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.
17 comments:
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?
Brian my response to your most recent post will not surprise you, however I feel compelled to ask it.
If you are going to continue to explore who God is in the context of the Christian faith you need to answer just one question first. That being; is Jesus a liar, a phony, delusional or was He who He said he was. All of Christianity rests on this one basic question. Talking with you these past few months on this issue of “Who God is?” or “Does God exist” it appears to me that you take many detours along the way. I id enjoy reading your last post and it is clear that you continue to think deeply about this subject. I challenge you to focus your research on the person of Christ for a period of time and see where it leads. Attempting to totally “figure out” God is a task that is destined for failure from the start. However, as we have discussed in the past, God does not require us to have “blind faith” He gives us all the information about Him we need and at the same time requires a measure of faith. Continue on your search for God, he is not hard to find.
'If you are going to continue to explore who God is in the context of the Christian faith you need to answer just one question first. That being; is Jesus a liar, a phony, delusional or was He who He said he was. All of Christianity rests on this one basic question.'
Framed in a certain light, it seems as though those are the only options I suppose. It's a very Modern question to ask though. My response would be "Perhaps not everything that is written about Jesus is true, in which case he was not a liar, a phony, or delusional but a great teacher."
That's not my personal belief about Jesus so I hope you don't take it as such, but I often hear this straw man argument hurled about. It fits, but you must allow for certain assumptions to be made before it does, and syllogisms have no room for assumption.
Bri, I have a lot to say about what you've written and you actually toe the line of straw-man-bashing yourself when speaking of two (supposedly) diametrically opposed viewpoints. Once again, very Modern. I don't have the time to respond at length now, but fear not! I shall later.
Dad,
I have to agree with Drew on his point. Your entire view of Jesus comes from the Bible, so you have to allow for the fact that the Bible could simply be wrong about the facts. Jesus may have been a very well intentioned man that was deified by gospel writers after the fact. Facts may have been embellished to the point that they are far from what actually took place. Without a strong set of third party accounts, it is impossible to dismiss this as a possibility. Given the supernatural nature of the claims in the Bible, I would even go so far as to say that this is the most probable answer. If the Biblical account of Jesus is real, that would be a rare event indeed. For every one of these rare events that actually happen, there are countless false claims that exist right alongside it. It is far more reasonable to start off with the assumption that they are all false and then look for compelling reasons to think otherwise.
Drew,
I look forward to your comments. Keep in mind here that I did not pick these two options to try and conclusively prove or disprove which is true, but to demonstrate that a more nuanced position is difficult to logically defend. This is all within the loose context of Christianity as well, as you could easily redefine god and get a whole new set of possibilities. That was not my intent here, as most of the previous discussions were focused around Christian values and Christian revelation. If your personal viewpoint is somewhere along the continuum between a strict tyrannical god and an all accepting non-judgmental god, I would be interested to hear about how you anchor yourself. Rather than choosing straw-men arguments, I think I choose the only two models that are actually tenable. The problem for Christians is that these two models have implications that either strain or outright break their traditional view of god. It would seem to me that the all encompassing definitions that we typically give god (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent) naturally force his nature to one extreme or the other. Most believers will never take the repercussions of their particular belief structure to its logical conclusion, and the result is an incomplete worldview.
Assuming that you are working vaguely within the context of Christianity, perhaps it would be best to start with your particular view of god. If you feel you have a good rational model for an intermediate god that is able to escape the inertia of his infinite scope, please lay out your logical argument.
“Is Jesus a liar, a phony, delusional or was He who He said he was”
“It's a very Modern question to ask though. My response would be "Perhaps not everything that is written about Jesus is true, in which case he was not a liar, a phony, or delusional but a great teacher."
Drew you are correct that perhaps not everything written about Jesus is true. However, that does not change the fact that if anyone were considering the Christian view of God, a conclusion of who the person of Jesus is would be a mandate and a good place to start. Christ is the cornerstone of the Christian faith, therefore although it could be taken as a straw man argument that does not dismiss the significance of the question “Who is Jesus?” If he was just a great teacher or a well intention “man” and not God as Christianity claims then all other Christian teaching rightly comes under skeptical scrutiny. However, if Jesus is who the Bible claims He is then your search for if there is a God and who is He could transition to “What is God asking of me?”
