Dawkins Revisited « Just Wondering

Dawkins Revisited

27 February 2007 by Gil

Having spent a bit of time talking about Dawkin’s ‘God Delusion‘ (see here and here), I’ll pass on a review of the book by Alvin Plantinga, a philosopher at the University of Notre Dame. Plantinga is a fairly widely respected Christian philosopher (although I find his Calvinism a bit baffling given his resistance to philosophical determinism) and his critique of Dawkins is quite pointed in a few places.

“You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores..”

For me one of his most interesting points is that naturalism (the natural world is all there is) and evolution are incompatible in the area of human knowledge. According to naturalism, what we call ‘knowledge’ is simply a matter of complex, essentially meaningless neurological interactions that are governed by evolutionary necessity. If this is accepted then there is no reason to think that we know anything about the world ‘as it is’, all we can really say is that our beliefs about the world are some kind of pragmatic evolutionary adaptation. We would have no reason for thinking they were true.

Unless you are willing to believe in some kind of unseen (purposeful) evolutionary ‘hand’ guiding the process, the best you could say is that we believe what is necessary to help us adapt to our immediate circumstances. There would literally be no reason to think that what we thought had any kind of metaphysical value. This would seem to discredit the entire point of a book claiming to talk about the truth of whether or not God exists (a fact that would seem to have very little evolutionary value).

Posted in atheism, faith, science | 62 Comments

62 Responses to “Dawkins Revisited”

on 27 February 2007 at 7:531 Kristin

Ha! That quote is awesome.

I’m not sure I understand Plantinga’s argument for “pragmatic evolutionary adaptation” and “meaningless neurological interactions” being the same thing. I guess I’m thinking more and more these days that “what is necessary to help us adapt to our immediate circumstances” is actually belief in something bigger than us (whether this be a traditional concept of God or not)…so…couldn’t it be that evolution of a species actually *could* be tied to metaphysical value? Or to the development of knowledge of the world “as it actually is”? I’m not saying that it is for sure - just that I don’t quite see the logic of this possibility being ruled out.
on 27 February 2007 at 8:142 Anonymous

gil,
i live for this stuff. i drink it down like cold refreshing water on a hot day in the valley. your nov. 15th post titled, “God vs. science” touches on topics that seem to magnetically draw in my attention. dawkins and collins appear to each be so close to something substantial yet continue to equalize each other through deeper questioning. i know that you consider deeply the value of the things you read and why you read them. for myself, i would like to think that i do the same. recently i dove head first into a book that i cannot put down. it is robert m. pirsig’s “zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: an inquiry into values.” it is a secular book staring at and sometimes hoping for the metaphysical to realize itself. it almost plainly states that. i enjoy looking through a secular view point because i think it expands my personal general view outside of my intrinsic thought patterns. this book is a philosophy book under the guide of a modern novel. it reads easily and yet cuts deeply into matters that not everyone ever gets to. it attempts to justify a reconciliation between the classical and romantic philosophies of ancient origin. dawkins and collins seem at times blatantly theoretical but the basis of their debate is exactly what pirsig is looking for, “we want the benefits of science and technological development but we want to hang on to the possibility of miracles and supernatural intervention. we want to celebrate the advances of science while retaining a sense of cosmic significance. we want to have our cake and eat it too.” in the book, which actually is a quasi-biography, the narrator swoops from one extreme to the next and after he proves the scientific method wrong by finding an infinite number of hypothesis cannot ever reveal proven knowledge realizes what collins states, “…there are answers that science isn’t able to provide about the natural world, the questions about why instead of the questions about how.” thus begins the inquiry into the value of things. in the search for truth the fearful possibility arises that value and maybe even truth could be relative. fascinating.
jake bergen
on 27 February 2007 at 8:343 Gil

Kristin,
The point, as I understood it, was that the naturalism that Dawkins espouses is incompatible with his evolutionary theory. If we want to move into some kind of realm of ‘evolutionary pantheism’ then that’s a different question and would, for me, involve bigger questions of the existence of evil within an inherently divine world.

Evolutionary theory has usually been explained as a physical survival mechanism. To say that it encompasses the human need for metaphysical meaning would seem a big stretch to me. The idea that our beliefs can have real value with respect to a reality external to ourselves seems pretty fundamental to me (we do this whenever we speak abstractly don’t we?).

I’m not sure if I addressed your question. The illogic, as I understood it, was believing in a naturalistic universe and still holding out the possibility of making true metaphysical statements. You seem to be open to a divine presence in the midst of that process.
on 28 February 2007 at 12:404 jc

I would agree that determinism is a self defeating proposition. If you say that everything is determined then that also subjects your mind to the deterministic process. All your ideas are determined. There is no way to tell whether your ideas would be true or false. But Plantinga is equally baffling to me. His Reformed Epistemology seems so irrational and absurd that his little slam on Dawkin’s I think could easily be used to describe him. He advocates that the idea of God can appear as properly basic to someone or self evident. The problem is that he offers no standard on which to decide which ideas could be held as properly basic or why an idea can be held as properly basic. If anyone understands his theory and wants to explain it to me… I am all ears.
on 28 February 2007 at 12:565 Paul Johnston

Hey Gil,

Respectfully, if Mr. Plantinga is the stone chucker for our side, this round goes to the Philistines.

At least I think I understand what Mr. Dawkins is saying and to be fair to the man, it is as rational as it is depressing.

As for Mr. Plantinga his part “cheap rant” (…uh yeah, I’m totally aware of the irony) mixed with some of the most convoluted “splitting hairs” intellectual sophistry I’ve ever had the pleasure of not really understanding; didn’t play well to my ears. (Think 3 Tenors doing Vanilla Ice)….If this guy ever shows up at our church and reduces God to an algebraic equation, in a sermon, somebodies gonna get whupped!

Let’s face it, if the “weapons” are purely science and verifiably discernable truths, we can at best only hope for a draw. If on the other hand we offer the most honest example of love that can be lived, we win without a fight.

If I might be so bold as to paraphrase the philosophy of “Coldplay”….”questions of science, science and progress, do not speak as loud as your heart”….

Peace
on 28 February 2007 at 2:216 jc

Paul,
How is Dawkin’s denying of the primacy and volitionary aspects of consciousness rational? It seems to me to be anything but rational.
on 28 February 2007 at 2:467 ryan

Paul,

So let me see if I’ve got this straight…

You admit that you don’t really understand what Plantinga is talking about… But you’re quite sure he’s wrong - at least wrong enough to determine that “this round goes to the Philistines.”

I’m a little puzzled…
on 28 February 2007 at 3:318 Paul Johnston

Hey JC,

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify.

What I really mean to say is that Dawkins and the like will always have the opportunity to make the better rational case as the premises for their theses are mostly objective and varifiable, while the foundational premises of the theist aren’t.

Christian faith claims that rigidly insist on scietific methods for asserting their truth are misguided at best and ultimately lead to heresy, disillusion and unbelief. A preposterous claim to the rationalist to be sure but one that I feel I could comfortably defend were I to use scripture, spirit and tradition instead of science to explain my metaphysics.

To the extent that I was serious, and to some extent I was, the only truth I think Christians ought to be asserting is that the struggle to be in a love relationship with Jesus, the struggle to be the best and most loving expression of yourself you can be and the struggle to love others as honestly and faithfully as you can, is the only life that will meet our own and God’s expectations.

Understanding theories of the primacy of consciousness and all it’s volitionary aspects, while difficult and impressive might not be of much good in the end.
on 28 February 2007 at 3:569 Paul Johnston

Hey Ryan,

Take it on faith bro, I’m right about this.

…Or how about this one. Given as you so sublimely point out, the Philistine nature of my previous contention; let us conclude reasonably then, that I ought to know a dead “Plantinga/Goliath” when I see one.

I’m no intellectual Ryan but I’m a reasonably smart guy. If after reading Plantinga I’m overwhelmed by how much I don’t understand and annoyed by how little I value what I did understand, I feel pretty comfortable asserting that most Christian people wouldn’t want Plantinga speaking for them.

He doesn’t talk the language. It’s about defining and applying love first.

Applied science comes somewhere down the line.
on 28 February 2007 at 4:2010 ryan

“If after reading Plantinga I’m overwhelmed by how much I don’t understand and annoyed by how little I value what I did understand, I feel pretty comfortable asserting that most Christian people wouldn’t want Plantinga speaking for them.”

That’s certainly one possible response…

Another one would be to give someone who has spent his entire life studying theology and philosophy the benefit of the doubt, and possibly even conclude that he might know a bit more about the subject than you do.

There are plenty of times where I’m overwhelmed by how much I don’t understand of a given author, and there are certainly times where I see little value in what I do understand… But that hardly warrants you or I to conclude that “most Christians wouldn’t want Plantinga [or any other author we happen not to understand or appreciate] speaking for them.”

