1984

Here's my sales pitch:

1984 is the most insightful, practical, inspirational book on faith available today. It contains several role models - heroes of faith - each one applicable for people of different personality types and levels of intelligence. Orwell crafts a brilliant allegory, detailing his vision of the ideal world in which all people are capable of overcoming their skepticism and finding true contentment through prefect faith.

There are two major stumbling blocks in 1984 that cause readers to misunderstand or reject Orwell's vision of faith. The first is the extremely brutal, autocratic church Orwell describes. Although the reader is sure to disapprove of the church's practices, at least he or she can see the applications of Orwell's principles within a more moderate religious structure. In any case, one can forgive the malevolence of Orwell's religious institution if it is understood that the purest faith can be best observed against a backdrop of the darkest evil. It must be remembered that Orwell's goal is to describe perfect faith, not a perfect object of faith. In fact, the more brutal and absurd the object of faith, the more authentic and absolute the faith itself must be. And if absolute faith is possible in the most adverse circumstances, how much more possible for us!

The second stumbling block for many readers is that 1984 is a satire, and a subtle one. Like Lewis' Screwtape Letters, 1984 is theology in reverse, written as if by a staunch enemy of faith. The protagonist scorns what he perceives to be the madness of his neighbor's faith, and at times even wins the reader's agreement, but in the end, faith prevails, and it is demonstrated that skepticism, not faith, is true madness, that joy and hope can be found only through faith, and that no one is beyond redemption.

This book is a must-read for anyone who struggles with understanding and achieving child-like faith. Orwell admits the difficulties of this pursuit, but is legitimately optimistic about it's achievement. The reader must finally conclude that the task, while daunting, is well worth the effort, and the necessary sacrifices pale in comparison to the magnificent of unqualified faith.

Ok, I'm lying to you. Orwell was in not a proponent of faith, and 1984 is in no way a satire of skepticism. The book is set in a totalitarian state that demands absolute submission and orthodoxy of it's citizens. The people are expected to believe even the most glaring lies and contradictions in order to maintain their leader's image of infallibility. And they do. The first time I read this book I was incredulous. I thought it was absurd that people could or would be so blind to their own self-inflicted lunacy. But then I realized that they were simply people with great faith - people who "sought an understanding within their faith", and who had already established their leader's infallibility in their own minds. I began to admire these people. They're no different from Christians - or rather, from what Christians aspire to be.

Now before you get your underdrawers in a knot, let me clarify. I'm not saying faith is bad or that Christianity is madness or God is Big Brother or theology requires doublethink, (well, maybe the last one) nor am I advocating torture as a means of achieving orthodoxy. I'm just saying that my understanding of faith is similar to Orwells: blind adherence to preset dogma, without or regardless of any evidence. Faith is madness, in that it is outside of, and often contrary to, logic.

Faith has it's place, of course. I have nothing against the sort of faith that allows me to sit down in a chair without meticulously examining it's structural integrity. Faith in the continued operation of the laws of physics, faith that allows every-day assumptions based on the weight of evidence, faith in professionals to do their jobs or in friends to be there for me - all of these are reasonable and profitable. But unfounded faith - faith in a certain doctrine or theological concept despite compelling evidence to the contrary - this I do not understand.

There is something noble about the members of the Party in 1984. Achieving "victory over one's self" is a great accomplishment, and no one can dispute that the results are desirable: contentment, security, a sense of purpose. But at the same time it's abominable. Is there any greater degradation than this: to willfully and meticulously delude yourself, to scorn reason and embrace madness?

I have a hard time believing that God is at work in my life. I say "in my life" because I'm not opposed to the possibility of God being at work in other people's lives. If you speak in tongues or are inexplicably filled with joy or were miraculously saved from a hellish life, I have no interest in telling you that it's all coincidence or delusion. I'm not in a position to make that judgment. But when I look at my own life, and compare it to what I understand the Bible to say, I think it's probable that no god is active in me. People tell me I should "stop doubting" and "have faith", which I understand to mean "attribute all good things in your life to the finger of God, in order to support the preconception of his involvement". Understand, I'm not refusing to do this, and I'm not saying it's bad or stupid. But I have yet to hear a compelling argument in favor of this kind of faith.