This is straying a bit off topic, but it is an interesting conversation nonetheless. If someone were trying to evaluate the legitimacy of Christianity, having a conclusive answer on Jesus would be absolutely necessary. If Jesus is not who he says he is then Christianity is patently false. While I think we are in agreement on that fact, I still have to disagree on the point that Jesus is the appropriate place to start an honest inquiry.
Let’s assume for a second that I restart my studies and choose to investigate Christianity via Jesus first, rather than start from Agnosticism and work my way in. The Bible is the source of the overwhelming majority of information that we have on Jesus, so I would read about him there. Before giving any credence to it as a source though, it is important to thoroughly research its credibility. Just like Jesus is the cornerstone for Christianity, the Bible is the cornerstone in the case for Jesus. If the Bible is not trustworthy after all, then we should not base our faith off of anything it says. In order for the Bible to be truly authoritative in the ways it claims, it must be god-breathed. That means that a supernatural entity touched a few mortal men and inspired them to write his divine revelation. If the Bible is not inspired by god, then none of its claims can be valid, as humans are not capable of perceiving the spiritual world without god’s assistance. So now to be confident in the validity of the Bible, I need to be sure that a deity with the nature of the Christian god exists. We have regressed all the way back to the fundamental question of god’s existence and his nature, and we are no closer to the truth than when we started. This line of questioning leads me right back to Agnosticism, which is why I choose to start there in the first place.
If someone is desperately seeking a higher power, they will find a lot of satisfaction is studying Jesus. Their desire to find something greater than themselves will prime them to ignore all assumptions and go with what feels good. This is not the way to seek the truth, however. Seeking the truth requires much more mental discipline, forcing us to continually identify and compensate for our own cognitive weaknesses.
Man, I wish I had more time today.
I needed to quickly throw up one clarification:
I only wrote what I did in response to Brian's Dad's statement because there are seemingly only two possible conclusions about Jesus from what he stated. I wasn't confining my scope to one that sticks within Christianity. I currently have a friend who is very interested in Christianity because of the person of Christ, but he's not sure on the whole deity question yet. Even without Christ being divine, his person and historical presence is so attractive and surrounded in such a compelling story that it's far from worthless if it's not all entirely true, which is the only point I was trying to make.
I'll post in response to you later Bri, you long-winded philosophizer, you. :)
I don't like the relativism tag. I would posit that it's not possibly to be intellectually honest without acknowledging that so-called "relativism" is inherent to the discussion. E.g. capital T Truth is outside the realm of our knowable experience as human beings.
Well, you can't have any discussion at all without first accepting that everything we experience is 'relative' to our human perspective. I already stipulated this fact by saying that we can only speak about the revealed nature - or relative, if you will - of god, not his True (capital T) nature. When generalized, it becomes clear that we can never be sure if there is a gap between the True nature of anything and the nature that we are able to perceive with our senses. This is precisely why the god hypothesis is not falsifiable. Any evidence we gather either for or against god can simply be discarded as limitations inherent in our human perspective. While this is certainly an objection that needs to be stated, I feel it is largely irrelevant to the conversation. Either we are capable of observing reality or we are not. If we are not, then we need to mistrust every single experience we have ever had as potentially disconnected from the Truth. Without a reliable means of evaluating information, everything is unknowable and nothing can be reasonably discussed by anyone. Even introducing a small gap between reality and our senses pushes us to this unavoidable conclusion, as we can never be sure just how large the gap is (and you can always cram a ‘what if?’ scenario in that gap). So we can either talk about nothing at all, or we can make the reasonable assumption that existence is not a giant delusion. If I am delusional, I have nothing to lose by incorrectly assuming that I can make sense of things. If I am not delusional, I have the opportunity to potentially uncover a great truth of the universe. Given the choice, I will at least try to see where my limited brain with its limited senses can take me.
Brian...I just read your comments on Matt's blog and wanted you to know that I think are right on. I guess I wanted to reassure you that not all Christians think along Matt's lines...you responded as I would have and I am a Christian. I appreciate the depth at which you think and am confident that God is working in your life (I hope that at some point you will be able to look back on your life and see the same thing). Keep writing...it's a great blog.
I agree with the anonymous commenter above me. Indeed Bri, you have allowed some presuppositions of your own to be central to the discussion.
Where you could stand back and say "Give me a good reason why I should put any more credence in the existence of your Christian God than I do in the existence of the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster", and you would be entirely rationally justified. I believe you have attempted to frame the discussion in a context so as to seek the truth in an honest and thoughtful way, without alienating anyone or offending his or her deeply held beliefs.
