Credulitas and The Way back to the Real

Originally Published In Classis
Volume XXXII, Issue 1

On any given day of the school year, one might walk into the average classroom of an Humanities course situated in the Rhetoric school and find students gathered around a text. Surely, there would be a teacher present, either at the front of the room, on a stool, addressing students from behind a podium, or seated with them around a table, asking questions about the text sotto voce. If the text were written before the seventeenth or eighteenth century—be it from the Golden Age of Greece or from Late Antiquity in Carthage or at the high noon of Renaissance Italy or at the evening of Dark Age Britain—then the author of that text almost certainly shares an epistemology which the students reading do not. This is revealed quickly, especially when the text is the historical record of an ancient Greek or medieval monk.

Consider an account in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. In Book 2, Bede the Venerable recounts the conversion of King Eabald. The story is told almost in passing—a small vignette in the larger drama of the gospel going forth among the pagan Anglo-Saxons. But Britania has proven a hard field to plow. In Chapter VI, Laurentius, a rather exasperated bishop and fellow missionary, is frustrated with the uncouth barbarians. He is about to give up and quit England for good. Before leaving and following Mellitus and Justus back to Rome, Laurentius sleeps in the Church of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. That night he is visited by St. Peter in a dream.

“In the dead of night,” Bede tells us, “the blessed prince of the apostles appeared to him, and scourging him a long time with apostolical severity, asked of him, ‘Why he would forsake the flock which he had committed to him? Or to what shepherds he would commit Christ’s sheep that were in the midst of wolves?’” Peter continues to rebuke Laurentius, leaving the stripes on his back to remind him of his oath to shepherd the flock. Immediately after he wakes up, Larentius does what any medieval bishop would do next. He presents his wounds from St. Peter’s chastisement to King Eabald, who, being a wise pagan, does not doubt the story but was instead “much frightened when he heard that the bishop had suffered so much at the hands of the apostle of Christ for his salvation.” Thus, the culture was transformed by the virtue of credulity: “Then,” writes Bede, “abjuring the worship of idols, and renouncing his unlawful marriage, [King Eabald] embraced the faith of Christ, and being baptized, promoted the affairs of the church to the utmost of his power.”

A glorious story. In fact, Bede includes in his record the many miracles which took place in the conversion of Britain. This raises a few questions: What is the role of a proper historian? Does he record only those things that a materialist would accept? Or does he record even the mysterious things he cannot explain? In my experience, students seem convinced of the former. What interests students more than the conversion of a pagan kingdom is whether any of the miracles actually happened. They might ask, “Did that thing about Laurentius getting flogged in his sleep really happen?” Or, “Was it true that St. Alban’s beheading caused a miraculous spring to flow from the ground?” It may even be that the teacher approaches the text with similar suspicion, and if we are honest with ourselves, such questions immediately come to mind when we read such things. Whenever I have encountered skepticism in my students, convincing them otherwise—that miracles, dragons, fairies, and ghosts are real—is an experience not unlike an exorcism. Students do not ask such questions out of joy but out of skepticism. They often want teachers to comfort them with safe answers that affirm their jaded disbelief in even the possibility of such accounts.

What interests students more than the conversion of a pagan kingdom is whether any of the miracles actually happened.

Some students might possibly reach for a psychoanalytic explanation of things, that St. Peter was really a projection of Laurentius’s own guilt or something along those lines. But this is tenuous, and most students maintain a default reluctance to accept any record that sounds too fantastical. Keep in mind that these students come from Christian families. They grow up reading in Scripture the unambiguous accounts of angels and demons and—if they pay any attention to pre-World War II translations of the Bible—monsters and dragons and satyrs (and so on). They read in the Book of Acts how Paul’s handkerchief, like some kind of talisman, mysteriously becomes a relic to heal the infirmities of those who touch it. And yet, upon hearing similar claims in other texts, these 15-year-old students are suddenly transformed into 55-year-old materialists, looking at events reported from the past with a sideways glance, their squinted eyes jaundiced with incredulity. 

