Man in Search of Himself

A Religious "Sense"

In the whole history of man, in all parts of our planet, there has been no more central axis around which human history has revolved than this axis of religion or religions. In this history, religion has — paradoxically — appeared as the motive force behind both the lowest and the most cruel, as well as the most exalted and generous, facts of human existence.

There is no doubt that our age has shown signs of a certain regression of the religious sense, for which we shall shortly seek to discover the reasons. But if this phenomenon is rightly understood, it will surely be seen as a simple pause before religion resumes — perhaps in a somewhat 'modernised' form — the important place it has always occupied in human thought and action.

Perhaps its is possible for us to see at once some of the reasons behind this constant importance of religion for men.

Nature and Survival

The continual struggle of man with his external environment comes in to reinforce this concept, for in the course of this struggle man encounters grief, frustration, stress, injustice; and the consolation for his troubles that he sought as a small child from his mother, he seeks as an adult from a being other than himself, the symbol of all maternal perfection, whom he calls God.

Then there is the great desire for survival, for continued existence, the fruit of that instinct for self-preservation belonging to all that is alive. Man generally refuses to look upon himself as a mere cog in a machine, a speck of dust in the cosmos, living a fleeting moment and then gone forever, without leaving any perceptible traces behind him. The thought that the Universe could go on without him is almost always intolerable to a human being. And so he looks to satisfy this longing for eternity in the promises usually given him by religious dogma.

But is religion based upon no more than this? The reasons just enumerated have no doubt played a very important part; but surely religion cannot be nothing but fear, consolation for the sorrows of earthly life, and desire for eternity. Could religion ever have reached the heights it has if based only upon foundations as low and anthropomorphic as these?

I do not think so. And I should like to take up and deepen the analysis of the concept of religion, raising the discussion to two levels that are above the simple association of the religious sense with these superficial human tendencies. We shall look first at the level of the unconscious self, making use of the findings of psychoanalysis, some aspects of which we touched on in the previous chapter; and secondly, at the level of our knowledge of the cosmos as a whole, which we owe to physics and astronomy.

The Unconscious Self

In actual fact, psychoanalysis shows us that things are not as simple as this; and Schopenhauer's remark: "Man can do what he likes, but cannot will what he likes", must be taken seriously.

As we have seen, all that is 'expressed' by man (whether in word or in action) — what we shall call human language — consists of 'giving birth to' archetypes belonging to the whole of man's past (by translating them into symbols which will fit into a logical structure of thought). These archetypes run right through the living world, down to the level of matter itself. A sentiment like that of religion, which exercises such control over human language, is therefore also an expression of those evolutionary archetypes. Man cannot avoid the religious archetype; he is not free to refuse it, he cannot choose to refuse it, at least on the unconscious level, where the archetypes converge; but man can easily fall into the disorders studies by psychoanalysis, whether through a blockage in the archetypes — when society fails to offer the individual a symbolisation of this archetype which the conscious self feels able to integrate; or through the opposite procedure — a symbolic imbalance, when the religious sentiment so dominates the conscious self that it affects its whole functioning.

The Religious Archetype

There can be no doubt that religion is connected with what we have called a Universal archetype, i.e., an archetype that does not simple concern the living being but embraces the whole Universe and therefore includes equally what might be called the 'vectors' of evolution. We have already stressed that this kind of archetype draws not only upon man's past, because it represents the indissoluble link between each point in the Universe and all the rest; it also draws upon the future of man. The physicists say that such an archetype is perfectly possible when they tell us that the Universe is in fact a space-time continuum in which past, present, and future exist in one block, each point being coextensive with this block.

However this may be, there exists in the unconscious of each of us, in potential form and with greater or less intensity, this particular archetype which gives us a certain power to stand back from the Universe and allows us to trace the great arteries of evolution. At the same time, it makes us aware of the solidarity that exists between ourselves and the whole cosmos.

This is the real foundation for the religious sentiment. It is this Universal archetype, passing (when possible) from the unconscious to the conscious, which will give us the faith that we belong to the whole Universe 'in our very depths'; and the faith that there is a higher Order guiding the whole course of evolution, and man with it, towards a goal which is that of the whole of Nature.

But, in the final analysis, what can the Universe 'ask' of man?

Just this: to express, by bringing them into consciousness, these evolutionary archetypes, whether they are of the Universal kind — like the one that has reference to religion — or simply the archetypes of life, concerned with the interaction between life and its exterior environment.

