Weekly Quote: Arnold on God and Literature

The word 'God' is used in most cases as by no means a term of science or exact knowledge, but a term of poetry and eloquence, a term thrown out, so to speak, as a not fully grasped object of the speaker's consciousness — a literary term, in short; and mankind mean different things by it as their consciousness differs.
- Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma. (1873)

One argument used by many to try and make a case for believing in the objective existence of a real god is to ask if one believes in “love.” After all, we can’t see or hear or touch “love,” therefore it is unreasonable to expect to hear, see, or touch “god” in order to believe in that as well. Those using it imagine that it is a very clever and witty point being made when, in fact, it’s not only superficial but arguably damaging to their position. After all, if “god” exists like “love” and is nothing more than a sort of emotion that one experiences, their entire theology would fall apart.

Matthew Arnold isn’t making that argument, but he does raise similar issues and takes this idea much more seriously than those who typically make the case I describe above. Unlike such apologists, Arnold postulates that “God” really is a poetic or literary concept. Instead of being a real being who exists “out there,” somewhere, “God” is instead a sort of emotional or psychological state of the human mind.

It’s not uncommon for poets and authors to reify concepts such as Love, Hate, and Anxiety. Although treated as if they existed in the world beyond the human mind, in reality they are literary devices used to shed new light on the way the human mind works and how we react to one another or our environment. Abraham Cowley wrote in his poem The Change:

Love in her Sunny Eyes does basking play;
Love walks the pleasant Mazes of her Hair;
Love does on both her Lips for ever stray;
And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there.
In all her outward parts Love 's always seen;
But, oh, He never went within.

Did he really mean to say that “Love” as playing in the sun, walking through someone’s hair, etc.? Of course not. Here, Love is an object of Cowley’s consciousness — and probably not one that he would have been able to completely define, describe, or articulate. Poetry such as this is, arguably, the attempt of a poet to let others get a glimpse of what one means by terms such a Love and, at the same time, take another look at what they might think about it.

This is not to say that Matthew Arnold didn’t believe in a literal and objective God; he did, however, argue that the existence of such a God could not be verified and would not be intelligible to human beings. Primarily a poet and literary critic himself, Arnold argued for a more poetic understanding of religious dogmas, religious scriptures, and the existence of God. An agnostic who rejected orthodox Christianity, he still seemed to believe that some sort of acceptance of the Bible and Christian doctrines (even in a nontheistic context) would be good for the masses.

More Weekly Quotes: commentary and analysis each week on a different quotation dealing with philosophy, religion, and more.