The Chewning Conversations: Jesus, Scripture, Creation, etc.

This is the archive of a series of email conversations that Matt Chewning and I had over the span of a few weeks. In this particular exchange, he made the first points and then I responded. For the sake of balance, I would recommend reading his post first, and then my reponse afterwards.

In response to

Conversation w/ an Agnostic: Part 1 Creator

Conversation w/ an Agnostic: Part 2 Revelation
Conversation w/ an Agnostic: Part 3 Historical Evidence
Conversation w/ an Agnostic: Part 4 Prophecy
Conversation w/ an Agnostic: Part 5 Jesus

Conversation w/ an Agnostic: Part 6 It's Personal (A Relationship, not a Religion)
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Matt,

Now onto my general thoughts...Given that you already broke your thoughts out into categories, I will try to group my own responses in a similar manner. I will also ask for a bit of latitude when it comes to some of the assumptions I will make about your viewpoints. I haven't had enough exposure to you to always speak with certainty, so I might be forced to draw an inference or two. Please do not view me as presumptuous and certainly point out those areas where I misconstrue your true beliefs.

Creator:

I have read Lee Strobal's book (The Case for a Creator), so I am familiar with the arguments he lays out there. From the information you provided below, I think it is safe to say that Strobal has had a significant influence over your cosmological viewpoint. Without turning this one point into a review of the book, I would like to start by saying that I was a little disappointed with it's lack of depth. He jumps from topic to topic so quickly that I never felt like I was getting the whole story. Once I actually started researching the science of his claims, I found that there was much more going on than Strobal ever lets on. Rather than pursue real science, The Case for a Creator seems to be happy with simply creating a sense of awe and amazement in the reader. I certainly felt this myself, and it was clear from your "it blows my mind" comment that you felt similarly. In the light of this feeling, existence seems so fantastic and improbable that it is difficult to imagine any answer other than god. This is where it is so very important to keep your critical thinking skills sharp. The argument above can only flourish in an environment of ignorance simply because it is the lack of understanding that produces the feeling of affirmation. A caveman would "have his mind blown" by observing any number of mundane objects we take for granted everyday. A cigarette lighter, for instance, might be imparted some divine qualities (perhaps from a fire god) simply because the primitive does not understand the simple natural and mechanical properties that produce the fire. There are still plenty of things that remain beyond the reach of scientific understanding, and it is in these gaps that modern humans continue to impart divine explanations. Rather than providing evidence to construct a the positive case for god, this logical fallacy simply asserts that god is the de facto answer to everything.

Now I did want to take a bit of a breath there and quickly address the very real number of scientists who hold both a scientific and theistic worldview. Many will point to this as evidence that Steven Jay Gould's NOMA philosophy (Non-Overlapping Magisteria, the theory that science and religion occupy two mutually exclusive spheres of knowledge) is not true. They say that these scientists have reconciled two worldviews such that their science encourages their religious beliefs. I think your quote from Allan Sandage sums up this particular philosophy quite nicely. My personal view is that faith and reason are fundamentally incompatible simply because faith requires belief without evidence. You can still form some of your spiritual beliefs through rational thought, but you will eventually have to yield to the unforgiving force of irrational (non-evidence based) faith. I believe that these scientists who say they can be both are simply not attempting to reconcile the leaps that their faith makes them take.

Of course the entire sum of my cognitive faculties cannot find fault with the beer argument. Perhaps that is because it only takes a few of them to make all arguments sound alike :-)

Revelation:

With regards to my view of the Bible as a book, I have no problem accepting most of what you put forward. The Bible is certainly an important document and it has flourished over many thousands of years and been used by many different societies to setup many different cultures. The Bible does not have to be divine, mystical, or anything else for me to confidently say that it is a book of significance. To take your line of questioning to it's logical next step, I have deliberately tried to avoid drawing any conclusions about the Bible's message. Since you need to believe in the existence of the god of Abraham for the Bible's message to have any real meaning, it seems that my energies are best focused on answering more basic questions. I have dabbled in some studies around things like the historical accuracy of the Bible and the historical likelihood of the Jesus story (the supernatural claims, not his existence as a person), but I wouldn't say that I've plumbed the depths of the subject by any stretch of the imagination.

Since you brought it up, I did want to voice a small complaint that I have when it comes to historical arguments for the literal accuracy of the Bible. I have no problem with the four premises to prove historicity presented in the link you provided although I can imagine more criterion that didn't make his list. Stipulating that those four points (eyewitnesses, corroboration, hostile testimony, maintained through death) are enough to go on, I still feel that the evidence presented is simply not enough. The key thing that is continually overlooked with regards to the authors of the Bible is that they are biased sources. I am not implying that they sought out to mislead people, but I do feel that the message they were trying to communicate was paramount and the hard historical facts were not. The Bible is full of stories that are not meant to be taken literally, and I think that people are all over the map when it comes to where they personally draw this line. The fictional parts of the Bible have many different names like parables, poetry, psalms, but whatever you choose to call them, you do not call them historical. It would be like reading Harry Potter 2000 years from now and claiming that it provides an accurate depiction of life in London. While certain aspects of it are based in reality, the story as a whole is entirely fictitious. It is not reasonable to think that Jesus had no father (how was his lineage traced to David, by the way, if he had no father?), that he walked on water, or that he rose from the dead. These are fantastical claims that require more than a two thousand year old document to prove. If a 2100 year old document claimed that Cesar crossed the Rubicon on a flaming T-Rex, you would demand much more convincing evidence before accepting that as fact. The Bible makes far more improbable claims, and highly improbable things are extraordinarily difficult to prove without direct evidence.