This is in fact what man has been doing through the whole course of his existence. It could even be maintained that the Universe exists for man only insofar as he is able to express these fundamental archetypes by means of language (whether in word or in action). This thought gives true significance to the words of the Bible: "In the beginning was the Word": for the word, or language, has in very truth conceived all that exists, since it has been responsible for translating these archetypes into language.

Moreover, this is where the notion of man's liberty crops up again, in spite of the 'oneness' of the evolutionary archetypes. For there are at bottom two absolutely distinct levels: the level of the archetypes, incapable of being directly expressed in any language; and then the level of 'expressible' things, that is to say, language, the level of the symbols that translate the archetypes and fit into a logical structure with an axiomatic base. It is man who builds this language, all that is known about the Universe, by comparing his sensory data with the evolutionary archetypes. It is, however, possible to express these archetypes in several languages, so that man does remain free on the plane of language, free to choose how he builds up the universe of which he is aware; but he still remains bound on the deeper level of his unconscious self. In other words, he is free to express the evolutionary archetypes in different ways; but he will never succeed in expressing anything else but these same evolutionary archetypes.

The universe then runs its course through time rather as a river runs down from the mountains. There are a whole variety of possible courses for the river: it can choose between idling along, or dashing down precipitous slopes; but it is bound to go on flowing down, and its final destination will always be the same, namely the plains and, ultimately, the ocean.

In the same way, the known universe will be what men have made it; but on the deepest level, man will never succeed in making it anything but what Nature as a whole intends.

And so the religious sentiment is there as a witness to a Universal evolutionary archetype; and since man's vocation is to express all the archetypes which converge upon himself, he must also express the archetype of religion.

Religious Rites

Some will say — especially in this 'scientific' age — that they are well aware of the sound basis on which the religious concept rests; but that they nevertheless consider all the concerns and rites of religion — baptism, communion, sacramental marriage, the Mass, prayer, and so on — devoid of meaning (or superseded by our scientific knowledge).

Well, let us ponder the meaning of these religious rites in the context of the preceding analysis. They are there in order to express the archetype of religion, to 'bring it to birth' by translating it through symbols into a definite language. What would be thought of a man who claimed to be musical but who played no instrument and refused to listen to any kind of music? Art is also a language; it too translates an evolutionary archetype — as we shall see in the next chapter. And just as art demands that anyone calling himself an artist should use the language of art, so there can be no true religion without the use of some religious language. It must not be forgotten that evolution requires just this of man — that he should build the universe by translating into language the great archetypes that pervade the unconscious self of each one of us.

A different problem, which we shall also discuss, is concerned with 'bringing to light' the rites of religion in a way that will enable them to fit harmoniously into the conscious structure of modern man. But merely to suppress these symbols would be to abolish an important part of man's vocation, which is to express a universal archetype in an appropriate language.

A Religious Vocation?

This type of question can be answered as follows. It is a complete misconception of the monastic life to think that it is excessively dominated by the religious sentiment. True, this does play a tremendously important part in it, but its devotees nevertheless live a life from which everyday cares and duties are by no means excluded. Like ourselves, they have to eat, balance their budget according to their means, and live a social life in the restricted society they have chosen to form. Anyone who makes contact with those who have given themselves completely to the religious life is struck by the fact that for them, as for us, there is the same sense of time being short; they never dream of not using to the full their allotted span upon Earth on the excuse that they have all eternity before them. To them, too, life appears only too short for all they feel called to do — for prayer, for meditation, for entering more deeply into their true selves. This links up perfectly with what we were saying just now, that Nature demands of man that he should somehow express by means of symbols this universal archetype of religion.

All this is true enough — it will be said — but what use to other people is a single person's prayer? Has a man the right to live his life without giving more effective help to society? What good can a single person's meditations do to humanity, in the solitude of a monastery, unheard and unseen by anyone, and generally not even by his brothers in the Order?

Here too, such questions surely betray a much too narrow view of this vast problem. Who would venture to assert that the prayers even of a person cut off from society are not worth while on the scale of the cosmos as a whole, on the level of evolution in its entirety (if not on the circumscribed level of humanity at any particular moment)? Surely it is in the mystical experience of these solitaries that Nature is seeking and experimenting with new mechanisms of thought for perfecting the translation of the religious archetype into conscious symbols, trying in short to make it easier for man as a species to understand what evolution requires of him.

