Faith: Part 3 (Originally posted Aug. 27, 2007)

Let me preface my response by telling you that C.S. Lewis has already discussed this issue at length in the first chapter of The Abolition of Man. By the end of my post, I hope to have provided what I have just asked AS for in my last post - that is, the “shape” of supernatural discernment. But so that we are first all agreed in my general premise, let me describe the “real world” correlative as referenced in Plato’s Republic (pgs. 122-125):

“It would seem…that the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life. Does not like always attract like?…Until some one rare and grand result is reached which may be called good, [or] may be the reverse of good?…[so then,] shall we condescend to legislate on any of [the] particulars? I think…that there is no need to impose laws about them on good men; what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for themselves…”

“…[but] without divine help…they will go on forever making and mending the laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection…[such men] are always fancying that by legislation they will make an end of frauds in contracts, and the other rascalities which I was mentioning, not knowing that they are in reality cutting off the heads of a hydra…” (pg. 122-124)

(If it is not clear what Plato is describing, think of these individuals as the ethical equivalent of a hypochondriac. The person is always troubling himself with trivial matters, when it is his general character which he should attend to. They “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel (Matt. 23:24).”)

“…the true legislator will not trouble himself with this class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution [of a State]…many of them will naturally flow our of our previous regulations.”

In the book, Socrates returns later to describe what is to be the emphasis of sound instruction with this illustration:

“You know…that dyers, when they want to dye wool for making the true sea-purple, begin by selecting their white color first; this they prepare and dress with much care and pains, in order that the white ground may take the purple hue in full perfection. The dyeing then proceeds; and whatever is dyed in this manner becomes a fast color, and no washing either with lyes or without them can take away the bloom. But, when the ground has not been duly prepared, you will have noticed how poor is the look either of purple or any other color. Then now…you will understand what our object was in [educating our citizens]; we were contriving influences which would prepare them to take the dye of the laws in perfection, and the color of…every opinion was to be indelibly fixed by their nurture and training, not to be washed away by such potent lyes as pleasure - mightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda or lye; or by sorrow, fear, or desire, the mightiest of all other solvents.” (pg. 128-129)

As C.S. Lewis comments:

“In The Republic, the well-nurtured youth is one ‘who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart. All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her (see Republic, pg. 95-96).’” (The Abolition of Man, pg. 16-17)

Up to this point, we have considered only Plato’s philosophy of education, and it seems to me a good one. Now, is there any reason preventing us from applying the same principles to God’s approach with man? I think, rather, that the Bible supports this principle, as evidenced in the verse below.

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Rom. 12:2)

The concept is that the heart is like an instrument requiring fine tuning if it is to resonate in harmony with God’s heart. Or perhaps it is better thought of us an antennae which must be regularly tweaked in order to tune in to God’s frequency. Or it could even be thought of as the helm of a ship. This is my personal favorite because it treats the heart as a fixed mechanism with an explicit purpose: to direct the ship. (Furthermore, it isn’t as accommodating of those cutesy clichés as my previous illustrations, and the fewer cutesy phrases I have to use, like “quiet time” for instance, the better.)

People - particularly academia - often ridicule someone who “follows their heart” or “trusts their gut” (by the way, the Israelites also placed the heart’s activities in the bowels and the kidneys, so the terms are interchangeable). Thomas Jefferson says it best:

“'Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity (The God Delusion, pg. 34).’”

Jim Watson, founder of the Human Genome Project, commented: “I’m a bit embarrassed [laughs] because, you know, I can’t believe anyone accepts truth by revelation (The God Delusion, pg. 99).”

And, here comes the slippery slope, we all probably agree that reliance upon feelings is unwise (reminiscent of the Fact-Faith-Feeling train from certain Christian tracts). But telling someone not to follow their heart is, relative to Biblical principles, the equivalent of telling someone not to navigate their ship at the helm. To further illustrate this point, consider Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees:

“You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Matt. 12:34)

“The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45)

What I like about the concept of living from the heart - well, one thing anyway - is that our hearts are capable of inspiring actions that we would not have otherwise made intellectually. It allows such experiences as falling in love, bearing someone else’s burdens, or even laying down our lives for someone else. I like that we describe this kind of inspiration in terms of being “swept up” into something “bigger than ourselves.” It seems to reestablish our position in relation to God - we recognize in we do are not doing the work, but participating in the divine nature. It distinguishes us from other creatures, even from ourselves when we are acting as mere creatures, and makes us feel truly human. “…for in the image of God has God made man.” (Gen. 9:6)