Historical Evidence:

The only way that the number of authors would be interesting is if some of the ones separated by distance wrote mutually-reinforcing documents at the exact same time. This is almost impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy though. What we are left with is the most likely scenario that the cumulative authors of the Bible shared similar cultural backgrounds and similar historical myths. The Jews are ushered onto main stage of the Bible relatively quickly, so I think it is safe to assume that much of the old testament was written by Jews of similar beliefs and traditions. Since their backgrounds were similar and they were all writing about the current state of affairs for their particular culture, it is not too crazy to think that their stories fit together. I also wouldn't discount the number of potential edits and modifications that some of the older documents went through as well. There are excellent 1900 year old manuscripts that helped refine our modern new testament, but that is still thousands of years after much of the old testament was written. There is also the nasty little list of books that were excluded from the modern Bible because the church did not agree with their message. These were just as old and just as authentic as the canonical books, but they had Jesus doing odd things that didn't fit with the consistent message that the church was trying to present. I'm not crying conspiracy here, I'm just saying that the bible evolved into it's current state based off of many thousands of years of trasnscriptions, translations, additions, subtractions, and corrections. To ignore all of this is to vastly oversimplify the lineage of the Bible we have today.

Prophecy:

The new testament authors were well aware of old testament prophecy, and it would have been a trivial task for them to write the Jesus story to "fulfill" them. This is simply the most reasonable scenario to explain the connections between the old and new testaments. If you choose to believe the unlikely truth that Jesus' life was the literal fulfillment of prophecy, you are doing so based off of faith and not evidence.


Manuscripts:
I think I covered this before, but I have no problem accepting that the Bible is a unique document, and the number of manuscripts is just one of those aspects.

As far as my claims to know the nature of an omniscient deity, I probably should clarify that. If you presume the existence of god, then of course you have to accept that he can arbitrarily do anything he wants whenever he wants. This fact, while unavoidable, is also entirely irrelevant. The god of the Christian Church has a defined and predictable nature. He setup the laws of physics, fine tuned creation, manifested a highly ordered universe, and did so through the unimaginably elegant forces of evolution and the big bang. If god exists, his nature is clearly reflected in the care he used to construct reality (as you argued vis-à-vis cosmology). Doesn't it seem somewhat contradictory that a god capable of such brilliant elegance choose a comparatively ham-hocked vehicle such as the Bible for his revelation? If the only response to this is that we can't understand god's plan, then I can only conclude that god is inconsistent in his nature. If god is not consistent, then how can any religion claim to have an established dogma for communicating, appeasing, and understanding god? It doesn't seem to me that you can have it both ways.


Jesus:
I completely agree with C.S. Lewis on this point. Jesus does indeed demand an absolutist opinion, as he leaves no room for half measures. This is another one of those areas that I have not researched with any degree of detail. There is certainly a good argument to be made that you can work from Jesus up to god's existence, but I'm choosing to go from god-down at the moment. My primary reason for this is because I do not want to make the assumption that the Christian revelation of god is the correct one. If I can be reasonably sure that god exists, I will then start to look at the further likelihood that any particular religion is actually correct.


Q: For you, which changed first, your views, perceptions, and beliefs in God, or your rebellion against your original beliefs?
I don't think I can honestly answer that question, because I'm not sure I ever really had views about god. It was just one of those things I never bothered to reconcile in my mind, and it wasn't until recently that I cared enough to take a position one way or the other. Once I thought about my own beliefs, I came to the realization that I had nothing more than a vestigial loyalty to the religious exposure of my youth.


Etcetera:
I will freely admit that I tend to air on the side of rationalism. There are strengths and weaknesses with this philosophy as there are with all philosophies, but I'm not going to fight my nature. The best I can do is try and recognise where my blind spots are and compensate as best as I can.

I understand the analogy you are using with regards to your personal relationship with god. I'll even take it one step further and say that I can appreciate the power that a relationship can have to make big doubts seem smaller. If your relationship is truly as you say it is, then it is a wonderful thing. If you are in a one-way relationship with an imaginary friend though, the entire edifice of your case falls down around you. This is why evidence, no matter how tough it is to come by, is so valuable in my book. You can't tear down something if it is a brute fact, and a case build on a sound foundation is much more likely to stand.

My ultimate goal is not to prove or disprove god. I am not a philosopher nor am I more capable than the countless others that have come before me seeking to do the exact same thing. What I need to do is surround myself with information from many schools of thought and across many different disciplines. I need to let that information flow through me and round out the edges of my perceptions. As this gradual exploration continues to shape me, it will gently push me in whatever direction I need to go. I can't force it and I can't be in the drivers seat on this one. The worst thing I could try and do is set some sort of artificial criterion to signify a decision point. I'll know when I've arrived at truth and I'm happy taking as long as I need to get there.