Hey man,
There's been some good conversations going on here and I am glad that I have been a part of what has sparked this.
I want to just point out 1 thing here. On my blog I have written about 50 blogs since you and I began to start conversing. The ones that you have been most egar to respond to have been the ones on Homosexuality, Authoritive Scripture and Weed. I am forced to question why this may be? Anytime I have written encouraging blogs about the nature of God, Love of God, Plan of God, etc I get no comments. I am in no way looking for more comments from anyone. That would be lame. However, this forces me think that maybe you are just rebelious (knowingly or unknowingly) towards the law of God but open to the love of God. In your pursuit towards Truth, keep that in mind.
To Drew/Anonymous:
Thank you for the kind words and encouragement. I do my best to try and maintain as balanced an outlook as I can. This is sometimes complicated by the fact that I cannot necessarily make all of the same assumptions as believers, but I feel like we all have enough common ground to be able to move conversations forward.
To Matt:
You’ve written 15 blogs since I found this site (I have not read your archives, should I?), and I’ve responded to four of them with comments and two with blog posts (with another one coming shortly). We use our blogs for different reasons though, so I am not entirely sure that post count should be used as an indication of how much attention is being paid. I tend write bigger articles/comments that have more content in them (hence my two or three week update cycle) where as you mix it up with both big and small posts. Both are fine approaches to open discussion, but I will tend to want to stick to a smaller number of deep threads than spread out across 15 different ones. There are also occasions where your posts are directed squarely at believers, leaving me with little to comment on. The reason I engaged on the homosexuality and weed posts was because they seemed to have some potential depth that was worth discussing. I saw you making moral judgments based off of Biblical authority, and I was keenly interested in your approach. This is more interesting to me than a softer topic like god’s love because you are forced to take a stand and defend your position. I am also somewhat reluctant to stream roll into every one of your conversations with my godless banter, as I am well aware that having an unrestrained naysayer gets old after a while. You have actual believers reading your blog that probably do not want to be continually reminded of the fact that their beliefs are based off of some assumptions that they might not have thought through completely. Some are invigorated by this kind of discussion and some are just turned away at the door. In an effort to keep the conversation focused and relevant, I always try to carefully choose my battles. This does not mean that I am not reading your posts, as I generally read them within a day of their posting. If I do not respond though, it is because I did not think that we could have a meaningful conversation about the topic you present.
I will make this deal with you though. If you are genuinely interested in my thoughts on a particular blog post, shoot me a quick note when you publish it. I just don’t want to overstay my welcome when it comes to these discussions, and I try to be respectful of both your time and the time of those that read your blog.
I am still waiting for an actual response to my “Nature of God” post, so I’ll join the no-comment club with you. There have been side discussions about Jesus here, but no one has made a direct response to the topics I covered. Perhaps the length of my articles is too long to reasonably discuss in the comments. My next post will be twice as long as this one, so I might try breaking it up into smaller pieces to see if that is easier to absorb. I just find it hard to break apart content…
Indeed Bri. Thoughtful responses to this post have been brief, and failed to discuss the full breadth of the topic.
I have recently done some thinking on it, so I will try my hand at a response.
I think that the difficulty that nonbelievers have, from a theological perspective, is that they are told the nature of God is incredibly difficult for human beings to fathom. That's all well and good, and surely a God whose ways are too high to understand is a good cop out. But that doesn't address the question of what makes Him worthy of worship. It's easy for us humans to understand God in the context of his love, but it takes a lot more philosophical footwork to justify why a God who displays the personality characteristics of a two year old throwing a temper tantrum is worthy of our worship.
I'm not as into the self-flagellation as some of my brethren who comment here. I believe that human knowledge, wisdom, philosophy is not without merit. Just as there are Biblical passages that explain how insignificant human beings are in comparison to The Almighty (in prose, might I add), there are many that praise the virtues of a particular human, so as to lead us to the conclusion that human achievement and thought are not to be discarded out of hand. I don't want anything I ever say to be taken as a personal attack, but this is the issue I take with Matt's particular brand of religiosity. I have heard it many times before, as I went to a school growing up that was very Calvinist in its leanings. People who hold this view tend to see anything that comes from man (excepting the men who wrote the Bible) as inferior. Everyone's entitled to his opinion in this regard, based on how he feels lead by The Spirit. That is why we have multiple schools of theological thought. I don't want to use any words that come across too strongly here, but in the same way it is often asked "who watches the watchers?", I ask "who meters the canon?". That is to say, there are many portions of The Bible I can look at and say "I understand why this is a good principle." And there are many passages I can look at and say "I understand why this was a good principle in its historical context." Context is everything when you are interpreting a living work like The Bible.
