Superstition and the role of faith
An opinion poll at the end of March claimed more people were superstitious than believed in God. Belief in the supernatural runs at 55 per cent as opposed to only 49 per cent who believe in God. Ghosts, UFOs, telepathy, psychic healing, demons and the Bermuda Triangle all have their believers in modern, secular Britain.
The Daily Mail rushed to inform its readers that the number of people who think they have a sixth sense is higher than those who go to church while Melanie Phillips in The Times trotted out the old quote from Chesterton that when a man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes in anything. Actually, the source of this particular quotation is unknown. The Chesterton Society says that attempts to track the epigram to Chesterton’s own writings are incomplete at best.
This is not surprising. Chesterton knew a good deal about how ordinary people think and feel and like many parish priests he would know that religious faith and superstition can often be found in the same person. Samuel Johnson is a good example.
Johnson was a devout Christian of the high church Tory variety. His written prayers are among the most moving in the language. He was a strong supporter of the Church of England although he also claimed that all Christians ‘whether Papists or Protestants’ agree on the essentials. He attended church regularly. But he was also superstitious.
Boswell tells us that he had a firm belief that he should always enter a door or passage by a certain number of steps and that one of his legs should always make the first move. If he got the number of steps wrong, he would go back and start again. Boswell witnessed this many times.
Boswell also examines the criticism that Johnson was a credulous believer in the power of departed spirits to appear and influence events. Boswell defends Johnson against the charge of being a ‘dupe’ but admits that he was willing to inquire into claims of supernatural agency and listen to the testimony of eyewitnesses. Boswell adds that no man was more willing than Johnson to refute falsehood when he discovered it.
Johnson’s readiness to accept supernatural agency and listen to the testimony of those who claimed to have witnessed it puts him at odds with the greatest philosopher of his day, David Hume, who argued against the acceptance of miracles, even if there was eyewitness testimony in their support, because he ruled out divine intervention. Johnson realised this. “God has made Nature to operate by certain fixed laws,” he told Boswell, “but it is not unreasonable to think he may suspend those laws to establish a system highly advantageous to mankind.”
Johnson’s readiness to accept the operation of non-material causes meant both that he was prepared to entertain certain forms of superstition and also that he was ready to believe in a God who was active in the world, revealing himself to human beings, entering into a relationship with them and answering their prayers.
Faith in God is opposed to many superstitious practices but it is important to note that it shares one important presupposition with many of them: the universe is not a closed system in which only physical factors operate according to fixed laws. Unfortunately, as Johnson recognised, the credulity of the superstitious often discredits such a view.
Many modern interpretations of Christianity attempt to understand faith in ways that do not require divine intervention in the world. Christianity is represented as a way of life or as a conviction that existence is meaningful or as an invitation to see the world in a new way. Such a view contrasts with much popular religion whether Pentecostal, Catholic or superstitious, that looks for a God or a power that can act in the world to make a difference.
If people are turning to superstition or to Pentecostalism it may be because the religion offered by the established churches does not meet their need. Samuel Johnson would sympathise, even if he stuck to the Church of England.
Major philosophical and theological issues loom here but perhaps a few points can be made. John Polkinghorne and others may have argued that Quantum physics has give us a more complex picture of the world than that known by Hume but there remains a theological objection to seeing God operate in the world as one cause among many, ‘doing conjuring tricks with bones’ as David Jenkins once put it.
But if we take the model of divine causation suggested by Thomas Aquinas and developed by Austin Farrer, God does not act as one cause among many. His hand is always hidden. He makes things to make themselves, operating through secondary causes.
There are no crude displays of power (as superstition or popular piety often demand) but there is a response to prayer, help given in distress, and the gift of healing or the power to bear suffering with new strength and faith.
Good works, the welcome giving by caring Christian communities, and a stress on justice and peace are important ways of witnessing to the gospel. But people are also looking for a God who will act in their lives to give new life.