed bases of faith. The so-called "neo-orthodoxy" was an attempt to show that human history, human motives and actions cohere with the doctrines of human depravity, original sin and humanity’s inability to save itself. Therefore there was a restatement of the human need to have unquestioning faith in a God who can never be understood but must always be trusted without reservation.

There have been effects on liberal religion, too. Optimism is neither blithe nor naive and progress not inevitable. Many thinking persons who seek a faith more reasonable to the modern mind than old or "neo" orthodoxies consider with approval the manner in which we reject constricting creeds and unreasonable doctrines. But, also, some dig deeper, asking, "What else do you offer beside doubt?" Few persons are fully satisfied either emotionally or intellectually when reasonable doubts dead-end in disenchantment, only.

Doubt is human. What we do with doubt is a human choice.

Many persons have made the choice not to doubt at all. They respond to the letter of James (1,6) in the Christian literature, where the writer admonishes, "But let him ask in faith with no doubting." The founder of the militant Jesuit order, Ignatius Loyola had 18 rules for "right thinking". The 13th rule: "to arrive at truth in all things we ought always to be ready to believe that what I see as white is black if the Church so defines it."

The choice to never doubt may be comforting and quiet the anxieties of intellectual search. But there are many of us for whom this will not do. We cannot ignore the pulsing of our questioning minds. Such persons are no longer whole persons when the urge to inquire is amputated. We cannot and will not stop asking, "How do you know?"

One alternative is to doubt and let it go at that. Be a skeptic, period. As H. L. Mencken once wrote, "Men (sic) become civilized not in their willingness to believe but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."

But doubt as the end of human understanding was expressed poignantly by Matthew Arnold in his poem, "Dover Beach." You may recall those lines:

"The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled,
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long withdrawing roar,
Retreating to the breath of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
and naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another, for the world which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."

And some persons leave it there, - we are on a "darkling plain swept with confused alarms."

I submit, however, that to leave it there amid the clashing of ignorant forces, without peace or help for pain does not create the meaning life deserves. In Wordsworth's words,

"Great God I'd rather be a pagan
Nurtured in a creed outworn."

In spite of the impressive statistics of many religious organizations, the sweeping popularity of TV gospel preachers, we still live in an age of doubt. If complete candor prevailed, I believe we would find that the tides of ancient faith are still receding. People are gathering in the darkling plain at least as readily as they assemble in the churches.

The unique task is not to retreat to ancient irrationalities but seek the creative combination of doubt and faith.

What do I mean by Faith? I believe the future is always open. There can be confidence in the future if we choose to confide our trust in it. Doubt of many past propositions does not compel disillusion with the prospects for the human venture. Such a faith calls for doubt, thought and new commitments.

Consider Psalm 77 again: It certainly is an expression of agonized doubt. But it is also a witness to faith because in Paul Tillich’s words, "the element of doubt is a condition of all spiritual life." The Psalmist concludes:

"Thy thunder rolled and resounded,
lightning lit up the world,
earth shook and was confounded
Marching through deep waters
Thy footprints all unseen."

The footprints are unseen while the marks of doubt are clear. Yet, as Browning reminded in "Bishop Bloughram's Apology"

"Just when we're safest, there's a sunset touch
A fancy from a flower bell
Someone's death
A chorus ending from Euripides
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as nature's self."

The creative combination is to consider life hopefully (hope-full) as well as doubtfully. Otherwise as Shakespeare pointed out (Measure for Measure, Act 1 SC4)

"Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good
We oft might win."

The remedy for our torn selves is in life itself with its confusions and conflicts. When the worn-out faith goes, a new faith is to be found. When you can no longer believe in a witch-doctor, you can turn to a physician.

Each new doubt is the opportunity to discover new trust. When we see the shadow, we know there must be an object in the sun. For every shadow there is an object. Many times when the shadow is frightening, the reality is fair and hopeful.

The Creative Combination is doubt plus the desire for deepening dimension. Courage is required to search for new objects of trust as the old gods continually disappear beyond the horizons. Too many times all our convictions are of the order attributed to Sam Goldwyn, "I'll give you a definite maybe."

We must not debunk our desire for deepening dimension because of the fear that what is definite today will become "maybe" tomorrow and obsolete the day after that. To surrender the right to doubt is to abandon the march of the mind. To stop with doubt is to become frightened of the shadow. The Creative Combination sees doubt as the solvent to clear the way for new levels of trust and truth on the human pilgrimage.

A few years back when both Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg were alive, Frost was speaking of the equally venerable and wonder-full Carl Sandburg. Robert Frost was asked to compare himself with Sandburg. Frost answered, "Carl wrote a great poem, 'The People, Yes' " Frost paused, and said, "I would have to say, 'The People, Yes and No.'"

So it is with the everlasting rhythm of doubt and faith – neither is a singular beat. Rather it is a dialogue which ever refines truth, as doubt burns the dross from the heritage of human experience and leaves a remainder of value for renewed hope and trust.