In my younger days I was a voracious reader of fiction. Since then, a combination of school and work have more or less completely robbed me of the inclination to read anything that isn’t grounded in reality (don’t cry for me – I still find lots of ways to have fun), but once upon a time I could truly describe myself as ‘a reader’. One of my favourite series of fantasy novels was the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. In retrospect, it’s a bit overwritten and the last three books were pretty terrible, but I loved it in my heyday.
The sixth book of that series, entitled Faith of the Fallen was my favourite. It’s simultaneously an exploration of the primacy of human dignity and the harsh criticism of the debasing effect that religion has on it. It’s also a not-so-thinly-veiled retelling of objectivism, but I tried not to let that get in the way of my enjoyment. Moral lessons aside, a great deal of it is about sculpting because, y’know… why not?
The book’s protagonist, an uber-wizard named Richard, gets kidnapped and, for reasons that are really not relevant to anything important outside the context of the story itself, is forced to be a sculptor whose job it is to make a statue that shows humanity from the point-of-view of their religion – debased and cowering in the face of the almighty. He, of course, creates a masterpiece glorifying the power of the will and the resilience of humanity. In so doing, he changes everyone’s mind about religion and starts a riot (because, y’know… why not?). You should be thinking “Howard Roark” right about now.
Anyway, plot points stolen from bad writers aside, there was something that stuck in my head about that book. When describing the process by which he carves, Richard says that he finds the figure inside the stone and then cuts away all the unnecessary pieces – essentially excavating the figure that’s already inside the rock. It’s an interesting idea – start with the whole and then remove all of the pieces that don’t fit your vision.
It has been several years since I read that book, but it popped back into my head when I was reading some piece of apologetics or other, as I am sometimes wont to do. This particular one was of the “No True Christian” variety, essentially saying that elements of the Biblical account were written for their time and are not relevant anymore; however, all the stuff about ______ is still totally true. The process by which truth is discerned from irrelevance is never revealed to us except through vague references to the Holy Spirit or whatever bogey man functions in that capacity for the religion under discussion.
It struck me at that moment that what religious ‘moderates’ (those who profess belief in the scripture until pressed for details) do is very similar to the sculpting process described in that novel. The belief starts with the end in mind – some variation of a secular moral code, with its roots stemming from the same source as it does for the rest of us. This is then re-imagined as a religious framework because, as everyone knows, religion is the source of morality. The moderate believer then begins subtracting all of the bits of the Bible/Qur’an/Vedas/whathaveyou that conflict with the already-held beliefs, like chiseling away excess marble to reveal the figure buried within.
The problem is that, unless one is a particularly skilled artisan, sculpting from marble is a fairly inaccurate and clumsy job, with bulges of excess left in unsightly places. The shape of a hand or a face might be crudely left to stand. Without the proper tools, it is impossible to smooth out the rough edges. So too does it operate for the moral parallel – extraneous beliefs like talking snakes, flying horses, and an endless cycle of physical rebirth get left behind in a more-or-less perfectly serviceable framework, leaving it fundamentally flawed and cumbersome.
The opposite of this kind of faith-based moral sculpture would perhaps be more akin to architecture* – start with a blank piece of paper and then build upon it what is necessary to meet the needs of the task. Structural elements – a definition of ‘the good’, a method of making moral comparisons, some basic maxims – are of primary importance or the whole endeavour collapses upon itself. Once the basic components are in place, however, the rest of the exercise depends on the creativity of the architect. Some moral codes are elaborate and ornate, others are far more minimalist and spartan.
The reason why the architecture method (that of a rational humanist) is superior to the sculpture method (that of a religious moderate) is that, aside from the load-bearing crossbeams, any or all of the other pieces can be removed or modified to fit a changing reality. An infelxible moral code is inert and non-responsive when circumstances dictate – the famous case, for example, of lying to the SS officer about the Jews hiding in your attic. A responsive moral framework allows for compromises that still serve the underlying premises without major conflict.
A sculpted morality, on the other hand, completely collapses when any of its structural elements are strained. Remove the wrong piece of stone, wield the chisel just a shade too hard, and the whole endeavour is irretrievably disfigured. It is this kind of morality that forces someone to concede that genocide might be justifiable if it was willed by the creator of the universe. Like a human face with a gouged eye, or a hand missing a finger, the resulting product is ugly. We can see what was intended, but lost through an inexpert process.
Skeptical free thought allows us this architect’s process – a way of crafting a worldview, moral or otherwise, that is individual and customizable without requiring burdensome excess or the risk of disfigurement beyond recognition.
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*The irony of this allusion should not be lost on those who have read The Fountainhead, whose protagonist actually is an architect, as well as being more or less the prototype upon which Richard from Faith of the Fallen is based.