And in the end it may be sufficient for students to give a mild assent to the plausibility of Bede’s account. This may be enough for the seed of learning to flourish. But we are not in the business of chronological snobbery. The goal for the instructor is not to make students believe in whatever fantastical claim comes from old books simply on the basis that it is old. The goal for classical educators is to preserve the small candle of possibility that the winds of modern skepticism would otherwise blow out. Whether it is Bede’s account of Laurentius or Herodotus’s camel-killing ants, Plato’s Atlantis, or Monmouth’s Arthur, the point is not to state, “This could not happen,” but to ask, “Why couldn’t this happen?”   

The Discarded Intellectual Virtue

Old books are not easily thrown down. They bear the weight of glory. As the reader interprets this kind of text, the text interprets the reader. What does this mean? For one thing, it means that if we read books that come before the seventeenth century, we should not be surprised when a kind of functional atheism is revealed. But materialism is neither Christian nor classical. This disposition constitutes a poor study of history. The most important parts of history, G. K. Chesterton argued, are the strange, the mysterious, the miraculous elements that often go overlooked by the modern historian, who looks to physical causes as the more authentic and authoritative explanation. 

The goal for the instructor is not to make students believe in whatever fantastical claim comes from old books simply on the basis that it is old. The goal for classical educators is to preserve the small candle of possibility that the winds of modern skepticism would otherwise blow out.

For instance, the modern historian might find the legends of Arthur, however charming they might sound, to be silly and dubious historical evidence. Instead, “The nineteenth-century historians went on the curious principle of dismissing all people of whom tales are told and concentrating upon people of whom nothing is told.” But while modern progressives fuss over whether “legend” can be validated as historically reliable, Chesterton argues that “credulity is certainly much more sane than incredulity.” It is nothing more than common sense. “That fictitious stories are told about a person is, nine times out of ten, extremely good evidence that there was somebody to tell them about.” A “thoughtless skepticism” is the only other alternative. “I do not understand,” says Chesterton, “the attitude which holds that there was an Ark and a man named Noah, but cannot believe in the existence of Noah’s Ark.” 

It may be easy to blame modern historians who seek to diminish or debunk the almost fairytale-like events on which the course of history often turns. But students and teachers in classical Christian schools are functionally not much different. Perhaps the greatest threat to handing on a classical Christian paideia is the besetting sin of our secular world: incredulity. For those who can no longer wonder at a God who can break into the cosmos in such a way as to allow for St. Alban’s executioner to miraculously fall dead, the ability to learn is lost. The student is not benefited by his incredulity. The student is in no way advantaged by his skepticism. Faith is the basis of knowledge. How can a student gain knowledge if he does not first believe? 

In The Discarded Image, C. S. Lewis makes this point almost in passing. Credulity, he argues, must come first. It is an idea of massive consequence and one that is not only the byproduct of an older Christian worldview. In a passage dealing with Plato’s Timaeus, Lewis comments on the way in which Plato enjoins his readers to accept the claims of past authors, which seems to mark a classical standard for “reception” of a text. The context for this passage is about the “God who created the gods,” and all the genealogies of the gods that follow. Plato writes, 

We must accept what was said about them by our ancestors who, according to their own account, were actually their descendants. Surely they must have been well informed about their own progenitors! And who could disbelieve the children of gods?’

Lewis takes this opportunity to hammer the point home. “By telling us to believe our forebears,” writes Lewis, “Plato is reminding us that credulitas must precede all instruction.” If we have human virtues and theological virtues, then credulitas is what we might call an educational or intellectual virtue. This does not mean that the student mustn’t learn to ask questions. Rather, it means that the student must learn to ask the right questions. Instead of asking, “Is that story real?” Students would do better to ask themselves, “Why should such a story not be real?” Why couldn’t St. Peter scourge a faltering bishop in the middle of his sleep? For all their sins, men in the ancient and medieval periods seemed to possess a more believing posture of the heart and mind, which allowed them to learn, imagine, and create. 