Even on a lower plane, surely society ought to encourage this attempt on the part of some of its members to enter more deeply into themselves. As long as man is using part of his energy to encourage others in their efforts to set man against man (for example, in research for more lethal weapons), it is surely highly desirable that there should at the same time exist a handful of living creatures devoting their whole lives to considering the true vocation of man.

At any rate, this is what I myself believe; and I shall be prepared to call these apparent excesses of the religious sentiment a symbolic imbalance only when these excesses weigh as heavily on the conscience of humanity as the smallest of those many anti-humanitarian imbalances so lightly tolerated, it would seem, in our present society.

Religious Imbalance

As long as the wealth of knowledge gained by man about the external world had not as yet come to structure his conscious self, man was indeed perfectly open to the emergence of the religious archetype into his conscious symbolism. In Nature, which was as yet very imperfectly understood by him, there was everything to encourage him in his feeling of being part of a cosmic evolution on which he was powerless to exercise any effect. In primitive people, as in children, there is still this direct and sensitive contact between man and Nature; and the primitive man and the child are both very ready to express this contact in the language of prayer and religious rite. What is more, this language will fulfil a real need for it will represent the natural exteriorisation of an archetype at the unconscious level.

But in the earliest forms of thought in human society, this religious language was indissociable from another language interpreting the living, an archetype shared by man with the animals who were his forerunners. This is the archetype of life that guides man to act as effectively as possible to ensure his own survival.

Thus the first efforts of religious language consisted of inventing rites to 'conciliate' Nature in order to preserve the life of man. In this association with the instinct of self-preservation, religion tended to become the standard-bearer in man's struggle against his external environment; and the environment to be battled against has often been his fellowman, so that religion was often invoked as the support (and sometimes even the justification) for barbarism, persecution, intolerance, and war.

However, a better knowledge of the external world then went to work directly to structure the conscious thought-mechanisms of man. The problem of religion was also affected by this extra knowledge but, as it were, 'at the other end'. Instead of seeking direct communication with Nature through his unconscious self, man now sought it through the channel of his senses.

With the advance of science, man's knowledge suddenly began to increase very rapidly over the last 100 years. This has had a twofold effect on the religious sentiment. In the first place, it has had a beneficial result. It has made it quite clear that religion is not intended to enable man to adapt himself more successfully to his external environment (a tendency derived from the instinct of self-preservation connected with life), but to seek through the most intimate possible communion with Nature the way that has been assigned by her to man in the whole evolutionary process.

The other effect was to render almost the whole of religious language totally unfit as a vehicle for the new discoveries of science. With the scholar, this unfitness was less obvious, for he would often of his own accord replace the religious symbols by a symbolism borrowed from his knowledge of the universe; but with the ordinary man, the lack of correspondence between religious symbolism and his everyday life as ordered by science often produced what we earlier called an archetypal blockage. The unconscious archetype of religion could no longer manage to come through into man's consciousness through lack of an appropriate symbolism. We have already pointed out the importance of this lack, which prevents man from realising the part of his vocation that consists of 'giving birth' to the universal archetype of religion.

How then could the symbolism of religion be more perfectly adapted to fit our present knowledge of the Universe?

Scientific Symbolism

But first we must ask what kind of question we are to put to contemporary science in order to throw light upon the problem of religion.

It will be remembered that in chapter 3 we came to distrust several of the questions we had put to ourselves. In particular, we saw that a question should be put only if it is stated at the same time to what language it is being addressed. If this precaution is not taken, there is a grave risk — seeing the breadth of the problem we are approaching — that we shall merely revolve in a vicious circle of the type 'Which came first, the hen or the egg?'. We should naturally like to avoid reducing the problem to this naοve level on which there is no possible solution.

We now know — and we have stressed the fact many times in the foregoing pages — that one must first agree on a language, and then proceed to ask questions which can be answered in this same language. We saw, for example, that Relativity represents the Universe in terms of a symbolic language, and enables us to visualise this Universe as a whole, in space and time, as the surface of a sphere. We noted that it was not possible (or, more accurately, that it was meaningless) to ask of this language the question: 'What is there inside (or outside) this sphere?', since this language laid it down that the whole Universe was constituted by this surface alone. The question of 'what is inside' is itself taken from a particular language, but not from the symbolic language of Relativity; it belongs rather to the language or what is known through the senses. One cannot and must not put a question in one language and expect an answer in another.

