I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t the most curious. I have an insatiable appetite to know the why of things. For the thirty-seven years I spent as an evangelical, I had to stifle that curiosity because in that and most religious worlds, conformity trumps the search for factual truth.

When curiosity is linked with honesty, you often reach junctures where you must change your mind when new information is brought to your attention. That is how the road to truth unwinds. I learned I was wrong about something, but I love finding a better way in the end and getting closer to factual truth. Yesterday, I was at one of those junctures where I learned something that conflicts with my preconceived ideas, yet I am still trying to be sure of the new information before my mind completely changes. This new information is that the “Dark Ages” were caused by the concept of Providence, not just the devaluation of reason.

Now, I put the term “Dark Ages” in quotes because, a few years ago, a friend challenged my view of them. I am still reflecting on that challenge, him thinking that it reflected poorly on the Catholic Church and was from Protestant prejudice. Maybe it was. After reading several articles, I have revised my view. For me, it was never about the Catholic Church, since the church of medieval times was in the same lineage- the mother DNA- of all American Christian churches. Additionally, I don’t consider myself Protestant even now… just simply a follower of the historical Jesus of Galilee.

So, while I may have softened my view of medieval times as a horrible time to live, curiosity, art, and science weren’t always squashed then—just often squashed. Most—though not all — literature, art, math, and science during this period came from non-Christian societies, including Islamic countries (mainly Baghdad) and China. Yes, you can find plenty of exceptions, and therefore the “Dark Ages” may be a misnomer.

Yesterday, I listened to the show Hidden Brain. The guest was Psychologist and professor Martin Seligman, and he discussed hope and depression. One of the strongest markers for someone surviving disappointment without a prolonged depression, in his view, is their concept of agency. He defined agency as the ability to change one’s future.

For example, someone might be jilted by their lover. If that person believes it was a “local” issue, that the lover themselves had some problem, or the relationship was never compatible to start with, and they think they can change the future by finding someone more compatible, the depression is short-lived. But when the jilting feels universal, when the jilted one feels unlovable, and they are helpless to change that fact, then the depression endures for long periods or even forever.

Martin Seligman said the “Dark Ages” began after Saint Augustine wrote The City of God, removing agency from the church, asserting that God is in absolute control over history, and that nothing we can do can change that.

Here is one such quote from Augustine’s book:

[W]e do not attribute the power of giving kingdoms and empires to any save to the true God, who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious alone, but gives kingly power on earth both to the pious and the impious, as it may please Him, whose good pleasure is always just

I’ve read The City of God several times, and that perspective never hit me. Augustine wrote that book after Alaric led the Visigoths to Rome and sacked the city in the year 410, something that, for the Romans at least, was unthinkable. Most of the Roman Empire had become Christian after it was legalized a hundred years earlier. Rome’s Pagans in 410 blamed Rome’s conversion from Pagan gods to Christianity for the fall.  The Christians, who had merged the Roman Emperor with the Church (in many ways the same way that some Americans have now merged their brand of Christianity with the MAGA political movement), were likewise stunned. They began to question God’s power because, to them, the Roman Empire and the Christian Church were united.

From the fifth century on, according to Martin Seligman, people felt powerless to change history, whether in their own lives or under a ruthless dictator or church. Political revolutions didn’t begin until the Enlightenment. In parallel, Islam had a conservative revival in the early twentieth century, where people subjugated agency to an all-powerful and all-controlling Allah, which made it impossible for them to challenge history- that is, up until the Arab Spring of 2010. During those years, they had no choice but to follow the ruthless dictators of the Middle Eastern countries (Jordan may be an exception).

But back to practicality. In most religions, including most of Christianity, they believe that in order for their God to be big enough, God (or the Dharma, Cosmic Order in Buddhism) must be an absolute micro-manager. Everything in life must have been directly put there by God for a reason. As a cancer sufferer, I see that attitude among my cancer friends. Some have even stopped treatments, saying that God will heal them if it is his will.

It is a strange connection between God’s omnipotence and God’s absolute, fatalistic control. In the political world, we don’t associate the power of a president or king with micromanaging everyone’s life, but sometimes with the freedom they instill.

How would your life change if you had agency? That you controlled your own destiny (up to a point)? One example was when I was with the evangelical discipleship group. We believed in the soulmate idea, that God had created one special woman for us to marry. If we made a mistake, God would condemn the marriage. Apply it to other areas. Voting matters. Helping the poor matters. Stopping climate change matters. Stopping wars matters. Fighting for justice in the world matters. WE DO HAVE AGENCY!

I will end this here, only to stir up thoughts in myself and others. Some atheistic ideas also include fatalism (natural fatalism), which is equally effective at making one impotent.

Respectfully,

Mike