Annie Dillard Does Not Believe

Annie Dillard is brilliant. Someone asked me why no American public intellectuals believed in God. She was the first candidate I thought of, she of the Pulitzer Prize.

I knew that she believed because I knew some of her work.

This was a woman who wrote about feeling her way through a library at night and taking a book that her hand landed on in the dark. When she turned on the light, the book was The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller. A numinous moment.

I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. It’s a memoir, but it’s theology. I read parts of Teaching a Stone to Talk; parts only, because I left it in a hotel room. At the time, I wanted every American Christian to read "An Expedition to the Pole". I thought that to complacent believers, reading it would be like a groggy man splashing his face from a basin of icy water, though the details of it are hazy now, years later. To me, at the time, it was proof that Annie Dillard got it.

But now, her web page says that she doesn’t believe. Under "Religion", she says "None."

"An Expedition to the Pole" contains a description of a feeble church service, which, however, she found sacredness in. As I understand her website, she now calls it "hilarious".

It’s tempting to wonder what happened. I know some outline of her life, and there are things in that outline that I’m tempted to peer into for an explanation. But that would be glib. The truth is, I have no idea. The truth is that I don’t know what happened in the head of this brilliant stranger who once wrote of God with awe and reverence. I don’t know what happened between this brilliant stranger and a God that I understood better when I followed her thoughts.

She is smarter than me, so her unbelief would be more deeply-thought than my belief.

The unbelief of Annie Dillard absolves anyone of unbelief who has tried to climb to God on a tower that they built with ideas and analysis and knowledge. If Annie Dillard’s brilliance was not wings that would hold the wind of God, then no brilliance is.

And if I must admit that I don’t know why Annie Dillard doesn’t believe, then I also must admit that I don’t know why my friends who don’t believe tread the paths of the world like I do, but don’t see what I see or hope for what I hope for.

And if I must admit that I don’t know why Annie Dillard does not believe, then I can’t know that my own faith won’t pull away, or slip away, or wither away.

I know little of her life; I know none of her future. One day the story of her life will be fully written; that time is not now.

I don’t presume to know the end of that story; nor the end of my story; nor the end of my friends’ stories; nor the end of my family’s stories. These stories are being written. And the best stories go in directions that, looking ahead, you do not see, but, looking back, seem inevitable.

But in the meantime, I cannot count on smarts. What then? Sometimes, when my mind wobbles my faith, I look to God with desperation and hope and say, If I don’t believe in you, I have no hope at all!

I believe because I want to believe. I believe because I believe that life would be unbearable without belief. God forbid that I should be offered some bright worldly prize, a promise of prosperity or prestige or happiness, the price of which is unbelief, paid then or later.

I can keep praying. I can continue to pray for God to draw me to him, to make me grow in faith and love.

I can keep reading the Bible to learn how to live, then live that way. This is called Building your house upon a rock, so that when the storm comes, your house isn’t swept away.

I can keep seeking the company of believers, to surround myself with witnesses to faith.

I can keep remembering those moments in my life when the supernatural has intersected with the natural.

Most of all, I can keep hoping in God’s grace to make me believe, grace to resist what would take me away from God. I can’t control God’s grace, but I can hope in it. "For [the Lord] says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’" (Romans 9:15 (NRSV).) I can hope he will have mercy on me, and that I will receive his mercy humbly, not boasting in merit