Perhaps the greatest threat to handing on a classical Christian paideia is the besetting sin of our secular world: incredulity. For those who can no longer wonder at a God who can break into the cosmos in such a way as to allow for St. Alban’s executioner to miraculously fall dead, the ability to learn is lost

On Being Taken In

Owen Barfield once remarked on what he called C. S. Lewis’s great “presence of mind,” that “somehow what he thought about everything was secretly present in what he said about anything.” Alan Jacobs believes Barfield’s observation was rooted in something deeper: “that Lewis’s mind was above all characterized by a willingness to be enchanted and that it was this openness to enchantment that held together the various strands of his life.” It is no surprise, then, that Lewis seems to defend credulitas in narrative form as well, particularly upon initiation into the land of Narnia. When Peter and Susan first hear of Lucy’s experience in that country, they do not believe her. Professor Digory Kirke later reproaches them for their incredulity, for their small and cramped vision of the world, and for their illogical disbelief in their sister’s report. Similarly, Eustace must also learn to see the universe with new eyes. Ramandu admonishes Eustance that even in his “real” world, stars are more than the mere composition of collected flaming gas. There is a difference here: on the one hand, we have an analytic knowledge that is limited by our attention to only physical things; on the other, we have wonder, which is open and calibrated rightly enough to behold those things beyond our most immediate senses. 

But what if Lucy were deceived? What if she were wrong about the wardrobe? We moderns are terribly afraid of being “taken in” by anything that could be untrue. We would rather play the part of cool-headed Theseus, “I never may believe these antique fables, nor these fairy toys.”  Skepticism might sound wise and knowing and perfectly fitting for the Christian since it is our duty to care about the truth. But Christians educating in the modern world face a different problem. We are not in danger of too readily believing in what Michael S. Heiser calls “The Unseen Realm.” Whether a supernatural reality exists is an incoherent inquiry. To be Christian necessarily means one accepts and believes in a Reality that comprises “all things visible and invisible.” Where we ought to aim our skepticism instead is at the atheistic fables of materialism and the cunning myths of Marx, which are far more corrosive than the old pagan myths. In the modern stories, the gods are dead, and the world beyond a lie. The modern stories tell us that man was not made in God’s image “a little lower than the angels” yet “crowned with glory and honor” but that “his grandfather was a chimpanzee and his father a wild man of the woods, caught by hunters and tamed into something like intelligence.” The Museum of Natural History in Washington, D. C. is a monument to this effect, complete with the epic hymnody of Australopithecus and Cro-Magnon man.

Note, credulity is present in any case. It is the old “not whether but which” situation: which account of the world is closer to Reality, the modern skeptic or the medieval mystic? An unfair choice, perhaps, but it does raise questions about the orientation of our epistemology: Upon what foundation does our understanding rest? What do we really want to believe about the world? Chesterton puts it this way: 

The fierce poet of the Middle Ages wrote, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” over the gates of the lower world. The emancipated poets of today have written it over the gates of this world. But if we are to understand the story that follows, we must erase that apocalyptic writing, if only for an hour. We must recreate the faith of our fathers, if only as an artistic atmosphere. If, then, you are a pessimist, in reading this story, forego for a little the pleasures of pessimism. Dream for one mad moment that the grass is green. Unlearn that sinister learning that you think so clear; deny that deadly knowledge that you think you know. Surrender the very flower of your culture; give up the very jewel of your pride; abandon hopelessness, all ye who enter here.

It would seem credulity requires not only a charitable epistemology but some amount of courage as well. It is easier to be a skeptic, and it is often preferable to the prospect of being made a gullible fool. Chesterton reminds us, “His soul will never starve for exploits or excitements who is wise enough to be made a fool of.” Consider how a bit of marshwigglian wisdom can allay the fear of being “taken in” by stories of a cosmos haunted by the numinous and stalked by the Transcendent.  

 There is a difference here: on the one hand, we have an analytic knowledge that is limited by our attention to only physical things; on the other, we have wonder, which is open and calibrated rightly enough to behold those things beyond our most immediate senses.

Towards the climax of The Silver Chair, Puddleglum summons up the courage to break the spell of the Witch, who has told them that there is no outside world—no sun, no moon, and nothing called “Overland”: 

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass

and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world that licks your real-world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can, even if there isn’t any Narnia.

Behold the stubborn credulitas of Puddleglum. Although it may make some uncomfortable, Lewis gives us a daring model of how credulity is a kind of talisman against philosophical naturalism, a spell that still hangs in the air of modern life like a fog. 

As for the fear of being taken in, keep in mind the warning of stricter judgment comes against those who deceive rather than against those who believe. There perhaps are worse things than being bamboozled. In his chapter on “Pickwick” in Charles Dickens, Chesterton defends even the gullible, arguing that the believing man is the one who gets the most out of life. The credulous are those who possess that “god-like gullibility, which is the key to all adventures.” For those who avoid being “taken in,” however, to them is given the reward of a dull life. But “To be taken in everywhere,” writes Chesterton, “is to see the inside of everything. It is the hospitality of circumstance. With torches and trumpets, like a guest, the greenhorn is taken in by Life. And the skeptic is cast out by it.”

