The discussion that is developing around my last post “Can Believers Really Afford to be Subtle?” has taken an interesting turn that I feel would benefit from a new post and discussion thread. In my opinion, much of the debate around literalism versus relativism boils down to a fundamental disagreement about the nature of god and by extension his revelation to humanity. The god who demands absolute obedience to a strict moral code is, after all, very different than the god who wants us to simply be genial and tolerant to each other. As an agnostic, I have my own ways of determining the potential nature of the supernatural even if I am not convinced that such a being exists. There are limitations to what I can consider though, as I have to be careful to avoid ideas that require faith (non-evidence-based belief) one way or the other. In light of this, I am very comfortable admitting that those whom god has chosen to have a personal relationship with would probably have a more robust means with which to quantify the essential qualities of his existence. If that is the case, it seems that there is much we can learn from each other. I would like to share my own impoverished viewpoint, ask questions about the two Christian views that have been shared in other discussions, and then see how those opinions impact interpretation of scripture. I think that exploring the depths of our collective view of god will reveal our deeper reasons for siding with either relativism or absolutism.
Before stepping into my main point, I did want to address and then push aside the unavoidable problem of omnipotence. An all powerful god is free to do anything he desires, including obscuring his own true nature from our view. God could have manifested the Bible as a grand cosmic joke, the absolute standard of truth, or just a neat story. Omnipotence makes any of these possible, so we need to be careful to keep our definition of god logically grounded. When we are talking about the god of eternity, we need to respect the infinite power that our definition ascribes to him. Characters like Jesus make it all too tempting to put a human face on god, granting him a much more terrestrial context than is appropriate. God cannot be defined as all-powerful while simultaneously being restricted with a human personality. If we are going to stay rationally grounded in this discussion, we need to make the assumption that the true nature of god is greater than any revelation passed down to us. While this might be a problem for someone trying to determine the actual nature of god, we are not so impeded. If the Christian god is the one true god, then we only need to discuss his revealed nature. The true nature of god will forever remain out of our reach, as that would require us to transcend our universe and observe god directly. In lieu of this unlikely event, I propose we treat the revealed nature of god as a reasonable facsimile for the real thing. This will allow us to have a rational conversation without having to worry about an infinite regression of ‘what if’ scenarios that simply demonstrate the points already stipulated above. Yes, an omnipotent god could have pulled the wool over our eyes, yes he can make reality be completely different that we are able to observe, and yes he could be laughing at me and my naturalist sympathizers. These points are all legitimate, but they do not advance the discussion in any meaningful way. This is made even more obvious when the argument is turned on its head to attack religion. What if god really despises faith? What if he setup religion as a way to test our resolve? This is an equally unassailable argument that also goes nowhere. In the end, I choose to believe that there is order to the universe and that we are capable of understanding at least a part of it. This could be a complete delusion on my part, but I am not about to start looking for divine conspiracies around every corner. Omnipotence might push the true nature of any potential god out of our reach, but we can still have a reasonable discussion about the nature he chooses to reveal to us.
