The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl (12 page)

‘As I’ve said before,’ said Voltaire (
né
F. M. Arouet), ‘if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.’

‘Brilliant’, a psychoanalyst commented, ‘but pre-
psychological
. If God did exist, it would make not a scrap of difference. We have invented him anyway.’

‘That’, Voltaire replied with only a touch of tetchiness, ‘was what I meant.’

‘Then why on earth didn’t you say so?’

‘Because I was, when I said it, on earth – and wanted to remain there. You must remember that in my time Christians burned books and authors as piously, and very nearly as
regularly
, as they burned incense.’

‘Speaking as an historian,’ said an historian, ‘I am in a
position
to confirm the point. We historians often call the 18th
century
“the age of Voltaire”. We mean, however, that he was in advance of his age, not that he was typical of it. Many of his contemporaries retained the mental outlook of the ages of faith. So certain were they of God’s existence that they felt entitled in good conscience to torture or burn anyone who doubted it.’

‘So
un
certain were they, you presumably mean,’ interpolated Edward Gibbon in a politely emending tone.

‘I mean no such thing’, the historian replied crossly. ‘It’s slips of that kind that have got you regarded, in the profession, as unsound. Speaking as a scholar, I mean precisely what I say. I am referring to the mental climate of ages of faith.’

‘So’, Gibbon said mildly, ‘am I. But I have noticed that people don’t bother to have faith in propositions they are
actually
convinced of, such as the proposition that 2 + 2 = 4.’

‘Merely mundane convictions,’ the historian said impatiently, ‘scarcely deserve the name of faith. All the same, it’s obvious that faith
is
conviction, but conviction on the most intense and exalted plane. Quite frankly, Gibbon, paradox is a form which you would do better to leave to your crony Voltaire.’

‘Yet I’, Voltaire said, ‘support Gibbon – whom I claim as a
crony despite the ill-judged passage in his autobiography that refers to “Voltaire, whom I then rated above his real
magnitude
”.’

‘It is an error of opinion’, Gibbon said with a bow, ‘which I have passed eternity in correcting.’

‘I should have forgiven you in any case’, Voltaire replied, ‘because you are one of the few people to rate me at my true merits as an actor. Whatever you afterwards wrote of my
performance
, you did, at the time, take tickets.
1
And your
judgment
is equally correct when you say that people who propound that 2 + 2 = 4 have no need to have faith in the proposition because they in fact believe it. Conversely, the proposition that 2 + 2 = 5 is received by the orthodox as a mere mistake, not a heresy. I doubt if, even among the Arabians, with their passion for arithmetic, anyone has ever been put to the rack for
proposing
that 2 + 2 = 5.’

‘Or even,’ Gibbon added, ‘extreme, provocative and
disruptive
of the commonwealth though that proposition would be, that they = 6.’

‘What fascinates me’, a theologian interrupted, ‘is that you two scoffers are in fact talking in theological terms. Do I detect elements of faith shewing through your scepticism?’

‘One might as rationally’, Gibbon growled, ‘detect elements of royalism and episcopalianism in chess players.’

‘And yet’, the psychoanalyst said in a speculative manner, ‘it would be quite rational to hypothesise that chess sublimates impulses which might otherwise issue in royalism and
episcopalianism
.’

‘Or that royalism and episcopalianism sublimate impulses that might have been frittered away at chess,’ the theologian said dismissively. ‘All psychoanalytic theories make equal sense upside down. That is, they make nonsense either way.’

‘Have you’, Voltaire asked the theologian, ‘read the works of Sigmund Freud?’

‘Of course,’ the theologian replied. ‘Or at least, I may not have actually
read
them, but naturally I know what they say. Or at least I know the general
drift
of what they say, without necessarily having gone into tiresome detail. Certainly; I know all that matters, namely that they’ve been proved wrong.’

‘Have
you
read them?’ the psychoanalyst asked Voltaire, in a tone of interest and surprise.

‘Did you think I’d been content to
remain
pre-psychological? Since I was freed from time, Freud’s writings have been my chief intellectual delight.’

