Light On Dark Water

The Da Vinci Code and the Concept of Fact

I haven’t read The Da Vinci Code and don’t
plan to see the movie, because by all accounts the book is dumb and the
movie no better. Yet I’m fascinated by the phenomenon of
its influence. If what I read about it is accurate, it’s
another in a long line of attempts to replace orthodox
incarnational Christianity with a form of gnosticism.
That’s nothing new, and we’re used to making the
arguments against it. A popularizing academic like Elaine Pagels
writes a book for people who will probably never go near the
primary sources, claiming that orthodox Christianity is just
another conqueror writing history in his own favor and that the
heresies of old have just as much claim to be considered
“true” as any other beliefs, and anyway are much more
fun. She reaches a moderately large number of people, and
Christians respond, but most people never hear the argument at
all.

The Da Vinci Code has changed that. Suddenly the
Gnostic-Christian argument is everywhere. (People like Pagels
like to speak only of competing “Christianities,”
but I have no intention of giving up that ground.) And people who
seem very poorly equipped for thinking have a lot of opinions
about it.

What’s most interesting, and disturbing, about the
phenomenon is that both the author and his defenders seem to want
to have it both ways: the book is fiction, they say, and so no
one should be upset about the fact that it portrays the Catholic
Church (and indeed most of Christianity, insofar as it maintains
core Christian doctrines) as a monstrous and murderous
conspiracy. But on the other hand they insist that its version of
history is in the main true, and that the reason Christians get
upset about it is that they’re so blinded, rendered so
mindless, by their oppressive doctrines that they can’t
cope with the truth.

I didn’t fully appreciate this serene incoherence, or
experience the bang-head-on-desk frustration it can induce, until
a couple of weeks ago when the religion editor of our local paper
published a selection of comments on the book from her readers.
Over and over again the writer would sneer “It’s only
FICTION!!!” and in the next sentence talk about how much the
book had taught him or her about the real origins of
Christianity, the real story behind the Catholic Church,
and so on. (There are many similar examples in the reader reviews
of the book at Amazon.)

Most bizarre of all, some of the respondents identified
themselves as Christian, yet said that even if the conspiracy
alleged by the book were true it would not affect their faith.
Faith? What faith? Or faith in what? Can they simultaneously
worship Jesus as the incarnate God and yet “be comfortable
with” (as the silly phrase has it) the idea that the
Incarnation was an invention forced upon the world by
Constantine? Is “faith” just a synonym for
“warm feeling”?

Some of the respondents were clearly pretty anti-Catholic,
from both the Protestant and the atheistic sides. One woman
identified herself as a member of the Assembly of God and
remarked that the Catholic Church had done so many evils that no
one should be surprised at or skeptical of this one. Others,
clearly (although probably unconsciously) siding with the
“Jesus of history/Christ of faith” dichotomous view,
said that the historical facts were irrelevant, and the only
thing important was what one believes and, presumably—that
warm feeling again—the way it makes one feel.

Is something new happening here? There have always been
obstacles in the way of knowing the difference between fact and
fiction, and without doubt many of the human race have had a lot
of trouble figuring it out. But this is something different. This
is an inability to grasp the difference between the
concepts of fact and fiction.

Perhaps this is not a new thing. But if it is, I can think of
two possible causes. One is the constant disregard for truth
evidenced in the advertising and marketing that surround us.
Whether the product is toothpaste or a politician, everybody
knows that the object of any communication about it is to avoid
any definite truth and produce a favoring emotion. Is it possible
that many people, inundated with this stuff more or less all the
time, begin to slip into a fog where the truth no longer
matters?

The other possible cause is an idea which has for several
decades now been seeping down from nihilistic intellectuals into
the mass mind, the idea that it’s impossible to know the
truth and therefore all “truths” are equal. There is
my truth, and your truth, and even though they may contradict
each other mine is still true for me, and yours for you. Few
people will defend this idea if it’s stated as plainly as I
just did, but many seem willing to float along on it, half
asleep.

This leaves Christians in a position that would be amusing if
it weren’t so frustrating. Accustomed to the accusation
that we are irrational and obscurantist, we find ourselves in
this controversy the only party insisting desperately—and,
I’m afraid, not very successfully—on the necessity of
looking at simple facts in the cold light of day.