My Personal View
With the omnipotence objection pushed aside, I want to briefly share my own personal view on god. I believe that god, if he exists, has a very defined and predictable nature. If we use a rough version of the Christian definition of god’s powers, then we should be able to look to his creation for some indication of what he values. The Bible even agrees with this point, stating that “His [god’s] eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made” (Romans 1:18-21). The Christian tradition clearly tells us that we can look at the universe around us for some signs of god’s “divine nature”, and I whole-heartedly endorse this concept. Just like any artist or engineer, we evaluate the creators by the artifacts they produce. Are they precise or chaotic? Do they value beauty or functionality? Is their work derivative or unique? As the ultimate creator, what does the universe tell us about god’s nature? The mathematically perfect nature of physics shows us he values logic and precision. The unimaginably elegant forces of evolution show us that he values simplicity over complexity. The vastness of space and its staggering age shows that human beings are but a small piece of his cosmic puzzle. If god exists, we are tremendously egotistical to think that we play any significant part in his grand plan. Why would god wait billions of years before ushering human beings, his supposed masterpiece, onto the stage of existence? Why go through countless cycles of creation and destruction if the rise of Homo sapiens was really all that mattered? Any god that values simplicity, elegance, and precision would not have created a universe with such waste. God could have easily manifested a much more reasonable ‘localized’ universe for humans to inhabit. The fact that he choose to create the grandness of our current 40 Billion light-year wide universe can only show that either god is inconsistent (his values shift), that we are not important (why the waste?), or that there is no god at all (no purpose or plan). The evidence has not shown me a clear path to reduce these options, but it should already be clear that all three are in opposition to the traditional Christian view of god. In the end, I expect any god to be far greater than anything we are able to imagine. I would even go so far as to say that the obfuscation probably works both ways as well. When was the last time you gave serious consideration to the billions of skin cells you lose every day? Why would god, who is defined as being so much greater in scale than we are to our individual cells, really care about what happens to us? Perhaps we are just part of his divine machinery, no more important than a single carbon atom is to the functioning of a human body. I am digressing a bit here, but I find it interesting when people talk about god as being infinite in one breath and then use their next breath to talk about their “personal relationship” with him. This seems a bit presumptuous to me, requiring a magnificently provincial view of god. A believer might be tempted to retort with a message of god’s infinite grace and compassion. This is certainly within the scope of omnipotence, but requires enormous vanity when put in the context of the scaling problem mentioned above. If a supernatural creator exists, his creation shows us that he is most likely rational, precise, and well beyond the capability of some ancient desert nomads to define.
So with my stake placed firmly in the ground, I wanted to explore two Christian views of god that lead to either relativism or absolutism. I am going to have to take some liberties here, as I cannot possibly deduce all details of a believers worldview based off of a single issue alone. Rather than try to construct a bottom-up argument like I did for my own views, I think we will all be better served by taking the opposite approach and working backwards. I will do my best to try and construct the most reasonable model of god based off of the assumption that first absolutism then relativism is correct.
Absolutism
What are the qualities of a god that requires absolute obedience to a strict moral code? The first and most obvious fact is that this god has to be extremely detailed oriented and almost obsessively interested in the entirely insignificant actions of absolutely meaningless creatures. This might sound harsh, but remember the scale difference we reviewed earlier. God has to peer way down into the cosmos to even catch a glimpse of earth, and this isn’t even counting the effort (if that word has any meaning at the supernatural level) associated with continuously monitoring the actions of all of its inhabitants. This would be similar to trying to continuously keep track of the exact location of every grain of sand on earth. Even if task were possible, it is the odd individual indeed who would bother with such trivialities. God has gone through much more trouble on a staggeringly grander scale, so calling his interest in us uncanny or obsessive is not being polemic in my opinion. With an all powerful being oddly interested in our species, it is reasonable to wonder what his intentions are. In this particular case, god is primarily concerned with establishing a set of moral rules for us to live and be judged by. We have now taken his obsession and extended to even stranger heights. The absolutist god is not happy with simply observing humanity; he must sit in judgment over each action we take. What can be his motivation behind these rules? Do they exist for our own protection or perhaps to ensure the happiness of our species? God could both protect us and make us happy with the snap of his finger, so this does not seem to be the case. If there is a greater purpose behind this moral code, then why not simply force us to comply? Since god left our free will intact, the only logical purpose behind these rules can be to demonstrate our obedience to him. Why should god care about our obedience? Why is he going so far out of his way to try and control us? Modern leaders who use their power to demand obedience are called dictators, and those who resort to force are called tyrants. The Old Testament is rife with examples of god violently punishing those who disobey, so I feel that we can reasonably classify the absolutist god as tyrannical. One last question to ask is how god chose to reveal his moral code to us. This is a critical question, because it reveals much about his nature. The more benevolent god chooses to be, the more obvious and compelling he would make his revelation. He would make the rules simple, easy to understand in any culture/time, comprehensible by any child, and completely unambiguous. Since god is capable of such a perfect revelation, anything less can only be interpreted as his intentional muddling of our understanding. So what can be said about the absolutist god’s actual revelation? Without turning this into a larger discussion, I think it is very safe to say that the Bible is far from the perfect revelation that I outlined above. Modern Christians have to rely on translations, ancient documents, transcriptions, and human influence over their sacred texts. The net result is a document whose real meanings are hard to discern in some cases and outright cryptic in others. The absolutist does not have as much ground to make up here as the relativist though, as they traditionally try to add as little human interpretation as possible. The very fact that there are multiple different interpretations of the Bible within the branches of the Christian church points out that even believers cannot always see eye to eye. Why would god not better equip us to obey him? Where does this leave us with regards to the nature of the absolutist god? The unfortunate conclusion is a grim one. The absolutist god seems to be obsessed over humanity in the same way that a child is obsessed with an ant farm. We are meaningless when compared to god, but he still seems interested in tapping on the glass to watch us scurry around in fear. God appointed himself supreme judge, established rules that human beings would naturally find hard to obey, and then haphazardly revealed those rules to us. This might all be bad in its own right, but we still have to consider the fact that god went WAY out of his way to set this all in motion. All in all, the absolutist god seems rather petty, caring far too much about events that are simply irrelevant to a being of his scope and power.