One final thing… I’m just curious, if both you and Plantinga were to tell me to “take it on faith bro” with respect to a given issue, how would I decide which of you was correct?
on 28 February 2007 at 5:1511 Paul Johnston

….” Ahhhh, ignorance is sleep”…THE ZEN OF HOMER..

….”sometimes, relative to the issues and their advocacy, I am blissfully unaware of the inherent strengths or weaknesses of my worldviews”….THE PARTIALLY DECONSTRUCTED OBJECTIVIST ANALYSIS OF THE ZEN OF BULLWINKLE….

…Just in case you’re concerned that my perspectives lack philisophical underpinning…lol

Sorrry Ryan, I’m not trying to be a jerk (some would say I don’t have to) but I guess I am having a bit too much fun with a praxis that is well regarded and very well defined here on Gil’s blog.
And, believe it or not, one that I learn a lot from.

As stated earlier, I think the language of science is the wrong way to speak about and share what we have. In the end it is not where our claims rest. In the end the world of science and the brilliance of it’s understanding of the material cosmos will always find us and expose us, as wanting.

In the end we step out in faith, hoping in love. We offer to fully reconcile a persons heart to creation, not their mind.

As for your question regarding in whom you should place faith; follow your good heart and mind and respond accordingly.

Most certainly such a place of faith has more than enough room for you, me and Mr. Plantinga.
on 28 February 2007 at 5:2512 Gil

Paul,
I appreciate the difficulty of understanding Plantinga. I agree that there is a fair bit of hair-splitting going on here but I tried to highlight one aspect of his argument that I found helpful (my silence about the rest probably indicates ambivalence).

In terms of the language of science being the wrong language with which to speak about God I will have to respectfully disagree. I don’t believe it is the ONLY language but I do believe that God’s world is at least somewhat transparent to God’s purposes and that we should not expect scientific enquiry to be mortally opposed to the pursuit of truth.

I agree with you that we are required to step out in faith to understand the truly Personal nature of truth but that faith is supported by what we know about ourselves, our world and by extension our God. Questions of science and progress may not speak as loud as our hearts but they may, in their own unique ways, being saying similar things.
on 28 February 2007 at 6:2213 Paul Johnston

Excellent points, Gil.

Sorry if I sound as if the “language” of science is irrelevant. I don’t mean it that way. I just think that simple explanations, in simple words that ultimately speak to love are the better way to speak about God, His creation and our places within it.

To me the very nature of scientific arguement puts Christianity at risk. It speaks as much against us as it does for us, probably more so.

The “language” of love on the other hand is wholly consistent and supportive of what we offer. It’s nuances are not inherently self defeating for us. Rather we do ourselves in through our own hypocracy and our simple refusal to “walk” our “talk”.

Sorry, if I’ve sounded neandrathal, and suggested that somehow science was “mortally opposed” to God’s revelation. Rather I mean to say that it is not the best way for us to understand or live it.
on 28 February 2007 at 11:0314 Jessica

I read an article in MacLean’s a few months ago - I can’t remember which issue it was, I think I read it in a waiting room somewhere… So I guess what I have to say lacks a bit of credability. The article labelled Dawkins as a “radical fundamentalist”. I think I agree. He attacks Collins and other scientists who believe in any type of spiritual reality that reminds of the way radical fundamentalist evangelicals maliciously attack other Christians. He speaks about Collins as if he couldn’t possibly be a good scientist while also believing in God. This kind of highly exclusionary, one dimensional, reactionary, all or nothing thinking, gets attention - I wonder how long it will last.
on 28 February 2007 at 11:4415 Incoming...

…it will last as long as empty rhetoric is honored with space, time, etc.
Gil, whatever your own appetite on Dawkins or Plantinga, I appreciate where you have pointed out the way particular veins of thought actually contradict and compete for intellectual ground. I wish we could spend more time talking about how these kind of intellectual problems work themselves out in the hearts and lives of people who are not willing or unable to think through the implications of these issues.
What I tend to find typically is that someone with an interest in some intellectual problem will begin spouting off all this intellectual jargon and references. This tends to make other who are unfamiliar of the intellectual ground covered by said individual at a distinct disadvantage. Mnay people are persuaded to follow the thinking of people who can simply speak about areas of ignorance. So it is that we have the fertile ground for the fear mongering that often cripples our faith.
thanks for trying to present things a little more simply
on 1 March 2007 at 6:2916 Kristin

Gil, I’m not familiar with either of these authors, so maybe my confusion would be cleared up simply by reading them. I guess I’m still not getting why the need for metaphysical meaning and the process of adaptation for physical survival are by necessity two separate things. Have you read Michener’s “The Source”? I’m reminded of it as I ask this - of the process of people, through time, developing language for and rituals around and dependency upon the sacred, specifically as it related (relates) to our need for survival in a dangerous world.

Incoming, I appreciate your words here!
on 1 March 2007 at 4:3117 Gil

Kristin,
I’m sorry, I didn’t properly understand your question before. I think that there is not a necessary division between the need for meaning and the quest for physical survival but I think you have to retain some sense of transcendent (divine) purpose behind that entire process. Without that transcendent purpose it seems to me that the whole thing collapses in on itself.

If we choose to speak about it in purely human terms then we are back to the possibility of either a purely naturalistic universe where purpose and consciousness (including the desire for meaning) just happened to evolve or a pantheistic universe that is somehow inherently divine. The first option seems nonsensical to me and the second has no resources to deal with evil.

Thanks for clarifying your question.
on 1 March 2007 at 5:3518 Paul Johnston

Hey Gil,

I liked what you said about “science” and our “hearts” speaking uniquely and saying similar things, and I would agree that this is very often true. But what happens when what they say are in complete disagreement?

Can any verifiable science of our day demonstrably support a virgin birth or a human resurrection? Can any “true” (insofar as Christians believe) expression of our faith, exist without them?

If these facts/beliefs aren’t now reconcilable, what are we to say and how are we to say it.

If our religeous “proofs” are presented primarily as “high theology”, that is in ways that are compatable with theories of philosophy and “reasonableness”; what happens to them when more compelling methods or models are made available? Do we then abandon them? What would a person predisposed to “scientific thinking”, likely do?

In some very fundamental way does not faith ask us to at some point to abandon reason as the primary criteria for a relationship with God?

For me I truly believe it does. We can and should debate the details of the abandonment but not it’s neccessity.

In the end (and I wholly paraphrase/self interpret) we are perhaps best left feeling and expressing ourselves as did St. Paul. We know we see through the mirror dimly, we know what we know is foolishness to the wise, we even know that there is a spirit within us that considers it foolishness also…the thing is though is that “on our way to Damascus” we saw this light and heard this voice.
on 1 March 2007 at 6:0919 Jerry

Paul, I have to say, I appreciate what you said in your last comment and how you said it

Gil, you said these following words to Kristin:

“If we choose to speak about it in purely human terms then we are back to the possibility of either a purely naturalistic universe where purpose and consciousness (including the desire for meaning) just happened to evolve or a pantheistic universe that is somehow inherently divine. The first option seems nonsensical to me and the second has no resources to deal with evil.”

Are you willing to explain how the “first option seems nonsensical” and how you know “the second has no resources to deal with evil”? I’ve wanted to dive into the exhaustive pantheistic material out there myself, and research the responses to evil, but I’ve managed to fit in very little of it in my limited reading time.
on 1 March 2007 at 6:1220 Gil

Paul,
Your points are well taken. The question of what happens when science and faith come to apparently contradictory conclusions is a very troubling one. I maintain that if we believe the world is the creation of God then an honest search for truth within that world will ultimately lead to God.

You are quite right in pointing out that some critical elements of the Christian worldview, like the resurrection of Christ, will never be empirically verifiable. However I don’t think that this requires us to ‘abandon’ reason so much as it reminds us of its limitations. There is a leap of faith involved but it is not an irrational or anti-rational leap, as if it were a virtuous thing to suspend intelligent thought (not what I am accusing you of by the way).

I think a more significant question would be ‘Does religion need to justify itself at the bar of reason?’ Here I would answer no. ‘Reason’ is a slippery term and the way it is used today is not helpful as a starting point for asking questions of ultimate truth.

We all take certain things ‘on faith’. It is the legacy of the Enlightenment that we have the illusion that reason can absolve us of this responsibility. We all start from somewhere. I start from the gospel and the belief that God in Christ is reconciling the world to himself. That is not rationally self-evident but neither is the idea the world is devoid of purpose and transcendent meaning.

