The Four Horsemen, episode 1

[SH] But I would argue it's not even well-captured by art, necessarily, there's something in the same way that love is not really well-captured by art, and compassion is not … well, I mean, you can represent it in art, but it's not reducible to … you don't go into the museum and find compassion in its purest form. And, I think there's something about the way we, as atheists, merely dismiss the bogus claims of religious people that convinces religious people that there's something we're missing, and I think we have to be sensitive to this.

[CH] Absolutely, that's why they bring up "when has secularism ever built anything like Durham Cathedral or a Chartres? or a devotional painting? or the music of …?”

[DD] Bach.

[CH] Well, I guess it would have to be Bach, yes.

[SH] But I think we have answers to that. I think we have answers to that

[CH] Yes, we do.

[SH] You provide a very good answer to that, if there was secular patronage of the arts at that point, then one, we can't know that Michelangelo was actually a believer, because the consequence of professing your unbelief, in that case, was death. But two, if we had a secular organisation to …

[RD] To commission Michelangelo.

[SH] … to commission Michelangelo, you know, we would have all that secular artwork.

[CH] Though do you … I didn't actually say that the corollary held

[SH] Which?

[CH] I think it's true we can't know with devotional painting, and sculpture, and architecture that the patronage didn't have a lot to do with it. But I can't hear myself saying 'if only you had a secular painter, he would have done just as good work.'

[SH] Oh no, no, I think I'm fusing you and Richard there.

[CH] I don't know why, and I'm quite happy to find that I don't know why, I can't quite hear myself saying that.

[RD] What? That Michelangelo, if he'd been commissioned to do the ceiling of a museum of science, wouldn't have produced something just as wonderful?

[CH] In some way, I'm reluctant to affirm that, yes.

[RD] Really? I find it very, very easy to believe that.

[CH] That could be a difference between us, I mean with devotional poetry, where I do … I don't know much about painting or architecture or music, and some devotional architecture, like, say, St Peter's, …

[SH] It couldn't be done.

[CH] I don't like anyway, and knowing that it was built by a special sale of indulgences

doesn't help either!

[SH] Yeah, right.

[CH] With devotional poetry, like say that of, say, John Donne, or George Herbert, I find it very hard to imagine that it's faked, or done for a patron.

[RD] Yes, I think that's fair enough.

[CH] It would be very improbable people would write poetry like that to please anyone.

[SH] Well, could it be done in the spirit of reason?

[CH] Well, I frankly think that's the only explanation.

[RD] But, in any case, what conclusion would you draw? I mean, if Donne's devotional poetry is wonderful, so what? I mean it doesn't show that it represents truth in any sense.

[CH] Not in the least. Well, my favourite devotional poem is Philip Larkin's "Church Going". It's like one of the best poems ever written. It exactly expresses … I wish I had it here, well actually I do have it here. If you like, I can read it - but I wouldn't trust anyone who believed any more, or any less than Larkin does, when he goes to a wayside Gothic church in the English countryside, who felt - I don't say believed - I shouldn't say believed - who felt any more than he does, he's an atheist, or who felt any less, that there's something serious about this. And something written into the human personality, as well as the landscape.

[SH] Let's bring this back to your question.

[DD] I don't see that this is anything other than a special case.

[CH] It goes without saying that this says nothing about the truth of religion.

[DD] I don’t see how this is anything other than a special case. Other special cases of which would be … I can't think of a perfect example … only by being lost at sea for two years in a boat, and then surviving that, that's the only way you could conceivably have written this account, it could not be fiction.

[SH] Or quit smoking!

[DD] And it's glorious, wonderful art, and it can be true, and we just accept that's true, and Donne's poetry, only very extreme circumstances could make it possible. And we can be grateful, perhaps, that those extreme circumstances existed and made this possible.

[SH] In his case?

[DD] Yeah.

[SH] But now you wouldn't recommend being lost at sea to everyone?

[DD] No, no, no.

[CH] No, I wouldn't recommend "Death Be Not Proud" to anyone, either, although it's a wonderful poem, but it's complete gibberish if you look only at the words. It's the most extraordinary gibberish if you look only at the words, but there's an x-factor involved, which I'm quite happy to both assume will persist, and will need to be confronted.