Back in 2014 the recently departed Roger Scruton published The Soul of the World. The book is about God and the two basic facts of life: "the nature of reality" and "how we should live." The point is that you may know everything about the nature of reality but the knowledge tells you nothing about how you should live.
Our current atheist educated class teaches us that science tells us how we should live. But the Islamists have another approach, that "originates in a need for sacrifice and obedience." They
believe that they are called to sacrifice themselves on Allah's behalf, and that their lives will acquire a meaning when thrown away for Allah's sake.(p.1)
And not just Islamists.
The desire for sacrifice is rooted deep in all of us, and it is called upon not only by religious but also by secular communities, especially in times of emergency and war.
Scruton calls this "cognitive dualism," that the world can be understood in two ways, "the way of science, and the way of interpersonal understanding." The natural world and the "lifeworld," or Lebenswelt for us intellectual snobs.
But then Scruton divides the lifeworld into two. There is the Order of the Covenant, of which the best known is the covenant between God and the Jews,
a binding agreement, in which God commands obedience only by putting himself under obligations toward those whom he commands.(p.78)
But then there is the Order of Creation, "another world beyond our daily negotiations." This is
another order, where being and nothingness, creation and destruction, wrestle together with no fixed result.(p.177)
This, says Scruton, is the world of sacrifice, of giving and forgiveness. In the Order of the Covenant, nobody has a right to forgiveness, only "to honor his obligations and receive his rights." But in the Order of Creation,
Forgiveness comes, when it comes, as a gift... It is a moment of mutual recognition, when who people lay down their resentment in an exchange of gifts.(p.182)
(Is this why women have such a culture of "gifting?")
Now comes the heavy stuff.
The experience of the sacred is the revelation, in the midst of everyday things, of another order, in which creation and destruction are the ruling principles. the great junctures of life are precisely those in which this order shines through, so that deals lose their meaning and vows come in their place.(p.183)
And so to the junctures, each in turn:
New life is a gift from the place where things are created and destroyed for no merely human reason. Birth is therefore marked by rituals of acceptance and gratitude...
Sexual love is the moment in which two people make a gift of themselves, and also prepare themselves for the sacrifices required by family and the love of children.
Death is the moment when the gift of life is surrendered and the funeral is the recognition in retrospect of the gift[.](p.183)
Community and its web of deals, its Order of the Covenant, cannot long endure without people making the gift of the sacrifice of themselves, in renouncing resentment and vengeance, and even making the ultimate gift, the sacrifice of life. Thus the need for rituals that extol the sanctity of sacrifice.
And in the end, God, the eternal question: "why?"
It is thrust upon us in those moments in extremis when the Order of Creation irrupts around us. It is then that we cry out to God -- who will tell us why we suffer, why we live, and why we die... In the faithful frame of mind we are aware that being is not simply a fact but also a gift, and aware that gifts have reasons. And the response of faith is to recognize that we too must give.(p.191)
And so, Scruton argues, we create a "space at the edge of reason, where faith can take root and grow."
Faith looks beyond nature, asking itself what is required of me by way of thanks for this gift.. It is open to God, and actively involved in the process of making room for him.(p.192)
And what does that mean, you ask?
It's a good question. I'll think about it.
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