A TALENT FOR RELIGION

“The soul doubtless is immortal

Where a soul can be discerned.”

                                             Browning: A Toccata of Gallupi’s

What is a punk?  In Shakespeare’s day, it meant a prostitute.    But an Elizabethan who had invented a time machine and who asked for a punk in 1980’s London might have been startled by the result.  

What, then, is the difference between a gift and a talent?  Although both concepts have their origins in the Bible, answers to this question can vary widely: depending on whether they are rooted in a religious or in a secular understanding of the terms.

            In a Biblical context, gifts are the province only of believers.  They are given by the Spirit at conversion, or at some point afterwards, with the purpose of building up the Church that is the body of Christ in the world.  They are complementary, to enable the metaphorical body to function.  Some believers may have more than one gift, but every believer has at least one.  They do not necessarily mean spectacular ability or intelligence, but each gift is a way of furthering God’s purpose.

            Gifts are dealt with in Paul’s letters; talents crop up in two linked parables, in which they are sums of money.  In Matthew’s version, one servant is given five talents, another is given two, and a third only one. It is not made clear whether or not there were other servants who were not given any at all.  In Luke’s version, ten servants – it seems to suggest all the servants within the household – are given one mina (part of a talent) each. 

            If from Matthew’s version we try to define talents as special donations given only to a few, and distributed unequally, then Luke’s version seems to suggest just the opposite.    The common message in both, however, is using what you have been given.   If you have a talent, or talents, you will be accountable to God for the use you have made of it or them: whether you believe in God or not. 

Religious terms are no more exempt than any others from the processes of semantic change.  In Matthew, the amount given to each servant is “according to his ability.”  Over time, the sum of money and the ability the sum represents have merged with each other; so that ‘talent’ has come to mean the innate aptitude itself.   So do we say that anyone can have a talent, but only a believer can have a gift?

‘Gift’, however, has also changed its meaning. How can there by a gift of the Spirit if you no longer believe in the Spirit; and Nature, rather than God, is the source of everything?  What seems to remain of the concept in popular thought is the idea that everyone is given a gift by Nature. 

That probably underlies the conviction found in some that you can do anything if you want to hard enough: what matters is the degree of intent, not the level of innate ability.  “Where there’s a will there’s a way.”   Or the, “Where there’s a Will there’s a way of Behaviourism.”  Above a certain level of intelligence, anyone can be turned into anything.  Shakespeare, with appropriate tweaking, could have been an Einstein.  This is in striking contrast to St Paul’s view of the Body: in which an eye is an eye, and can’t be turned into an ear with a bit of retraining.   It’s also, incidentally, contrary to the view of J K Rowling’s Mr Ollivander:  “The wand chooses the wizard, Mr Potter.  The wizard doesn’t choose the wand.”

Modern educational theory reflects a developed, secularized understanding of these old religious concepts.  Educational theory, ever since computers enabled us to compile international league tables of performance and we can compare the performance of our children with those of Norway or Malaysia, has been much exercised by the issue of the gifted and talented.  On the other hand, educational theory – commendably enough – is also much given to inclusion.  It’s like trying to square Matthew’s version of the parable with Luke’s.  The gifted and talented suggest exclusivity, whereas inclusion means leaving nobody out.  It’s a conundrum.  The result is usually some sort of inclusive gifted and talented, and behind it is probably the belief that a talent is the province of the few and a gift is the entitlement of everybody...

Actually, defining educational theory’s understanding of the difference between a gift and a talent is no mean feat.  When you look at various mission statements, the focus seems to be on justifying how the gifted and talented differ from the rest of us, rather than on how the two words differ from one another.  It’s a bit like trying to pin down the distinction between form and structure, or cleverness and intelligence.  One is tempted to dismiss it as yet another example of Education’s love of tautology.  Otherwise, it’s a variation of meaning so fine that only the gifted and/or talented are able to understand what it is. 

If you persist, however, you can find out that, in modern educational terms, ‘a gift’ means theoretical intelligence, and ‘a talent’ means practical intelligence.  That is, you’d be gifted if you were a composer, but talented if you were a performer; and gifted and talented if you were both.  Shakespeare, being both dramatist and actor, would have been both gifted and talented. 

Confined to education, these new secular definitions seem to me to work well.  It is when they are directed back at the Christianity that gave rise to them – when we speak of Christ as “a moral genius” or of someone as having “a talent for religion” – that difficulties occur.  Or so they seem to me.  What is absolutely key in each case is to decide what is the province of the few, and what is the entitlement of everybody.

            What is ‘a moral genius’?   (I am treating ‘genius’ here as someone who is unusually gifted).  Asked to define it as it stands, I would say it means an unusually gifted person who behaves in a moral way: as opposed to the many geniuses who have been spectacularly immoral in their behaviour. 

            That, of course, is not at all what those who use the term understand by it.  As far as I can see, they mean someone who is able to invent a new moral system, as a composer might ‘invent’ a new symphony.  

Is having a moral sense a gift like having a gift for music – some people can compose a new melody, most can’t: and those who can have the choice of whether or not to do so – or is morality more like the gift of the breath of life?  If you choose not to breathe, you die; and at some stage even that choice is taken from you.

What I’m getting at, of course, is rival theories about the origin of conscience.  In The Book of Jeremiah, God says, “I will write my law in their hearts.”   Conscience is innate: people have got it, even if – like air conditioning in a modern car – they choose not to use it. 

Against this is the theory that ‘conscience’ is simply a variant of the superego:  formed by the prevailing value system of whatever society you happen to grow up in.   These two incompatibles lead in very different directions. Think of the difference between a Nazi feeling guilty about sending Jews to be gassed (innate conscience), or feeling guilty about not sending Jews to be gassed (social conscience). 

The best examples I know of this sort of thing are in Huckleberry Finn.  Huck is constantly guilty that he is helping Jim, the runaway slave, to escape, so that Jim can be reunited with his family and achieve freedom.  Huck never seems to think about Jim’s children, although Jim does.  His focus is on having wronged Miss Watson, Jim’s owner.

In one scene, Jim is mourning because he thinks Huck is dead.  Really, Huck has simply been hiding for fun.  When Jim learns the truth, he turns his back in hurt.  Eventually, Huck apologises.  He realises how wrong he has been to do so, but is defiantly glad that he has done it, whatever people think.  There, in essence, is the difference between the two systems: the ‘conscience’ of the racist South, and the real-life consciousness of having wronged another human being.   Everything about Huck’s upbringing and parental example militates against such a consciousness being there.

What then about ‘a talent for religion’?  In the eyes of those who would use such a term, ‘religion’ is probably nothing more than the system of ethics that holds a particular culture together; in which case, a talent for religion probably means not much more than being a good listener. 

Is religion something that some people have a talent for, as they might have a talent for playing hockey?  That must depend on whether religion is a human invention, or a transcendent reality.  If it’s the former, then religion is like belonging to some minority film club, if you happen to like that sort of thing and can appreciate the sort of stuff that’s boring or baffling to the average viewer.  If it’s the latter, then it’s more like council tax, or the rules of the road; you are implicated whether you want to be or not.   

What alarms me about “a talent for religion” is where it has taken us in the past, and where it might take us in the future.  Either that no one has a soul, or that only some of us have: views that, respectively, could lead us to a new Gulag, or to a new Auschwitz.