Scientific rationalism has its own starting place, it’s own statements of faith, its own unquestioned dogmas. I think Plantinga’s article shows how some of the assumptions behind a naturalistic worldview are not sustainable.
on 1 March 2007 at 6:1721 ryan

Paul,

In your opinion, what happens when the “hearts” of two different people say things that are in complete disagreement?
on 1 March 2007 at 7:4622 Paul Johnston

Paul,

In your opinion, what happens when the “hearts” of two different people say things that are in complete disagreement?

…Argggh, busted!!! ….great question, Ryan.

The only disclaimers I want to make before answering is that my honest and still incomplete response, reflects an ideal; not neccessarily the human reality and certainly not my reality.

Secondly, either the contexts, in which we are all using and defining the same words keep shifting or I’m having difficulty keeping up. Probably a bit of both.

If it doesn’t alter the substantive intent of your question I’m going to try to answer it as I hear it…That being, “what can we say about or conclude, when people’s most loving responses are in complete disagreement?…(Oh God help us all, writer and reader, That sounds like a book!!!)

Hmm..first general rule of love, seek consensus;don’t impose it, by either will or reason.

Simply put love ought, by it’s own nature, allow for complete disagreement in a way that would frustrate the objective rationalist. I don’t mean to affirm relativism by this statement but rather the notion that how we disagree, insofar as it promotes spiritual wellness and communion with God, is as important as our ultimate understanding of the true facts.

True love then should take the positon of “agreeing to disagree” rather then suggesting “let’s affirm stupidity”.

Love then would still continue a dialogue towards truth with both parties tacit understanding, in love’s humility, that they each may not represent the whole truth and that irrespective of who may be “more right” (a) each party still has something to learn and as a consequence (b) each party has something to teach.

Finally Ryan, a loving conclusion to such a disagreement ought to relect a mutually experienced joy from shared growth and understanding and not the all to frequent winner/loser, richer/poorer, outcome that is pervasive in our world.

…Hope that offers some answers to your question Ryan, or at the very least gives you some insight into the type of man I would like to be.

Peace

PS. I’m off to pick up my son Joshua from daycare and spend a night out with Tyra(mommy) me and Joshie so I may not respond any further this evening. Which is just as well…..DOCTOR!! MY BRAIN…HURTS!!!!

The Zen of Python.
on 1 March 2007 at 8:0223 Gil

Jerry,
The idea that a purely naturalistic universe could evolve beings with either personal consciousness or a need/desire for metaphysical meaning seems highly unlikely to me. If history is a succession of evolutionary adaptations then I find it difficult to see how either of these two features of human life could have been advantageous (if we take as given the idea that the only ‘purpose’ behind these adaptations is survival). If at one point there was no such thing as consciousness and now there is, that seems to be a very difficult phenomenon to explain.

With regard to your second question I have never been able to understand the origins of evil within a world that was inherently divine. Most of us experience evil as an intruder, as something that doesn’t rightly belong. A pantheistic universe seems forced to conclude that evil was always part of the DNA of our world.
on 1 March 2007 at 8:0824 ryan

Thanks for your response Paul. I agree with a good deal of what you say, however…

What if someone’s “heart” tells them that love is a worthless and pathetic ideal, a relic of a fossilized medieval view of the universe, and is only embraced by those too weak to seize their human potential for domination?

In other words, your argument presupposes that there is agreement that the general rule of love is a good and worthwhile thing to pursue.

I realize that I’m pushing things to extremes, but I’m just trying to point out that we do and must evaluate the claims that people make about subjective experience all the time. Reason may not be the primary way we understand God, but it certainly is one way, and I would argue an important one. Someone like Plantinga might not speak everybody’s language, but he does speak to some. We could reject his academic tone or hair-splitting (from our perspective) or we could thank God that he has gifted some in this way in order to build his kingdom.
on 1 March 2007 at 11:1825 Kristin

Gil, I’m not sure that the move from lack of consciousness to consciousness is hard to explain in an evolutionary way. Animals with greater consciousness (even fractionally greater than other members of their same species) have greater capacity to anticipate and avoid danger, for example, so their greater chances of survival mean their genes are more likely to be passed on. This doesn’t seem nonsensical to me. But maybe there is much about evolution I don’t understand.

Along similar lines, I think it could be possible that with consciousness comes/came the capacity to reflect meaningfully on experiences of the transcendent - to sense its reality, to discover new layers of Life in association with it. To actually live in communion and communication with It. It could be this had to do with survival, but it could also be simply a by-product of consciousness, which DOES seem plausibly connected with survival.

As for divine purpose behind this process, I think one’s starting point (like you talked about in an earlier comment) could indeed be that God is by nature a purposeful creator. But I think it could also be that God is a co-creator with all there is, dancing in partnership with the basic stuff of the universe (particles made by God out of nothing?). It could ALSO be that all of this, all there is, is God’s body, and our sense of the transcendent is actually an accurate sense that there is something bigger than all of this, something in which indeed we “live and move and have our being”. If this is true, then maybe, like us, God has darkness and light. Soft breezes and hurricanes. Destruction and construction. Love and hate. Humans can be seen as little microcosms of this bigger Reality, and therefore, truly, made in the image of God.

On first blush this runs hard against traditional Christian concepts of God, but I actually don’t think it has to be incompatible with a mystical Christianity. I also think it’s a way of making peace with the reality of evil in our world. We are, all of us, God’s body. Christ’s body. And like any of our bodies, Christ’s body isn’t without need of healing. Without need of nurturing what is light and containing or redeeming what’s dark.

I haven’t thought this all the way through, but it seems qualitatively different, to me, than a basic sort of pantheism.
on 2 March 2007 at 12:1226 Paul Johnston

Shoot! I goofed.

If I understand you correctly now, you meant “heart” to mean a core or central value, whearas I used it as I had been earlier heart/love trumps science/reason.

As I was about halfway through, I kinda thought so but in case you haven’t noticed I’m not the type to let my general misunderstanding of a question get in the way of what I think is a good answer.

Rephrase my answer, sir??… NAY KNAVE! REPHRASE THY QUESTION!!!!

lol…Anways Ryan, I do agree that reason is a crucially important component to understanding God. If I’ve implied otherwise, consider it a failure of my writing and not my mind.

As for Mr. Plantinga, to be fair, all I’ve read is his critique of Mr. Dawkins, which I found generally confusing and “thin”. Most of his criticisms, at least as I understood them, seemed to revolve not around the substance of Mr. Dawkin’s claims but the way in which Mr. Dawkins presented them. I didn’t hear him refute Mr. Dawkins so much as I heard him mock his person and his methods.

Honestly he didn’t do much for my sense of unbelief.

For me, Mr. Dawkins and like minded people pose a great danger. They are credible by reason of education, they are committed by reason of conviction and most of all they have the compelling support of rational arguement.

That they only have to create doubts with regards to the historicity of Jesus and of virgin births, ressurections and miracles makes theirs’s an easy case indeed. The real wonder is that they haven’t done it sooner!

I hope the reason they haven’t, is because enough people want to believe that human life is something noble, something grand and great beyond our imaginations, something filled with love and peace that in the end, triumphs over the simply savage compulsions to survive at all costs.

Christianity tells me that these noble beliefs aren’t just some people subjectively choosing to “play nice” because they think it’s the right thing to do but rather because it fulfills our essential function; our intended destiny, within the framework of God’s creation.

We get to be big players in a big, big story.

God has imbedded within us all an essence of Himself that seeks to return to Him. The restlessness that St. Augustine says won’t rest until it does return to Him. The noble beauty of this belief is that it can inspire us to really believe that the bread we hunger for is truly more than grain; is truly Jesus the Bread of Life.

Christianity needs clear thinkers. Christianity needs great and well educated minds. As you so rightly point out, Ryan all gifts can be used to advance His Kingdom and, my tendancy to be sassy aside, I truly am thankful.

Peace.

PS. Thanks for the acknowledgement, Jerry. It is much appreciated.
on 2 March 2007 at 12:4227 Jerry

Kristin, I loved your last comment. Well said.

Gil,
You said: “With regard to your second question I have never been able to understand the origins of evil within a world that was inherently divine. Most of us experience evil as an intruder, as something that doesn’t rightly belong. A pantheistic universe seems forced to conclude that evil was always part of the DNA of our world.”

First of all, we were talking about the possibility of there being resources to deal with evil in a pantheistic universe, not the origin of evil. Nevertheless, your diversion is interesting as well…

..because I wonder — How is the origin of evil within a world created by a transcendent God anymore understandable than the world Kristin talks about? An ever-changing omnibenevolent universe created “in the beginning” solely by a transcendent God forces us to conclude (assuming evil has an origin) that God is the creator of evil.
on 2 March 2007 at 12:4728 Gil

Kristin,
Like you, I have much to learn about evolutionary theory. For me the difference between anticipating and avoiding immediate danger is qualitatively different than contemplating the essence of divinity so it remains a stretch for me to see that transition. I suppose over billions of years anything is possible but I remain skeptical.

