The challenges posed by cognitive dissonance can be surmounted by living up to the greater vistas summoned forth by ‘AL-LAHU Akbar’ (GOD is Greater / the Greatest), or, on the other hand, may be side-stepped by the deflections and rationalizations that are commonly utilized to deal with the pain of insurmountable contradiction. This book is an adventure of the first kind; I intend to discover and show how the Qur’an can overcome the various idols and ideologies arrayed against it in today’s world. Not only does it stand up against the modern secular mindset, but it turns back against the believer as well, challenging her to examine her faith and to expand her mind more forcefully and comprehensively than does scientism or any other physicalist belief system. The Qur’an, in short, champions the self-transcendence of all of us in ways that no product of the human mind can equal.
But to keep in mind the supremacy of GOD as the Ultimate Framer requires a supreme act of faith, one that is not so easily summoned or maintained for very long in the midst of our daily affairs. More often than not, we lose our connection to the Absolute All and begin to see our frame of faith in GOD as just one among many contending frames, some of them hostile and most of them indifferent to ‘our’ frame. When this loss of vision occurs, and we find ourselves caught and confused within the coils of an unbelieving culture, the resulting contradictions and questions become unmanageable, embarrassing, and painful. We dodge, we divert, and we try to disengage, but the conflict cannot be denied, and the tension of trying – trying to deny the tension, or trying to affirm one’s faith despite the tension – leads to the irresolution and stress of cognitive dissonance.
If GOD loves truth and justice, why am I surrounded by falsehood and corruption? If GOD hears our prayers, then why are mine still unanswered? Why do I feel so uncomfortable talking about GOD, when we so gleefully invent Santa Claus parades and Halloween parties for our children? Why are GOD’s laws so easily ignored, while the laws of secular society are so strictly enforced and religiously obeyed? A thousand other unspoken questions emphasize the same point – is my faith really relevant? Is GOD really Great, or am I just engaged in a great charade of make-believe?
In such situations, when a faith that claims to be paramount does not feel as though it really is, believers suffer in frustration and despair, and in some cases abandon their faith partially or totally, consciously or unconsciously, because of their inability or unwillingness to cope. Then religion is no longer the answer to cognitive dissonance, but its cause.
The case of genuine faith in GOD, when marooned in modern Western society, is a particular form of cognitive dissonance.
The genuine shyness of the modern Thai maiden, of peasants uprooted from their farms, or of an old man in the presence of an aggressive young female reporter is a phenomenon that deserves at least a name to make it clear that it is not totally alone. Let us call it, for lack of a better term, an example of cultural incoherence. This occurs whenever a previously significant part of one culture finds itself stranded by time and circumstance in another cultural environment unfriendly to it. This sad remnant, adhered to by some as the old and proper way of behaving, living, or thinking, suddenly appears weak, meaningless, or retrogressive in the light of a new set of contrary values. Like monks who must abstain from contact with females for fear of sexual intimacy or the women of the Middle East who willingly don their chadors, a truly shy Thai feels herself to be an anachronism, and is exposed to all the innuendo, liberal scorn, and merciless pity that the modern media can cast at whatever dares to differ from the creed of progress.2
The stress of cultural incoherence, however, is merely a horizontal tension between two relatively equal systems that collide either in space, such as the modern Western encroachment on Eastern or aboriginal cultures, or in time, as new standards and values replace older mores. Yet this strain is as nothing compared to the vertical tension that arises as the believer awakens to a reality that appears new to him, but is in fact primordial. He begins to see that the absolutes I have been constantly mentioning since Chapter 1 are actually envoys of a Personal-Suprapersonal Eternal Reality, spiritual beings that pervade the so-called reality of our day-to-day life. He feels stranded and misunderstood in this mundane, physicalist, anti-spiritual society, like an angel among animals, tongue-tied as he tries to convey to them the wonders of the world above, and, as his faith falters and fades, ever less able to communicate that sense of amazement even to his own true self.
When his spirit wavers, almost all the choices the believer faces are bleak. They include:
1) surrendering to the secular physicalist framework and abandoning his faith altogether.
2) accepting the broad outlines of that framework but keeping an eye out for the odd crevices in the system where faith as a cultural option can be allowed to grow like weeds in poorly tended parking lots.
3) maintaining an uneasy balance between modern rationalism and commitment to his religion, producing a divided intellect and a vacillating heart.
4) defending his commitment to religion by suppressing the Qur’anic spirit of inquiry and rational argument. The withering of the mind is then taken to be a proof of strong faith.
There are, however, two other choices, which work best if combined as one holistic response to the challenge of cognitive dissonance and the clash of incompatible frames. The one I have pursued thus far in this book is to take up the contents of the Qur’an as a great intellectual resource. AL-LAH has bestowed on us an immense flock of exuberant and virile ideas, deliberately left unsystematized so that in each era we must construct anew the corrals for them that will best serve our purposes.
Add to that the second way, which is to engage the Qur’an not primarily as a book of ideas but as a pearly star (Q24:35), the pole-star of the soul. Indeed, such is how GOD describes it from the outset: That is the Book in which there is no doubt, a guide for those who are aware (Q2:2). In other words, all forms of awareness – hopes, fears, attachments, and emotions – must be as fully involved in this struggle as our intellectual life. Ideas alone do not provide the stamina and conviction needed to withstand the test of spiritual incoherence in today’s disheartened world. Only when strengthened by good habits and practices and planted in the soil of humility can the ideas inspired by the Qur’an live and grow in our hearts until they attract GOD’s Love and reignite in us His Light.
2 Mont Redmond, Wondering into Thai Culture, p. 251.
The GOD You Already Know 