But back to the attitude of academia toward what Jefferson would call “unintelligible propositions”, that is, those that are based on some subjective intuition of the heart, let me clarify what is really being debated. What most critics mean when they call a proposition unintelligible is that it can’t be assessed empirically. And to further clarify, let me provide a definition. Empiricism is defined as the way we assemble what we know of ourselves and our world from the "association of ideas" that come to us from our five senses. Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. But is that all there is? Are the “five senses” really the only contributing constituents to what we acknowledge in our minds as sound reason? Philosophy would not exist if it were. But when we’re studying the natural world, that one side of what many acknowledge is a two-sided coin, all voices besides those coming from our five senses are silenced. And this is what we call being empirical.

And you know what, this is a perfect standard for the field of science. Science is only concerned with the natural, therefore it only makes sense to exclude non-empirical data. The problem comes in when someone becomes so habitually dependent on the natural, that he/she forgets its limitations. It is nothing but a case of nearsightedness. Narrow-mindedness. Bias. None of the terms are meant to offend, only to remind anyone who has forgotten that such a state of mind is quite common. We all do it. But every once in a while, we need to expose ourselves to the many correctives this world has made available. We are acted upon by reality in the same way our government is acted upon by the system of checks and balances. As C.S. Lewis has said, “All reality is iconoclastic (A Grief Observed, pg. 66).” There are experiential counter-weights everywhere, if only we are open to them.

In the illustration below, we see the potential consequence of a life lived shut off from the reality and its iconoclastic nature. As you read it, keep in mind that we are sometimes kept from the reality by forces outside ourselves (as is the boy in the story); but at other times, we are our own imprisoner (as we have just discussed).

“Let us picture a woman thrown into a dungeon. There she bears and rears a son. He grows up seeing nothing but dungeon walls, the straw on the floor, and a little patch of the sky seen through the grating, which is too high up to show anything except sky. This unfortunate woman was an artist, and when they imprisoned her she managed to bring with her a drawing pad and a box of pencils. As she never loses the hope of deliverance, she is constantly teaching her son about that outer world which he has never seen. She does it very largely by drawing him pictures. With her pencil she attempts to show him what fields, rivers, mountains, cities, and waves on a beach are like. He is a dutiful boy and he does his best to believe her when she tells him that the outer world is far more interesting and glorious than anything in the dungeon. At times he succeeds. On the whole he gets on tolerably well until, one day, he says something that gives his mother pause. For a minute of two they are at a cross-purpose. Finally it dawns on her that he has, all these years, lived under a misconception. ‘But,’ she gasps, ‘you didn’t think that the real world was full of lines drawn in lead pencil?’ And instantly his whole notion of the outer world becomes a blank. For the lines, by which alone he was imagining it, have now been denied of it. He has no idea of that which will exclude and dispense with the lines, that of which the lines were merely a transposition - the waving treetops, the light dancing on the weir, the colored three-dimensional realities which are not enclosed in lines but define their own shapes with at every moment with a delicacy and multiplicity which no drawing could ever achieve. The child will get the idea that the real world is somehow less visible than his mother’s pictures. In reality it lacks lines because it is incomparably more visible.” (The Weight of Glory: "Transposition". pg. 109-110)

Needless to say, we have all had personal experiences with individuals who affirm - and under no compulsion - certain feelings or experiences which Christianity presents as evidence of our origins but which science (or more strictly, the monist perspective) disregards. One of the most wide-reaching examples of this kind of experience which I have found is that which Lewis describes as Joy. This experience, when understood as Lewis intended, is to me one of the strongest arguments on the side of Christianity and deserving of a separate discussion all its own. For now, suffice it to say that even atheists are sometimes caught off guard with experiences that draw them outside themselves.

Before closing, I would like to discuss the thing which takes the conversation full circle…I have already suggested that faith is a reliance upon those things which God has made known to us intuitively, in our hearts. But this is a double-edged sword, because as intangibility protects intuition from being ruled out by science, so it also prevents us from making empirical judgments about its conclusions. It, perhaps unfortunately, introduces a measure of subjectivity into the discussion, allowing not the accountability to peer review as does science, but personal accountability to one reviewer: God. As the Bible affirms, “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him?…The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment (1 Cor. 2:11).” But if you think about it, is this not a much more appropriate type of accountability for intuitive knowledge, since morality (or better, right standing with God) is at its heart? Morality really goes no further than the heart (as in, there is no prior source). Actions in themselves are morally benign; it is sin in the heart that brings death to the soul. “…but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death (James 1:14-15).”