Regarding the ‘darkness and light’ of God’s body or the idea that evil is somehow a basic part of the universe (and even divinity if I read you correctly): would this not eventually lead to the idea that we need to ‘contain and redeem’ God? That would be a position that I would want to avoid because it seems like we are the true gods trying to help God stay true to the better parts of his nature.

To me, it seems far more natural to say evil is something other, something foreign, something to be resisted and opposed rather than something we need to make peace with (while recognizing that we ourselves may need to make ‘peace’ with evil’s inevitable intrusions into our own individual experiences).
on 2 March 2007 at 1:2329 jc

Kristin,
Isaiah 45:7 “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and woe: I the Lord do all these things.” NRSV

Seems the Hebrew Bible might have something to say that backs up your position.
on 2 March 2007 at 3:0930 Ryan

From the commentators I’ve read, Isaiah 45:7 is usually interpreted as referring to God’s willingness to use concrete calamity for pedagogical purposes. Or it could just be a Hebrew prophet interpreting the experience of his people as somehow fitting into a world governed by a transcendent God. Either way, the verse’s context in an oracle predicting doom against a specific people at a specific time, suggests the issue of the origins of metaphysical evil isn’t what’s under discussion.

No matter if you find that compelling or not, one verse has to be interpreted in its broader context (passage, chapter, book, whole bible). I think it would be difficult to support the claim that in this specific verse, the Hebrew prophet was referring to the existence of metaphysical evil… and that the entire biblical witness which suggests that evil is contrary to God’s intention is undone by that one verse.
on 2 March 2007 at 3:4831 Ryan

Jerry,

I’d certainly be curious to hear your perspective on the available resources for dealing with evil in a pantheistic universe.
on 2 March 2007 at 5:0432 Kristin

Gil, I think you and Jerry and others touch on a really puzzling, and, in my mind, important piece of theology: the idea that God created everything except evil. Whether evil was introduced by human choice or by a fallen angel, or some combination of both, it doesn’t seem possible, at least according to a certain kind of logic, for a creator God to not, at the very least, be implicated in the mess.

The longer that I wrestle with these things, and the longer that I work at healing in my own inner life, the more darkness seems not foreign or other to a perfect world, but rather part of what’s actually necessary to recognize light for what it is - or joy, or peace, or wonder. Without the contrasts, I’m not sure how we could know or experience any of the loveliness of our world or our God. How can we know beauty if we don’t know ugliness? Peace if we don’t know what it’s like to be torn up inside? I’m not sure how to imagine a “perfect” world apart from the wholeness that contrasts bring.

I think you’re right about the implications of my earlier comment: it would follow that we would be part of containing and redeeming the darker parts of God. I think this is different from saying we are the true gods, though, in the same way that our white blood cells work at fighting infections in us. They are not our entirety; they are a part of a greater whole that contains them. As God’s body (according to this train of thought, at least) we each can participate, in our own small, but not insignificant, way, in contributing to the body’s greater wholeness. In my mind, this is what you’re doing; your work with students, and all the thought and preparation and love and respect that seem to go into it for you, are, as far as I can tell, making Christ’s body more healthy and whole. We could probably all site examples of people seemingly doing the opposite.

It is a disturbing thing to consider God “needing” us this way, but at root, I don’t think this is too far off from how we who feel missional about being lights in our world experience the work that we’re about. But maybe it is very different, and I’m not seeing things from others’ perspectives. Totally possible.
on 2 March 2007 at 5:4033 Gil

Kristin,
I think you’ve articulated a very intriguing position and there are some truly compelling elements to it, particularly the way it helps us understand our own efforts toward wholeness and healing.

Yet to me the idea of ‘redemption’ has the inescapable element of the restoration of a thing to its original goodness. I intuitively resist the idea that goodness and evil are part of the structure of the universe because I have the sense that my own struggles are efforts to restore my self (among other things) to its truest self.

To see myself as a white blood cell struggling heroically to restore health to a wounded body makes sense to me at this point in the story but only within the broader context of seeing that sickness as something alien, something that was not originally part of the health and wholeness that I think we all intuitively long for.

I’ll have to bypass the questions of theodicy for the moment. I suspect you’re aware of most of the potential answers to that question and I doubt I could add much to that conversation. I’m intrigued by the idea of evil as an absence of good, as something left behind when our wills are used for ends other than the love of God and others, but I have not come across any theory that ties this question up perfectly for me.
on 2 March 2007 at 6:3534 Ryan

Kristin,

You said:

“darkness seems not foreign or other to a perfect world, but rather part of what’s actually necessary to recognize light for what it is - or joy, or peace, or wonder. Without the contrasts, I’m not sure how we could know or experience any of the loveliness of our world or our God. How can we know beauty if we don’t know ugliness?”

I think that there is a lot of truth in this - our experience of evil does make us appreciate and long for goodness, beauty, peace etc more fervently. I’m hesitant about the claim that we could not know or recognize any of these things without the contrasts though.

Could I say something like this to someone who had survived the Rwandan genocide? Auschwitz? Darfur? The list goes on and on… And it doesn’t have to be confined to these sorts of high-profile examples. There is a good deal of evil experienced by ordinary people every day that does not serve to make them appreciate goodness and beauty more fully. A family in our church recently watched as their five-year old son was killed by a car as he was running across the street to see his dad after work. This has not served to make them appreciate goodness more fully. For them, evil is nothing more than an alien intruder - a soul-crippling, life-destroying tragedy that cries out for redemption and justice.

I fully agree that evil CAN serve to make us appreciate goodness more fully. I don’t think I’m prepared to say that it’s part of a harmonious balance that was designed to do so.
on 2 March 2007 at 1:5235 Jerry

Ryan,

I don’t know why you asked for my “perspective on the available resources for dealing with evil in a pantheistic universe” since I’ve made it clear earlier to Gil that “I’ve wanted to dive into the exhaustive pantheistic material out there myself, and research the responses to evil, but I’ve managed to fit in very little of it in my limited reading time.”

Maybe you should ask your brother. He’s the one who made the assertion that a pantheistic universe “has no resources to deal with evil.” He’s the one who made claims that need to be backed up.
on 2 March 2007 at 2:3336 Ryan

Jerry,

I guess I misunderstood you. You seemed a little bemused that Gil had changed the discussion from the resources of pantheism to the origins of evil. I was simply offering you the opportunity to steer the discussion back in the direction you seemed to want to keep it. I look forward to hearing your views if/when you get a chance to do your research.
on 2 March 2007 at 5:0837 Gil

Jerry,
Thanks for your charitable restatement of your earlier comments. My thoughts on pantheism were based on the basic principle that the world is divine, not on any exhaustive reading that I claim to have done. Belief in a divine world (or at least a world that is not distinct from God) seems forced to conclude that evil is either part of God (and therefore eternal) or that God is partly evil, both of which do not seem to me to offer much help in the question of how to understand and resist evil. If I am misrepresenting either pantheism or evil, please feel free to correct me.
on 2 March 2007 at 5:4738 Paul Johnston

If a pantheistic God chooses to create a creature of independent will for the sole purpose of a freely chosen and mutually shared love relationship but in the expression of it’s independence the creature rejects the relationship, who is responsible for the outcomes?
on 3 March 2007 at 8:5739 Kristin

Gil, I wonder whether your view of sin as somehow alien, and my ponderings in comments here can actually be reconciled. I’m thinking of a seed that sprouts and begins to grow. All the DNA of that seed says its truest nature, with the proper water/sun/temperature/etc, is to become the kind of plant that produced it. A beautiful, healthy ___ (whatever). But there is a complexity to the environment the seed sprouts into that may or may not enable it to become that perfectly healthy plant. Odds are, a storm will come through at an inopportune time, or a freeze, or drought. Maybe bugs will eat at the leaves. Maybe all these things will happen, but the plant will still survive, and actually produce something nourishing, despite the fact that it isn’t in the very perfectest state possible. This, too, is in its DNA.

Could it be that redemption is about helping us, or any situation or relationship (…or God), get closer to that “truest state” that was theoretically possible, but, in the real world of complexities, basically IMpossible? In the case of a God that is everything (this everything-is-part-of-God’s-body idea I’ve been contemplating here), this would mean God’s body has a theoretically possible “perfect state” - one that we all intuitively, often desperately, long for, like you say - but one that has never been able to be realized, given the complexities of a universe with so many different things going on at once. I know this won’t for everyone, but for me, this deeply resonates with my experience of God and the world.

This to say, maybe evil can be experienced as something outside of the way things were fundamentally capable of being, while also being experienced as a kind inevitability in the push and shove of our universe - in the web of things happening in our environments that we’re all born into. How to go back far enough to contemplate the birth of God (if God truly is everything)…now that I’m not sure I can do.

