The purpose of this section is to identify the factors that brought Western culture from piety to secularism. With an increasing leisured class that could read, the influence of the men of letters, in particular the French philosophes, had an increasing impact on culture in Europe, notably in the Enlightenment period of the 18th century. The intelligentsia led the flight from piety to secularism because of three historical trends:
All of these trends can be examined from our ideas on jnani and the other distinctions made here.
We have no desire to dwell on what was an unfortunate episode in human history, but the understanding of the Inquisition is vital in understanding how the secular world took shape. The Inquisition took many forms in different countries, but its duration, from 1231 to 1834, effectively lasts from the end of the Middle Ages well into the Enlightenment. The beginning of the Inquisition was marked by the brutal repression of the Cathars or Albigensians in the thirteenth century. This was a popular Christian sect that held Manichaean views, and its adherence to poverty, vegetarianism, and the belief in reincarnation were a threat to the Catholic Church. Its views on poverty were in themselves not heretical, but were promoted in combination with a criticism of the Church for its worldliness and corruption.
In the 15th century the Spanish Inquisition gained authority from the Roman Catholic Church to deal with Jews and conversos (Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism, as in the case of Spinoza's parents), and, along with its chief inquisitor, Thomas de Torquemada, came to symbolise the worst of religious persecution. Although its horrors were later exaggerated by the Protestants, it is believed that during Torquemada's tenure some 2,000 so-called heretics were burned alive.
The influence of Inquisitorial persecutions on the fabric of society should not be underestimated, with suspicion and denunciation an ever-present reality. It is a destructive human capacity that can emerge at any time in history and in any place, and has nothing to do with religion in the first instance. For example, an understandable revulsion against paedophiles in England in the year 2000 erupted in a form of mass-hysteria with the beating and intimidation of both genuine paedophiles and quite innocent victims, including a doctor whose house was vandalised because vigilantes had mistaken the word 'paediatrician' for 'paedophile'. Likewise Nazi persecutions had a secular basis, and we understand that life under Stalin fostered a regime of suspicion and denunciation for the Russian people that was not unlike the Inquisitorial purges. But the effect of the Spanish Inquisition, and all the religious persecutions of the Christian era, was to inextricably link religion with intolerance based on spurious notions of heresy. Queen Isabella of Spain first favoured the Jews for their contribution to the state, but then persecuted them for reasons not dissimilar to Hitler. Such a move always received a measure of popular support if its victims are wealthy and "different." Religious differences in the post-medieval climate were sufficient cause for state-sponsored torture, murder, and the confiscation of property.
But beyond the inevitable political, or one could say tribal, aspects of religious persecution there lies a deeper tragedy, which is that the most spiritually gifted of individuals are the most likely to be denounced. Even within closed religious orders, human nature being what it is, jealousy exists when one person sees to have made more "progress" than another, or is favoured by a spiritual teacher. We can see this across the world, and Buddhism is no exception either. Spiritual gifts are varied as we have pointed out, and in particular the display of those gifts we have termed occult or esoteric, and which led to accusations of witchcraft, could bring swift vengeance. The fact that so many women were mutilated or killed as a result is one of the most shameful aspects of this period of Western history. If we were to adopt Jung's concept of a collective unconscious, without necessarily giving this theory the full weight of psychoanalytical credence, then we can suggest that the secular mind still bears the pain of these wounds and reacts from them.
To be hurt in the most sensitive areas of one's being, whether sexual, romantic, or spiritual, is to produce irrational hostilities and exaggerated responses to situations which are no longer threatening, as any psychoanalyst will know, and this is undoubtedly a quality of the secular mind as it struggled to assert itself. But we can also learn something constructive about the spiritual life from the long and tragic episode of the Inquisition and other religious persecutions in Europe. Where the spiritual life is seen as a kind of progression, with attainments along the way and even an ultimate attainment such as "enlightenment," it will foster jealousy and the potential for the concept of heresy and eventually persecution. Hence, if we are to learn from history, we need to avoid the presentation of the spiritual life in terms of achievement, a point we shall return to later.
We have several times mentioned Scholasticism as an early outlet for the jnani impulse in Christianity. In an intensely devotional context the jnani type with the typical mind-orientation of enquiry and will was permitted a range of intellectual pursuits which had as their goal the greater glory of God. Hence one of the stranger products of Christianity during this period, the arguments that represented "proofs" of the existence of God, the chief one of which is known as the "argument from design". These have had a great impact on the perception of religion down to this day, but, on closer examination are something of an absurdity. For the bhakti a "proof" of God is unnecessary, as we have seen. For the bhaktis God is "proved" as much by his presence, which bring about the tears and ecstasies of love, as by his absence, which is almost as sweet, causing the love-struck devotee a pain so real and overwhelming that any question of logical proof would be absurd. For the jnani the concept of God is not really needed in the first place. In addition we find that the Schoolmen have few intellectual sources to draw on, these being mainly Aristotle and Augustine. If Plato is an adumbration of the jnani genius of Socrates, then Aristotle doubly so. What Aristotle brings of course is the embryo of a scientific outlook, but the Schoolmen, despite many close shaves, did not quite stumble across the basis of the scientific method. This was to come much later.