For all these reasons, I am inclined to agree with A.W. Tozer’s assessment (I think this is Tozer?) that “God’s voice must speak from within to bring enlightenment. It must be the Spirit of God speaking soundlessly within. That is what brings in man and makes him accountable to God.” (Peter Lord, Hearing God, pg. 20) And if all this is true, true of Christianity at least, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to return to my position as devil’s advocate for a while…the consequence of establishing a system of such immense expectation - that of God entering into intelligible dialogue with man - creates the potential for deep emotional / spiritual wounds to develop. It is as if God signs on to what is very largely, in our experience anyway, a human enterprise, where the rules of engagement are well-agreed upon. How does the God who reveals Himself to Job as an unpredictable, uncontrollable whirlwind (Job 38:1) condescend to such a position? How does He then borrow such emotionally-infused qualifiers as friend, brother, father, and lover to describe His relationship with us? God was not wary, not the least bit cautious, in building up the incredible expectation that exists around Him today. And I find this is a frustrating, an exasperating, promise of scripture that demands our deeper exploration.

(Suggested reading on this subject includes John Eldredge’s Journey of Desire; Peter Kreeft’s Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing; C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man (Chapter 1: Men Without Chests); Peter Lord’s Hearing God, and of course all of the context implied by quotes included in this response.)

Faith: Part 1 (Originally posted June 17, 2007)

I wrote, rewrote, started over, and revised this one until I could have no more...My skeptical side would present the arguments one day only to have my spiritual side feel compelled to answer them the next. Consequently, I think I'm going to kick this one off with a short post more in keeping with my original intention - as an expression of the world's view of Faith - and follow it up later with a more in-depth assessment of what I believe to be the real issue. I think allowing some time between the two will better serve our purposes anyway as you will all have time to consider your own response to the questions surrounding the biblical virtue of Faith.

Here are some examples of the kinds of things the world says about faith:

“Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book. By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe (for example, evolution) I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence. It really is a different matter. Books about evolution are believed not because they are holy. They are believed because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence. In principle, any reader can go and check that evidence. When a science book is wrong, somebody eventually discovers the mistake and it is corrected in subsequent books. That conspicuously doesn’t happen with holy books…we believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it….As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.” (The God Delusion, pg. 282-284)

“…religious faith is an especially potent silencer of rational calculation, which usually seems to trump all others. This is…partly because it discourages questioning, by its very nature. Christianity…teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue.” (The God Delusion, pg. 306)

“Irrefutability is a virtue for committed believers, but a scientific vice.” (Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D.)

“More generally, what is really pernicious is the practice of teaching children that faith is a virtue. Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument. Teaching children that unquestioned faith is a virtue primes them - given certain other ingredients that are not too hard to come by - to grow up into potentially lethal weapons for future jihads or crusades.” (The God Delusion, pg. 307-308)

Without picking apart these statements (and there is room for it), let me just restate what I understand to be the heart behind their criticisms:

1. The commending of faith as a virtue creates an environment for fundamentalist and extremist attitudes to develop among believers.

2. Faith, when nurtured in this way, undermines the scientific enterprise by encouraging believers to defend claims which evidence seems to contradict.

3. Faith, lacking a clear and objective definition, can be used as a trump-all sort of justification for almost any action (many of these, we can freely admit, could even be loosely supported by scripture).

My question is whether the nature of Christian faith is really as it is perceived by the secular community. Let’s consider the different definitions of faith we have heard from spiritual leaders in our own lives…how far are they from Dawkins’ and Sheldrake’s appraisals? Once we have taken time to consider those definitions we have at one point accepted, or at least tolerated in our spiritual mentors, we can then move on to consider the Bible’s definitions and see if we have missed something in our understanding of biblical faith. I think whatever we discover, it is important to realize how gray the lines must appear to the common Christian for such deviant definitions of faith to persist within the church. That realization may be an issue in and of itself, evidence which might reasonably suggest neglectful parenting on God’s part. But one thing at a time…

Hebrews 11:1-3 defines faith in this way…I am including three different translations to get every angle on what the terminology might actually infer (Justin, if you have any insight into the Greek, that’d be helpful too):

(In the NAS translation) “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”

(In the NIV translation) “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

(In the KJV translation) “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

Within these verses, I think it is significant that faith is being defined in terms of evidence, substance, and assurance. These terms don’t seem congruent with the criticisms of Dawkins or Sheldrake. It might be worthwhile, then, to consider which passages of scripture might be supplying Dawkins - and those like him - with the particular picture of faith they now hold. Regardless of how close (or how far) Dawkins or Sheldrake may have come to describing the real thing, one thing is certain: the form they were criticizing has all but replaced true faith within the church.