Ryan, your words ring and ring for me. Yes. I by no means want to minimize the horrors of our world - of my own life, even. These are unspeakable things and need to be honored as such. Grieved and mourned deeply, and worked at for lifetimes to try to mend. I could simply stop at that.

At the very same time, I think we’re even capable as seeing them as such because of the existence of their contrasts. I’m not suggesting that I think there is a God who consciously designed a world with both evil and goodness in order for there to be a harmonious balance. There are places in our world and in individual lives - huge stretches of it - where balance is the very last thing I’m able to find.

I’m rather trying to say, in a broader sense, that I cannot imagine a world where any of us could meaningfully experience anything without some knowledge or experience of the absense of those things. It’s in THIS sense that I think evil and good are by nature part of a kind of wholeness, or maybe, more precisely, part of what makes goodness distinguishable as such, and therefore laudable, and something to be protected and pursued. And evil something to be grieved and/or transformed or avoided. The magnitude of suffering and evil in our world is enough to make me want the whole thing over sometimes, but I don’t think this negates the idea that darkness and light are known by their respective and juxtaposed absenses.
on 4 March 2007 at 6:4540 Gil

Kristin,
For me the words that jump out at me from what you’ve written are these:

“But there is a complexity to the environment”
I appreciate the way you frame your thoughts around the ‘givenness’ of this complexity but personally I can’t let go of the question of where the complexity came from. The example you used of the plant reaching its truest state is a good one (something like what I would understand the divine image to be) but all the things that impinge on that plant’s ‘becoming’ are still external to it. Storms and droughts are real threats and they are not intrinsic to that plant’s DNA. The plant struggles against external forces to actualize what exists only as potential in the seed.

The other question I have about the idea of evil as somehow part of the fabric of the universe is what effects it would have in the area of ethics. If the very nature of ‘God’s body’ is one of conflict (or at minimum tension) between what we call good and evil, it would seem to open the door to lots of moral questions. Why should we be good? What standard should we use to describe it? You’ve described a compelling picture of what the word ‘redemptive’ could mean but, in the absence of consensus, what characterizes true goodness?

Just a couple of questions that came out of a very thought-provoking suggestion.
on 4 March 2007 at 6:4941 Incoming...

ryan,
I am wondering if you intended to phrase your comment regarding the possibility of God being or holding both good and evil with as relativistic implications as you did. I know we can’t extract ourselves to be entirely objective in the face of trajedy and evil but the way you phrased your questions led me to wonder if you really intended to make the reality of God’s nature as relative to our ability to acknowledge that inspite of our experience? Or do you think that our subjective perspectives somehow implicate what reality it?
on 4 March 2007 at 7:3942 Ryan

Dale,
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure if I understand what you’re asking me, but I’ll give it a try. Please correct me if I’ve misunderstood you…

I’m certainly not suggesting that reality is determined by our perception of it - I do, happily, still believe in a completely mind-independent reality. Having said that, I think that part of what it means to have faith is to believe that our experience of the world is not completely unrelated to what is actually metaphysically true. I acknowledge that there is no way to prove this, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take.

My comments about human perception of evil - specifically, with respect to the family in our church - were offered as a response to the suggestion that evil is a necessary feature of the cosmos without which human beings would be incapable of understanding or appreciating goodness. Of course it’s possible that God did set things up this way, and it just doesn’t work very well (i.e., we completely misinterpret the kind of response evil was meant to generate in us and mistakenly believe that it is something alien and improper) but then we’re into different issues entirely - issues that have to do with a God with fairly significant limitations, moral and otherwise.
on 4 March 2007 at 3:5243 Ryan

I came across this article this morning, and thought I would pass it along. Interesting stuff, in light of the discussion that’s been going on here.
on 4 March 2007 at 9:3644 Incoming...

thanks for wading through my garbage
You basically got what i was trying to get at. I have found that when we talk about God’s nature, the origin of evil or its nature, we tend to use the consequences of our positions as rationale in defending our positions. God’s nature maybe the one thing that is intrinsically both a rational deduction and a faith assertion. I just wonder what effect our emotional engagement with the reality of evil has to do with the actual process of rational evaluation. Is it actually possible to talk about God’s nature with out the influence of the emotional response we have to evil?
on 6 March 2007 at 9:1745 Kristin

Gil, you’re right: the plant analogy has all the factors that challenge the “truest self” external to the self. Relating this to humanity, I wonder how being “in the image of God” and having an inherently “sinful nature” work together, then, in traditional Christian terms. If evil is indeed alien to our truest natures, as you’ve been suggesting, then wouldn’t it be strange to say that all of us are sinful by nature?

I like your ethical questions a lot. I’m curious, though - are you saying that if evil ISN’T part of the fabric of our God or world, then there actually IS consensus about what is good? Or that the questions of why we do good and how we actually define good are answered? To me it seems like these are questions that all of us must wrestle with, no matter what our assumptions about God or our world are. Even biblical literalists of the strictest kind must decide which of the rules they find in the Bible to follow.

I’m just not convinced at all (and admittedly, this may be far from what you’re saying), that once a traditional concept of God is out of the picture, people’s motivation for doing good, or for working toward understanding what good even is, disappears. Though surely examples of this can be found, I have experienced and observed the very opposite. For some, the move from “do this because God or the Church says so” to “test and see and ponder what brings the greatest Life” is actually a move to a much more deeply internalized moral compass.
on 7 March 2007 at 5:2746 Gil

Kristin,
I don’t think that consensus will necessarily emerge on what constitutes true goodness if we retain the traditional (a word that is begging for explanation) understanding of God. I guess I wonder if a sense of the common good is even logically possible in a world that is the physical representation or manifestation of a morally conflicted or morally ambiguous God.

If our job is to help God and the world toward its truest self where does that standard of truth come from? It must come from somewhere beyond God and if this is the case then I would rather pursue THAT truth than worry about God’s journey of self-actualization.

At the end of your comment you observed (correctly I think) that ‘be good because the church say so’ is not an adequate basis for ethics. But in place of that you set up another standard (”test and see and ponder what brings the greatest Life” that at least implies some kind of universal authority. I doubt it would be satisfactory if we all defined ‘what brings Life’ in whatever way suited us. So my question is: where does that standard emerge from if even God is still in the process of becoming?
on 9 March 2007 at 9:2947 Kristin

Gil, really great questions. You said, “If our job is to help God and the world toward its truest self where does that standard of truth come from? It must come from somewhere beyond God and if this is the case then I would rather pursue THAT truth than worry about God’s journey of self-actualization.”

I guess I’m not sure that a standard of truth exists somewhere outside of God. The language of “if our job is to help God” implies that someone has put us here for a specific purpose. It would follow that we would expect, if given such a specific reason for being, that there exists a standard to judge ourselves by – like a syllabus that gives clear expectations of what is required for an “A”. But this isn’t where I’m coming from. I don’t think pursuing good is our job, so much as what seems to me to be most fulfilling, most producing of a deep kind of joy and connectedness and sense of satisfaction. Surely not everyone sees things this way, but I think the existence of things like Amnesty International and the U.N. and the Gate’s foundation, and other human rights and disaster relief groups are evidence that a broad consensus about what is good isn’t totally elusive outside of faith in a God that is Other.

Maybe a “morally conflicted” God (or human being, to frame things more personally) is capable of seeing and acknowledging what is good, even if the entire self won’t pursue and/or embody that good.
on 9 March 2007 at 10:3548 Gil

Kristin,

Thanks for your response. I’ll respond to one statement you made. You said:

“I don’t think pursuing good is our job, so much as what seems to me to be most fulfilling, most producing of a deep kind of joy and connectedness and sense of satisfaction.”

It seems to me that you’ve just substituted terms here. Instead of ‘truth’ we have ‘fulfilment, ‘joy,’ ‘connectedness,’ and ’satisfaction.’ But each of these realities could be negated and so there is still some standard operating here. The question remains, Where does that standard come from?

Does not the language of personal fulfilment imply purpose as well? If it does not, if our desire for fulfilment is an individual construct rooted in human psychology (evolutionary or otherwise) then we run into the inevitable question of what to do with someone who finds fulfilment in ways that we think are patently wrong? What do we do with people who find satisfaction in the domination and exploitation of others? What about those who find satisfaction in the greedy acquisition and consumption of resources? Human pursuits of fulfilment are diverse and I firmly believe that some of them are ‘truer’ and more authentic to what we were intended to become.

You’re right in pointing out that something like a broad moral consensus could be spoken of (the organizations you cite are good examples) but it’s just as obvious to me that there are other, less noble pursuits of satisfaction (personal or corporate) at work in the world and I worry about losing the language to resist them.