If The Bible were not open to interpretation; Nay, if it did not *require* interpretation, it would be not worth taking advice from. Cultural context changes, God doesn't, but he wrote His Word in such a way as to account for the unstoppable force that is Cultural Change. This is why I must restrain laughter when I hear someone utter something like "I just had to go back to the original meaning." As though that is available to even the most well-schooled Greek or Hebrew scholar.
I think I have digressed into the tangential, forgive me.
-D
It's easy for us humans to understand God in the context of his love, but it takes a lot more philosophical footwork to justify why a God who displays the personality characteristics of a two year old throwing a temper tantrum is worthy of our worship.
Interesting. Do you feel that god is worthy of worship, Drew? If so, how have you reconciled this problem in your own mind?
I don't want to use any words that come across too strongly here, but in the same way it is often asked "who watches the watchers?", I ask "who meters the canon?".
This is my exact concern with Christianity specifically, but any human attempt to understand the divine in general. We rely on imperfect beings to interpret what we rationally should have no expectations of understanding, but then cement their teachings in stone and ask for them to never be changed again. Doesn't this open you up to just repeating the same mistakes over and over again? I've asked it to others before, but where are the checks and balances? How can Christians guard themselves from perpetuating misunderstandings down throughout the generations if there is no methods by which to fact check the Bible?
Bri,
I think that you have misinterpreted the meaning of why I wrote what I did pertaining to the comments on my blog. Personally, I always enjoy what you have to write on my blog regardless how different our views are, however, that was not my point. I was asking you to try and be as honest as you could in your pursuit of what you call "Truth". I was just pointing out that the majority of what peeks your interest, has to do with refuting things that may deal with specific behaviors that Christians would typically be against. When searching for "Truth" don't spend all of your time focusing on what Christians are against. The things that Christians are for are far more profound. Rather than being known for what I (or scripture) is against; I would much rather be know for what I am for; someone who is for Love, Peace, Joy, Kindness, Goodness, self-control, everlasting life, Forgiveness of sin, Victory over Satan-sin-death, Redemption, and there is much more.
Just an observation and thought.
Matt,
It's an excellent point, and one that I will have to figure out how to resolve. The problem, of course, is that I have already been exposed to a lot of those teachings and I carry some presumptions about what they mean. I am not implying that my presumptions are all correct, as they probably vary in their accuracy, but I tend to not question them a whole lot (which is a fault). Since it is not these positive traits that make me doubt Christianity, I tend to not focus on them. You are absolutely right though, that I run a real danger of getting pulled down into a black hole of negative thinking, which could very well influence my ability to discern the truth.
It's a tough balancing act to be sure...thanks for calling me on it.
One would not be entirely off base in making the generalization that it's a characteristic of our entire generation to (albeit subconsciously) chant the mantra: "Seek truth always, and be supremely suspicious of anyone who claims to have found it."
I do not purport to be the best of men. We all have our flaws. Me, I'm a skeptic to the core. The only thing we can be entirely certain of is that absolute certainty is an illusion. There are true statements that I can make that are more certain than others, and there are true statements I can make that are less certain. For example, I hold a fairly high degree of certainty that I'm currently posting a comment to Brian's blog, but there is a slight possibility that my certainty is dead wrong. We must constantly accept these possibilities, but I reject the notion I have seen written elsewhere that as a by-product of this lack of certainty, all human beings exhibit faith in some thing.
I realize that this lack of reliance on "faith", if you will, puts me at a disadvantage in my interaction with other human beings. It is a core component of who I am and what makes me tick. It is exemplified in my unconscious attitudes toward things. For example: Most people really don't care about the inner workings of their cars. It's just a vehicle. It gets from point A to point B. I consider this attitude unconscionable. I MUST acquire knowledge. I don't have a particular interest in particle physics or quantum mechanics, but if you have a PhD in either of them, you'll have my ear for hours! Why? It makes me a better human being. This propensity towards learning for the sake of learning has alienated me from the people around me most of my life, and believe it or not it has held me back academically (school isn't about learning anymore, it's about rote memorization of trivia and "training" you for a job so that you can join the vast ranks of Bourgeious wage slaves), and I have caught myself subsconsciously taking a dim view of those who care not to learn how things work.
I'm not sure how I digressed into that.
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