We will not hark back to this fundamental point, but will simply remind ourselves of it. Our conclusion, as we have just said, is that we must first agree on the language, and then put the questions.

Religion is concerned with the evolution of the Universe in space and time, and particularly with its 'creation' and its 'end'; we must therefore choose a language capable of embracing the whole Universe in space and time.

In that case, present-day science does not overwhelm us with alternatives! There is only one language capable of treating the Universe as a whole in space and time — the language of General Relativity mentioned above. It is a symbolic language: that is to say, it sets before us images (geometrical images) whose meaning is perfectly clear, but which we must not try to visualise by means of our sense-data, as though they represented 'known' situations. Thus in the symbolic language of Relativity, matter is always represented as 'form' (in particular, as waves), whilst the language of the known presents matter as corpuscles.

Having made this clear, we can go on to see that religion would suggest that our first question should concern the form of the Universe as a whole in space and time, in order to see whether this form can tell us something about the creation of the Universe.

Relativity allows us to visualise the whole Universe as the surface of a sphere (see Fig. 2) on which the meridians represent the passing of time and the parallels represent spatial extension at any given moment. At the present moment, for example, all the galaxies G₁, G₂, G₃ are situated on the same parallel on the sphere. As time passes, this parallel moves from P₁ towards P₂, so that each galaxy describes a trajectory through the Universe as represented on the sphere by a meridian. All the meridians converge at P₁, the 'origin' of time; they all meet again at P₂, this time in the future, which we may call 'the end of time'. Our Earth belongs to one of these galaxies (the Milky Way), so that it too describes a meridian on the sphere. The span of time separating the present moment from the starting-point of time at P₁ is — according to the latest calculations — of the order of ten thousand million years. The radius of this schematic sphere is, moreover, not less than ten thousand million light-years (a light-year being about ten million million kilometres).

Alongside this purely geometrical description, Relativity places a physical one. At the point of origin of time, around P₁, space was originally very small, and was filled with a material substance of extreme density, about a hundred million million times denser than water. It was also at a very high temperature (something like a million million degrees). Given such a temperature, it would not seem illogical to imagine that everything then existed in the form of radiation (which throws a new light on the biblical account where light makes its appearance on the first day of creation).

Starting from this beginning at P₁, the Universe 'exploded' through an expansion in all directions in space, as is clear from the diagram, where the parallel representing space is seen to extend in radius as time goes on and as it gets further away from P₁. This expansion produced a very rapid cooling, and it was in the course of this earliest phase of the first expansion that all the different material elements known today must have been produced. [The physicist G Gamow, who has specialised in this problem, calculates that all the elements could even have been formed in the first half-hour of this expansion! — JC] This gigantic cloud of expanding elements would then have fragmented into a multitude of smaller pieces constituting the galaxies in their primitive state, the protogalaxies. Within each of these, the gravitational forces would have tended to make the elements group into spherical masses, and the contraction of these masses would have led to a great rise in temperature, thus producing the brilliant stars we see shining in the heart of each galaxy. Their temperature was then maintained at this level by continual thermonuclear fusion reactions taking place spontaneously in the densest and hottest parts of these stars. Lastly, each star was from the moment of its conception surrounded by an extensive cloud of dust, which must with the help of cooling and gravitational forces have condensed in the course of time into a certain number of planets. It was on these that the phenomenon of life was first launched; and at last man as we know him today made his appearance.

This, then, is in very brief and simplified form the picture presented to us by present-day science of the past history of our Universe. [I have also treated this problem of the creation of the Universe in more detail in another book, Du temps, de l'espace et des hommes, ed. Du Seuil, 1962, and I shall only allude to it summarily at this point. — JC]

As far as the future of the Universe is concerned, and subject to the reservations set out below, the enclosed spherical models put forward by General Relativity suggest that there will be some kind of evolution symmetrical with the past. The Universe will extend (or expand) to a maximum spatial volume (the equator on the diagrammatic sphere), and will then enter upon a phase of contraction, with a lessening of the radius of space. Finally, the galaxies will all merge into one again, their density and temperature will once more increase until they reach enormous proportions (as at the beginning) when they approach the final state symbolised by the pole P₂.