I have a terrible time with prayer. I seem to be capable of two approaches to prayer: either to believe that what I pray will come about, or to believe that it won't. Others call these approaches "making demands of God" and "lacking faith" respectively, and they would say that both are bad. They would say that there's a third approach: sincerely believing that what you pray will come about, but at the same time acknowledging that it may not, believing that God is fully capable of doing what you ask and that "all who ask receive", but at the same time believing that God may have a "better plan", being ecstatic when your prayers are "answered", and seeing it as further evidence of God's goodness, yet being un-phased when your prayers are unanswered, and seeing this as evidence that God knows best. They call this "having faith"; Orwell would call it doublethink. But whatever you call it, I can't do it. When I try to believe, (and I have, and I do) I am crushed by unanswered prayer, and people say "don't put God in a box". When I try to be realistic about the odds of my prayers being answered, I loose all motivation to pray, and people say "you need to trust God". When what I pray for happens, my mind says "it was going to happen anyway", and when it doesn't happen my mind says "what did you expect?" I cannot help but notice that prayers for improbable things are "answered" seldom, and prayers for probable things are "answered" often. In fact, prayers seem to be answered with about the same frequency as you would expect, if prayer were utterly powerless. I can recall no personal exception to this rule. And so I have become frustrated with prayer. It's gotten so that I have difficulty asking God to do anything, particularly for myself. Although I intellectually acknowledge the "power of prayer", and welcome - even solicit - prayer on my behalf, I generally find my mind wandering when others pray for me in my presence. Prayer meetings are something to be endured; my instinct is generally to walk out. Don't misunderstand me! I want to believe in prayer. I try to believe in prayer. But my circumstances and personality are not conducive to belief. My only other option would be to believe in the manner of 1984 - that is, to believe despite what I see as compelling evidence to the contrary, through a process of self-deception. This is abhorrent to me. (I did not mean to imply earlier that everyone who "has faith" is willfully deceiving themselves. For some, true faith comes naturally, and others have the good fortune to have seen miraculous answers to prayer. But in my case it does not, and I have not. My point is that for me, to have faith through some effort of the will would be no different from a Party member swallowing some irrational dogma through a process of self-deception.)

I can remember sitting in theology class last year, learning about the trinity or the incarnation or some such thing, and suddenly realizing that theology is doublethink. I realized that the trinity isn't an egg or water/ice/vapor or any of those things. It's three-in-one. And not three-in-one like some gizmo on an infomercial, but three wholes making up one whole: 1+1+1=1. Which is impossible. Likewise, Jesus wasn't 50% god, 50% man, nor was he a god in a human body or a man indwelt by a god. He was in essence fully God and fully man: 100%+100%=100%. Which is impossible. We'd read a creed, and I'd realize that it was just a string of logical falsities. And don't tell me about how God is above our human comprehension or whatever. I know that; I accept that. But there's a danger in starting out with a God who is in essence logically absurd: he can get away with anything. If God doesn't make sense, well, what did you expect? God can't make sense. If there is no good reason for God to allow pain in the world, he probably has a reason we can't comprehend. If geology says the world is billions of years old and your dogma says it's 6009 years old, there must be an explanation - say, creation with age. Why would God create the world in a way that makes it appear to disprove the Bible? He must have a reason we can't comprehend. God is a theory stated in such a way that it is impossible to disprove. This is not a victory for theism, it's simply a definition that renders a debate of the existence or characteristics of God impossible. The question is, should I blithely accept this theology as a convenient trump card for any doubts, or should I make a honest effort to examine the probability of my beliefs being true?

You should read 1984. Read it my way - as a story about skepticism and faith. Or if you don't want to read it, hopefully I've explained the main point adequately. Either way, my question to you is this: do you agree that the Party members' faith is similar to the faith Christians aspire to (albeit directed toward the wrong object)? If so, do you think that we should be aspiring to this kind of faith? Should I practice doublethink when praying? Should I force a worldview on myself that is designed to support the preconception of God's involvement in my life? Should I accept a theology that negates any possible argument against my beliefs about God? Or perhaps I misunderstand the Christian understanding of faith. If this is the case, can you correct my misconception? Does God not want me to make intellectually damaging concessions in order to bolster my faith? What do you think?