I happen to find much of your vision of what would constitute fulfilment beautiful but I resist the idea that the only ground of that vision is personal preference.
on 9 March 2007 at 11:5649 Kristin

Gil, can you help me understand what it means for those words to be negated? I’m not disagreeing that they can, just not quite clear what that means.

More generally, it sounds like there is something that’s important for you to believe - something that hangs just behind this conversation - and I’m not sure exactly what it is. Would you mind giving a paragraph or two on what that is, so that I’m more clear what it is that would be lost without it?
on 10 March 2007 at 1:5650 Gil

Kristin,
I’ll gladly clarify. By saying that those words can be negated I simply mean that it is possible to live without joy, fulfillment, connectedness or satisfaction and that this kind of a life would be one to be avoided if possible.

Basically, it seems to me that you have a well-developed idea of what a ‘good life’ looks like. I’m just wondering whether that word ‘good’ has any external reference point or whether it is something that each of us is responsible to determine for ourselves?

My next question concerned the possibility that different visions of the ‘good life’ could collide. In that kind of a scenario it seems difficult to find a way forward if personal satisfaction or fulfillment is the criterion.

I suspect that there are important things that all of us want to believe lurking behind conversations like these but for my part, I want to believe that my ideas, actions, and hopes can have real contact with a truth that is beyond me. I want to believe that my fundamental understanding of reality is more than just an elaborate exercise in personal consolation.

Most of our conversation thus far has focused around the possibility that the distinction between God and the world (even ourselves) is not as great as some think. I have questions about that idea because I think it introduces more problems than it solves. Some of the issues as I see them are: the problem of evil, the source of ethics and the existence of hope.

Well, my cards are on the table. I’d be interested to hear what you think is lost in the view that I’m representing.
on 11 March 2007 at 8:1851 Kristin

Gil, thanks so much for clarifying. I probably need to get more conscious of what lurks behind this conversation for *me* before being able to answer what I think might be lost in your view. So…hmmm…

I’ve just thought on this for while, and when it all shakes down, I think my needs are the very same as yours: I want to believe that my ideas, actions, and hopes can have real contact with a truth that is beyond me. I want to believe that my fundamental understanding of reality is more than just an elaborate exercise in personal consolation.

It has been my impassioned search for truth – Truth, rather – that has taken me to the places I currently find myself: pondering the nature of God as something different from the God I grew up knowing. The more that I’ve lived and studied and observed and read (of Christian theology, but also from across religious traditions, science, psychology, sociology, philosophy, mythology), the more that faith in the God of my childhood has felt like the elaborate exercise you describe. All of us, like I think you said earlier in the conversation, ultimately make a claim of faith in whatever it is we believe, but usually (?) the claim we make is based on a certain level of plausibility in our minds or hearts. What we trust to be true resonates, at least to some extent, with the evidence we’ve experienced and gathered and observed.

What resonates with all of these things for me is not a God that is somehow outside of all of us, completely other, yet also endowed with human feelings, but rather something that is closer to all of us than that…but paradoxically more broad. Something that we are a part of, but that exceeds us by unfathomably much.

I, like any of us, will never know (at least not while in this current state of existence) definitively whether my fundamental understanding of reality is more than just an elaborate exercise in personal consolation, but the best that I’ve got is a limited number of years (80 or more if I’m lucky) to explore all the evidence I can to try to know what’s true – to try to align my ideas, actions and hopes with this – while living with a working hypothesis that seems to resonate with what I’ve learned and experienced so far.

It has been this exploration and the accompanying process of alignment that have caused my hope to grow deeper through the years, and my trust that I’m as close to having real contact with a truth that far surpasses my little life and thoughts as I’m capable of having. I trust, too, that this contact will grow ever more as time goes by, in part through conversations such as these. I’m pretty sure that you have insights that I need, and that my hypotheses will be made more clear as I hear your perspectives and do the work of putting my own into words.

So maybe there is more that needs clarifying. Is there something about what I’ve just described that represents a diminishing of hope for you, or a challenge to ethics, or more trouble with the presence of evil? Maybe the actual differences of our viewpoints have not yet been named, and need to be?
on 12 March 2007 at 1:2652 Gil

Kristin,
Thanks for your response. From what you’ve said here I don’t think that there is a fundamental difference between the things that we ‘want to believe’. I suspect we would differ on the distinction between God and the world but that’s already been talked about a fair bit. The issues that you’ve listed (theodicy, ethics) are certainly big barriers for me. In addition to that it’s difficult for me to see how a God who is ‘becoming’ is a ground for any kind of real and lasting hope.

I appreciate your emphasis on our human responsibility to examine the evidence that life presents us and evaluate the plausibility of certain interpretations of the meaning behind it. That is very much how I see the way I have come to find a home within the Christian faith. I have certainly left behind (excuse the pun) certain elements of the way that faith was presented to me but taken as a whole I have found it to be the most plausible way of explaining reality.

This obviously requires taking certain things ‘on faith’ (as do all worldviews). I can’t presume to know enough of your perspective to name for certain what our differences might be but I suspect we might have differing views of Jesus. Forgive what follows if it is unrelated to your question but I think it addresses your suggestion that the differences between our perspectives be named.

I have felt (keenly at times) the force of the argument that something so universal as human purpose and destiny could not be limited to one historically particular man and one historically particular event.

Over time I have come to believe that this particularity cannot be overcome. Not by Christianity, nor by any other faith. Not even by the eclectic spiritualities that try to glean the best from all perspectives while in the process risking the trivialization of the real truth claims that are inherent within those perspectives.

Every view is a view ‘from somewhere’. The view that stands above and evaluates and embraces what various religions have in common (while often ignoring what they do not) is no less of a particular view than the perspectives it seeks to move beyond. It is possible that every spiritual perspective is a partial view of a larger reality. But that very perspective must be subjected to the same scrutiny.

So while I feel the critique of seeing Jesus as the clue to the meaning of history, I see in the event of Christ the answer to the deepest questions that haunt us. I somehow see the pattern of the cross imprinted on the reality and longing of human existence - the painful journey toward death turning instead into the hope and triumph of resurrection. Life has the final word. Death does not. I cannot obviously reason my way to this point. There is a leap of faith but I am convinced it is not a blind leap but a leap into light.
on 12 March 2007 at 8:1253 Kristin

Gil, I think you’ve begun to name the differences between our perspectives well. What I would add is my heartfelt agreement that I see “the pattern of the cross imprinted on the reality and longing of human existence - the painful journey toward death turning instead into the hope and triumph of resurrection”. I have lived this pattern again and again (though not always on journeys toward literal death), and see it echoed in lives all around and far beyond me.

Because of this, and because of the ways that wisdom and mystic traditions from around the globe (that pre- and post-date Christ) find ways of speaking of this pattern – even the religion of psychology speaks of it – I, too, see Jesus – indeed, this whole pattern – as a clue to the meaning of history.

In my view, diving deep into Jesus – into the stories told of him in the Bible, and into his presence still with us today – seems indeed a leap into light. A leap into wisdom and wholeness and healing and joy.

What I personally cannot do with integrity is believe that this cruciform pattern is *owned* somehow by Christ, or that his teachings – which weren’t all overtly about the cruciform pattern – are things he alone mediates, or he and those who claim him as their inspiration. His teachings, too, are patterns I see echoed across history and place.

This cannot jive with a literal reading of the gospels, but it does with a mystical one. Though I differ in certain ways from Marcus Borg’s perspective, I think he paints a nice version of what I’m talking about in his “Heart of Christianity”. (Have you read this book? Impressions?)

Now, hope is something I need to think more about. I feel hope, but it isn’t based on faith that in the end, every tear will be wiped away, or every evil will be done with and accounted for, or that there is a God somehow directing history toward this end. Rather, as far as I can tell, I think it’s based on two things: 1) that as long as our species exists, the cruciform pattern will carry on – even when individual seasons or lives or whole groups experience only the death part of that pattern. I have tremendous hope in the tenacity of resurrection – in goodness following awfulness, in hope following utter despair; and 2) that love and kindness and compassion – all the things that make life as social creatures beautiful – will carry on, even through great darkness, even when their flickers are small or actually get snuffed out. This – these places of snuffing – is where my two bases of hope are joined.

Ultimately I cannot reason my way to this point either. My reason and intuition have only been able to go so far. During seminary and shortly thereafter I took a leap that was initially the most terrifying one of my life – one I did AND didn’t want to make. I actually felt little choice in the matter. But life on this side of that leap has been an enormous resurrection for me, one that makes me want to weep and worship and be very, very quiet at the very same time.