It is important to note that this 'model' of the Universe provided by General Relativity is the outcome of essentially theoretical considerations; but our present experimental knowledge offers full confirmation of its suggestions. Thus it can be calculated by a number of methods that the physical processes still evolving in Nature (such as radioactivity, the age of the rocks, the age of the oceans and of the Sun, etc.), certainly seem to have had a common origin in time, going back some thousands of millions of years in the past. Moreover, it is well known today that our Universe appears to the astronomers to be continually expanding, and all the galaxies appear to be receding at enormous speeds. [For this problem of the expansion of the Universe, see: Du temps, de l'espace et des hommes, op. cit. — JC]

"Before" Time

To give an answer, we must first try to understand this question in the symbolic language of General Relativity. We must understand that the question suggests we should travel up one of the meridians (e.g. the one described by the Earth) and make for the pole P₁ where time began, and then go on and see what is happening.

Well, it is quite clear in the symbolism of our relativist language. If we act like this, going towards P₁ by travelling back in time we shall, if we continue to follow the same meridian, pass the point P1 and shall then go on down time; that is to say, after passing P₁ we shall be moving from the past into the future.

In other words, the question and the answer to it are not in the least mysterious in the symbolic language we are using. Everything happens just as it does on Earth when we travel north towards the Pole. It is possible to continue beyond the North Pole, but we shall then be heading south. In the case of the Universe, to go beyond the origin of time is to travel into the future. This model of the Universe therefore leaves no doubt about the answer to the question: What was there before time began?

It may perhaps be argued that this is not an answer in the sense in which the question was intended. This is perfectly true, but there is at present no language in existence capable of answering it in the sense intended. We are therefore obliged to choose the language worked out by man for talking scientifically about the whole Universe, and then to confine ourselves to questions in terms of this same language. Any attempt to do anything else will be futile: it will only lead us into the blind alley of 'which came first, the hen or the egg?'

Let there be no mistake, however: this does not mean that science may not in the end construct another language for describing the Universe in its entirety — in which case we could try to put our question in a different way in terms of this new language. We shall return to this point.

The Problem of Creation

This point is even more delicate than the previous one, and it demands the closest attention. As we have already emphasised several times, we do not in fact know in an absolute manner what the Universe is; all we know are the 'cross-sections' we make by means of language (taking the word in the widest sense, as in the preceding chapters). We receive information about this Universe through our senses or through the symbols that interpret the archetypes; but in both cases what we are aware of is a 'map', and not the 'territory' itself. The sense-data are only signals in our nervous systems, and not the absolute reality; the symbol is only the translation of the archetype, and not the archetype itself, which must remain impossible to express directly.

When we say 'the existing Universe', we ought rather to say 'the universe we are aware of'. As we have just seen, this universe is in the ultimate analysis nothing but language. In this connection, let us once again meditate upon this great saying of the Gospel to which we cannot return too often: "In the beginning was the Word". All our universe is born of the Word. What the Universe 'really' is cannot be described in any language; but it is certainly not nothing; it is exactly the opposite of nothing. Moreover, 'nothing' is by definition such that nothing can be said about it.

What the Universe 'really is' is a continuous reality in which each point is indissociable from every other one, so that an infinite number of relationships exists at every point. Language proceeds to take a cross-section, so transforming this infinity into a finite number of relationships; further, it orders all relationships with regard to one another and with regard to relationships at neighbouring points. This ordering is brought about on a basis of axioms (which are the postulates of language), and by reasoning in accordance with the logic of language.

That which 'is' is therefore not nothing, but what we might call Being, which is continuous and fills the whole Universe. It possesses all the possible particularities at every single point, and is therefore indescribable. All we can say is that the whole of our Universe, as far as it is known to us, is constituted by Being expressing itself through language.

Having said this, and fully realising that what the universe reveals to us is only the fruit of our language, can we validly go on to ask 'who' created this universe? Now doubt we have a right to put this question, but once again we shall be forced to answer it in a way that draws some delicate distinctions, and within the framework of our present knowledge. The human universe (the only one we are thinking about here) was created by human language. The notion of energy, or the principle of conservation of energy, is therefore quite foreign to the real problem of the Creation. The universe is in its essence not energy but Word. Nor can the question be expressed in a shape which seeks an answer to 'Who created Being?', for we have just seen that Being is not describable in its totality in any language, and can be known only by the partial expressions it assumes through the medium of human language.

