“There is a hole, an emptiness in us all, that we strive to fill. If it
doesn’t get filled with something noble and elevated, modern society will
quickly pump it full of garbage.”
~ The Anxious Generation –
Jonathan Haidt
Scott Alexander, the noted rationalist blogger, has a feature where guest writers pen book reviews and essays for his site, and this week an anonymous writer reviewed the historical literature on Joan of Arc.
The results resemble past encounters between skeptical authors (Mark Twain is a notable example) and the historical record around the Maid of Orleans: Her story is one of the most extensively documented cases of a miraculous-seeming intervention into secular history, calculated to baffle, fascinate and even charm like almost nothing else in Western history.
Everything in the story sounds like a pious legend confabulated centuries after the fact. A peasant girl with zero political or military experience shows up at a royal court, announces a divine mission and makes a series of prophecies about what God wants for France that she consistently fulfills — a fulfillment that requires not merely some fortunate happenstance, but her taking command of a medieval army and winning an immediate series of victories over an intimidating adversary with Alexandrine or Napoleonic skill.
Then after the mission is accomplished (with some miracles thrown in), some of the prophetic and military capacity seems to be withdrawn and she is captured and dies a martyr’s death — but not before undergoing a religious trial with a bravura performance that likewise looks like the invention of a theologically trained novelist. And through it all she appears to be extraordinarily lovable, displaying piety and kindliness without any of the fanaticism or delusions of personal grandeur that normally shadow people who think they’re supposed to take up arms on God’s behalf.
The review essay considers some of the more persuasive non-supernatural explanations for all these strange events. But the reviewer’s strongest reaction is an understandable one, I think, for any reader who approaches the evidence with an open mind:
I talk about “God stretching down His hand to alter history,” and I’m really not sure I believe it happened, but Joan feels like a giant middle finger to all the people who talk about history being deterministic. Sometimes you get a Great Woman and then history does something really weird.
I also kind of feel called out by God. “So, you say you’re a rationalist? You’re dismissing all the historical evidence for miracles as insufficient? You won’t consider the evidence for Jesus Christ persuasive due to a mere two eyewitness and five contemporary reports? You won’t believe in anything without evidence more than sufficient to convince a court? Okay, have 115 witnesses to miracles that nobody could avoid recording because they altered the course of European history. Now, what were you saying about how you’re not a Christian because you’re a rationalist?”
But if Joan challenges skeptics to explain how a career like hers could be possible without supernatural aid, she also challenges Christians and her other religiously inclined fans to explain why, exactly, God sent her to save France. Indeed, the best skeptic’s argument probably rests there: not in trying to deny the miraculous-seeming record, but in challenging the believer to explain why God wanted or needed these specific events to happen.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that some version of the Catholic theory of miracles is correct. In that case history seems to yield three broad categories of supernatural happenings. First, the “big miracles” of the Old and New Testaments, associated with major events in the history of God’s plan for humanity, from the crossing of the Red Sea to the Resurrection. Second, the signs and wonders associated with the special holiness of specific saints — healings, visions, stigmata, the remarkably well-documented Reformation-era levitations discussed in Carlos Eire’s recent book, “They Flew: A History of the Impossible.” Finally, the miracles and signs and supernatural encounters that happen on a personal level, to ordinary people, as answers to their prayers rather than as manifestations of their sanctity.
The story of Joan of Arc doesn’t fit neatly into any of these categories. The strange events of her life are clearly more than just a personal sign of God’s presence, since all of France is implicated in the drama. They’re also clearly more than just a manifestation of her holiness, since the effect isn’t just to convert people in her orbit to a deeper Christian faith; it’s also to change the outcome of a major war. ...
[W]hy did God raise up a saint to save the French from defeat? No theory seems all that satisfying, but let’s consider a few candidates.
Because God showed mercy on the French people. ...
Because God wanted to teach Christians what a just war looks like. ...
Because the Reformation was coming and it was necessary that France remain Catholic. ...
Because modernity was coming and it was necessary that France and England exist as rivals and competing poles. ...
Because God loves the French in a special way, and they have a cosmic destiny that still waits to be fulfilled.
Editor's Note: If you would like to receive a weekly email each Sunday with links to faith posts on TaxProf Blog, email me