So at the end of this exchange, I’m left scratching my head, wondering whether leaps of many kinds are toward Light, and whether the fact that what we think we’ve leapt toward is different does not cancel out the reality or depth or brilliance of Light that both of us have found. Does this trivialize either of our perspectives? I have to think not.
on 13 March 2007 at 4:2254 Gil

Kristin,
Thanks for sharing a bit of your experience. I found myself nodding in agreement a number of times, both with respect to your story and your argument. I have read Borg’s “Heart of Christianity” and find a lot to affirm there as well, particularly his argument that we have settled for a truncated view of faith that sees belief only in terms of mental assent. Borg’s view of what is at the ethical heart of Christianity is also something I can embrace and strive toward.

The one thing I can’t get past with Borg is the sense that he has in his mind a very clearly defined idea of what a ‘compelling’ version of the Christian faith would look like and he is trying to fit the square peg of Christian belief into the round hole of his expectations and desires. In my opinion this forces him to say some things, particularly about Jesus and the pre-Enlightenment church, that are not historically sustainable.

Obviously my biggest issue is with his famous statement that the question of whether or not the resurrection actually happened is irrelevant. For me the Christian faith is primarily about an event, not a system of ideas or a belief in a cruciform pattern to human existence. For me these ideas only make sense if they are connected to reality; an actual triumph of life over death in history. The ‘idea’ of resurrection is not good enough for me because I don’t live in a world of ideas. I live within history with a real life and a real death to come.

This probably gets back to your thoughts on the nature of hope. If I can be blunt, I find the idea that love and compassion will carry on in the face of never ending struggle and suffering to be a cause for despair and not hope. I can’t imagine reassuring someone who was actually suffering to take solace in the fact that “as long as our species exists, the cruciform pattern will carry on - even when individual seasons or lives or whole groups experience only the death part of that pattern.” What is powerful about the story of Jesus is precisely that life DOES triumph over death, in an ultimate and permanent sense. To believe that crucifixion and resurrection are simply part of the endless ebb and flow of human existence with no final resolution seems like a hopeless scenario to me.

With regards to the question of the particularity of Jesus I can agree with your objection to the idea that the cruciform pattern is something that “he alone mediates.” I can agree that his teachings are echoed across history and place. I do have some doubts as to the universality of the cruciform pattern that you mention. My knowledge of modern psychology is limited but I feel like I understand the basic tenets of some of the great religious traditions of the world well enough to say that the cruciform pattern does not seem obviously self-evident in them all. I would welcome further clarity on what seems to be a very radical claim.

Any effort to say that all the traditions of the world are basically saying the same thing seems to be forced to ignore or rationalize away the real differences that exist between them. It could be that all of the traditions of the world are seeing partial impressions of a larger reality but I continue to be fascinated by the implicit assumption that there can be those who, looking down at all of these religious efforts to describe divinity, see the whole picture as it really is.
on 13 March 2007 at 4:5155 Paul Johnston

Fascinating discussion. A pleasure to read.

Gil, I was struck by your comment,

…” If I can be blunt, I find the idea that love and compassion will carry on in the face of never ending struggle and suffering to be a cause for despair and not hope.”…

Do you mean that apart from a resurrection climax love and compassion, in of themselves, are inadequate responses; a cause of despair?
on 14 March 2007 at 10:5156 Kristin

Gil, thanks for your response. I’m still trying to understand what’s really at play here for us. What seems hopeless to you doesn’t seem hopeless to me, and I’d like to understand this difference. Can you explain the nature of despair evoked for you by this idea that love and compassion will carry on through the suffering and struggle of our lives on earth? Does the idea of no final resolution make the ebb and flow of life right now feel meaningless? Make suffering feel like it has the final say? Something else entirely?

When you say, “The ‘idea’ of resurrection is not good enough for me because I don’t live in a world of ideas. I live within history with a real life and a real death to come,” I nod my head in agreement. This is what has made my experiences of what I define as real death – death of a history that I thought I understood (hidden truths have emerged in my adult life), death of hope, death of meaning, death of a career path I had spent my entire life preparing for, and therefore an identity – and the resurrections that have followed these deaths – not just *ideas* of resurrections, but viscerally experienced life-after-deaths: these are what have taken my hope beyond the realm of ideas, or things that are merely interesting to philosophize or theologize about, to actually seep into my bones. I have no idea what will happen to us after we die. I have no idea whether Jesus’s mangled body got put back together and his fluids restored and his heart made to beat again for a physical reappearance. But I DO know that people who have died in so many real ways have had their hope restored, have experienced love and joy and life again poignantly. I know this isn’t about literal, physical death, and that maybe literal death is the kind your hope most needs addressed. If this is the case, of course that’s fine. The fact that all these other kinds of death are involved in what it means to be human make them intensely important to me, however, and more intimately connected with hope for me than knowing what happens when we physically die. I have to live here every day. I need my hope to be connected to *this* reality.

The intensity of my own life’s suffering and the subsequent tunnel-vision I’ve had on the suffering of others have made me extremely allergic to attempts, in the midst of suffering, to give reasons why any of it is okay. So no, I cannot imagine telling someone any of this in the midst of their suffering. Just like I can’t imagine, were my hope based on what gives you hope, reassuring them with *those* things, either. Maybe I’m overstating things here, so I hope you get my real point. In my mind, suffering is to be honored for the awfulness that it is, and a quiet presence with those in the midst of it more hope-inducing than a thousand theories or words. It seems to me that a conversation such as this is in the realm of ideas, and therefore the appropriate place to ponder at a more theoretical level. Again, when push comes to shove, hope in the midst of suffering seems to come rather from felt expressions of love, presence, solidarity, than from abstract beliefs. Which is really why my abstract beliefs have come to be what they are, I think.

This cruciform pattern we’ve been talking about – “the painful journey toward death turning instead into the hope and triumph of resurrection” – is indeed found across traditions, though I did not mean to say that I think it’s found in every one, or, even less, is the true center point of every one. My claims aren’t really radical at all. Gods or humans who die and come back to life are found across ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, in Native American myths, in Buddhist myths – even in the Christian canon, beyond Jesus. Initiation rites from many times and cultures involve enactments of a death and rebirth, and wisdom teachings from Christianity and Buddhism (probably others, too) speak of dying (to self, to ego, to clinging to desires) in order to live. These latter teachings segue well into psychological echoes of the theme, where aspects of the self or ego must die, or, conversely, be resurrected, in order for true healing to occur. The natural world echoes it, too: as seeds die to become plants, as seasons change, as the sun sets and rises again.

Anyway, I make no claim to know even half a dozen religions well, or to see a common message in them all. You write: “Any effort to say that all the traditions of the world are basically saying the same thing seems to be forced to ignore or rationalize away the real differences that exist between them. It could be that all of the traditions of the world are seeing partial impressions of a larger reality but I continue to be fascinated by the implicit assumption that there can be those who, looking down at all of these religious efforts to describe divinity, see the whole picture as it really is.” I heartily agree, and hope that I have not implied, even fractionally, that I am such a person. I am rather one who is eager to learn and to ponder the things I’ve discovered to try to make sense of them. I hope I do this humbly. I’m sure I have plenty of room for growth in this, too.
on 15 March 2007 at 5:1957 Gil

Kristin,
You asked:
“Does the idea of no final resolution make the ebb and flow of life right now feel meaningless?”

The short answer is yes. I suppose that’s the heart of the matter for me because I think death is the ultimate shadow that we all live under. To me it feels like any kind of hope that can only offer the reassurance that things will always be this way, hope and goodness in the midst of suffering, is not a real hope. To me it renders too many experiences of real and unresolved suffering absurd and meaningless.

I did not mean to minimize the reality or meaning of the many different ‘resurrections’ you described. They are powerful examples of what makes life a source of joy and goodness and not despair. My comments about the ‘idea of resurrection’ have more to do with my apprehension of Borg’s perspective on the resurrection of Jesus.

Nor did I mean to accuse you of offering ‘theoretical’ answers to those experiencing real suffering. Your words on what is best in situations like those are wise and profound.

With respect I disagree with your assessment that the Christian story of Jesus is echoed in the same way in the myths of Mesopotamia, Greece etc. There are certainly points of contact and connections to be made, but what stands out about these myths is precisely the fact that they don’t happen within actual history and take place in some kind of spiritual realm instead. The Jesus of the gospels is very clearly situated in an actual time and an actual place and this seems to be distinctive.

I could qualify this view a lot of different ways but I think that’s what it boils down to for me. The hope of a real flesh and blood person beating death is something that I don’t see anywhere else. That might be wish fulfillment but I think it is the most plausible way of seeing both Jesus’ story and the Christian story as a whole. As for the stories told by others, that’s not for me to judge.
on 15 March 2007 at 9:5358 Kristin

Gil, again, thanks for the come-back. I really appreciate this conversation and the thought and time you’ve put into it. Do just say if/when you need to be through. I’ll do the same.