Evolution and Liberty

How can the idea of this evolution generally held by religion be in any way illuminated by the findings which Relativity expresses like this in its own particular language? Surely there is something contrary to the very notion of human freedom (a freedom bound up with the whole idea of religion) in this apparently ineluctable evolution in which it seems that nothing could be altered from the 'beginning' to the 'end' of time, for the conditions have already been exactly defined.

It is important to be quite clear what General Relativity has to say on this subject, and not to impute to this theory something that forms no part of it. In the first place, the cosmological models produced by Relativity are only models representing 'the average'; that is to say, all the phenomena selected at a given moment of time are identical samples, in no way differentiated from one another. No claim can therefore be made to induce from these models any theory of strict subjection of local phenomena to a course of evolution that has already been laid down. These local phenomena may evolve quite freely, whilst the phenomena of the universe as a whole are nevertheless subject to very definite average variations.

Then, as we shall see in greater detail in a subsequent chapter on evolution, we are not so much concerned here with the evolution of the physical state (as described in average terms by Relativity), but rather with the evolution of the psychic state of the Universe. The physical state at a given point is a problem of the 'form' of the Universe at that point, which can be calculated by the geometrical formalism of Relativity; but the psychic state at a particular point is, as we shall see, a problem concerning all the possible relationships of this point with other points, and no cosmological models produced by Relativity can give us the answer, for this is a problem of topology (that is to say, the arrangement and relationships of points with regard to one another), rather than of simple geometry.

When we talk of freedom, then, we are of course thinking particularly of the psychic state of the Universe; and, as we have just seen, the possibility of such freedom for man and for the psychic evolution of the Universe is in no way contradicted by the rigid nature of the physical cosmological models conceived by General Relativity. Here too — and how could it be otherwise? — science is in no way opposed to the dogmas of religion.

Evolution and Liberty

In actual fact, religion seems to be mush less concerned to revise its language than to take stock of what this language means in precise terms. Let me explain.

Religion seeks its inspiration in the great evolutionary archetypes of the Universe. There are inexpressible in themselves: they must be translated into symbols in order to make them accessible to the conscious self. And so the language of religion is necessarily symbolic.

Now, how is a symbolic language composed? We have already studied this problem in (chapter 3), and need only recall our findings. It is done by using images borrowed from the Known (i.e., the direct data provided by our senses), to build up interlinked pictures (i.e., situations) which will not necessarily correspond to the Known, although they will still have an exact meaning. We instanced the dream, which also constitutes a symbolic language. If I dream of a man flying through the air simply by stretching out his arms, I can perfectly easily imagine the situation in a waking state, but it has no correspondence with the Known; in this sense, the language of dreams remains symbolic.

Religion proceeds in the same way. Whenever it deals with the great religious themes, its language is necessarily symbolic; and the advance required of religion in the coming years is to be convinced that it is in no way a matter of attempting to translate the situations put forward in this symbolic language into situations in the Known.

Modern science offers us a splendid example of the difficulties encountered unless there is a full awareness of the kind of language that is being used. General Relativity, and the undulatory point of view of the Quantum Theory, are both symbolic languages describing the reality that underlies our sensory experience, that is, the Known. These languages describe the universe, and in particular matter, by means of certain 'forms' of a space-time continuum, and never do the situations set out in these languages occur in the Known, where matter appears in the corpuscular aspect, that is, with an individuality which creates discontinuity in the external environment.

Let us take as an example one of the cardinal religious themes of Catholicism, the appearance of man upon Earth. The traditional story is that God first of all created two individuals, Adam and Eve.

Well, as science has discovered more and more about man, it has been revealed by palaeontology in the course of the last few decades that this sudden appearance of man in the shape of only two individuals is totally unacceptable on the scientific plane. There was a slow and gradual preparation for man through all the animal history that preceded him; and at last a 'thinking animal' appeared almost simultaneously at a number of points on our planet. The word 'simultaneously' must be understood in the context of the time-scale in which we are operating here, the 'instant' being of the order of about a thousand years.

If the question is looked at without regard to the languages used, there arises an apparent contradiction between science and religion. But if care is taken to note that science, and more particularly palaeontology, expresses the Known, whereas religion uses a symbolic language, the contradiction disappears.

All the same — it may be said — what is the good of religion putting forward the myth of Adam and Eve if it does not correspond to anything that can be known?