…This moves me on to my next question: If the church has misunderstood the biblical virtue of faith so as to adopt a deviant definition of it, is God to blame? John 14:26 and 16:13 say that we are guided into all truth through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 12 tells us that it is by the Holy Spirit that we are granted the gift of discernment; and in Matthew 13:11-12, that we understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven through tuning our spiritual ears to hear His voice. All these things seem to point to God as the source of spiritual understanding, in which case we might rightly call Him the “author and perfector of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). It seems a reasonable accusation, then, to suggest that God should be held accountable when His children err due to an imperfect understanding of His will. I remember a discussion with Justin in which we decided the Bible does not support this sort of scapegoating, but for the sake of argument, let’s consent the accusation for now. Also, if spiritual enlightenment is in fact a spiritual phenomenon, you would expect little or no correlation between sheer intellect and one’s ability to discern spiritual truths. However, there is considerable evidence that such a correlation does exist.

“A…study by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi ‘found that among Nobel Prize laureates in the sciences, as well as those in literature, there was a remarkable degree of irreligiosity, as compared to the populations they came from.’ A study in the leading journal Nature by Larson and Witham in 1998 showed that of those American scientists considered eminent enough by their peers to have been elected to the National Academy of Science (equivalent to being a Fellow of the Royal Society in Britain) only about 7 per cent believe in a personal God. This overwhelming preponderance of atheists is almost the exact opposite of the American population at large, of whom more than 90 per cent are believers in some sort of supernatural being. …It is completely as I would expect that American scientists are less religious than the American public generally, and that the most distinguished scientists are the least religious of all. Michael Shermer, in How We Believe: The Search for God in and Age of Science, describes a large survey of randomly chosen Americans that he and his colleague, Frank Sulloway carried out. Among their many interesting results was the discovery that religiosity is indeed negatively correlated with education (more highly educated people are less likely to be religious). Religiosity is also negatively correlated with interest in science and (strongly) with political liberalism. None of this is surprising, nor is the fact that there is a positive correlation between religiosity and parent’s religiosity.” (The God Delusion, pg. 100-102)

When you think upon those individuals whom you consider to have the best or most accurate understanding of scripture, are they not also the most intelligent individuals - at least as you personally measure intelligence? It seems, at least in my experience, that those with whom I most closely relate on spiritual matters are those who, curiously enough, think like me. So, it would seem that spiritual discernment, in many instance, is no more than recognition of your preferred thoughts expressed through others. Hence the wide array of religious flavors available to believers. Denominations are a product of personal preferences (or, at its best, personal conviction), not of sound theology. This poses a problem for me personally, as I tend to hold spiritual revelation among believers as one of the most central and necessary characteristics of true faith. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deut. 8:3).” But then, is our experience as Christians resonant with John 10’s description that “the sheep recognize His voice”? Do we not vary in spirituality as much we vary in personality? It must be that Christianity is either a faith embracing of a certain degree of subjectivity, or Christians just aren’t hearing God’s voice properly. I’m not sure one conclusion is any less problematic than the other. What do all of you think?

The God Delusion: Questions it raises (Originally posted July 2007)

To catch everyone up, I have recently been reading Richard Dawkins', The God Delusion, as a half-favor for a friend of mine I work with named Mike. Mike is a pretty outspoken atheist, and also one of the more sincere skeptics (he would say skeptic is not strong enough a word) I have met. It is as much due to my experiences with Mike as with reading this book that I have begun to entertain some of the questions I'm now dealing with. While reading Dawkins' book, there were certainly many things I felt comfortable enough writing off (feeling I had sufficiently considered both sides of the argument and could reasonably support the conclusions I had drawn), but there were many other things that raised important questions in my mind, and which I feel are worth discussing in greater depth. I realize that, in the process of reading and considering these things on my own, I have brought several of these questions to some of you with a somewhat cynical attitude. That cynicism probably came as much from personal things I was dealing with as it did my frustration with answering the questions themselves. Consequently, I don't intend to carry that same cynical attitude into this discussion and I'm asking all of you to hold me accountable that I don't too often commit Job's crime of "darkening the Lord's counsel with words without knowledge." However, since one of my goals in this discussion is honesty and objectivity, I don't want to curb our thoughts and feelings about something to the point of misrepresentation either.