Before continuing on to the relativistic viewpoint, I wanted to clear up a few potential objections. I realize that I am anthropomorphizing god a bit, but I am doing it only for literary effect. An omnipresent god does not actually have to travel great distances to see us, nor is it possible for him to “go out of his way” to do something. The point I am making there is not the effort involved but the ludicrous nature of the task. There is also the issue of labeling god’s actions with human moral terms. This was done again for the sake of being concise, as my argument was less focused on morality than on reasonability. The Christian definition of god makes him the personification of good. Technically speaking, anything he does is automatically considered good; even if it goes against the moral code he put in place for humanity. I feel that we can push this objection aside for the same reasons we did with the omnipotence problem though. God can choose to act in whatever way he wants, but either he is consistent or he is not. The Bible says that god is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), so he is either perpetually chaotic or consistently good (he can’t be evil by definition). Since a perpetually chaotic god is impossible to understand, we can only reasonably talk about the consistently good god. The last potential objection has to do with the concept of grace. I anticipate the believer using god’s supposed grace as an indicator that he is not tyrannical. The thought goes that god gives believers some sin cushion, allowing them to occasionally break the rules without suffering eternal damnation. Even if we stipulate that god has such mechanisms in place, it is still difficult to call it grace. Remember that god put us in the position to potentially suffer in the first place, so it is hardly gracious to relax his own rules. We do not call the bank robber kind because he let half of his hostages go. If he were really kind, he would not have placed innocent people in harms way in the first place.
Relativism
What are the qualities of a god that only asks for our love? The relativist god is just as uncannily interested in humanity as the absolutist god, so all of my points regarding his somewhat obsessive nature still apply. Why is this god so interested in us? The big difference here is that this god cares less about moral codes and more about having a personal relationship with each and every human. How is such a relationship possible? What purpose can it serve for god? Given the scope differences, any relationship will be invariably one directional. We have nothing to offer god and he has potentially everything to offer us. Although we will never know the truth behind god's motivations, I think it is safe to label his interest in us as benevolent. How can we enter into such a relationship with god? In this case, the answer is less certain. When taken to an extreme, the relativist god has a relationship with us regardless of whether or not we ask for it. We simply live our lives and god accepts us just the way we are. Instead of taking this extreme view though, let us keep our focus on the relativistic god of Christianity and see where that takes us. In this case, we enter into a relationship with god through Jesus. Like the absolutist god, this god has also decided to sit in judgment over humanity. Rather than judge us on adherence to an arbitrary set of moral codes though, we are judged solely on our acceptance of god’s human manifestation. We have the choice to either accept Jesus and receive eternal bliss or reject him and suffer in eternal agony. Without restating them, my objections to the absolutist god appointing himself judge apply to the relativistic Christian god as well. It just seems strange to the point of being unbelievable to think that a being of such greatness would care about us at all. Assuming he does care though, what steps must we take to begin a relationship with Jesus? This is where we turn to the Bible yet again. This particular god is far less interested in the specific details of his revelation than his absolutist counterpart. The primary use that the Bible has in this case is to chronicle the life of Jesus, roughly demonstrating what is needed to form an eventual relationship with him. Since Jesus does not enter the Bible until the New Testament (vague prophecy notwithstanding), it is safe to assume that the relativistic god is not as concerned with nuances. The vast majority of the Bible could be lost forever, and as long as there was enough left to still reveal Jesus, that would be good enough. What strikes me as odd about this is the tremendous amount of “waste” in the Bible. If Jesus is really all that matters, why go through the pretense of the Old Testament? In fact, why let the events of the Old Testament transpire at all? If Jesus is all that matters for humanity, why let humans walk the earth for 100,000 years before revealing him to us? The only possible answers to this are that either god did not care about those pre-Old Testament humans or that Jesus is not the only way. If god cared about these ancient humans, why didn’t he reveal himself to them? If Jesus is the only way, why would god reveal himself in one way in the