Who would be so bold as to claim that it does not correspond to anything? It is simply that religion describes the universe on a different level, and a deeper level, which also underlies the Known. For this language about Adam and Eve is a perfect embodiment for the human spirit, in symbolic form, of the invention matured by Nature in the course of the ages — the perfection of the thinking mechanism. True, thinking creatures did not appear in the form of only two individuals at one particular point on Earth; but their appearance cannot be accounted for solely in terms of modern palaeontology. We are today more than ever confronted with, for example, the problem of the appearance of life, including thinking beings, on all the planets in the Universe. Surely it is on this broader plane, the plane of the cosmos as a whole, that religion takes its stand, and attempts to embrace in one single picture, using the symbols of Adam and Eve, the birth of the thinking apparatus on all the planets of our Universe.

Believe me, we must pay the greatest attention to this symbolic religious language. Religion is a kind of universal science seen 'from within' the human being; and this introspection never gives us false information. But the information is expressed in a symbolic language which can rarely be translated directly into the language of factual knowledge. Science too has created a symbolic language (that of General Relativity); but it has been careful to see that a precise and unequivocal correspondence should be maintained between it and the language of the Known. Science is thus a description of the universe, because it is always based in the last resort on the Known, and preceeds by way of man's 'exterior'. But the Universe is one, and this is why science can never be in contradiction to the description given by religion, which looks at the universe 'from the inside'. On the contrary, it may be said that science and religion hold out a hand to one another across one single and more complete body of knowledge about the Universe as soon as there is a full realisation of the different types of language used to express this knowledge in either case. Religion takes a wider and more profound view (in space and time); but its vision is less clear-cut. Science takes a more detailed and more precise view — it is more interpersonal; but its view is also more superficial, for its field of vision is limited by the sensory capacities of man. Here then we have two different 'cross-sections' through our knowledge of Nature; they are therefore complementary, and can never be opposed to one another.

We have just seen that religious language is essentially symbolic; and by taking the example of Adam and Eve we have shown how it was possible to translate this symbolism into the terms of the Known, with due regard to our present-day scientific knowledge. Adam and Eve stand for the 'invention' of Being expressing itself throughout the realm of Nature by means of a new complex structure — the thinking structure.

But it must equally be recognised that this language cannot always be translated into the terms of the Known (the experience of the senses) that works out the first language (historically speaking); the language of symbolism (general Relativity, for example) comes in only as a sort of improvement in the language of the Known. In science, there is always a perfect knowledge of the correspondence between the symbolic and the Known. Religion, on the other hand, does not set out from the Known but from the real underlying the Known, and proceeds to build up a directly symbolic language; and there can be no certainty of an immediate equivalence between the language of the Known and that of religious symbolism. To start with, this translation is only provisional in character, since it rests upon our scientific knowledge of the moment, which is always shifting. In a simpler way still, religion can sometimes reach such a deep level that there is no possibility of expressing it in terms of the Known.

Life After Death

But then — it may be objected — this untranslatable symbolic language is completely gratuitous: what guarantee is there that it has any meaning at all?

To take this line would be to forget once again that religious language did not arise out of nothing. It seeks its inspiration in the universal archetypes which embrace both past and future; and it is this vision of the future that authorises religious symbolism to express in a valid manner the prospect for man as viewed from beyond death.

To be sure, it would be tempting to reply with the unbeliever that it is above all the archetype embodying the instinct of self-preservation, an archetype that man shares with the animals, which makes him prefer to forecast that he will survive death. But once again, this interpretation forgets that it is in fact only attempting to translate into the language of the Known what religion sets out in symbolic language; and when we are considering the position of man beyond death, this symbolism is simply untranslatable in terms of the Known. Religion (at least when it is properly understood as a symbolic language) in no way promises survival as a prolongation of what we know as human life (which might perhaps be the outcome of the instinct for self-preservation); the survival promised by religion is a symbolic picture, to be accepted as such, without attempting to see what it corresponds to in terms of the Known. This is what the true believer of tomorrow will be asked to believe; and for the man of true vision, there could be no fairer horizon to life than this.

God

Here, too, it is important not to forget that 'God' is a word belonging to the language of symbolism. It expresses 'that which is' even before the structuration by means of language which we have discussed so fully in the preceding pages. God exists before the Word (that is, language); or — to put it more precisely — God underlies the Word: God is what we have called Being, as opposed to nothingness. In this sense, 'God' is a word that cannot be translated directly into terms of the Known. Even if we say that God is past, present, and future, we express this fundamental concept incorrectly, because we cannot help giving these words 'past', 'present', and 'future' meanings that relate to known situations.