The first question I want to ask everyone's opinion on is this: Mike, as well as most atheists, claim that they don't believe in God because they lack sufficient evidence of His existence. Today, this is not an evasive response; it is a reasonable enough position to take. Likewise, atheists argue that true belief cannot be requested of someone unless they genuinely possess it. If they aren't convinced in their own minds of the thing's reality, the best they can offer is feigned belief, which they would consider neither useful nor virtuous. Are we to take these testimonies at face value and suppose that God really has not revealed Himself to these people sufficiently so as to produce belief, or are we instead to suppose that they are in some way deluded and that it was their own sin (rebelliousness, whatever) that resulted in disbelief (Ps. 81:12, Acts 7:42, Rom. 1:24-28)? If the latter explanation is to be accepted, what does this say of our own experiences with God? Is any lack of intimacy with God experienced by the Christian also a result of sin, or does God conceal Himself for other reasons?

Make this personal before answering...for me, it has been years since I've experienced the truth of God's promise of intimacy (draw near to me and I will draw near to you), hearing God and knowing His will, and being healed from my emotional wounds (Hosea 6:1). Ask yourself whether God fits your picture of a loving Father (Matt. 7:7-11) or a confiding friend (Ps. 25:14). This is not to call those qualities of God into question as much as it is a challenge to conventional belief. Christian evangelists often ask non-Christians (tongue-in-cheek), "You thought going your own way would make you happy, how's that working out for you?" Turn the question on yourself and ask, "You thought your relationship with God would be intimate and fulfilling, how's that working out for you?" It is my hope that in voicing our disappointments where they exist, we might be able to root out areas in our own belief system that are not scripturally supportable and emerge on the other side with a more steadfast hope founded on truth. Biblical hope was never intended to take the form of wishful thinking or unfounded optimism. I feel like the integrity of biblical hope has been called into question in (maybe not-so-) recent history due to the Christian's "far-too-easily-pleased" disposition (to borrow C.S. Lewis' description). We hardly know what God has promised (and therefore, what we can count on Him for), so we arbitrarily ascribe certain things we enjoy to God and certain things we don't to Satan and a broken world. But biblical hope, by nature, does not disappoint (Rom. 5:5). Consider the disparity between your expectations and experiences within your own relationship with God, and then from that position, consider whether non-believers might be equally as confused in their inability to discern God. And then consider the fate that the bible ascribes to such people and consider whether or not you, being in their position, would feel equipped to escape it. If you find that you, standing in their shoes, might be looking forward to an eternity in Hell due to your inability to produce genuine belief in something which science and your own experiences deny (or at least, have failed to discern), maybe you can understand where I am at with Mike. I feel it is almost my responsibility (if I am truly "Christ's ambassador, as if He Himself were making His appeal through us" - 2 Cor. 5:20) to bear the burden of skepticism for those who lack the resources to overcome it. That's the heart behind creating this forum, and hopefully those participating will in time develop their own burden for these people and begin to recognize all those things to which Christians pay almost no mind, but make it ever the more impossible for non-believers to overcome their doubt: things such as biblical and scientific illiteracy among believers, fundamentalist attitudes towards tragedies and non-Christian lifestyles, unethical methods of evangelism, unfair projection of Christian values onto non-Christians personally and politically, and so many more things that tarnish Christ's image in the eyes of non-believers. I am not trying to be harsher on Christians than is warranted, but I am trying to create awareness to the things that non-believers pay attention to. Christians can communicate the right message about Christ amongst themselves all day long and never reach a non-believer with Christ's Gospel. As ambassadors, Christians had better learn the language of the people to whom they were sent as well.

Ok, I've gone off on enough tangents with this one, but being the first topic of discussion, I thought it was fitting to explain a little bit of the inspiration behind the discussion as I went. I realize that there are many things I might refer to during the course of this discussion that the rest of you might not be as familiar with (themes from Dawkins' book in particular). I feel pretty good about representing the scientific side of the argument if anyone needs clarification on anything, and to a lesser extent, I think I could represent the atheist viewpoint pretty accurately as well if that needs clarifying. But in the interest of brevity, I will leave those explanations out until they are specifically asked for. Let me know if anyone has opinions or ideas concerning the operation or application of this forum, whether it be people to invite to join, goals or objectives which might help make the discussion more effective, etc. Thanks ahead of time for all who contribute.