‘You disappoint me,’ the theologian said to Voltaire. ‘Beneath your childish propensity to mock, I’d taken you for a man of sense. But a man of sense can scarcely delight in reading
incestuous
meanings into the babble of two-year-olds.’

‘Compared to the pains of hell, incest is a very pure and gentle subject.’

‘One doesn’t contemplate hell for fun,’ the theologian said reprovingly. ‘The aim of theology is to be true, not to give what you call delight. I daresay I should find theology a tedious study did I not believe my soul to be at stake.’

‘My constant fear was that theologians would put my body there,’ Voltaire said.

‘Your flippancy is an evasive tactic. You make startling
remarks
, such as that you delight in Freud, and then evade being called to account.’

‘As you haven’t read the works in question’, Voltaire said, ‘you’re in no position to be startled on hearing that I enjoy them. But I’ll tell you this: I am a good deal more free to delight in psychoanalysis than you are to delight in theology, because I have absolutely no faith in psychoanalysis.’

‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ the theologian said. ‘I was beginning to fear that, though we don’t officially age during eternity, you’d succumbed to a sort of ethereal senility.’

‘I have no faith in psychoanalysis’, Voltaire pursued, ‘
because
I have no need for faith in it. I am totally convinced by it.’

Gibbon began to laugh.

The historian said disappointedly: ‘O. You’ve come back to your crony’s pseudo-paradox.’

‘And you’ve beautifully’, the psychoanalyst said, ‘
forestalled
our theological friend’s next argument. It’s curious how the objection which religious people always bring against
psychoanalysis
is that it’s a religion.’

‘My own objection’, said the historian, ‘is historical.’

‘Is it’, the psychoanalyst enquired, ‘the one that says it may have been true of middle-class, middle-aged Viennese Jewish women in 1900 but it can’t possibly apply to you?’

‘The decay of classical learning’, Gibbon murmured, ‘has no doubt permitted many academic historians to persuade themselves that Oedipus was a Viennese Jewess.’

‘
I
’m disappointed’, the theologian said to Voltaire, ‘because I had thought you were, for a moment, being serious.’

‘I am.’

‘How can a man of sense be serious about psychoanalysis?’

‘Only a hypothesis as comprehensive, cogent and
imaginatively
profound as psychoanalysis’, Voltaire said, ‘can be
adequate
to explain why I failed.’

‘I don’t know that you should think of yourself as a
failure,
quite,’ the historian said judiciously. ‘After all, there
are
those hundreds of books that call your age “the age of Voltaire”.’

‘Had I succeeded, all the ages
after
me would have been ages of Voltaire,’ Voltaire replied. ‘Psychoanalysis discloses that there is in human beings a strong and invincibly unconscious wish to believe absurdities. It’s the only credible explanation of why humans went on believing absurdities after I had pointed their absurdity out.’

‘Well, at least,’ the theologian said, ‘we need no longer take your psychoanalytical convictions seriously. They turn out to be no more deeply rooted than in your personal vanity.’

‘You underestimate the depth of my personal vanity,’
Voltaire
said in a melancholy tone.

‘Do you’, the psychoanalyst asked him sympathetically, ‘feel that, in addressing yourself to the conscious and reasoning faculty, you were wasting your time, because you perforce ignored the unconscious and irrational factors?’

‘It is my constant posthumous reproach to myself,’ Voltaire replied sadly. ‘On the other hand’, he went on in a happier tone, ‘I am not sure that psychoanalysis in its turn isn’t open to reproach. It might be said that psychoanalysis errs by ignoring
the conscious and reasoning faculty. After all, the same
dark-forces
propel us all, but some they ultimately propel into the light of what you call the reality principle. I am not sure that psychoanalysis has spent enough time exploring why, when one man remains a credulous, superstitious simpleton, another
becomes
a Voltaire – or, of course, a Gibbon or, indeed, a Freud. If you would like to make good the deficiency by examining a thoroughly conscious and reasoning mind, and if you can
procure
a couch, I am willing, in the interests of science, to submit myself here and now to your technique.’

