Monday, September 13, 2004
Does God exist: PBS special explores the eternal question
When you ponder the existence of God, perhaps you imagine an old man with a flowing beard or George Burns shuffling along in tennis shoes.
Or maybe you see a vast sea or a giant sequoia. Or, just maybe, you see nothing at all, because to you God does not exist.
In the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedy, more Americans have been questioning their spirituality. Some of the most popular programs on television in recent years have addressed the subject of religion and God. President George Bush has made no secret of the fact that he believes he is doing God's work in the White House.
For more than 30 years, Harvard professor Dr. Armand Nicholi has tickled the notion of God's existence in his course using the writings of C.S. Lewis ("Narnia'') and Sigmund Freud.
Starting this week on PBS, Nicholi anchors a show that mixes stories from the lives of Lewis and Freud with discussions by people of various faiths - and non-faiths. ``The Question of God'' debuts at 10 p.m. Wednesday on Channel 9 and concludes Sept. 22.
"It may be that Freud and Lewis represent conflicting parts of ourselves,'' Nicholi says. "Part of us yearns for a relationship with the source of all joy, hope and happiness, as described by Lewis. And yet there is another part that raises its fist in defiance and says with Freud, 'I will not surrender.'
"Whatever part we choose to express will determine our purpose, our identity and our whole philosophy of life.'' Catherine Tatge, director of "The Question of God'' says the four-hour series presents a unique dialogue between Freud the atheist and Lewis the believer.
"Through it we come to understand two very different ideas of human existence,'' Tatge says. "And where each of us falls as believers and unbelievers.''
As children, both Freud and Lewis embraced the religions of their respective families. But after the early death of his beloved mother and the horrors of World War I, Lewis turned to atheism.
It wasn't until middle age that he began entertaining the notion that God might, indeed, exist.
Raised in the Jewish faith, Freud welcomed the teachings of Darwin as a young university student and decided he had no use for the idea of a divine creator. As he began developing his own theories of psychoanalysis, he decided that believing in God was a human fantasy.
Both Freud and Lewis, who was raised a Christian, went through periods in their lives in which their beliefs wavered. Freud questioned his beliefs after the death of his daughter. Lewis experienced a spiritual crisis in his 50s after finding romance, only to have his happiness dashed with the untimely death of his wife.
Nicholi says everyone asks the same questions at some point in their lives:
* Does my life have meaning or purpose?
* Is there an intelligence beyond our knowable universe?
* Do we get our morality from God or the human experience?
* How do we justify the existence of a loving God with evil and suffering in the world?
* Is death extinction, or is it the beginning of a new existence?
"In my course and in our series, we try to make a distinction between religion, whatever that means, and all of the organizations that represent religions,'' Nicholi says. "You know, there are lots of people that have very strong spiritual convictions that are not involved in any kind of organization.''
These spiritual issues occupy our thoughts. We question our very existence at odd times, whether while sitting in Bay Area traffic or waking up from an anxiety-ridden sleep at 3 in the morning.
* Does my life have meaning?
* What is happiness?
* What is love?
Freud says it's all sublimated sexual feelings. Lewis says it's much more complicated than that.
In the series, we hear these men voicing their separate feelings on various issues. For example, they argue back and forth about loving our neighbor, as it says to do in various religous texts.
"Freud says, 'That doesn't make sense. It's nonsense,' '' Nicholi says. "My neighbor is often out to do me harm. Why should I love him like I love my family? That's nonsense.' ''
Lewis would counter "You understand (the concept) by how you love yourself. How do you love yourself? You love yourself by always willing the best for yourself and acting accordingly whether you feel like it or not. And that's the key to all successful relationships.''
It could be that recent world events have caused more of us to question whether God exists. Or it could be that we've always been curious, and it's just now that television has begun to explore the issue.
More than a decade ago, actress Roseanne Barr said in an interview that she intended to break the last taboo in television: talking about religion. It was the one thing television tended to ignore, even though it was the one thing most worth discussing.
That taboo has been slowly breaking down, with one of the last bastions being in the TV newsrooms. In a July interview, ABC anchor Peter Jennings talked about how difficult it was to get the first spiritual program, "The Search for Jesus,'' on the air in 1999.
"To be absolutely crass about it, after (the first program) did as well as it did, it was a good deal easier to get the second program on the air,'' Jennings says. "Ultimately, when we got the first Jesus on and then 'Jesus and Paul,' people saw that there was a hunger for it in the country.''
Michael Sullivan, executive producer of "A Question of God,'' says he has noticed a growing appetite for intelligent and provocative programming about religion and spirituality.
Programs such as "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero'' and this season's episode of "Frontline,'' about the implications of President Bush's faith on national policy, have drawn strong audience numbers.
In "A Question of God,'' audiences can listen to debates both from Lewis and Freud and hear from a panel of people representing a variety of religions, about believing in a higher being.
Or not.
It's all about starting the discussion about God.
So why did Nicholi chose two such seemingly disparate people as Lewis and Freud to have this discourse?
When Nicholi was a medical student he says he came across real suffering for the first time.
"You see children dying of fatal diseases and I was so bothered by that I couldn't process it,'' Nicholi says. "I had great difficulty. How could anyone in heaven or on earth allow this to happen?''
He then read Lewis' "The Problem of Pain,'' which attempts to answer the question that if God is good and omnipotent, then why does pain and evil exist in the world. After reading Lewis and Freud, Nicholi says he was astounded by the parallelism between the two.
Freud raises an argument. Lewis attempts to answer it.
The reason for this, Nicholi says, is that when Lewis began his teaching career, Freud was a towering figure. ``Lewis was very influenced by Freud's writings,'' Nicholi says. ``Lewis was an atheist for the first half of his life, and he used Freud's arguments to defend his atheism.''
But after Lewis had his transforming experience where he began embracing a spiritual world view, he then began countering Freud's arguments in his own writings.
"The common ground (between believers and non-believers) is that they all share wanting to understand what the purpose and meaning of their life is,'' Nicholi says. ``Even the secularists are interested in whether or not there is something beyond this life. They come to different conclusions, but the basic questions are shared by both.''
By Susan Young - STAFF WRITER
You can reach Susan Young by calling (925) 416-4820, e-mail at syoung@angnewspapers.com, or fax at (925) 416-4874.
Permalink