Old Testament and another in the New Testament? If we are sticking with our assumption that god is benevolent, we can only concluded that Jesus is not the only answer. This is the inevitable peril that moderated relativism falls into. An omnibenevolent god is going to reveal himself to everyone in the most perfect way that fits their worldview. Any attempt to restrict this perfect revelation also restricts his benevolence because it requires god to place the value of his arbitrary rules over the welfare of an individual. A truly benevolent and omnipotent god has the ability to touch each human soul without the need for dogma and rules to define him. While the Christian version of the relativistic god is not tenable in my opinion, we can roll him up as another aspect of the truly relativistic deity. What can we say about the nature of this god? We can say that, although he is very strangely attached to our species, it does not seem to be to our detriment. This god accepts us all as we are and understands that we are entirely imperfect and incapable of ever understanding him. He still chooses to get involved and care about our lives, although it is entirely unclear what specific impact his involvement has (if any). In the end, the relativistic god can be likened to a congenial old grandfather. He loves us deeply, but is too different to truly relate to. We feel comforted by his presence, but in the end, he only plays a peripheral role in our lives. While this is preferable to the tyrannical alternative, the relativistic god seems to too much like a toothless tiger to be worth worshipping.
Revelation
It should be clear now how our view of god impacts our view of scripture. The absolutist, looking to appease their strict and legalistic god, will always err on the side of literal interpretation. Since stepping out of line can potentially mean eternal suffering, the absolutist tends to rely on tradition as a reasonable guide. This invocation of the traditional is what has kept the Church in power for thousands of years. People look to the Church to tell them how to appease god and the Church in turn tries to provide a framework with which to live a holy life. While this can be a very effective way to unite large numbers of people, it also is a recipe for disaster. When the masses stop looking for god on their own and start simply taking the Church’s word at face value, we run the risk of deceivers surreptitiously hijacking the minds of their followers. There are plenty of examples of this deception throughout history, and the absolutist god encourages this by priming believers to unquestioningly obey authority. In the end, the absolutists will be very good at following the dogma of their Church, but they run the risk of blindly following a false revelation. The absolutist will have more answers than questions, and their journey to enlightenment will be hit-or-miss based solely on whether or not they happened to accept the correct belief structure.
Does the situation look any different for the relativist’s interpretation of scripture? Remember now that their god is not as concerned with the nitty-gritty details of his Bible. The major points about Jesus are the only real important parts, and the rest is just supporting information. With so much left open, how can god expect us to know if we are living a proper life? Unfortunately for relativists, this is a tough question to answer. Absolutists have the benefit of their moral code to fall back on, but relativists have to rely on a combination of loosely interpreted scripture, societal pressures, gut feelings, and the ‘holy spirit’. This god gives us his approval by gently guiding our feelings, meeting us all as individuals rather than as a collective group. This emphasis on individual thought and critical thinking is certainly a very strong inoculation against any potential manipulation. The relativists will be more likely to embrace the unknown, accept those who are different, and be kind to others. They will be slow to judge and be far less likely to perpetuate social injustices. As with all things though, this independence comes at the cost of being particularly vulnerable to personal bias and fanciful whims. The relativist cannot look toward tradition with the same certainty that the absolutist can, so remaining anchored requires extensive mental discipline. The relativists will always have more questions than answers, and their journey to enlightenment may never be completed.
So what does all this mean for you? I would be very interested to hear about your own views on the nature of god and how you think that impacts your reading of scripture. If your perspective on god is different than my own - and I have to imagine that it will be for at least a few of you - let me know where my logic breaks down. Wherever you fit on the continuum from absolutism to relativism to agnosticism to atheism, I am interested to see how your logical view of god relates to my postulations above. If I have not properly represented your god, tell me where I need to change things and I will endeavor to explore every facet of your ideas.
As always, I appreciate everyone who reads this blog and look forward to any dialog that is produced as a result.
