MARK LILLA is Professor of Humanities at the distinguished Columbia University, New York. He came to attention within theology with his wide-ranging study The Stillborn God: Religion, politics, and the modern West (2007). After 9/11, it challenged the idea that secular, but pluralistic, political theories could successfully oppose religiously inspired political theologies (themselves, as he admits, highly pluralist). Critics at the time recognised his obvious erudition, but found his style too meandering and inconclusive and his overall argument difficult to detect. Judging from his latest book, little has changed.
He jumps constantly from Plato to Freud, Greek mythology to the Bible, and Augustine to Pascal, mixed with psychology and personal experience. If there is an overall theme to the book, it is that it attempts to show that too much knowledge or information can be dangerous, and that ignorance and/or withholding knowledge is sometimes important. He points out, for example, that frankly telling those we love exactly what we think of them and of their appearance is not a good way of sustaining love. But, surely, we didn’t require a Columbia professor to tell us that (although perhaps some academics could do with this advice).
Rather deeper is his fascinating take on Job’s late declaration: “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” How much this sounds like lovers’ quarrels we have all had, with an outburst of pique, followed by self-abnegation! Job repents in dust and ashes, ashamed of himself and his curiosity.
And here is his sweeping assessment of Paul and Protestant Christianity: “One only has to list some of Paul’s theological principles to recognize their affinity with the degraded politics of our time: the equality of all believers, justification by faith, blessed ignorance, the pointlessness of learning, the sanctity of inspiration, secret wisdom, the unassailability of inner conviction. . . It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Was there every a more dangerous theological position concocted for spiritual tyrants?”
He points, with some justice, to science-deniers and to recent far-Right politics, not least in the United States (he remains on the Left himself, albeit with important reservations). Pauline scholars, however, may not be quite so convinced.
Disarmingly, in a brief conclusion (actually, he terms it an “envoi”), he refers to his book as “these rambles”. He does “ramble” and so does the great Charles Taylor (whom he never mentions, even in endnotes), but he brings erudition to his rambles, as, of course, does Taylor.
If you wish to spend your time wisely, I suggest that you struggle with Taylor rather than with Lilla. Both have insights, but Taylor’s are much more theologically profound. Lilla does make frequent references to the Bible (which is surprising for a secular political philosopher). His comments on the Bible (and occasionally the Qur’an) can be clever, but are seldom referenced to recent biblical or Muslim scholarship. Flitting across disciplines, without supplying full references, is bound to annoy scholars in any one of these disciplines.
Sadly, for me at least, this is a book that will not linger long on my shelves or in my mind.
Canon Robin Gill, now retired, edited Theology for the past 12 years and was Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology at the University of Kent 1992-2011.
Ignorance and Bliss: On wanting not to know
Mark Lilla
Hurst £18.99
(978-1-911723-52-3)
Church Times Bookshop £17.09