‘Your technique’, the theologian said snubbingly to the
psychoanalyst
, ‘is merely a horizontal adaptation of the technique of the confessional. And your wish to be analysed’, he added to Voltaire, ‘is merely an excuse for talking about yourself. If we may now return to serious matters, I was about to remark that the distinction which you and Gibbon drew between conviction and faith is in fact drawn by dogmatic theology. For dogmatic theology maintains that a belief in God entertained on the strength merely of the credibility of the evidence falls short of that supernatural, God-given faith which it classifies as one of the “theological” virtues necessary to salvation.’

‘It is apparent’, Gibbon said, ‘that dogmatic theology has the utmost doubts of the existence of God.’

‘Absurd,’ said the theologian.

‘Another would-be paradox,’ said the historian.

‘If dogmatic theology really thought God existed’, Gibbon said, ‘it could no more make faith in his existence a
virtue
than I can hold myself virtuous for believing that 2 + 2 = 4.’

‘Indeed’, said Voltaire, ‘dogmatic theology feels sure of only one thing: that God, if he exists, cannot save me.’

‘A misinterpretation of the entire eschatological trend of Christian culture,’ the historian said.

‘Blasphemy,’ said the theologian.

‘If you have correctly reported its tenets,’
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Voltaire said to the theologian, ‘dogmatic theology holds that what I need, if I am to be saved, is that God should give me a faith in him which goes beyond the credibility of any evidence I may perceive of
his existence. Now if God gave me such a faith, of which I find no traces in my natural self, I should regard his giving it me as the firmest possible evidence that he exists. But the moment I conceived that thought, my faith would cease to be the true “theological” virtue of faith and would become a mere belief in God based on the credibility of the evidence. Such mere natural and reasonable belief is not enough to procure my
salvation
. Plainly, therefore, dogmatic theology believes that God
cannot
save me.’

A humble Christian who had been listening to the whole exchange said: ‘I am a humble Christian and, as such,
bewildered
by theological niceties. It seems to me that we can only hope. And hope is a virtue, too, isn’t it?’

‘Dogmatic theology’, the theologian said, ‘names hope, too, as a “theological” virtue.’

‘And in making
hope
a virtue’, Voltaire said, ‘dogmatic theology confesses that it’s in no position to be dogmatic.’

‘Excuse me,’ God put in, in a hesitant voice. ‘I was
wandering
past, looking for the Black Girl, when I was attracted to your conversation, which I’ve been listening to for some time. But I feel diffident about joining in. You’re all historical
characters
, whereas I’m a fictitious one. As such, I have of course my own validity, but there are certain anomalies peculiar to my situation which make me feel vulnerable.’

However, they all, with the utmost affability, moved along the white marble bench they were sitting on and made room for God to join them – all except the humble Christian, who flung himself to his knees on the ground.

‘Please don’t feel obliged to do that,’ God said.

The humble Christian did not, however, budge.

‘I’d much rather you didn’t,’ God added. ‘It fills me with a mixture of embarrassment and irritation, like the feeling of being in church.’

But

‘I’m a
humble
Christian,’ the humble Christian insisted. ‘I insist.’

‘Certainly’, God said, ‘I’m not sorry to belong to the same order of being as Don Quixote, Ulrich von ——— and Mrs Yajñavalkya. Neither does it trouble me that my original creators are anonymous. So are the originators of Hercules and of Puck and of Sir Launcelot du Lake, and
those
personages are none the less vivid for it. Indeed, one forms a stronger and sharper impression of them than of most of the so-called real people one meets every day. The point that disquiets me and makes me unsure of myself is more bizarre: my creators,
whoever
they may be, have put it about that
I
created
them.’

‘Theirs is a self-effacement rare among authors’, Voltaire agreed, ‘—who, as a profession, earn so little money that they seldom have anything to feed on except self-esteem. I am myself unusually modest for an author. But even I might become peevish if Candide were given the credit for me.’