03/29/2023 – Paul Ricoeur and the Second Naiveté

What is the second naiveté in understanding religion? Okay we’re going to step on some toes here and some of you might not like it. This might hurt a little bit, but stick with us. This is TenOnReligion.

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Okay, this idea is super important. In fact, it’s something that I see a lot of other popular academic YouTubers in religion don’t seem to understand. Or if they do understand it, they certainly don’t ever talk about it or focus on it. It’s about going beyond the purely critical stage of historical understanding to arrive at a point where religion can be meaningful again. Why do people always want to deconstruct and then stop there and abandon religion? Religion itself is not the failure. It’s one’s misunderstanding of what religion is which causes to trip up so many folks. So, let’s use the excellent example of Paul Ricoeur, a hermeneutical scholar in philosophy, to help explain this situation.

In one of his most well-known books, The Symbolism of Evil, originally published in French in 1960, Paul Ricoeur wrote, “Beyond the desert of criticism, we wish to be called again.” What is the “desert of criticism” and what does it mean to be “called again”? To answer these questions we have to explain three stages of understanding: the pre-critical, the critical, and the post-critical. Paul Ricoeur wrote in the context of Christianity, but perhaps this could be applied to many other traditions as well.

The pre-critical stage is understood as construction. The Bible is objective and realistic and much of what is real is supernatural. God created the world in seven days. God rescued Noah’s family in an ark from a great flood. Moses parted the Red Sea, and so on. The problem quickly sets in when one realizes that we don’t have the same understanding of the universe as the ancient writers did. They are recording and communicating their understanding of human experience with reality through the power of story including all of their motivations and biases. The first naiveté is accepting the story at face value within the context of our time. But our premodern relation to the sacred is obviously impossible. Why, you ask? Is this your understanding of the universe today? Of course it’s not. So, we move on to the next stage.

The critical stage is often understood as deconstruction. There is a huge distance chronologically between the time ancient sacred texts were composed and today. This temporal gap also implies other conceptual gaps, such as a cultural gap, different categories of thinking, different ways of understanding divinity and the universe. Various methods of criticism are then employed to not only expose these gaps, but then show how “primitive” they were and how “contemporary” we are. This includes things like textual and historical criticism, archaeology, cultural studies, and any number of other disciplines. We inquire into the causes for writing, what influenced the narrative, what agendas and biases are present, when was the text written, when was it further edited, and for what purpose did all of this take place? After all of this occurs, one realizes one is in the “desert of criticism” as Ricoeur terms it. What now? For some, faith ends in the desert of criticism. They no longer are able to see the point of it all. They remain in the critical stage using all of their effort and resources to “expose” religion by way of historical or textual criticism to try to convince people that religion is some kind of sham. Others return to the pre-critical stage because the human mind needs an understanding of ultimate reality to make sense. So, they return there and try to protect it. They set up a gate to keep wandering sheep from accidentally straying into the desert, describing it as sinful or inconsistent without realizing they are already both sinful and inconsistent themselves. Both of these methods leave both religion empty and leave the former believer empty. The only way to understand religion as living, is to go beyond the desert.

The post-critical stage is best understood as reconstruction and that is what Ricoeur calls the second naiveté. To truly enter the post-critical stage, one must accept the criticism but still continue on in the path of faith. One must come to a point of realization that texts functioning as symbols shows us what the world was like in a way that history or science cannot. Let’s explain. Religion has to do with faith, but faith *in* what? For a Christian, faith is in Christian beliefs. Christian beliefs are symbols. Symbols point to something that is other than themselves and are transparent. To illustrate, think of the difference between a sign and a symbol. Traffic lights are signs because they do not participate in the reality to which they point. The red light on a traffic signal points to the concept of stopping, but in actuality the color red has nothing to do with stopping. It is completely arbitrary and could be replaced with any other color, or any other thing for that matter. It is a sign which we have learned and all agree on the meaning. A symbol, on the other hand, is participatory. One uses the idea of a stain and the idea of cleaning. A stain can be understood more easily as a moral disorder and cleansing with water like spiritual purification because stains are really dirty and water really cleans. This is why they are symbols. Ricoeur described something to be a symbol when a direct, primary and literal meaning designates another meaning which is indirect, secondary and figurative, and which can be apprehended only through the first.

The catch is, symbols are transparent. One shouldn’t *see* the symbol, but *see through* the symbol in the same way that one doesn’t look *at* glasses but one looks *through* glasses. If one looks only at the symbol, it often loses its power. Creating the world in seven days, Noah and the ark, Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, etc. Our premodern relation (i.e., first naiveté) to the sacred is impossible because we don’t understand the universe the same way as ancient biblical writers did. Only through interpretation can they be heard again. Restoration of meaning occurs through the interpretation of symbols. It is a creative solution which takes into account both the seriousness of the original hearers and readers as well as the desire to maintain a genuine faith in the heart of the present adherent.

Religions which look for something in the future are great examples of this, such as the coming of a future Messiah in Judaism, of the return of Christ in Christianity. Apocalyptic expectation arose from the painful experience of injustice and powerlessness in the face of evil and oppression. This occurred in contexts such as the Babylonian captivity in ancient Judaism, or the complicated relationship between Judaism and the Roman Empire during the Second Temple time period. Both used and repurposed older images such as Moses and Exodus narrative, or the suffering servant in Isaiah. The value of religion lies in its narratives to be continually kept alive by those in the present who find its themes connecting to their own lived context. What is the meaning of the story in the language of the story, and how can that be applied to our lives today? We shouldn’t stick our head in the sand like an ostrich and pretend that criticism doesn’t exist. Nor should we be critical and then label religion a bunch of nonsense. Mature religious adherents are post-critical, accepting and understanding the criticism while choosing to take the step beyond the criticism to find out what is truly meaningful in the story. As Ricoeur wrote, “Beyond the desert of criticism, we wish to be called again.”

So, what do you think about three stages of understanding religion? Are you willing to break through the critical stage to the post-critical stage and enter the second naiveté? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Until next time, stay curious. If you enjoyed this, support the channel in the link below, please like and share this video and subscribe to this channel. This is TenOnReligion.

“Beyond the desert of criticism, we wish to be called again.” The Symbolism of Evil, trans. Emerson Buchanan (Boston: Beacon, 1969) p. 349.