Scholasticism reached a peak with Aquinas, or a dead-end as many came to think in later periods. Although it was invaluable in reconstructing some of the works of ancient Greece and in developing the methods of scholarly research, and perhaps in honing the intellectual tools of the age it lacked one essential element: experience. It could not become a vibrant jnani tradition because the central experience of jnani was effectively unknown to it, and it could not become a fledgling science because the central activity of science, observation, was unknown to it. By divorcing itself largely from experience of either the inner world or the outer world Scholasticism demonstrated the aridity of a purely intellectual process.
It was in the Renaissance that a new confidence in man's relation to Nature took place, and an enquiry began that was based in observation. At the same time the great writings of Neoplatonism, including Plotinus, were rediscovered and translated into Latin. If Scholasticism had Aristotle at its root, then the Renaissance ideals had Plato at their root, and, coming closer to a genuinely jnani religious thinking, actually posed the greater threat to the Church. The influx of a broader Hellenistic literature allowed the development of modes of thinking that lay outside Catholic orthodoxy, and became known as Humanism, which in turn developed into the Reformation. Many of the seeds of the secular revolution were laid in the Renaissance, but we can see this in a slightly different light. In Marcilio Ficino's Florentine Academy a vigorous Neoplatonism sprang up, and with it the possibility of a genuinely jnani context for the spiritual life. Ficino was himself a priest, and attempted a synthesis of Neoplatonism with Christianity that had a lasting influence in Europe.
But the Renaissance holds an interesting tension for us, in that it faced in two direction: the Hellenistic past, and a Humanistic future. This can be epitomised in the jnani interests of two of its greatest artists, Leonardo da Vinci and Michaelangelo. While Michaelangelo was attracted to the Platonic Academy in Florentine, and its pursuit of the Greek thinkers including Plato and Plotinus, Leonardo rejected the ancients in favour of a revitalised empiricism. In his notebooks we have the earliest argument for a faith in observation as the way to unlock Nature's secrets and to understand the place of the self in the world. It is no accident that he was an artist, because it is the artist who looks at the world in an analytical way, continuously challenging the assumptions of the mind. Leonardo could not yet be called a scientist however because, although he had the right instinct about the empirical (and this was in contradiction of the Greek outlook), he did not have the mathematical basis or rigorous methods of measurement.
The influx of Hellenistic thinking into the Christian world of the Renaissance began the pressure on the Catholic Church as sole arbiter of orthodoxy. But even without outside pressures the structure of the Church had the seeds of its decay sprouting in the masonry; a quite natural corruption through wealth and power that unchallenged dominion brings. This had been criticised by the Albigensians in the 13th century, but by the 16th century had become blatant and intolerable. One crucial issue, the purchase of indulgencies which gave sinners so-called absolution and lined the pockets of the clergy, became the wedge that split the Church open. A revolt against the Catholic church by Martin Luther and John Calvin led to a new form of Christianity, Protestantism, which became a rival of such magnitude that, after a period of nearly one and a half thousand years, there became two Christian authorities instead of one.
This might have little implication for the eventual rise of secularism were it not for an important dynamic in the schism: literalism. In seeking to challenge the authority of the Church Luther and Calvin gave priority to the text of the bible as the source of doctrine. The Catholic church had for centuries been able to develop a range of interpretations of the biblical texts, many of which which were creative and a valuable progression of spiritual understanding. This process naturally shaped the bible, in terms of what was included and excluded, and the way that terms were translated. By taking a literal interpretation of a document intimately shaped by Roman Catholicism, the Protestants missed an opportunity for fresh spiritual thinking, one that might have incorporated the humanistic jnani outlook of the Renaissance. Part of this literalism was of course to reinforce the anthropomorphic image of God, instead of loosening this image with the metaphors of Plotinus for example.
Hence this turning point in the history of Christianity had little in it to provide an outlet for the jnani temperament. If anything the Reformation and the Roman Catholic response made it harder for the jnani to find a language for a non-devotional spirituality; neither was the new literalism conducive to a revived form of Scholasticism. Instead a new venture had begun that absorbed those of intellect: science.
