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.
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.
(Response originally posted July 7, 2007)
ReplyDelete"The intellectual life is not the only road to God, nor the safest, but we find it to be a road, and it may be the appointed road for us. Of course, it will be so only as long as keep the impulse pure and disinterested. That is a great difficulty. As the author of the Theologica Germanica says, we may come to love knowledge - our knowing - more than the thing known: to delight not in the exercise of our talents but in the fact that they are ours, or even in the reputation they bring us. Every success in the scholar's life increases this danger. If it becomes irresistible, he must give up his scholarly work. The time for plucking out the right eye has arrived. That is the essential nature of the learned life as I see it. But it has indirect values which are especially important today. If all the world were Christian, it might not matter if all the world were uneducated. But, as it is, a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now - not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground - would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered...The learned life then is, for some, a duty. At the moment it looks as if it were your duty."
C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory: Why I Am Not A Pacifist, pg. 57-59) -MR
(Response originally posted May 17, 2007)
ReplyDeleteOkay. I owe you an apology already because my thoughts are going to be so scattered here that you'll probably either give up or hate me at the end of reading this. Hopefully you'll do neither. I watched a debate a few weeks ago between Dan Barker (an ex-Christian minister turned atheist) and Phil Fernandes (a Christian apologist) on the existence of God. There were many interesting points made on both sides, but I want to take this time to concentrate of a particular one. At one point during the rebuttal sessions the issue of morality came up. Phil Fernandes pointed out that atheists really have no moral code to follow. Barker answered by saying that though the common conception is that atheists deny absolute truth and embrace moral relativism, he thinks that is foolish and he has only one moral rule that he says everyone should follow: do not unnecessarily harm others. That’s it. Now I recognize that is quite some blanket statement, but upon further thought that really began to bother me. It works (for the most part). Take for example some of the major tenets. "Thou shall not murder" = unnecessary harm to others. "Thou shall not steal"= unnecessary harm to others. Or how about "Thou shall not bear false witness (lie)"? If this moral compass were true then it would be nice when it came to lying because it would open up "little white lies" being okay. So, basically, this little "moral law" if you can call it that deals with many of the key moral issues that pretty much everybody holds to be true. On the other hand, it manages to dismiss what would be called the cultural morals handed down through the Bible. Things like homosexuality or sexual immorality or drunkenness become alright as long as they don't cause harm to others. No harm, no foul. So what do you think? I'm not sure exactly what I'm asking, but I think I just would like a reaction to this type of moral code. Can you see any flaws? How is it inferior to Christian morality (if there were no God because I'm sure you've heard people say that they believe the Christian moral system is the best even if there were not a God and all that jazz)? Again, I apologize for this one big paragraph and lack of organization. What do you think? -AS
(Response originally posted May 29, 2007)
ReplyDeleteThis question came up with a coworker just this week. Here are my thoughts...As far as "unnecessary harm" is concerned, I think you'll find different definitions between different individuals. When I had this discussion recently with [my coworker], the act in question was casual sex. Casual sex, among consenting adults, seems to fall well within the "no harm, no foul" boundary from the secular position. My objection came from my own experience that, when I have sex in mind (or, when I am allowing myself to think of a girl in terms of what pleasure she might be able to give me), I am much less likely to make decisions that I know to be in her best interest. In the instance that one should find himself dating a girl who pursues sex out of a misdirected desire for love (even if she is doing so unconsciously), the moral thing to do, I believe, would be to abstain. I think what you find, in practice, is that the moral code proposed by the secular individual is much more open to technicalities (right and wrong becomes an issue of what can be justified via these technicalities), whereas the biblical virtue of love carries a much heavier burden of personal responsibility and concern for others.
Consider the bible's teaching of "do not put any stumbling block in your brother's way" (Rom. 14:13; 1 Cor. 8:9). This principle teaches an intentional form of morality - not simply keeping yourself from harming others but intentionally doing good to them through an attitude of love, even to the extent of yielding your God-given rights. Consider also C.S. Lewis' writings on the topic:
"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not as an end in itself (The Weight of Glory)."
Obviously the moral codes under discussion are slightly different, but I think the fatal flaw is the same. Withholding oneself from causing unnecessary harm to others does not equate to affirmative love.
Now, in all actuality, the “alternative moral code” being discussed here does not have to differ from the biblical virtue of love. In fact, Romans 13:10 describes love in these same terms: “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” The only point at which these two moral codes become distinct is in the extent to which the individual practicing them understands the term “doing harm.” Christians, assuming they have matured to this level of conviction, understand that even acts that may be considered justifiable - in terms of possessing the right to commit them - might still cause harm to another on a more subtle level (which is what I believe the passage from Romans has in mind). But this remains a distinction that, by its very nature, must remain hidden within the heart of the individual. Someone might justifiably argue that they did not know that such and such action would effect the other in a harmful way. The sin, unfortunately, becomes a matter to which an external law cannot respond. The Christian virtue of love, however, is fulfilled by a right attitude of the heart and therefore provides an internal law to which we are all accountable. “Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God (1 Cor. 4:5).” -MR