I guess I wonder two things now. First (and maybe this question shows that I have not understood you well), how is the suffering we experience on earth made meaningful or less absurd by our physical bodies being raised again? In this scenario, suffering still seems a bit meaningless to me. Second, how is belief in a physical resurrection – of Jesus, but also of everyone else at some future point – hope-inducing in a way that spiritual resurrection is not? I grew up believing that our physical bodies went back into the ground after death (or our ashes into the sea or whatever), and that our spiritual bodies were the ones that lived forever. I believed that our physical bodies were merely the containers or homes-for-a-season of our eternal, spiritual bodies. That Jesus is a spiritual being now, rather than physical, I took for granted. Is this different from what you believe? Is it important for your sense of hope (and I guess this relates to the first question) for all the particles of everyone’s physical bodies to be put back together some day, in order that physical death is the thing that is conquered? I’m not familiar with this view (and again, maybe this isn’t your perspective), and would be very interested in hearing more.

The other comment I have is that there actually are other accounts of real people being raised back to life. In the Bible, Jesus performs some of these miracles, while Elijah, Elisha, Peter, and Paul do the others. Maybe there are more that I’m not familiar with. And the accounts of resurrection from other traditions likewise don’t all happen in some other, spiritual realm, or to gods alone. Some are accounts of real people, on earth, coming back to physical life.

Again, to clarify, my assessment is not that “the Christian story of Jesus is echoed in the same way in the myths of Mesopotamia, Greece etc.” My assessment is rather that “the painful journey toward death turning instead into the hope and triumph of resurrection” is echoed across traditions – sometimes by actual people, sometimes by gods or animals or plants, sometimes on earth, sometimes in other realms.

That Jesus’s story deserves attention in its own right is completely uncontested by me. In fact, for me, it is the whole of his story, rather than primarily his conquering of death, that inspires a lot of my views. I want to emulate him and I find in him a robust and compelling counter to so much that I see and experience of various ideologies and cultures (including religious ones). That his spirit lives on – however his spirit might be conceived – and speaks to us and teaches us brings me great hope, because his spirit seems so needed in our world, and is, as far as I can tell, such a powerful force of good and healing. That I am picking and choosing from his story, and not taking everything he says literally, I don’t deny. I’m not sure that anyone can rightfully deny either thing.

Ultimately, I think the place where you and I differ most is in the area of suffering. If I’ve heard you right, I think you need suffering to have a purpose or a meaning in order to have hope, and I do not. Without belief in an all-loving, sovereign, God-who-is-other-and-who-made-everything-with-intention, I’m okay (though definitely grievous at times) for suffering to just be what it is: awful, and for my hope to be more about the miracle, in light of this awfulness, that love and beauty and compassion and healing keep right on surviving – even flourishing – alongside of it.
on 15 March 2007 at 11:1659 Gil

Kristin,
I should clarify: it’s not my attachment to this particular set of molecules that causes me to see physical resurrection as significant. It’s my commitment to the integrity of the whole created order. I don’t just believe that bodies will be resurrected, I believe that the entire earth (maybe even universe) will be remade, reborn, restored or some combination of those words.

A purely spiritual resurrection creates a view of humanity that looks exactly like you say: containers holding souls that are merely waiting for a purely spiritual afterlife and therefore doing virtually nothing here and now. For me it matters greatly that the Christian vision be one that emphasizes the physical nature of resurrection because it emphasizes the continuity between this world and the world that is to come.

I suspect that we might be coming to the real stalemate in the area of our view of history. If I read you right, you imagine some kind of ongoing coexistence of evil and goodness with no eventual resolution. Hope is found in the goodness that can be mined from within that process and the solidarity that can be experienced in the common human struggle toward that end.

I envision history as having a destination and goal, that goal being the eventual redemption of what is good in this world and the overthrow of what is not. Hope is found in the realization that the ambiguity and pain of life here and now will be overcome and that the joy (in the fullest sense of the word) of life here and now will find an ultimate and lasting consummation. It seems that you see hope as emerging from within the human struggle and I see it (in an ultimate sense) coming from beyond.

I too appreciate what you’ve said throughout this conversation. You hold your views in a way that avoids dogmatism and leaves room for real dialogue. Thank you.
on 16 March 2007 at 7:1560 Kristin

An extraordinarily incisive description of our stalemate, Gil. I think you’re right. It’s funny, my view feels so embodied in the world as we know it now that it’s really hard for me to begin to imagine living forever physically. It’s hard for me to imagine an earth that has continuity with this one that doesn’t involve some of the basic things required by this one: namely, death and decay. The molecules that make any of us up are recycled from so many things (plants, people, animals) that have died, gone back into the earth, and been taken up again by ourselves, as we eat and breathe, and by our parents, in their making of us, and their parents, etc. Imagining a way for every human that has ever lived to be put physically back together somehow, or for death and decay to not be a part of the cycle of life, or to have perfect physical health in the midst of a world filled with billions upon billions of people that, if living physically, according to what I know of physicality now, would need to eat and poop and somehow live peaceably together forever: it stretches my imagination farther than I think it can go. I’m guessing that this might be part of your point: that the new world that God creates someday indeed IS beyond our capacity to fathom, and that’s why a God that’s outside of it all is truly necessary. It makes me wonder, though, how much continuity there would actually be between the new and the old, then, if many of the fundamental mechanisms of physical life here would be so different. This circles back, too, to my earlier comments about joy and goodness, etc being known because of our experiences of their absence. Physical life with only the positive end of the feeling or experiential spectrum feels so very discontinuous with our existence now.

Any further words you might say about where your imagination goes with these kinds of things?
on 19 March 2007 at 10:4361 Gil

Kristin,
The following statement intrigues me:

“Physical life with only the positive end of the feeling or experiential spectrum feels so very discontinuous with our existence now.”

I agree. I think that is at the very heart of Christian hope as I understand it. I welcome the kind of existence you describe precisely because it is discontinuous with our existence now. I remain a bit confused about your idea that we somehow ‘need’ bad to make our experiences of good meaningful or distinguishable.

As to the inherent nature of decay within material existence and how that plays into ‘the world to come’ I confess that I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought. I certainly believe that whatever kind of existence that might be it will not be exactly the same as what we experience now. I imagine it as somehow beyond this life but not in a way that erases continuity.

My ideas about the future are borrowed a lot from C.S. Lewis and his idea that it will be both recognizable and unimaginable in light of our present experience. What seems critical to me, with respect to Christian hope, is the emphasis on the ultimate restoration of something initially intended to be good.

The barrier for me in understanding your view is the idea that good and evil are conterminous and that we somehow need evil in order to appreciate good. I would suggest that it is intrinsic to humanity to resist and struggle against evil and that a hope that takes this longing seriously is more plausible than one that attempts to escape the longing itself. I know that your particular response to evil is far more compassionate than this but I don’t see how the IDEA of good and evil being coterminous can avoid addressing actual evil by trying to explain its necessity.
on 20 March 2007 at 3:3262 Kristin

Gil, I should clarify my good/evil view. I don’t mean to imply that because contrasts are what make everything meaningful in our current state of existence (even down to things like, when I say I’m typing on a keyboard, this is only meaningful because I know where the keyboard ends and something else begins) that we should therefore stop longing for evil to go away. Like I’ve said elsewhere, it is the containment and/or redemption of what we experience as evil, and the spread and nurture of what we experience as good that bring my life so much meaning, and that seem so worthy for any of us to give our energy to. My statements about contrasts aren’t meant to imply apathy about the real evil in our world, and even less to induce hope by means of saying we NEED evil, so let’s just let it do its thing freely and be glad that because of it, we know what goodness is. Struggling against it or trying to redeem it, feel, in part, like the pinnacle of being truly alive – being awake and engaged and having one’s eyes and heart open to what’s inside and around us. I don’t think this struggle inherently implies that there was ever a pure state of existence, though, where no struggle existed. And I continue to be unable to imagine a world where everyone is happy all of the time and able to be conscious of being so – able to have “happy” be a meaningful description of how one feels. But maybe the point of the hope you’re describing is that in the new world, God will make this possible. The sensors in our brain that get numb when triggered for too long (like how you can not smell fresh baked cookies if you’ve been in the house with them for too long) God will make capable of “working” indefinitely, so that happiness and wonder and joy and ecstasy can happen infinitely, and be experienced anew or as meaningful every moment.

In any case, thanks for the great conversation. It looks like there are real differences in our perspectives – probably more that could be worth exploring at some point – and that there are also big spaces of overlap, where our words and actions and fundamental desires might actually look a lot alike. This is hopeful to me, in a world where differences have often felt like chasms to me, and dialogue like this impossible in their midst.