Both Plato and Heraclitus criticised Pythagoras for 'research', that is for examining and measuring the natural world, and despite the Greek understanding of logic and mathematics, its anti-empirical bias prevented a proper science arising. Scholasticism had neither the freedom of scope nor the basic insight into the empirical method to create a real science, and it is not until Leonardo da Vinci that we have the first articulation of the scientific method. But it was Galileo, who, almost single-handed, created the basis for modern science.
The proper understanding of science takes some training, but is worthwhile for the spiritual aspirant because it contains within it attitudes and understandings that can help in the spiritual life. In itself scientific knowledge changes nothing about the spiritual however, and we only have to walk with the Buddha for a while to see that his eternal truths are untouched by the so-called "progress" of science. But there are parallels between science and the jnani path which are instructive, the chief of which is the sense of an open-ended enquiry, and the humility to accept the results of that enquiry, however unpalatable. The exhortation "know thyself" sums up this approach.
It is no surprise then that the jnani instincts of half of the Western population, so far repressed or tightly channelled by the Church, suddenly found a new outlet. This is pure speculation of course, but although science had many opportunities to take root in the jnani East, it never did, and perhaps it was the enormous suppressed and collective jnani energies of the West that allowed for its sudden explosion across Europe. The founders of Western science were all religious men, and would have probably been dismayed by the eventual rise of "scientism" if we can use that term to describe the belief that the scientific method, as exemplified in physics, has an application and remit over all of human experience. Spinoza warns explicitly that this approach, starting in the material world, constructs theories incompatible with a knowledge of the divine, and hence leads to its denial.
Amongst the more spiritual of the late 20th century and early 21st century scientists there is a trend to see quantum theory, relativity and chaos theory as re-affirming spiritual values in man, but the arguments are rarely convincing for the hard-nosed reductionists, because of the very point that Spinoza made. Nevertheless there is no doubt that entry into the spiritual life can come through an exploration of science, particularly the "new" sciences just mentioned. Einstein's notebooks show us that he was sympathetic to the God of Spinoza, while otherwise sceptical of the anthropomorphic God, showing again a resonance between science and jnani.
Religious persecution, epitomised by the Inquisition, but widespread in other forms and appearing for example in Spinoza's expulsion from his Jewish community, gradually became associated with faith and piety. Voltaire for example thought that the "four happy ages" were those of Plato, of Cicero and Caesar, of the Renaissance, and of the Enlightenment in which time he wrote. The "ages of belief" in contrast were dismal and backward. And, the inevitable conclusion came: they were Christian.
We can see another dynamic in this of course, that the intelligentsia of the 18th century were naturally of a jnani disposition. This is not to say that the bhakti is not intelligent, and in the long run we might be able to say that it is possibly a higher and more felicitous intelligence. But it is not so inclined to learning, and in the new era learning acquired a new status, and a revived energy after the stultified failures of Scholasticism. While the bhakti puts faith and piety ahead of all other considerations, and in Europe this means of course Christian faith and piety, a jnani, once an association is made between piety and persecution, is more likely to reject the whole structure. It was a long process however, but two factors made it more inevitable. Firstly, as we have mentioned, a more literal interpretation of the Bible that was now required made for a more rigidly anthropomorphic God, a religious straitjacket for the jnani that became more intolerable. Secondly, an increasingly scientific account of the world made the personal God of the Reformation implausible on other counts. If scientific understanding was beginning to challenge some of the "facts" of the Bible, what of the rest of it? In an age where a more fluid thinking was possible about "God" (and we must remember that the Judaic "God" had been quite a new concept to most of Europe in the time of Plotinus for example), then Scripture could be understood in a more metaphorical way, as hinting at divine truths. This was no longer possible.
The jnani / bhakti distinction helps us understand the dynamics of Catholic power in another way. Even though, as we explored earlier, there is every possibility that Jesus was more jnani than bhakti, we found that at every turn Christianity attempted to eliminate the non-devotional character of the religion. Very simply, a devotional orientation easily accepts the notion of obedience, and a transference of devotion from God, through Jesus, ever downwards through the Church hierarchy. We know that in the spiritual life devotion to the spiritual teacher is a simple and natural response, but in the context of religious persecution this can be exploited. The jnani temperament as we have seen is more inclined to enquiry and doubt, and to the path of will rather than surrender.
The contradictions of the Enlightenment are subtle however. Where the Catholic church had led the intensely via negativa medieval mind into a tentative via positiva with Scholasticism, and had encouraged the beginnings of science, its reaction to the Reformation was a retreat into the same literalism that the Protestants urged, and Catholicism was forced to see scientific innovations as a parallel threat to its domination of thought and culture. It was ironical then that the scientific and industrial revolutions flourished in the Protestant countries of the North, and it was this contradiction between Protestant literalism and scientific progress that gave impetus to secularism. Despite the plain-living ideals of the Protestants there was a via positiva character about the industrial revolution, its politics, and its literature.