The Higher Naiveté 

Consider a final application of this principle for classical educators. In a lecture on the Dark Ages of Greece, former Yale professor Donald Kagan surveys the ways in which the “critical” schools of the eighteenth century affected a significant change in the epistemological attitude towards the past:

[I]f you look at people, say an Englishman writing about Ancient Greece in the late eighteenth century, they tell the story of the early days based upon the legends as though the legends were reliable information to some degree. When you get to say the middle of the nineteenth century and the work of the great English historian of Ancient Greece, George Grote, he begins his story in 776 with the Olympic Games. He does tell you all about the legends first, but he puts them aside and says they’re just legends—now let’s talk history, and he doesn’t begin that until the eighth century B.C. And so there is this critical school that says, “I won’t believe anything unless it is proven to me.” At the other extreme, there’s me, the most gullible historian imaginable. My principle is this. I believe anything written in ancient Latin or Greek unless I can’t. Now, things that prevent me from believing what I read are that they are internally contradictory, or what they say is impossible, or different ones contradict each other, and they can’t both be right. So, in those cases I abandon the ancient evidence. Otherwise, you’ve got to convince me that they’re not true.

Note how Kagan does not shy away from playing the “gullible” historian but wears it almost as a badge of honor. And to make his points further he cites the case study of Heinrich Schliemann and his discovery of ancient Troy.  

Schliemann, the then unlearned businessman, did not merely believe in Homer as the single poet behind The Iliad and The Odyssey. He also believed in the gods and in the events of the Homeric epics, and at a time when the academic world relegated such things to the fictions of deluded poets or to the clever tricks of national sophistry. Almost no scholar at the time took Schliemann’s claims seriously. Then he found Troy, along with Helen’s jewelry and the death “Mask of Agamemnon.” Although Kagan tempers his view of Schliemann’s discoveries, he nevertheless admits that it has forced him to arrive at an epistemological position he calls the “Higher Naiveté.” We come to the Higher Naiveté by a combination of two virtues: serious study and scholastic humility. Kagan explains:

Now, you might think of this as, indeed, gullible. … I like to claim this approach, the position of scholarship, which we call the higher naiveté. The way this works is, that you start out, you don’t know anything, and you’re naïve. You believe everything. Next, you get a college education and you don’t believe anything, and then you reach the level of wisdom, the higher naiveté, and you know what to believe even though you can’t prove it. … I’m a practitioner of the higher naiveté. So, I think the way to deal with legends is to regard them as different from essentially sophisticated historical statements, but as possibly deriving from facts, which have obviously been distorted and misunderstood, misused, and so on. But it would be reckless, it seems to me, to just put them aside and not ask yourself the question, ‘Can there be something believable at the root of this?” 

The “Higher Naiveté” is but the seed of full-fledged belief. Here Kagan puts skepticism in its proper place, and thus, the full revolution of modern learning has been achieved. To borrow Chesterton’s mighty image in Orthodoxy, the student goes out in search of giants in his primary education; in college, however, he is told giants don’t exist; later, he finds at the return of his long scholarly pilgrimage that he was living on the grandest of all giants the entire time. But how much better to simply begin with the educational virtue of credulitas, and not end with it? It seems that modern people are doomed to rediscover as true and good and beautiful those things that were told to us in the nursery. 

God has made the world, and Solomon tells us that He has made it with glorious matters hidden and “concealed” within. God has also made mankind with the expectation that he will, as a king, “search out a matter.” We might even say that man is given the burden and blessing of searching out matter itself for the truth behind the physical appearance. In this sense, the example of Henry Schliemann offers a fitting object lesson for all classical educators: learning is a kind of treasure hunt. Classical Christian education is an excavation of the past, a labor that begins not with skepticism but with credulity. For the claims of the past will necessarily collide with the claims of the modern mind. And so our task as classical educators in the modern world is to suspend our disbelief—to, as Chesterton says, “Unlearn that sinister learning that you think so clear; deny that deadly knowledge that you think you know.” 

Notes