Description

Paganism is rooted in experiential understanding and pluralism as opposed to logic, objective truth, and authority. At face value, these seem like pleasant ideas, but as Lao Tzu says, “the truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.” I will discuss the two general frameworks for spiritual discernment and critique the pagan method.

Two Frameworks

If you ask a classical theist why they believe in God, they’re usually going to propose God as the solution to concrete, universally recognizable logical concerns, like the origin and sustenance of the universe. We can see a quick example in Thomas Aquinas’ “second way.” He argues there are simultaneous causal regressions: you are caused by your organs, they are caused by cells, they are caused by molecules, and so on. But if every step of the regression relied on another step, then nothing would have causal power at all. A TV plugged into an infinite series of power strips would never turn on. So caused-causers must terminate in an uncaused-causer, and he goes on to prove this must be God. Classical theists take a similar approach to religious doctrine, appealing to historical evidence of some divine authority communicating particular beliefs to the absolute exclusion of contradictory beliefs.

What about pagans? Generally pagans will not attempt to justify their spiritual systems by appealing to objective fact-finding and authority, but intuition, experience, and tradition; that is, the “spiritual sense” takes priority and then logic supports it, not the other way around. This is why pagans are usually pantheists (God is the universe), panentheists (the universe is part of God), dualists (dual opposing forces), or polytheists (a court of gods) despite none of these having anywhere near the explanatory power and evidential weight Aquinas’ transcendental God does. This same thought process applies to doctrines. It’s not as if a notable contingent of infants are discussing taxes fresh out of the womb such that we need to appeal to reincarnation to explain it, or that rocks regularly start talking such that we need to appeal to animism; rather, these are proposed on spiritual bases and supported logically post-hoc.

This approach leads pagans into what I call “radical pluralism.” Gandhi demonstrated this mindset when responding to a question about his religious affiliation with, “Yes, [I am a Hindu]. I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.” On the one hand, radical pluralism sounds uncontroversial – don’t bother each other with dogmas, live and live let live. But there is a real tension here, because radical pluralism is a dogma. Paganism defends itself from Abrahamic proselytization not with evidence and fact-finding – a game it could never win – but with system-level opposition. When the Christian missionary appears promising the truth, the pagan does not respond with syllogisms, but essentially with the dogmatic assertion that there’s more to life than truth. The difference between pagans and classical theists is not facts, but paradigms. So, let us discuss the pagan paradigm.

Radical Pluralism

“The essence of… these Christians who talk of men ruling this world, must stop and be put back in its proper proportion. Man is nothing special; he is but a part of this world. Man must once again look with deep reverence into this world. Then he will acquire the right sense of proportion about what is above us, about how we are woven into this cycle.” This is not a quote from a shaman, a Hindu priest, nor a monk. It’s a quote from neopagan Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Holocaust. The pagan heritage includes a long history of ritual prostitution, human sacrifice, infanticide, and ritual torture. You may purport that we have civilized beyond these things, that we can dabble in pagan practices without repeating these mistakes. But I think the Reichsführer’s comment (and actions) shed light on the fact that human nature hasn’t changed.

Is it so difficult to understand the prevalence of human sacrifice among cultures which did not hold man in special regard, made in the very image of God with inalienable dignity, but which considered him merely a part of nature? Under this paradigm, is it so big a leap to go from hunting animals for sport to slaughtering infants to appease invented gods? Or to justify gassing perceived net-negative-contributors to Aryan society? Is it difficult to understand how this attitude could lead to inhumane social structures like the caste system, or influence Indian widows to voluntarily undergo Sati, ritual immolation upon the deaths of their husbands? Now, my point is not that paganism is bad because it’s going to inevitably lead to another Holocaust. My point is that paganism is defenseless against and often encourages the sort of spiritual bankruptcy that inspired the Holocaust.

Indeed, behind the veil of inoffensive inclusivity, paganism hides a deep spiritual poverty. Standing against another armed with the truth is a greater act of love than standing beside them in their error. There’s an old story about General Charles Napier, commander of British forces in India, encountering some Hindu priests complaining about the illegalization of Sati. They accused him of interfering with their cultural practices, to which he replied, “Be it so. The burning of widows is your custom… but my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive, we hang them. Let us all act according to national customs.” Though I do not wish to glorify imperialism, I certainly wish to glorify Napier’s actions. Imperialist or not, in that moment he loved the Hindu widows with a greater love than their own priestly countrymen.

Now, if you too believe that Napier’s words were justified, you must ask yourself why. He was an invader, he overrode the pagan religious structure and likely even the consent of many widows. That doesn’t seem to reflect a radically pluralistic, “spiritual sense” oriented mindset. It seems to reflect a mindset which is logical, uncompromising, and grounded in Christian moral values. If you yourself are a pagan and find yourself willing to accept this mindset in this instance, don’t feel alone. India affirmed the ban on Sati after achieving independence, and this decision certainly didn’t find its roots in 3,000 years of orthodox Hindu tradition. It found its roots in western influence, animated by logic and Christian values.

Now, I certainly don’t mean to suggest that every Christian in history was morally impeccable. But classical theists operate within a shared, logical framework where questions can be posed and answered. If Christians disagree, its like physicists arguing about competing theories. But if pagans disagree, its like two people arguing over whose favorite color is better. The difference is one of principle. And pagans recognize this. Gandhi the Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Buddhist-Jew was more than happy to make use of objective reasoning to argue against Sati! But this being the case, I must ask why we would ever subordinate logic to radical pluralism? What sense does it make to appeal to classical logical frameworks to answer solemn moral questions like the impermissibility of Sati, and then turn around and appeal to spiritual intuition to justify the spirituality which defines their life?

As a final note: I suspect some pagans may respond by saying their spiritual practices don’t define their lives. They’re part-time pagans, their habits are harmless hobbies. They aren’t letting their spirituality go too far, they’re just having a little fun with astrology, divinization, or chakra work. But even this judgment of the gravity of occult practices is just another spiritual assertion. By what metric is one supposed to judge whether a certain spiritual act is harmless, dangerous, or beneficial? According to the three Abrahamic religions, occult practices are not harmless, but are “abominable” affronts to God (Tanakh, New Testament, Quran) and cooperation with evil spirits (Tanakh, New Testament, Quran).

Conclusion

Having the wrong ideas about life is dangerous. Paganism appears uncontroversial and enlightened: live and let live, believe what makes you happy. But in reality, paganism encourages the groundless imposition of personal intuitions onto a world which may well not reflect them. Believing things which just aren’t so is the definition of insanity, and assigning transcendental value to unsubstantiated claims is a recipe for disaster, as we see from history. We should approach divinity with the same solemnity we would approach a widow in mortal danger. This means applying logic to search for truth, wherever it may lead, regardless of our own predilections. This means rejecting assertions based on spiritual intuition and subjective experience. And this of course means rejecting paganism.