My Thought For The Day, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 this morning, Teresa of Ávila’s day
The world feels like it is getting weirder. I don’t mean that life feels more unsafe or less certain. But rather, a rational, secular worldview seems to be coming undone.
Here’s an example. Twenty years ago this month, Richard Dawkins published his bestseller, “The God Delusion” – a reasoned plea for belief in God to go. The movement that came to be called “New Atheism” gained momentum and Dawkins had a point. The modern world is shaped by science.
But now, two decades on, sociologists of religion are asking why the New Atheism didn’t stick. Professor Linda Woodhead has highlighted one possibility. New Atheism insisted that the cosmos is meaningless and that just doesn’t make sense to people. Research indicates that beliefs in fate, providence and things happening for a reason remain persistent. In a scientific age, that’s notable.
Other examples come to mind. Take the massive effort currently underway to understand the impact of Artificial Intelligence. One option draws on animism – the belief that the world is animated by spiritual vitalities. That sense might return with a vengeance should superintelligent machines wake up and people routinely feel their intentions and presence. Mainstream, even atheistic commentators, ponder the possibility. That’s striking, too.
Another sign of re-enchantment comes from psychedelics. Clinical trials into the risks and benefits of these mind-altering drugs include people on them regularly reporting encounters with spirits and having experiences that are hard to explain. Another questioning of the secular paradigm.
Grappling with the unusual is not new. One Christian who wrestled with it is remembered by the church today: Teresa of Ávila. The sixteenth century patron saint of Spain had numerous supernatural experiences, including visions and hearing voices, with none more dramatic than her levitations. Records from the time, which are extensive because she was investigated by the Inquisition, attest to many people witnessing her rising into the air.
She is now recognised as a Doctor of the Church partly because she explored the meaning of these experiences. Incidentally, she repeatedly said she didn’t want them. As a woman who was active in the world, they were highly inconvenient.
Levitation is certainly weird, mostly easily dealt with by dismissing it. But Teresa had another answer.
She said that life on earth is like being a king ruling from a castle. Wars, disruption and disasters come, for sure. And yet, in the keep, at the centre of the castle, the good king finds a peace more robust than any of the tumults tearing at the walls.
Teresa taught that divine steadiness. Weird things happen, she knew; fearful things. But do not be captured by them, she advised. Instead, attend to the divine source that is always at the centre. A world growing stranger again is one with renewed opportunities to turn to that resilient presence.