French writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt waited decades before he dared to tell about the divine revelation he experienced in his youth. He described his experience in the book Night of Fire. We talked about faith, humanism and religious fanatics.
Psychologies: Why did you wait so long?
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt: This is a very personal experience and I didn’t intend to make it public. But the events of our time have compelled me to speak frankly and, I hope, with due humility about faith.
Today, we are all threatened by aggressive creatures who claim to be champions of the faith, but in reality are ugly caricatures of such. They cover themselves with faith, splashing out their cruelty. Those who reject faith distort its meaning, as if it were outdated, as if believing is now out of date…
I wanted to dispel these false ideas: yes, humanity has made progress in science, technology, but not in morality. To believe this after Auschwitz and Hiroshima would be to turn a blind eye to the facts. The areas in which we have no progress are just not related to knowledge. After all, faith is not knowledge. Pascal said this beautifully: “The heart reveals God, and not the mind at all.”
Your experiences in the desert could not be the fruit of a hallucination?
I’ve said this to myself a thousand times! Of course, this could just be my body’s chemical response to the anxiety. I researched all of this. You know, I am a philosopher, I am accustomed to the practice of rational inquiry. And yet, contrary to impartial analysis, a miracle happened. On an organic level, something grew and expanded in me: a small stream of faith that appeared in the desert became a powerful stream.
In the end, I recognized the difference in orders that Pascal spoke of: the order of the heart and the order of the mind. And then, I finally felt free. I had a choice: to believe or not to believe. I honestly try to keep both components in my soul: reason and faith. If you ask me: “Does God exist?” I will tell you that I don’t know anything about it.
I am an agnostic believer. But I will add: “I believe so.” That is what humanism is: first of all, to talk about the fundamental unknowability.
The attitude to doubt distinguishes the true believer from the one who only thinks he believes. True faith is doubt, movement
Truth is what we lack, not what we have. Modern humanism must be based on a common lack of knowledge for all of us. And then, at the level of the heart, we can say that we believe that there is or is not God.
You were hospitalized twice while working on the book. Was it not easy?
Oh yeah! When I described the scene of revelation in the mountains, I talked about how the body seemed to be split in two, torn apart … These sensations again flooded with such force that I thought I was having a heart attack. I was taken to the hospital, but I had nothing, only painful chest cramps: I was so excited, excited, happy when I wrote about this moment!
You talk about your faith in such a way as if it were a love feeling …
So it is … I talk about my meeting with God. In the words of Pascal, “Faith is not proved, it is comprehended by experience.” Just like the feeling of love. Unfortunately, we can only testify, we cannot convince. I would like to convince, but I cannot, I have no rational arguments.
But this is the dual nature of faith. In the name of faith, you can try to kill someone who does not believe …
Fundamentalism and fanaticism arise as an overcompensation of doubt. I don’t suppress doubts. I refuse to confuse faith and knowledge, to confuse subjective and objective certainty. The attitude to doubt distinguishes the true believer from the one who only thinks he believes. Fanatics are usurpers. Such is the heroine of my book Segolene, an orthodox Catholic. She locks herself in faith to stop thinking. But true faith is a doubt, a movement.
It turns out that religion is the opposite of faith?
No, the opposite of faith is a creed that considers itself to be objective truth. This delusion must be rejected, because we will get along better with each other if we understand what it means to believe and not to believe. And that no religion should be placed above others.
Now when I don’t understand something, I blame it on my limitations, not the limitations of the world.
I don’t consider myself superior to anyone because I had this experience in the desert. I consider myself lucky to have been generously gifted, but not chosen or rewarded. I wasn’t looking for anything, but I found something. Now, when I don’t understand something, I blame it on my limitations, not the limitations of the world. I moved from the philosophy of the absurd to the philosophy of the mystery.
Do you follow rituals?
No. This experience was not related to any particular religion. When I returned to France, I began to read the great Tibetan, Indian, Christian, Muslim mystics… Years later, I read all four Gospels in one breath. And I was shaken to the depths of my soul by the image of Christ speaking about love and dying for love.
Today I consider myself a Christian. Love should be the cementing force of relationships with other people. Replace suspicion with love. This idea is the bomb!
About expert
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, French writer and playwright. His plays have been translated and staged in more than thirty countries around the world. He described his experience in search of God in the book Night of Fire (Azbuka-Atticus, 2016).