A Cartesian Paradox: Descartes and Piety

With only slight exaggeration, Renee Descartes can be said both to have started modern philosophy and to have founded one of the major approaches within modern philosophy. Allowing that this is a slight overstatement, it is nonetheless true that historians of philosophy give Descartes an importance which is attributed to few other philosophers.

In his work, Descartes is a sincere and motivated theist. God plays a role in Cartesian metaphysics. Descartes also contended that the soul is immortal. He considered himself to be a faithful Christian and a devout Roman Catholic. He took pains to show that his philosophy could be harmonized with the teachings and philosophy of the Roman Catholic church.

Yet the church of his day found fault with Descartes. Some scholars accused him of deism, while others asserted that by deducing foundational truths rationally, he had made God contingent upon reason.

Not only the Roman Catholic church, but rather also other Christians as well, objected to various aspects of Cartesian thought. Diatribes against Descartes became a staple in folk piety and popular religion. The following passage from Mike Breen is an example:

We have become so acculturated in our Cartesian, Western world that we believe knowing about something and knowing something are the same thing. What we have managed to do is teach people about God. Teach them about prayer. Teach them about mission. The point isn’t that they would just know about it but to know it.

The irony is, of course, that Descartes seems to have understood himself as a sincere Christian, and seems to have thought that he had found a way simultaneously to serve the church, to serve the faith, and to serve theology. What was the disconnect? Why wasn’t Descartes enthusiastically embraced by his church and by his fellow Christians?

To be sure, there were some Christians who did eagerly espouse Cartesian thought. A number of philosophers, theologians, and other scholars saw Cartesian philosophy as thoroughly compatible with conventional Christian faith, and these thinkers adopted Cartesian philosophy.

But Cartesianism never quite established itself in the mainstream of popular Christianity.

The reason for Cartesianism’s lack of acceptance is found, not necessarily in what Cartesianism is, but rather in how it was and is perceived.

The image of Cartesian thought in the public may be more of a caricature and less of an accurate reading of Descartes and his texts. The concerns of folk piety saw Cartesianism as lacking, or at least de-emphasizing, the personhood and agency of God. The Cartesian God was seen as something of an abstract principle, a bundle of logical axioms and mathematical equations, and an impersonal force.

Descartes did not seem to meet the need for a God with emotions, desires, memories, intentions, and other aspects of personhood. While Cartesianism certainly included God’s actions, it seemed to omit the centrality of God’s volitional action.

How accurately did the popular imagination grasp Descartes? While his philosophical writings don’t emphasize God’s personhood and agency, they also do not exclude it. It would be possible to subscribe to Cartesian metaphysics and at the same time endorse a theology which featured a fully personal God.

In his writings, Descartes seems to concentrate on God’s existence and God’s role in the metaphysical principles of the universe. What were his own private thoughts or beliefs on the matter? Did Descartes conceive of God as having personhood and agency, and simply omit to mention this in his texts?

Distinguishing Between Peaceful Nationalism and Malignant Nationalism

The word ‘nationalism’ is both provocative and confusing. The term is ambiguous because it is used in different ways — even contradictory ways.

On the one hand, ‘nationalism’ can refer to a sentiment which is not only peaceful and salutary, but which is necessary to promote friendly relations between the world’s nations. This beneficial and healthy form of nationalism is often called ‘patriotism’ and the two could be construed as synonymous.

The dangerous form of nationalism is a value system: it asserts that the growth, power, and existence of the nation-state is the ultimate value. The potential harm that lies in this use of the word ‘nationalism’ is that, if it is considered to be the ultimate value, then any other competing value — the types of things which people normally value — can be sacrificed for the sake of this one supreme principle: family, friends, religious faith, duty, honor, art, science, music, etc.

The wholesome form of nationalism is simply a patriotism which encourages the individual to appreciate her or his own nation, to value its achievements, and to be fond of its people, while at the same time being able to appreciate other nations and have a fondness for them.

This amiable form of nationalism promotes peaceful relations between nations, and is even necessary for harmonious relations between nations, because it is impossible for an individual to appreciate, and have a fondness for, another nation if she or he does not appreciate and treasure her or his own nation.

Another way to express the distinction between these two uses of the word ‘nationalism’ is that, in the context of the nation-state, one emphasizes the nation, i.e., the people who share an identity based on a common language, culture, religion, or history, while the other emphasizes the state, i.e., a territory and a government with its political, economic, and military power.

To further explore the confusing use of this word, historian Jill Lepore notes that its use has varied over the centuries.

Sometimes people confuse nationalism with patriotism. There’s nothing wrong and all kinds of things right with loving the place where you live and the people you live with and wanting that place and those people to thrive, so it’s easy to confuse nationalism and patriotism, especially because they once meant more or less the same thing. But by the early decades of the twentieth century, with the rise of fascism in Europe, nationalism had come to mean something different from patriotism, something fierce, something violent: less a love for you own country than a hatred of other countries and their people and a hatred of people within your own country who don’t belong to an ethnic, racial, or religious majority. Immigration policy is a topic for political debate; reasonable people disagree. But hating immigrants, as if they were lesser humans, is a form of nationalism that has nothing to do with patriotism. Trade policy is a topic for political debate; reasonable people disagree. But hating globalists, as if they were fiends, is a form of nationalism that has nothing to do with patriotism.

Thus, the word ‘nationalism’ used by the nations of central and eastern Europe who rose to defend themselves against Napoleon’s invasions is different than ‘nationalism’ used by the anti-monarchical, anti-dynastic, anti-imperial, anti-aristocratic, and anti-royal leaders who were demanding written constitutions, and the formation of nation-states, in the immediate post-Napoleonic era.

Once those nation-states were established in response to the demands made during the immediate post-Napoleonic era, their leaders used ‘nationalism’ in yet another sense.

All three of these saw ‘nationalism’ as something desirable, but all three meant something slightly different by that word.

A healthy affection for one’s own nation provides the best foundation for a peaceful appreciation of the achievements and cultures of other nations. Nationalism as a wholesome form of patriotism is the basis for world peace. Nationalism as hegemony lays the foundation for war.