For each one of us, death is the disappearance of the Word, that is to say, the return to 'what is', the return to Being, the final return to God. The whole universe of which we are aware and which we have seen to be the fruit of our language, appears as the expression of God through the Word.

God then is essentially a symbol. It is perhaps this broad symbolic aspect of the word 'God' that needs re-assessing at the present time. For religion has too often incorporated the word 'God' in the language of the Known as though it were a word belonging to that language. Then an attempt has been made to represent God as an individual: an all-powerful individual, no doubt, exalted far above the problems of our universe, presiding over its destinies, ultimately Himself incorporated in the whole of this universe; but none the less an individual. Well, modern science leaves little room for such a notion within the language of the Known (which is the ordinary language of humanity). For we have seen that the universe can be described by means of 'models' as being a whole, and somehow self-sufficient. The idea of the creation of the Universe no longer even appears to be necessary.

Well then, what basis remains for the idea of God as an individual? One cannot say that God 'is' the whole, that is, the entire Universe, for this interpretation immediately invites the question: 'Then who created the whole, that is, God?' No; further reflection will show that 'God' is perfectly at home in our present ways of thought, and is in fact more and more necessary for them; but He must be accepted as a symbol standing for Being, that is to say, for an entity that is completely untranslatable into the terms of the Known. It would seem, then, that religion should never try to bring the word 'God' back within the Known, for this word is no longer at home in language of this kind. Then the sense of God, that is, of Being, which is so indispensable to man (who is one of the expressions of Being), often remains blocked in contemporary people in the rudimentary state of an unconscious archetype. As we explained in chapter 5, psychosomatic disturbances may well arise from such a blockage in the archetypes.

General Conclusions

In due course, man began to look outside himself. At the same time that he was discovering the vastness of his Universe, and because of its immensity and complexity, he wanted to organise his knowledge according to exact and rational methods. Above all, he wanted to make observation — that is to say, the Known — the fundamental criterion for every scientific idea. But when man's vision became sufficiently acute, Nature, as though in a mirror, showed him the reflection of himself, and he realised that what he saw was indissociable from man himself.

Human language, more especially when considered in its essentials, is seen not as a structure moulded on Nature in order to make it possible to describe Nature, but rather as the true mould which creates all that man is aware of in Nature. The idea of Being inevitably underlying this language is forced upon the mind of the enquirer. Religion, which is a search for contact with Being, then appears in its true light; and far from being hindered in its expression by the development of science — as a narrow scientism or rationalism might have led us momentarily to suppose — religion now proceeds to take its fundamental place in the preoccupations of mankind, thanks to our new knowledge of the world and of man, that is, thanks to science.

Religion, growing thus in strength, is also growing in unity as it gathers round our scientific knowledge. For as soon as the fact has come home to us that religion is expressed in a symbolic language, there is no longer any difficulty in admitting that there are several possible religious languages for reaching out after the one Being. These languages, being symbolic, do not in fact describe any known situation; there is therefore no call to discuss whether a particular language is the true one, or preferable to another language. All these languages are intended only to allow each man to translate the Universal archetype of religion into symbols which his consciousness can assimilate. A particular individual, educated in a certain way and living in a particular country and kind of society, whose mental outlook is moulded by his social environment and personal physical characteristics, will never be able to translate this religious archetype into other than this or that particular language, with its accompanying beliefs, rites, etc. Another will see things in a completely different light; for him, the religious archetype will need a completely different symbolic language if it is to become conscious. Why not simply accept all these religious languages as different expressions of the same Being, different cross-sections of this Being expressed through the Word?

Has anyone ever thought of discussing the relative values of physics, chemistry, and biology as means of gaining knowledge about Nature? Surely it is clear that here too it is only a question of different cross-sections of the same Nature — cross-sections that are, moreover, complementary to one another? Any objectively minded person will nowadays recognise in the same way, behind the apparent disparity of the various languages of religion, a broad and deep unity in the idea of religion, an idea which is ready to burst into new life and power and is more necessary than ever to mankind.

In the past, man reached out to his external environment in order to gain greater knowledge of it and try to find its unity. But today he has become aware that his external world is inseparable from his interior world, and that in the days to come he must, through religion, seek an equally unitary knowledge of the Being which is the source of every Word.

Through religion ... and perhaps also through art. This takes us forward to a new and important landmark on the road of human knowledge.